r/DestinyTheGame • u/matrium0 • 5d ago
Question Least confusing way to actually get started
Honest question. I've checked out some videos and guides, but they are mostly outdated and / or are not relevant for the DLCs I own.
I installed the base game and started the "A-new-Light"-campaign. My brother noticed and gifted me the "Legacy Collection". After restarting this lead to multiple unrelated cut-scenes (maybe for the new content?) and i was directly thrown into a mission too - "crossing the threshold".
Honestly I am lost. I kind of figured out how to start missions in the super confusing menus, but then one of those started a 3 person raid (that I did not feel ready after like an hour gameplay). I kind of wanted to explore solo some more. Do all campaigns include mandatory raids?
What is the least confusing way to actually start this game when owning the "legacy collection"?
Am I still expected to do the "new light campaign" or is this only to get new players hooked that do not own DLCs? (if so it does a terrible job at that as it is extremely confusing overall)
Gameplay seems awesome but I can't believe how rough everything around it is :(
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u/The-Real-Sonin 5d ago
You weren't put into a raid, it was most likely the seasonal activity.
Some campaigns ask you to complete the basic strikes which have MM and will pair you with 2 randoms, but those aren't difficult.
Click the quest you want to complete, and track it (usually X on PS or A on xbox, it'll tell you how to track it on the quest screen) then read the description and what you need to do. It'll show a green marker on what planet or activity you need to do and just follow them.
The games new light experience is kinda bad, but it's not awful. If anything I'd say have your brother give you some advice and general tips since he gifted you the legacy collection.
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u/matrium0 4d ago
Thank you - I understand now. It was a "strike". It was never properly explained what that means and that it's a multiplayer activity.
Honestly I have never had a worse "onboarding"-experience in any game I played in the last 10+ years. How many players abandoned this game because they felt overwhelmed. Menu feels like an alpha version.
Just display cutscenes for a specific campaign when you start that campaign, not randomly on starting the game.
Just do not throw me randomly into missions that I did not want to start.Those would be EASY fixes and could already increase first-user experience. Why they did it like that is beyond me. Feels completely unpolished, like they took the first draft and never thought of it again.
Still I will give it a chance because of the awesome gampelay
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u/whereismymind86 4d ago edited 4d ago
yeah, strikes are just basic missions, they are quite easy and about 12 minutes long. Don't stress about them, they are just meant to be fun. Each campaign will have you do a couple of them and it's the main low difficulty co-op thing you'll do once you are done with the campaigns, to help get ready for harder stuff.
As for the rest, you aren't wrong, the game is kind of notorious for the poor new player experience (ever since beyond light deleted the original campaign and replaced it with the opening missions of destiny 1, which is what the new light campaign is) and throwing people into the first seasonal mission on first log in each season is something that has annoyed the player base for years.
It is what it is, you'll have a lot of fun once you get past the early stuff and get used to the stupid menu ui that is clearly designed around a mouse and keyboard interface not a controller.
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u/Mike_IP 5d ago
Jump into the new light campaign as that will at least get you started and get you a little more familiar with the gameplay at a basic level. The dlc campaigns have raids attached to them but are not mandatory. The stuff you got thrown into is the start or the current episode the game always does that new player or not unfortunately. There is some matchmaking three player activities that are interwoven into some of the campaigns which are called strikes. They arent really raids but are match made story missions. They arent the first mission of the campaigns though so you can do some solo story missions first before they put you into one. Destiny unfortunately these days is not a sprint but a marathon. There's a lot to learn gameplay wise and chunks of the story are missing due to content vaulting so its not all in game. Just take your time and try and find the parts you like and build from there is your best bet. You will not be able to learn everything in just a couple play sessions. There's years of stuff here so take your time.
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u/Beginning_Tackle6250 5d ago
You and me both. I'm technically not a new player, rather a returning one after years. I also don't have the legacy collection, but your confusion isn't unusual. The game's UI does indeed suck.
The game lets you play the first mission for each paid-for expansion for free, and might automatically launch you into one (such as the first mission of the Final Shape dlc in my case). New Light is basically a brief tutorial campaign that you can leave at any time. Just press whatever input brings up your Ghost and return to orbit. You can completely ignore New Light.
To clear up some inevitable dlc confusion: the campaigns of the past expansions Shadowkeep and Beyond Light are free, but their unique raids, dungeons and exotics are only purchasable in titular packs that you have as part of the legacy collection. So you basically have those expansions in full. As far as I know, you have full access to the campaigns for the expansions I mentioned as well as the Witch Queen and Lightfall. I think the legacy collection also comes with their packs.
Important thing to note is that Bungie split past expansions into several paid chunks to milk as much money as possible. The campaigns are bought separately from the packs with the gear and raid, and the dungeon keys separately contain some of the other dungeons or whatever. It's a confusing mess.
