I’ve spent more than what I believe is enough time with Destiny to fully understand the game. As solid as the game is, there is always room for improvement. In this opinion piece, I have put together a few small ideas that Bungie should take into consideration when updating the game.
BUYING UPGRADE MATERIALS FROM A RETAILER
Planet specific upgrade materials can be a punish to farm at times. Some upgrades stand out in their environment more than others, which generally creates a large sum of them tied to your account as opposed to the less visible ones.
Besides, a lot of people don’t have the time to tediously farm for upgrade materials with their scarce gaming time offered to them throughout the week. What I suggest is a purchasing system. You can already submit a quantity of 50 upgrade materials for an item to the Vanguard Quartermaster.
What if you could do the opposite? Offer a retailer a rarer commodity such as a strange coin or mote of light for an amount of a specific material you require. It would be up to Bungie of course to fine tune the exact details. It would be an amazing idea for those people who cannot commit their small gaming hours to farming. Who knows perhaps even rarer upgrade materials could become available at a larger cost.
AUTOMATIC FIRE TEAM COMMUNICATION
No doubt people have entered one of the various strikes only to be connected with two other comrades to have no communication between the three of you. Once you have run through enough strikes, you get the idea of what to do but whilst you are working out all the kinks and cogs of a new strike, it can become very frustrating.
Why not add a feature that connects microphone chatter to that select fire team? When a PSN/XBL friend joins your Fire team it links your chat automatically. If you are not already attached to a chat party outside of Destiny that is. A simple feature which could save time and heartache. This also ties in perfectly too my next point.
MATCHMAKING FOR LARGER EVENTS
Destiny is an online game to be played with your mates, no doubt about it. Unfortunately though as life has it you and your friends can’t always align your schedules to get into some solid gaming time. Especially if they aren’t on the same level as you.
Each and every week, Destiny updates it’s Weekly Strike and Nightfall Strike routine, along with resetting your progression on the Vault of Glass. So no doubt everyone is going to be trying to jump onto these and get them out of the way as soon as possible. There have been dedicated Facebook feeds, webpages and probably Reddit threads. Why can’t Bungie take the extra work out of it and create a feature where you automatically connect with other users waiting to complete the Vault of Glass or jump in on their progression if someone by chance leaves. Just like the Strike matchmaking system.
MAKE PUBLIC EVENTS MORE PUBLIC
Oh so many times have I by chance stumbled upon a Public Event during my random wanderings only to have no chance of completing it without the aid of another Destiny player. Particularly the ones that require the work of two or more users as it generally decreases the difficulty.
I understand that these are supposed to be random chance encounter events but what if Destiny tried it a different way. Maybe if they were to try a sort of countdown to the event. Not excessively to publicise it but if you are on a planet, why not a have a small timer going as to when the event MAY land (It could be a dummy timer after all) and once landed a waypoint leading to the event but of course you would have to make it within a time limit.
A simple design, yet totally opposite to what it currently is. I would love to see the activity in event participation with this system as opposed to the original design.
EXOTIC ITEMS
Currently you may only equip two items of the Exotic nature, one armour piece and one weapon. Eventually as the level cap rises (which it is rumoured to being with the first DLC drop), people are going to need more. Currently the level cap is at 30. I wouldn’t be surprised if the DLC ups the anti to level 32 or maybe even 35.
If the level caps are going to rise, obviously the challenges in game are going to rise with it. With this the need for more powerful weaponry to compete against these challenges. Sure, Bungie could simply patch some items to make them stronger but what is the fun in that? Why not introduce a new class of items all together to have people clambering all over one another to become the best guardian they could be. At the very least allow those people to equip all exotic items as each items unique perk may be the difference in buff between that of a level 30 now and a level 32 or 35 what ever it ends up being.
There you have it, a few small design changes that I believe would make Destiny a more streamlined and enjoyable experience. What are your thoughts? Do you agree with these ideas? Do you have your own? I would love to hear them in the comments below.