I'm making this a separate post so you guys don't have to see me complain in the Hangout anymore :wacko:. I've played the Destiny franchise since Destiny 1 beta, had the game pre-ordered, played all 3 years of Destiny 1, had all DLC on release, at points had perfect Grimoire score (in game tracker for kills/activities/collectibles found), platinum trophy since before the first DLC even launched, all DLC trophies achieved, and I don't know the exact number, but probably had over 2000+ hours in this game over the 3 years. If it was in the game, I had done it, multiple times. I played the Destiny 2 beta, was not impressed, but kept the pre-order for Destiny 2, considering the beta was extremely small (only first story mission, like 8 guns available total, and 2 pvp maps). I should have cancelled it. The title is a little inside joke, as for most of Destiny 1's lifespan, people were always looking for the game that would "kill" Destiny, that would get its dedicated playerbase to finally give it up, a few games were supposed to do it, a notable one being The Division, but none of them succeeded until Destiny 2.
Destiny Backstory
Spoiler warning:
Humanity was like it is now, then magic space orb arrived, Humanity & technology boomed, we expanded beyond Earth to other planets/moons in our Solar System. Many centuries past (exact amount never known), several alien races show up seeking space orb, big ass war starts, "the Collapse" begins, humanity pushed to brink of extinction, in dying breath space orb creates the Ghosts, Ghosts created the Guardians (which is what your character is), by reviving humans/others that had been dead for centuries (the way you are chosen is never revealed). Guardians have access to the "Light", power granted by the Ghosts/space orb, we cannot die unless our Ghost is destroyed/drained of its Light. Remnants of humanity gather below space orb on Earth and build the Last City. Guardians are the only ones who venture outside of the Last City to fight the alien races. Here is a cool trailer they did prior to Destiny 2 that shows one the NPC guardians being born/revived for first time and building of the Last City.
Now I know most of you never played any Destiny, when the first game came out it was met with ridicule, and I'm not going to defend it that much, the game had obvious flaws. The reviews were pretty much all disappointing, I believe most scores were around 6/10 on most sites, and that seems fitting for the vanilla version of the game (pre-DLCs). The complaints were justified, the story was practically non-existent in the game and hard to follow; there wasn't much content to play, and while the loot was okay, people did not want to grind the same 2-3 things for weeks to try and get past the RNG. Despite this, the game FELT good to play. The environment was beautiful, the gunplay was good, the abilities could use some work but were fun to use, there was just nothing to do in the game. After the complete disaster that was the first DLC, The Dark Below, with each passing update and DLC the game improved at lot. For Destiny 2, it seemed to get off to the opposite start, most of the initial reviews came out with good things to say, most sites were in the upper 8/10s. The story, while nothing unique or breathtaking, was actually understandable, there seemed to be a ton of things to do, with the new Adventure missions, Lost Sectors, and more frequent and tracking for Public events. It wasn't until a few weeks after launch had passed, that the cracks began to split open.
Story/Characters (Turn that Dial to 11)
Spoiler warning:
I know I just said the story was better, but that is really only comparison from base version Destiny 1 story, not really the DLC stories, especially Taken King or Rise of Iron Destiny 1 DLCs story. The biggest problem with Destiny 2 is actually the dialogue is straight up bad, here is an example, you can fast forward to 15s. Even without context, that is super cringey right? That is an extreme example but wow is it bad. They have basically taken each of the NPC's "trope" and dialed that shit to 11. Cayde-6 (voiced by Nathan Fillion) was a comic relief character in Destiny 1, but did have serious lines, and wasn't only comedy, he only cracks terrible jokes in Destiny 2. Ikora Rey (voiced by Gina Torres) is the super serious character. I could list more but I won't. What makes it really bad is your character is 100% silent in Destiny 2. It makes for EXTREMELY AWKWARD CUTSCENES, they designed so many cutscenes like your character should talk, but instead you shrug, or stand there doing nothing for 2s and then your Ghost talks (voice by Nolan North, which is who was talking in the clip above). In Destiny 1 your character had extremely limited dialogue but it was there when needed to avoid those crap cutscenes, think kind of like Master Chief in Halo, you barely talk but do when it matters. Destiny and Destiny 2 has an amazing voice cast (Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, (they have a thing for Firefly actors I guess lol) Nolan North, Lance Reddick, Bill Nighy, Lennie James, and more). Basically the only person's dialogue who is liked in this game is Lennie James' character Lord Shaxx who is the Crucible (PvP) vendor and voice announcer.
