In the MMO shooter Destiny , the developers explained what they learned from the first year and how they want to improve it with “The Taken King”.
The developers of Destiny, Bungie, made themselves available to Game Informer last month for exclusive stories. In a lengthy video segment, they explained what they learned from the first year and what should run better with The Taken King in year 2 of Destiny.
The Level 20 Cliff was Brutal
Before the release, Bungie knew what they were developing. However, it was difficult to explain to the media and players. They had no idea how they would react. Destiny was like a boat, and you can only find out if it is seaworthy by putting it in the water.
When the game was finally out, they were surprised by how intensely and for how many hours Destiny was played. For the developers themselves, Destiny meant a shift. Normally, after a game, they would move on to the next one and take a breath. But with Destiny, the patching started immediately. For some of the developers like Luke Smith, their entire life in the last year revolved around Destiny.
When they analyzed the data from the first year, the design flaws in Destiny also became apparent. Especially a steep cliff at level 20 stood out. Many players would have dropped off there because Destiny had changed the rules without clarifying them to the players. Up to level 20, there was a linear game as players were used to. Suddenly, players were expected to play the same strike list repeatedly to earn better gear to progress.
And those who got past this cliff could later still crash on the “Forever at 29” riff if they lacked an item from the raid “The Glassed Chamber” due to pure bad luck, preventing them from accessing the max level.
Exactly these things they want to change with the first expansion “The Taken King” and invite the players who dropped off at 20 to give it another try.
The general feedback on Destiny was: I love Destiny, but I hate that it isn’t better.
Our Old Tricks Didn’t Work Anymore
Not only in game design did the makers of Destiny have to rethink. Also in their external communication and conversations with fans. In the past, they say, during Halo times they got away with some vague, mysterious hints and had excited the players.
But with Destiny, fans wanted to know exactly what the developers were doing. The attitude was rather: You shut up right now and tell me exactly what I want to know!
Community Manager DeeJ explains in the video that fans told him: “Listen, if you want to write a novel, do it in your free time. You could have summed all this stuff up in 4 bullet points.”
In this sometimes brusque tone, one sees the strong attachment of the core fans to the game.
And they learned. While they used to come off as narrow-minded, actions like the closure of the loot cave came across as: “You play the game the way we want you to play it”. Today, they are different. If something like that like the loot cave happened today, they would handle it differently. Not close the cave, but make the rest of the game more attractive and rewarding.
And sometimes you just get lucky: From the positive reaction to exotic quests that came late into the vanilla game and how well they were received, they developed the quest system for year 2 and later basically the whole game: The quest for Thorn was the progenitor of this development. And that quest only just snuck into the game at the last moment.
After the Add-On is Before the Add-On
A look into the future beyond “The Taken King” seems to be something Bungie is still hesitant about. But for the developers, it is clear that just as they learned from the mistakes of year 1, they will learn from the mistakes they are currently making in the later development of Destiny.
After The Taken King, they will be saying, “Oh God, we need to fix these exploits!”, get to work on it, then maybe take a short vacation and then ask themselves again: Okay, what are we going to do next? Where is the next mountain we need to climb?
