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Armor transmog has arrived in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Destiny 2, and it’s turned out to be even worse than what Guardians had initially feared. Details of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Armor Synthesis--the term given for Destiny 2’s armor transmog system--revealed back in April were less than encouraging. An artificial cap would prevent players from unlocking their full collection for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:at least 46 years unless they paid to get around it, and the process for getting even a single piece of armor could be bܫest described as needlessly convoluted.
Then Season of the Splicer arrived and Guardians found out just how far Bungie would monetize something that players had spent years advocating for. Not only was there a hard cap of 10 transmogs per season, but acquiring the resources necessary to unlock armor for Synthesis was also time-gated so that even if there’s only one full set of armor you’d want to transmog, you’d have to spend at least 25 h💃ours of in-game playtime just to do i👍t.
The existence of one cap had alreadyꦰ brought the Destiny 2 community to an unhealthy simmer, but the time-g🅷ate caused the community to boil over in angry social media posts calling transmog nothing but a "," and it's getting really hard to argue with that cynical assessment.
In almost any other MMO, armor transmog is a free service, a fun thing where players can express themselves i༒n new ways whenever and however they want. Only in Destiny does armor transmog turn into not just a monetizable service, but one that requires such enormous time investments to get around that Bungie seems to not car▨e about the player.
And that’s exactly the problem. What Armor Synthesis reveals is that there’s no one left in Bungie’s upper echelons advocating for the player. If you wa🏅nt anything out of Destiny 2, you’ll either have to spend a lot of money, spend a lot 🔥of time playing Destiny, or in the case of Armor Synthesis, both.
Whoever the final decision-makers are at Bungie just seem to be looking at player engagement numbers--usually measured in terms of dollarꦫs or hours spent in-game. The problem with that mentality is that it ignores everything else. Engagement is more than just hours and dollars, and creating a system that should by all accounts be a free service just to i𝓰ncrease a ledger with dollars and hours ignores how it makes the player feel.
And right now, Destiny 2 feels about as bad as anything put out there by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Activision. There are very few freebies in Destiny nowadays. I can’t remember the last time Bungie gave something away just because the players wanted it or𒆙 just to show their appreciation that so many Guardians stꩵill play their game after so many years. Armor Synthesis would have been the perfect opportunity to give a little back, to show the players how much Bungie still cares. Instead, they took something that players had been begging for years and turned it into a number generator.
I get Bungie is a business first and foremost, but there’s a point at which companies forget that their customers aren’t just numbers--they’re people. They’re people with busy lives that might not be able to spend literal days playing Destiny just to unlock a piece of armor. Or they might not be so wealthy that they can afford to spend money on a season pass, a yearly expansion, and a new set of armor ornaments.
Before the pandemic, there used to be an entire industry named after a word: “hospitality.” It means being generous with other people so that they think you're nice. Businesses in those industries would be generous in lots of little ways, like free upgrades or movie🐻 passes or whatever, but the point is they’d give you something every so often so that they appeared to be less like a monolithic corporation and more like a nice group of people.
It’s something that I feel like a lot of game developers could stand 🌞to learn, especially as we spend more and more of our time in virtual spaces--and Destiny 2 is most certainly a virtual space. A virtual space that feels less hospitable with each passing season.
Bungie needs to think about being just a little bit more hospitable with its players, especially when they’ve still only got one game ꧙going for them. Otherwise, those players wil🙈l be far less inclined to try Bungie’s next big game. After all, if I have to choose between two hotels, I'll probably pick the one that gives me the free jacuzzi upgrade every once in a while.