What The Hell Is Wrong With Destiny 2 And The People Who Play It
I got bored of Destiny 2 some years ago and stopped playing just before they cut half the game out. After that, every time I thought to myself "yknow I feel like some solid shooty gameplay, maybe I should reinstall Destiny 2" I would realize that the moment of fun my memory conjured up was of some part of the game that no longer exists.
Some time ago, they decided to do a big story event where several of the in game world locations got taken over by the bad guys, and those locations would be "vaulted" and would no longer be accessible. Kind of a neat idea story-wise that I would normally even be in favor of, but in practice it just meant that all the best content got taken out of the game forever.
My favorite activities were the Escalation Protocol endless fight on Mars, the Black Armory Forges, doing jobs on the Tangled Shore so I could barter with Spider, and the two Vanguard Strikes: A Garden World and The Will of the Thousands. My favorite weapons were the Hammerhead heavy machine gun and the Kindled Orchid hand cannon.
Now I have none of those things.
I only came back to Destiny 2 when they did a big promotional Free Week, when the latest two expansion packs became available to play for free. I don't really care enough to do a thorough analysis of why, but I don't like any of the new stuff as much as the stuff that got thrown out. Rather, I want to talk about the something deeper that was a really big part of the experience of coming back to this game in its current state without having played all the lead up stuff.
I've been playing a lot, still, even though the best stuff is gone, but it's only because of inertia. The general moment to moment gameplay is still Good. I like shooting stuff. I like the pace at which shooting stuff is broken up by tossing a grenade or shooting a giant laser. Charging up a void grenade by holding down the button for a second is viscerally impactful and I wish every game had something like that.
I was gonna praise the environment design but all the best environments were removed, and instead we get a place that's just ice, a place that's just more Hive caves, and a place that's just more Earth ruins. The paradise in disrepair of Titan, the pieced together nonsense of Mercury's Infinite Forest, the angular alien computer labyrinths of Io, the islands of space rubble tied together with rope to make up the Tangled Shore, all gone now.
Enemy design though, is actually really good most of the time. It could be better, but what's there is certainly miles ahead of most other shooty games that only pit you against generic dudes with guns. It isn't quite on the level of Vermintide 2, but it wouldn't take much to get it there. I won't go into how I'd do that though, because I'm here to complain about all this other stuff.
So yeah, the basic core gameplay loop of running around shooting guys and occasionally casting a spell, that's all pretty nice, especially with the visual and auditory polish, like the little explosions when you get headshots, and the deep thumping of hand cannons firing and such. Plus, there's a lot of varied little grinds to do that give you an excuse to go places and shoot stuff. And Then They Fuck It Up. They fuck it all up, they do it on purpose, because they want your money.
BUNGIE HATES YOU AND WANTS YOUR MONEY
So there's this thing, this concept, a psychological phenomenon, a driving force within people that can be seen in many aspects of life. They call it "Fear Of Missing Out," or FOMO, and it's a source of anxiety in many people. Advertisers may use it intentionally to get people more interested in buying that one flavor that only comes around in a specific season. It's not necessarily bad, sometimes it can push people to discover new things, but still it is anxiety, and many game developers try to avoid creating that sense in their players.
Not Destiny 2. Destiny 2 is weaponized industrial grade FOMO.
A great deal of Destiny 2's content is delivered through Seasons, which Google tells me last an average of ten weeks. Every season includes a big treasure trove of brand new loot, probably some new game mode, some new story bits but who cares, and a giant rewards track full of challenges and useful stuff like cash and upgrade materials and whatnot.
Seasons are also locked behind a pay wall called the Season Pass. The Season Pass is not cheap. I haven't done any math about this but I estimate that less than a quarter of the content added in any given season is available for free. At the end of the season, most of that stuff gets thrown away forever. If not at the end of the season, then after a few seasons. At time of writing I think some parts of the previous three(?) seasons are still available. I'm not a hundred percent sure what's still there though, because it's locked behind season passes I don't have.
All this is IN ADDITION to the Expansions, which are what you'd expect of DLC: a hefty chunk of new story, some new location to play in, and a bunch of other new stuff like gear and cosmetics and whatever.
