If Bungie can take anything away from the launch of The Dark Below, it's that it was generally well-received. New missions, new weapons and a fantastic new Raid finally made Destiny feel like more of a complete experience. Yes, it was still paid downloadable content and many still argue that the core game wasn't worth the price of admission, but it's still a step in the right direction.
That being said, the behind-the-scenes systems of The Dark Below were, in a word, terrible. The new content was great, yes, but was resetting the experience on Exotic weapons (essentially undoing hours of play) really worth it? Was making it through the incredibly difficult Vault of Glass Raid worth it when vendors had better equipment that could be bought without any hassle?
No, it's not - but Bungie is, as always, working on it.
"[We have] nothing specific to announce at this time, but the mistakes we made with the DLC1 reward economy will not be repeated:
Mistakes like:
- Vendor gear invalidating the effort of VOG Raiders
- Upgrading an Exotic resetting its talents
Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react."
That's Bungie's Lead Designer Luke Smith, talking on NeoGAF about the specific faults of The Dark Below and how the systems will change in the second DLC pack, House of Wolves. In his post, Smith acknowledges that there's a lot that doesn't work in the Crota's End Raid, and that Bungie won't be making the same mistakes again.
"Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react.
We will continue to improve acquisition stories and frequency (My understanding of the perception is that Crota's End drop rates are much improved vs. Vault of Glass: footnote below), lessen the grind and get players to the fun parts of their arsenal faster."
From the outside looking in, it may seem like Destiny works just fine. From a mechanical standpoint, that's true - but the game's loot system (or, the reason players keep coming back) has been tripping over itself since the game was first released. Bungie has struggled since Day One to make the loot system rewarding players: it's in a far better state than it was, but grinding through hours of content only to receive items you can't use or don't need is incredibly frustrating - and, sadly enough, a core part of the Destiny experience.
"We sat down and talked about the rewards for VoG and the rates vs. CE and ended up with the following:
- increase drop rates globally in CE: we wanted dedicated players to be around 32 or real close by the time Hard mode came out.
- increase the variability of perks that a given piece can roll.
the goal here: players would reach 32 easier than 30, but would have more customization and options to build the perfect set (in terms of stats, perks, weapon affinities)
The part where this didn't work as well as we'd hoped is with the Shard economy. Shards are a are a barrier between you and equipping a sweet new piece of gear. We want fewer barriers to equipping upgrades. The shard economies erect these barriers between players and the new piece of gear they just got."
Bungie has changed Destiny a great deal since its release back in September, but the developer continues to struggle when making the endgame grind worth it for players. It's amazing - and somewhat awe-inspiring - that a developer would consciously create so many different systems that, instead of rewarding long-time players, wastes their time.
If that sounds harsh, remember: Destiny's rewards system features loot called Engrams. Not too long ago, rare Engrams would usually be downgraded upon examination, meaning that the hours you spent playing just to find that one piece of loot would suddenly go up in smoke.
Now, with Ascendant Shards, Bungie has created a game that will reward players with weapons they cannot use without hours upon hours of grinding. At a certain point, it seems like Bungie simply wants players to play through the same content over and over and over again, with no concrete guarantee of reward.
That doesn't sound like a fun game, and many Destiny players would agree. Let's hope that House of Wolves will finally make Destiny a game worth sinking hours into.
Destiny's second expansion pack, House of Wolves, is expected to be released sometime this Spring.
