14 DAY TRIAL // The team at Bungie in charge of Destiny has been adding a range of new experiences to the social shooter since the launch of The Taken King expansion, and it seems that 2016 will be a similarly busy year for the company, with some surprises prepared for the player community.
Speaking to Crucible Radio, a fan-driven podcast that focuses on the title, Sage Merrill and Jon Weisnewski, two of the leaders of the sandbox team, explain that they are carefully using both player feedback and tracked data to decide how they want to tweak the experience.
The pair goes into a lengthy discussion about the major balance changes that were recently made to the weapons of Destiny and to the Titan class and the various reasons that powered the buffs and the nerfs that have been implemented.
Bungie still believes that gamers are focusing too much on auto rifles for their Guardians and suggest that more of them should give fusion-powered weaponry a chance to show what it can do in Player versus Player engagements.
The developers also suggest that in 2016 they are planning to make a lot of changes to both the Hunter and the Warlock, to make their various subclasses more balanced in the long run.
According to Sage and Weisnewski, the team is also tracking the various matchmaking issues that the community has been reporting and currently does not have a clear solution for them and the lag reported by some fans seems impossible to eradicate.
Bungie believes that Destiny can continue to be attractive only if it continues to evolve from a gameplay point of view while the studio continues to add more content for free for the entire fan base to experience.
Iron Banner is returning on December 29
The focus is currently on the Sparrow Racing League, which allows players to compete in races against other humans to get special rewards.
All through December, the Challenge mode for the King's Fall raid is also running, with gamers asked to battle bosses that follow certain new game patterns that make them more powerful.
Bungie has already announced that the popular Player versus Player Iron Banner event will return on December 29, with gamers able to get access to a new set of rewards for their Guardians if they can perform well in battle.
The company has suggested that during the spring of next year Destiny will receive new content that is equivalent regarding size with The Taken King, although it is unclear whether this includes an entirely new raid.
All of it seems to be designed to be free, powered by the revenue that Bungie is extracting from the microtransactions associated with the Eververse Trading Company.
Meanwhile, publisher Activision seems to be saying that a paid expansion for Destiny is also expected in 2016, although no details about it have been offered yet, and rumors are also talking about a full sequel that will arrive late next year on the PC, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.