Destiny 2 Concept Update: Guardian Gear

 Some Time to Explain.

Destiny 2 has been doing a tremendous job as of late in terms of bringing Guardians more and more ways to customise their characters - From Armour 3.0, to custom loadouts there hasn't been as many options to fully flex your space warrior in Dresstiny channels.

And that's a good thing, a key area of MMO games is the ability to make yourself stand out from everyone else (Hint hint, all-black Hunters) and the best way to express your style is through the gear you have equipped.

But I think Destiny still has some key areas on which things could improve. That's why I've came up with the concept of the Guardian Gear update! This would theoretically launch alongside a season or full-priced DLC as a free feature to bring more players back to the game whilst also encouraging more replayability - And importantly for Bungie, introduce new paths for the Eververse store.

This feature set would focus within two key areas: Bringing more cosmetic control to your gameplay, and more gameplay control to your cosmetics. Destiny has some immutable aesthetics which would have new visuals brought to them, as well as some purely aesthetic gear which Bungie could introduce new modifications to in order to enhance the player experience.

Guardian Rank

Before we get into the meat of this concept, I want to explain my background and credibility in concept design. I have never worked in the games development industry, and whilst a few personal friends work at varying levels across independent and AAA studios, I largely do not understand the ins and outs of game design myself. I just like to share ideas which I think are feasibly plausible and carefully thought out within the confines of gameplay, balance and within the respective studio's monetisation goal.

My most notable concept was an eight-year-plan for Red Dead Online, known as 'The Ultimate Concept Bundle' and has been featured in articles by GamesRadar and IGN, so I believe that should hold me some credibility for my ideas.

This is my first concept for a Destiny update, and as someone who has been playing since the Destiny 1 Beta (As early as July 23, 2014!) I am excited to delve into concepts for a universe I love.

The Gear

First we will talk about the upgrades to currently cosmetic-only gear. This would bring additional purpose to items like Ships and Sparrows, allowing for a more focused gameplay experience. For this, I took inspiration from the Ghost modifications - Adding specialised upgrades we can put on our equipment to help Guardians focus their experience.

Ship Upgrades

The first set of ideas I had were modifications for the player's ship. Each ship Legendary and above would feature the same masterwork and modification system as Ghosts, with the following mods available:

• Sublight Drive
  • 1/5th off respawn times (1s off 5s, 3s off 15s, 6s off 30s, 7s off 45s)
  • Requires 3 charge
• Medical Equipment
  • One extra revive token during high tier activities.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Lucky Dice
  • Increased Spoils of Conquest gain in raid, adds one Spoil per dungeon chest / encounter.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Matter Scanner
  • Increased chance of activities dropping deep-sight resonance weapons.
  • Requires 2 charge
  • Stacks depending on how many equipped.
    • 1: 10%
    • 2: 20%
    • 3: 30%
    • 4: 35%
• Atomic Focuser
  • Increased chance of high tier activities dropping their special exotic loot.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Weapons Cache
  • 20% bonus ammo reserves for fireteam.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Anti-Gravity Drive
  • Decrease fall damage by 50%.
  • Requires 2 charge
• Veteran’s Kill Count
  • Faster objective gain and fewer requirements to trigger certain heroic public events.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Portable Loom
  • Completing activities has a chance of dropping 1 - 10 synthcord, depending on activity difficulty.
  • Requires 2 charge
  • This will also help ease some of the controversy around transmog monetisation
• Ahamkara Charm
  • Boosts vendor reputation gain by 5%.
  • Requires 1 charge
• H.E.L.M Link
  • Boosts season pass XP gain by 5%.
  • Requires 1 charge

Sparrow Upgrades

Following the proposed modifications to the player's ships, I wanted to make the same type of customisation available for Sparrows, with the following mods being available:

