The State of Destiny 2 (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, November 29, 2017, 17:11 (2348 days ago) @ bluerunner

Looking at the issues which I consider serious, and seeing if they were addressed in the blog post. Responses in bold.

- PvP is stale and uninteresting. The advanced movement and character control from D1 is largely absent. Double primary is boring.
While the OHK-only games are gone (this is good), the other, fun parts of D1 pvp are also gone (this is bad), including 6v6 PvP. Despite the dumbing-down of PvP, it remains grossly imbalanced.

Addressed, but only in the most vague terms possible. There is clearly an acknowledgement that a problem exists, but it's unclear as to whether they understand what the problem is. Gonna have to wait and see what changes come with the December update.

- Party size as it correlates to activities makes no sense. 6 players to raid, 4 to pvp, 3 to strike... It's awful design because it reduces player choice and activity control based on party size.

Not addressed.

- The new gear system is still absurdly RNG based.

Addressed! Armor will now be purchasable for tokens from the respective vendors. Weapons will rotate. There was something about "unlocking slots" which I think means unlocking which armor you can buy, but it wasn't clear to me what that actually meant.

- The vault was apparently organized by a blind person who doesn't know braille, and it re-organizes itself every time you take out a weapon or add one. You still can't delete items from the vault directly.

Not addressed.

- Shaders are consumable isn't the issue now that we've seen how easy they are to get. The problem, rather, is that there are more shaders in the game than the player can actually carry, and deleting unwanted shaders has to be done one at a time. I have 75+ of some of my shaders. Do I want to spent half a damn hour deleting shaders just so I can hold a new one? Of course not. Come on, Bungie.

Not addressed.

- The shader and vault problems are emblematic of lots of the supporting systems of the game: They feel rushed, half-assed, and poorly planned. The overall archetecture of patrol mode being integrated into missions is GREAT, but Bungie completely lost patrol being integrated with the Raid (VoG, for example).

This general complaint will need to be revisited after the January update.

- Strikes cannot be selected directly and rely on a random playlist that also completely lacks a "don't let the players play the same strike two or three or even four times in a row" feature.

Not addressed, and possibly exacerbated with the addition of a heroic strike mode.

- Speaking of poor map selection, pvp map voting still isn't a thing? In 2017?

Not addressed, though the addition of custom pvp in "early 2018" will take some pressure off of this.

- Custom PvP is missing from D2 when we had it in D1.

Addressed! Coming in "early 2018."

- Guided games is poorly implemented and results in waiting in orbit for 20+ minutes for the people seeking guides.

Not addressed.

- You have a map, but no compass on your radar to indicate which way you're facing relative to the map. /facepalm

Not addressed. There were several UI tweaks mentioned specifically, and this wasn't included, but It's more of a poor design choice than a real issue that should be keeping anyone up late at night.

- The whole game reeks of oversimplification while still needlessly obfuscating systems. Which is contradictory design, of course.

Addressed! In several different ways, actually. The addition of masterwork weapons will add some complexity to those items. Bungie is working to un-obfuscate the exp gain systems. The new per-armor set challenges at more depth to your armor. Other tweaks to add more depth, and Bungie specifically stated that they want this game to be your hobby, implying depth that keeps you coming back is their goal.

- Power level is largely meaningless in the game, begging the question: Why even have it if not to create artificial grindiness within the game?

Not addressed, unless you count that masterwork items are going to be gated behind 250 power level.

- Gear is uninteresting and largely boils down to reskins rather than meaningful choices. Most guns within a class feel the same (or ARE the same) with only one minor perk difference.

Addressed. No specifics were given, but Bungie stated that they want IB and Faction Rally gear to be more unique, and they're also adding various ornaments etc. to specific sets which will require the completion of challenges. They stated that they hear how the guns and armor choices are not satisfying and are working to address that. Will need to revisit after Curse of Osiris launches.

- MIDA is the PvP defining weapon (in no small part due to the radar and movement bonuses) and, as such, PvP is relegated to largely long distance plinko affairs that aren't fun.

Not addressed.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the response. I've heard the "we'll be better at communicating moving forward" line before, so I don't expect much on that front, but I do like the overall tone of the response, and all of the changes appear to be trending towards the right direction.