During a recent roundtable Q&A session with Bungie about Season of Destiny 2’s Abyss, I asked why the newest dungeon boss’s health is so bad. Sure, I know what you’re thinking. “Cheer up.” But it’s not just me.At the time of release, many reactions from players, especially People who want to play Destiny 2 dungeons solo— was about how many stages it would take to beat the two bosses.
This answer surprised me too. This is because it reveals how each dungeon is designed as a reaction to the previous dungeon.
“There is a certain story behind the release of the dungeon,” says design lead Brian Frank. “We are very pleased with how well they did. Grasp of Avarice was fun, fast, less challenging and more carefree. Duality was a giant leap in challenge and mechanical complexity… And also, although it had bugs, it was very strong thematically, and Spire of the Watcher was mechanically simpler, and it was important not to ship a buggy release on purpose. I didn’t expect any network-related issues, similar to the teleporting by Duality I was going to do, but it turned out to be very unmanageable.”
Each dungeon is therefore a reaction to what happened before. Spire is intentionally a different experience than Duality. This is not only a nice change of pace, but also because in the weeks following release, players often died unintentionally during execution due to the Duality changing mechanics.
So what are the ghosts of the abyss reacting to? After all, Spire of the Watcher also featured some health-rich bosses. According to Frank, in this latest dungeon, Bungie made a conscious decision to prioritize fireteam tuning. This means balancing a dungeon experience for up to three players rather than focusing on a solo experience. “This release comes in the context of a game director publicly declaring that he will bring this challenge back to Destiny,” he said.
Ghost of the Deep’s difficulty was also partly a response to the Root of Nightmares raid that started at the same time as Lightfall. Most agreed it was his one of the easiest raids in the game, but his race on launch day was only 2 1/2 hours long, but this Frank admits he didn’t fulfill his aspirations for the event. “Similar to Spire of the Watchers, we track initial completion times and that kind of analysis, and maybe even less than we expected. We worked on the water test that comes with the .Sorry, no kidding.” [in Ghosts of the Deep]. ”
The emphasis on fireteam balance makes solo runs more difficult by design. Especially the perfect solo run where you complete a dungeon alone without dying becomes even more demanding.
“We consider solo perfection to be one of the most challenging achievements in Destiny, and we wanted to establish and maintain it as an ambitious achievement,” says Frank. “Also, if you look at the trajectory of our activity in the past, it has always been universally easier over time. So, again, we made the slightly bolder decision to put some tweaks up front that players can overcome and achieve.”
For those who were removed by Lucent Moss after hours of wrestling on their way to Simma Ul Nokul, this explanation probably offers little comfort. But on the plus side, if you wait long enough, Bungie will inevitably release something very powerful and you’ll have a much easier time.