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News - Building a Viable Future in Destiny 2 - Printable Version +- Sick Gaming (https://www.sickgaming.net) +-- Forum: Sick Gaming Community (https://www.sickgaming.net/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Lounge (https://www.sickgaming.net/forum-8.html) +--- Thread: News - Building a Viable Future in Destiny 2 (/thread-95687.html) |
News - Building a Viable Future in Destiny 2 - xSicKxBot - 06-14-2020 Building a Viable Future in Destiny 2 <div style="margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%;"><img src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/building-a-viable-future-in-destiny-2.png" width="1920" height="1080" title="" alt="" /></div><div><blockquote></blockquote> <ul> <li>Destiny 2 is too large to efficiently update and maintain.</li> <li>The size and complexity of the game are also contributing to more bugs<br /> and less innovation.</li> <li>Instead of building a Destiny 3 and leaving D2 behind, each year, we<br /> are going to cycle older, less actively played content out of the live game and<br /> into what we’re calling the <b>Destiny Content Vault</b><b> (DCV)</b>.</li> <li>This will allow us to add to and support D2 for years, including the three<br /> new annual expansions we announced today, starting with <i>Beyond Light </i>this<br /> fall.</li> <li>The DCV will include all content from Destiny 1 and anything that<br /> cycles out from Destiny 2. </li> <li>We will bring back (or “unvault”) activity and destination content<br /> from the DCV each year. </li> <li>Unvaulting starts in D2 Year 4, with the Cosmodrome coming back, as<br /> well as its three strikes and the return of the Vault of Glass raid.</li> <li>The primary D2 content leaving the game and going into the DCV this<br /> fall are the destinations – Mars, Io, Titan, Mercury and Leviathan – and their supported<br /> activities.</li> <li>There will be new ways to earn the Exotics originally linked to content that<br /> has entered the DCV.</li> <li>When Beyond Light ships, the Director will have the following<br /> destinations: </li> <ul> <ul> <li>Europa (new)</li> <li>Cosmodrome (unvaulted) </li> <li>Moon </li> <li>Tangled Shore </li> <li>Dreaming City </li> <li>European Dead Zone </li> <li>Nessus</li> </ul> </ul> <li>This approach allows us respond to player feedback more rapidly,<br /> enable more innovation, and will keep Destiny 2 and your characters thriving for<br /> years to come.</li> <li>More details to come<br /> soon and throughout the year.</li> </ul> <p>Earlier<br /> today, we laid out a vision for Destiny’s future, built right inside of Destiny 2. A future where we maintain your<br /> characters, accounts, and continuity with our game systems and build on each of<br /> them for years. This fall ushers in a new era in Destiny’s journey, launching<br /> off a trilogy of expansions where your Guardians will explore the true nature<br /> of Light and Dark:</p> <div> <img src="https://www.bungie.net/pubassets/pkgs/136/136269/EN_2.png?cv=3983621215&av=353636825"></div> <p>Put plainly, we are investing in Destiny 2 for years to come. But to<br /> continue your Guardian’s journey and deliver on this roadmap, we need to make<br /> some changes to our ever-growing world so it can flourish. </p> <p><h2>The Limits of Growth</h2> </p> <p>Over the<br /> past couple months, we’ve mentioned the problems that come with maintaining a<br /> game the size of Destiny 2; and we’ve said that it cannot grow infinitely.<br /> After three years of non-stop growth, the scope and complexity of Destiny 2 has<br /> ballooned to unprecedented scale.</p> <p>As of this<br /> writing, Destiny 2 features nine destinations, 40 story missions, 54<br /> adventures, 42 Lost Sectors, 17 strikes, 31 PvP maps, 12 one-off special<br /> activities (like Menagerie or Zero Hour), seven raids, six Gambit arenas, three<br /> dungeons, many, many<br /> quests, patrols, public events, and of course, thousands of associated rewards.<br /> All of that, plus hundreds of game systems which layer on top of that content.</p> <p>This<br /> unrelenting growth has resulted in a game that requires players to download up<br /> to 115GB to play, as well as huge patches tied to frequent updates. And those numbers<br /> are rising rapidly, as we’ve been adding approximately 25GB of content each<br /> year to Destiny 2 since launch. Those sizes not only stress hard drive capacity<br /> but also push the limits of patching capability. It also makes the time to<br /> generate a stable update for the game after all content is finalized, tested, and ready to go balloon to literal <i>days</i> instead of hours.