Byfe kinda hit on this, but looking at bungie in the sense of destiny two helped fund all these incubation projects which they ultimately fumbled. Bungie's funding was not magically pulled out of a hat it was OUR money. We put up with scummy monetization with eververse and bought each expansion in hopes that the money we gave bungie would fund the next era of destiny, but no. We now have to play the role of disappointed parents who gave their kid money for groceries so we could eat dinner but instead the kid bought candy and a toy car which he broke and threw out on the way home, leaving use with nothing but candy wrappers that promise a fulfilling eating experience.
@@kalgore4906I think ur a little thick. He means it’s our money coz we all invested in the game to then reap the rewards of our investment as the game develops. Not to fund marathon.
I think a big reason that these blog posts fell a bit flat is that the community has once again lost faith in Bungie because of massive layoffs and no responsibility taken by the executives for the second time in less than a year. It's a matter of morale, which is extremely low at this point
As a casual player of the game, I needed them to show me they have a long term plan they were building to and the content they showed me that we aren’t building to anything. It looks more like detached stories with the same gameplay structure that we’ve done to death.
Hearing Ascendant Nomad talking about how basically the grind needs to be upped, and then saying he doesn't have time in his life for a live service game right now, determined that his opinions are irrelevant and I no longer have any intention of checking out his stuff.
The thing that really grinds my gears is there are SO MANY THINGS FLASHING on destinations that are far from important and I can't turn them off. Like I am FAR from a new light, why is Ikora still flashing for me to check out the new light kit? That shit was bugged last time I heard and I'm not grinding glimmer to rebuy fragments I earned forever ago. No. The thing that makes it worse is we USED TO have a tab that told you the Flashpoint, the weekly quest stuff, the rotators that were in that week ect. Why did they neuter that? The UI for this game is so unbearable as a player who KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON I can only imagine how bad it is for a player who doesn't keep track of TWABs, doesn't know how weekly raids and dungeons work, isn't aware of how to effectively go after gear thats worth using, whats a really good roll for your playstyle instead of the godroll getting spammed on twitter that'll just sit in your vault because thats not how you like to play but you'll be yelled at for dismantling it ect. Destiny has made strides but it has ALOT of things it needs to fix if it wants to keep a playerbase that cares. Thats on the leadership side, gameplay side, balancing, everything.
You guys need to have conversations with non-creator community members. I think you would find that there are more people who are not as concerned as the loudest voices make it seem. When content creators say they've been listening to their audience, I think that's fantastic. What's lost in that statement is the idea that a creator's dedicated audience usually becomes a sounding board for said creator's thoughts and opinions. To be clear, I'm not anti-content creator. I just feel like these conversations never include the opinion of the larger player-base. Every creator seems to say the same thing, "This to me, speaks to this". Drawing a conclusion based on a small sample or section is likely to be ultimately incorrect. Especially when the sample is from a section of the community that is largely echoing the sentiment that the creator themselves put out there.
I think people discount how bad lightfall was for our community in the long run and on more than just on a dlc or story level, we had streamers like timthetatman and tfue picking up the game because of how good community sentiment and the levels that hype was at. The leadership squandered destiny 2's last chance at redemption within the wider gaming community. Destiny is sadly seen as a joke of a game franchise within the larger gaming community still to this day
Nah man, concord was just a bad game. And the story this episode was maybe "okay" at best. It isn't just the sentiment around the game bringing it down. The story was just legitimately not that interesting, especially after just getting the conclusion to a 10 year story. It also feels bad when you got lay offs, company wide focus on Marathon, rumors of less content going forward, and not immediately telling us or at least teasing what's coming next. Even marvel knows to put those stupid after credit scenes in to nod and wink at the audience. The blog did nothing for me, they used a bunch of buzz words and nomenclatures we have heard countless times. Me = jaded 🙃
My issue is that I can barely even find someone that wants to use a mic, let alone play more than 1 activity. Spending 2/3 of my time in lfg instead of finding people to play with kills the fun. I feel like playing until I have sat for double the length of the activity I'm trying to play just because it's not the newest thing.
100% agree I honestly very surprised. Like really WTF!? It’s 2024! Even when I play with my good friend sometimes we don’t understand WTF is wrong with voice chat and why we don’t hear each other. FUCK! CS 1.5 PRESS “H” TO SPEAK. By default, voice chat must always be enabled!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@dennisgalatas8823 no, people just won't use their mic. It isn't even mic quality that I'm upset about. people come into a multi player game, don't want to communicate, then leave after a single activity. They get butthurt if you mess up even if it's because they won't communicate. They will only run the newest activities, so any old content you have to run solo basically. it gets boring. The people that run raids are all toxic if you don't know what they do. the people that run high level pvp are all toxic if you don't play how they do. I will sit as long as it takes to run the old dungeons just waiting to get someone to join for it just for them to not want to use a mic. It's like I am playing with bots that can sometimes play well.
I think one important part that a lot of Destiny’s players and creators aren’t paying enough attention to, is this: Yes, unfortunately Bungie had layoffs, twice, and neither was handled gracefully, at all, BUT, there are still HUNDREDS of Bungie employees working hard, right now, to continue delivering near-future and medium-future content updates for Destiny 2. It’s perfectly ok to mock Bungie’s executives for their poor decisions. It’s perfectly ok to express empathy for those who lost employment. However, it’s ALSO important to support and give credit to the hundreds of Bungie employees who are still working hard to continue improving and expanding the D2 experience.
Absolutely! And that's why we wanted to make it very clear that it's not the content that's necessarily bad, or that what they're going to produce isn't great, it's that the current format of content delivery is tired and definitely needs some revamping.
@@AboveDestiny Agreed; well said. At least at first glance, it does appear that Mr. Green (who is now the head guy for Destiny development) agrees with what you just said, Above. We should all give it some time; it will take at least six months before Mr. Green’s new ideas and leadership effects trickle-down to tangible content drops. I just wish that the masses of gamers that seem to LOVE to pretend they’re each the first ever person to shout, “Destiny is dead!” would shut up and just take a healthy six-month break instead. Come back in 2025 and see what’s been cooking, and what Destiny’s staff have created under a new, different leader.
I think the only way to fix new player experience is to bring back the sun setted major expansions. Like the timeline is fine (but like in the bare minimum kinda way). New players need to be invested into the world, and that is super hard when half the story and world building do not exist. Why do I want to buy the final shape as a new player if I have no clue what is going on and why I should care.
Way to go Nomad! I went back to school to become a medical lab technologist when I turned 40. It was something I thought about after high school but never followed through on. It was a great experience and helped me finally become somewhat financially solvent.
About the weapon tiers and upgrading concept, I think this would inject a lot of life into the gear: Give weapons an energy meter akin to armor, and introduce perk rarities. As you level up your gun, you increase the energy limit, to then use that to slot in perks of varying rarities. Depending on the perk rarity, increase the effect and the energy requirement. You can earn new perks with differing rarities. EXAMPLE: Gun A has 8 energy (max of 10). It has Rampage and Overflow on it. Each perk starts at common rarity that costs 0 energy. You could enhance Rampage to the uncommon tier, and it requires 2 energy to be slotted in. Rampage at an Exotic rarity might cost 5 energy, and it includes an "Overkill" exotic trait that carries over any superfluous damage dealt to a killed enemy into the next shot against a new enemy. This would let players mix and match their perks, the levels of those perks within a finite energy system that allows your gun to feel more personalized and invested in. Just a thought.
As long as Destiny has gone for you can always expect highs and lows. I'm excited to see what comes next. I still play Destiny, but I will take the down time to catch up on other games.
Caught up on FF7 Rebirth and Elden Ring during the lull and it’s been great. Everyone needs a break and when you come back 6 months to a year later the game is just as fantastic as when you left
90% of nomads feedback seems to be from the streamer/hardcore perspective. the gameplay is the BEST thing they have, no, that isn't what needs to change. the casuals and new players is their weakness. They need to streamline, simplify, and actually create entrypoints. Not just from a UI/UX perspective (important) but activities wise. You need things casuals can jump into with no frame of reference and want to. for PVP a no-abilities mode where you only have your super, your class ability, and your movement ability. No grenades, no melees, no fragments or aspects. It showcases the pure gameplay of Destiny which is still S tier and you don't need a PHD in builds and destiny to play it They also DO need to do something like sunsetting, and ppl will be mad, and be ok with that. it was ALWAYS an over covered thing, and didn't impact retention or gameplay meaningfully, the lack of quality content and the overall sandbox did. they are missing casuals. they need to bring in casuals.
I dont understand some D2 players. they complain about D2 being to easy now, they want it to be more of a challenge. but at the same time they want better stronger weapons with better/meaningful perks. D2 is mostly a power fantasy game. the point is to grind for better stronger gear to make content easier...
Yes, but at the very top end, the preference would be that even with the best guns in the game, it’s still a challenge to defeat rather than a gimme. Like, the guns HELPED you conquer that activity, but you still had to play incredibly well. The power fantasy could reside in the next difficulty below, where the best guns in the game can carry. I think both groups of people can get what they want pretty easily.
The point is that we don't have challenge and we don't have good gear on those "challenges". The reward should proportional to the challenge. That's the point
@@AboveDestiny I think it tangentially highlights just where specifically and how bad Destiny's reward structure can be for the physical investiture of time and effort. The fact Raids can still drop 55 stat rolls is god awful especially when at one time in early Shadowkeep raids were the only places you could get armor over 60 until Worthy sorta put high and spikey stats all around. I'm not shocked in the least even if somebody who probably could enjoy this game wants no part when they realize some of the rewards structure can just be not very rewarding. The fact it took as late as The Coil in Wish for people to realize it actually is nice to be showered in stuff speaks tremendous volumes. The rotator system also is a complete drag and the fact how Master is locked specifically behind it for old raids is another demotivating thing. I say this as somebody who's beyond long sunk cost and have played tons of other games with similar/familiar structures for looting to use for builds, demanding content etc, Destiny kinda skimps on giving you stuff worth your while in the more challenging content. I do agree with the points of general crafting, and I still am very surprised it actually came into the game and was nearly as universal of a thing. That all aside I think Bungie has done a better job most especially in Lightfall-Present with really upping the seasonal loot rewards and actually having the activities available worth your time. Even if you don't get an exciting drop, it's very generous getting engrams all around and you can get your fill of stuff. In theory a Destiny 3 could've solved a lot of issues but it is something we should've received ages ago at this point and Bungie shifting D2 into a minimum viable product doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence especially when we still lack a lot of logical QOL stuff. It's like would you really want to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt to not pull what they did in D2 launch when they were in a better supported spot?
Crafting was a great idea to help mitigate RNG hell, but putting enhanced perks on craftable weapons was a horrible idea. Enhanced perks/traits should be reserved for end game
Grind is much better when applied to solo content. It’s so tough to find time for a single raid a week. No way in hell I will raid as much if they nix it
I'm excited for what comes, I like what they intend to do with Apollo but it all depends on execution, but as Final Shape proved, when the devs are given the time the execute perfectly.
Right there with you brother. Hope they can deliver some unique experiences similar to Onslaught & Pantheon that really inspire players to get back on the game!
Calling Destiny an mmo but not having mmo roles (tank, healer, dps) always felt like a misstep to me. I tried the tanking Nezzy with Vexcalibur during Pantheon and is there was actual tanking/healing type interactions it could've been really cool.
It's hard to really have traditional mmorpgs in a game that has mechanics that don't really require the roles and removal of an obstacle or just backing away to heal solves problems. This isn't ever really going to be a game that is going to have much room to do that kind of thing because then you're looking deeper at physically changing differently how the game functions on a mechanical and technical level.
its an mmo not an mmorpg for the most part. and destiny is a game made for a variety of different kinds of gamers ( see people who only play solo, only raid, only pvp, etc etc) so having demanding role based mechanics will almost always never be part of the conversation in this game.
