With “Destiny 2” changes based on player input or sentiment around options, the future for both a developer’s vision and a player’s wants are uncertain as they continue to clash.
With my previous article, I highlighted a moment in which the design of a game and the desires of a player were in conflict and noted that I couldn’t comment on what was the correct choice. While I have a personal bias, I realized the only way to explore why it is that I had that bias comes from a situation in which I had more experience. So what did I do?
I found a game that I had more experience in.
“Destiny 2” is the live service first person shooter that Bungie works on after their work on “Halo,” moving into 11 years since the original release of “Destiny” and continuing to expand on the framework with consistent updates. With discussing the “Edge of Fate” expansion that is coming with an announcement on May 6th, I also wanted to look back at some of the ways that the Destiny 2 game was changed based on both developer vision and player desire, something that I can comment in a more in depth way than with “Apex Legends” as attempted yesterday.
This is going to manifest with the first instance that came to mind—the “Counterfeit” modifier. Added in late 2024 with Episode Revenant, this modifier was used in nightfalls and other activities in a collection of them introduced to make more dynamic difficulty. The concept of the modifier was rather simple—some ammo bricks or engrams would be fake, replaced by fast acting mines that would deal heavy arc damage to the excited Guardian foolish enough to pick it up. There were some levels of counterplay—the bricks could be shot to detonate them from a distance, and a gun that was aiming down sights could reveal if the brick was fake before the player went to retrieve it. The gameplay loop was fundamentally changed while the modifier was up, and if one tried to power through it they were in for quite a disadvantage. So what did people do?
They tried to power through it.
“The Counterfeit modifier is REALLY annoying” reads one Reddit post from October, likely made within the first week this modifier was known to the public. In it, the original poster and many commenters lament how difficult it makes the concept of melee builds and how unlikely they were to play strikes or nightfalls while the modifier was active. This was a main point echoed especially when the modifier was active for The Lightblade grandmaster nightfall, leaving almost no room for error and putting even more pressure on the players. This story ends rather abruptly, especially as a November patch that comes almost directly after the grandmaster week nerfed the effectiveness of Counterfeit majorly, reducing almost all of its values. Before going into some of the reactions, I’d like to insert my own personal experience as an active player with enough experience that I can truly discuss it.
Counterfeit was, in my group’s personal opinion, completely and totally fine. The experience was fun and oftentimes had us laughing, and even runs in which a lot of revive tokens were lost to it there was a sort of whimsy to the failures. Our team learned and adapted more, some of us adopting the common perk Shoot to Loot in order to get used to firing at bricks of ammo and avoiding getting close in any way. There was never a sense of severe annoyance in the endgame content or in the simple strikes or quests. When we didn’t notice it and got killed by it during the quest, we’d come to the realization and immediately adapt the best we could to avoid more pointless downs. In fact, I came to praise the modifier as actively being able to change the way I played situations that would normally simply be obvious or easy.
This wasn’t the most unpopular opinion after the changes. While a lot of players were positive towards the nerfs considering their frustration, content creator and streamer Datto made a video titled “How a fake ammo brick made me completely give up.”. In it, he echoes a lot of sadness in both how the player complaints were unfair as well as an exhaustion in how Bungie immediately responded to feedback and nerfed the modifier. His perspective is often viewed as a majorly elitist perspective, especially considering he owns it and refers to this angry persona as “Elitist Datto.” Even so, his voice on the matter is a way for me to present a powerful perspective to the discussion: A player who’s disconnected from the player desires with no influence on the developer’s actions.
We discussed this a little with the case of Apex Legends and Tap-Strafing, but I’d like to cover a baseline once again to further the discussion. In these cases of changes that the community dislikes, there’s often a situation in which the developer’s visions for their game are clashing with the player’s desires. Sometimes this community backlash is reasonable to the developers and they make a change that properly maintains their vision, but there are various examples such as Tap-Strafing and Counterfeit in which the only option is a compromise on the developer’s vision or a negative attitude from the community. The developers have the active control and final say, but their objective of satisfying the playerbase causes the developers to often acquiesce to demands such as with the case of Tap-Strafing. The result of this was the nerf of Counterfeit, but this solution isn’t satisfactory to all players. Even with significant community backlash, you’ll still have players such as Datto which wanted the original vision of the developers but are at the backseat of the collective community asking for a change. Even as a powerful influencer voice, his views on the issue are not the final say of what ends up as a resulting change.
What is the solution to situations like this? Well, the example of Counterfeit was something I can properly highlight and then provide possible solutions. As a player, I felt a major attachment to Datto’s perspective with the wish for this difficulty to stay as a strategically interesting modifier. The issue is that neither me nor Datto has the option to change this—not only are we not developers with explicit physical impact, but we’re outweighed by voices in the community that are with this change. It isn’t possible to decide solely as one person whether the original developer vision or the community inspired change is better, but the correct option is the opening of a proper, honest dialogue. Discussing in a community about the effects of their backlash or complaints and kindly debating on the path forwards players should take is the only way in which the objectively correct option can be reached.
This is why we are unable to accomplish this.
As much as I wanted to abruptly end the article here, I’ll provide at least the bare minimum explanation. A civil, polite discussion cannot and will not occur on the internet. Without the ability for good faith education and debate to occur surrounding a game, there will never be a correct decision in this category that is made through the correct methods. Instead, there is simply the hope that a community can come to a proper understanding or that developers can put their foot down rightfully in a difficult decision that results in what is truly best for the game.
It is times like these that I don’t really know how to move forwards, especially when case by case examples can have such different results that cause previous knowledge to sometimes become counterintuitive to debates. “Super Smash Bros. Melee” and its signature “wavedash” is a common example of a bug that is turned into a mechanic, but this one example has been used to perpetuate the reasonings for many other movement bugs that often harm the game more than help it. The difficulty of these discussions are far too high to advocate for, and in that way I echo the exhaustion that Datto does.
Perhaps one day in the future we’ll find a solution, but for now we can only hope.