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Destiny 2’s new seasons have “too much FOMO”, the game’s director concedesThe current season model just isn’t working
The current season model just isn’t working
The director ofDestiny 2has dropped another of his sporadic 4000-word thoughtdumps reflecting on the state of the MMOFPS, its successes, and its failures. One big problem Luke Smith acknowledges is that the latest seasons, starting with Season Of The Undying, create a disappointing “feeling of ephemeral private activities and rewards that go away” rather than the exciting “evolving world” they’d wanted. Bungie will try to fix that with the next year, he says, and they have some other big changes planned. It sounds promising but I wish he’d addressed Eververse’s role in FOMO.
Luke Smith’slatest Director’s Cut postis 4134 words long and a touch rambling, so let’s look at the big parts.
First, the current model of seasons, started alongside the launch of Shadowkeep, isn’t working. When Smith talked about Destiny’s new season model inAugust 2019’s wordblast, he said they wanted to build an “evolving world” and that “the best Destiny stories are the ones where ‘you had to be there when…’.” That was meant drive the current run of seasons, with seasonal modes, gear, activities, and stories that wrapped up then went away. The previous run of seasons after Forsaken, in contrast, permanently added Forges, Gambit Prime, the Menagerie, and questlines accompanying them. Bungie have said it’s unfeasible to keep all additions but it seems a shame and a waste to throw so much out. He acknowledges this change kinda sucks in several ways.
“We aren’t delivering the feeling of an evolving world. Instead we are delivering the feeling of ephemeral private activities and rewards that go away. The Forsaken Annual Pass had its share of challenges (see last year’s DC), but it also had this awesome property: If I stopped playing for a Season, when I came back, there were a bunch of rewards and activities that I could catch up on.”
Smith concedes that “this year’s version of Seasons has too much FOMO in them” and says next year’s run “will have less.” For you unhepcats out there, FOMO is Fear Of Missing Out.
Destiny seasons currently discourage taking a break and risk missing content, and that does suck. Players are nudged to stick around and keep ticking off tasks, which makes some angrily burn out and others just outright leave. And the seasonal modes after Menagerie haven’t been as good as core modes; I played Sundial and Vex Offensive enough to get the rewards and triumphs I wanted then stopped. I do think last season’s Vex Invasions rampaging across the Moon’s public spaces were actually a good example of the sort of “You had to be there when…” moment he said they wanted to create, mind, and more big public rumbles would be grand. Though I think Smith skips over a key problem with Destiny’s current model.
Look, I don’t object to Bungie using Eververse to raise extra cash from a game with a hugely generous free-to-play side (I’ve bought some Eververse bits for real money myself!) but I don’t like that they connect so many seasonal items to a tedious and FOMO-inducing grind. Especially when their real-money prices are ludicrously high. You can’t reasonably talk about FOMO without acknowledging Eververse’s role in it.
“Our hope is that instead of having to account for a weapon’s viability forever when we create one, it can be easier to let something powerful exist in the ecosystem,” Smith said. “And those potent weapons entering the ecosystem mean there’s more fun items to pursue.”
I prefer the meta to shift over time anyway so sure, I guess this is another alternative to nerfs or endless power creep. I’ll have to see how it works in reality.
Onto two final points…
Smith announced that Faction Rallies will not return but their armour and some weapons will enter the Legendary engram pool in Season 10. I startedDestiny 2after Faction Rallies ended so I look forward to getting that cool clobber. I hope we can get those Faction shaders too.
And he admits Bungie done goofed with the new player experience for New Light, the free-to-play launch. Right now, players go through a short mission then are dumped into the same experience as players who’ve done everything. The three free story campaigns are hidden on an NPC in an out-of-the-way area, and that is mind-bogglingly daft.
“We dramatically underestimated how many new Guardians would wake up on the Cosmodrome,” Smith said. “We’re going to improve the New Light entry this fall and flesh the starting experience in Destiny out.”
Good. I’d hesitate to recommend Destiny 2 to someone unless I was willing to walk them through the current post-intro abandonment.
Smith says so much more inhis full postbut my own post here has blown past 1000 words so I need to stop. Bear in mind that everything he talks about is just an idea which could change or be abandoned, yeah? And evidently the plans Bungie had for the ongoing run didn’t pan out. Do also note these plans are for past the end of the current run of seasons - of which we still have two more to go.
The next season of Destiny 2 is Season Of The Unworthy, starting March 13th. Bungie formally announced it overnight with a brief video confirmingthe return of Trials Of Osiris, a serious endgame 3v3 PvP mode. We don’t know much about the season but Bungie have saidFighting Lion is getting buffedso hell, I’m happy.
