The well-known season model in Destiny 2 has become stale. While seasonal burnout has always been a part of the loot shooter, it has become particularly severe in Season 18. Due to boring loot loops and little new content, there has even been a drastic decline in player numbers. Now, Bungie’s head Joe Blackburn has commented on the current situation.
What issues are Guardians facing in Destiny 2? Normally, gaming should be fun in Destiny 2 and make time fly. However, in recent months, many Guardians have felt that it is not the case in the loot shooter at all.
Their gaming rounds in Bungie’s flagship have increasingly become an obligation due to the hardly changing season model, which hardly anyone followed with excitement.
- For 12 seasons, there has been a seasonal artifact that needs to be leveled up.
- Completing similar seasonal PvE activities leads to boredom.
- Moreover, there have been fewer and fewer secrets that could have interrupted this monotony.
- More loot and coop cosmetics don’t help either, as even the drop of a weapon with deep sight resonance or recycled armor no longer makes some Guardians happy.
A season that is supposed to include three months of entertainment felt like a three-month Groundhog Day that one cannot escape from. Already after the first 24 hours, some players are now just waiting for the dungeon starting on Friday.
Consequently, the players’ demands for innovation and change are becoming louder and are understandable. On Twitter, Destiny Bulletin and ArgonianNPC showed how deep this “rabbit hole” of the seasonal treadmill has become:
What does Bungie say about the situation? For a long time, Bungie did not officially address the issue – allowing the problem to fester. However, this has changed now.
Bungie’s game director Joe Blackburn published a personal statement about the situation and the general content burnout of players on Twitter on December 7th. He shared that Bungie has “heard the feedback on its current seasonal cornerstones loud and clear.”
When can we expect changes? Probably not immediately. Many players had hoped for significant content innovations and variations for Season 19. However, these largely did not materialize, and there is a reason for that.
Even though Bungie is considering your feedback from the last seasons, it will still take some time, and we are talking about several months, until concrete changes are reflected in the game.
As Joe Blackburn stated, Bungie is currently working on Season 21 of the upcoming Lightfall DLC and is halfway through. The ongoing Season 19 and Season 20 are therefore already long completed. Thus, there will probably not be significant redesigns of Season 20 at this point.
Joe Blackburn, however, mentions that the new Guardian ranks and Neomuna objectives should shake things up in Destiny 2 with the launch of the new DLC, on February 28, 2023.
In the meantime, they want to focus the “main attention on seasonal pursuits to reduce complexity and improve synergy between seasonal pursuits and the rest of the game.”
While the last bugs in Season 20 and Lightfall are being fixed, we are solidifying our plans for 2023 and working to implement improvements in this area for every season next year.
explains Joe Blackburn, Bungie’s Game Director, via Twitter
In the coming months, there will still be innovations, thematic diversity, and new ways to advance your character in Destiny, but while we work to incorporate this feedback into our upcoming releases, I want to ensure that your words have not fallen on deaf ears.
This is what the community says about the Bungie statement
In recent months, Bungie has lost its Guardians’ trust more often, partly due to delayed feedback, partly due to the general hatred from the community, and poor decisions, for example, for PvP.
Although it is encouraging for players that Bungie finally wants to consider their feedback, many are no longer sure whether Bungie will make the right decisions from it. They have often been disappointed in the past.
The general discontent in the community is clearly noticeable: The Guardian Robbie ironically responds to Joe Blackburn on Twitter: “Is this feedback that has been repeated [by Bungie] for over a year?
And another player named Fritz wishes that Destiny 2, which the community loves so much, gets better. But he also critically adds:
At the moment, Bungie overall gives us the impression that they do not care about this game, because they know that we will continue to buy DLCs and seasons over and over again. If Bungie would communicate with us more often (and honestly), the community would not be so angry about the current state of the game. People [are getting a refund for the new Lightfall DLC] because they do not believe that Bungie can turn things around.
writes the user Fritz as feedback on Bungie’s announcement
And another Guardian torchwood simply finds: “I’m sorry, Joe. But it’s too little, too late. You’ve received the feedback for a long time. There’s no excuse for starting to implement the feedback only now. You’ve made many promises, and all of them have been broken.”
However, there are not only negative voices: Other players are grateful that the burnout is now being specifically addressed, as nathINSANE writes under the post: “We, the community, appreciate Bungie’s hard work and commitment. We value the communication about our concerns and can’t wait for the vision to be implemented.”
And SamiKat also thanks and is willing to wait for changes:
I appreciate your response to the community’s feedback and understand why it is very inconspicuous. It’s good to know that the team at least acknowledges that there’s a problem. I’m curious about what Season 21 will bring, and I really hope that Season 22 brings further notable changes.
writes SamiKat via Twitter
What do you as the German community think about the latest feedback from Bungie and the accusations from the community? Do you understand that innovations cannot happen overnight? Or do you say, no, it was long overdue, it should have happened by now – I’m out with Season 19?
Feel free to share in the comments how you feel while playing Destiny 2 right now? Do you also think of a hamster wheel, or does it still feel fine?
Even streamers, like Aztecross, now say that Bungie will dig its flagship Destiny 2’s grave if it continues like this:
