Destiny 2 has plenty of different game modes for players to tackle as they please, and this is achieved by having a healthy mix of both PvE and PvP activities with varied difficulty. As a result, not all players engage in all the possible game modes Destiny 2 offers, and only a handful of them are mostly populated by all sorts of Guardians, such as base Crucible playlists and Strikes. High-end content is often where players put more effort for the most rewards, with an example being the Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes.
Last year, Destiny 2 saw the return of a classic Raid from its predecessor in the form of Vault of Glass, which also became the very first Raid in the game to have a Master mode for experienced players. One of the issues that players immediately pointed out after playing through Master Vault of Glass was that its difficulty didn't go up by including more complex mechanics or layers of challenges, but rather it was achieved by heavily increasing the number of Champions players had to face. The same design philosophy was adopted for the recently released Master version of Vow of the Disciple, which again proves how flawed this logic is.
Why Destiny 2's Master Raids Should Not Revolve Around Champions
The new Master version of The Witch Queen's Raid quickly became a focal point in community discussions because of how Bungie decided to handle its increased difficulty, showing that relying on multiple additional Champions and Match Game is not healthy. This is because of a twofold factor: Champions per se are often broken and require a lot of attention to dispose of them quickly, and the weight of this reflects on the quite restricted loadout options for players. Destiny 2's Champions and Match Game limit by a lot the number of options players have to build their characters, and they are not truly an indicator of difficulty.
Instead, Champions and Match Game are often used to artificially increase difficulty because players have to change their loadouts accordingly to deal with them, and they also result in more priority targets that disrupt fights significantly the longer they remain alive. Master Vow of the Disciple didn't change Vault of Glass' approach, but rather solidified it, which is not something players appreciate because it limits their creativity and relies on bugged or flawed mechanics that have been around forever.
This is something the community has been discussing more and more since the release of The Witch Queen, which came with a Legendary campaign that didn't need Champions to be challenging, but rather used contest mode. Contest mode is something Destiny 2 Raid players know very well, as it is the modifier used for the release of a new Raid to make it much harder for the World First race. This is not an increase in artificial difficulty, but rather it takes players to a given level to see how they fare when underpowered.
Master Vow of the Disciple still allows players to outlevel their enemies with enough time and patience, and the only real change in the overall experience is that Guardians now have to deal with a lot of Champions all the time. Champions are a feature that's not really considered fun anymore because of all the unsolved issues they bring with them, and making them the focus of a Master Raid is not the way to go. Destiny 2 needs more content like The Witch Queen campaign to remain appealing to all players, and relying on Champions to do that doesn't really work.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