Since there are two different ongoing sets of paid content, nearly everything new is unavailable to free players. The new story stuff, the latest game modes, and the best gear. The Beyond Light expansion introduced a new subclass and I don't get that either, because I'm now also a free player, even though I actually bought the previous two expansions, Forsaken and Shadowkeep. Incidentally, a bunch of Forsaken is now gone, so I no longer have access to a bunch of the stuff I paid for, thanks for that. Witch Queen introduced a weapon crafting thing, and surprisingly I do get that, though I only get like a quarter at best of all the crafting recipes.
Paywalled cosmetics and story is one thing, but best gear is quite another, especially in this game with all its PvP shit that they care about so much. Differences in gear are usually pretty slight though, so I'll ignore that for now. But locking all the newer game modes behind paywalls is just stupid. Don't you want the paying customers to have as many people to play with as possible?
New thing in season 18 is called Ketchcrash, some kinda thing were we invade a pirate ship in space. Sounds cool. Okay, gave it a try, it was alright, some neat little set pieces in there, can see this being a fun grind. So what rewards do I get? What comes next? Oh, nothing is next and I get no rewards, because I have to buy the season pass. Welp, guess I'll never do any of that ever again, said thousands upon thousands of free players.
They don't care. They have whales to suckle from. It speaks to a deeper sickness, an apathy that pervades the design and the playerbase. I hesitate to call it a "community." If it's a community they don't communicate very well.
NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING AND NOBODY CARES
Hey Various Destiny Wikis And Information Resources, is it still possible to get the Archon's Thunder? I sure would like a heavy machine gun that does solar damage.
NOPE! I had to do like a half hour of research, skimming through old news articles and shit, before I found what looks to be a fucking gold farmer website confirming that this thing's not available anymore.
Where are all the wiki people?? I can tell you where they're not! THE WIKI! Yo quick question HEY DESTINY COMMUNITY, BY HOW MUCH DOES THE PUBLIC DEFENDER MOD INCREASE REWARDS FROM PUBLIC EVENTS? NONE OF YOU FUCKIN KNOW, DO YOU?
Mod's been part of the game for years but I literally couldn't find an answer to that question. It’s been around since before I started playing years ago! (I don't know exactly when it was introduced because I could not find that information either, ironically.) Whatever, it doesn't matter, or rather it doesn't matter enough to the end game grinds that all the whales are doing.
Hey Warframe Wiki I have a highly specific question about this new sniper rifle, one among hundreds of weapons in this game. It gains a buff after several consecutive headshots. Does it count the headshots separately if you hit more than one with one shot? Do you know the answer, Warframe Wiki?
oh you've got basically everything i could possibly ever need?
even though this rifle was released last week. like seriously last week, ACTUALLY LAST WEEK, NOVEMBER FUCKING 30TH, LITERALLY LAST
WEEK
No wonder Warframe ate your fucking lunch, Destiny. You cretins.
I feel like this speaks to the kind of person Destiny wants to attract. Do you care? Nobody cares. Warframe meanwhile has all the chuunibyous who are extremely invested and passionate and joyful. Warframe sucks and I hate almost everything about it despite my three thousand hours of playtime in it, that's another long series of rants, but the playerbase at large actually give a shit about helping each other and making the game as fun as it can be for everyone else. There's something terribly selfish and apathetic about the way Destiny players consume content, and I think I know why that is. It's because Destiny rewards selfish behavior.
THERE’S NO I IN TEAM, AND THERE’S NO U IN IT EITHER
Competition is everywhere. First of all, out of the basic daily grinds available at the tower, ONE is Co-op, and THREE are PvP. So, that says something. Also, certain quests require you to get kills against players, so PvP is forced (Hey go fuck yourself Malfeasance). I absolutely fucking hate this. But more than just having a really big PvP focus in terms of game modes, competition is built into the fabric of the basic gameplay. There's actually almost no cooperation at all. You CAN cooperate, but the mechanics don't actually incentivize it. In most cases, they discourage it.
