Welcome back to another Jaggy's Corner where I discuss various video game topics. Today I'm finally going to get some things off my chest. Yes, it's going to be a rant, and I didn't want to do it, but here we are.
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Brace yourselves, I'm going to rant hard about Destiny 2 right now and you should know that THIS IS A LONG POST.
A couple of years back I scored myself a copy of a wonderful game known as Destiny 2. At the time, I played through the story, completed strikes, and found myself being hooked. The game showed me beautiful scenery, a couple of awesome NPCs, and the power of its community. I worked through as much content as I was capable of, and found myself really interested in gambit - a PvEvP mode.
Destiny 2 has since brought me a great group of friends that have better skills than I do. And for the most part, the game has been awesome. However, lately, it has brought me significantly less joy. Season of the Worthy, in my opinion, has been the absolute worst season. And I'm not saying this because I am the only one that thinks it's bad, other people I've talked to or others who have posted articles or Tweets have struggled with something this season.
So here is a very short list of issues I've had and I'll elaborate on each one for the rest of this piece.
Season of the Beaver
Cheaters/Hackers + Other Players Impressions
The Bunkers
Other Issues
Again, be warned, this is long.
We are the Beaver
We are in Season of the Worthy but in reality it is truly Season of the Beaver. This is an issue that has become infinitely more prevalent during this season than any other to date and the Beaver error is one of several errors of different types that players can encounter. While some players have had their games crash, others have been shunted back to orbit causing a loss of progress in an activity. I was kicked from three matches of Gambit earlier in the season and I received a temporary half hour ban for something that was not my fault. Also, imagine being kicked out of any competitive match because someone ranked up their season pass. What if a person was going for solo flawless pit of heresy or running through Shattered Throne only to be Beavered? You get the idea. The Beaver screwed you. No pun intended... (That's a lie...)
The best part is, Beavers are rampant in all areas of the game, be that in PvE or PvP activities. But don't worry, it gets better. Some friends and I entered Iron Banner. Of the four of us, three players were constantly kicked out of the match (in rapid succession I might add.) This occurred to those on the opposing team as well. About two or three minutes in, the match consisted of me in the fireteam I was running with and two guys on the other. Some of my friends were finally able to connect for a few moments to see that we were winning. Rejoice! But, one person was the odd one out. When he reconnected, he ended up on the opposing team! (I will add that it was my other half who ended up there. Even though we were in the same fireteam, something screwed up and he ended up winning the match for the other guys.) Now, this issue was unique in that it wasn't a Beaver error code or an Anteater or anything, it was a Steam issue. After the painful loss, my friends and I had to restart our Steam launcher before entering Banner again...
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| Season of the Worthy |
Cheaters/Hackers and the Playerbase
So, as I said before, I play alongside gamers who are way better at shooters. Some of them have simply played Destiny 2 longer while others play competitive PvP in other games. And throughout this season, I've heard about the rampant cheating / hacking that plagues the PvP sphere. Mostly this is related to Crucible or Iron Banner and lately with Trials, but still, the amount seems to be higher than usual. In fact, I'd argue that the increase in hacks and cheats stems from Destiny 2 being on Steam but I'm not going to delve into that right now.
The thing is, the players that I know are actually good PvPers but they feel like hot garbage because of cheats or match manipulation. I'd also like to add that the people I know aren't looking to be competitive gods, but when several people have stopped playing the game because of how shitty this season has been, I find myself less inclined to play. I don't even PvP much and I'm really tired of seeing / hearing how upset players are. This has led me to stop wanting to play.
Now, Bungie has been cracking down on cheaters in the game. They have even made it a point to disable the artifact level boost in Trials and Banner, but I am wondering how effective they are at curbing the cheaters especially since there is very little restriction or proper rating to balance the scales. There isn't any region lock which is frustrating when matched against players from the other side of the world who have horrible levels of ping. Frankly, I think letting new light players have boosted gear to the current Light level was a bit of a misstep on Bungie's part. Couple that with the fact that Bungie has to work through Steam's massive access to a player base has made Destiny 2 easy pickings for the spineless cheaters out there. Balancing everything has likely been a pain in the ass, though, that is merely speculation on my part.
I already suck at shooters and I don't need to go into modes that are rampant with issues just because weapons or armor sets might be shinier. Until the game has a more level and fair playing field for scrubs like me, I'm still going to avoid most PvP modes. For now, I will stick to gambit which is much less frustrating.
Here's a clip of a gambit match I was in. It's the closest to losing I've been in a match and you hear my voice when we won.