The real problem is the overall balance of things. Think about it. Look at titan as a whole because in most cases outside of knockout being free in pvp and some out of band exotics bungie either tries to lean titans into survivability on the DR/healing side or an aspect as a whole that does something completely different from everybody else that eventually gets hit way too hard for being good at its job or getting an exotic that skyrockets how good it was just to get nerfed because of it, see woven meil in general + banner of war being completely out of left field and sunspots getting massacred with multiple nerfs just for lorely to come out and still be overpowered for a good while. Titans on the pve side SHOULD be the best at tanking and some support while warlocks should have a bit of self sustainability but overall be REALLY good at healing others with their neutral game, hunters should be major busters and DPS monsters with escape options and everyone has good mob control but instead of that all the unique aspects get neutered, fragments are either permanently slotted or never picked, and to top it off rather than bungie going bold with new weapon perks and people experimenting with new stuff everybody just sits around waiting for the next repulse + destabilizing void weapon and healclip + Incandescent solar weapon regardless of how well those perks work on that weapon type or if they even utilize the perks. As much as bungie consistently makes dogshit balancing choices the playerbase consistently sticking to the same boring shit update after update then complaining the game is stale instead of trying something new is absolutely taking part of the blame. I'm looking at you: corner humping stompee hunters with insert exotic shotgun here and igneous. Yall are part of the problem just like the pve sweats
For me this is entirely dependent upon whether the follow through at all. I would LOVE a drop where it was just this massive destination full of secrets and metroidvania style unlocks and puzzles. Where the raid or dungeon didnt unlock till the community found it, but it wasn't time gated. That sounds awesome to me. But I also knoe that most people will hate that and just want to pew pew
I have maybe 2 clan mates that play anymore and that’s a stretch. I’ve had to lfg recently and it’s just not fun anymore. 😢 I’m getting through the content but without friends to do it with it isn’t worth it imo.
Excellent discussion guys. I'm not actively playing but cautiously optimisitc on where the game goes from here. I started playing since season of chosen and my main pull to this game as been story, lore and music. I love it when the story evolves as we play (chosen, splicer, lost, haunted, witch and wish) but other seasons, it felt like im playing a story that has already occurred.
Of course Final Shape sold less than Lightfall. Witch Queen was excellent, so many players stuck around for the next thing and word of mouth/good player morale brought in new players too. When Lightfall bombed, it's no wonder that player retention suffered for the next release. I think Final Shape did get a few new players, but nowhere near enough to compensate for the player losses. The sales of each DLC (especially pre-orders) are far more of a reflection on the DLC that came before than on anything else.
Agreed. This is such an important point. Annual expansion/DLC sales typically correlate best with how good the PREVIOUS expansion/DLC was. Lightfall was a mediocre expansion, but its sales were boosted by the universal applause for The Witch Queen. Conversely, Final Shape is a GREAT expansion, but its sales were suppressed by the universal disdain for Lightfall.
@@AboveDestinyit is because older players leave and the game is not welcoming to new players. You need to get an exotic item and 100 res to do any fun content. Try playing game without any exotic or build and you can see how boring the game really is.
@@Contractor48there are exotic missions available for riskrunner, tractor cannon, chaperone, arbalest, and 3 different exotic armours per class (each synergizes with a light subclass - Starfire w solar, for example); right out of the tutorial now. It’s also easier than ever to circumnavigate rng, and purchase them from xur or rahool. Anyway, not trying to clash. Just letting you know in case it helps. 👍
One of the things we learned in the ten year journey in Destiny 2 was the light and dark represented different things. What if Destiny 3 began with kind of a Mass Effect choose your past and that would help drive the story and choices. It would have replayability and the first chapters of D3 would be finding out who we were. Facing new threats etc.
For me, the issue is simple…. 1) My fav activities have been removed from the game and 2) Seasons are NOT good. Back to activities… Bungie used to try to act like somewhat of an MMO. That being the case, why can’t I run through an ever increasing difficulty dungeon? By dungeon I don’t mean an actual dungeon, I mean.. essentially a horde mode but with mechanics. We have Escalation Protocol, The Infinite Forest, The Haunted Forest, The Menagerie, Deep Dive, Prison Of Elders, The Forges + Archons Forge. Onslaught style waves. Slap the rogue mechanic on them, randomize encounters with increasing difficulty… and put golden nuggets at the bottom. I’ll play that infinitely more than I will “collect nano flowers” or run battlegrounds. And it give me a reason to actually try out a bunch gear, builds, etc, to try to eek out every last bit of utility to make it to Wave 50 / Floor 50. I’d run all of the above activities, maybe except The Forge unless they flesh it out more like Niobe Labs with a good mix of combat / exploration. There is just so much missing content.
I’m in construction and half of our work force consistently gets laid off alongside winter weather, a project ending, fluctuations in building costs, etc. It would be easy enough to say it’s leadership’s fault; and that they should have balanced the summer work vs winter, lined up another project for when the last ends, or pre purchase material to prevent fluctuation; but that just isn’t our call. Destiny fans need to grow up on this layoff issue. Companies ebb and flow.
This is a great discussion. This is one of the first points Ive felt "tired" thinking about Destiny, since I started around when Forsaken was released. I was definitely excited coming into episode 1, thinking about the possibility of them seriously changing the formula. When that wasn't delivered it felt really demoralizing. Big big let down imo. That + a lack of an announcement about future content was one of the reasons I've become a lot more casual. Even now Im at a "wait and see approach", the game NEEDS innovation. More ways to play more things to solve, more champs, less champs, more things to puzzle over, more things to build around. Power creep has made everything so easy now. Prismatic is sincerely fun, but I personally think it was a mistake. They need to build in some more inherent weaknesses into it otherwise it makes the game mindless.
as someone who missed out on Pantheon bec I didn't get into raiding yet at the time, I'd love to see it come back every weekend like Trials but for PvE or maybe even once a month or something.
Really enjoyed the talk. I think the reason I understand why some do not want to engage with the negativity is due to SO much of it being unproductive or granting any sort of insight. But staying in that wave of positivity can end up leaving you blind sighted for what’s to come. I didn’t ask where was the future of Destiny was, because I was reading articles telling me how not only those future plans were getting cancelled, but that D3 was never even considered at all.
It's the Lion Rampants patch for me. I either want it "bugged" or empyrean bellicose back. The Final Shape was such a surreal personal experience for myself. Even connected with old friends. With a gameplay style I've yearned for since the tower was destroyed in 2017. I could not express enough. The HIGHEST of highs to the most soul crushing of lows. I still can't bring myself back
I’m really curious what, short of Destiny 3, people think will be enough. They are effectively reformatting the entire game and people are still acting as though they will just rename seasons again.
There doesn't need to be a Destiny 3. People were already annoyed that they lost all the stuff that they grinded for in D1. I'm pretty sure they don't want to do that AGAIN.
Thanks for this video. I'm listening to it while I do my deliveries at work today. I will save my thoughts until I listen to the whole thing, but I did want to say thank you because so far it has been helping me understand some things I've seen from the creator side of the community. I'll be back later when I finish (:
Man I'm back after listening and.. tbh.. there is just too much to talk about for a TH-cam comment. I will just leave it at this: I love Destiny. It is the only game I play. I have a lot of hope for what is to come, and at the same time I am incredibly scared at the prospect of it all ending (I don't think it will, but "ending" for me can also mean it becoming a game that is no longer worth playing) Fantastic discussion overall, and I genuinely hope the future is bright for all of us, fans and creators alike. Edit: Also - management needs to go. They mishandled a golden egg, and if it's broken beyond repair - I will never forgive them.
Also if the story is anything like this episode im not excited lmao. But im thinking it could totally be riis for the first and torabatl or however you spell the cabal homeworld turned battle moon by the hive for the second
This is been the most accurate video on how my friends and I talk about the game now. We love the game. We know it has the highest potential. But it just builds like the studio has pissed away the future and it’s sad.
I’m not convinced about Destiny 2 and I don’t think Bungie do either because I agree with Above it feels the next iteration of Destiny 2 is still in concept.
Subclasses should move to a point buy per build element. Then bungie can balance the aspects, fragments, supers, grenades, melees, etc. So they have a knob to tune sub classes other than just nerfs buffs, which rarely comes out perfect.
It seems they plan to use a seasonal model similar to PoE. Basically they will be testing new progression systems every season and if people really like it they will become permanent. If people hate it they remove it
Jez did an amazing video on the new player experience, using his wife as a guinea pig. It really shows how frustrating and useless the new light stuff is.
The heart of the lootchase problem is the fact that guns and armor are evergreen. The OG plan for sunsetting (items have a fixed lifespan) was a little flawed, but it certainly would've solved the "why should I care about this this new gun when I already have an old gun that does the same thing" problem. Its definitely too late to make the swap though. Bungie's gained and trained an audience to expect that anything they obtain will last forever. I really don't think that the solution to "guns aren't interesting" is to expect Bungie to make more and more interesting weapons. Especially when WoW has managed to use a very simple statistics based gear chase for years with relatively little innovation Having played WoW for years I still believe that it's got the loot system figured out. It forces players to throw away all of their gear each patch, simply because said gear is statistically worse than whatever came in the new patch. The main catch to this is that everything in WoW is just a stat stick, as opposed to Destiny where the gear you're wearing actively determines your playstyle. We sorta saw this "throw past gear away in search of new gear" approach at the very start of D1 but Bungie pivoted off of it very quickly since items were so painful to obtain (compared to how long they lasted)
Anyone who keeps whining about crafting does not understand statistical probabilities. Let’s say there are 5 options per slot (barrel, mag, trait 1 and 2, masterwork). In order to get your perfect 5/5, your chances are 0.03% PER DROP. Meaning you not only have to get lucky and get the item itself to drop, you have to do this on average 3,333 times. Look through your non crafted godrolls. You almost certainly compromised on a mag, barrel, or masterwork, because a 5/5 godroll is a statistical impossibility in this game without crafting. They can make the crafting grind longer if needed, but it is entirely necessary in this game.
The thing is most people complaining about crafting are either suffering from rich people problems or are the people complaining a lot of their friends aren't up for doing stuff like weekly raids or runs in the ritual playlists because the weekly chore of pinnacles finally got streamlined and toned down so you're not forced to play gamemodes you don't enjoy to stay relevant and thats without fireteam power leader being a relatively new system. With all that in mind the game has been boiled down to "what do you really ENJOY about destiny?" and majority of people have realized they just don't enjoy the game as a whole anymore for one reason or another. Some people for whatever reason like having to farm an activity for months just to get a 3/5 roll at best and they're the main ones complaining crafting was a mistake. Do things like adepts need to be desirable? Yes, but that doesn't mean crafting is anywhere near as big an issue as people are screaming it is. Maybe make it so when you reset rank in general playlists that have an activity that drops adepts you are guaranteed triple perks in both columns instead of it just being a chance of triple perks on general weapons. I can't stand crucible but I'm going on 7 resets this season and it feels REALLY bad to still be farming for a better devils roll just to see another single perk per slot roll drop and for it to be deconstruct and reconstruction.
@@ShadowNemesis575Yo this guy spitting. Now that they made the tedious grinds easier it just opens these hard-core player's eyes.... what do YOU enjoy in Destiny?? Without the carrot in front of your face its now up to you to figure out what you actually engage in destiny.
Anything besides the 2 main perks is gravy and not that important, but since people are under the illusion that they are, it is as simple as just letting tier 5's get their mags/barrels rerolled. You don't need crafting at all.