• Racer’s Drive
  • Doubles boost charge.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Unstable Drive
  • Boosting creates a short trail of solar pools, which will damage enemies inside them.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Distracting Alloy
  • Decreases enemy aggression.
  • Requires 2 charge
• No Blinkers
  • Increases enemy aggression.
  • Requires 2 charge
• Arclight Engine
  • Increases speed to match Always on Time.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Pulse Breaks
  • Increases handling.
  • Requires 1 charge
• Plow
  • Increases ramming damage, enemies won’t dodge out of the way.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Destabilised Jets
  • Thrusting left or right will cause the Sparrow to roll similar to a heavy pike, and functioning like a hunter dodge to allow for all attacks to be avoided.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Bunny Hop
  • Pressing both left and right thrust will cause the sparrow to jump upwards into the air.
  • Requires 3 charge
• Inverse Drive
  • Tapping one of the side boosts will cause the sparrow to instead instantly turn 90 degrees in that direction. Double tapping will cause the sparrow to fully turn around.
  • Requires 2 charge
• Clown Car
  • Sparrow destruction will explode in a shower of confetti, similar to the 'Sweaty Confetti' weapon mod.
  • Requires 1 charge

Quality-of-Life

To match these new upgrades to customisation, a few extra features could be added to the game:

• Ship, artefact perks, ghost, sparrow, emblem added to loadouts.
  • This allows for specific mod builds and further aesthetic control to be added to Guardian aesthetics.
• I believe Bungie could also allow us to reclaim old artefacts from collections to use their champion mods instead for the season. This would encourage players to use their favourite build from any past seasons. Of course, Bungie would have to rework most of the previous artefacts to fit within the new style of permanent upgrades rather than armour mods and change out support for sunset features such as Warmind Cells, but this could be a brilliant new way to allow players to freely express themselves without creating seasonal loadout burnout.

The Glitter

This section is all about adding more visual customisation to each area of the game. Some of these options are more obvious than others, but please scroll through and hear me out for each one! 

Appearance Do-Over

Of course, this is the most obvious and requested feature when it comes to player characters in Destiny 2. Most of us created our Guardians years ago and regret one or two elements of their face. I, for one, am infuriated on how my Warlock looks like a drag queen who just took off her wig.

For this, there would be one free go at re-doing our Guardians for everyone, after that it would cost 250 legendary shards per go around. This is expensive, but I believe it should be in order to encourage some level of commitment to how our Guardians look. Some people may also be surprised this isn't a feature I'd suggest to put behind Eververse - Yes, that element comes into this later.

But in terms of changing our Guardians, we could redo everything except our species and our class:

• Gender
• Skin tone
• Hair
• Exo Mods
• Face
• Eyes
• Markings / Decals

But, there would also be new options added to the customisation suite, for the first update with this expansion - I propose Bungie could add four bundles to the Eververse store, with more on the way within later seasons:

• Hair and Exo Mods bundle: 200 silver
  • Featuring 3D mods for Exos, new hair styles, beards, and hair colours.
• Markings, decals and makeup bundle: 200 silver
  • Featuring new markings, blemishes, Exo decals and makeup options.
• Piercings bundle: 200 silver
  • Featuring an all-new suite of piercings for Human and Awoken characters.
• Contact lenses bundle: 100 silver
  • Featuring a variety of new eye colours and styles for Human and Awoken characters.
• Future DLC potential:
  • Taken effects.
  • Charged with light effects, like Cayde-6 in the teaser for The Final Shape.
  • Vex, Fallen and Cabal mods for Exo characters.

Elemental Skins

Elemental Skins may be the most controversial idea I could propose for Destiny, but I think it has the potential to be one of the most unique and interesting ideas which would bring a whole new level of personalisation to each Guardian. Elemental skins are visual changes to the player class element, can be selected in their element build screen. For now, I have one proposed reskin of each element - But for now, let me go into some balancing details.

For accessibility purposes, players would be able to disable these skins cross-game from the settings menu, meaning they would only see the classic elements. Think of the new armour toggle in Halo MCC which disables any retroactively added armours in favour of only legacy visuals displaying. Much like this, the new skins would also not displayed in competitive Crucible or Trials of Osiris in order to maintain a clear balance of effects and visibility.

