Opinion: How Destiny can fix its end-game

Bungie has cast its lot in with Destiny for the long haul. Not only will it be iterating in some fashion for years to come, as per its long-term agreement with Activision, the initial offering is sure to receive regular updates and downloadable content. Bungie has already detailed a patch aimed squarely at addressing a widespread complaint about item randomization, but that raises the question of whether the core problems are too endemic for Bungie to fix with such minor changes.

First, let me define the terms. When I talk of fixing or saving Destiny, I'm not saying that Destiny is a bad game at its core. My review called it an ambitious idea that falls short of its goals, and I stand by that. It's fundamentally solid, and the moment-to-moment combat is fun and engaging. It's the end-game that's severely lacking, in ways that will be difficult to address without seriously rethinking its approach. And as luck would have it, that's the part of the game Bungie intended to last the longest for players.

Bungie assured both professional reviewers and casual fans alike that Destiny really comes to life after you've reached the level cap. Despite this being the kind of pat assurance that follows a lot of MMOs, it seemed reasonable enough. Weeks after its release, many players have reached the level cap, and they aren't seeing a game that's coming to life. They see it grinding to a halt.

Progression is simply too slow once you reach level 20, and this is likely by design. Far from being the point at which the game comes into its own, this is where it stops being fun. Playing the same strike zones to ultimately shoot at bullet-sponge bosses, all in hopes of maybe-hopefully gaining a Legendary engram, feels like work. 

It's no wonder that Bungie and Destiny players are locked in a battle of wills, the former group patching and removing easy loot spots as the latter finds new ones to farm. Shooting at a cave for five hours may not be how Bungie intended us to play Destiny, but it was far and away more enjoyable, and yields greater rewards than double that time in strike zones. If the studio wants this game to last, forcing slow and repetitive progression is the wrong way to go about it.

Bungie has signaled a willingness to make significant changes based on fan feedback. The recent 1.0.2 patch alters the random element of decoding engrams. Previously, players could take a Legendary (purple) engram to the Cryptarch and it would almost certainly be decoded into a Rare (blue). Given that Legendary equipment is the best way to boost your soft level past the hard cap of 20, players felt frustrated to find the promise of such equipment was taken away by random chance.

After the update, purple now always yields purple or better, and blue always yields blue or better. The random element, Bungie says, was inserted to add an element of fun and mystery, but there's nothing fun about disappointment. The random element remains in place, but the promise that engrams will be decoded at their level or better means any surprises will be positive ones. 

The studio was even self-effacing about the change. "Cayde-6 took the Cryptarch aside and showed him a sack of doorknobs," read the update notes. "He decoded that mystery pretty quickly."

This is a step in the right direction, albeit baffling that the original implementation ever passed muster during internal tests. The update is also said to increase the drops of rare and legendary engrams during Daily, Weekly, and Tiger Playlist activities. All of this is clearly meant to entice players more toward the intended gameplay aspects, and away from farming habits. We can't say yet whether the rewards those yield will be consistent enough to make the time investment worthwhile.

However, this speaks to a more endemic problem that may not be within the scope of updates. In the late game, players are grinding for loot because they want higher levels, not because the game itself changes in any particularly significant way at that point. Access to Raids is nice, but what then? The circular nature of a loot grind is present in plenty of games, but it's especially apparent in one like Destiny. Better loot can only go towards beating harder versions of the same handful of bullet-sponge bosses you've already taken down. This is a common trope for RPGs, but a more active first-person shooter style, the lack of variety is much more pronounced. 

The nature of Destiny's combat system is very similar to Halo's, which is no surprise. It's built for numbers, not mass. Relying on your arsenal to take down swarms of enemies is fun. Emptying your clip into a huge beast in the center of the room 20 or so times isn't. That's why the initial campaign is so much more satisfying than the end-game. While the campaign has you plow through stages of foot soldiers and occasionally caps the festivities with a boss, the content after level 20 makes the grunts incidental and the bosses themselves the center of attention.

Those factors together mean that players are forced to grind for loot by taking on dull bosses, all so they can hope to gain better gear to use against dull bosses. Without a more compelling way to gain loot, and more interesting encounters to use it against once we have it, the gameplay loop that Bungie attempted to design is broken at its core.

The circle can be repaired to some extent. If Bungie makes more interesting strike zone missions, ones that aren't simply more time-consuming versions of ones we've already played, it will go a long way towards enticing players to take part. It could give us random assortments of enemies in randomized areas. It could let the grunts drop the epic loot more often, so that a single run through one of these enemy-heavy strike zones actually yields rewards. It could even take better account of the frequency of your drops for pacing purposes. Fixes exist, if Bungie does them right.

Most importantly, these changes can't be relegated to the paid downloadable content. That content has to be additive for players who want to pay extra, not required for anyone who bought the game to continue enjoying it. Repairing the gameplay loop needs to be targeted at everyone, while the DLC serves to add extras like areas and subclasses.

We know Bungie is listening, and we have a fairly clear image of how the studio could make Destiny's end-game a more compelling package. Some damage has already been done from word-of-mouth, but given its contrition over the Cryptarch, it's willing to admit mistakes and move on. If it does that soon related to these more fundamental game elements, Destiny could live on for quite a while.