We, as a passionate Destiny community, have been waiting for Bungie to fix Destiny 2. What I mean by fix is to completely revamp the experience and give people a reason to play again. With one piece of DLC behind us, Destiny 2’s Warmind DLC is right around the corner. The live-stream showing off a lot of the content that would make it into this DLC got uncovered yesterday and BOY OH BOY do I have some choice words.
If you caught the live-stream revealing details on Warmind you will already know that there are mixed reactions to almost every element they talked about. Let’s go through most of these elements and ruin our day in the process.
Mars is NOT “New”
Bungie always told us that we would get new planets with new locations that would excite us while introducing new ways to play and experience levels. They said we were going to a new location with the Warmind DLC and they tricked us once again. Saying “we are going back to Mars” kind of takes the “new” word and twists it against the community. Yes, technically the location will be new with a new environment and level design but we are going back to something that already existed in the first Destiny. You can go ahead and tell me that the planet doesn’t matter but it actually really does. There are so many other places that could be explored and introduced. Bring us something brand new.
The New Enemy is… The Hive… on Ice…
How unexciting is it to reveal that the Hive is returning and the only difference is that they are enemy icicles? Why can’t we have a new faction with new abilities to try and figure out? I think that Bungie is holding out some new content for something bigger down the line (that we need to pay for outside of the season pass) but they needed to do something now. We have seen these enemies before. Recycling enemy types is getting old.
Horde Mode is House of Wolves All Over Again
I really do enjoy wave-based gameplay especially in games like Gears of War. It was so much fun to play those type of experiences for the first time. Warmind’s introduction of a wave-based mode with bosses cycling in-and-out weekly takes the House of Wolves DLC from the original Destiny and juices it up a bit. Sure there is going to be some new elements to these waves but it is basically the same idea. The spongy enemies get spongier and we take longer to kill them.
Reworking Exotic Weapons is Great for the Hardcore
Exotic weapons were always a problem from the get go in Destiny 2. So many bugs and so many ditched weapons that people didn’t use because they were not even close to as powerful as others. The reworking of exotic weapons for Warmind should allow Destiny 2’s hardcore fanbase to use an assortment of weapons in PvP instead of sticking to the same types of weapons constantly. This doesn’t really pertain to the casual PvE player as much but at least it is something to look forward to in terms of variety.
Rise of Iron Returns
They introduced a new “hammer” during the live-stream. The hammer now has a ranged attack. It is a reskinned hammer from Rise of Iron. Recycling once again. Enough said.
End-Game Weapon Grind is Engaging
Bungie is finally giving hardcore community members something to keep them interested when all is said and done. Specific weapons will take effort to achieve ensuring that only the hard working players attain them. Sure casual players will be upset at this but you deserve to be rewarded for your hard work and dedication.
Leviathan… Again…
I am all for a good raid environment but I am getting sick and tired of returning to Leviathan. The last raid lair gave us nothing but a couple weapons. It actually was a waste of time to be honest. I do not feel that this raid lair will be any different unless they give us a reason to come back to it over and over again. Once again I feel like they are saving a different raid location for a paid expansion outside of the season pass.
Prestige Mode Activated
I totally agree with adding a Prestige mechanic into the PvP. Much like Call of Duty you can see when a player has reached full rank and gone prestige by their icon/emblem. This should have been implemented from the start. Players in PvP can now show off how much they have been playing and be rewarded for how well they are playing. Players who do well get rewarded while players who continue to not do well get penalized (not in too harsh ways).
Green Emotes “Suck”
During the live-stream some of the developers made fun of their own green emotes and laughed about needing “better” emotes because the color wheel, which is new, showed all green ones. Why would you even have colored emotes to show tiers? Aren’t emotes fun for the player? You seem to be wasting an animators time by telling people that their hard work on a green emote is laughable. This was a hard moment to watch during the stream.
Overall, Warmind looks to continue the Destiny 2 trend of doing very minimal while trying to say they did a lot. Of course Warmind was in development before the community was constantly freaking out over how much worse Destiny 2 was in comparison to the original Destiny but Bungie has the resources to make things right. There is no longer an excuse. Am I going to play Warmind? Of course I am. Am I happy about the changes? Not really.
What do you think?
