It seems Bungie had one ear to the ground during last year’s release of The Dark Below, as the studio confirmed that Destiny‘s upcoming sophomore DLC, House of Wolves, will offer less grind and fairer rewards to budding Guardians.
In a thread over on NeoGaf, Destiny Lead Designer Luke Smith touched upon the company’s new approach with the upcoming expansion, and how it will ultimately create an experience that is more rewarding to the player.
“Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react,” Smith stated.
“We will continue to improve acquisition stories and frequency (My understanding of the perception is that Crota’s End drop rates are much improved vs. Vault of Glass), lessen the grind and get players to the fun parts of their arsenal faster.”
Further in the post, Smith went on to detail Destiny‘s shard system, and how the developing team are honing in on a way to instil a sense of balance into the economy, ensuring players gain access to new gear as quickly as possible.
“Shards are a barrier between you and equipping a sweet new piece of gear. We want fewer barriers to equipping upgrades. The shard economies erect these barriers between players and the new piece of gear they just got.
We’re not intending to adjust the shard economy for this Tier — we don’t want to invalidate player effort (again). But removing the barrier between that new drop you’re excited to get and actually being able to equip it as a member of your arsenal are something we will do going forward.”
Destiny‘s House of Wolves expansion is expected to release sometime in the spring, bringing with it an all-new raid mission to put Guardians to the test.