No needs 5/5 god rolls. Literally nothing in the game requires that. It’s on you if you’re blaming rng for not getting god rolls if you’re chasing 5/5 rolls. The two main perks define the weapon and chasing a 2/5 god roll is absolutely acceptable and healthy for the game
When it comes to crafting, you're just never going to find common ground with people who are against it. It's really similar to politic disagreement where people are too tribal to concede on some topics. Some aspects of a game just have people caring more about their own experience than others. That's just the way it is. The issue I find is though, crafting can exist whilst still keeping rng grind. But what I find with anti crafting people is they very often want crafting to completely disappear because they think crafting ruins their entire experience even if only a fraction of the game has crafting. Yet crafting people seem to be able to suck up rng more. It's a strange imbalance. A lack of awareness or something? Weird
Destiny's downfall is even worse when you remember it isn't just a looter shooter, it's THE looter shooter. It completely dominates, or i guess "dominated" at this point, the entire genre. Even Warframe as popular as it is isn't quite on Destiny's level. Bungie basically had the looter shooter market cornered and they've squandered it.
I think part of it is that the concept just got less flashy and appealing over time especially as Destiny continues on as an older title. Destiny never really reached the more indepth usual conventions of a MMO game so part of the loot aspect felt extremely solved for an area like PVE once you got all the ideal stuff. It lost a lot of luster and just isn't really as fun when it's been more of the same for years at this point.
the biggest differnce between Destiny 2 and Warframe is that bungie innovates until people stop being mad and DE continuously innovates before it player base gets upset
We should let the game run its course (which I believe it has) at this point. Either that or Bungie should make a Destiny 3 and make it a totally new experience, not just a 'new' game. The game is dying and rightfully so.
Is it possible that Bungie allows/creates these lows? Would Forsaken, Witch Queen, or Final Shape have hit so hard if sentiment wasn’t so low right before they dropped? A bit of a stretch perhaps, but a conspiracy that pops into my head occasionally.
I really enjoyed this discussion- listened to the whole two hours while at work and there were some excellent points. I know some people will say that content creators aren't real players or that they don't represent players but a lot of this summarizes exactly how I feel about the game as a player who has thousands of hours and has not missed a season or a major release until now. I stopped playing during the first time gate in the episode, it was the straw that broke my back and am currently on my longest inactivity streak since I've started my Destiny journey. I've always been the type of player that would defend and hype up the game but it's difficult to be excited right now and while I want to have hope the words sound empty. Nomad's example of standing in the darkness and having no direction sounded too accurate. In fact I think some of your ideas were better than anything they put in those blogs as well and that was in the moment banter. Anyways, I think discussions like this are healthy and I thank you for putting this together.
We absolutely need new blood. Here since D1 release, and I would prefer waiting Destiny 3(even on current engine) for years, than Frontiers next summer inside bloated D2 without solid onboarding.
destiny content creators do not have the same view as casual players, causal players are not making a living from the game. Content creators of recent have become so used to really bad mouthing the game based on business decisions and bungie expansion plans. Surely its obvious to content creators is that if your content is saying how bad things are and how worried we should all be then people will stop watching your videos and will stop playing the game. You dont need to pretend the game is better than it is, but i for one unsubscribe to any content creator who jumps between the game being amazing and the game is about to end. Neither are true!
Honestly, great point. Too often, Destiny’s creators are too easily swayed by the prevailing group sentiment of Destiny’s most-vocal minority of players (those who are hyperactive on Twitter, Reddit, etc.). I think the underlying problem is that creators seemingly can only garner clicks/views by taking extreme stances, like DESTINY IS POPPING OFF, or DESTINY IS DEAD. A creator taking a moderate, nuanced, and thoughtful analytical approach would be warmly welcomed by a lot of people! But… most of those people aren’t tuned into TH-cam regularly. The majority of people who populate TH-cam feed off controversy or excitement… and if neither of those is available, the next favorite “meal” is overt negativity.
@@BahamutBreaker yup, the bit that i find most annoying is Bungle prioritise content creators opinions like they represent the player base. It couldn't be further from the truth. Salvations edge is a perfect example of this, Content creators ask for the hardest raid ever etc. etc.Bungie make it, then a few months later the playing figures for it are terrible and always have been! I feel like Bungie are coming around and the future looks great.
Spot on! I unsubbed from nomad for that very reason. So sick of the constant negativity from people who do it for a living. I play a few hours a week and have a pretty great time regularly.
Totally understand this sentiment. And to be honest, I really tried to toe the line of giving honest feedback and not just bad mouthing the game. I still have hope for this franchise, but I do also think this is a vital point in time for Bungie to really get this next era of Destiny right. It's not really like any other time in Destiny's history. The Light/Dark saga is over, and they need to make sure they deliver a story that gives players a reason to stick around.
If weapon drops were more similar to the system in D1 reducing crafting would be fine. But with only one perk per column the RNG required (assuming the odds for each perk are equal which we dont know) is often times absurd. Back in D1 Raid weps were all curated rolls so the RNG was simply getting the drop but in d2 weapon architypes only carry a gun so far and you feel the need to get the perfect perks. If they either swapped raid weapons back to curated rolls (not a good idea IMO) or gave us 3 perks per column reducing crafting would be fine.
Agreed. Crafting should stay, but should only be present for weapons that are B tier or less. A tier should only come from raids and dungeons, and sure, it could be curated or come with multiple perk slots. S tier could then be completely rng based master raid/dungeon, GM’s, and trials. Basically everyone, regardless of skill or time investment, would have something to chase that way. Everyone would just have to learn to ignore the crafters crying about the raiders. 😂
@@travousbieber3939 I think your reply has highlighted the issue with crafting atm where there is no gear progression based on difficulty anymore. Having raid/dungeon gear be better then seasonal craftables would be a huge motivator to actually go get them and use them. But you are right we would have to learn to ignore the people complaining they can't have the best gear from never doing hard content 😂
The Final Shape was good, but when the dust settled, go run strikes, gambit and crucible. I started with the beta, but im fatigued with the game now. Im out!
People are overhyping Final Shape anyway. The story was not the right story for it and very weak, it was very carried but the visuals and fun missions to play, but that was all it was. I would give it a 7/10. It was alright.
I think the Final Shape is a great jumping off point for a lot of players. With that said, I hope Bungie can really impress with Frontiers and win players back.
Insane that people are trying to blame content creators and social media for the decline of this game. How is it their fault that Bungie is wasting the potential of Destiny? We don't get more than one strike a year, the core activities were made F2P so they would have an excuse to only update them once in a blue moon. Gambit and Gambit Labs, abandoned like a fart in the wind. Seasonal content is still getting removed in a year or less, weapon crafting has removed almost all chase. Armor in the game is useless, literally an instant dismantle unless you're a brand new player (and we don't have those) Bungie's "debt" is catching up to them. They knew the game was bleeding players every expac, they knew new players were not coming into the game, they just continued course.
Weapon crafting was quite literally requested by the community via social media. The vast majority of the player base likes it, and claims the game would be too grindy or hard, if it were to be removed. I completely disagree, but I can at least recognize that Bungie has to cater to the crowd that’s spending the most money. Sure, they dropped from 2 to 1 strikes a year, but also started doing 2 raids instead of 1. I feel like armour is just a victim of 7 years of play…4, if you want to be perfectly fair, since everyone had to re-grind for 3.0 in year 3, I guess. Regardless; they can’t just keep upping the stats, or we’ll become even more powerful than we already are. Anyway, not here to argue, but I think thoughts on the game are somewhat subjective. 🤷♂️
@@travousbieber3939 If the vast majority of the playerbase likes it, they wouldn't be scaling it back. There's no chase for weapons anymore, 95% of the most powerful items in the game (PvP and PvE) are craftable. Quite a few of them aren't even from raids. People are telling Bungie "Boy I love crafting so much!" and then once they craft their roll they get off the game and stop playing. There needs to be a dopamine hit of some kind in the game, crafting basically removes all excitement from a god roll naturally dropping on a craftable gun. It either needs to be harder to craft items, so it feels more rewarding, or the system needs to go. I find it hard to believe that Bungie had to sacrifice strikes to start doing 2 raids a year, it's almost nonsensical. Especially since the second raid is always a returning raid. Just like they have been doing since the shadowkeep era, they scaled back on the core activities and are now paying the price. Bad Crucible/Gambit/Strikes means that the season has to carry the state of the game, and since none of the seasonal activities have any depth to them or longevity (because they will throw them out when the next expansion drops), stagnation sets in very quickly. Armor and mods need to be reworked from the ground up. Everyone is sitting on god roll armor, double/triple 100s. Armor is an instant dismantle and that's incredibly bad for a looter game. The mod system was purposefully sabotaged to appeal to players who were already getting their builds from youtube. Instead of leaning into these different paths to power (Orbs, wells, warmind cells) they removed all of them but one, and now most builds in the game work and function the same way. It's boring. I don't want to argue either, I'm just stating my points. People think that players have dropped off because "there's no roadmap" or "they just wanted to finish the story". My group was just fed up of essentially no fundamental changes to the game, or a rearranging of furniture. We spent first few weeks playing echoes, realized it was just more of the same, and got off.
@@ShadowDragon410 liking/requesting the feature until it’s added to the game, and playing less because the feature was added are two very different things, but otherwise I think you’ve got very valid points. Regardless of what I agree the game needs though, the current state of the game is not exclusively a problem Bungie created, is my point. It IS theirs to fix though. I just don’t see how they do it without a D3 tbh. People will freak if they need to re-grind armour & weapons inside of D2, no matter how badly the game needs a refresh.
@@ShadowDragon410 Bungie scaling back crafting is to please the top 10-20% at a push 30%. The top 10-20% are the people who play their game the most so sometimes they feel compelled to listen to them. The other 70-80% of the game are very pro crafting. So it's still the vast majority.
I think the weapon the raid weapon enhancements are what crafting shouldve been... well like how the adepts are currently... getting the 2 perks you want and then the master work and when you level the gun you can change the barrel and magazine and then tie additional perks in the columns to doing challenges... rn my main grind is adept weapons where I like all 6 perks... I know that sounds kinda crazy, but say you get the godroll from a regular version right now... you would discard it because you can craft it later... pretty sad to look at a weapon for it's red border ngl
I just never felt that final shape was this masterpiece I hear from content creators. The raid was ok but very non player friendly(verity mostly) and not that much fun and the lack of what to do after the campaign is more to blame for why people left than the story ended imo. Everybody i know gave episodes an honest shot but the episode was so bad boring and painful to play that they drove everyone away. Nerfing dual destiny double drops around the same time tanked everyone's enjoyment of the game. So imo it was less the story ended and more Bungie fumbling badly the post campaign of the game. Core modes are all chores and have no replay or value. As a crucible player the matchmaking and constant changes to special have killed my drive to play. Once again dev decisions, not lay offs are why I am frustrated and playing less. 2 weeks of Iron Banner is like trying to fumigate the player base also, once again dev choices. They can make better decisions that would help retain players. They had no plan after the campaign and we are living that right now.
They have me interested. But words on a screen can't keep interest and neither can artwork of something that won't appear at launch. We need cinematics, w.i.p of cinematics, weapons SOMETHING other than words to keep us in like how the episodes were shown. We got cinematics, locations, weapon and armor etc.
@@AboveDestiny Salvation Edge is not that hard and clearly not the best, it's just super boring (3rd phase : how are you dressed ? Might be the worst phase in a raid ever created). But that's only my opinion and clearly respect yours also. Kind regards.
I think social media ruined video gaming. if we never knew of any of the drama we would all be just enjoying the game. just like in the old days where we never cared nor knew about the studio news and just purely enjoyed the games for what it is. bad news and content creators echoing them is a catalyst destroying the gaming industry. getting off of twitter for the past 3 years has given me a healthy relationship with d2. people need to care less of what some randos say on the internet. so yeah, fuck you guys😂
Not just content creators though. It’s half of the community, or at the very least, a hyperactive minority of the community. If you go on a D2 Reddit sub, there’s a 99% chance that 90% of the posts and comments are just regular people shitting on the game. I do agree about social media though. Drama gets clicks, so people tend to be dramatic.