Lord Saladin - This character is the host/vendor for the Iron Banner crucible event that is hosted about once every ~6 weeks or so. In Destiny 2, the very first time he came to the tower players noticed his little description blurb identified him as the "last Iron Lord", which is straight up incorrect. In the Rise of Iron DLC for Destiny 1, which focused on the Iron Lords, at the end of the campaign your character is given the title of Iron Lord FROM LORD SALADIN, and even if they wanted to say you are a "new age" iron lord or something. During that DLC since Lord Saladin becomes the main storyline NPC he is no longer the host/npc for Iron Banner, instead an Iron Lord he didn't know if they were alive/dead returned and hosted the event for the entirety of the final year Destiny 1 was out, they even gave her a cutscene. They apparently don't even know their own story...
Things Destiny 2 Changed for the Better (Because not everything could be bad)
Spoiler warning:
- Tracking on map for Public Events, before you had no idea, unless you used a 3rd party website that to their credit did a good job of tracking them.
- Shaders can be applied to weapons (could not before), shaders can be applied to individual pieces of armor (before would apply to all pieces) (also had apparent drawbacks, see further below)
- Fast Travel nodes for patrol on maps (before patrol, like free roam, had one place to load into on the map, now there is multiple on every map so you can load in closer to desired location)
- Class abilities created, added a unique class ability to each respective class, Hunter - Dodge, Warlock - Rift, Titan - Barricade
- Both Raids (vanilla and DLC raid are very good activities, although glitchy, see below)
- Adventures and Lost Sectors added lots of small missions/dungeon like places to do after the main story, basically like side quests
- Guided games feature (matchmaking for Nightfall strikes and Raids) (underused and needs several improvements but D1 had no system like this at all, most people used and still do 3rd party DestinyLFG.net to find other people)
- In game clan features (D1 had nothing, D2 has a clan roster and clan xp mechanic that earns small bonuses, those bonuses are pretty bad but better than nothing)
- Addition of Transmat effects (when spawning or reviving after death little effect like colored Lightning, drop pod effect and others)
- Clamber/climb mechanic (in D1 had to completely land feet on ground to make a jump, in D2 as long as chest high will grab ledge/wall/cliff and climb up)
Things Destiny 2 Changed for the Worse or Completely left out(Fun times....)
Spoiler warning:
- No longer can re-play specific story missions or strikes at will (Removed all mission nodes from map after completion, vendor in tower allows you to re-play 3 story missions a week, rotates each week, must enter the random strike playlist to play strikes)
- Cannot replay Adventures at will (4 adventures available at each planetary vendor, rotates each week)
- Shaders are now consumable and cost Glimmer (like gold/gil in other games) to apply, annoying because most good shaders are through Eververse (more on that later), basically no one changes shaders anymore, cannot mass delete the stacks of shaders either, must go 1 at a time (some people have hundreds of one shader)
- All ships, ghosts, sparrows (vehicle to drive on planets) are now all through Eververse. In Destiny 1, certain activities had unique sparrows/ships/ghosts. Raid specific, planetary chest specific, crucible specific etc.
- Class trees are now have little customization see pictures, Destiny 1 Gunslinger Hunter vs Destiny 2 Gunslinger Hunter (In D1 could select grenade/jump and still can in D2, but cannot mix/match super alternating node or other 2 ability columns, must pick a "path" and cannot edit that path, left side in D2 is the newly added class ability)
- Removal of Heroic strikes (harder versions of strikes, was added back in the first DLC for Destiny 2, but must own DLC to play them, missing the "modifiers" that made them fun/challenging) (Heroic strikes were in the BASE VERSION of Destiny 1!)
