Six things Destiny 2 could pinch from Diablo, Borderlands, Warframe and other PC games
Now that we've spent more time with Destiny 2 on PC, a few annoying quirks are starting to show up.
The PC version of Destiny 2 is really good. It features a host of graphics options, the ability to rebind keys, support for ultra-wide monitors, and it’s generally well optimised. But, there are a few things that could have been added or done better.
The good news is that the majority of these are not annoying enough to affect the overall experience, but we would like to see them improved nonetheless. This is not specifically about PC, but it's fair to say that PC players expect a bit more control over games. That said, console players can easily benefit from some of these if Bungie decides to add them.
Destiny 2 is a game designed to be played for hundreds of hours and it would make sense for the quality of life of the overall experience to be a bit better. Some of what we’re going to mention is already available in many other PC games, particularly loot shooters such as Warframe, and Borderlands or other loot-driven games in general, like Diablo, and Path of Exile.
The PC port of Destiny 2 exceeded my expectations everywhere that counts, so it’s nice to be able to list the things I would love to see rather than complain about crucial missing features.
Separate audio sliders
It’s always disappointing when games offer a single audio mix for sound effects, voice, ambience and everything else. Destiny has always had this problem ever since the first game, which is why I am not feeling too positive about a change being made.
Separate audio sliders would go a long way towards making the game more customisable. I was never satisfied with the audio mix in Destiny 2 as it currently stands, but with the lack of audio sliders, there’s really nothing I can do about it.
Separate audio sliders also have another crucial benefit. Many loot-based games are typically played while you listen to a podcast or music in the background. Being able to just turn off voice and music - for instance - makes the experience much better. Games like Diablo 3, Warframe and others popular entries in the genre already fill the ‘podcast game’ role pretty well, and Destiny 2 needs to get on board.
Better optimisation on the higher-end
Destiny 2 may perform great out of the box, and it may be optimised enough to run at 60fps on many PCs, but when you get into the 100+fps range, the consistency starts to fall off.
Once you get past that threshold, the drops are often in the 20s. This is not a big deal when you’re going from, say 140fps to 120fps, but a lot of times it’s actually more like 100+fps to 80s. This is practically a constant in open areas, or when the screen is full of players and enemies like in Public Events.
The EDZ is especially bad at this, and although the drops are never severe enough to ruin the experience, they’re very noticeable and end up causing a momentary loss of precision. I’ve tested several graphics settings to try and mitigate the effect, but the most I got was around ten extra frames on average without getting rid of the significant drops.
I realise this is a very niche thing, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Bungie and Vicarious take a look at the reason behind these big drops and smooth them out. After all, other games with much higher requirements don’t suffer from the same issues.
Separate field-of-view settings for first and third-person
Bungie made the right call in allowing players to customise Destiny 2’s field-of-view (FOV) to fit their preference and screen resolution. The setting, at least for 16:9 resolutions, is generous enough and is comparable to the best of them.
Unfortunately, it affects both first-person and third-person views. This makes it a bit jarring every time you pull out a sword mid-fight, or when you visit social spaces. It feels like your character is in an MMO with how far away it is from the camera.
That’s because the FOV degree you chose means something completely different in third-person than what it does in first-person. The only way to fix this would be to offer two FOV options, one for each perspective.
It's a bit of a special case with the game having two alternating perspectives, but I assume it won’t be a big ask since Destiny 2 already supports wide FOVs.
The ability to disable cut-scenes and tutorials
Like we mentioned at the start, Destiny 2 is designed to be played for years. Because it doesn’t have infinite content, or really any procedurally-generated activities, this inevitably means you’ll be playing the same missions and strikes over and over.
If you have more than one character, well, that number just shot up considerably, and that's not even counting Ikora’s Meditations. Destiny 2’s story is not great, and even if it were, having to skip two or three cut-scenes every time you want to replay a mission gets old pretty quickly.
This is especially frustrating because Destiny doesn’t appear to be doing anything in the background while you watch these cut-scenes. Meaning it’ll only start loading the next area after you skip the cut-scene, so they’re definitely not designed to give the illusion of fast load times.
This also applies to tutorials. Like, Bungie, I only needed to know how to set up a subclass once. I don’t need to see the same tip for every class. This is particularly infuriating when the game decides you must follow what the blue message is telling you for it to go away.
It may be hard to have the game track what tutorials you have and haven’t completed, so the best option would be to offer a toggle to turn them off entirely. While we’re at it, add a similar option for cut-scenes so that I never have to hear another one of Cayde-6’s bad jokes ever again.
More character slots
Like the previous point, this is another thing console players have been asking for since the first Destiny came out. Three slots is fine, but the option to have more should be available to players.
Games with diverse classes and repeatable content usually invite a lot of experimentation, and though I admit, being able to switch subclasses on the fly balances this out a bit, sometimes you just want two or more of the same class.
Creating a new character in Diablo 3’s Seasons is a fun experience, because you get to race to the finish line alongside everybody else. I am not saying Destiny 2 should have the same mode, but at least allow us to go beyond the three character limit.
I understand there may be technical limitations behind this, but Bungie should consider selling extra character slots. Not to repeat myself, but Destiny 2 won’t be the first game to have it. There’s definitely a crowd out there that’s committed enough to want to expand the roster beyond just three.
Cross-promotion with Blizzard games
This one is a bit out there, considering Bungie and Blizzard are two separate companies. However, wouldn’t it be cool to see things crossing over from other Blizzard games into Destiny 2, or vice versa?
Blizzard does this all the time with its games. I know this because I remember having to play Heroes of the Storm on separate occasions to get Overwatch skins. I imagine a similar setup with Diablo or Overwatch could work. Say you get a McCree skin for reaching a certain Power level with a Hunter, or completing a specific milestone.
The rewards can be subtle, such as free loot boxes / Bright Engrams, shaders, or generally things that won’t mess around with each game’s respective universe too much. I bet loads of Diablo 3 fans are currently playing Destiny 2, maybe something could be done there. They all share the same launcher and Blizzard wallet, after all.