The Fall of Destiny!

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Destiny 1 launched as a major success and was an introduction to a game style that allowed players to grow with their characters. Gamers spent months and years playing Destiny nonstop in search of better gear and ways to perfect their characters. Years later, fans eagerly awaited the release of Destiny 2 as we all hoped to spend our nights grinding away to earn epic loot. Working towards learning the new Raid or participating in the new events Destiny 2 bragged about. The game sold millions of copies and everybody was playing it. Well, everyone was playing Destiny until a month later when no one was playing it. What happened to Destiny 2 and where did all the players go?

 

Sadly, players have left Destiny 2 in under two months time. Clan and Friends lists have such a lack of players it’s almost impossible to find a fireteam, let alone a raid party of 6 players. In a game that borrows heavily from the MMO genre you’d expect players to spend more time with the game. So what happened to Destiny 2 and can Bungie resolve the issues and bring back players? Let’s break down the reasons why players moved on.

 

 

A big issue that contributed to the demise of Destiny 2 was the game became too casual and the PvE became ridiculously easy. Players flew through the campaign at break neck speed due to Destiny’s overly simple enemy AI. You never felt threatened or had any difficulty clearing a level in the campaign as the enemies main job wasn’t to kill you but to hide, take a few pot shots and wait to be killed. Defeating the final boss at the end of the game was effortless. This behavior continues to the end game activities and just becomes repetitive and boring.

 

The reward system in Destiny 2 makes it impossible to not get the weapons and armor you want at a 305 light level. Players are rewarded with so much loot that it’s impossible to process it all. Clan Rewards, Milestones, Dailies and Token reward systems all gave players several easy ways to earn sought after Legendary gear with minimal effort. Casual players could easily outfit their Guardians with the best gear with just hours of end game gameplay. Earning quality gear wasn’t special anymore as an effect of this casual loot system.

 

Another major factor with the fall of Destiny 2 was the overall lack of originality. Once again we’re facing the same enemies as we did all through Destiny 1 and all it’s DLC. The Cabal are the major enemies this go around. The Fallen, The Taken and the Vex all return in smaller roles. We are not facing any new races or really any new classes. A Sci-Fi game built around space travel and there isn’t any new species or civilizations to fight? Such a wasted opportunity. Destiny 2 may be sold as new game but can never feel that way as the tactics for dispatching the enemies are the same as they were in Destiny 1. This has always been a major Bungie fault as they have had the same issues in the Halo series. Which is why the enemies from Destiny feel as though they are re-skinned Halo enemies.

 

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Bungie felt the need to change up the Crucible (PvP) and unfortunately most players feel it is for the worse. The most noticeable change to PvP is the switch from 6 players to just 4 players on a team. It’s believed that lowering the player count was an attempt to reduce lag issues, help standardize maps (D1 had 3v3 maps and 6v6 maps) and a way to bring the title to the forefront of E-Sports. The problem they have now is it hampers game modes. The last Iron Banner was Control where teams try to hold on to three capture points and having only four players changed the whole dynamic of the game mode. Defending two points was incredibly difficult with only 4 players and Control became just a game of Ring Around the Rosie as players just capped points and moved on. This took out all strategy of the match and reduced the game to the equivalent of Space Call of Duty matches. Run and Gun.

 

The other issue that the 4v4 player game mode presented was map sizes. All the current maps are very tiny with terrible sight lines. Destiny 2’s maps and lack of sight lines killed off Sniper Rifles. They became completely useless as a power weapon as Sniping lanes were a thing of the past. The small maps changed the meta for the weapons. Auto Rifles were king, if you weren’t running a Origin Story or Uriel’s Gift then you were just outgunned. It’s bad design for a game centered around earning on loot to really limit weapons that are useful. Weapons and maps should be balanced to allow players to bring in any weapon and still be a viable option.