Content creators are always extra negative because they arent even fans when you get down to it. Destiny is their paycheck, so when its struggling they just shit on it to capitalize on negative sentiment and veiws.
If they weren’t at least fans deep down why would they keep playing? Plenty of creators in the past have left when they felt tired with the game. And it’s usually clear when a creator is tired of a game but is still doing it for money. I’m not a content creator but I can still see based on 5000+ hours in this game how it’s dropped the ball big time. You don’t have to be a content creator to be negative about a game. Crafting has ruined the loot grind, the game has gotten too repetitive and easy, like what does this have to do with content creators
@@RAIZ-m1w I agree with crafting and difficulty comment 100%. I'm talking specifically about the " content creators" that post videos being like " I'm done playing destiny" . Like cool bro, no one cares .... Lol. I believe it feeling repetitive is strictly related to play time honestly, and I mitigate that by just taking breaks. I have close to 5k in this game as well and if I don't play when I actually want to then I'll hate it and that is my fault for playing it the way I do. I honestly don't think Bungie dropped the ball by taking a bit to let us know what the future was. I was never pessimistic about the situation in regards to whether they were making destiny stuff still because they said multiple times that they are still committed to it. And a pretty sizable number of those lay offs ( the second round anyway) were from non destiny spots so again I wasn't too concerned about it being shelved like some people are.
One of the biggest issues too is how anything that actually matters in the game and is fun to do/use you need to pay for, my friend was baffled when I told him to pay $30 for a dlc that’s not even in the game anymore just so he can get the forsaken weapons and how by the time he was able to get a certain dlc say witch queen I already did everything it had to offer so there was literally zero point to do it again
The game is just old. Raids and dungeons are great, but most have been there for years. And Bungie always put so much efforts in secrets which have little to no replayability value. A big thing was that the seasonal activity was so bad. Not 6 players. Group of enemies able to one shot you. No rally banner. Annoying mechanic which forced you to pause during fights to go deposit. Also it was so easy to get the red border with engrams that were dropping from other less boring activity.
Bungie puts more time and effort into one time LTMs than seasonal content. Yet expect me to spent more time and effort in the seasonal content. GG and FOTL are seasonal content now
What amazes me is people thought it was ever going to end any other way than it has. Bungie has always underdelivered and disappointed when it comes to destiny. My advise would be to just let it die. Play other games. Its like a relationship that has ended. You can sit there and fight it hoping itll go back to "the way it used to be" and be disappointed constantly. Or you can move on.
I don't want to let it die until a game similar enough to Destiny comes out. There isn't one. Not warframe. Not division 2. DEFINITELY not the first descendant. Nothing feels as good to play as Destiny. So until something comes out, it genuinely doesn't matter how much D2 underdelivers, people who feel the same way as me are going to keep playing it. There just isn't a game like it.
Dont forget guys... The game brought the audience to you. Your content is what kept them. I can hop on Destiny Wiki for lore but I CHOOSE to get my lore from Byf. If you guys transition to another game we will follow.
I’m really not on board with the whole “it’s over” mindset. I think we’re going to see a hiatus for a few years but I believe the franchise will make a resurgence eventually. About the wondering whether or not the fans are still there thing, we will always be here. Even if we stop playing the game true fans would return if Destiny made a real comeback and took things in a positive direction. I think Bungie still has talented people grinding on the future of D2. And eventually they’ll probably make a new game in the franchise. I think Destiny fans need to remain patient. We also need a break. Let’s step away for a while and one day there will most likely be a moment worth returning. I get your guys perspective as content creators but if we’re talking about just being a fan of the franchise in general, we all still love Destiny and want it to be great.
Yeah, no, that's not how sales work. "Final shape sold less than Lightfall, which means it attracted no new players" is blatant false dramatization. There can be plenty of original D1 and D2 players LIKE MYSELF that did not buy Final Shape. There can be players that want to experience as much of Destiny as they can at the conclusion to a saga because they don't want to wait for years for that ending and would rather do this all at once. One of you should have checked him on this terrible point.
I disagree the story is ass. I didn't care about Saint and Osiris' relationship. The only thing that COULD have been interesting would be fighting the conductor and we didn't even get that.
Facts. Maybe instead of Riverdale/Euphoria type storytelling they should've made the main antagonist the Clovis AI (if not a vex ultron type character) and actually put him on the move while the protags this season were Elsie and Ana. Always thought it weird that the stranger's whole purpose was finding the winning timeline and now that we won Elsie is nowhere to be found
And while Final Shape scored really well it didn’t keep me or my friend group engaged at all. The Pale Heart as a solitary location just feels weird and lonely, the raid didn’t interest me or my old raid group at all. And if you don’t have a stand alone group then good luck finding a Sherpa. They leaned way too hard into making the hardcore fans happy but it alienated a major chunk of their fan base including the more casual and solo players. Even the clan I was in dissolved in a matter of months because no one wanted to re-run any of the campaign and battlegrounds still don’t scratch that same itch as many of the D1 and D2 vaulted strikes do. Dual Destiny was also a colossal failure as seen as how it’s still such a pain point for the playerbase that is still holding on.
aesthetics and a vision are equally important to a video game as solid gameplay. Concord had competent gameplay but it’s objectively unattractive. It comes off as a corporate committee checkmark to appeal to a nonexistant modern audience. So in the end it’s a bad game. Destiny lost it’s appeal, the aesthetic appeal isn’t there. It may have an “interesting” story or concept but it’ delivered and constructed in the worse possible way that it’s bad. Remember, a 7/10 story in destiny is will always be a negative compared to better games. Byf coping that the story is good and people don’t care is missing the point. People find body horror themes interesting and whatever themes and story destiny had. The thing is, destiny is sterilised, there’s no appeal, it’s committee checkmarked. It has characters people just dont like or care and try to flesh them out only makes it worse. No one cares about saint 14 osiris relationship and stuck being a third wheel.
Destiny 2 is not beginner friendly. And a game such as this needs new blood all the time. It is totally confusing, what to buy, when you start into Destiny 2 right now. It is even more confusing to understand, what is going on, without listening to Byfs whole story of Destiny 2. Why? Because much of the lore was hidden in seasonal content, that is no longer available. Whole campaigns are gone from the game even though we paid for them. Even for returning players that is problematic. On top of sunsetting, introduction of new weapon perks, like origin traits, that render older weapons worse. Now the new tier system. It is basically another round of sunsetting and reselling the players their old weapons for what feels like the 10th time. All of this combined with a RNG system that made it close to impossible to get the god roll you wanted even though you farmed whole years away. Yeah I get it. It is all about the loot, but if you spend a year to get the gun you wanted to get a post that informs you that it will soon be worthless once again, that is tough. Nonlinear story, but do not worry, basically you just decide the sequence in which you play the content. Because this way it is more of a time sink instead of your decisions really mattering for the development of the story. Frontiers sounds awful in my mind.
Do you have any idea how bad i want secrets in Destiny 2? Content creation had huge uptakes when a secret in the game was found. Nothing got me excited more than seeing all the destiny2 content creators mindblown and trying to figure out secret missions. Find a way to make day one raid secrets apart of the everyday missions. It doesn't have to be difficult content, just mind exercise. Puzzles that can be made for 3 man teams inside of strikes that rival 4th encounter salvation edge. The encore mission would have been better if it wasnt apart of the story and shot out of nowhere that included lore inside of the story that gave us context to a story fight. I hope their promises to make the story less linear will result inthis type of gameplay. They are geniuses in their own right. The layoffs are a terrible side effect of poor money management and happen in all companies. The sad fact is that creative minds are the first ones to get cut because corporations value merchandising leaders and other leadership roles that dont actually touch much of the creative side of our games. My hope is that they can fix their fiscal development and be able to meet the needs of the basic player base to draw interest back through conversations and exciting missions. I dont mind some downtime to allow me to experience the rest of the gaming universes, but i hope they continue to be able to pull me back in to their stories as the years go on.
If this was any other company but Bungie, almost all “creators” would have already left the game behind. Take off the rose colored glasses. Destiny started with hacking up the story and watering it down just to release an unfinished mess of a game. Then released the content they hacked off way later when the game was suffering. How many times does that have to happen? The game suffers, Bungie makes it good. They change it. The game suffers. Bungie makes it good. If Bungie would just make a good game first you would have everyone staying biting their nails in anticipation of what’s coming after Final Shape. But Bungie is just like Activision, they’re just another greed focused corporation trying to suck all the money they can out of their players. There is no more game. They have no idea what’s coming next. They’re making stuff up just to try to keep players from moving away from Destiny. If there was more, they would have told us. Destiny is dead.
29:54 at this point, bungie really needs to shake things up for player population with either marathons success and say “hey if u like this, maybe u can try d2 too”. Or just really REALLY market the sh!t out of the next episode/content for d2 with visual interesting things, not just “oh it’s the biggest thing we have done” SHOW DONT TELL pls
The unfortunate part is that they kind of NEED to show what's next. Their player retention numbers are reflecting that. Doesn't have to be much, but some teasers of upcoming content would go a long way IMO.
27:10 this game costs too much to get people into the game, if they'd change to a monster hunter or borderlands type of game hence D3 which theyll never do because they threw a lot of people out, maybe they could bring new people to the game but when you have to pay 100 bucks for a year of content and it just gets taken away... and you have to pay more for past content (or wait for them to make it free) yeah people are gonna get fed up with that eventually
Byfe kinda hit on this, but looking at bungie in the sense of destiny two helped fund all these incubation projects which they ultimately fumbled. Bungie's funding was not magically pulled out of a hat it was OUR money. We put up with scummy monetization with eververse and bought each expansion in hopes that the money we gave bungie would fund the next era of destiny, but no. We now have to play the role of disappointed parents who gave their kid money for groceries so we could eat dinner but instead the kid bought candy and a toy car which he broke and threw out on the way home, leaving use with nothing but candy wrappers that promise a fulfilling eating experience.
It stops becoming “our” money when you hand it over lol this is some cringe nonsense
@@kalgore4906I think ur a little thick. He means it’s our money coz we all invested in the game to then reap the rewards of our investment as the game develops. Not to fund marathon.
Bungie has the concept of a plan.
Underrated comment
@@liquidrufus I choked on my drink and started coughing, bc this literally made lol. 💀
They are Harris supporters after all. They are unburdened by what has been.
😂😂😂
I think a big reason that these blog posts fell a bit flat is that the community has once again lost faith in Bungie because of massive layoffs and no responsibility taken by the executives for the second time in less than a year. It's a matter of morale, which is extremely low at this point
As a casual player of the game, I needed them to show me they have a long term plan they were building to and the content they showed me that we aren’t building to anything. It looks more like detached stories with the same gameplay structure that we’ve done to death.
Hearing Ascendant Nomad talking about how basically the grind needs to be upped, and then saying he doesn't have time in his life for a live service game right now, determined that his opinions are irrelevant and I no longer have any intention of checking out his stuff.
The thing that really grinds my gears is there are SO MANY THINGS FLASHING on destinations that are far from important and I can't turn them off. Like I am FAR from a new light, why is Ikora still flashing for me to check out the new light kit? That shit was bugged last time I heard and I'm not grinding glimmer to rebuy fragments I earned forever ago. No. The thing that makes it worse is we USED TO have a tab that told you the Flashpoint, the weekly quest stuff, the rotators that were in that week ect. Why did they neuter that? The UI for this game is so unbearable as a player who KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON I can only imagine how bad it is for a player who doesn't keep track of TWABs, doesn't know how weekly raids and dungeons work, isn't aware of how to effectively go after gear thats worth using, whats a really good roll for your playstyle instead of the godroll getting spammed on twitter that'll just sit in your vault because thats not how you like to play but you'll be yelled at for dismantling it ect. Destiny has made strides but it has ALOT of things it needs to fix if it wants to keep a playerbase that cares. Thats on the leadership side, gameplay side, balancing, everything.
