They Pull Me Back In : Destiny 2

My previous post about Destiny 2 was supposed to be my last one until the next expansion. If you love something set it free – if it comes back… blah blah blah. I had/have become too negative about a game I am no longer playing – but that frustration is born out of love! The game already became boring fast and they didn’t address most of the major issues of Destiny 1. In my opinion they even created new issues that now also need to be addressed.  For me, Destiny 1 was that child that I hoped would grow up to be an awesome community member but ended up living far short of  hope and expectation. Like a good parent I just need to accept that some kids get hooked on drugs – and love them anyway.

Destiny 2 developers recently had a panel to discuss how they were going to manage the game going forward and I was pretty disappointed to learn that it’s not by listening to feedback of their loyal/former customers.

Their main objective is to break the year into ‘Seasons’, which will last three months each (just like the real ones!). They will use these seasons for major balance changes (and the like) which I think is a smart way to do things – unless they leave horribly overpowered weapons or glitches for three months to fix. Still, that part is sensible – having a set phase for feedback and changes. What isn’t sensible is that they are going to reset your Clan XP (basically, your Guild) every season.

Seasons will reset your Clan progress, so everyone starts from zero. They said that was to make it so that new clans could keep pace with more established, high-level clans

This is confusing. No players asked for this. Not one. There is no competitive benefit to a Clan. You get a little extra glimmer (that you will hit the maximum on quickly, anyway). Some faction tokens (of gear you don’t need or want by the time your clan is high enough to get it) the odd, extra engram (of which you get 100s just by playing regularly. There is no benefit so great that needs resetting, no perk that being in a high level clan actually grants. What this does do, is screw with people who are in small clans with friends. When the perks are mostly fluff, why take away progression?

It’s a complete head scratcher. One thing players hate is to have things taken away that they have worked towards. This is yet another design decision showing that Bungie is completely disconnected from their community and it shows, too.

Destiny 2 went from a peak of 3.6 million players down to 1.9M in a month. Close to half. I am not sure how many huge launches lose almost half their playerbase in a month, but I am suspecting they were hoping that it would grow or sustain itself in the short to medium term. 2M players is still a great number, mind you, but it just doesn’t feel like it achieved everything a highly touted replayable sequel should have. I don’t even know if that kind of drop is normal for most games. For a game based on always having something to do and work towards it doesn’t make sense to me.

The answer to bringing players back isn’t by taking away their Clan XP, or making it so a gun that was Arc is now the exact same gun but now with Void damage – or even some pretty new armor. They need a path of true progression for casual players, through all of their content. That is what would bring me back – an LFG mechanic that has been the top wishlist item by the community since Destiny 1. I’ve given up on a coherent story but would love easy access to the content. I know Metacritic is not a great measuring tool but the average score has dropped from 5.9 to 5.6 since my September 20th post showing as people get to the end and realize how shallow the game is there is a growing frustration.

This design decision makes me feel that they are not hitting revenue targets with “silver” sales (basically buying in game currency with real money) and the players are not sticking around. They are not seeing their return on investment (500 million) – they signed a 10 year agreement in 2010, meaning there is just a scant three years left before Bungie is free to go publish with who they want. So they are pushing Bungie to monetize faster and harder while they can. The reskin. The novice story writing and telling. The same enemies. It is all adding up to maximizing profits for profit’s sake.

Back in 2010 an analyst forecasted this on the partnership:

“It’s reasonable to expect that Bungie will put out a game every two or three years, so probably four games under this deal,” he said. “If we think that the games will do 8 million units each (very conservative, my bias is much higher), then we’re talking about 32 million units sold at an average of $45 wholesale (again, very conservative). That’s $1.44 billion in sales.”

Instead of four titles, guess two. The other numbers might line up still though, as charts list sales across all platforms of Destiny 1 (and expansions) of over 17M units globally. Doubt they are hitting the $45 average on that with the expansion units in the mix. As commercially successful as it has been the clock is ticking on maximizing potential return.

I feel really bad for a lot of my PC friends who will be playing Destiny 2 for the first time soon who held off from the console version. I am really curious if the boost of PC players gives the game life or just a larger chorus of detractors from what should have / could have been.

As long as they don’t release information saying that the next expansion they are resetting all characters back to zero again so new players can keep pace with older, established players – I will hopefully be done caring now. Good luck to you Destiny 2.