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A carry over quality of life component from Destiny 1 called infusing really hurt the replayability of Destiny 1 and 2. Destiny 1 introduced infusing as a way to help guardians level up their preferred armor or weapons. The way it worked is you would sacrifice a higher light level item into a lower level item that you preferred. When complete the lower level item’s light level is raised to the value of the sacrificed one. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not when there are limited items to get and not when you can easily transfer weapons (via the vault or the Destiny mobile app) from one guardian to the next. This took away from the pursuit of getting specific gear at a higher level. Now you just need to get a similar item at a higher level, press infuse and viola! Your favorite piece of gear is better. With the rate Destiny 2 throws items at you it’s easy to get max rank in no time.

 

Then there is the Leviathan Raid, the pinnacle activity of Destiny 2. The whole reason you spend countless hours playing and gearing up your character. Unfortunately, this may be the biggest disappointment of the game for casual gamers (like GRG). While previous Destiny 1 raids required teamwork and knowledge of what to do, Destiny 2’s raid requires such precision between ALL 6 players that simple mistakes end in failure (wipes). Gone are the days of actually fighting bosses and killing things to get past raid checkpoints. Now it’s become a choreographed dance that is unforgiving and brutal towards casual gamers. Making matters worse is the token reward system they have in place. Nothing is more deflating than finally getting past a stage only to receive tokens that can only be redeemed upon completion of the raid. It’s just unrewarding, unforgiving and enjoyable.

 

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So now that I tore apart the game, can it be saved? What fixes can Bungie do to get players to return and stay in the game? New DLC called Curse of Osiris will be released on December the 5th and I’m sure we’ll see a resurgence in player population as they play through the new content. Can the game be fixed or is Destiny 2 not a game that requires full time play? Maybe gamers are looking at it completely wrong and Destiny 2 is only meant to play when new content is released and put back down once it’s beaten. I do know that players want more than just a basic shooter, they want a game where they can invest and grow with their character.

 

Agree, Disagree or have a comment? Let us know in the forums.

 


Originally published at: https://grimreapergamers.com/2017/11/the-fall-of-destiny/

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Great write up!

Although, I wouldn’t get too excited about DLC just yet. Seeing some nasty rumors.
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On the surface, it seems like they might be doing the same thing as last time. Things might get busy with the last DLC.

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Nice job Lala!

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Great write up. I was not excited for D2 until the beta, and poof just disappointment. The raid killed it for me as that is what I did the most if in D1. I have no plans of buying the DLC. i haven’t played since the first IB let down .

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This so much. Destiny has the potential to be a great time sink. In reality it has less content than your typical FPS. I am fine with a MMO lite/ inspired game if done right, but it still needs to have content and make me feel like I want to live in the world. I just feel like Bungie is either being lazy or Activison’s has totally fucked this game up.

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i just have a feeling they just don’t know what they are doing and i am sure Activision it putting pressure on them to release content.

Great write up. I agree on all the points. They only thing they improved was the actual story but they took 10 steps back with everything else.

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This is an excellent article and I wholeheartedly agree with it.

Destiny 2, does not feel like Destiny 1. Although it shouldn’t feel the same, the difference should not leave players sour about the experience.

Interestingly, there is a slight contradiction in the article.

In this section, you point out how the game became too casual:

While in this section, you describe how difficult the Raid is:

However, this is certainly not a problem with your article. Each point is completely spot on.

This only highlights a bigger problem with the game. While most of the game seems like it targets casual gamers, leaving the hardcore gamer out, the Raid seems to target Hardcore gamers. Therefore, segregating the community based on activity.

I consider myself more of a casual gamer for the most part. I am mediocre at best when it comes to killing shit. However, hitting that “brick wall” you describe when attempting the Raid is disconcerting and disappointing.

Knowing that I can’t complete the “pinnacle activity of Destiny 2” is what grinds my gears the most about this game.

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The game vs the raid are 2 entirely different things and I may not of made it completely clear. Every part of the game minus the Nightfalls and Raid is just way too easy. I spent levels running with just a hand cannon challenging myself to only take headshots as a way to create some interest.

Nightfalls aren’t necessarily hard except for the bogus timer they put on them. I really don’t count those because you could easily clear all content if there was no timer.

