Things I Really Don’t Like in Destiny 2

This sounds like a stupid name for an article. If you look at my most-played lately, you’ll see that I’ve been playing Destiny 2. More than I’ve been playing Warframe. The only games I’ve played more of lately are Minecraft and Pokemon Go. But you can’t see Steam Stats for those. This article becomes even more weird when you realize I’ve completed content like the Leviathan raid and have a nice collection of exotics. I’ve spent a lot of time playing Destiny 2, yet somehow there’s something about this game that REALLY pisses me off. To the point that I want to stop playing forever.

Actually, it’s three things.

The jumping and parkour.

Firstly, I absolutely hate the jumping and platforming in Destiny 2. This might be because I’m playing as a Warlock with their weird armpit jetpack, I’m not sure. But I recall playing as a Titan wasn’t much better. Hunters have a neat little double jump, which I find a bit better… but not much. There’s room to correct for error only sometimes, and none at all when jumping upwards. Considering there is a lot of traversing long passageways with large, infinite drops below them in Destiny 2, this means you’re jumping around on the regular. Heck, many strikes and adventures REQUIRE you to do a bunch of parkour before taking you back to the fighting and shooting.

But to make things more awkward, I find that I tend to bounce off pretty much everything when I’m in midair. Okay, sure, if something explodes at my feet as I jump, I’ll be propelled away from it. That makes sense. But in Destiny 2, I can just nudge a ledge or some floating rocks in midair and find myself bounced all over the place. This happens with basic jumps too – I find myself being propelled far too far, considering all I did was bump into a ledge.

On top of that, you can so easily body-block each other. Allies have collision, meaning you can’t shoot through them and bump into them. And you can easily bump into someone mid-jump while running through annoyingly narrow passages, sending one of you spiraling to your doom.

Dying and Failing.

Okay, sure, no one likes dying in video games. I’m particularly bad about dying though. But dying in Destiny 2 feels particularly rough because you just sit there, dead as fuck, unable to actually do anything. If you wait long enough, you might be able to respawn, depending on the game mode. If you’re out in an open area, you can respawn after a few seconds, but have to run back to the area where the combat is happening.

But failure can be expensive. There are checkpoints in some strikes and raids and they’re not all in the same place. The Gauntlet in the Leviathan raid for example sets you right back to the start, even if you successfully get runners around the first two rings. And if you all die, you don’t get your ammo or anything back. There are flags you can place that do refill all your gear but the costs add up. Complete failure though sets you back a long way, especially as missions are quite long overall. The average strike seems to take about 10 minutes at least, which means more time to lose.

There are also more bullshit ways to die in Destiny 2. You can be hit directly by a rocket and be fine, but get clipped by a train or a piece of floating rock or whatever and instantly die. Even in games like the Borderlands series, most instant deaths tend to be things like falling into infinite pits, or purposefully sacrificing yourself to a god of guns or something.

The unpredictability of randoms and the inability to carry.

You can carry people through Destiny 2 content. Spectre proved that when he dragged five people through Leviathan for the first time. But we were five people all communicating heavily on microphones and four of us were in the same damn room. Normally, that communication doesn’t happen in the wild. So you are reliant on guesswork and hoping that your team mates can keep up with you. Or, worse, capable of helping you up.

And because there’s less players, there is a LOT more weight to be spread evenly between everyone. This is made worse because there doesn’t seem to be any real scaling to most of Destiny 2. Most things are scaled to be done by a fireteam of some sort. Only the most adept players are capable of genuinely solo-ing content and carrying.

On the flip side, in the Borderlands games, your instances scale to the number of people in the party – there are often less trash mobs and you need to do less damage to bosses when playing solo. Warframe’s similar, as various things – enemies and objectives – scale based on your squad. But in both games, outside of niche areas, you also don’t need to be stupidly powerful to be able to carry.

If it wasn’t for friends, I probably wouldn’t play at all.

What makes me continue to play Destiny 2 is that it’s fun to play with friends. Company makes pretty much every aspect of the game fun.  When I’m the only person fucking up a jump, it’s far more infuriating than when I’m not alone in these troubles. And Destiny 2 is so much easier when you can rely on your friends for help.