Destiny 2 Fans Angry Over Lack of Grind… Isn’t It Ironic, Don’t You Think
Destiny 2 has been met with a ton of praise and it’s snapping records, including the best-selling day one game on the PSN in history. It also took top spot on the Japanese sales charts and had the biggest launch week of any console game this year with over one million players for eight consecutive days. Despite the success, the game has encountered some issues, especially when it comes to the endgame.
If you have ever visited popular Destiny fans sites like r/destinythegame you’ll now notice a plethora of complaints. The bone of contention is the lack of character progression or grind. This is quite ironic when you consider that usually, we hear about players complaining about too much grind in games.
Yesterday’s ‘This Week At Bungie’ post, where the developers announced the return of the Iron Banner PvP event and the Prestige Raid for PvE, was the icing on the cake and sent fans into a tailspin. Mainly because it was confirmed there won’t be any actual rewards to character progression to be found in this Prestige Raid.
Now, the community is up in arms because there apparently isn’t a valid reason to play the game anymore to progress characters. Check out what Reddit user Toland27 had to say:
“Bungie,
The players that browse this subreddit are some of if not the most dedicated players you’ll ever find in your game. We’re the players that buy DLC the second it’s announced, we’re the player that preordered the game as soon as we could, we’re the players that defending you steaming pile of crap game for an entire year before you made any major improvements to it.
When people took jabs at Destiny, saying “who still plays that game anymore?”, we were the ones still playing. We were the players who grinded strike after strike, raid after raid, trials match after trials match because the one things you guys really did get right was the grind. Whether it was chasing Light Level, a perfectly rolled hand cannon, or a rare raid drop, the grind kept us playing and kept your player base from dropping to nothing.
Now, after weeks of anticipation for what could be an even greater raid experience and a fresh take on Iron Banner, you’ve surprised us all again.Iron Banner is no more than quick play with new armor. There is no mention of IB weapons, which makes sense considering that Bungie has proven time after time that we should not expect anything from them.
The prestige raid will not offer a light increase, it will be minimally more difficult in terms of mechanic (yay more sponges! /s), and will not offer players any incentive to run after getting their emblem. This is not acceptable. Too much has been cut from the core destiny experience to just allow this to continue.
Whatever happened to becoming a legend? Many players are already 300-305, are you telling us that we’ve done all there is? There’s no more grind until presumably December? At this time last year, WotM hard mode was just being released and it granted players an new experience. New mechanics, a new max light to grind for, and new loot to hunt for.
I don’t know what we as a player base should or even can do. We do not make up a large amount of the revenue that Bungie makes off this game and all of us have already given them our money. But if it takes weeks or even months of not playing Destiny 2 to show Bungie that we are pissed, maybe it’s worth it.
It’s not like there’s anything fun to do in-game anyways, I don’t think I’d miss out if a boycott was enacted.”
With all these complaints, Bungie might already have a fix in their pockets for the endgame. It may come in the form of “Seasons” which is another hint dropped in yesterday’s blog post, as you can read below.
“Seasons
*There is that word again: Season. There is a mention of seasons when you inspect your Clan. Now, we’re talking about it on the blog. What does it all mean?
Panel Discussion: The Seasons of Destiny.
Friday, October 20, 4:30PM Pacific
CoolCat Theater + CoolCat Channel
What do Seasons mean in Destiny 2?
What will change from season to season?
How many seasons can we expect?
When does Season Two begin?
We’ll be answering that question, and more like it, at TwitchCon.”
On the official TwitchCon website, we found additional information on this panel which will apparently focus precisely on how Bungie intends to keep the community engaged in Destiny 2.
“Destiny has established itself as a game of action-packed rituals and special events. With Destiny 2, the development team at Bungie has a goal is to keep the community of Guardians engaged from season to season with new reasons to play. Join DeeJ from Bungie for a discussion with Designers from the Live Team who are focused on sustaining this new adventure.”
Seasons have been successfully implemented in games like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege. Will Bungie be able to make them appealing enough to improve the endgame and revert the community’s unrest? We’ll know more during TwitchCon in two weeks.
Stay Tuned!