- Removal of Strike specific loot (was added in Destiny 1 in the Taken King DLC, a year after launch, so 2 years prior to Destiny 2 launch)
- Removal of Strike scoring (might have date wrong, believe was added just 6 months or so prior to Destiny 2, recently brought to D2 in February 27th or so patch, but only for weekly nightfall strike)
- Removal of Daily Heroic story mission (was in BASE VERSION of Destiny 1)
- Removal of Weekly Crucible Playlist (was added in Taken King I believe, so 2 years prior to Destiny 2, usually featured more "fun" modes)
- Removal of several Crucible gametypes (Rift - added in Taken King DLC for D1; Rumble - BASE VERSION of D1; Salvage - BASE VERSION of D1; Mayhem - added in Taken King DLC, made a limited return for 2 weeks of The Dawning event in D2; Combined Arms - I believe this was Dark Below DLC - so 2 1/2 years prior to Destiny 2, was the large map only, vehicles enabled playlist; Doubles - made several limited appearances in D1, was added as a rotating playlist 1 1/2 years before Destiny 2, made 1 week return during Crimson Days event for D2)
- Removal of ability to select Crucible gametype (in D1 could select specific gamemode, I.E. Clash (Deathmatch) or Control (zone control), in D2 can either select Quickplay or Competitive playlists, which contain 2-3 gametypes selected at random)
- Removal of 6v6 and 3v3 crucible (in D1 depending on gametype was 6v6 or 3v3, in D2 all gametypes are 4v4, this is odd because patrol/strike/story group size is 3 players, and raids are 6 players, so if you ever transition as a group between activities, have to add/drop players)
- Radar in Crucible now is delayed by about 1s when zooming out of scopes, for some reason....(this pushed the exotic MIDA Multi Tool to S tier in Crucible because it has a now unique perk Third Eye, which enabled radar when aiming, previously could roll on any primary in Destiny 1)
- Removal of Private Crucible matches (I believe was added 1 1/2 years prior to Destiny 2?, they initially announced they wanted them back in place by "early 2018" but that has been pushed back until May DLC/update)
- Removal of day/night cycles on Crucible maps (not a big thing, but several outdoor maps in Destiny 1 had day/night/evening versions that provided just a small change, no maps in Destiny 2 have this)
- Removal of hidden/secret quests (examples such as Black Spindle, or Outbreak Prime or even just "fun" secrets like the King's Fall Raid Basketball court)
- At reward vendors could no longer buy specific vendor loot (was available to do so in BASE VERSION D1 with new stock each DLC, in D2 was later added after 2 months from launch, no new stock as of yet)
- At reward vendors could no longer select Weapon or Armor rewards when leveling up vendor (was added in Taken King, so 2 years prior D2, in D2 only can grab all in one reward)
- No in game tracking for vendor levels (was in BASE VERSION D1)
- Could not buy Engrams (random loot containers from the Cryptarch, was in BASE VERSION D1, was added 2 months after launch for D2 but limited, in D1 could buy specific armor piece/weapon type engram, in D2 just an all in one engram)
- Vault space massive shrunk (was improved over course of D1, BASE VERSION D1 vs End of Year 1 Destiny 1 vs Destiny 1 Taken King vs Destiny 2 Vault; Destiny 1 eventually had seperate sections for Weapons/Armor/Cosmetic & Material each with 108/108/72 slots, Destiny 2 vault has 200 slots all grouped in one)
- Removal of several Collections, where once earning certain cosmetic/unique items could reacquire them for just Glimmer if deleted (in Destiny 1 had collections for Emblems/Shaders/Emotes/Exotics Weapons & Armor/Sparrows/Ships, Destiny 2 has collections for Emblems/Emotes/Exotics Weapons & Armor, Collections were all added in Taken King DLC in Destiny 1, so 2 years before D2 launch)
