Destiny: State of the Game

I won’t pretend to speak for every player out there. There are millions of us out there. This is simply a look through my eyes and the eyes of those I play with who feel the same.

I still remember the feeling I had when I first laid eyes on the Traveler, that giant floating sphere of myth in the sky over the Last City. Wonder. That’s what it was. That feeling was wonder. Wonder at the potential secrets I’d yet to unlock. Wonder at the immense world I was stepping into. I looked left and saw Keith standing there. Electric was to my right. I could hear the wonder in their voices as well. “This is cool,” we collectively thought. “This is awesome.” We were ready to become legend. A lot of us were.

And we were for a while. We had moment after moment of in-game events where we felt good. We felt happy. The game felt fun. The adrenaline coursing through my system as the Vex surrounded me in the Vault of Glass, Destiny’s first raid, and I hear the comforting auditory cue signifying my super was charged. I pressed LB + RB on my Xbox controller. Pure unfiltered solar energy courses through my Hunter as his golden gun comes online and I rotate 180-degrees, pulling the Right Trigger as I do, releasing a shot from my hand cannon of light that consumes the Minotaur bearing down on me and he disintegrates into particles of ash. I miss a shot and hit my last one through the wave of Vex. A second robot disintegrates and explodes, taking his buddies with him. I was alive and the enemy waves were quelled. Time for Atheon.

But things burnt out quickly. We became disillusioned with the game, but were told repeatedly that things would get better. Things would be fixed. Things wouldn’t stay this way for long. Things wouldn’t and things didn’t. They changed, certainly, but for every patch Bungie released that made the game better, too much else changed that cost the game it’s entertainment value. They’d add one fun new thing and remove two more.

It all went downhill with an auto rifle patch that never should’ve been. “We notice players using Suros and other auto rifle too much.” Yeah, you have a bounty for them. “They’re getting nerfed.” Then things stayed sour until the House of Wolves when so many great mechanics were introduced. Infusion. Reforging. Endgame content that raised us to max level that WASN’T a raid. Sure, the Prison of Elders got old for some, but there were others who never ran it at its toughest. Some who never defeated Skolas on Hard. That was ripped away when Oryx came.

Oryx. Finally a name for our Darkness. The Taken King brought new subclasses and new guns – well, it was supposed to. We got the standard array of Year Two guns seemingly cloned from Year One guns, a couple new exotics, and all of our old gear became obsolete. We still have exotics we’re waiting to see. (Where’s that Solar Thunderlord? The Transversive Steps?) Destiny has such amazing potential, but it’s developer is squandering that potential with microtransactions, limited time events that are few and far between, and almost no new content on the horizon. While these are fun for a bit when they’re here, they become bogged down with mid-event patches and nerfs, bugs that don’t stop, and sniper rifles that need sniper sway or something to keep folks from becoming bitter about them and the rest of the content. Whatever this mysterious DLC update Bungie’s bringing after February’s Crimson Days event will have to be big because a lot of other people are feeling the burnout. Many even feel as if they never became legend at all – a tag line Destiny used when it first released in September 2014.

Destiny can be intense fun especially with friends. I wouldn’t have put 8 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 36 minutes, and 15 seconds into it if I didn’t believe that. Thank a website entitled Time Wasted on Destiny for that number. I’m hoping there will be viable content coming that will convince me to play the game even more in Year Two, but we’re almost five months into Year Two with nothing on the horizon.

Festival of the Lost and SRL showed that you can turn blue items into purples. Let us do that with armor or class items. Make my Frumious Cloak purple? Yes please! I’d love to make my Ghost Angel cloak Year Two viable using the infusion system Bungie created. It starts at 8 Light and I have to infuse it up to 320? I’ll put the time in for that if you fix your RNG like other developers have recommended.

What I’m trying to say is that we want something. We love this world. We want to support this world. There are things you can do, that you have introduced and then ripped away that have done, that has made things fun for us. You say we’re a community, so let us have a say. You’re the developer. We know that. But don’t ask our opinions then toss them aside. We just want transparency and to know what’s going on. Things like Harold Ryan leaving aren’t comforting for us.

We love a lot about Destiny, but politics are weighing it down and holding it back. If you’re feeling burnt out, Guardians, because of things like this, take a break. Destiny isn’t meant to be played consistently, I don’t think. Try out upcoming games like Unravel or The Division or Dark Souls 3. Play games you’ve neglected like Fallout 4 or The Witcher 3. When Destiny has an event, come back and play that then put the game down again. I want to stay immersed just as much as you, but that’s just not healthy anymore with the current state of the game.

Become legend elsewhere and return to the Light when you can.

See you starside, Guardians.