Enemy shields will also only display in their classic colours for the same reason, elemental skins would only be visible on the Guardians using them in PVE modes.

These will also update the player’s elemental colour in gear showing their class, finishers and heads up display. These would be equipped via a new 'Channeler Item' in the subclass menu, through a new item selection tab in the top left.

The proposed skins and styles I would like to see:

ARC: Bolt of Zeus

• Changes arc lightning to be a rich gold colour.
• Elemental colour: Gold
• The OG Arc skin item would be called 'Bolt of Thor'

SOLAR: Soulfire Effigy

• Changes Solar fire effects to look like the black and green soulfire from the Hive.
• Elemental colour: Sage green
• The OG Solar skin item would be called 'Pocket Star'

VOID: Tablets of Rebirth

• Changes void effects to look like Taken effects but imbued with light instead of dark. Titan bubble looks like a white Vandal bubble, etc.
• Elemental colour: Black
• The OG Void skin item would be called 'Dimensional Anchor'

STASIS: Totem of the Natural World

• Changes Stasis effects to look like natural elements - Brown boulders with green grass, vines, etc. Slowing effects are based in mud.
• Elemental colour: Brown
• The OG Stasis skin item would be called 'Ziggurat Fragment'

STRAND: Bloodwork Dagger

• Changes Strand effects to a creepy blood red, mimicking a form of ancient dark blood magic.
• Elemental colour: Deep red
• The OG Strand skin item would be called 'Eternal Threader'

The Extras

Of course, in the names of customisation - some entirely new visuals and gameplay elements could just be added for additional flair and style. These include:

• Eververse inventory poses. Nine free options - Three current class stances with primary, special and heavy weapons equipped. Examples:
  • Knife spinning
  • Crouching
  • Flexing
  • Dual wield primary
  • One for each super / subclass:
    • Titan:
      • Arc: Pulsing fist.
      • Solar: Hammer over-shoulder
      • Void: Foot on shield
      • Strand: Pulsing blade
      • Stasis: Half-frozen
    • Hunter:
      • Arc: Leaning on staff
      • Solar: Golden gun executioner
      • Void: Shrouded in smoke
      • Strand: Spinning the needle
      • Stasis: Back to camera, holding Silence and Squall
    • Warlock:
      • Arc: Pulsing lightning between hands
      • Solar: Placing Well of Radiance
      • Void: Charging with void energy
      • Strand: Riding threadlings
      • Stasis: Aiming staff
• Unlockable pose retroactively added for each dungeon and raid:
  • Vault of Glass: Blocking with the relic
  • King's Fall: Leaning on tiny Tomb Ship
  • Last Wish: Holding Riven's heart above head
  • Garden of Salvation: Half-formed Divinity bubble at feet
  • Deep Stone Crypt: Sitting on a Shank
  • Vow of the Disciple: Rhulk's pose
  • Root of Nightmares: Leaning on Nezarec's scythe
  • Pit of Heresy: Power pose with Hive sword
  • Shattered Throne: Awoken statue pose (With palm in front)
  • Prophecy: Half bathed in shadow
  • Grasp of Avarice: Exotic engram in hand
  • Duality: Holding a miniature bell
  • Spire of the Watcher: Hands on belt-type "cowboy" pose
  • Ghosts of the Deep: With a Hive Ghost in hand.
• Emote wheel with 8 slots, accessed by holding down one key or button and moving the mouse or thumb stick to direct the selection.
  • This also frees up more buttons for controller players to use!
• Clan staff emote and transition where the Guardian lands on the flag.
  • We need more ways to visually represent our clan!

Overall, I think even a few of these additions would help make Destiny a much more expressive game in terms of player style and gameplay. Not to mention, it would introduce entire new loot pools for Bright Engrams and bring a whole new suite of monetisable cosmetics for the Eververse store! What do you think? Feel free to let us know on Twitter @GamesAtlasCom and share the article with friends! Thanks for reading!