- Removal of Artifacts (were added in Taken King DLC, but were regarded as useless and just another thing preventing you from hitting max level, was improved immensely in the Rise of Iron DLC to have massive playstyle altering effects, so 1 year before Destiny 2)
- Removal of Court of Oryx/Archon's Forge miniboss activities/arena (Court was added in Taken King DLC, Archon's Forge was larger/improved version added in Rise of Iron DLC)
- Removal of Prison of Elders style activity (wave based Horde mode, added in House of Wolves DLC, so 2 1/2 years prior to D2)
- Removal of different sparrows (the small speeder you can drive around, Destiny 1 had 3 types, Speed/Booster/Trick, first 2 were in BASE VERSION Destiny 1, Trick was added in first DLC so 2 years 8 months before Destiny 2)
- Removal of Sparrow Racing League (limited time event that was just racing on Sparrows, occurred twice in Destiny 1, first in Taken King DLC, so 2 years before Destiny 2, was present for about a month each time in Destiny 1)
- Removal of Sparrow Horns (came from Sparrow Racing League, but just added a horn to your vehicle and they made a ton of bizarre sounds you could have)
- Removal of Bounties & Tracker (Bounties were in BASE VERSION D1, Tracker added in Taken King DLC with more Bounty slots added as well from 5 to 15, In D2 they changed it to planet specific challengers, 3 per planet, but must load onto each planet to even see challenges)
- When in free roam, the patrol activities time to pick up has been like 5x longer (in D1 was like 1s to pickup, in D2 takes like 5s, just a small annoying thing)
- Removal of exotic swords (added in Taken King DLC so 2 years) for basically no reason, Swords were never used in the Crucible, and were bad in 90% of the games bossfights (whether raid/strike/mission) because bosses have a ground slam mechanic which they only used if in melee range (aka sword range)
- Removal of class specific guns (initially added in Taken King so 2 years, each class had one special weapon unique to them and one Primary weapon exotic, Titans had Exotic Auto Rifle & Legendary Shotgun, Hunters Exotic Handcannon & Legendary Sniper, Warlocks Exotic Scout Rifle & Legendary Fusion Rifle, each one had either a unique mechanic or direct synergy with a subclass) (in Destiny 2 each class has an legendary sword but they don't have any unique mechanics like the weapons offered in Destiny 1 did)
I'll keep thinking, could probably get more but I would have to go play the game possibly to think of more :lol
Changes to Weapons/Armor Systems (PLEASE REVERT TO DESTINY 1 *cries*)
Weapon Systems
Spoiler warning:
Destiny 1 had a Weapon system of Primary/Special/Heavy weapons respectively. Primaries were Auto Rifles (standard machine guns), Hand Cannon (pistols), Scout Rifles (think like a M1 Garand but with like 15 bullet magazine), Pulse Rifle (3-round burst weapons). Specials were Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Fusion Rifles (think like a Shotgun with around a 1s charge time to fire but with longer range) Sidearms (added in House of Wolves, small fast firing weak/low range pistols). Heavy Weapons were Rockets, Heavy Machine Guns, and Swords (added in Taken King DLC).
Destiny 2 has a Kinetic/Energy/Power System. Kinetic/Energy share the same weapon types, Auto Rifles, Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Sidearms, Submachine Guns (added in Destiny 2). Power has Snipers, Shotguns, Fusion Rifles, Rockets, Swords, Linear Fusion Rifles (added in Destiny 2, although two exotics from Destiny 1 were basically this class) and Grenade Launchers (added in Destiny 2). Heavy Machine Guns were removed completely. Kinetic/Energy although they share the same weapon types, do not share same weapons. Kinetic means no elemental damage on gun, energy are those same types but with elemental damage, and power have elemental damage. In Destiny 1, Primaries from High level activities (Raids/Trials of Osiris) had elemental damage, all secondary and heavy weapons did as well.