</p> <p>Worse<br /> still, that 115GB includes a lot of content that isn’t relevant anymore – and<br /> can’t remain relevant – as we evolve the world and introduce new experiences<br /> that will take center stage instead. For example: Warmind’s campaign represents<br /> only <b>0.3%</b> of all time played in Season of the Worthy and yet the Warmind<br /> Expansion accounts for <b>5%</b> of our total install size. This dramatic<br /> imbalance between player engagement and overall cost to maintain is found in a lot<br /> of our legacy content.</p> <p><h2>Impact on the Live Game</h2> </p> <div>Maintaining<br /> that much content in perpetuity slows down our ability to update the game with<br /> fresh experiences, reduces our ability to innovate, and delays our reaction to<br /> community feedback. The test surface alone is massive, to say nothing<br /> about how it impacts our designers, artists, and engineers trying to make cool<br /> new stuff every day under the weight of the crushing complexity of our scale.</div> <div>Unfortunately<br /> it also means that we sometimes ship content that doesn’t meet the quality bar<br /> we’ve set for ourselves and that our players have come to expect. Recent<br /> examples are the issues with Felwinter’s Lie quest or when we had to perform<br /> our first-ever <a href="https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/48723" title target>rollback of player progress</a> due<br /> to a bug. </div> <p>Our<br /> ambition is for Destiny 2 to be the best Action MMO in the world and that means<br /> being far more agile and nimble than we are today. But the simple fact is that our<br /> game’s size and complexity prevents us from improving Destiny as fast as we –<br /> and you – would like. </p> <p><h2>The “Destiny Content Vault”</h2> </p> <div>With Destiny<br /> 1, we solved the “ever expanding, exponential complexity” problem by making a<br /> sequel in Destiny 2. We left behind all of Destiny 1’s content and many of the<br /> features players grew to love. We believe now that it was a mistake to create a<br /> situation that fractured the community, reset player progress, and set the<br /> player experience back in ways that took us a full year to recover from and<br /> repair. It’s a mistake we don’t want to repeat by making a Destiny 3. We don’t<br /> believe a sequel is the right direction for the game and for the past two years<br /> we have been investing all of our development effort into new content, gameplay,<br /> and new engine features that directly support a single evolving world in Destiny<br /> 2.</div> <div> To create a sustainable ecosystem where the world can<br /> continue to evolve in exciting ways, and where we can update the game more<br /> quickly, we’re going to adopt a new content model that we’re calling the <b>Destiny<br /> Content Vault (DCV)</b>. Each year, usually at the expansion boundaries, we<br /> will cycle some destination and activity content out of the game (and into the<br /> DCV) to make room for new experiences. </div> <div> The first cycle of Destiny 2 content going into the DCV<br /> begins this fall, with the appearance of the Pyramid ships in Season of<br /> Arrivals and the <i>Beyond Light</i> expansion, which we revealed today. Those<br /> events will usher in dramatic changes to the Destiny universe, affecting characters,<br /> destinations, and Guardians for years to come. </div> <p> To set a<br /> new maintainable foundation for the game this fall and to create room for <i>Beyond<br /> Light </i>and the future roadmap, the first Destiny 2 deposit into the DCV will<br /> be larger than those to come in the future.</p> <h2>Curating the Vault</h2> <div>Content<br /> that goes into the Destiny Content Vault may return in the future, altered (if<br /> necessary) to fit the new state of the universe. Furthermore, we consider all<br /> Destiny 1 and 2 destinations and activities part of the new DCV and we’re going<br /> to be pulling from that archive – revisiting some of the most interesting<br /> places in Destiny’s history – from now onwards. It’s why the original Destiny 1<br /> Raid – the Vault of Glass – will be returning to Destiny 2 in Year 4.