The enemies in the Raids aren’t hard or overwhelming. The mechanics and timed dance is. Add in the fact there really isn’t any margin for error and it takes that aspect away from the casual gamer. Unlike the Vault of Glass where precision and timing didn’t matter as much and you could carry a lesser skilled player through (sherpa). Now as others can attest, I’m MLG and have cleared the raid. I find it easy! :rofl:

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I miss the vault :frowning: best raid ever!

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The Vault is my favorite raid to date in Destiny. It’s easily the best one. I also enjoyed King’s Fall as well especially the jumping puzzle with the ships. The final boss battle would almost put me in a seizure if I was the runner/jumper. Which I usually was since I’m a MLG Hunter.

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I hated Kings Fall. It started the whole, everyone has to do exactly the right thing, 1 screw up and pretty much had to wipe. I always had to run with my Titan or hunter as well. It was a fun race to beat the Knight to the ground before he spawned. The Piston room did make for lots of laughs though.

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I read Lala’s new article on destiny 2 death. I also read Bungie’s response :wink: . The State of Destiny 2 > News | Bungie.net

Lala ends his discussion with a question as to what D2 should be, is it a platform where we live and die with our character and go back and play daily or we play though the content and then jump to the next game and then come back on the next DLC. In their blog post Bungie says they want to do the former. It my opinion that Bungie does not know what made D1 great. The game cannot be all things to all people all of the time. I absolutely agree with most people, including Lala, that there is no endgame and some things are too technically difficult but most things are too easy to get with enough time into the game. That is not the real problem, this issue and all of the others are caused by the gameplay (and story to a degree) being reactive to the fanbase. There is a razor thin line between listening to the fans and giving them what they feel would make the game better and the tail waging the dog. One way I think about this, when you were a kid I am willing to bet you would eat candy for all 3 meals, now maybe candy=loot, exotics, more grind, less grind etc. An example is light (power in D2), in yr one and two of Destiny (up until taken king, I think) when you infused a higher light weapon into a lower light there was a penalty (it was like a 225 into a 200 you’d get a 218)…this added to the grind. People complained, its gone. That alone would add to the engame. In the new DLC (Curse of Osiris, for D2) there are fated engrams available for purchase from Xur for 97 legendary shards. Wow great right. Now that one missing exotic that I could not get(RNG) because I kept getting another sweet business, I can just buy. So no not good. This will sound contrived but the best way to give players what they want is to add some of these things to the game and make it nearly impossible to get. Also its my opinion that a story and game strategy should stick to its plan and maybe take feedback but don’t let the fanbase control the narrative or the gameplay. An example of this would be Mass Effect 3, you may remember there was a decent deal of backlash at then end of the trilogy, where you had 3 choices but the ending was the same each time (unless you killed off characters as they disappeared). EA and the writers did offer a patch that helped explain some of the story issues but did not change the story. They stuck to their guns and I still don’t love the end of that trilogy but I feel better than if they had changed it. Destiny needs to own the story and have a strategy for gameplay and stick to it…don’t throw anything away but don’t be a pussy and try to be everything to everyone.

I will play all of the content and probably will continue to play daily but it may be lonely.

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While all of the above is true I am still playing. I wish it was a better game. I really don’t like how they made the raids so difficult. It is like they took the easy way out, creating puzzles instead of game play. Take away the choreography and they would be easy. Just lazy development. That said join me on Saturday nights at 9 EST to get the tater raid on. We have a good time even thought we don’t get very far. If you are MLG or new to the raid sign up. Just be patient.

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Puzzles I dont mind its just that they offer little to no leeway. Once person misses a mark or takes that half second too long the entire thing is a wipe.

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Making it technically difficult. Easy way out for developers compared to making a real fight out of it. We aren’t playing chess here, we are in a FPS. As Master Chief says, he will shake things up and maybe shoot his way out of it. Probably didn’t get that right. They are locking the casual gamer out of the best part of the game, the raid. Half of the game content it seems.

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Destiny fans should check out this post.

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My rant was ahead of it’s time.

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it was…BTW that is the same article I linked in Destiny 2 where we are so far...