Answering Bungie’s ‘Destiny 2’ New Player Survey Honestly

Bungie is circulating one of its Destiny 2 player satisfaction surveys, pretty common practice, but one that comes at an interesting time as the storyline of the current season winds down and we have just under five months until the release of The Final Shape.

I didn’t get one, but a reader sent me his, and I thought it would be interesting to answer it publicly with my own thoughts on the current state of the game. So here we go:

1. How would you rate your Destiny 2 experience in the past week? – 3.5/5, somewhat enjoyable

2. What did you like about your past week in Destiny 2? – I got an Indebted Kindness with Impulse Amplifier and Voltshot.

3. What did you dislike about your past week in Destiny 2? – The seasonal quest of patrol farming Dreaming City and doing more Blind Well was exceedingly boring.

4. How likely is it you would recommend Destiny 2 to a friend or colleague? – 3/10, not likely, after all this time I barely know where to tell anyone to start, and it’s too confusing and expensive for them.

5. How likely are you to play the next season of Destiny 2 – 5, very likely, I mean, it’s me, I always will. Especially when it’s The Final Shape and then the first episode.

6. Thinking about your past week in Destiny 2, which of the following categories best describe what you liked? Please select all that apply (there are 22 of these):

• Gunplay/Combat experience (gun “feel”) – I mean the game always feels good.
• Rewards (eg. Satisfied with new armor/weapon to chase, desired weapon/armor drop) – Got that Indebted Kindess
• Season Content (eg. Exotic missions, seasonal activities) – I ran zero Coil and have no need to now, but I do enjoy running Legend Starcrossed for the catalyst at least once.
• Subclass Changes (eg. Void 3.0) – I have really enjoyed all the 3.0 updates, not that there’s anything new like, this week. Solar and Strand with their boosts have been very fun this season.

7. Thinking about your past week in Destiny 2, which of the following categories best describe what you disliked? Please select all that apply:

• Appearance Cosmetics (eg. Not enough options or customizability) – Things look fine but I am out of transmog bounties a month into a six month season which remains deeply stupid.
• Lack of Content (eg. Not enough to do, no new missions/events/maps) – Sort of out of reasons to play. Not just seasonally, but no more real personal “goals” here, specific guns, materials, gear, etc. I care about getting. Nothing to chase.
• Story/Narrative (eg. Not enough or dislike storyline NPCs) – I have not liked this season’s “get through the portal” story as we already know the end result and the pathway is just a bunch of nonsense involving wishes, the veil, ley lines, etc. Feels meaningless. And this week’s story missions in particular were bad.
• Weapon Crafting (eg. Grind, materials, perks) – No none of that, I just hate what crafting has done to the loot chase, an unpopular opinion it seems.

8. Have you interacted with Fireteam Finder in Destiny 2 (currently in beta) – Yes

9. Were you able to do the following using Fireteam Finder?

• Found a group to play with – Attempted but not successfully
• Formed a group to play with – Yes
• Started an activity with group you found/formed – Yes
• Completed an activity with group you found/formed – Yes
• Completed more than one activity with the same group – No

10. Overall speaking how do you feel about your experience with the Fireteam Finder in Destiny 2? – 5/10, neutral

11. Tell us more about why you feel positively or negatively about the Fireteam Finder – I think it’s good that it exists in the first place, but for what I wanted to do, farm the first dungeon encounter for my sidearm, it was way faster just to use the web app on desktop than try to do it with Fireteam finder. Better for something like The Coil.

12. How easy was it to use Fireteam Finder in Destiny 2? 4/5, somewhat easy to use.

13. Based on your experience, how useful is having the Fireteam Finder in Destiny 2? – 3/5, somewhat useful

14. Based on your experience, which of the following best describes how you see yourself using the Fireteam Finder in the future? – I can see Fireteam Finder as an occasional supplement to external group finding tools.

15. How do you feel about the current state of PvP/Crucible in Destiny 2? – 2/10, dissatisfied

16. How are you satisfied with the updates PvP/Crucible currently receives? – 2/10 dissatisfied

17. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about PvP/Crucible?

• I understand which Crucible playlist is most suitable for my skill level – 4/5, agree somewhat
• I personally feel motivated to play PvP/Crucible – 1/5 strongly disagree
• I have a positive experience playing against other players regardless of their skill level – 2/5, disagree somewhat
• I have to play PvP in Destiny 2 to achieve my goals in the game – 3/5 neutral (had to play a ton of Iron Banner for those ornaments, for instance)
• My favorite mode in PvP/Crucible is available to play often enough – N/A, this is not applicable to me
• The rewards I earn in PvP/Crucible are worth the time I spend in the activity – 1/5 strongly disagree
• I am fairly matched against my opponents in every game – 1/5 strongly disagree

18. Where do you feel that you fall among other players in terms of your skill when you play PvP – Average

19. How satisfied are you with the following season 22 PvP additions?

Relic – N/A I did not engage with this feature

Checkmate – N/A I did not engage with this feature

Multiplex – 3/10 Somewhat dissatisfied (everyone thought the Vex map aesthetic would be cool but it is not and the map tries to do too many things).

20. Rate how desirable the rewards you get are from the following PvP playlists – (skipping all seven options but only Trials and Iron Banner, really)

21. Rate how satisfying the time spent is to obtain rewards in each playlist – (very unsatisfying for all of them)

So, heavily focused on Fireteam Finder, which I find it hard to replace the much faster, easier web app with, but I get why people would like it. And a lot of PvP questions, where the game continues to struggle, but the main thing for me is that as a casual PvP player, I usually have zero desire at all to play PvP unless there’s a must-have reward like Iron Banner ornaments. And at this point essentially nothing will get me to play Trials anymore as that mode has just gotten worse and worse and more and more people drop out.

Did you get this survey with the same questions, or different ones?

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