Destiny: Three Ways to Avoid Burnout

We’re now officially beyond a three month content gap in Destiny. It’s roughly the same amount of time it took Bungie to issue The Dark Below last year. While The Taken King offered a wide array of new content, many Guardians were in a position to plow through a bulk of it within the first month of release. That isn’t Bungie’s fault. If anything, it’s a testament to how well TTK was received by incumbents and new players alike. If you’re more of a casual player (2-6 hours a week), there is most likely a lot of content you haven’t yet explored, and certainly not on all three characters.

Still, despite Bungie’s best efforts in offering variations of their new content, things have gotten stale for some Guardians. The reality is that if you play something enough, you’ll eventually grow tired of it or at least certain aspects. For me, that’s the PvE portion of the game. I can’t remember the last time I attempted a nightfall, and I even avoid the more annoying daily story missions even if I need the 15 Legendary Marks. With that in mind, here are three suggestions to help prevent burnout as we await an announcement on when genuinely new content will be released.

1.) Join a clan. That seems simple enough, but I still see a ton of Guardians running around Tower and in Crucible matches that don’t have a clantag. If you’ve read any of my previous articles about Destiny, you know that I am huge advocate of the community. I am sure there are some people who enjoy playing by themselves and that’s fine. However, many aspects of this game were designed with a social aspect in mind.

I don’t recommend blindly joining any clan; do your research first. I strongly suggest messaging the founder/leader of the clan to see if they’re still active. It may also be wise to play a few games before apply so you can get a sample of what day-to-day gaming would be like if you became a permanent member. But above all else, make sure you’re willing to uphold what the clan stands for if you end up joining. Don’t be one of those members who’s there simply to get a few achievements or trophies. Being a part of a clan should be a mutually beneficial relationship.

2.) Create your own kind of challenges with friends. This of course requires that you followed my first suggestion and/or that you already have a group of Guardians that you regularly play with. I’ve started to see some popular streamers and YouTubers post videos that revolve around this concept. Basically, the point is to create your own in-game modifiers, both in PvE and PvP, for pure entertainment. Try completing a strike by only using melee abilities, or primaries only. A raid race amongst a large group of friends is always a good time.

This is a little trickier to accomplish given that there is no custom matchmaking in PvP (seriously, it’s been a year). If you have friends who live in close proximity (same side of state/country), it’s definitely worth trying to match against another fireteam. If you steer more towards the competitive side, it’s a good way to earn bragging rights. Adding interesting and creative modifiers can make casual gameplay extremely enjoyable. I’ve participated in a melee only match, white and green only, and decrypting a primary engram and using that only. The possibilities are somewhat endless, and having participated in these myself, they are a lot of fun so long as everyone has the same expectations.

3.) Play another game. This may seem counter intuitive, but sometimes taking a step away can draw you closer in the end. No that isn’t relationship advice, it’s the truth. A lot of really good titles have dropped within in the last few months: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Fallout 4, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate just to name a few. I’ve dabbled in nearly all of them, and they are fun and offer a nice alternative to Destiny. But what I found was that there were aspects of Destiny that I really never appreciated until I played other games, especially in the FPS genre.

Sometimes just stepping away can recharge your batteries, and ease the pressure of the grind. You may find yourself coming back just on the weekend to participate in the Trials of Osiris with friends, and find that’s fun again (this may have been a bad example). Like anything, the more you’re involved with something, the easier it is to find all the warts. Sometimes when you take a step back and use something else as a baseline for comparison, you end up with a new level of appreciation for something. For me, I realized that no other FPS just felt as smooth with the controls and overall gameplay. Given how much time I’ve invested in Destiny I dismissed that notion at first. However, as I crossed the 12 hour mark in CoD, I found myself wishing the controls felt more like Destiny even though I was enjoying the game otherwise.

There truthfully isn’t a special formula to avoiding burnout, as everyone is different. When it comes to Destiny, most people get burnt out by the grind. That’s especially true if you aren’t a fan of the PvP aspects of the game. From personal experience, the suggestions above can help inject new life into a familiar setting, and also help remind you of some of the better aspects of the game.