Destiny has been out for over 11 months now. The Dark Below (TDB) and House Of Wolves (HoW) expansions have both released and we are a little under a month away from The Taken King. But I have logged many hours into Destiny and I think I speak for a lot of Guardians when I say that TDB and HoW got old very quickly. There just isn’t all that much exciting and new content to explore. Personally, I find the Crota’s End raid dull and boring, the bridge being the only part that I find really cool. Vault of Glass still holds a lot of replay value for me, even though I have every possible drop that it can give me due to the design aspects of it. With me having spent so many hours in this game I find myself at risk of ‘Burnout.’
Hello? Is anybody there?
What Is burnout and how does it occur?
Burnout is what happens when you find yourself getting bored or when the idea of continuing to play simply loses its allure. This is prevalent in Destiny due to the repetitive nature of the game. Yes there are many things to do, but they kind of end up becoming routine. You go into Crota and chances are someone is cheesing half of it so you end up just sitting around. You go into Vault of Glass and people just want to kill the Oracles and The Templar from up top. Prison of Elders got real boring for me because it’s just the same thing, wave after wave. Maybe if they had put more variety into the objectives it would hold more replay value for me. There was a point in time where I was all about the Crucible, but even that got stale for me because I was either getting killed across the hall by a shotgun or I was getting sniped by Thorn. For the Crucible, the “git gud” mentality will only get you so far until you realise that the Crucible is majorly unbalanced, currently. After doing all these activities to death I found myself getting bored with the game, mind you the game is still undeniably good.
I myself am at risk of experiencing ‘burnout.’ So for any of you people that are in the same boat, I am here to explain what you can do to keep your interest in Destiny and prevent burnout, especially in time for The Taken King.
I’ve heard it’s nice this time of year
Create new challenges for you and your friends to do:
I’ve done this with many friends. Sometimes we will go into the Vault of Glass with no exotics, and only using non-ascended Crota’s End weapons. Sometimes we go further than that and use non-ascended vanilla Destiny weapons. This helps maintain the challenge that is the Vault of Glass, especially on Hard Mode. Sometimes we even take it a step further and use only blue-rare quality weapons. This has proven to be quite fun but isn’t the one and only answer to preventing burnout. The following are some things you and your friends can do to avoid burnout:
- Go positive in the Crucible with the No Land Beyond – Easier said than done for most. But finally achieving this has a great sense of accomplishment. No supers, grenades, melee, special or heavy weapons. Bonus objective, be the MVP of the game.
- Go flawless in Trials of Osiris using only grenades and melee – I got this from KingGothalion over on Twitch. It is exactly as it sounds.
- Wave to every opponent before you kill them in the Crucible – Show some kindness to your opponents before you shoot them in the face. Sometimes the people start to do it back.
- Complete Vault of Glass or Crota’s End on hard using an entirely new control scheme – This should keep you and your teammates on your feet as you’ll have to relearn the controls to maintain your skills. You will more than likely die, and it will be funny (yes I will laugh).
These are just some of the challenges that you can do, I am positive that you can come up with better ones than these, but you have to start somewhere, right?
Crota: “Dad? I’m not coming home today. Xür sold the Gjallarhorn.”
Listen to music while you play:
Yes this concept does seem rather simple, but believe me when I say that the daily activities feel like a bit less of a grind when I am jamming out to some Northlane or In Hearts Wake. At some points it even keeps me playing at the top of my game, pulling off some really crazy things for my standard of playing. If the song is right, I’ll even shoot in rhythm with it and make my friends think I am crazy.
Play other games in the meantime:
Crazy, I know. Other games do exist outside of Destiny. If you’re looking for a fun multiplayer game, then I recommend giving Planetside 2 on PS4 a go (Xbox I don’t really know what to recommend you seeing a The Master Chief Collection still doesn’t work as intended). I’ve found myself raging at that game instead of Destiny recently. If you’re looking for singleplayer games look towards The Witcher 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition as they have a large variety of things to do while you await The Taken King.
Bloodborne and Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin have still maintained the top spots as some of my favourite games. They give me a challenge (more so than Destiny) and punish me for making mistakes. When I’m not playing Destiny, chances are I’m playing one of these two games. Some other games I enjoy playing are Rocket League, Terraria, Dragonball: Xenoverse and Killzone: Shadowfall. I even go back to Xbox 360 and play all the Halo games sometimes.
Skolas, meet a real boss. The Ancient Dragon from Dark Souls II
It’s always good to keep a variety of games well at hand, otherwise you may just find that Destiny just doesn’t satisfy anymore.
Avoid the hype-train:
I would advise staying away from a large amount of hype regarding any new additions or changes coming up for Destiny. You will often want to try out that new update or the new expansion after reading about it, making the current content available feel dull in comparison just out of sheer hype. Overhyping yourself can often deter you from the game, putting you at major risk of burnout as you become extremely bored with everything that the game currently has to offer.
Take a break:
If you aren’t interested in any of the aforementioned avenues then maybe you should just take a short (or long, depending on you) break, especially leading up to the release of The Taken King. The game will still be there when you come back. Go outside, meet new people, go Super Saiyan 3 and destroy the world, just don’t burnout on Destiny. Need some help? I’ve got a friend who’s connected to Frieza. I am sure he would love to help you with your genocidal mission.
“I’m going to drown you like a sack of dumb puppies.” – Frieza (DBZ Abridged)
Did any of this information help you? What challenges are you partaking in? What other games are you playing? How close are you to Super Saiyan 3? If you’re not a Super Saiyan, do you need Frieza? For the meantime…
Guardians out!
