Datto's Thoughts on Destiny Going Into 2022 - Champion Fatigue

Now that we've been through a few weeks of Witch Queen and reality is setting back in, I wanted to give you all the yearly "how I'm feeling about this year," video. Last year's video had an overall theme: innovation. That's not a very specific thing, it's very board. This year, I'm focusing in on two things that have been slowly creeping into my mind: seasonal content stagnation and champion fatigue.

Epic Games Store Creator Code: HelloDatto

If you enjoyed the video, a positive rating is always appreciated.

Datto Does Destiny Social Media:

[HorseshoeCrab]

Hive guardians were such an interesting combat challenge in the legendary campaign that it makes me sad that stasis fallen weren't a very big factor in the beyond light campaign

[ScifiSaints]

The Legendary Campaign showed us that difficulty could be achieved without Champions and Match Game. And with elements having a unique identity with 3.0 subclasses it also shows color matching for added difficulty isn't needed anymore. Both these things just restrict player agency and are going against the current design philosophy. I agree things need to change in this department.

[ASA-uxcg]

The Legendary Campaign was a breath of fresh air from the difficulty everywhere else being 5 champions huddled in a room that require you to play weapons you probably don’t want to use without getting a seizure

[ThirdEchoMedia]

I feel like I’ve always just *put up* with Champions. I’ve never really enjoyed fighting them, unlike the Lucent Hive, which are a blast to play against

[Creamworks]

One thing I found the most exciting about WQ was the legendary campaign difficulty scaling based on fireteam size. I think they should implement this in more activities throughout the game.

[alexanderbaldwin]

Hive Lightbearers and the Legendary Campaign showed me a game without Champions and I loved it. If we could get Hive Lightbearer-style enemies for each faction I'd be very happy. There's plenty of ways to do it, too.

Vex? Full-on Combat Frames. Self-Repairing unless you destroy their head on the floor after they're defeated.

Scorn? Worm-Hosts like the Caretaker, give them Hive/Darkness Powers and have you stomp on the Worm before it wriggles back into the Scorn's corpse.

Taken? Call them Primevals, only dies to a headshot/melee, and spawns a Taken Rift to the Ascendant Plane that brings in another one if not destroyed.

Cabal and Fallen? Give them Darkness Powers if they're aligned with either Disciple Calus or Eramis. Have them reform upon death following an explosion of Vines like Rhulk and Caretaker.

Interesting enemies are ones that provide unique combat scenarios like the Hive Lightbearers, not ones that just require the correct mod like Champions.

[epicgamerzfail]

I've never liked champions since their inception. They only exist to force people to use certain weapons for a season. They don't add to gameplay since they're counterplay is just "use X weapon with Y mod to stop it".

[thatguy]

"Destiny knows what it is." This statement makes me glad to have stuck around so long. After the dumpster fire of Y1 D2, maybe not solely being caused by various identity crises (gameplay, developer, or end goal), but surely having been a major reason behind the struggle.... seeing this franchise settled in to being not just playable, but actually fun.... well, that makes me very happy.

[isaacrasmussen]

At least with champion mods, I think taking them out of the season artifact and just making all forms of champion mods an interchangeable mod slot on all weapons would open up weapon choice and builds so you’re not limited to three weapons when needing to stun in higher end activities. Then replacing the slots where the champion mods used to go in the artifact with something like enhanced champion mods like “when stunning a champion with (insert weapon type here), you deal increased damage with all other weapons for a short time” or something else (idk I don’t make games) would still encourage champion mods with better building capabilities and payoff.

[chogan]

Something that struck me while watching this video in response to subbing champions for Lucent Brood where it makes sense - I think it'd be pretty cool if Immaru sent a fireteam of like 6 lightbearers to go against us as in we're the final boss of their strike or something like that where we're on the defensive. Almost like wellspring where we're under attack and we either have to keep falling back after taking out a few waves or we just have to keep defending different locations/rooms or w/e culminating with us fighting 3-6 boss or miniboss level lightbearers. They'd have some more pop to em of course than your rank and file ones we've faced already.

[brunocabriare]

After almost 5 yrs into Destiny 2, I just wish I could place a Barricade, Rift, Well of Radiance or a Ward of Dawn on a moving platform...

[nova]

Thank you datto for bringing this stuff up, if you try to say stuff like this as a random guy in a comment section you get dog piled by a bunch of random people seemingly affected by Stockholm syndrome saying you’re asking for too much

[hydractra]

You know what would be a great seasonal activity? A horde type mode with ramping up waves. Maybe even make it endless going up to GM nightfall level enemies for the option of a seasonal weapon drop on every wave clear at the highest difficulty. And have it with the "mettle" modifier that the witch queen campaign used, so you could run it solo or up to 6 people and still have a challenge either way. THAT would be a seasonal activity that could rival menagerie!

[barendnaude]

It's easy to see that you've been around for long enough to know what you're talking about, and you are very-VERY good at these "bird-eyes-views" videos/essays. You hit every nail on the head, every time...all we can do is hope for the best for the future of D2.
Thanks for all the great content (P.S. Whish you could clean my vault, I've been between 498 and 500 since before the 30th anniversary ~season~).

[HentzGG]

I want new mobs to fight. Like more unique and different from the ones we fight now. I've only been playing for about a year total but I feel like I've been fighting the same mobs this whole time no matter where I go. As for crafting, I think they should really take a deeper look into MMORPG's in the fantasy setting. They have a lot of cool stuff they can do that allows players to collect mats to build things. Both for harder content and for when you just wanna turn your brain off and farm mats.

[SirShadeyy]

I really think the WQ legendary campaign showed how you can have a fantastic experience without Champions. Hopefully Bungie takes strides in that direction

[JumpDaddy]

I just returned after a 5 year break. Keep in mind I had well over 3K hours in D1. Witch queen made me come back and I'm loving it

[anillgupta]

Daito was very good in articulating my feelings in words in such a awesome narration.

[StepStatic]

What makes sense is just to split the champions by weapon archetype. Kinetic slot-Anti Barrier, Energy- Overload, Heavy- Unstoppable. Any weapon in those respective archetype can stun those specific Champs. That will free up Artifact Mods for new build/buff mods.

[battlejitney]

Great thoughts, Datto. Especially agree with you on the Champion system and overall stagnation.