Destiny in 2019 (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, March 25, 2019, 19:04 (1850 days ago)
edited by Ragashingo, Monday, March 25, 2019, 19:21

Looking forward to hosting some Guardians from our community this week to play some new stuff and speak their minds. Some of them you'll know. Some of them you won't. Some of them are famous. Some of them are just cool. This is just one of the ways we seek to know the player.

— DeeJ (@DJDague) March 25, 2019

Last year, when this happened, the main things I remember was how neat it was that the story team was made available to attendees based on requests, and how infuriating it was that Escalation Protocol was made more difficult based on the feedback of those with the time to attend a Bungie Community Summit, especially when some of that difficult was almost immediately scaled back due to complaints from most of the player base. So, this year, I thought it might be interesting to write up some feedback of my own and invite other DBOers to do the same.

Story

In general, the last year has been a very good one for Destiny in terms of story. It feels like questions are being answered. The places we get to explore are more novel and relevant than ever before. And that both the in-game and Lore based storytelling has accelerated nicely especially since Forsaken.

In particular, both the Tangled Shore and Dreaming City were beautiful locations that seemed to hold a stronger sense of "these places have meaning and character built into their foundations." I loved the Tangled Shore's pancake layering of structures below, and above, and below as you passed between the various layer. And, of course, the Dreaming City is just a marvel to behold with the specific location-based lore snippets being given out by the Techeuns being a fun way to highlight some of the spaces/

Weaving in important characters like Cayde-6, Petra Venj, and Mara Sov and making them more part of the spaces instead of simply cutscene characters was a big step in the right direction.

The Lore team is killing it. Not that Destiny's lore wasn't good before, but now it seems like we are getting more of it on a regular basis. There are so many good stories and story threads now!

All in all, the stories being told during Forsaken and its seasons have been very interesting and most feel like they will have deliberate direct impacts on Destiny's future content.

That said, there are two areas I hope to see improved upon:

• Zavala has not been portrayed in a very good light in quite a while. While it feels like he carries the weight of Humanity on his back, I can't really recall the last time he was allowed to make a good decision in Destiny 2. While on Titan, he planned to attack the Almighty openly which would have lead to the destruction of the solar system. During Warmind, he seemed to oppose the investigation of Rasputin even as Rasputin helped our Guardian and Ana Bray. In Forsaken, he opposed hunting down Uldren Sov and in the lore he practically turned his back on the Reef and only offered The City's help if Petra Venj and the Awoken would commit to abandoning the Reef and fully supporting The City under his command. Is Zavala ever going to be unambiguously right about anything? Or heroic without needing rescuing? Even if all he does is win an important battle only to have his victory overshadowed by the arrival of the Darkness or some other reversal of fortune, at least he would be shown doing something important and helpful. Right now, he often feels inflexible and in the way of the player.
  
  
• We need to hear from the Light. With the Books of Sorrow, and the Hive, and the Worm Gods, and Callus, we've seen many points of view of those who more or less follow the Darkness. But we have heard almost nothing from Agents of the Light. The Speaker could charitably be called very perceptive about the qualities those following the Light possess, but he could also be called a fraud. And who or what else is there? The Traveler is supposedly awake, but all we have from it are some visions and echoes of past quotes. Why does the Light seem to be on the run and losing the battle for the universe? What counter argument does the Light have vs the Darkness’ point of view that everything is trending toward universal heat death? What good is morality and safe places if resources are indeed going to eventually run out?
  
  Furthermore, since Forsaken, there has been a trend of both Mara Sov and now the Drifter implying that the correct answer is not pure Light or pure Darkness, but that a balance of the two is the best way forward. Rejecting the Darkness is easy. It and its minions seem to only value destruction and power at the total expense of others. But if the Light is also not the right choice, why is that? Is the Light skittish and only in it for itself with the Traveler running away from most of it’s major fights over the last several million years? Is the Light aloof or uncaring in that it makes safe spaces but leave it up to the benefiting races to defend those spaces? Is the Light too rule bound or controlling or fanatical such that following it without compromise would somehow be bad for Humanity and the other races? Is the Traveler a rogue god of creation that is itself upsetting a delicate balance of life and death?

Gameplay

In general I don’t have a lot of specific good things to day about Destiny 2’s gameplay because it feels like all of it is in a pretty good place as it is. If anything, gameplay of Destiny is stronger than it’s ever been. Missions feel more diverse and epic than before. Allies and set pieces like friendly ships and bombing runs and npcs actively holding defensive positions give more life to the world. Strikes, Missions, and Raids are seeing good variety and challenge. There are a few sore points I would like to point out, though. Just a few places I wish Destiny could improve to help adjust the balance between classes:

• Spectral Blades currently feels like it is completely dominating the Crucible. There is something about it’s high speed, strong damage resistance, and long runtime that makes me feel like I don’t get outplayed in the Crucible. Instead, the deciding factor in far too many games feels like the team that sports the most Spectral Blade Hunters is the one that will win. To me, it feels like fighting back even as a team does no good, running away only sees you run down, and even hiding or jumping off the edge of the map seems to do little to prevent the slaughter of the rest of your team. I don’t think the Super needs huge tweaks. Maybe cut five to ten seconds off of its runtime and drop its damage resistance by 25-50% to force players using Spectral Blades to rely more on their invisibility than their damage resistance when attacking.
  
  
• Void Titans seem to be getting the short end of the abilities stick over the past few releases, and I think this is severely hurting the power fantasy of playing a Titan to be “the wall against which the Darkness breaks.” Specifically, the Warlock’s Well or Radiance’s combination of strong damage boost + healing + quick charging over shield makes the Warlock the defecto standard with regards to support. With a Well or Radiance, there are few dangers in PvE content that can significantly challenge a team of Guardians. Meanwhile, the Commander Titan’s Banner Shield is largely seen as superfluous given it’s smaller effective size and increased difficulty of getting a team to use it properly. Even it’s damage blocking is subpar because Well of Radiance provides enough damage mitigation for almost all content. If there was content that required blocking incoming damage from the front while a Fireteam moved forwards that would be something, but there's really nothing like that in Destiny with any consistency. I'd also love to see Ward of Dawn get some new offensive abilities in order to make it relevant again.
  
  
• Then, somehow, with the Way of the Current Hunters, the Sentinel Titans have also lost their claim to fame of being the best at blocking damage. A Sentinel quickly loses bits of their Super bar as they block damage to the point that some heavy attacks such as Heavy Machine Guns and some forms of Golden Gun can kill a blocking Titan without too much trouble. Certainly, the Titan’s ability to block is shortened dramatically while blocking heavy damage. Meanwhile, an Arc Hunter using Whirlwind Guard is allowed to block an infinite amount of damage for the full duration of their Super’s normal runtime as even the strongest attacks to not shorten their Super bar. Plus, they even reflect the damage of many attack types. As someone who has historically loved my Void Titans and was thrilled with the Sentinel variant we got with Destiny 2, I’m pretty unhappy with the way the Sentinel’s most noteworthy abilities have been overshadowed by other classes.
  
  
• At the same time, it feels fairly odd that Hunters using Golden Gun receive zero default damage resistance. Yes, Golden Gun is a powerful ranged attack, but when I see the single blast Supers like Nova Bomb or Blade Barrage absorbing quite a bit of damage while their super animation plays out, and I see roaming Supers such as Spectral Blades straight up tank incoming fire from three or four Guardians at a time, I can’t help but wonder why Golden Gun is so easy to put down. It feels like I need much more of a drop on my opponents when I am using Golden Gun than I do with literally any other Super since having even a pair of enemies looking my way while trying to engage means I’ll have a lot of difficulty getting even my first two shots off.

Grind and Release Cycles

In a lot of ways, Destiny 2 is in good standing with me with regards to grind. We’re long past the days where you could not advance your Light Level except by doing a very limited number of activities or a Raid. Most of the time, if you are playing Destiny and keeping even just half an eye on the Powerful Rewards on offer when you play you will advance your Power Level. Things like Clan Rewards and “play one match of this or that” type Bounties mean it’s actually pretty hard to stagnate your Power Level even if you have a limited amount of time to play. But, again, there are a few places I’d love to see further improvement:

• Armor types, perks, and mods feel just a bit too hard to come by if you are trying to assemble anything resembling a coherent Build or appearance. Right now, for instance, I’m trying to make a Hunter build with Hand Cannon bonuses for aiming and dexterity, but in a week’s time I think I got zero pieces of armor with perks favoring the build I was working towards. Mods are in a little bit better position what with Black Armory combined with the Gunsmith. After a few weeks I was able to build myself five Paragon Mods that give my Hunter the ability to dodge/cloak/disorient/reload almost any time I need to. But, if hoping to RNG into favorable perks is hard, trying to build out a specific appearance with those perks and mods is all but impossible. Lets say I want a Survivalist Hunter that favors Hand Cannons and is wearing the current Vanguard style armor… I basically can’t do it! Not even over weeks or months. There are various solutions I’d like to see. Maybe letting me pick what any given picece of armor looks like. Maybe giving me more control over what perks or attributes a piece of armor has. Right now, it just feels like I’m a little too at the mercy of the RNG.
  
  
• As far as Grind goes, I don’t think I so much have a problem with the time it takes to advance in Destiny 2 right now as I have a problem with the pace Bungie as developers and as a community focused studio seems to expect and reward some of its players for. I’m not going to touch Black Armory. I think everyone at Bungie realizes mistakes were made with regards to content and Power Levels and what not. But even with things like Raids and seasonal activities, I feel like I am constantly expected to play far more than I already do. With Raids, it feels like World’s First isn’t really a competition open to the world. Instead, it’s a competition with some really cool prizes only open to a handful of elite teams who can afford to play for literally days on end during the work week. Watching Bungie devs cheer on teams as they race to finish content is one thing. Giving them exclusive 24 hour or 1st week prizes when people like me can’t hope to complete the same content until a month later feels sickening.
  
  
• But this even extends to seasonal content. Take Reckoning, for example. Tiers 2 and 3 have been released at such a pace that I feel like I’m being left behind. Instead of the content being released somewhat close to in time with my advancement in Power Level, it seems like content is released so that it can only be beaten by players who can play Destiny during the day all week long. I don’t think there’s been any real life physical prizes for things like Reckoning or Escalation Protocol that I’ve been locked out of like I have been for Raids, but I always fear that things will move further in that direction.
  
  
• How to solve all this given that there will always be some players with more time than others? Chiefly, I’d ask that the coolest physical rewards be far less tied to extremely short time span accomplishments. But that’s the easy one. For more general grind relief, why not stage big activities like Raids with a lower Power Level suitable for most players, basically by situating them at the previous seasons’s level cap, but simultaneously releasing an identical mode with a high Power Level meant to challenge the best teams and quickest players. Instead of new Raids being exclusive to a tiny fraction of the player base on day one, why not open them to everyone? I honestly think under such a system that some players and teams will provide some very surprising and innovative gameplay and strategies that we may not get to see until weeks or months later otherwise. For rewards, give out shaders and glows and emblems and stuff for the hard modes, but leave the physical gear open to more people.

So, that's my take. Perhaps some of you would like to consider where Destiny is right now and where you wish to see it go. Certainly, feel free to respond to anything I've said, but I'd kinda like to get ya'lls freestanding takes on Destiny 2 in 2019.