For over six years, one game franchise has remained a constant a part of my gaming routine. Destiny and its sequel hit a variety of candy spots for me, combining engrossing sci-fi/fantasy world-building, role-playing-style character upgrades, and immaculate motion/gunplay. It’s a pastime I’ve loved for a very long time, and I’m intensely excited for Beyond Light. But that doesn’t imply the game at all times works for me in each method. Even as I’m thrilled to experiment with new stasis powers or witness the return of The Stranger, the factor I most need out of Destiny 2 at this level is a reduction from the exhausting time-wasters.
Like many grownup avid gamers, the calls for of balancing work from home, childcare, and elevated inconveniences as a result of ongoing pandemic hasn’t made for extra free time, however much less. When I sit all the way down to play a game outdoors of labor hours, I’m searching for a getaway and for the time I make investments to really feel worthwhile.
Contrary to some detractors, I feel Destiny 2 has so much to supply on this regard, together with during the last 12 months of content material. New actions, just like the current Contact public occasion, and attention-grabbing high-end alternatives just like the Prophecy dungeon, are attention-grabbing and extremely playable. My beef isn’t with the occasions I’m operating round capturing at aliens, however reasonably a lot of what surrounds it.
Before I’m capable of get into the motion, the present mannequin just about calls for that I spend a big chunk of time gathering bounties. Pick up bounties on the Tower, usually from distributors at reverse ends of the construction. Pick up bounties for the planet I’ll be visiting. Pick up bounties for the exercise I’m doing, and the weapons I’ll be utilizing. It is, fairly frankly, a chore. But with out these bounties, it’s subsequent to unattainable to fairly progress by the season’s leveling and purchase the fascinating goodies which might be part of that system.
On high of that, regardless of being an issue virtually for the reason that game’s launch, I additionally spend an inordinate period of time juggling my stock, my vault area, and my postmaster. In a confounding transfer, Destiny 2 nonetheless gives no straightforward method to choose into on the spot dismantling of blue (uncommon) objects, so if I full a protracted string of strikes or spend the night finishing waves of Escalation Protocol, I’m just about assured to have my postmaster replenish – generally inserting planetary supplies, ineffective blue weapons, and different undesirable objects into the postmaster, pushing out larger high quality objects I haven’t but retrieved. The selection turns into one in all both wasting your game time clearing out objects or disregarding fully the rewards that come together with what I’m doing. And positive, I can spend all my load occasions hopping into third-party apps like Destiny Item Manager, however that is extra of a workaround for an issue, not an answer.
The postmaster dilemma is exacerbated by a dysfunctional vaulting system. Despite common expansions over time to the general measurement of participant vaults, the issue stays that the majority gamers merely fill that vault and are ultimately left with the unenviable process of getting to kind outdated rewards and endlessly delete outdated objects. The argument may be made (and has been made) that gamers shouldn’t want to carry on to all these outdated objects, however I feel that misses the purpose. When a game like Destiny 2 is constructed across the acquisition and celebration of loot, it’s merely not fulfilling to be compelled into a choice to do away with these outdated objects. Will I ever use that Iron Banner armor from a 12 months in the past? Maybe not, however its presence in my vault is a reminder of the time I invested, and I neither want to do away with it nor spend the time concerned to make that call. The game (and its gamers) desperately cry out for a extra complete and cheap method to chronicle newly acquired objects, and be capable of retrieve them as desired.
The most up-to-date iteration of in-game rewards highlights an identical dilemma. Umbral engrams have been, at first, a variety of enjoyable; they dropped from quite a few actions and might be turned in for customizable rewards. But months in, the challenge has change into one more uninteresting routine, demanding that I endlessly return to the Tower Annex or threat filling up the out there slots I’ve for engrams. Which in flip – you guessed it – additional fills my postmaster field.
The downside will not be that of a game that isn’t enjoyable; regardless of what the haters could say, Destiny 2 stays one of the rewarding and thoughtfully realized shooters ever created. Rather, these collected time-wasters can diminish the size of that enjoyable, forcing gamers into drudgery that isn’t worthwhile. I’ve some pals who’re nonetheless capable of make investments 4 or extra hours every single day into the game, however that’s merely not a actuality for many of us, particularly within the dumpster-fire 12 months of 2020. If I’ve to spend 20-30 minutes of my game time each night time finishing deletions, delivering engrams, clearing my postmaster, and selecting up bounties, that’s a big chunk of my leisure time wasted. And that’s a bummer.
I’m pleased to say that the builders at Bungie appear to acknowledge at the least among the considerations I’m voicing, and it could be unfair to not acknowledge their public statements to that time. The supposedly impending arrival of transmogrification within the coming months ought to hopefully do a lot to ease the considerations about dropping outdated rewards – at the least cosmetically. And Bungie has additionally promised a move away from bounties as a crucial path to start within the subsequent season. I desperately hope a few of these modifications come sooner reasonably than later, however the actuality is that even with these guarantees, the game right this moment feels compromised.
As it’s, I’m not going to faux that I gained’t be a day-one participant of Beyond Light, or that these points sap all the pieces I like from the game. Destiny 2 continues to be a beautiful pastime game, and one which I sit up for taking part in. But I hate that once I speak with others proper now, my conversations usually embrace phrases like “drudgery” or “tedium.” This is just too good a game to be saddled with these sorts of issues, and their decision is the largest factor I hope to see change because the game strikes into its subsequent yearly cycle.