The Bunkers and Seraph Tower Events
I'll say it, this is the least engaging content I've ever experienced regarding PvE content. I'm sorry, but I had much more fun playing through the Vex Offensive and the Sundial. I even had fun getting lost in the Corridors of Time which was a special community puzzle that took weeks to decode. Plus, the story from the last two seasons was way more interesting to me because it was the first time where we encountered Barrier, Overload, and Unstoppable Champions. To defeat them, players needed to rank up their artifact so that they could modify the weapons they were allowed on. Since this was a new mechanic, along with the seasonal artifact, Destiny 2 was exciting.
Leading up to this season, we were shown a video outlining that our world was in trouble. We needed to do whatever we could to defend against it. We are Guardians after all! Anyways, we were able to see the integral roles that Zavala and Ana Bray (voiced by the awesome Erika Ishii) play. Guardians were given a strong sense of urgency. But then you actually play it, and it sucks. Yes I know. The world is about to be hit with certain doom and I've never cared less than I have with this current series of events.
Why you might ask? Well for one thing, I've never lagged so hard during a public event in my life - even when I had a terrible graphics card. This isn't some minor manageable lag either, the game would actually lag hard enough to show me an EPIC SLIDESHOW. Never in the history of Destiny 2 has my game had such a struggle during a PUBLIC EVENT. It's so bad that no matter which computer I've played on (mine or my boyfriends), I can't do much. I'm left to afk and die, feeling like it was a waste of time. Yeah.. Thanks for that. Even more perplexing is the fact that when the season first began, I was able to participate in the public event without issue, so I don't know.
As for the bunker itself, I find the daily clear of it angering. I believe it is because the weapons we're given to take down the special enemies are weak as shit. But what's more infuriating to me is how do they keep getting into the bunker?! Are they using some kind of portal or breaking the threads of time again? Come on...
Anyways, I know that Destiny 2 is a grind and I get that content needs to feel worthwhile but even with 1000 LL, I am murdered quickly. Light Level, it seems, is just a number...
I used to have confidence in this game but I've never felt more deflated than I have in this whole season. See, in Season of the Dawn I achieved my first 'real' title (outside of Wayfarer). I worked my butt off to get the +20 artifact level. I managed to get the gambit and crucible weapons, with a little help and some confidence-boosting from my friends. I felt GOOD about myself at the end of the season. Yet, Season of the Worthy has really kicked me back to kindergarten and it pisses me off. I've spent so much time learning, practicing, and improving my skills to end up in a corner where not only am I not having fun, but neither are my friends. Considering that this is the only shooter I play, Destiny 2 is in a bad place right now.
As for the bunkers and tower events, I honestly could care less about them. I get more enjoyment out of strikes or gambit or even the odd stint of Iron Banner than I do with the PvE content. Considering I'm a predominantly PvE player, the fact that I would rather do PvP-lite modes is not a place I expected to be in at this point of the game.
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SeraphBunkerEDZ |
Other Issues
At one point in Destiny 2, I did feel like I was skillful enough to do some raids or help teach new light players a thing or two. But there are several events that I can't run without dying 50+ times. I'm a player that has a 1000 Light Level and can't run someone through Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy because I can barely do it myself. I'm a player that runs strikes and somehow gets picked off by an add from across the map in ONE SHOT. It makes me wonder, how did Destiny 2 go from a game I loved to something that I'm sick of? I - a player who started in Destiny 2 at Forsaken - have progressed from a decent level player to a terrible one; it's as though my playtime has not mattered.
The best character in the game is already dead. The lore is scattered in weird places that are so disconnected to a point that most people don't realize the how much lore is in the Destiny universe. And as a writer, it bugs me to no end that one of the most interesting pieces of lore was given to us by Saint-14 in the Corridors of Time event which will never be experienced by new players. There isn't even a recap video that they can go and watch to see what happened.
I will briefly talk about the mostly useless character stats too. I used to stack resilience, but no matter how much resilience I had, I would get one shot by trash mobs. It's like hunter shields don't matter. And let's also remember that we are no longer invulnerable to attacks for the two seconds we can dodge. Am I just doing hunters wrong? Do I have to maintain only one spec to effectively play this game? ARGH!
What the heck happened?
Final Thoughts
There are so many other things I could talk about but the sum of this whole post is: this season has been the worst ever. Even the PvP players have been really annoyed with the game as of late and I can't really blame them.
I've stuck with Destiny 2 and with Bungie because I believe that the game will improve, but right now my hopes aren't high. Sorry Bungie, but that's just the way I feel. Today, I can't love the game like normal because I haven't really felt like I've been able to achieve anything. And I'll be surprised if I manage to max out the bunkers before the end of the season...
Until next time peeps.
Article by: Susan N.
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