The vast majority of daily quests take the form of "Get certain number of kills with X" such as with a specific weapon type, damage type, with grenades, melee, headshot kills, stuff like that. There are also a bunch of skills and perks and armor mods that work off kills, like spawning orbs of light or elemental wells on kill, weapons that gain temporary buffs on kill, etc. But the thing is, "on kill" only works when YOU get the final blow, which means when you have three players together doing the same activity, they're competing with each other for getting the last hit on enemies, whether it's for gun calibration bounties or just because it makes your gun reload faster.
You can revive teammates when they go down, but you hardly have to. It's not like the enemies are dangerous enough that you really need three guns to handle them. In most places there's only a five second wait before someone can revive themselves. Even when it increases that time it's still only up to about thirty seconds, and in higher difficulties there are even mechanics that PREVENT you from reviving teammates. Because cooperation? This sucks.
Compare to Warframe again, Warframe builds a lot of mechanics really haphazardly, but they still somehow manage to make reviving teammates a basically desirable thing to do, and there are a lot of area buff abilities on certain frames. They all have pretty big areas, which is useful since warframes jump around a lot and are really fast. There are also tons of enemies, even infinite enemies in many cases, so getting 150 kills with Magnetic Damage or whatever is pretty chill no matter how many people you're playing with, unless one of them is Volt and he's doing that constantly zap everybody in a six mile radius build.
Compare to Vermintide, a REAL co-op game, where the entire thing is built around cooperation. Special enemies can disable players who are by themselves which makes staying with the team necessary for survival. Enemies are uniformly potentially dangerous and they come from any direction. The characters talk to each other and have fun banter. AND there are lots of big area buff abilities.
Meanwhile in Destiny 2's main co-op modes players are constantly at odds with each other. There's not even a penalty for running ahead and leaving your teammates behind. In fact, the game will teleport THEM to YOU if you go too far ahead. There's a healing grenade which I don't think I've ever seen used even once. Warlocks can drop healing wells, but they're small and don't make a big fuss so allies may not see you do it, and even if they did it's on them to come and get the buff, not on the warlock to put the buff near their allies. Titans can make barricades but you can't shoot through them so most of the time they just get in your way because it wasn't you who dropped it so you weren't expecting it. It's all selfish design.
To some extent this is because the game is balanced to be playable solo, which is fine; solo shooters like Halo are in Bungie's blood. But then Strikes in Destiny put you in teams ANYWAY, and the mechanics aren't ready for it. Selfish behavior is rewarded constantly, and cooperative behavior isn't, so the playerbase is subtly nudged towards being selfish and apathetic. I think this is why nobody bothers to make comprehensive wikis with detailed information.
But here's where it comes back around to being about money.
BRING YOUR FRIENDS, BUNGIE WANTS THEIR MONEY TOO
Strikes and open world stuff forces you into playing next to other people when you don't want them and constantly remind you how much nicer this would be if you had friends to play with, but the hardest endgame content, Raids and Dungeons, DON'T. They don't merely suggest, they FORCE you to beg your friends to play Destiny with you.
One might try to argue no no no no this is about building a community, people are encouraged to actually talk to each other like human beings. Kay first of all if you want that shit so bad why are the other things all done with matchmaking then? Second of all the way I know they really desperately want new people to be able to get to Raids and Dungeons as fast as possible is because they fucking told me so.
Oops, tipped your hand there didn't you, Bungie! Behold the Gift of the Thunder Gods Treasure Chest, with its big quest marker pointing you to it. Inside they just give away for free an ENTIRE GEAR SET of Almost top level equipment, all with exactly the power requirement to do Raids and Dungeons. Most armor pieces you find lying around have an attribute total between 49 and 55, but these ALL have a nice solid 60, plus a set of three weapons, two of which are decent, and the third being THE THUNDERLORD, an extremely powerful heavy machine gun that occasionally causes giant lightning strikes. Progression? Difficulty curve? Tutorials? Story campaign? Fuck all that shit. Join up and immediately go help your whale friends do Deep Stone Crypt. Oh can't do Deep Stone Crypt because it requires the Beyond Light expansion? Don't worry, they bought it for you. How nice of them.
Thank Christ that shit finally got taken out like a few hours ago. I’m sure they’ll replace it with something similar any moment now. Or maybe they’ll wait a few months until the next season or something. I seem to remember they did something like this around the time I started playing way back; suddenly bumping everybody’s gear up to a certain power level so that new players don’t have to get used to the game before they’re roped into doing stuff.
