Destiny 2

Case study

Computer with Destiny 2 on it

Overview

Role: Researcher

Timeline: 2 weeks

Tools: Figma

Question: Are there areas in Destiny 2 that could use improvement?

Background:

Destiny 2 is a popular massive multiplayer online (MMO) game that has millions of players. Since it’s such a popular game everything needs to have the best experience possible but there are some areas where Destiny 2 falls short in helping the players see what is going on in the game. My goal is to find and give suggestions on how they can improve their accesibility.

Summary

  • Status conditions are hard to differentiate

    • Hard for veterans to help new players

    • New players don’t know what to look for

  • There’s little contrast so it’s difficult to identify and easy to miss. This leads to frustration among new players and makes it difficult to complete missions.

  • Solutions

    • Different typography

    • Use of symbols

    • Better contrast

Problem

Visibility Issues:

  • Small text

  • Text blending with the background

    • Status conditions hard to read

  • Complex Gameplay

    • Status conditions

      • Using abilities

      • Enemy abilities

      • Ally buffs

      • Enemy debuffs

      • Collecting and counting objective objects

    • Common to have more than 4 status conditions

      • Limited to only seeing 4

        • Leads to being unable to see all different conditions

    • Players struggle to identify who has a specific status condition during gameplay

      • Important conditions, potentially lethal, go unnoticed due to difficulty in reading or players not realizing they have a condition

  • Impact on Gameplay

    • The difficulty in recognizing and understanding status conditions can significantly affect gameplay outcomes

    • Lack of clear warnings for conditions that could lead to player death adds to the challenge

Overall Issue:

  • Having a hard time noticing status conditions can lead to a negative player experience

Here are some examples:

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Some problems are easy to miss

  • Can only see 4 conditions at a time

  • Timers are too hard to keep track of

  • Too much for new characters to keep track of

  • Players being frustrated and annoyed

  • Little contrast

    • Some planets and areas are bright and white on white is not easy to read for most people

  • Hard to notice

    • Small text

    • Sometimes conditions will rotate out but players wont notice because they’re all the same color and size text

  • Easy-to-miss

    • Some conditions are more important than others and need more player attention

      • If they’re missed players can die waste time

Solutions

  • Differing typography

    • If a player has an important status condition from a boss that requires them to get away from their teammates, or the whole team dies, the text for that condition should look different than the rest

    • Debuffs should have a scarier font that’s reminiscent of the boss or enemy race they are fighting

      • Vex should be a more futuristic and robotic font

      • Fallen should have a thick curvy font

    • Status conditions being different colors

      • Making an important status condition stand out as a different color would bring a player’s eyes to it quicker

  • Symbols

    • Destiny uses lots of symbols and has unique well designed symbols so symbols would be a strength to use more

      • Symbols are used to distinguish classes, races, factions, characters, planets, weapons, weapon types, elements, abilities, levels, missions, areas, maps, chests, vehicles

      • Symbols are used on lots of levels to figure out puzzles

    • If a player gets an important status condition it should be associated with a big symbol on their screen

      • Flash the symbol on their screen for a second and then move to their status condition bar

      • Symbol would be related to that boss or that race’s bosses

        • Would help players know that they have a debuff and who it came from

      • If a symbol that is only related to a specific mission in the game flashes on a player's screen they are more likely to notice

        • Status conditions are currently only noticeable if the player specifically seeks it out in their conditions area

    • This would help players memorize the debuffs better

      • Lots of debuffs have hard-to-remember names, even for veteran players

  • Better contrast

    • This is more of an overall solution for every status condition

      • Making the different conditions have different contrasting colors or designs would help players differentiate

  • Have an area that separates the conditions

    • One side is conditions related to your character

    • Other side is conditions related to the level or mission

These solutions would

  • Help players quickly identify crucial conditions

  • Enhance visual elements

  • Help conditions stand out in various game environments

  • Symbols would be memorized for players

  • Improve the overall contrast for a better player experience