Yeah, I think people should take caution that the actual gameplay of Destiny 2, outside of a couple QOL adjustments, is almost exactly the same as D1.
Yikes. Steering clear of this one.
This is an interesting exchange, because it both defines "gameplay" very narrowly, and calls a top to bottom re-architechcting of the surrounding game systems "a couple of QOL adjustments" - something readily accepted by someone not familiar with the game. It's instructive to me, because I define "game play" much more broadly.
To elaborate, I just got done playing for an hour or so tonight. Here's how it went.
I decided to finish up the Nessus Flashpoint, which rewards legendary gear for completing activities on the Nessus destination. I went there by pulling up the director and selecting a landing zone near both an incoming public event (incoming and active ones are marked on the map), and close to an adventure I wanted to clear.
I landed and went over to the event site, which started just before I got there. Three others were gathered (since they could also find them and plan where to gather), so I helped one of the other players to trigger the heroic version of the event (every public event has a heroic variant, triggered by specific, unique actions in each). That drew out a large boss in the middle of the fight which has to be killed to get the heroic level gear.
Event done, I went onto the adventure and triggered it (the activate like a patrol, by selecting a flag in the game - not from orbit). Adventures are about as long as Destiny 1 story missions were, but here they are side quests, and typically cobble together several mechanics across a few phases, mixed with some narrative exposing a bit of lore about the destination. This one started out with a kill/collect cycle similar to a patrol mission, then moved into platforming across the branches of a giant tree to gather energy nodes.
The energy nodes introduced a mechanic central to the adventure: the Vex developing a new type of shield technology. I had to collect the energy nodes which empowered me for about ten seconds after - that's the window you have to take down the shields of a nearby powerful Minotaur, who is otherwise invulnerable.
Mechanic established, we move to a large central interior, where a big set piece takes place. There's a generator in the central chamber, and the goal is to destroy it. But you can only expose it by killing the guardian Minotaurs, who drop a glowy ball when killed which is used to de-power the shield for a short time. And you can only kill the
Minotaurs by collecting the energy nodes dotted around the arena and taking them down before the 10-second empowerment phase expires. You go through this cycle three times, while managing some formidable swarms of adds and quite a bit of platforming (Destiny 2's concurrent AI count is ~50 vs. D1's ~20, and many missions demonstrate it).
That small battle in a side mission has more mechanics than any single mission in Destiny.
I did this while using three classes of weapons that were not in vanilla D1 (the sword and sidearm are expansions, the SMG is new), weapons I juggled because I was working through several quests that had requirements to use them. I also made extensive use of the new clamber mechanic as I platformed around. Nessus has a lot of verticality, so it comes in handy. The combination of new weapon classes and mobility made the game flow very differently than D1.
The adventure rewarded some gear that nudged my light level up a notch, and a faction token to redeem for rep. I did so and got a new legendary scout rifle, which is fully unlocked already because you no longer have to work to unlock anything on gear. The scout was higher light than my current one, too.
I went to the local map and found another adventure to do, on the far side of Nessus. I fast traveled there because the destination is so large it takes several minutes to get across when using a sparrow. When I got there I killed a couple of "high value targets", each of whom drops a treasure chest to loot. I won't cover that adventure in detail, but it turned out to be one that was a direct prelude to the raid, with some interesting fiction and a midway fight that blew past Destiny 1's concurrent AI limit so far that I was constantly on my back heel.
I then went straight to the social space, skipping going to orbit, and got my flashpoint reward: one of the best AR's in the game and one I was told to look out for just earlier today. (It
also nudge my level higher.)
That's a pretty different evening than I ever experienced in Destiny 1. If I wanted a public event I set up camp in a destination and either read GAF and wait, or go to a website to look up educated guesses for the timers they ran on. Odds are good I'd try to complete it solo because no one else knew when they would happen, either. I'd be spending a lot of time driving or running around because there's no fast travel and just one landing zone, and going to orbit and back down to start new activities. I'd run a main mission only to fight two small encounters, and then scanned a light column and worked through three add waves before someone told me they didn't have time to explain WTF was going on, while getting gear that didn't advance me, but which I had to grind to unlock its perks. That describes an actual mission in D1 BTW, as compared to over 30 or so
side quests in D2 all of which feature lore and most of which have unique mechanics such as the one I described.
Now, the shooting mechanics
are very similar to Destiny 1, and base movement is similar. The core gameplay is refined and tweaked but largely intact from the first game. It's the "same", but thoroughly re-contextualized by the game flow and surrounding systems and mechanics. To the point where calling D2 the same with some QOL improvements is thoroughly misleading, and telling people unfamiliar with the game that it is like that even more so. Which is why articles that actually go into a bit of why D2 plays differently might be useful to folks who didn't like the first game.
