Destiny 2
There’s been a lot of talk about Destiny 2 and Bungie’s priorities as of late, as we are now in The Bad Place when it comes to player sentiment. It’s not an unfamiliar spot for Destiny, though this time around feels especially tinged with rage and despair.
Above all else, it feels like the reveal of Marathon has broken many Destiny PvP players specifically, now that we know precisely what Destiny 2’s absent PvP team has been working on the last few years instead of Destiny, and where most future PvP investment is likely to go.
As I’ve said many times, I think Destiny’s PvE side has been scaled up significantly and quite well over the last few years. Seasonal content is bigger than anything we’ve seen since the Activision support studio days, and I’d argue it’s probably gotten bigger than even that, maybe short of Menagerie itself. We’re getting two dungeons and two raids a year. It’s a lot on that end of the game.
PvP is…a lot of balance patches. It’s a few new game modes. It’s changing how Iron Banner rep works. How many losses Trials cards forgive. Changing matchmaking settings. But almost no physical content is being produced for this side of the game, which still boasts hundreds of thousands of players daily, and at any given time, is what 30-40% of the entire playerbase is doing.
Destiny 2
The same goes for Gambit which quite literally only gets the occasional balance pass, and nothing else, despite its inclusion as a “core pillar” of ritual activities.
What investment in these modes comes down to is maps. You can make all the balance patches and reskin all the guns you want as rewards and you still need to fundamentally add more actual content to these modes.
PvP went literally years without a single new map, and during The Collapse (Beyond Light sunsetting) it lost loads of existing maps. Now, the pace has increased to a single new PvP map a year (and last year’s was not good), two unvaulted maps and one re-done Destiny 1 map. That’s the whole year. Gambit, of course, gets nothing, the skeleton at the bottom of the lake.
The PvP side of Destiny needs staffing up, that much is clear, but I’d argue that some of the resources being slathered over the PvE side of the game may be better spent on PvP or Gambit stuff. For instance, does this season need Salvage…at all? I’d argue it doesn’t. Not that it’s a 1:1 replacement to cut Salvage and add a new PvP map, as that is not how development works, but you get the idea.
Part of this problem is obvious. While Bungie can sell seasons full of PvE content for $10 (sorry $12, or $15) or dungeon packs for $20, they cannot sell PvP or Gambit maps in the same way. PvP content in Destiny is part of its (very limited) free-to-play portion. Gambit too. You can’t make map packs in this day and age anymore because it splinters the playerbase and Destiny already has enough playlist population issues. So this is making stuff you just can’t sell.
To that I say, tough. It still needs to happen.
If you are going to pitch Destiny as a free-to-play game, you need to make dedicated, new free content on a regular basis. If you’re not making old expansions or new dungeons free, you need to do it in other ways. And past that, you need to invest in this stuff to just…show you care? Show that no, Bungie has not abandoned the PvP side of the game and is not content with a single new map a year. Acknowledge Gambit exists and add more than the negative two maps it’s gotten in the last few years.
It’s the maps, it’s all about the maps. Make more maps and morale improves and the game feels healthier.
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