Please, Bungie, Don’t Make Destiny 2’s Weapons Like Destiny 1

When Destiny first launched, I form of hated it. Bungie’s weirdo area shooter was a delight to play if you have been really taking pictures issues, however misplaced momentum because it picked up all of the worst habits of MMOs. In the early days of Destiny, even within the endgame, you have been continuously grabbing up new weapons and tossing your previous ones due to the marginally larger quantity on the brand new ones. The loot chase within the sport was tedious and time-consuming, forcing you to play and replay content material to make minor positive aspects that by no means appeared like they amounted to a lot.Destiny has come a good distance since these days, first by the latter expansions of the unique sport, then by a bunch of good and fascinating adjustments in Destiny 2. Today, I play Destiny 2 nearly day by day and the franchise has gone from one in every of my most reviled to one in every of my most beloved. I really like whipping by the Crucible and raids, I’m fascinated by the story, and I’ve a heap of cool weapons to make use of in a wide range of conditions. I even have come round on chasing one of the best gun stat rolls, one thing I’m often detest to do in video games corresponding to this–it’s the factor that retains me from selecting up different MMOs or loot shooters. For some purpose, Destiny 2 continues to chop by the noise and make me completely satisfied.But the newest Director’s Cut weblog put up from Destiny 2 director Luke Smith has me a bit apprehensive, as a result of it appears like, in attempting to proceed to tweak the sport to make it partaking for gamers long-term, Bungie is contemplating returning to these early D1 days. To me, there could not be a worse transfer for preserving a dwell sport frequently related and enjoyable to play than reverting to the earliest concepts of Destiny.Smith describes the state of affairs into which Bungie thinks Destiny 2 has stumbled in its third yr: It’s misplaced a few of its aspirational drive that pushes gamers to work by the sport to get one of the best gear. For a loot shooter, that slot machine facet of the sport is a giant a part of the draw: You’re continuously enjoying in hopes of getting cool new stuff which you could then use to carry out higher in PvP, or to extra effectively take down the hardest content material, or to get even higher cool new stuff.And in some facets, Smith is true. Destiny 2 is at present stuffed with weapons that sit in inventories or get instantly discarded and go largely unused. Each new season introduces a bunch of latest, distinctive weapons, however there’s not a variety of drive within the sport to ditch your favourite previous gear in favor of attempting out new gear. Part of that’s as a result of some weapons are simply too good to let go, like a few of Destiny 2’s “Pinnacle” and “Ritual” weapons, that are distinctive gadgets you earn by the completion of prolonged quests and grinds. Some are simply weapons that may have actually robust stat and perk rolls, and proceed to be dominant components of the metagame in PvP and PvE settings season after season.Bungie needs to push gamers to strive new issues, and most significantly, to chase new weapons. That’s the engine that retains Destiny 2 going, in any case. But the answer Smith is proposing sounds prefer it’ll wreck one other enjoyable facet of Destiny 2: the accomplishment of truly utilizing the belongings you go chasing after.The answer Smith is suggesting appears like Destiny 1 earlier than the “infusion” system was launched. In Destiny 2, all weapons have a “Power” quantity that dictates their total power, and the common Power of all of your gear determines your whole power as a player–so you usually need to have the very best Power numbers you may. In Destiny 1 earlier than infusion, that meant you have been at all times tossing weak weapons in favor of robust ones, and even when you significantly favored these weak weapons, just like the weapons you would possibly pull from the Vault of Glass raid, they might grow to be out of date when a brand new growth was launched and raised the Power (then known as “light level”) cap. That incentivized you to play by the brand new growth and take a look at its new weapons, nevertheless it additionally meant the stuff you beforehand earned and perhaps actually favored was now accumulating mud or tossed within the trash as a result of it could not hold within the more durable content material. Destiny finally added improve paths for weapons, however they usually required you to place in a variety of work to get the required supplies.Infusion modified that by permitting you to cannibalize a gun with larger Power that you simply did not need as a way to beef up a decrease Power gun you probably did, and it has been the usual of Destiny ever since The Taken King’s launch in 2015. It additionally implies that, in Bungie’s eyes, when you get a set of weapons you want, you do not actually have purpose to modify, even when the brand new weapons they launch each few months are cool or highly effective in their very own proper. Bungie appears significantly perturbed by this reality, however on the identical time, it matches with one other of the developer’s maxims: that there are a variety of how to play the sport and which you could decide the way in which you need to play.Smith says Bungie is contemplating a push again towards a system that may render previous weapons out of date over time to push you to chase new ones. You’ll nonetheless be capable to infuse your weapons, however after a set interval of seasons, an previous gun will hit an infusion cap, and you will not be capable to drive its Power up anymore. It’s so much just like the previous Destiny 1 system, through which a Power cap escalation each three months with the beginning of a brand new growth may render lower-Power weapons ineffective, at the least in high-level content material. It’ll simply take longer to occur.It appears like a foul answer to Bungie’s downside. There’s a purpose a variety of the identical weapons get used so much in Destiny 2: They’re enjoyable to play with. They’re profitable examples of Bungie’s skill to create weapons that really feel good and are efficient. This is not to say Bungie should not be continuously tweaking and rebalancing weapons, however gamers do not simply get connected to sure weapons as a result of they’re probably the most highly effective ones obtainable. Sometimes folks merely fall in love with sure weapons as a result of they labored further onerous to earn them, as a result of they carry distinctive perks that vibe with particular playstyles, or as a result of they appear cool. Sunsetting these weapons arbitrarily over time would not enhance selection and selection, it simply shunts gamers into a brand new meta field till the subsequent patch rolls round.Bungie’s answer of rendering previous weapons mathematically out of date in endgame content material feels prefer it’ll do nothing however push Destiny 2 towards much more grinding, which, for my cash, has at all times been the worst component of the sport. Losing one of the best weapons you labored onerous to earn simply to pressure you to work onerous to earn new, doubtless related ones sounds much more like busywork than it does a significant interplay with the sport, and what’s extra, it continues to strip out participant selection. Smith’s weblog says Bungie would possibly reintroduce previous weapons in later seasons to deliver them again into circulation, however that simply appears like one other grind to get one thing you already earned.Yes, there are too many weapons in Destiny 2 that gamers do not use, and sure, that looks as if one thing that unduly burdens the event crew because it spends its time creating these weapons, solely to seek out everybody continues to make use of previous standbys. But it appears like Destiny 2 wants to seek out new methods to make extra of its weapons viable decisions for gamers. I’d want to see Bungie introduce fewer new weapons every season, in favor of, say, extra gun perks–things that may change how previous weapons function and create new doubtlessly nice rolls.Maybe that is not a viable answer to Bungie’s challenge, nevertheless it additionally appears that for a sport to run on participant aspiration, it could possibly’t solely be centered on targets sooner or later; it additionally has to supply the accomplishment of reaching these targets. Your digital trophy room (on this case, having cool weapons and armor) is as vital as the subsequent hunt you are planning. These proposed adjustments sound like they’re going to push extra grind again into Destiny 2 only for the sake of that grind, and to me, grindy for the sake of it’s the least fascinating factor Destiny may be.