Destiny 2 - Making Our Own Fun!

Hello and welcome to Embrace Space, a blog all about my adventures and discussion on the space industry. Today's post will be a little different, as today's post is about the video game Destiny 2. If you're interested in more ways to have fun in this game, while we wait for Bungie to address certain issues, please read on! If you're just looking for the space stuff, check out the links to the left and I'll see you back here next time!

Now, as some of you may have seen, I posted a Twitter thread with a simple question: If I proposed fun, in-game activities people could do in Destiny 2 while we wait for improvements, would anyone be interested?

It turns out that many of you are, and so I thought it best to try to categorize my thoughts here.

Quick context regarding me: I've been playing Destiny and Destiny 2 for over 2 years, but have only just started to gain a perspective on the community. For my first year, I was happy to just play. Now, I have YouTube and Twitch channels, and I follow many more regarding gameplay and the lore of Destiny. My clan is very small, composed of people I know personally, and that has been fine with me, as there's a difference between people I can run a strike with, and people I want to hang out with all the time. I'm sure you understand. In any case, while I know of the existence of many, large Destiny communities, I am not in one, so my perspective may be a bit limited here.

Quick context regarding the ideas: These are all works in progress. The point is to give us reasons to play, things to do, ways to have fun, while we wait for fixes and new things to come. I personally love this game, and play it all the time, but I am of course aware of the many issues. Still, the gameplay and world(s) draw me in. I made a video on my channel looking at speculative PVE ideas that Bungie could add into the game to 1) give us more to do and 2) make us feel more like heroes by actually helping/saving humanity and civilians. Many of my ideas here spawn from those ideas, with the caveat that we are putting them in the game ourselves. As such, many events will have to be changed, and some many not be possible, depending on the current design of the game. Also, they'll require organization on someone's part, as the systems for playing and keeping track are not in the game.

Quick context on location of these ideas: I have a few channels, will likely make videos there, but I post these here for easy reference. I'm not on Reddit, but feel free to share it. If you do, let me know where to find it so I can go back from time to time and see the feedback. Please drop comments below and if enough people influence me, I might update this post. Of course, you can always take my idea and run with it!

Final context before we begin: While I "own" these ideas, I do not want to "keep" them. I want people to run with them, enjoy the game, and have fun while we're waiting for Bungie to get its act together. And, if Bungie sees these events and implements them, great! All I personally ask, besides that you remain positive, supportive, and have fun, is to recognize my efforts here, from time to time. Message me on Twitter, check out my YouTube channel, share my ideas as much as you want/can. My only desire concerning "popularity" (subscriptions, follows, etc.) on my channels is to 1) feel more connected with this community and 2) feel that my contributions mean something (just pure ego boosting, really). Also, feel free to constructively criticize these ideas; drop a comment below and let's make these ideas great!

So, with that in mind, let's finally get into it! Here are my ideas for things you can do in Destiny 2, while we wait!


Short list

• Sparrow Racing League in patrol zones with specific modes/rules/restrictions
• Hide and Seek
• Scavenger Hunt
• Patrol Challenge - how many patrols can you do in ___ time?
• Strike scoring - using online stat tracking and setting rules/challenges, posting links to results
• Civilian Rescue - one person in fireteam cannot use weapons, abilities, nor sprint or double jump, fireteam has to survive and maybe collect resources
• Horde mode - when Homecoming is this week's Meditation, play it over and over again (with a time limit, quitting before completing the mission), seeing how many kills/points you can get
• If other areas of infinite enemies exist, do the same here