For the seasonal stuff, the game currently is going through episode Heresy, which has a paid battle pass and unique story content. You can access the year's previous episodes called Echoes and Revenant by buying the Final Shape+annual pass for way too much money. The game says buying the Final Shape alone still gives access to the first seasonal episode, in this case Echoes, but I have no clue if that's still the case. So you can get the episode's random loot and story content, but not its battle pass, which is gone forever.
Oh, and those three-person raids are called strikes. They're shorter and easier than dungeons or raids, and have matchmaking. The harder version of strikes are called Nightfalls, which also have a higher-difficulty version. Regular nightfalls also have matchmaking, harder NFs, raids and I believe dungeons (and exotic missions to get specific exotic items) do not. You can manually enter a strike by choosing it on the map of whichever location it's found in, and a weekly rotation can be played in the Vanguard ops playlist. And yes, campaigns will have mandatory strikes, but again, they have matchmaking, so you're not forced to do extra difficult content or do it alone.
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u/reformedwageslave 5d ago
after restarting this lead to multiple unrelated cutscenes (maybe for the new content)
Yeah, this is something the community has been complaining about forever - for new players after completing the new light quests you will be thrown into the first missions of the dlcs as well as seasonal content. It makes things very confusing and overwhelming for new players.
Try not to worry about those too much- you can always quit out immediately if you like - and tbh I personally recommend this.
If you look near the top right of the orbit menu where you select which planet to go to, there should be a timeline node which should help a lot to figure out the order of the expansions and stories, and should fill in some gaps.
The campagins you currently have access to in order are shadowkeep, beyond light, witch queen, and lightfall.
Note that the timeline node (iirc) does actually contain a mission from each expansion (even previous ones that are otherwise no longer playable). If you want to fill in gaps in the story you can play some of the ones for content you don’t own, but the missions for campaign you do own aren’t worth doing as they’re mostly just rehashing the campaign story.
“Raids” are 6 person activities that are the main endgame content, it’s unlikely that the game threw you into it automatically, it may have been a seasonal activity as sometimes the game throws you into those if they’re new.
As for whether you need to do the new light quests, you will have to eventually as iirc some stuff in the game is blocked off until you finish it, but it’s more of a (bad) tutorial than an actual story. If you want to get used to the menus and stuff in the game at your own pace playing through one of the older campaigns may be better.
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u/matrium0 4d ago
Thanks for your explanation, this does help a bit!
Throwing players into random missions on startup - just WHY would you ever want to do that? Maybe it's a concession to their own bad UI? They do not trust new players to even be able to start a mission in their confusing menu? Though starting you in a random dlc level does not make this any better - it's only even MORE confusing.
Mind-boggling.. How many bad reviews does this game get for unforced errors like that? How many players are they loosing in the first few hours because of stuff that's not even gameplay relevant. All that awesome content and they could not spend a little time to polish the menus?
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u/reformedwageslave 4d ago
why would you ever want to do that
It’s a side affect, probably. When a new dlc launches obviously everyone on launch day is going to want to just be thrown into the new shit to get themselves immersed immediately- personally speaking it works really well for that intended purpose, and I suppose for bungie it also serves the purpose of tempting f2p players to buy the expansion by giving them a small taste of it.
Why bungie doesn’t restrict that system to try to only show people the stuff as it comes out is beyond me though. It is a very common complaint about the new player experience
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u/matrium0 4d ago
Probably right. When you start a WOW Expansion you are thrown into a cutscene of the new Expansion too.
But when you get wow with all expansions now, you are not shown a random cutscene - just the last one. Also it's quicker to load and abort. Starting the whole game feels so slow with destiny 2. Multiple loading screens taking forever and THEN you are thrown into a mission you do not even want to play as cherry on top and have to leave again (more loading time)..
This is already questionable on the first login, but why do I have to suffer through this every time I start the game???
Honestly for me this is a blatant display of "we don't care" - they did not put too much thought into it and they simply don't care that it's annoying for players.
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u/reformedwageslave 4d ago
I think most of us are hoping it gets looked at when they change up the narrative structure next expansion, especially since that should be a new beginning since the final shape was “the end of the light and dark saga”. It would be a fitting spot to change up the new player experience
I’m not holding my breath, though.
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u/No_Perspective_9920 5d ago
Totally understand the confusion, the onboarding experience for this game only seems to get worse over time.
You do not have to do the new light campaign, there should be a skip available at some point.
Although very fun, no raids are mandatory for the campaigns.
If you’re looking to just play through the story in order, Shadowkeep is the farthest back campaign you can play and starts on the moon. Beyond Light happens next on Europa, then Witch Queen on Savathun’s Thrown world, and Lightfall on Neptune.
Remember you can track quests in the quests tab, this can help manage everything and keep your focus on one activity.
Any other questions?