While many people were hopeful with this system at first, and saying it wasn't bad, as more and more people played longer the more boring it got. Having two weapons slots that behave the exact same and all interesting/playstyle altering guns limited into one slot were ammo is massively limited/controlled led to stale gameplay that people got bored of extremely fast. Why was this change made? To try and balance the Crucible, the PvP side of the game, which was also their reasoning for removing Heavy machine guns, since they could absolutely rampage in Crucible if not shut down with someone else Heavy weapon or Super ability. One of the more popular complaints for Crucible was, "people should have to use their primaries more" as special ammo was massively plentiful for a majority of Destiny 1 in Crucible so they just decided to give everyone 2 primaries I guess! The Power slot in Destiny 2 has also evolved into 9/10 times you take rockets, as they completely outclass almost all other alternatives in every situation, especially since most other alternatives received nerfs (especially Snipers) from D1 to D2, more on that later.
In Destiny 1, legendary weapons had 2 randomly rolled perks, and one middle tree with 3 options to choose from also randomly rolled, there were exceptions, notable the majority of raid weapons had static perk rolls. In Destiny 2 all weapons have fixed rolls and also only ONE major perk, so if you get a Better Devils handcannon, it will be the exact same as everyone's instead of randomly rolling 2 perks from a pool of like 14 or so. Here is a Destiny 1 handcannon, Fatebringer, arguably the best legendary Handcannon in Destiny 1, it had fixed rolls but take a look at the perk tree (ignore the lightning bolt nodes, they affected damage, in D2 all weapons start at max damage), and compare it to this Better Devils, the arguable best Handcannon in Destiny 2. A big difference huh? They both share the different Aim-down sight change ability, then on Better Devils you can choose between two options for higher mag size slower reload, or smaller magazine faster reload, and then have the Explosive Rounds perk, it also has the "Intrinsic" perk which in this case is Adaptive Frame which makes it have less recoil, it shares this perk with all other Handcannons that have the same Fire Rate/Impact stats. Fatebringer has two perk slots, the ridicule icon "Firefly" and the tornado one "Outlaw", it has the 3 option tree in the middle, which the bottom perk is EXPLOSIVE ROUNDS (they changed icons from D1 to D2), the same "defining" perk for Better Devils, is actually in the MINOR tree for Fatebringer. This system with the static perks on every gun in Destiny 2 also results in just a smaller amount of loot in general, and nothing feels unique. I also want to go back to that Better Devils picture, and look at the mods section, ignore the left, that is not a mod, and ignore the very right, as that is the shader slot. The purple one in the middle is the only mod for Kinetic weapons, it gives +5 weapon stat damage, which in game actually does nothing, all it does is allow you to hit the max cap for power level in total, which also doesn't really matter at all. Energy weapons in Destiny 2 mods can change the elemental damage type, while also giving the +5 stat, same for Power weapons. Basically, mods for weapons don't do anything.
Armor System
Spoiler warning:
In Destiny 1 they had a large rework to the armor/leveling system in the Taken King DLC and that system is still in place for Destiny 2 so I won't talk about that portion but a lot of other changes were made to armor. Just for reference, the armor system is a Helmet/Guantlets/Chest/Boots/Class Item/Artifact/Ghost, with the artifact slot being removed in Destiny 2, and Ghost slot while having "perks/bonuses" no longer affected your power level in Destiny 2.