I think this is intentional. I think Raids and Dungeons don't have matchmaking because they want to select for the people who are invested enough in the game to want to play "late game" content, and then give those a challenge that requires them to actually find people to play with, specifically so that they will go and find more people to play Destiny 2. They want all the activities to be accessible at any time because they want to maximize the amount of stuff that a new player might be roped into doing by a friend who plays a lot. They certainly don't do that for the new consumer's sake, because throwing all this shit at new players is confusing and overwhelming, not to mention makes no sense from a storytelling perspective.
ALL the grinds are long, but the late game grind for millimetric power increases and trying to get exactly the right combination of random perks or exactly the right stats on your armor is ESPECIALLY long, but more over it's EXPENSIVE, because the very best top of the ladder equipment is all price locked in expansions or seasons. Remember that solar machine gun I wanted? Are there any other solar machine guns in the entire game? Only one. It's in this dungeon, which requires the Witch Queen expansion. So basically players like me can get fucked. I find this to be horrifyingly insidious game design.
Even more insidious though is Rank Streaks. Doing these main activities earns you rank points, and you get Streaks if you play them consecutively, which increases how many rank points you get. If you go do some other activity, your streak is broken and it resets. In other words, you are rewarded for doing the same thing over and over. This is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. It's certainly a really strong incentive to make people do the same thing over and over again, but why do you WANT people to do that? Why do you PUNISH people for wanting to do multiple activities for the variety? Is this somehow not completely backwards? Is this somehow not incredibly anti-consumer? Is this somehow not extremely toxic to the players? Especially new players, holy shit. Like fine whatever, cater to your fucking mouthbreather whales. Maybe you have enough of the dumb fucks to keep you afloat even if everybody else hates you, but your godawful community of directionless morons would be a lot healthier if you got more people to play with them. It's almost like going outside. And streaks are shared across all your characters, so you can't even have one character who does the PvP shit and another character who does Strikes. As if encouraging you to get bored of content as fast as possible wasn't dumb enough, it also forces you to mainline things you hate if you want the rewards. Not only am I forced to do Crucible and Gambit if I want the Ascendant Shards or whatever, I can't even take breaks from them because if I do I'll get punished with Even More Crucible and Gambit.
But like I said. This is selecting for a very specific type of whale. People who want variety and fun and companionship, they don't give a shit about those people. They want the people who REALLY want to get the Best Loot and want it as Fast As Possible. They want players who will do ALL the long grinds, and will pay Bungie money to let them do it faster.
And here's my last piece of damning evidence: Vaulting. Vaulting is one of the worst decisions I've ever seen a game make.
Remember what I said at the beginning about FOMO? Vaulting is how you give your entire playerbase the Fear of Missing Out, about everything, all at once, forever. Fortunately they may not ever do it again since EVERYONE hated it, except for the hardest of hardcore PvP Assholes who never do anything but crucible. THEY didn't lose shit, obviously. They even get to keep the crucible maps set on Titan and Mercury and all those other places I liked but will never see again. Fuckers.
But here's why Vaulting is so sinister. Even if they never do it again, the THREAT still looms over every part of the game now. This part of the game that you really like? This gun, or world, or mission type, or ability, or character? Guess what, it might just fucking vanish someday! Isn’t that awesome!? And we’re gonna replace it with the Cosmodrome! Or maybe with NOTHING!
So if you want the shiny thing you'd better get it RIGHT NOW, RIGHT FUCKING NOW, GET AS MANY PEOPLE TO PLAY WITH YOU AS YOU CAN SO YOU CAN GET THE THING BEFORE WE TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU FOREVER! Oh and you'll need the season pass and the latest expansion to get most of it give us cash.
Destiny players are driven by terror like they're the fucking Black Dog Knights.
Except me, because giving up on things is my specialty. As soon as Darktide gets polished enough to run properly on my computer I'm dropping this shit and its fat fucking hundred gig ass like it was endorsed by Trump.
EDIT: I got back into playing Hades. Hades is a fantastic game. Bye, Destiny 2!