You guys need to have conversations with non-creator community members. I think you would find that there are more people who are not as concerned as the loudest voices make it seem. When content creators say they've been listening to their audience, I think that's fantastic. What's lost in that statement is the idea that a creator's dedicated audience usually becomes a sounding board for said creator's thoughts and opinions.
To be clear, I'm not anti-content creator. I just feel like these conversations never include the opinion of the larger player-base. Every creator seems to say the same thing, "This to me, speaks to this". Drawing a conclusion based on a small sample or section is likely to be ultimately incorrect. Especially when the sample is from a section of the community that is largely echoing the sentiment that the creator themselves put out there.
I think people discount how bad lightfall was for our community in the long run and on more than just on a dlc or story level, we had streamers like timthetatman and tfue picking up the game because of how good community sentiment and the levels that hype was at. The leadership squandered destiny 2's last chance at redemption within the wider gaming community. Destiny is sadly seen as a joke of a game franchise within the larger gaming community still to this day
Nah man, concord was just a bad game. And the story this episode was maybe "okay" at best. It isn't just the sentiment around the game bringing it down. The story was just legitimately not that interesting, especially after just getting the conclusion to a 10 year story. It also feels bad when you got lay offs, company wide focus on Marathon, rumors of less content going forward, and not immediately telling us or at least teasing what's coming next. Even marvel knows to put those stupid after credit scenes in to nod and wink at the audience. The blog did nothing for me, they used a bunch of buzz words and nomenclatures we have heard countless times. Me = jaded 🙃
My issue is that I can barely even find someone that wants to use a mic, let alone play more than 1 activity. Spending 2/3 of my time in lfg instead of finding people to play with kills the fun. I feel like playing until I have sat for double the length of the activity I'm trying to play just because it's not the newest thing.
100% agree I honestly very surprised. Like really WTF!? It’s 2024! Even when I play with my good friend sometimes we don’t understand WTF is wrong with voice chat and why we don’t hear each other. FUCK! CS 1.5 PRESS “H” TO SPEAK. By default, voice chat must always be enabled!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@dennisgalatas8823 no, people just won't use their mic. It isn't even mic quality that I'm upset about. people come into a multi player game, don't want to communicate, then leave after a single activity. They get butthurt if you mess up even if it's because they won't communicate. They will only run the newest activities, so any old content you have to run solo basically. it gets boring. The people that run raids are all toxic if you don't know what they do. the people that run high level pvp are all toxic if you don't play how they do. I will sit as long as it takes to run the old dungeons just waiting to get someone to join for it just for them to not want to use a mic. It's like I am playing with bots that can sometimes play well.
@@justinpi6267just don't f up
I think one important part that a lot of Destiny’s players and creators aren’t paying enough attention to, is this:
Yes, unfortunately Bungie had layoffs, twice, and neither was handled gracefully, at all, BUT, there are still HUNDREDS of Bungie employees working hard, right now, to continue delivering near-future and medium-future content updates for Destiny 2.
It’s perfectly ok to mock Bungie’s executives for their poor decisions. It’s perfectly ok to express empathy for those who lost employment. However, it’s ALSO important to support and give credit to the hundreds of Bungie employees who are still working hard to continue improving and expanding the D2 experience.
We don't know how many ppl work on marathon and others ip
Absolutely! And that's why we wanted to make it very clear that it's not the content that's necessarily bad, or that what they're going to produce isn't great, it's that the current format of content delivery is tired and definitely needs some revamping.
@@AboveDestiny Agreed; well said. At least at first glance, it does appear that Mr. Green (who is now the head guy for Destiny development) agrees with what you just said, Above. We should all give it some time; it will take at least six months before Mr. Green’s new ideas and leadership effects trickle-down to tangible content drops.
I just wish that the masses of gamers that seem to LOVE to pretend they’re each the first ever person to shout, “Destiny is dead!” would shut up and just take a healthy six-month break instead. Come back in 2025 and see what’s been cooking, and what Destiny’s staff have created under a new, different leader.
@@koolenjoy7369yes we do don’t generalize because you’re ignorant
I think the only way to fix new player experience is to bring back the sun setted major expansions. Like the timeline is fine (but like in the bare minimum kinda way). New players need to be invested into the world, and that is super hard when half the story and world building do not exist. Why do I want to buy the final shape as a new player if I have no clue what is going on and why I should care.
Way to go Nomad! I went back to school to become a medical lab technologist when I turned 40. It was something I thought about after high school but never followed through on. It was a great experience and helped me finally become somewhat financially solvent.
About the weapon tiers and upgrading concept, I think this would inject a lot of life into the gear: Give weapons an energy meter akin to armor, and introduce perk rarities. As you level up your gun, you increase the energy limit, to then use that to slot in perks of varying rarities. Depending on the perk rarity, increase the effect and the energy requirement. You can earn new perks with differing rarities. EXAMPLE: Gun A has 8 energy (max of 10). It has Rampage and Overflow on it. Each perk starts at common rarity that costs 0 energy. You could enhance Rampage to the uncommon tier, and it requires 2 energy to be slotted in. Rampage at an Exotic rarity might cost 5 energy, and it includes an "Overkill" exotic trait that carries over any superfluous damage dealt to a killed enemy into the next shot against a new enemy. This would let players mix and match their perks, the levels of those perks within a finite energy system that allows your gun to feel more personalized and invested in. Just a thought.
As long as Destiny has gone for you can always expect highs and lows. I'm excited to see what comes next. I still play Destiny, but I will take the down time to catch up on other games.
Well said. Agreed.
Exactly! And I think a lot of players & creators are doing just that.
3 high ponts and 7 low
Caught up on FF7 Rebirth and Elden Ring during the lull and it’s been great. Everyone needs a break and when you come back 6 months to a year later the game is just as fantastic as when you left
@@MrMultiPlatformleave then.
90% of nomads feedback seems to be from the streamer/hardcore perspective.
the gameplay is the BEST thing they have, no, that isn't what needs to change.
the casuals and new players is their weakness. They need to streamline, simplify, and actually create entrypoints. Not just from a UI/UX perspective (important) but activities wise. You need things casuals can jump into with no frame of reference and want to.
for PVP a no-abilities mode where you only have your super, your class ability, and your movement ability. No grenades, no melees, no fragments or aspects. It showcases the pure gameplay of Destiny which is still S tier and you don't need a PHD in builds and destiny to play it
They also DO need to do something like sunsetting, and ppl will be mad, and be ok with that. it was ALWAYS an over covered thing, and didn't impact retention or gameplay meaningfully, the lack of quality content and the overall sandbox did. they are missing casuals. they need to bring in casuals.
I dont understand some D2 players. they complain about D2 being to easy now, they want it to be more of a challenge. but at the same time they want better stronger weapons with better/meaningful perks. D2 is mostly a power fantasy game. the point is to grind for better stronger gear to make content easier...
Yes, but at the very top end, the preference would be that even with the best guns in the game, it’s still a challenge to defeat rather than a gimme. Like, the guns HELPED you conquer that activity, but you still had to play incredibly well. The power fantasy could reside in the next difficulty below, where the best guns in the game can carry.
I think both groups of people can get what they want pretty easily.
Gee, it's almost like there's a wide variety of players that each want something different 🤷
The point is that we don't have challenge and we don't have good gear on those "challenges". The reward should proportional to the challenge. That's the point
Bro crafting was a god send for time investment/ meaningful reward ratio. 12 to 20 raid clears is enough for me.
I definitely think there's a fine balance, no doubt. It absolutely should exist, just not replace the grind.
@@AboveDestiny I think it tangentially highlights just where specifically and how bad Destiny's reward structure can be for the physical investiture of time and effort. The fact Raids can still drop 55 stat rolls is god awful especially when at one time in early Shadowkeep raids were the only places you could get armor over 60 until Worthy sorta put high and spikey stats all around. I'm not shocked in the least even if somebody who probably could enjoy this game wants no part when they realize some of the rewards structure can just be not very rewarding. The fact it took as late as The Coil in Wish for people to realize it actually is nice to be showered in stuff speaks tremendous volumes.
The rotator system also is a complete drag and the fact how Master is locked specifically behind it for old raids is another demotivating thing. I say this as somebody who's beyond long sunk cost and have played tons of other games with similar/familiar structures for looting to use for builds, demanding content etc, Destiny kinda skimps on giving you stuff worth your while in the more challenging content. I do agree with the points of general crafting, and I still am very surprised it actually came into the game and was nearly as universal of a thing.
That all aside I think Bungie has done a better job most especially in Lightfall-Present with really upping the seasonal loot rewards and actually having the activities available worth your time. Even if you don't get an exciting drop, it's very generous getting engrams all around and you can get your fill of stuff.
In theory a Destiny 3 could've solved a lot of issues but it is something we should've received ages ago at this point and Bungie shifting D2 into a minimum viable product doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence especially when we still lack a lot of logical QOL stuff. It's like would you really want to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt to not pull what they did in D2 launch when they were in a better supported spot?
Crafting was a great idea to help mitigate RNG hell, but putting enhanced perks on craftable weapons was a horrible idea. Enhanced perks/traits should be reserved for end game
Yeah this backtracking on crafting is WILD. Not everyone plays 24/7 and collects all red borders in 3 weeks.
Grind is much better when applied to solo content. It’s so tough to find time for a single raid a week. No way in hell I will raid as much if they nix it
I'm excited for what comes, I like what they intend to do with Apollo but it all depends on execution, but as Final Shape proved, when the devs are given the time the execute perfectly.
Right there with you brother. Hope they can deliver some unique experiences similar to Onslaught & Pantheon that really inspire players to get back on the game!
Calling Destiny an mmo but not having mmo roles (tank, healer, dps) always felt like a misstep to me. I tried the tanking Nezzy with Vexcalibur during Pantheon and is there was actual tanking/healing type interactions it could've been really cool.
It's hard to really have traditional mmorpgs in a game that has mechanics that don't really require the roles and removal of an obstacle or just backing away to heal solves problems. This isn't ever really going to be a game that is going to have much room to do that kind of thing because then you're looking deeper at physically changing differently how the game functions on a mechanical and technical level.
its an mmo not an mmorpg for the most part. and destiny is a game made for a variety of different kinds of gamers ( see people who only play solo, only raid, only pvp, etc etc) so having demanding role based mechanics will almost always never be part of the conversation in this game.
The real problem is the overall balance of things. Think about it. Look at titan as a whole because in most cases outside of knockout being free in pvp and some out of band exotics bungie either tries to lean titans into survivability on the DR/healing side or an aspect as a whole that does something completely different from everybody else that eventually gets hit way too hard for being good at its job or getting an exotic that skyrockets how good it was just to get nerfed because of it, see woven meil in general + banner of war being completely out of left field and sunspots getting massacred with multiple nerfs just for lorely to come out and still be overpowered for a good while. Titans on the pve side SHOULD be the best at tanking and some support while warlocks should have a bit of self sustainability but overall be REALLY good at healing others with their neutral game, hunters should be major busters and DPS monsters with escape options and everyone has good mob control but instead of that all the unique aspects get neutered, fragments are either permanently slotted or never picked, and to top it off rather than bungie going bold with new weapon perks and people experimenting with new stuff everybody just sits around waiting for the next repulse + destabilizing void weapon and healclip + Incandescent solar weapon regardless of how well those perks work on that weapon type or if they even utilize the perks. As much as bungie consistently makes dogshit balancing choices the playerbase consistently sticking to the same boring shit update after update then complaining the game is stale instead of trying something new is absolutely taking part of the blame. I'm looking at you: corner humping stompee hunters with insert exotic shotgun here and igneous. Yall are part of the problem just like the pve sweats
Destiny is just a FPS with light RPG elements it never was or ever will be a mmo.
