New, Different, Better Subclasses
We’re currently in Year 3 of the first Destiny and while it’s been a good run the hype is dying down. Millions of Guardians around the world have fought, laughed, cried (usually because of raid bosses), and raged (also probably because of raid bosses), through vanilla Destiny and four expansions, not to mention the free updates. But it’s time for a sequel to take its place, one that hopefully builds upon the solid foundation that has been born from various tweaks and updates.
While the world gameplay reveal of Destiny 2 is right around the corner, we thought we’d talk about a few things we’re hoping to see before we hop on a plane for LA to check Destiny 2 out for ourselves.
Let’s start with changes to the current class system. Don’t get us wrong, we had a lot of fun with the various subclasses offered by the Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks of Destiny. But after spending hundreds of hours with them, it became clear that some were clearly just better than others, and it’s why you usually saw the same subclasses with the exact same loadouts everywhere you went. We’re really hoping Destiny 2 changes that.
It can be by doing away with all of the existing subclasses. Sounds dramatic sure, but that could be explained away with the damage done to the Traveler, creating a need for new warriors to be explored. New isn’t always better, but it usually is. This will also allow the developers more freedom in how to adjust the mechanics around the potential subclasses available in Destiny 2. In the first game, they were fairly rigid. Granted, you had some nodes you could swap in each subclass that changed how that specific class worked, but it wasn’t real freedom. You were still restricted by a specific burn and pre-ordained role of sorts with this system.
Something that works more like customizable skill trees that allow you to make your preferred type of Guardian could work in Destiny 2. It would add more freedom, help players feel more connected with their character, and increase class diversity. Letting players unlock abilities and skills, then mixing and matching them to create their own, balanced subclass. That last point in particular should put an end to fire team arguments such as who has to go Defender because good luck getting through raids efficiently without one. Tiers for skills could prevent players from just loading up on all the highest level stuff, and help the developers with keeping things fair.
We may not end up with something as free as this, but any extra level of control with more options over the current system would be greatly appreciated.
