It seems like you’re trying various things under the banner of “a challenging Destiny 2,” but what was added in the Echoes episode is the worst.
I want to engage with repeatable content, but being forced to rebuild tonics pulls me away from the content, draining my motivation. The newly added combat conditions aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re filled with harassment toward players, making the experience unpleasant and sapping my desire to keep playing for rewards.
By the way, the inverted Spire is the pinnacle of frustration and annoyance. If you think this is challenging, worthwhile content, I believe you’re misunderstanding the meaning of “challenge.” Your idea of challenge feels more like forcing discomfort onto players.
What you should be focusing on right now is creating content that players want to replay around ten times and pairing it with attractive rewards that tie into that experience.
-
Agreed with this take. I play Roguelikes quite a lot and all of those do have their challenge with some cheap enemies or mechanics, but they are at least still fun and have far more build synergy than what D2 has had in a long time. This game is built around teams for the most part and yet they seem to just want to say no to team built setups. One example of this was way back during Forsaken and such, Well and Bubble's buffs did not stack. That feels kind of dumb considering even though Bubble gave a higher damage buff, Well was the better option at the time since you didn't have to walk into it, then back out so you could damage them without shooting the bubble. Another example is stuff like Divinity and Tether not working together as that is a supportive setup that lowers that player's damage while buffing others like crazy. The fact the two buffs don't stack to a 45% (Tether being a 30% and Div being a 15%) or even a lower 34.5% is still dumb. Then there are the modifiers Bungie has released as of late. Counterfeit is just stupid as there is no reason for those ammo bombs as the players is already focused on trying to survive the mass hoard of enemies they throw out. Haste just makes things like Inverted Spire's new capture plates terrible as you have to stay in the area, but running around in such small areas with enemies that have massive AoE damage just makes a player wonder if Bungie is trying to lose their players at this point.