For me this is entirely dependent upon whether the follow through at all. I would LOVE a drop where it was just this massive destination full of secrets and metroidvania style unlocks and puzzles. Where the raid or dungeon didnt unlock till the community found it, but it wasn't time gated. That sounds awesome to me. But I also knoe that most people will hate that and just want to pew pew
I have maybe 2 clan mates that play anymore and that’s a stretch. I’ve had to lfg recently and it’s just not fun anymore. 😢 I’m getting through the content but without friends to do it with it isn’t worth it imo.
i feel this 100%
Thx for the pod. All the best, guys. Destiny will live on :)
Excellent discussion guys. I'm not actively playing but cautiously optimisitc on where the game goes from here.
I started playing since season of chosen and my main pull to this game as been story, lore and music. I love it when the story evolves as we play (chosen, splicer, lost, haunted, witch and wish) but other seasons, it felt like im playing a story that has already occurred.
Of course Final Shape sold less than Lightfall. Witch Queen was excellent, so many players stuck around for the next thing and word of mouth/good player morale brought in new players too. When Lightfall bombed, it's no wonder that player retention suffered for the next release. I think Final Shape did get a few new players, but nowhere near enough to compensate for the player losses. The sales of each DLC (especially pre-orders) are far more of a reflection on the DLC that came before than on anything else.
Yep, exactly this. It's a shame really, simply because Final Shape was an excellent DLC, but the damage had been done
Agreed. This is such an important point.
Annual expansion/DLC sales typically correlate best with how good the PREVIOUS expansion/DLC was.
Lightfall was a mediocre expansion, but its sales were boosted by the universal applause for The Witch Queen.
Conversely, Final Shape is a GREAT expansion, but its sales were suppressed by the universal disdain for Lightfall.
@@AboveDestinyit is because older players leave and the game is not welcoming to new players. You need to get an exotic item and 100 res to do any fun content. Try playing game without any exotic or build and you can see how boring the game really is.
lightfall sold less than WitchQueen
@@Contractor48there are exotic missions available for riskrunner, tractor cannon, chaperone, arbalest, and 3 different exotic armours per class (each synergizes with a light subclass - Starfire w solar, for example); right out of the tutorial now.
It’s also easier than ever to circumnavigate rng, and purchase them from xur or rahool.
Anyway, not trying to clash. Just letting you know in case it helps. 👍
One of the things we learned in the ten year journey in Destiny 2 was the light and dark represented different things. What if Destiny 3 began with kind of a Mass Effect choose your past and that would help drive the story and choices. It would have replayability and the first chapters of D3 would be finding out who we were. Facing new threats etc.
For me, the issue is simple…. 1) My fav activities have been removed from the game and 2) Seasons are NOT good.
Back to activities… Bungie used to try to act like somewhat of an MMO. That being the case, why can’t I run through an ever increasing difficulty dungeon? By dungeon I don’t mean an actual dungeon, I mean.. essentially a horde mode but with mechanics. We have Escalation Protocol, The Infinite Forest, The Haunted Forest, The Menagerie, Deep Dive, Prison Of Elders, The Forges + Archons Forge. Onslaught style waves. Slap the rogue mechanic on them, randomize encounters with increasing difficulty… and put golden nuggets at the bottom. I’ll play that infinitely more than I will “collect nano flowers” or run battlegrounds. And it give me a reason to actually try out a bunch gear, builds, etc, to try to eek out every last bit of utility to make it to Wave 50 / Floor 50. I’d run all of the above activities, maybe except The Forge unless they flesh it out more like Niobe Labs with a good mix of combat / exploration. There is just so much missing content.
Nerfing craft weapons would drive me away. Because my luck is absolutely abysmal..
I don't think their intent is to nerf it, I think it's more to balance it toward seasonal content rather than endgame
I’m in construction and half of our work force consistently gets laid off alongside winter weather, a project ending, fluctuations in building costs, etc.
It would be easy enough to say it’s leadership’s fault; and that they should have balanced the summer work vs winter, lined up another project for when the last ends, or pre purchase material to prevent fluctuation; but that just isn’t our call.
Destiny fans need to grow up on this layoff issue. Companies ebb and flow.
This is a great discussion. This is one of the first points Ive felt "tired" thinking about Destiny, since I started around when Forsaken was released.
I was definitely excited coming into episode 1, thinking about the possibility of them seriously changing the formula. When that wasn't delivered it felt really demoralizing. Big big let down imo. That + a lack of an announcement about future content was one of the reasons I've become a lot more casual. Even now Im at a "wait and see approach", the game NEEDS innovation. More ways to play more things to solve, more champs, less champs, more things to puzzle over, more things to build around.
Power creep has made everything so easy now. Prismatic is sincerely fun, but I personally think it was a mistake. They need to build in some more inherent weaknesses into it otherwise it makes the game mindless.
as someone who missed out on Pantheon bec I didn't get into raiding yet at the time, I'd love to see it come back every weekend like Trials but for PvE or maybe even once a month or something.
@@antonsalvador that would be awesome
Blog post too little too late. Just seeing the state of the 10th tells me everything I need to know
Really enjoyed the talk. I think the reason I understand why some do not want to engage with the negativity is due to SO much of it being unproductive or granting any sort of insight. But staying in that wave of positivity can end up leaving you blind sighted for what’s to come.
I didn’t ask where was the future of Destiny was, because I was reading articles telling me how not only those future plans were getting cancelled, but that D3 was never even considered at all.
It's the Lion Rampants patch for me.
I either want it "bugged" or empyrean bellicose back.
The Final Shape was such a surreal personal experience for myself. Even connected with old friends. With a gameplay style I've yearned for since the tower was destroyed in 2017.
I could not express enough. The HIGHEST of highs to the most soul crushing of lows. I still can't bring myself back
Love these summit videos. Always good conversations.
I’m really curious what, short of Destiny 3, people think will be enough. They are effectively reformatting the entire game and people are still acting as though they will just rename seasons again.
There doesn't need to be a Destiny 3. People were already annoyed that they lost all the stuff that they grinded for in D1. I'm pretty sure they don't want to do that AGAIN.
Thanks for this video. I'm listening to it while I do my deliveries at work today. I will save my thoughts until I listen to the whole thing, but I did want to say thank you because so far it has been helping me understand some things I've seen from the creator side of the community. I'll be back later when I finish (:
Thanks for watching & listening! I hope you enjoyed the discussion!
Man I'm back after listening and.. tbh.. there is just too much to talk about for a TH-cam comment. I will just leave it at this: I love Destiny. It is the only game I play. I have a lot of hope for what is to come, and at the same time I am incredibly scared at the prospect of it all ending (I don't think it will, but "ending" for me can also mean it becoming a game that is no longer worth playing)
Fantastic discussion overall, and I genuinely hope the future is bright for all of us, fans and creators alike.
Edit: Also - management needs to go. They mishandled a golden egg, and if it's broken beyond repair - I will never forgive them.
Fallout 76s legendary crafting is very fun, destiny should try something similar
Also if the story is anything like this episode im not excited lmao. But im thinking it could totally be riis for the first and torabatl or however you spell the cabal homeworld turned battle moon by the hive for the second
This is been the most accurate video on how my friends and I talk about the game now. We love the game. We know it has the highest potential. But it just builds like the studio has pissed away the future and it’s sad.
I’m not convinced about Destiny 2 and I don’t think Bungie do either because I agree with Above it feels the next iteration of Destiny 2 is still in concept.
It would be funny if destiny rising took note from first descendant and adds maid suits
Ahahahahahahahahah
When that happen, you know Bungie down bad. But since they're owned by Sony, they got that ESG money!
Subclasses should move to a point buy per build element. Then bungie can balance the aspects, fragments, supers, grenades, melees, etc. So they have a knob to tune sub classes other than just nerfs buffs, which rarely comes out perfect.
My clan is super active and were having a blast in pve AND pvp.
@@ItsGBZ same🫡
all the power to you guys, Im too jaded to ever experience that anymore
Same with my clan!
10 kids and 3 wives, only play a few hours each week: gAmEs GrEaT wHaTs ThE pRoBlEm?! 😂
@@CamInTheHatsorry some people have lives
The first descendant makes content around mixing up what your playing and shifting meta from boss to boss from mission to mission
It seems they plan to use a seasonal model similar to PoE. Basically they will be testing new progression systems every season and if people really like it they will become permanent. If people hate it they remove it
In the most respectful way possible, the first descendant is crap
Jez did an amazing video on the new player experience, using his wife as a guinea pig. It really shows how frustrating and useless the new light stuff is.
"They will play this game through the best of times, through the worst of times."
That's MEEEEEEEEE
The heart of the lootchase problem is the fact that guns and armor are evergreen. The OG plan for sunsetting (items have a fixed lifespan) was a little flawed, but it certainly would've solved the "why should I care about this this new gun when I already have an old gun that does the same thing" problem. Its definitely too late to make the swap though. Bungie's gained and trained an audience to expect that anything they obtain will last forever. I really don't think that the solution to "guns aren't interesting" is to expect Bungie to make more and more interesting weapons. Especially when WoW has managed to use a very simple statistics based gear chase for years with relatively little innovation
Having played WoW for years I still believe that it's got the loot system figured out. It forces players to throw away all of their gear each patch, simply because said gear is statistically worse than whatever came in the new patch. The main catch to this is that everything in WoW is just a stat stick, as opposed to Destiny where the gear you're wearing actively determines your playstyle. We sorta saw this "throw past gear away in search of new gear" approach at the very start of D1 but Bungie pivoted off of it very quickly since items were so painful to obtain (compared to how long they lasted)
Anyone who keeps whining about crafting does not understand statistical probabilities. Let’s say there are 5 options per slot (barrel, mag, trait 1 and 2, masterwork). In order to get your perfect 5/5, your chances are 0.03% PER DROP. Meaning you not only have to get lucky and get the item itself to drop, you have to do this on average 3,333 times. Look through your non crafted godrolls. You almost certainly compromised on a mag, barrel, or masterwork, because a 5/5 godroll is a statistical impossibility in this game without crafting. They can make the crafting grind longer if needed, but it is entirely necessary in this game.
The thing is most people complaining about crafting are either suffering from rich people problems or are the people complaining a lot of their friends aren't up for doing stuff like weekly raids or runs in the ritual playlists because the weekly chore of pinnacles finally got streamlined and toned down so you're not forced to play gamemodes you don't enjoy to stay relevant and thats without fireteam power leader being a relatively new system. With all that in mind the game has been boiled down to "what do you really ENJOY about destiny?" and majority of people have realized they just don't enjoy the game as a whole anymore for one reason or another. Some people for whatever reason like having to farm an activity for months just to get a 3/5 roll at best and they're the main ones complaining crafting was a mistake. Do things like adepts need to be desirable? Yes, but that doesn't mean crafting is anywhere near as big an issue as people are screaming it is. Maybe make it so when you reset rank in general playlists that have an activity that drops adepts you are guaranteed triple perks in both columns instead of it just being a chance of triple perks on general weapons. I can't stand crucible but I'm going on 7 resets this season and it feels REALLY bad to still be farming for a better devils roll just to see another single perk per slot roll drop and for it to be deconstruct and reconstruction.
@@ShadowNemesis575Yo this guy spitting. Now that they made the tedious grinds easier it just opens these hard-core player's eyes.... what do YOU enjoy in Destiny?? Without the carrot in front of your face its now up to you to figure out what you actually engage in destiny.
Anything besides the 2 main perks is gravy and not that important, but since people are under the illusion that they are, it is as simple as just letting tier 5's get their mags/barrels rerolled. You don't need crafting at all.
