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4/8/2025 6:07:06 AM
38
Game feels artificially difficult: tedious rather than challenging
Hi Bungie team,
I’ve been a longtime fan of Destiny — I played a lot of Destiny 1 and was very active in the early days of Destiny 2. After taking a break and recently returning with The Final Shape on the horizon, I was excited to jump back in. But honestly, my experience has been really frustrating.
I just finished attempting the Calus > Rhulk encounter for the 4th time, and I gave up. Not because it was too hard in terms of mechanics or challenge — but because it was tediously long. I almost had the boss down, and then got blasted off the edge. The whole process took ages, not because of skill, but just because everything is tanky and drawn out.
This type of difficulty doesn’t feel rewarding, it feels exhausting. It’s not fun.
I think the game should give us the option to increase difficulty for better rewards, not force everyone into longer, more punishing encounters. Making enemies spongey and dragging things out doesn’t test skill, it tests patience, and as a casual player, that’s not what I’m here for. I want to enjoy the game, make progress, and feel like I’m getting better, not annoyed and burned out.
Please consider smarter enemy design or optional difficulty tiers rather than just bloating health bars. Destiny has always been one of my favorite games for its feel and world, but this current experience is really ruining the fun for me.
Thanks for reading.
— A returning Guardian
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1 ReplyMost of Destiny's "difficulty" can be described as: endurance match with infinite adds, one-/two-shot snipers, and barely (if any) cover. It's designed to waste your time to keep those metrics up.
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The game is very stressful now for me and it’s even worse in a duo situation with coms. I can’t stand having to do chores while getting blasted in the face every two seconds by a seemingly endless supply of enemies and a timer that’s about to run out. That’s not fun, it’s ridiculous
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3 RepliesI just completed Unrealize for Barrow-Dyad. Literally not fun in the slightest. Between the endlessly spawning, hyper-accurate mooks with just as problematic death effects (Psions launching homing death blasts, shielded Acolytes becoming dogs, and Thralls leaving mines), the jumping "puzzle" with annoying ambushes and -blam!- you traps, and the bosses with mechanics you have to do while the hyper-accurate mooks [i]and[/i] boss shoot at you, it was yet another tedious experience in Destiny 2's list of tedious experiences. Between the three exotic quests I've done in the Episodes arc of Destiny 2, Unrealize was easily the worst because again, Bungie doesn't know or doesn't care how to make encounters that actually challenge the players. It just gets frustrating to die again and again and again in ways that feel cheap and unearned.
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1 ReplyFor Calus, stay on the platforms surrounding the arena, then use grapple hook to jump on top of the bubble when he casts it. From there you can cheese him and ennemies can’t hit you except a few snipers.
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5 RepliesEdited by amazing_month041: 4/10/2025 9:44:38 AM[quote]I think the game should give us the option to increase difficulty for better rewards, not force everyone into longer, more punishing encounters[/quote] Unfortunately Bungie doesn't like that idea like look at the Expert Court of Blades for example: the game mode challenging but there's no guaranteed adept after a platinum run Master Dungeons : these are challenging enough but pointless to run them for artifice armor because Frontier's armor changes and some of exotic aren't worth it like the bow from Spire or the sword from Duality
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3 RepliesFor the first time since Shattered Throne I haven’t bothered going solo flawless on the new dungeon, it’s tedious and boring as hell to solo, and this is coming from someone who actually enjoyed the Ghosts of the deep encounters. Everything in this game just feels like a chore now, I’m pretty sure they laid off the people in charge of making the game fun. Frontiers needs to be amazing, I haven’t played in weeks so if it’s crap I have no prob not coming back at all at this point. It’s been an interesting ten yrs but I have better things to do with my time.
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2 RepliesThey want you locked in 24/7 It's not a fun game, it's a chore and a strain on the mental health of people. Sometimes i wonder what the main qualification for applying for a position at Bungie would look like. Like to upset and damage people mentally - Check Figure out ways how to make people rage quit and if possible break several pieces of hardware that gamers can repurchase in Bungies soon to be launched web store - Check Sabotage net-code to increase frustration and player interaction and retention - Check Introduce errors that is easy to put the blame on players - Check Offer a non complete product regarding main game, dlc and fillers -Check You are hired!
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I agree, but I’d offer a slightly different take. A lot of the difficulty comes from Bungie overly complicated and obscure build system: between gear, artifact, sub classes… For basic activities a good gun and your super will suffice, but as you get into harder content you will need a solid. A solid build takes 3 things: 1. Damage 2. Survivability 3. Ability uptime And that’s where things fall apart in harder content, if you only bet on gun and armor stats you’re gonna get wiped every single time. You need survivability: restoration, overshield, frost armor… and you can’t rely on guns alone for DPS, you have to lean into abilities (beyond your super) to clear groups of ads or take down challenging enemies. I fully agree that Bungie’s way to increase difficulty sometimes makes no sense, and I hate it, but a lot of the content is still largely manageable with a solid build.
