"Make updates based on constructive feedback," the publisher promises.
After completing Lightfall in Destiny 2I saw . Many things that ought to have been caught in the cracks do so. It seems that I wasn't the only one, since Bungie admitted several of these mistakes in an open letter published on a recent blog entry.
The main points of their remarks are as follows:
We've now collected a sizable quantity of data, and it's evident that we fell short of several of our objectives and had to make adjustments in response to helpful criticism. We want to make the system better for all players, even if the first set of Guardian Ranks has shown to be a very helpful guide for New Lights.
For informational purposes Newcomers are referred to as "New Lights." Given some of the basic redesigns of key systems, Bungie notes that they were able to generally strike a decent stride with the new player experience, but some design decisions let down sections of their user base. That is the general response from fans to the expansion (maybe with a bit more urgency from the community).
Bungie went on to detail their plans for future game improvements throughout the remainder of the blog post, so let's take a closer look.
What exactly is Bungie altering to improve Lightfall?
Here's a brief summary of the enormous blog post bible:
- Guardian Ranks (overall account levels) are being revamped with “shortcuts” to avoid more grinding (which is classic Destiny, to do it after the fact)
- Commendations are being reworked to allow more time to celebrate teammates while making the process less laborious to rank up using commendations
- Enemy scaling is being changed: “While we feel incoming damage to players is in a great spot in Legend and Master activities, non-boss units had a bit too much health and could feel more like bullet sponges than we’d liked. We’ve made some changes to balance things out, starting with these tuning updates that went live on March 30:”
- Heist Battlegrounds are being tweaked to lower the difficulty due to fan feedback, as well as some Noemuna (the new core area) patrol activities
- The Terminal Overload area will be a bit more lively with more matchmaking capabilities
- “Legend and Master Lost Sectors will feel very approachable for regular players” going forward
- Exotic drop rates have been increased in several areas of the game (Legend and Master Lost Sectors, as well as the Vex Strike Force event)
Future adjustments will also be made to buildcrafting (armor modifications), refunds for artifact perks, and a better, busier seasonal schedule. That makes a lot of fixes!
Although it would be good to see Bungie succeed more often on the first try, something must be working as they are still in business.