No needs 5/5 god rolls. Literally nothing in the game requires that. It’s on you if you’re blaming rng for not getting god rolls if you’re chasing 5/5 rolls. The two main perks define the weapon and chasing a 2/5 god roll is absolutely acceptable and healthy for the game
When it comes to crafting, you're just never going to find common ground with people who are against it. It's really similar to politic disagreement where people are too tribal to concede on some topics. Some aspects of a game just have people caring more about their own experience than others. That's just the way it is. The issue I find is though, crafting can exist whilst still keeping rng grind. But what I find with anti crafting people is they very often want crafting to completely disappear because they think crafting ruins their entire experience even if only a fraction of the game has crafting. Yet crafting people seem to be able to suck up rng more. It's a strange imbalance. A lack of awareness or something? Weird
Destiny's downfall is even worse when you remember it isn't just a looter shooter, it's THE looter shooter. It completely dominates, or i guess "dominated" at this point, the entire genre. Even Warframe as popular as it is isn't quite on Destiny's level. Bungie basically had the looter shooter market cornered and they've squandered it.
I think part of it is that the concept just got less flashy and appealing over time especially as Destiny continues on as an older title. Destiny never really reached the more indepth usual conventions of a MMO game so part of the loot aspect felt extremely solved for an area like PVE once you got all the ideal stuff.
It lost a lot of luster and just isn't really as fun when it's been more of the same for years at this point.
the biggest differnce between Destiny 2 and Warframe is that bungie innovates until people stop being mad and DE continuously innovates before it player base gets upset
We should let the game run its course (which I believe it has) at this point. Either that or Bungie should make a Destiny 3 and make it a totally new experience, not just a 'new' game. The game is dying and rightfully so.
None of the things they talked about excited me. The issue with not having big expansions is the total lack of hype and excitement.
No to the loot reset, sunsetting and DCV hurt the game for years. The new natural sunset announcement for the new weapons is the way to go
Is it possible that Bungie allows/creates these lows? Would Forsaken, Witch Queen, or Final Shape have hit so hard if sentiment wasn’t so low right before they dropped?
A bit of a stretch perhaps, but a conspiracy that pops into my head occasionally.
Great discussion and Nomad is always bringing up very important points
You gotta hand it to the 3 legged hamster who keeps the servers going 😂
I really enjoyed this discussion- listened to the whole two hours while at work and there were some excellent points. I know some people will say that content creators aren't real players or that they don't represent players but a lot of this summarizes exactly how I feel about the game as a player who has thousands of hours and has not missed a season or a major release until now. I stopped playing during the first time gate in the episode, it was the straw that broke my back and am currently on my longest inactivity streak since I've started my Destiny journey. I've always been the type of player that would defend and hype up the game but it's difficult to be excited right now and while I want to have hope the words sound empty. Nomad's example of standing in the darkness and having no direction sounded too accurate. In fact I think some of your ideas were better than anything they put in those blogs as well and that was in the moment banter. Anyways, I think discussions like this are healthy and I thank you for putting this together.
Thanks so much for the comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the discussion.
We absolutely need new blood. Here since D1 release, and I would prefer waiting Destiny 3(even on current engine) for years, than Frontiers next summer inside bloated D2 without solid onboarding.
destiny content creators do not have the same view as casual players, causal players are not making a living from the game. Content creators of recent have become so used to really bad mouthing the game based on business decisions and bungie expansion plans. Surely its obvious to content creators is that if your content is saying how bad things are and how worried we should all be then people will stop watching your videos and will stop playing the game. You dont need to pretend the game is better than it is, but i for one unsubscribe to any content creator who jumps between the game being amazing and the game is about to end. Neither are true!
Honestly, great point.
Too often, Destiny’s creators are too easily swayed by the prevailing group sentiment of Destiny’s most-vocal minority of players (those who are hyperactive on Twitter, Reddit, etc.). I think the underlying problem is that creators seemingly can only garner clicks/views by taking extreme stances, like DESTINY IS POPPING OFF, or DESTINY IS DEAD.
A creator taking a moderate, nuanced, and thoughtful analytical approach would be warmly welcomed by a lot of people! But… most of those people aren’t tuned into TH-cam regularly. The majority of people who populate TH-cam feed off controversy or excitement… and if neither of those is available, the next favorite “meal” is overt negativity.
@@BahamutBreaker yup, the bit that i find most annoying is Bungle prioritise content creators opinions like they represent the player base. It couldn't be further from the truth. Salvations edge is a perfect example of this, Content creators ask for the hardest raid ever etc. etc.Bungie make it, then a few months later the playing figures for it are terrible and always have been! I feel like Bungie are coming around and the future looks great.
Slam dunk point🫡👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Spot on! I unsubbed from nomad for that very reason. So sick of the constant negativity from people who do it for a living. I play a few hours a week and have a pretty great time regularly.
Totally understand this sentiment. And to be honest, I really tried to toe the line of giving honest feedback and not just bad mouthing the game. I still have hope for this franchise, but I do also think this is a vital point in time for Bungie to really get this next era of Destiny right. It's not really like any other time in Destiny's history. The Light/Dark saga is over, and they need to make sure they deliver a story that gives players a reason to stick around.
If weapon drops were more similar to the system in D1 reducing crafting would be fine. But with only one perk per column the RNG required (assuming the odds for each perk are equal which we dont know) is often times absurd. Back in D1 Raid weps were all curated rolls so the RNG was simply getting the drop but in d2 weapon architypes only carry a gun so far and you feel the need to get the perfect perks. If they either swapped raid weapons back to curated rolls (not a good idea IMO) or gave us 3 perks per column reducing crafting would be fine.
Agreed. Crafting should stay, but should only be present for weapons that are B tier or less. A tier should only come from raids and dungeons, and sure, it could be curated or come with multiple perk slots. S tier could then be completely rng based master raid/dungeon, GM’s, and trials.
Basically everyone, regardless of skill or time investment, would have something to chase that way.
Everyone would just have to learn to ignore the crafters crying about the raiders. 😂
@@travousbieber3939 I think your reply has highlighted the issue with crafting atm where there is no gear progression based on difficulty anymore.
Having raid/dungeon gear be better then seasonal craftables would be a huge motivator to actually go get them and use them.
But you are right we would have to learn to ignore the people complaining they can't have the best gear from never doing hard content 😂
The Final Shape was good, but when the dust settled, go run strikes, gambit and crucible. I started with the beta, but im fatigued with the game now. Im out!
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out!
@@BahamutBreaker 😘
People are overhyping Final Shape anyway. The story was not the right story for it and very weak, it was very carried but the visuals and fun missions to play, but that was all it was. I would give it a 7/10. It was alright.
I think the Final Shape is a great jumping off point for a lot of players. With that said, I hope Bungie can really impress with Frontiers and win players back.
Thank God, TFS and especially into the light are freaking overrated like really people is that where we are at now
Insane that people are trying to blame content creators and social media for the decline of this game. How is it their fault that Bungie is wasting the potential of Destiny?
We don't get more than one strike a year, the core activities were made F2P so they would have an excuse to only update them once in a blue moon. Gambit and Gambit Labs, abandoned like a fart in the wind. Seasonal content is still getting removed in a year or less, weapon crafting has removed almost all chase. Armor in the game is useless, literally an instant dismantle unless you're a brand new player (and we don't have those)
Bungie's "debt" is catching up to them. They knew the game was bleeding players every expac, they knew new players were not coming into the game, they just continued course.
Weapon crafting was quite literally requested by the community via social media. The vast majority of the player base likes it, and claims the game would be too grindy or hard, if it were to be removed. I completely disagree, but I can at least recognize that Bungie has to cater to the crowd that’s spending the most money.
Sure, they dropped from 2 to 1 strikes a year, but also started doing 2 raids instead of 1.
I feel like armour is just a victim of 7 years of play…4, if you want to be perfectly fair, since everyone had to re-grind for 3.0 in year 3, I guess. Regardless; they can’t just keep upping the stats, or we’ll become even more powerful than we already are.
Anyway, not here to argue, but I think thoughts on the game are somewhat subjective. 🤷♂️
@@travousbieber3939 If the vast majority of the playerbase likes it, they wouldn't be scaling it back. There's no chase for weapons anymore, 95% of the most powerful items in the game (PvP and PvE) are craftable. Quite a few of them aren't even from raids. People are telling Bungie "Boy I love crafting so much!" and then once they craft their roll they get off the game and stop playing. There needs to be a dopamine hit of some kind in the game, crafting basically removes all excitement from a god roll naturally dropping on a craftable gun. It either needs to be harder to craft items, so it feels more rewarding, or the system needs to go.
I find it hard to believe that Bungie had to sacrifice strikes to start doing 2 raids a year, it's almost nonsensical. Especially since the second raid is always a returning raid. Just like they have been doing since the shadowkeep era, they scaled back on the core activities and are now paying the price. Bad Crucible/Gambit/Strikes means that the season has to carry the state of the game, and since none of the seasonal activities have any depth to them or longevity (because they will throw them out when the next expansion drops), stagnation sets in very quickly.
Armor and mods need to be reworked from the ground up. Everyone is sitting on god roll armor, double/triple 100s. Armor is an instant dismantle and that's incredibly bad for a looter game. The mod system was purposefully sabotaged to appeal to players who were already getting their builds from youtube. Instead of leaning into these different paths to power (Orbs, wells, warmind cells) they removed all of them but one, and now most builds in the game work and function the same way. It's boring.
I don't want to argue either, I'm just stating my points. People think that players have dropped off because "there's no roadmap" or "they just wanted to finish the story". My group was just fed up of essentially no fundamental changes to the game, or a rearranging of furniture. We spent first few weeks playing echoes, realized it was just more of the same, and got off.
@@ShadowDragon410 liking/requesting the feature until it’s added to the game, and playing less because the feature was added are two very different things, but otherwise I think you’ve got very valid points. Regardless of what I agree the game needs though, the current state of the game is not exclusively a problem Bungie created, is my point.
It IS theirs to fix though. I just don’t see how they do it without a D3 tbh. People will freak if they need to re-grind armour & weapons inside of D2, no matter how badly the game needs a refresh.
@@ShadowDragon410 Bungie scaling back crafting is to please the top 10-20% at a push 30%. The top 10-20% are the people who play their game the most so sometimes they feel compelled to listen to them. The other 70-80% of the game are very pro crafting. So it's still the vast majority.
I think the weapon the raid weapon enhancements are what crafting shouldve been... well like how the adepts are currently... getting the 2 perks you want and then the master work and when you level the gun you can change the barrel and magazine and then tie additional perks in the columns to doing challenges... rn my main grind is adept weapons where I like all 6 perks... I know that sounds kinda crazy, but say you get the godroll from a regular version right now... you would discard it because you can craft it later... pretty sad to look at a weapon for it's red border ngl
I just never felt that final shape was this masterpiece I hear from content creators. The raid was ok but very non player friendly(verity mostly) and not that much fun and the lack of what to do after the campaign is more to blame for why people left than the story ended imo. Everybody i know gave episodes an honest shot but the episode was so bad boring and painful to play that they drove everyone away. Nerfing dual destiny double drops around the same time tanked everyone's enjoyment of the game. So imo it was less the story ended and more Bungie fumbling badly the post campaign of the game.
Core modes are all chores and have no replay or value. As a crucible player the matchmaking and constant changes to special have killed my drive to play. Once again dev decisions, not lay offs are why I am frustrated and playing less. 2 weeks of Iron Banner is like trying to fumigate the player base also, once again dev choices. They can make better decisions that would help retain players.
They had no plan after the campaign and we are living that right now.
The image with the pink sky could be Riis (homeworld of the Eliksni)
35:35 guess im the 1% that liked that content xD
Remnant 2 DLC Hype
They have me interested. But words on a screen can't keep interest and neither can artwork of something that won't appear at launch. We need cinematics, w.i.p of cinematics, weapons SOMETHING other than words to keep us in like how the episodes were shown. We got cinematics, locations, weapon and armor etc.
Salvation Edge is the least attempted raid and it's not even close. It turned off new players and final shape is sitting at a 7.4 on Metacritic
Likely because it's the hardest. Albeit the best in the game.
Last wish is the best raid imo, and still managed to get more people to play it in 3 months than this sucker so far
@@kddatrapmaneBait
@@AboveDestiny Salvation Edge is not that hard and clearly not the best, it's just super boring (3rd phase : how are you dressed ? Might be the worst phase in a raid ever created). But that's only my opinion and clearly respect yours also. Kind regards.
@@lazyvoid7107not everyone is as stupid as you
Been crying wolf on new player experience since forsaken. It has just taken this long to show as a big problem.
I would like to see more horror like aspects. Like presagebut dialed up to 10. Season of the haunted should have had more suspense and fear involved
I think social media ruined video gaming. if we never knew of any of the drama we would all be just enjoying the game. just like in the old days where we never cared nor knew about the studio news and just purely enjoyed the games for what it is. bad news and content creators echoing them is a catalyst destroying the gaming industry.
getting off of twitter for the past 3 years has given me a healthy relationship with d2. people need to care less of what some randos say on the internet.
so yeah, fuck you guys😂
Not just content creators though. It’s half of the community, or at the very least, a hyperactive minority of the community. If you go on a D2 Reddit sub, there’s a 99% chance that 90% of the posts and comments are just regular people shitting on the game.
I do agree about social media though. Drama gets clicks, so people tend to be dramatic.
@@travousbieber3939yeah can’t agree more.
Content creators are always extra negative because they arent even fans when you get down to it. Destiny is their paycheck, so when its struggling they just shit on it to capitalize on negative sentiment and veiws.
If they weren’t at least fans deep down why would they keep playing? Plenty of creators in the past have left when they felt tired with the game. And it’s usually clear when a creator is tired of a game but is still doing it for money. I’m not a content creator but I can still see based on 5000+ hours in this game how it’s dropped the ball big time. You don’t have to be a content creator to be negative about a game. Crafting has ruined the loot grind, the game has gotten too repetitive and easy, like what does this have to do with content creators
@@RAIZ-m1w I agree with crafting and difficulty comment 100%. I'm talking specifically about the " content creators" that post videos being like " I'm done playing destiny" . Like cool bro, no one cares .... Lol. I believe it feeling repetitive is strictly related to play time honestly, and I mitigate that by just taking breaks. I have close to 5k in this game as well and if I don't play when I actually want to then I'll hate it and that is my fault for playing it the way I do.
I honestly don't think Bungie dropped the ball by taking a bit to let us know what the future was. I was never pessimistic about the situation in regards to whether they were making destiny stuff still because they said multiple times that they are still committed to it. And a pretty sizable number of those lay offs ( the second round anyway) were from non destiny spots so again I wasn't too concerned about it being shelved like some people are.
One of the biggest issues too is how anything that actually matters in the game and is fun to do/use you need to pay for, my friend was baffled when I told him to pay $30 for a dlc that’s not even in the game anymore just so he can get the forsaken weapons and how by the time he was able to get a certain dlc say witch queen I already did everything it had to offer so there was literally zero point to do it again
1:09:00 oh excuse you mister i dont die anymore xD
The game is just old. Raids and dungeons are great, but most have been there for years.
And Bungie always put so much efforts in secrets which have little to no replayability value.
A big thing was that the seasonal activity was so bad.
Not 6 players. Group of enemies able to one shot you. No rally banner. Annoying mechanic which forced you to pause during fights to go deposit.
Also it was so easy to get the red border with engrams that were dropping from other less boring activity.
54:00 what the first descendant does :)
Bungie puts more time and effort into one time LTMs than seasonal content. Yet expect me to spent more time and effort in the seasonal content. GG and FOTL are seasonal content now
What amazes me is people thought it was ever going to end any other way than it has. Bungie has always underdelivered and disappointed when it comes to destiny. My advise would be to just let it die. Play other games. Its like a relationship that has ended. You can sit there and fight it hoping itll go back to "the way it used to be" and be disappointed constantly. Or you can move on.
I don't want to let it die until a game similar enough to Destiny comes out. There isn't one. Not warframe. Not division 2. DEFINITELY not the first descendant. Nothing feels as good to play as Destiny. So until something comes out, it genuinely doesn't matter how much D2 underdelivers, people who feel the same way as me are going to keep playing it. There just isn't a game like it.
We knew the day after the raid there was post episode content they literally released a vidoc saying frontiers 2025
Dont forget guys... The game brought the audience to you. Your content is what kept them. I can hop on Destiny Wiki for lore but I CHOOSE to get my lore from Byf. If you guys transition to another game we will follow.
I’m really not on board with the whole “it’s over” mindset. I think we’re going to see a hiatus for a few years but I believe the franchise will make a resurgence eventually.
About the wondering whether or not the fans are still there thing, we will always be here. Even if we stop playing the game true fans would return if Destiny made a real comeback and took things in a positive direction.
I think Bungie still has talented people grinding on the future of D2. And eventually they’ll probably make a new game in the franchise. I think Destiny fans need to remain patient. We also need a break. Let’s step away for a while and one day there will most likely be a moment worth returning.
I get your guys perspective as content creators but if we’re talking about just being a fan of the franchise in general, we all still love Destiny and want it to be great.
Yeah, no, that's not how sales work. "Final shape sold less than Lightfall, which means it attracted no new players" is blatant false dramatization. There can be plenty of original D1 and D2 players LIKE MYSELF that did not buy Final Shape. There can be players that want to experience as much of Destiny as they can at the conclusion to a saga because they don't want to wait for years for that ending and would rather do this all at once. One of you should have checked him on this terrible point.
I disagree the story is ass. I didn't care about Saint and Osiris' relationship. The only thing that COULD have been interesting would be fighting the conductor and we didn't even get that.
Facts. Maybe instead of Riverdale/Euphoria type storytelling they should've made the main antagonist the Clovis AI (if not a vex ultron type character) and actually put him on the move while the protags this season were Elsie and Ana. Always thought it weird that the stranger's whole purpose was finding the winning timeline and now that we won Elsie is nowhere to be found
How do you market a game when you fired your marketing team?
And while Final Shape scored really well it didn’t keep me or my friend group engaged at all. The Pale Heart as a solitary location just feels weird and lonely, the raid didn’t interest me or my old raid group at all. And if you don’t have a stand alone group then good luck finding a Sherpa. They leaned way too hard into making the hardcore fans happy but it alienated a major chunk of their fan base including the more casual and solo players. Even the clan I was in dissolved in a matter of months because no one wanted to re-run any of the campaign and battlegrounds still don’t scratch that same itch as many of the D1 and D2 vaulted strikes do. Dual Destiny was also a colossal failure as seen as how it’s still such a pain point for the playerbase that is still holding on.
Supposed to be lonely but they should've open it when you finish 12 man raid
@@lazyvoid7107Yeah if we had a Dreaming City type of change to public, I would be so excited. But now even Neomuna feels better
Byf… you’re not THE GUY anymore
Make a new tutorial and remove Guardian Ranks/don't lock things behind GR. GR is such a stupid "feature"
aesthetics and a vision are equally important to a video game as solid gameplay. Concord had competent gameplay but it’s objectively unattractive. It comes off as a corporate committee checkmark to appeal to a nonexistant modern audience. So in the end it’s a bad game. Destiny lost it’s appeal, the aesthetic appeal isn’t there. It may have an “interesting” story or concept but it’ delivered and constructed in the worse possible way that it’s bad. Remember, a 7/10 story in destiny is will always be a negative compared to better games. Byf coping that the story is good and people don’t care is missing the point. People find body horror themes interesting and whatever themes and story destiny had. The thing is, destiny is sterilised, there’s no appeal, it’s committee checkmarked. It has characters people just dont like or care and try to flesh them out only makes it worse. No one cares about saint 14 osiris relationship and stuck being a third wheel.
The seasonal story is terrible 3 weeks of run this exotic mission and then Maya just gets away with the echo I had more fun watching Naruto filler
Destiny 2 is not beginner friendly. And a game such as this needs new blood all the time. It is totally confusing, what to buy, when you start into Destiny 2 right now. It is even more confusing to understand, what is going on, without listening to Byfs whole story of Destiny 2. Why? Because much of the lore was hidden in seasonal content, that is no longer available. Whole campaigns are gone from the game even though we paid for them.
Even for returning players that is problematic. On top of sunsetting, introduction of new weapon perks, like origin traits, that render older weapons worse. Now the new tier system. It is basically another round of sunsetting and reselling the players their old weapons for what feels like the 10th time. All of this combined with a RNG system that made it close to impossible to get the god roll you wanted even though you farmed whole years away. Yeah I get it. It is all about the loot, but if you spend a year to get the gun you wanted to get a post that informs you that it will soon be worthless once again, that is tough.
Nonlinear story, but do not worry, basically you just decide the sequence in which you play the content. Because this way it is more of a time sink instead of your decisions really mattering for the development of the story. Frontiers sounds awful in my mind.
40:59 lol please
God I could listen to Byf's voice all day. He needs to start an ASMR channel.
hahah
Enhanced perks only matter for the 1%
30:49 they can start now and have it out for PS6 and PS5 in 2028 maybe xD
Do you have any idea how bad i want secrets in Destiny 2? Content creation had huge uptakes when a secret in the game was found. Nothing got me excited more than seeing all the destiny2 content creators mindblown and trying to figure out secret missions. Find a way to make day one raid secrets apart of the everyday missions. It doesn't have to be difficult content, just mind exercise. Puzzles that can be made for 3 man teams inside of strikes that rival 4th encounter salvation edge. The encore mission would have been better if it wasnt apart of the story and shot out of nowhere that included lore inside of the story that gave us context to a story fight. I hope their promises to make the story less linear will result inthis type of gameplay. They are geniuses in their own right. The layoffs are a terrible side effect of poor money management and happen in all companies. The sad fact is that creative minds are the first ones to get cut because corporations value merchandising leaders and other leadership roles that dont actually touch much of the creative side of our games. My hope is that they can fix their fiscal development and be able to meet the needs of the basic player base to draw interest back through conversations and exciting missions. I dont mind some downtime to allow me to experience the rest of the gaming universes, but i hope they continue to be able to pull me back in to their stories as the years go on.
If this was any other company but Bungie, almost all “creators” would have already left the game behind. Take off the rose colored glasses. Destiny started with hacking up the story and watering it down just to release an unfinished mess of a game. Then released the content they hacked off way later when the game was suffering. How many times does that have to happen? The game suffers, Bungie makes it good. They change it. The game suffers. Bungie makes it good. If Bungie would just make a good game first you would have everyone staying biting their nails in anticipation of what’s coming after Final Shape. But Bungie is just like Activision, they’re just another greed focused corporation trying to suck all the money they can out of their players. There is no more game. They have no idea what’s coming next. They’re making stuff up just to try to keep players from moving away from Destiny. If there was more, they would have told us. Destiny is dead.
The follow up to FS was the biggest flop in destiny history
29:54 at this point, bungie really needs to shake things up for player population with either marathons success and say “hey if u like this, maybe u can try d2 too”. Or just really REALLY market the sh!t out of the next episode/content for d2 with visual interesting things, not just “oh it’s the biggest thing we have done” SHOW DONT TELL pls
The unfortunate part is that they kind of NEED to show what's next. Their player retention numbers are reflecting that. Doesn't have to be much, but some teasers of upcoming content would go a long way IMO.
27:10 this game costs too much to get people into the game, if they'd change to a monster hunter or borderlands type of game hence D3 which theyll never do because they threw a lot of people out, maybe they could bring new people to the game but when you have to pay 100 bucks for a year of content and it just gets taken away... and you have to pay more for past content (or wait for them to make it free) yeah people are gonna get fed up with that eventually