Three Lingering Questions About the Fundamental Approach to Destiny 2

On May 18 Bungie debuted its sequel to its successful, popular title Destiny in the form of Destiny 2. Being a major Destiny fan and with it the game I have spent the most time on since my Call of Duty days, I was extremely excited to see what they had in store for us. I was very happy with the results. Bungie has taken a fundamental approach to rebuilding the game from the ground up, and it shows.

The gameplay, the nav, the textures, and more all look really good. However with this focus on the fundamental, a few questions came to mind about systems that they could be rebuild.

How Will Loot Work?

Now, I assume that Destiny 2’s loot system will work similarly to Destiny’s system. My question stems more on what improvements have been made to it.

Is the loot system going to be smarter and more rewarding? I would hope so. I hated being first in the crucible and getting a shader, or sometimes nothing at all while other people got good, if not great rewards. I’m not saying that someone who performs poorly in a match should be penalized, but more that if you do play well, you should be rewarded accordingly.

And how will the loot work as strike/nightfall/raid rewards? There has to be a better system than everything just being random. Your rewards should not be based on randomness, or some sort of RNG luck.

I like that Bungie tried to improve this system with the Vosik raid, giving specific guaranteed rewards for certain bosses and adding a treasure chest system. While that is a good step, there’s something about it that still feels unsettling.

Sure, it’s nice to know what you are potentially going to get. But there has to be a way to improve that. There’s something about it that is not completely satisfying.

I hope that Bungie can find the balance between loot rewards as randomness and specific items. Something that will be equally as satisfying as the original three raids and contain the lack of frustration that comes from Vosik rewards.

Exotic Items

Speaking of finding a balance, how are exotics going to work in Destiny 2?

I’m pretty confident that three of coins is going to be dead and gone. What sort of system will replace it?

I am hoping that Bungie can find a balance between the many guaranteed and/or easier ways to get exotics at the end of Destiny’s life cycle, and the stringent, random, and difficult ways to get them from early on.

I like the idea of having raid only exotics. That just makes sense to me. You’ve just completed the most difficult task in this game, so you should be rewarded for it.

Besides that, however, I hope that exotics become more “exotic.” By that I mean let’s make them more difficult to get. I know this will shun some casual players away, but if exotics are supposed to be some of the best weapons in the game, you should have to really work for them.

I hope that exotic quests return, and that they are fun and rewarding. Personally, I loathed the “go kill so many enemies with x weapon in x way” quests. It’s just boring. Send me on a special mission. Make me learn the backstory and lore of this weapon. I want to know why this weapon is important and really feel like I earned it.

With the new addition of adventures and lost sectors, I hope that these too come with exotic, if not legendary loot that you can ONLY get from doing this. In the same way that there should be raid specific exotics, there should be these hidden gems of armor and weapons in the world that we have to discover.

Think about how awesome that would be. You discover a lost sector with a hidden boss that no one has been to yet. You defeat this creature and you get an exotic weapon that no one else has. The only way other people can get it is by doing the same thing.

Destiny 2 is trying to embrace it’s ‘rpgness.’ What better way to do that than by having special loot in the world that you can get in a specific way?

Vault

We’re all used to having a lot of special loot. We are also all used to running out of space to keep said loot.

Come on Bungie, don’t mess this up. Give us a MASSIVE vault. I mean, a vault bigger than anything we’ve had before. Let us collect as many guns and weapons as we possibly can. We need it. I’m not even a collector, but I want as much space as possible to keep everything I want.

I hated having to shard loot that I would have kept otherwise because I had no space. You have a game that emphasizes loot as a selling point. Make it so that we can keep all the loot we want. It only makes sense.

Not only do we need vault space, but we need the vault to be upgraded immensely. I’m talking much better sorting options and capabilities.

Sorting by class, armor type, weapon type, rarity, newness, the list can go on and on. We require these options to keep our vault neat and tidy, giving us a much better idea of what we have.

I really disliked the disorganization of the original vault, and I’m hoping with it being blown to smithereens, the new vault will bring a much needed upgrade.

These are a few lingering Destiny 2 questions I had on my mind, and I’m sure you will have some on yours, too. If there’s any other questions you had about Destiny 2, feel free to comment below. Hit me up on Twitter: @BrandonDNH.

The more we talk about this stuff, the more likely Bungie is to take notice.