Destiny and the danger of overcorrection

My experiences with racing games may not have made me a better driver, but they have taught me one valuable lesson. You have to be very careful when you start skidding out of control, because more often than not whatever you do will make the situation worse. Yanking the steering wheel the other direction will usually result in meeting a wall or tree up close. The rare times you do save yourself it is by using a gentle touch. Unfortunately for Bungie, royalty are rarely known for subtle, gentle manoeuvring, and so it is that their “Queen’s Wrath” events see the Queen of the Reef yanking the wheel of the out of control loot truck like a drunk playing Daytona.

Destiny’s loot problems are well documented, from the disappointment of legendary engrams becoming uncommon items to the sheer volume of grinding needed to afford even one item from the top end vendors (such is the infamy of the legendary engram that a great parody twitter account has over 20,000 followers). Despite this many Destiny players are dedicated enough to find the best spots for loot drops and farm for hours on end in the hopes of picking up better gear. Players have repeated the same few Strike missions over and over and farmed bounties for dozens of hours trying to afford one or two pieces of Legendary gear, that of which Bungie is now giving away for merely completing the “Queen’s Wrath” missions.

Let’s ignore that “Queen’s Wrath” features no new content; it just adds some new bounties of varying degrees of difficulty and reuses story missions with the difficulty ramped up and some modifiers added. Bungie are providing access to legendary gear in hours. Gear that before took dozens of hours of play to afford. Last night I boosted three levels with the acquisition of two legendary items from the Queen’s missions. To afford the equivalent of these items from vendors I would be looking at 20-30 multiplayer matches, hours of farming bounties and more runs through strikes or world events than I care to think about. I’m ecstatic; I don’t have the time to grind through Destiny but am enjoying the combat and want to be more than a passenger for high level strikes, events and raids, but I can see how those who invested 50+ hours into Destiny over the first two weeks levelling themselves up would be upset. It will also make returning to the long grind unbearable for me, having been exposed to scoring two legendaries a night there is no way I’m going to grind 10 hours to get another.

Bungie needs to tread carefully with Destiny. These generous events might be a way to encourage players to level up and experience their end game content, they could be looking to inspire players to work together (I know I wouldn’t have finished the missions last night without help, but a higher level character with the right weapons would be able to solo these missions). They can’t risk alienating those who have been most dedicated to their game so far. It will be fascinating to see where Destiny goes and we’ll see if Bungie can correct out of this skid, or will they end up inspecting a wreck, wondering where it all went wrong.