Bungie needs to work on overcoming this distance. In recent days, steps have been taken in this direction. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered, which the captain probably cannot talk about yet because there are larger, economic interests involved.
Apparently, Destiny 2 was meant to be a game for casual players to appeal to the broadest base possible and deliver 80 hours of good gameplay. They have achieved this. Now Bungie must address the needs of those who expected more from Destiny 2.
After more than 3 years, this is an uncomfortable place for the Destiny franchise to be in. After the podcast, one gets the impression that the developers are all too aware of this.
For more on the specific changes coming to Destiny 2 in the next week and the week after, read here:
These are the 5 most important ideas to improve Destiny 2
In a podcast, the leading developers of Destiny 2 address the issues of their game and the bad mood prevailing in the community.
In a Bungie podcast yesterday, the two “fathers of Destiny 2,” Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, along with PR chief Eris Osborne, took a look at Destiny 2.
The reasons for the bad mood in the community have been identified as two major areas:
- Problems in communication with players
- and the fact that there are too few reasons for core gamers to play Destiny 2.
According to Bungie, they have tailored Destiny 2 more for casual players based on the feedback from Destiny 1 and have likely swayed too far in that direction. Players who regularly enjoy playing Destiny 2 have too few reasons to log in. There is less gear to find, fewer bars to fill.
Maybe casual players shouldn’t be as powerful as hardcore players
Game Director Luke Smith is one of those hardcore players of Destiny 2. He is probably one of the 100 people on the planet who have played the most Destiny.
Smith says he had all 3 classes on console at 305 and then wanted to play only one character on PC to experience the “casual experience.” After a month “with relatively little playtime” on PC, he now has all 3 classes and they are powering up towards level 300.
Maybe, Luke Smith says, that is good, but maybe it is also a problem. He speaks of a “democratization of power.” Maybe casual players shouldn’t have access to the same power level as hardcore players. Maybe power is too democratically distributed, too equal for everyone.
These are discussions that are held internally at Bungie: In which direction should the game move?
Hardcore players are upset because their friends are no longer playing
The fact that hardcore players have too few reasons or excuses to log into Destiny 2 weighs heavily on the mood in the community.
The frustration in the community arises from the fact that hardcore players lose motivation to continue playing after about 80 hours. Their friends also log in less often. This causes them to lose their social contacts made in the game. That hurts, and their feedback is then passionate – thus negative.
The discontent with Destiny 2 comes from a human place; it has social reasons, according to Bungie’s leadership team. Bungie is aware of these issues, and several strike teams are working to resolve them.
Overall, this is a significant topic in the podcast: How many people and teams are working on the individual aspects of Destiny 2 and how many systems make up the game and interconnect. However, it is often difficult to communicate this externally because Bungie does not know when any particular solution will be ready.
During Stream 2 of “Curse of Osiris,” the mood shifted
Communication from developers to fans is, according to Bungie, extremely difficult. They would like to talk more with the fans, but do not want to make nebulous promises, and concrete commitments are often only possible late.
So, they did not know before the first stream of “Curse of Osiris” whether the masterwork weapons would actually be ready by the December update. Otherwise, it would have started the first stream with these system changes.
By postponing the topic of “system changes” to later, it seems as if Bungie is “deaf” to the players’ problems, while in reality they are already working on them.
A shift in mood occurred during the second stream of “Curse of Osiris.” Here, it was already anticipated that it would not be well received. But even there, the concrete system changes had not yet been finalized. Therefore, they remained silent about them to avoid raising false hopes.
Bungie wants to avoid making promises that they cannot keep. Maybe they are too conservative in this regard.
Communication problems – Bungie doesn’t want to promise anything that isn’t 100% certain
The communication problem stems from a large discrepancy between what players see from the outside and how things are conducted within the team.
Destiny 2 is a massive, complicated undertaking. All parts interconnect. What appears from the outside to be a minor change is a complicated process internally because one thing depends on the other.
Making a game like Destiny 2 is incredibly hard
Essentially, the developers describe in the podcast how difficult their job is in all aspects:
- They were unable to quickly fix the bug with the bureaucratic hallway because it coincided with the time window of the PC release and they wanted to keep the code as clean as possible at that time. There was a time window of 7-10 days in which they only wanted to patch in emergencies.
- Communication externally is difficult because they don’t want to raise false hopes – they themselves do not know when certain ideas will come into the game because they need to wait for further developments at each point.
- How quickly they address a problem depends on the severity of the issue, the ease of a solution, urgency, and many other factors.
Who is actually the Game Director of Destiny 2?
Two mixed things from the discussion:
- Apparently, the hierarchies at Bungie are very unique. Luke Smith is a “Game Director” and works on Destiny 2, but that does not necessarily make him the Game Director of Destiny 2.
- An important figure is Chris Barrett, who is also a Game Director on Destiny 2 and takes care of the day-to-day operations. He probably oversees the development. Luke Smith has probably communicated constantly with “Barry” over the last 6 months.
Destiny 2 as a steamer in the fog
My MMO thinks: The analysis is correct, but it does not change the problems. One can hear a certain frustration in the podcast that they receive so much flak because they appear “deaf” from the outside, even though they have long recognized the problems and are working on them.
Eric Osborne says at one point: Making such a game is difficult, but no one wants to hear complaints about it. People pay 60 dollars and expect a great game.
The podcast leaves the impression that Destiny 2 is a cumbersome steamer, whose captain does not want to talk about a change in direction because he does not know when it will happen. Therefore, he prefers to say nothing at all and keeps the passengers in suspense.
The passengers then see the mysterious activities on the bridge from the outside, cannot make sense of them, and have the feeling that the captain has no idea what he is doing at all. However, he knows well but cannot convey his perspective because the passengers are too far away.
Bungie needs to work on overcoming this distance. In recent days, steps have been taken in this direction. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered, which the captain probably cannot talk about yet because there are larger, economic interests involved.
Apparently, Destiny 2 was meant to be a game for casual players to appeal to the broadest base possible and deliver 80 hours of good gameplay. They have achieved this. Now Bungie must address the needs of those who expected more from Destiny 2.
After more than 3 years, this is an uncomfortable place for the Destiny franchise to be in. After the podcast, one gets the impression that the developers are all too aware of this.
For more on the specific changes coming to Destiny 2 in the next week and the week after, read here:
