Everything Wrong and Right with Destiny 2
By Joel Collins, January 18th, 2022.
Destiny 2 has become a video game that I constantly come back to. It’s ever evolving life-cycle has enabled it to become a game that follows me. Originally, I played destiny because it fits a specific type of arcade-style loot-em shooter that combined elements I fell in love with during Halo 3 (arcade style points during levels, increasing playability) with MMO style elements that are de-void of Player economies, which I really like. It definitely seems like economy driven games, like RuneScape, and the newer New Worlds, have fallen out of favor with me for one reason or another, but were never helped by the “open” economy.
After playing Destiny and quitting after the first weapon re-work (I wasn’t very happy with the fact all my work was now gone), I slowly came back to the game, and have recently been enjoying the quest-like acquisition of exotics, run-throughs, and goal-oriented metrics that feel unique.
This game is far from perfect. I have a couple gripes, that I feel that I have to share before I tell you why I enjoy this game so much.
First of all, I am a hoarder, collector, and the amount of space they give you is FAR from sufficient for a person like me, and it forces you to dismantle a ton of weapons and armor without even trying them out. And being a programmer who specializes in data structure and user interfaces, this game is terrible from a user interface perspective. Bungie has always been terrible at inventory management, from the different looks of the Spartans in Halo 3, to the clunky cubed based organizational structure that is obviously optimized for controller navigation in Destiny 2, they have never made me want to sit in my inventory and organize or even utilize aspects of the game. Yet, I am forced in destiny 2 to spend the vast majority of my time there.
The competitive based aspects of the game are not very good, because, first of all, your effectiveness is often tied to your progression during the season, and, secondly, access to certain weapons, or even knowledge of weapons is hindered. Game knowledge tied directly to trying new weapons, and, in my case, is hindered by inventory management. Being able to try out each weapon is a luxury at this point and due to wanting to leave over-powered weapons in my inventory, being required to keep certain weapon types on me to progress through bounties, and not having space keeps me from trying new weapons.
Access to multiplayer-only content, like raids and grandmaster strikes, is an annoyance for me to find steady people to play with. I am generally a solo player, and despise having to find people making matchmaking a huge plus. There should be an option for people to opt-in to matchmaking for every activity. I have been through more than 3 clans to try and find one that either isn’t dead, or is active enough or willing to do harder content.
I hope the upcoming updates in February (Feb. 22, 2022) that are going to accompany the release of The Witch Queen will be combating at least a small portion of this, and alleviate some of my annoyances as a mouse and keyboard (M&K) user in the UI. There is going to be some sort of weapon crafting system, and new content that will make it feel fresh.
And Last but definitely not least, there should be an ability to change the progressivity of the joysticks on a controller, I.E., I should be able to change the point at which I go from a walk to a jog, without changing overall sensitivity, because right now the controller is completely unplayable for me, and I am missing out of so many weapons due to there being a dichotomy from M&K users and the controller users and the weapons they choose to use because of the built-in aim-assist that, in my opinion, enables an advantage to people who use controllers in PVP. I loved the competitive nature of the halo series, but for some reason, due to the dynamic loot and over-powered nature of certain weapons, I do not like competitive play without having a very specific set of weapons.
Now for what I like about destiny.
The re-playability, goal-oriented nature, and arcade style metrics make me want to keep playing the game over and over, and despite the inventory management issues, I still find myself trying to find those god rolls that I never knew I wanted.
The attributes that are given to your weapons enable millions of possible combinations across all of the weapons, with each random type weapon having roughly 10k-20k different possible random rolls (including the masterwork), and several hundreds of weapons to try. Each weapon is different, and can cause a huge difference in how you play the game, how you build your character, and how destiny even feels as you play.
The different modes of gameplay, from raids, to public events, to gambit, to seasonal content, to strait PVP allows me to hop from PVE to PVP content at a slightest whim. If I am getting tired of doing one style I just do something different.
The challenging nature of doing exotic raids to re-roll random perks, and complete harder and harder content for more unique content is a huge plus, despite having to find players to work with. The feeling of accomplishment and excitement when you complete hard content and get unique playlist rewards is addicting.
At first, I felt that having a closed-type economy would be annoying, but after my experiences with other MMO’s I have grown to love having to grind to find the rolls that I am looking for.
The truly dynamic nature of Destiny and the effect of game size and having to remove content for space reasons causes the Destiny franchise to be an ever-evolving game that feels like a brand new game each time you take a break and come back.
I look forward to this next installment of the game, coming in February and will be writing a response to this article when I have given enough thought and effort to the new expansion.
