Episode 76: Kutch takes the D2 Reins

In these Episodes of Destiny Massive Breakdowns Kt_Kutcha takes the reins of Destiny 2 to deliver ideas for over the top customization and replayability options.

RAW & BARELY EDITED - Kutch's Working Notes for these Episodes

Keep in mind that these were written several weeks before this article was published.

Merc’s idea - let’s do that! Assuming that all of the loot in the game is now interesting, I’m going to focus on how the gameplay could offer endless variety and insane amounts of epic moments. Theme: Fuck balance, have fun!

PVE

  • Give all Strikes Difficulty Modifier options all the time after beaten once on normal

  • Gives Raids Difficulty Modifier options all the time after beaten once on normal

  • Flashpoints/Patrol

    • Add random Modifiers to Flashpoints - burns, difficulties, buffs, etc

    • Give Lost Sectors unique loot with Lore tabs that tell a story about the planet they’re on once all have been found (see next point)

    • Cayde could offer Cache Grabs - instanced versions of Lost Sectors with curated modifiers and guaranteed loot drops

  • Story Mode and Adventures

    • Make it constantly replayable

    • Give all story missions difficulty modifiers all the time after beaten once on normal

    • Meditations could be curated, highly challenging versions of story missions, played to earn Ikora’s rewards

  • Possible Mods:

    • D1 Daybreak - Mayhem for PVE

    • D1 Trickle - Recharge of abilities is significantly reduced.

    • D1 Berserk - Minions of the Darkness won't flinch, even after massive damage

    • D1 Chaff - Player radar is disabled.

    • D1 Epic - Heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers

    • D1 Fresh Troops - Some enemy squads have been fortified with additional reinforcements

    • D1 Juggler - No ammo drops for your equipped weapon

    • Ironclad - More enemies have shields

    • Lightswitch - Minions of the Darkness deal much more melee damage

    • Attrition - killed enemies drop crests/orbs that heal you rapidly, but normal recovery is greatly lowered

    • Momentum - Health and shield regeneration are disabled while standing still, but sprinting triggers these effects

    • Mayhem - as is

    • Void, Solar or Arc Singe - Elemental damage to players and enemies increases 25% (yes, resulting in some nutty TTK but hey it’s Iron Banner!)

    • Prism - Your attacks matching the focused elemental type deal increase damage. All other elemental damage is reduced. Kinetic and incoming damage is unaffected. The focused element rotates periodically.

    • D1 Airborne - player damage increases while in the air

    • D1 Brawler - greatly increased melee damage

    • Catapult Variant - greatly increased grenade damage

    • D1 Grounded - Players take more damage while airborne.

    • D1 Small Arms - Kinetic Weapon damage is favored.

    • Fictional: Tanks - give us tanks!

PVP

  • Restructure Crucible Playlists, keeping in mind Bungie’s current value on high connection speed. Possibly have each playlist offer only a single game type each week, rotating through - not sure.

    • Free For All - variations on Rumble (Classic, Inferno, Supremacy, King of the Hill)

      • Solo players only

    • Mayhem - add rotating modifiers to Quickplay game modes and let chaos reign

      • Attrition - killed enemies drop crests that heal you rapidly, but normal recovery is greatly lowered

      • Momentum - Health and shield regeneration are disabled while standing still, but sprinting triggers these effects

      • Mayhem - as is

      • Void, Solar or Arc Singe - Elemental damage to players and enemies increases 25% (yes, resulting in some nutty TTK but hey it’s Iron Banner!)

      • Prism - Your attacks matching the focused elemental type deal increase damage. All other elemental damage is reduced. Kinetic and incoming damage is unaffected. The focused element rotates periodically.

      • D1 Airborne - player damage increases while in the air

      • D1 Grounded - Players take more damage while airborne.

      • D1 Brawler - greatly increased melee damage

      • Catapult Variant - greatly increased grenade damage

      • D1 Small Arms - Kinetic Weapon damage is favored

      • Fictional: Tanks - give us tanks!

    • Quickplay - 4v4 to 6v6 depending on connection and available players, variations on simple team modes (Control, Clash, Supremacy), attempts to match teams against teams and solos against solos

    • Ranked - 4v4 competitive modes (Survival 1 life, King of the Hill/Capture the Flag, Countdown), no love for solos, and quitters get banned

    • Trials - enable the Power Curve, dang it

    • Iron Banner - enable the Power Curve!

    • Private Matches

      • Include PVE-style modifiers as options

Ship Perks

Ships are boring and wholly cosmetic. Why? Here’s a wild, totally unbalanced idea to make them meaningful

  • Resupply Perks

    • Keeping with the idea of the Transmat Effects, this adds another mod slot to Ships; perks reward players for spending a lot of time in an activity without dying

    • Resupply Mods add effects when you first spawn in, or when you respawn (PVE only)

      • +5% Power Ammo per minute in activity since last spawn

      • Overshield for 1 second per minute in activity since last spawn, up to 30 seconds

      • Invisibility for 1 second per minute in activity since last spawn, up to 30 seconds

      • +5% Grenade or Melee or Class Ability energy per minute in activity since last spawn, up to 100%

      • +5% Super Energy per minute in activity since last spawn, up to 100%

      • Faster ability energy charge for 1 second per minute since your last spawn, up to 1 minute

      • +10 glimmer per minute spent in activity since your last spawn, up to 1000 glimmer

      • +1 local rep token per 5 minutes spent in the activity since your last spawn, up to 10 tokens

      • +25% damage against specific enemy/race for 30 seconds

    • Exotic versions would also affect anyone who revives you

    • Side effects/abuse: players take turns suiciding at the end of a strike to refill, or sit around waiting so they can do this

      • Counter: who cares? Also, Meditations/Heroics/Cache Grabs should score based on time like Nightfalls and only offer guaranteed loot with a specific score, punishing those who waste time abusing these effects.

Loot + Quests

I love the Exotic questlines and the light they shed on the history of the Destiny universe, but it does make me sad that there aren’t in-game playable stories for all of them. I would love to see every piece of Exotic gear tied to a story in the game. This could be a quest that unlocks the piece (these items should never be sold by Xur), or it could be a piece of gear that unlocks a quest (thus buying gear from Xur actually adds in-game story to play). Many of these pieces are very evocative, but leave a lot of mystery - let’s answer those questions! These can be added in after the fact, meaning they could fit easily within the current iteration of D2 and would add a nice chunk of story for players. Even simple field test missions that send us out to test the “recovered golden age tech” we’re wielding and offer commentary about the effects of the weapons would be a nice touch and add immersion.

Reiteration: Loot and Location

This was briefly discussed in last week’s episode, and we have mentioned it before, but I’m going to say it again because I think it should be within easy reach. PLEASE tie all loot to specific locations in the game. If I see another Scathelocke drop on Nessus, I’ll...well, I’ll continue to dismantle it in quiet displeasure. Having all loot drop everywhere dilutes all of the loot pools to the point that it makes no sense! /rant

That's all for now - Peace!

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