In an interview with Kotaku yesterday, the creative director of Destiny: The Taken King, Luke Smith, talked about some of the issues the popular MMO shooter faced during its first year of release. One of the biggest issues talked about was how Bungie was well aware of the faulty leveling system of Destiny.
Bungie was far from satisfied with the leveling system Destiny had when it was released back in September 2014. This is what Smith had to say about it:
“The original Light system, when that went out the door, we were not thrilled with it. We knew when that went out the door that we were going to need to revisit it. So that work basically began in earnest probably September or October [of 2014]. We had already started to work on a new proposal, the proposal that would become the Light 2.0 that’s in the game now. We were working on that as early as last fall.”
Bungie started working on a new leveling system shortly after the original release of Destiny. The new leveling system was not applied until the Taken King because of compatibility issues with the past expansions The Dark Below and House of Wolves.
“We had to look at DLC 1 [The Dark Below] and DLC 2 [House of Wolves] and say, ‘OK, well, how can we set those two DLCs up to allowing for this [leveling] pivot?’ So in DLC 2, that’s why you see the introduction of the Etheric Light mechanic, because we were trying to get players to converge quickly at a single, common level because we knew where we were going to take them next.”
Make sure to keep your eyes and ears open. Bungie is far from done with Destiny. They have hinted that they intend to add a lot more to the popular first-person MMO shooter than a new leveling system.
The full interview between Kotaku and Smith can be found here.
