What does a ‘Destiny 2’ event like the Solstice need to motivate players

For a while now, it feels like the events in Destiny 2 have gotten a bit bogged down. There have been good things in the past, periodically, but more than ever, they seem less creative and lively. More than ever, they seem to be all about paying microtransactions only.

coup Perhaps the single biggest example of Destiny’s backsliding is that when the game first started, we visually redesigned the campaign missions and challenging armor sets that we had to evolve through a lot of play.

Now, we are in our fifth year of EAZ. Our second year of Bonfire Bash, and it’s less exciting than our first three years of rooftop hopping. Even if the rewards aren’t good (which they aren’t, but I’ll get to that in a minute), one way to engage players is to make the activity itself new and fun. But events now in Destiny 2 are almost copied and pasted from previous years, and if they’ve “changed,” it’s for something like the Haunted Forest being turned into Lost Haunted Sectors with different kinds of eggs. Or like going to Bonfire Bash. They just get worse.

Here are the problems I see when using this year’s solstice as the clearest example of all of this so far:

• It’s year 5 at EAZ, and the “new” additions are a couple of buffs that don’t come close to solstice years back when we had item-based specific buffs and they were really, really fun.
• Bonfire Bash doesn’t even use the full point of EAZ, which was vertical, making it a lower-event version of the one that was there before.
• You are presented with a full set of armor up front which you are required to use in activities despite the paltry stats (you really only need to use a class item, for the most part, FYI). This is at least a step up from the other events as there is no new armor to be earned at all, only purchased, but…
• You can “skip” the event by either paying for the best, last, and elemental glowing version of the silver-encrusted armor, or knocking out a saved shining dust for it. The “earned” white flares this year are barely noticeable, and the color-changing ones, which can’t be obtained by playing in the event, are the best anyway.
• One draw of the event is a (rather complicated) high armor farm for players, which again distinguishes between free and paid players, as this free event makes it a chore, but paid seasonal players can target any engram in HELM immediately to high-status armor, making this event useless for them.

• I feel like most of the seasonal weapons are being held back on purpose to be disappointing. While there are a couple exceptions here and there, this season in particular, the new Rocket Launcher with maybe One good roll that’s vastly outweighed by half a dozen other rockets isn’t worth farming for.
• Finally, other in-game bonuses are almost non-existent. There is only one ship you can earn. One Bright Dust shader (first of the entire season!!) and a second locked inside a very annoying “Event Pass” sell for $10, making this the fourth shader this season behind a $10 paywall that can’t be bought with Bright Dust and bundled with other things you probably don’t want. As evidenced by the Iron Banner chain shader, even one cosmetic bonus like this can inspire a lot of grinding. No such thing is shown here.

Simply put, you have to give players a reason to play. First of all, it will be a new gameplay experience, a new map or mode, but without that, you need worthwhile rewards to follow, which… are also missing in this event. If you don’t engage players at all, no one will log in to look at all of the beautiful Eververse store items in the first place.

Next up is Festival of the Lost, and we’ll see if we’re still cruising through the Haunted Lost sectors with cool shaders locked in the event lane…

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