Longer list, with design ideas and concerns

• Sparrow Racing League
• No reason to not do this ourselves, if possible. Only issue is if you can somehow manipulate the game into having more than 3 people of your choice in the same instance. (See point in idea below)
• If we cannot find a way to ensure more than 3 people together in the same instance, you could still post rules/times, and participate with your fireteam while competing with others who post their results
• Racing modes
• Straight racing, 3 laps, stay on the road (like in the EDZ)
• In it to win it!, 3 laps, can cut off-road
• Deathmatch - any combination of the above, plus ability to use enemy vehicles (assuming players can use enemy vehicles to destroy sparrows, is that possible? Can grenades, supers, and bullets from one Guardian destroy another sparrow?)
• Vehicular manslaughter - any version of the above, but number of enemies killed with your vehicle combined with race time yields final score
• Hard to track, maybe use Kill Counter ghost, or stats online and agree to only kill enemies by ramming them?
• Special delivery
• Any combination of the above, but requirement to collect either a large number of resources (going toward final score), or a specific number? (# per lap, or # in total)
• Extra: Did you know that there is a path in a Lost Sector in the EDZ from Winding Cove that cuts through to the Gulch? I didn't realize it went that far until recently. You could add a stipulation that teams have to complete the Lost Sector on the 2nd of 3 laps 
• Hide and Seek
• No HUD, no vehicles or fast-travel
• Hard mode? Include Lost Sectors
• Current issues
• How to include more than a 3-person Fireteam in this?
• If you join a person's fireteam on, say the EDZ, land there, then leave the Fireteam, are you sent to orbit? If not, you could do this to slowly build up people in your instance
• Once Bungie adds ability to see each other on the map, you'll have to agree to not use the map
• What will the hider do to occupy their time? (Maybe tease and give hints on voice chat?
• Scavenger Hunt
• Variation on hide and seek, make up clues or such, draw from the lore and architectural design within the game for clues
• Patrol Challenge
• How many Patrols can your team do in ____ amount of time?
• My original idea was "How fast can you do all the patrols on ____?", but I think patrols respawn in Destiny 2
• Strike scoring
• Technically, you can track your stats using both the Bungie.net > My Profile > Game History, as well as https://guardian.gg/2
• Contestants can set limits and challenges, to see how well they can do in Strikes
• Bungie.net's stats track kills, deaths, and kills from melee, grenade, Super, and precision, whereas the link I posted gives a score and tracks the # of kills, deaths, and assists in strikes. So, you could use a combination of the two, and see who has the best score
• Technically, you can also track scores here, https://destinytracker.com/d2/leaderboards/all/score, as well, but that's more applicable on a much larger (console-wide) basis
• Civilian Rescue
• Was hoping Bungie would have civilians in the patrol areas that we had to find and rescue, more thoughts here
• Idea would be to have 1 person in fireteam who does not sprint, double jump, nor use any abilities (maybe melee is okay), and is escorted by their team. The "Civilian" is either required not to die, or deaths seriously penalize teams
• Different modes could be available, with different goals
• Complete all public events
• Complete events and acquire resources
• Complete events and lost sectors, collect resources
• Would love for a PVP version of this (even within the PVE areas), but unsure how to "kill" or mark an "enemy" team's civilian
• Horde mode
• An idea thrown around a lot, more ideas on that here
• I'm trying to think of encounters/areas where enemies never stop spawning, so far I can only think of the Zavala portion of the Homecoming mission
• When Homecoming is one of this week's Meditations, Fireteams can enter, be given a certain time limit, and are required to get the highest score and/or kill count as possible
• Quit the story mission before completing to allow you to return again and again throughout the week (think that all should work)

So, there you have it! I know it was a long read, but hopefully worth it. I know that Bungie has made mistakes, and if you want to not play the game anymore, that's perfectly fine. It's a very reasonable response and, it's just a game, so you're entitled to find your fun elsewhere. But, for me, and maybe for others, we're still having fun, but struggling with the game we currently have. Perhaps, this will help bring the Light back to the mired Darkness we see in this game.

Over the next little while, I am going to try out some of these via my Twitch stream, so we'll see how that goes. Come join me, if you'd like!

Please let me know what you think and @ me when you share this so that I can follow the feedback and improve things!

Thank you very much for reading!