These days, it’s not only fans that seem to be missing Destiny 1, but also Bungie, whose fixes for Destiny 2 involve reverting back to the original game in many ways.
Every fan forum wants X or Y back from Destiny 1, and most of all the new fixes end up being pulled from the older game. So I wanted to go back for the first time since before D2’s launch to see if we’re over-nostalgizing Destiny 1, or if the game really as good as we remember.
While there are many things about Destiny 1 I found I did not regret leaving behind (perhaps that deserves a separate article), I did indeed find myself missing many aspects of the original, even playing for a short while with an underwhelming player population (I literally could not find a match for strikes on Xbox One).
Here’s what I miss the most about Destiny 1:
1. I miss being fast
This one is simple, but I would argue one of the most fundamental differences between the two games. In Destiny 1, your character, no matter the class, is simply faster. A lot of this has to do with run speed, but overall movement just flows better with even marginally increased speed. For my money, even a 20-25% increase in movement speed in Destiny 2 would go a long way toward altering the overall “feel” of the game.
2. I miss my grenade
Obviously we all have grenades in Destiny 2, but not like Destiny 1. With a maxed Voidwalker recharge build my grenade was up probably every 8-10 seconds or so, a far cry from the yawning gaps of time in Destiny 2 where it’s on cooldown. But even without grenade-focused classes, it’s up a lot more often, and it was nice not to “spam” it necessarily, but reach for it and have it usually be there, rather than forever being on cooldown like in D2.
3. I miss not worrying about my super
Similarly, your super recharges much, much faster in Destiny 1, as everyone is definitely remembering that aspect of the game correctly. Things are a little better in D2 now with Masterwork orbs, but the problem is that we’ve been trained since launch that super are very rare in D2, so we hold on to them to use them only when we absolutely want to burst down a boss or something. So we save it more often than we should. In D1, your super is up so often you really don’t have to concern yourself with this, and you can use it whenever you want. I found that I usually had a super every other encounter or so, as opposed to once or twice during an entire mission.
As an aside, I think my last three points here are what combine into this refrain that Guardians feel less powerful in D2 than they do in D1. One thing I did not notice in Destiny 1 is that I was doing significantly more damage to enemies with my skills and weapons. That actually felt about the same as it does in D2, as did my own damage resilience. But combining speed with increased cooldowns, that was the kind of power that was missing, the ability to use abilities, not just guns, constantly in combat.
4. I miss an actual secondary weapon
Another huge point as yes, going back to Destiny 1 established that the old loadout system is unequivocally better than the new dual primary weapon system. The ability to switch back and forth between a primary and fusions/snipers/shotguns again, and have access to rockets, swords and MGs was fantastic. I didn’t miss having two primaries at all, as it’s clear that the system is only in place for PvP balance (like the higher cooldowns, also), and it’s only real purpose in PvE is shield-type matching. Destiny 1 reminded me that yes, you can actually do damage to enemy shields with a kinetic primary (which is utterly fruitless in D2), but obviously using your secondary to type match works there as well. Simply put, the old system is better in every way. I’m still not opposed to giving players four weapon slots total, dual primaries with the old secondary and heavy slots, but the current system is just plain worse than the old one.
5. I miss Machine Guns
Again, this feels like something that was removed from the game for literally no good reason. Possibly PvP balance, or the fact that there are already way too many weapons in the power slot in D2. But whatever the case, I absolutely miss this weapon archetype, and it’s bizarre that it was actually removed for a sequel that should be expanding your roster, if anything. Bring MGs back.
6. I miss armor doing something, anything
I get that through the mod system that D2 armor can do a lot of what D1 armor did, but D1 armor, though not great itself, was still better overall than its sequel counterpart. You get pieces that A) automatically reduce your cooldowns, because flat stats are saved for the subclass node system. B) have pretty much any perk you can get from D2 mods C) have other useful ones like more super energy from minion kills or health regen on orb pickup that don’t exist in D2. I have always wanted Destiny armor to be more interesting than it’s been, but it’s clear that D2 was a step back in that regard, and the change really does feel like it was made to justify the never-ending sale of cosmetic armor in Eververse.
7. I miss these old zones
Another thing I wish we hadn’t lost in D2. This is the “WoW expansion vs. true sequel” issue, where we lost all the old zones completely, locked in the former game, instead of simply expanding the map with new zones and revisiting them from time to time. And it’s nice to revisit them, even though I’ve spent hundreds of hours there already. I would also certainly not say no to another dozen or so strikes to add into the pool to mix things up more. As technically impossible as it may be (though I have trouble believing that), I really would love for the D1 zones to be a part of D2 someday, as unlikely as that seems.
8. I miss a non-Token-based loot system
Not to say I got any amazingly exciting drops from my brief time returning to Destiny 1, but I will say that it made me recognize that the token system literally adds nothing to the game. It’s a way to get more loot perhaps, but tokens are just very bad and boring, and I’d rather have fewer, better drops than amass stacks of tokens to turn into NPCs any day.
9. I miss true exotic quests
Again, I didn’t do any exotic quests in this playthrough, but I did go back through my old vault which triggered actual memories of how I get each weapon. While most were random drops, others like Thorn or the Black Spindle were some of the most vivid memories I have of playing the game. I can’t say the same for D2’s stupidly easy exotic quests (MIDA), or the stupidly annoying ones (Rat King). This is one component of the original that got totally lost for the sequel for reasons I can’t understand.
10. I miss shaders
The only part of the shader system that’s better in D2 is the ability to recolor your guns. Everything else? The worst. I don’t need to go on a rant about how consumable, cost-heavy shaders are terrible, because I’ve done that about 50 times at this point, but easily flipping back and for the between shaders for your full armor kit instantly with no consumables and no taxes was fantastic, and if it was some sort of Eververse money-making scheme to change that for the sequel, it was a poor one. This absolutely needs to be reverted, yet it doesn’t seem to be on Bungie’s radar at all.
Again, there’s plenty I don’t miss about D1, but I’ll save that for another day, and many of these issues are more key than what was gained in D2. I know I’m probably missing a few points here (didn’t play much Crucible, for instance), but this is what I took away from the experience. The playercount isn’t healthy enough to play D1 regularly if I wanted to, but again, I have to say that many D2 fixes really do need to keep coming from the original.
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