When Destiny: The Taken King released, it seemed like Bungie
heard our complaints and they listened. They decreased the grind, added
new subclasses, new locations were added, changed the light system,
attempted to improve various things, the latest raid added a lot of
interesting mechanics, quests were implemented and we had various
secrets to discover. But as time progressed we slowly, but surely,
learned that Destiny: The Taken King was the usual one step forward, two
steps back.
The first big hit was when we discovered how to unlock sleeper
simulant. After various people spending weeks discussing minute details,
comparing the design to specific missions/Rasputin and wondering if we
needed to do something on a certain daily heroic and various other
things, it turned out the secret was to just wait for Bungie to enable
it. Not only did this hurt the communities morale, but it was just one
of several things we later learned simply weren’t obtainable yet.
From there the problems only worsened when people started to realize
the flaws with the light system. What was originally an exciting system
that offered plenty of variety and made engrams exciting again, quickly
became more of the same when you got to the point where you needed raid
gear to increase your light. Even this would have been fine, but raid
gear no longer dropped at the current cap, resulting in what the
community refers to as “double RNG.” So now you didn’t just need to get a
drop and have it be the right type of drop, it also had to have a
certain amount of light. To make matters worse, infusing items up a
couple of levels is a huge drain of resources and the difference it
makes is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, essentially
killing the grind for many.
Bungie tried to address these concerns by implementing more ways to
get top tier gear, though most of them fell flat. Iron Banner is too
limited to be helpful, Trials was largely viewed as more hassle than its
worth, SRL requires a massive time investment to get to the point where
you can achieve such items and the raid challenges left many
disappointed.
When the community first discovered the challenges, it filled the top
players with wonder and excitement for the future. There were plenty of
theories and speculation, but the reality was pretty underwhelming. For
many the first challenge was doing what they always do ad the second
challenge was little more than a tweak or two for most groups. The final
challenge, which involved Oryx, required several groups to change their
tactics, though the end result was many deciding the challenge method
is actually easier than the previous methods. Needless to say, what was
exciting for some, quickly became an underwhelming addition that simply
didn’t live up to expectations.
After launch we also saw Bungie finally implement microtransactions to Destiny: The Taken King.
This was a move many expected, though the end result surprised many.
While the first batch of items were, arguably overpriced, emotes, later
additions were less favorable. The Halloween event added timed exclusive
emotes and a special mask that you could randomly get from a paid
package (one was given for free to everyone), with the next event
offering a special book that tracked your stats with rewards for
completing tasks and the latest item being a paid boost to level 25,
plus a fully leveled subclass. These additions have resulted in the
community torn, with fear that Destiny will continue down this path,
ultimately selling top tier gear for a small cash investment.
Needless to say, what started as a step in the right direction
quickly became more of the same or in some cases, actually were worse
than before. Sure Destiny is still fun to play, but what makes it so bad
is here we are a year and some months, plus three expansions, later and
we’re still seeing the same problems we saw on day one.
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