</div> <p> Going<br /> forward, our explicit goal will be to try to keep the scope and scale of Destiny<br /> 2 at a relatively consistent size in order to increase our agility and to be<br /> able to properly support and maintain the game. Over the course of each year,<br /> the game’s content scope will grow as we add new destinations and activities in<br /> our expansions and Seasons. As we approach the next expansion, another cycle of<br /> content will go into the DCV to make way for a new influx of destinations and<br /> activities. </p> <p>We will<br /> always do our best to give early notice of what’s being cycled into the DCV, to<br /> help you and your friends plan around how you want to complete your collections<br /> and build up your account before the new Destiny year starts. The vast majority<br /> of content we choose to vault will also be from destinations and activities<br /> that have been free for all players for several months prior to their<br /> departure. For example: the Curse of Osiris campaign, which has been free since<br /> Shadowkeep launched in October 2019, and part of the Destiny 2 experience since<br /> December 2017, will go in the DCV later this year. </p> <p><h2>Year 4 Destiny Content Vault<br /> Preview </h2> </p> <p>Here is an early<br /> preview of some of what’s going into the Destiny Content Vault (DCV) and what’s<br /> returning in Year 4.</p> <h3>Returning from the DCV</h3> <div> <ul> <li>On September 22, 2020:</li> <ul> <ul> <li>Cosmodrome as a selectable, explorable destination (but not yet at<br /> full Destiny 1 parity on 9/22).</li> <ul> <li>Note: We’re looking to leverage Cosmodrome’s initial return to expand<br /> the new Guardian origin story to the world of Destiny. Veteran players will be<br /> able to experience that story as well.</li> <li>Cosmodrome’s Will of Crota strike will also be added to the strikes<br /> playlist for all players.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <li>During Season 13:</li> <ul> <ul> <li>Cosmodrome will be<br /> fleshed out to roughly Destiny 1 Year 1 parity. </li> <li>Cosmodrome’s The Devil’s Lair and Fallen S.A.B.E.R. strikes return.</li> </ul> </ul> <li>During Year 4:</li> <ul> <ul> <li>Destiny 1’s first raid, Vault of Glass, returns.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3>Heading to the DCV</h3> </div> <div> <ul> <li>On September 22, 2020: </li> <ul> <ul> <li>Io, Titan, Mercury, Mars, and Leviathan will be cycled out and no<br /> longer be accessible. </li> <ul> <li>This includes all PvE activities (including campaigns) on those<br /> destinations.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> <p><img src="https://www.bungie.net/pubassets/pkgs/136/136269/EN_1.jpg?cv=3983621215&av=353636825"></p> <h3>Other Key Year 4 Details: </h3> </div> <div> <ul> <li>There will be three raids playable this fall, including a new one set<br /> in the Deep Stone Crypt on Europa as part of the <i>Beyond Light</i> expansion.</li> <li>There will be new ways to earn Exotics originally tied to destinations<br /> and activity content that have entered the Destiny Content Vault. </li> <li>Available strikes will be based on a pool of possible strikes from<br /> active destinations. When a destination goes into the DCV, so too will its strikes.</li> <li>The PvP Map playlist will remain a curated ‘best of’ mixture of maps<br /> from Destiny 1 and 2.</li> <li>Gambit and Gambit<br /> Prime are being merged into a single mode, with their original armor visuals<br /> available to earn from the Drifter.</li> </ul> </div> <div>To be<br /> clear, the DCV does not apply to any weapons and armor in a player’s inventory<br /> or vault. The DCV is about activities and destinations. We know you will have a<br /> lot of questions about how this will work. We will share more updates about our<br /> content plans throughout the summer. This includes a detailed overview of<br /> everything changing via patch notes, extensive DPS articles that will help<br /> break down what’s changing and when, as well as lots of opportunities for you<br /> to ask us questions along the way. </p> <h2>A New Beginning</h2> <p>This fall,<br /> we will begin delivering on the future of Destiny by making way for new adventures,<br /> locales, and stories dreamed up by our creative team, and forging the<br /> truly evolving world that it was always meant to be. These changes allow us the<br /> freedom to finally weave an overall experience for the Destiny universe that<br /> can truly live, starting with <i>Beyond<br /> Light</i>. We can now fit puzzle pieces we haven’t been able to pick up since<br /> the beginning of the original Destiny – including the true nature of the Darkness and<br /> Light and how such power will change you as a Guardian. We can now bring some<br /> of the greatest experiences in Destiny to the forefront of the current game alongside<br /> new ones to come.</div> <div> The past<br /> six years, we’ve seen the Destiny universe grow and our community along with<br /> it. We want our quality of service to grow in kind, to be able to react to<br /> community feedback quicker, to innovate more often, and to continue to tell new<br /> stories with your characters. We’re excited to continue that journey with you.</div> <p>– Destiny 2<br /> Dev Team</p> </div> https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/2020/06/09/building-a-viable-future-in-destiny-2/ |