There is a serious problem with creativity at Bungie. I was glad there was a franchise change and Activision was leaving the ship, but today I have to admit it's getting worse and worse. What's the strategy? Take the content from Destiny 1 and inject it into Destiny 2 and casually call it new content?… I hope you are really considering reselling the franchise, because you are unable to evolve this game.
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Actually they've been evolving the game right in front of you. But this community has the tendency to either look backwards....or only look at their feet and react in the moment. Based on what has been said---and done---in The Director's Cuts and in the last two years of the franchise here's the plan. 1. In the wake of the colossal failure that was vanilla Destiny 2 and the split with Activision, the faction at Bungie that was lead by Luke Smith and Chris Barrett finally won control of the franchise from those who wanted Destiny to be a successor to Halo (Jon Weisznewski and Josh Hamrick) and its e-sports legacy. 2. This allowed for a "Unification of Vision" of what kind of game Destiny was going to be. IOW, Destiny was going to--finally---"brand" itself clearly for the first time as an "Action-MMO". That is an action game with MMO/RPG elements. As opposed to a "shared world shooter" ....a shooter game with a candy coating of RPG elements that simply extend play. 3. Bungie retooled itself around this single-vision which led those in the "Halo Faction" to either have to get onboard....be marginalized....or go work somewhere else. 4. This left Bungie with a tough decision. WHAT TO DO WITH A GAME THAT LITERALLY WASN'T DESGINED FOR THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH YOU WANT TO USE IT. IOW, how do you deal with the fact that Destiny 2 literally doesn't have major game features that an action-(MMO)RPG needs to have? The only viable options were to abandon this game for a sequel (that would have had to have launched this year).....or to commit to this game, and completely transform it over time while people are still playing it every day. Bungie committed to the latter (fortunately). Trying to rush out a sequel in what turned out to a year like 2020 would have been a(nother) disaster. 5. This requires. a Making the game play less like a shooter, and more like a fully-formed action-RPG. This is (partly) why Bungie nerfed Pinnacle wapons into the ground. Nerfed the meta damage-and-reload perks...and then distributed that power they clawed back and gave it to armor 2.0, and added perks that created weapon-armor-ability synergies that make build-making a more important part of the game. b. Dealing with long-standing patterns of mismanagement that were built into the game. (LETTING PEOPLE KEEP LOOT AND LEVEL IT UP FOREVER). Sunsetting was phased into the game. First for armor...then for weapons. c. Making the gameplay in the open world more consequential----like a true open-world RPG----and less dependant upon **siloed** activities like raids, dungeons and strikes ("Why aren't we getting a vendor refresh? This is why.") d. Dealing with long standing deficiencies in the game. One of which Bungie has already, publicly committed to: The lack of developmental bandwidth for loot. They are going to hire more people to create more loot. How they are going to deal with the others are unclear so far: The fact that the weapon perk system needs an overhaul. The fact that the weapon system itself needs an overhaul. The fact that transmog is going reduce old armor to stat-sticks....and new armor to ornamental stat sticks. These design dead ends that Bungie painted themselves into over the years need to be addressed. e. Here's where things get sticky...and I have to engage in raw speculation (though the state of the game blog we've been promised may help sort this out. THIS GAME HAS TWO MAJOR RECKONINGS THAT ITS GOING TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT WILL FURTHER DIVIDE THE PLAYER BASE. 1.) PvP. The marriage of ANY kind of an RPG with **competitive** PvP is untenable and unsustainable. Players of competitive PVP expect their games to be contests of skill. PvP that is connected to RPGs and MMOs are contests of BUILD-STRENGTH...and combinations of skill and build quality. THERE IS NO WAY THAT THIS GAME CAN REACH ITS POTENTIAL IN PVE WHILE IT CONTINUES TO TRY TO BE A GUN GAME IN PVp. Which means that Bungie has to either choose PVE over PVP; change the paradigm (experience) of PVP to fit what suits a RPG game.....or silo the current Crucible off from the rest of the game and tune it seperately. Based on Bungie's behavior over the last two years....and who left the company two years ago....I believe they have chosen a combination of options 1 and 2. IOW, Bungie knew what they were doing when they dropped Stasis on the Crucible, and knew that it would piss off the gun-game crowd. IMO, they are going to slowly keep ramping up the chaos and the impact of abilities in PVP until all that's left of PVP are those players who will accept a PVP experience that is a balance of gunskill and abilities, where build strength matters. 2.) Investment systems. Destiny as loot game...and Destiny as MMO are on a collosion course. Bungie has always wanted us to grind this game like an MMO...but the problem si that they have never been able to give the game the features that make that viable. Games like ESO and Black Desert Online are SUPER-grindy....but they also have very deep and rich storytelling that distract you from the fact that you are progressing at a snails pace. So Bungie has kept us playing by throttling progression, severly gating it....and then building the game around power exchanges (Milestone system) and currency grinds (Nightfalls) instead of loot pursuits. The problem is that this is starting to exhaust and burnout the player base. The other problem is that the game literally isn't built to allow it to generate enough loot to allow the pursuit of loot to generate that kind of routine daily play. So the question is "Does Bungie switch over to a loot pursuit model....or keep doubling down on the grindy-MMO model. The moves they are making, and their transparency about the "lack of loot" suggests that they are going with the loot-pursuit model (right call in my opinion). But that leaves them with the very sticky job of trying to unwind the current model without blowing up the game in the process. They clearly stumbled this season by not having enough loot in the game....and that (along with the fallout of Sunsetting, and having to walkback The Impossible Promise) has hurt player motivation in many corners. Imo---again pure speculation---I think the final system will be a combination of loot game and MMO. A game where we chase drops for specific combinations of perks....but then there is a system where we can then invest in that item to optimize and improve its performance. The energy level system is a good first draft, but its costs are too high in a sunsetting world. Those costs need to be more reasonable...and Bungie needs to stop using them to prop up a Nightfall system that doesn't have any loot to offer to incentivize playing in it. That's the fundamental shift that needs to occur in Bungie's philosophy. They need to start offering thigns of sufficient power and desirability to ENTICE people into playing different parts of the game, instead of PUNISHING people by withholding (currency and other needed materials for) player progession. As I said that approach is not workign and is burning out the playerbase.