This is an opinion piece as an active Destiny 2 player following yesterdays This Week At Bungie. In my, and many other players view Bungie makes a bad call in monetizing a QOL update For Destiny 2: Lightfall. Let me explain in more detail.
Going back to almost every expansion Bungie has dropped for Destiny 2, there’s one aspect of progression which has annoyed players. Namely, you beat the campaign on your main character, but the game makes you play the entire campaign again on your alt characters if you have all three classes, which most players do have. For years now, players have been asking for a way to skip the campaign on your alts. This is because you’ve already just played through it, and having alt characters is more about getting them to the end game quickly. Therefore you have more chances at end game drops of new content.
I think the worst offender for this was Destiny 2: Beyond Light. That expansion made you spend literally hours upon hours grinding out the new subclass (Stasis) they introduced on all three characters. Unless you have no job, a ton of free time, or your job is literally playing Destiny, it’s a huge time sink which adds almost no value to the player. Instead it always felt like it was Bungie’s way of time gating you and getting campaign numbers up.
Great QOL – Bad Implementation
That takes us to yesterdays TWAB as said above. In it Bungie told players that they were introducing a new character boost option for alts. They are finally allowing players to skip the campaign and get straight to the end game as long as you complete the campaign once on a main character. Great, finally.
Except, Bungie are also making this a paid character boost for in game silver.
‘Starting with Lightfall, we’re changing how paid Character Boosts work. Specifically, we’re introducing a new type of Character Boost that includes a campaign skip.’
So far we have no idea how much this will cost? However the previous character boost (which was completely pointless) was priced…highly. So why would this be any different? To be frank though, even if it cost 1 buck I would still think it too much. I mean, this is something the player base has wanted for around 5 years now. Bungie finally deliver it, and then ask their players to pay for this skip. That’s after just dropping however much they spent on the Lightfall expansion.
I pre-ordered the deluxe edition of the expansion which also gives me the full years’ worth of seasons also. Just to point out, that’s over £70 in UK money and closer to $100. Then 3 days later after you finish the campaign on your main they want us to pay more for the pleasure of skipping playing forced content. What’s next, skip the raid, get the rewards for money?
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This is in my opinion poor customer service, poor practice and ignorance of the community. As an active member of the Destiny subreddit and online forums I can tell you this change hasn’t gone down well. Most of the players I’ve seen comment have said this is something they would absolutely use to save precious time IF it was free. However very few players are willing to pay for it. There will be some that will pay, and that’s what Bungie are banking on. We’ve been given an ultimatum. Pay up, or give us your wasted hours completing the campaign again, not once but twice. It’s one or the other and that’s cynical as hell to me. The tech is there in the game, but they are making us pay extra for the pleasure. That’s not on as far as I am concerned.
There are a lot of good QOL updates in Destiny 2: Lightfall that are not monetized by Bungie. However if they had left it as is, there would have been some moans, but nothing new. Instead, Bungie chose this option and all I can see in that decision is greed.
Destiny 2: Lightfall releases on February 28th, however my excitement for what looks like a great expansion has been tempered by what I consider to be predatory business practices by Bungie. Really, really bad idea Bungie.
Bungie makes a bad call in monetizing a QOL update For Destiny 2: Lightfall. Are you a Destiny fan? If so would you pay money to skip the campaign or do you agree with me this is an uncomfortable trend? Leave any thoughts below as always.
