Season of the Seraph is by far the best season this year that’s met with significant changes such as a far more accessible red boarder grind, immaculate new Dungeon (even if I’m not too fond of the Tex Mechanica aesthetics), amazing story regarding the rebirth of Rasputin which touches on one of the best lore in Destiny, core gameplay loop that’s actually lengthy and rewarding with an Exotic mission in getting upgrade parts for the crafted version of Revision Zero (a PVP monstrosity by the way) which also changes in appearance – we need this to be a thing across the board – not to mention the best secret in Destiny, ever, is present currently. There’s far too much to love to stop me from grinding, and in fact this season has me grinding more than any other season this year. It’s absolutely great, but with all this positivity, Bungie seem to be incapable of escaping itself.
Gated Elements and Broken PvP
Bungie’s method in keeping players retention is gating its seasonal vendors progress, which always ties to its core gameplay loop on a weekly rotation. Progress is intended to feel as if the live service is moving in real-time with us, which I’m all for, but there needs to be a better way in progressing for those that’s trying to prepare for Grandmaster/Master content. There’s simply not enough content to justify waiting a whole week after just spending an hour or two on whatever new story element is available – and all year the story content persist of just rehashed mission beat and new dialogue via comms. Sometimes we’ll get a conversation happening in the H.E.L.M. but we’re all 3rd party viewers with no real interaction. We’re witnessing the story rather than engaging.
Bungie needs to revamp its philosophy, while maintaining their methods – that means we would need to have our characters engage in such a way that makes the weekly story content feel tangible; visiting Felwinter’s Peak and not being able to enter the Iron Temple because the writers forgot that we’re Iron Lord’s felt….lazy – remember Rise of Iron? It’s time Bungie double the effort in creating a far more unique story beat on a weekly basis that doesn’t involve repetition – that creates monotony and ultimately burnout, and the last thing we need is people resenting what I find to be one of the best games of our time.
It doesn’t help much that the real endgame grind is neglected entirely, well feels like it at least – Crucible is the one mode that keeps the game alive, believe it or not. When majority of the player base gets frustrated in attempting to gather a team to run a raid for the first time, and that side of the elitist community gates newcomers, Crucible is the only real choice, but how would that be effective when not only is the mode infested with cheaters and network manipulation, but SBMM matches you with players that’s higher in KD because of major lag and poor matchmaking; I’m relatively good in PvP, top 14% of players, but I’m consistently matched with the top 0.6% players that possesses otherworldly map awareness, impeccable aim and atrocious lag. Not to mention, with the introduction of Subclass 3.0, it’s been absolutely beneficial to the overal quality of PvE while remaining to be a nightmare for PvP; with ability spamming reaching ungodly levels, this rampant behavior makes the game feel cheap to play. It’s an entirely miserable experience for all players.
Thankfully Bungie has a track record in upkeeping their game and listening to the community so there’s little doubt that they’re not working on improvements – at the very least there’s no 3-6 months content drought and lack of communication, those days seem to be behind us.
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