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1 ReplyOnly way bungie really knows how to increase difficulty is to do what they did with neomuna. I get it from a design standpoint you can't just let us steamroll through everything, at the same time we are undead warriors with God like powers so it would make sense we are but still. Problem is bunhie hasn't done anything really innovative in a while and I fear they won't Given how many less people are working on the game now and don't have as many creative minds
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2 Repliesevery declining franchise seems to always drive straight into tedious grind design to grab metrics for the cash shop - and they treat the players like an ant farm to throw everything at the wall and see what they will endure entertainment is not a goal for the maintenance team of declining franchises, just player manipulation via skinner box hamster wheels stretching the dopamine so thin that you constantly wonder why you keep playing
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Edited by Discovery: 4/8/2025 1:47:59 PMI concur. I have played since Destiny 1 the day it was released.I actually have given up a lot in Destiny now. I tried the organ activity twice but just gave up. Not so much about difficulty, but because you more or less have to check YouTubers on how to effectively finish any activity in D2. Finishing some simple story activites takes way too long and is overly complicated with time gates and time sinking mechanics. It is very inconsistent, some are way to short and really does not belong, and then some takes way to long and are way too time-consuming without reason and complicated. I have a full time job, and I just want to play to relax sometimes, half and hour here, an hour there, mostly on weekends. Previously, Destiny was a good game to do just that, quickly get into it and shoot awhile, getting some rewards. Nowadays it feels like I have to set half a day aside to play in order to get some progress. I dont' play so long, so mostly after playing, I don't feel rewarded. A game needs to lure in the player, it should be easy enough for players to start playing, and it should always come with rewards. Now the rewards are always 5 miles away, if at all, and four hours later. The game is filled with so much bloat (runes, potions, having to pick up daily quest etc.), that just takes time and is an annoyance. It is a space exploration shooter, you should not have to read a manual to get started.
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The difficulty system is 100% artificial. Think about it, everything in the game caps at or up to 25 below the enemy. In doing so, the incentive to level is is almost non-existent, especially when you account for fireteam boosters and the only activity that DOESN'T cap you below the enemy gives little to no reason to do it after a point (lost sectors). The rest of the "difficulty" comes from modifiers that further nerf us/ buff the enemy or heavily encourages if not force you to use loadouts you wouldn't use in any other activity. What they should do is if they won't let us benefit from our time, they should have no say in how easily we get the rewards. Let us start a GM with Heavyweight or other beneficial modifiers, even event modifiers at no reduction to scoring or rewards. It's only equally fair and logical.
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1 ReplyThe calus fight was a bit too much in my opinion for a story quest.
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After four days of play time trying to get to the fonts then wait for rng to give me the runes only to find I needed ‘path of damned ambition’ I was really really not happy! It’s now officially stupid.
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1 Reply100% on that I mean the game PVE should be challenging but after running multiple raids different raids and then you go in there and multiple loadouts are not working kind of BS. With the cheap stomp mechanics and knocking off the ledge. I gave that one quest up a while until I had some clanmatea helped me and we destroyed them within seconds still BS.
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1 ReplyEdited by Magiscene: 4/8/2025 11:54:57 AMYeah difficulty to bungie is a slog instead of fun these days. Like gms I’m having so much fun shooting this tanky target for 5 minutes. Like cmon that isn’t fun. Then on top of that loot is so stingy or bad the activity was not worth the run.
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19 RepliesIt's my opinion that this is all a calculated risk intended to push people onto Marathon. If true, it would illustrate the ethically challenged ethos of the team. Weighted drops, forced participation in non typical participation events by gamers.. not everyone is a PVP /PVE fan. Really a lot of bad decisions that increase login time and decrease QOL gaming experiences. I'm not saying they need to accommodate everyone and make things easy.. They dance on a slippery slope of ethical game developer practices..
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U gonna make a lot of 12 years old mad with this review /:)
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Pure laziness on their part, they make the game so linear all they can do to add challenge is bullet sponge. Enemies are always in front of you, reckoning proved not doing that alone makes it more challenging. Same spawn locations and same enemies, means you always know what and where and can never be surprised. Dumb ai. Throw a pulse grenade a few feet away from most enemies and they’ll walk into it for you. But because they make the end game so sweaty and now rely on the seasonal artifact, they have to add crap modifiers to try and slow us down. And that’s where the largest chunk of players sit, in the easy and mid tier content. So I fully believe the rumors from the former employee about them wanting the game to tank. Cause they weren’t always this inept.
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Been that way for a long time, as is the case with many games, devs only care about elite level players and streamers, and forget everyone else, its selfish, ignorant and pretty boring
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The maps are the issue, the way they use ordinary traversal as a point of difficulty like on dungeons and some exotic missions, nothing fun about it
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Just put on LoW and you’ll be alright
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4 RepliesEdited by Azaezel: 4/9/2025 6:42:18 PMWhat you wanna one shot the boss? Vanguard strikes are like that Actually i don't think you can even one shot any boss in this game
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3 RepliesEdited by Dooodley: 4/8/2025 7:17:06 PMBungie always adds this thing where we have to do something during an encounter - something completely unrelated to shooting stuff - and that's fine, not my personal cup of tea but I can deal with it. The issue is that they always milk it and make us do "the thing" 3-4 times during the same encounter. It's like they have this idea that if they dont drag out this one thing we're going to go offline. NO, we would go play something more fun IN DESTINY 2 instead. All it does to me personally is making me think "yeah it's going to be a while before I do that again". They really know how to take something fun and make it tedious.
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Well welcome to the party.
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8 Repliesi am truly sorry for saying this, but for those that find this game hard. play another game. this game is to easy imo, its the learning curve or the will to learn with lfgs thats the problem. People demand stuff handed to them for free,thats not how this game works. imo make the game harder.
