Destiny 2 Lightfall difficulty changes are putting players off of the FPS game. Longtime Guardians are noting that activities such as Vanguard Ops playlists, Nightfalls, patrols, and Lost Sectors are much more difficult and take away from the mindless grinding that has historically granted Destiny 2 its broad appeal.
Case in point: Multiple threads posted within a day of one another on the r/DestinytheGame subreddit, each of which boasts over a thousand upvotes, are related to difficulty increases. A post titled “I used to enjoy legend dares” by Redditor themattigan notes a Dares of Eternity run that they describe by saying, “just got out of an absolute slog that lasted a painful 30 odd mins of getting steamrolled by goblins, centurions, and acolytes let alone the more powerful enemies that seem to have had their hp increased by about 1000%.”
hat post has more than 1.2k upvotes. A post titled “Please for the love that is holy… remove the threshers(or nerf their damage) in patrols,” from user DevonT3 has 1.3k upvotes, while a post titled “Please make the laser tripwires not one-shot us in the Vanguard playlist” from Redditor Pfhortune has 1.2k upvotes as well. Another post with 2.3k upvotes from Redditor AKA-VANISH-X is titled “If you’re going to make the game harder, make it more rewarding.”
A post from Redditor Alastor369 titled “Bringing challenge back to Destiny,” a reference to Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn’s statement about increasing difficulty levels within the game, notes, “They take the content that we’ve ground the **** out of and are sick of doing, and they make it harder (annoying) without increasing the payoff.” The post has more than a thousand upvotes.
Taken together, the Reddit complaints seem to imply that Bungie has missed the mark in increasing the game’s difficulty. Such difficulty changes were in direct response to community feedback that much of the Vanguard Ops content, patrols, and other every day in-game activities felt too easy. Prior to Lightfall, if things were too difficult, players could simply increase their Power level, which would make enemies easier to kill.
However, the recent difficulty changes have also created Power deltas for some activities. Players can’t simply increase their Power levels to play through content they might otherwise struggle to beat. Instead, the game encourages them to reach a recommended Power level, which their Power level does not exceed for the activity. The game also makes the enemy Power level substantially more difficult than the player. As a result, Power levels become meaningless in these activities after players reach a certain level.
With all these complaints, it’s interesting to note the team increased the difficulty of some of these standard activities in response to player complaints that some content was too easy. For example, a post from Redditor ca-ca-cayde from Sept. 23, 2022, is titled “The base difficulty of Strike Playlist should be increased.” That post has 2.2k upvotes.
While it’s difficult to gauge what Bungie must do to appease players, the reality is that even veteran players find some of the game’s most basic content too difficult. Granted that Bungie made Destiny 2 free-to-play several years ago, the game’s content seems as though it should be more accessible to new players rather than so inaccessible it’s driving them away.
If you’re struggling with the newest content in the multiplayer game, check out our Destiny 2 Root of Nightmares guide and our Destiny 2 Vexcalibur quest guide to help you push through.