Removal of the Intellect/Discipline/Strength stats - Intellect affected your Super ability cooldown, Discipline affected your Grenade cooldown, Strength affect melee ability cooldown. Each armor piece could randomly roll two of the respective stats. Each stat had 5 tiers/breakpoints, needed 300+ points to hit max tier. The max you could get was Tier 12, so two maxed out and the other at tier 2, or tier 4s for all, etc. In addition, all legendary armor pieces (the post-main story/endgame gear) all had 2 perk slots that randomly rolled different perks, depending on the armor (helmet/guantlet etc.) A few examples, Helmet could roll perks such as (Increase Super generation when killing minions of the darkness, shield regeneration instantly triggers upon picking up an Orb of Light. Guantlets had increase reload speed with X weapon type, increased melee attack speed, increased grenade throw distance. Chest had ammo increase for X weapon type (for Primary/Secondary weapon types), increase armor if wearing X subclass, boots had increase ammo for Secondary/Heavy weapon types, increase movespeed after respawning, and others. Armor in Destiny 2 has abandoned this system, instead each armor piece has ONE mod slot, for the new mod system. The mod system is a massive letdown in every aspect. Mods can be slight stat bonuses to Mobility/Resilience/Recovery (more on those later), reload speed for either Kinetic weapons/Power weapons, increased handling speed for weapon types (for when swapping weapons), decrease recoil for weapon types, or decrease cooldowns for either melee/grenade abilities (but with no exact numbers like Destiny 1 system which gave you exact cooldown timers). Mods are also consumable to are a massive farming grind, cost glimmer to apply, so most people don't swap mods often. The reason this is a massive letdown is because most people expected the system to work like the perks from Destiny 1, and you could gather mods that were those perks and apply them to the armor you wanted rather then having them be randomly rolled each time you got a new piece of armor. You have less slots (down from 2 to 1), and even the mods that are similar to the perks from Destiny 1, are less effective versions of those perks.
In Destiny 2 armor has the Mobility/Resilience/Recovery stats, which in Destiny 1 were actually tied to your respective class/subclass, i.e. Hunter Gunslinger or Warlock Voidwalker. Mobility does nothing, the strategy in Destiny 2 is to get as low mobility as possible, as high recovery as possible, and try and get resilience as high as possible after recovery. Mobility affects WALKING SPEED or speed when moving while Aiming down sight on weapons, and base jump height, but not jump ability height. Resilience gives you more health, and recovery decreases the amount of time needed not taking damage to start health regen, and increases rate of regeneration. The armor has these rolls fixed as well in Destiny 2. Helmets/Gauntlets/Boots each have 3 points, one point can be changed between two options, Chest has 4 points, one can be changed, class item has none but has 1 mod slot. Any given stat can only have 10 points, can go higher but no additional bonuses after 10.
Exotics (If it got brought into D2 from D1 it got nerfed)
Spoiler warning:
Exotics are either weapons or armor with unique effects, you can only have one exotic weapon and one exotic armor piece equipped at a given time. I am not going to say much here, because some of the exotics introduced in Destiny 2 are just downright trash (and several in Destiny 1 were as well), and the one's they brought back from Destiny 1 mainly saw nerfs.
The best example of this is with the Hunter's Gunslinger class Exotic Guantlet Young Ahamkara's Spine, in base version Destiny 1, it gave increased Tripmine grenade duration (it was a trap grenade you could stick to walls/surfaces. This exotic was regarded as really really bad, and it was. In Taken King DLC they buffed several bad exotics, in this case, they made it so when using this exotic you could then carry two tripmines. In Destiny 2, they brought this exotic back, but removed the second grenade charge. Why? No damn clue.
Now compare that exotic to the best performing Hunter exotic in Destiny 2, which is for the Nightstalker class, Orpheus Rigs. These boots make it so whenever you hit enemies with your super, depending on the amount hit, it will refill super energy, if you hit about 8 enemies or so, you can completely refill your super! In what world would you ever use that pair of Guantlets? None.... This is especially weird because there are several other exotic gauntlets that interact with grenades like Sunbracers for Warlock. In Destiny 1 base version, they gave increased duration on Solar grenades, in Taken King they were also given the second grenade charge buff, in Destiny 2 they kept the second grenade charge! Mind boggling....
Balance Changes (NO FUN ALLOWED)
Spoiler warning:
I'm going to use the list format for this
- Increased time to charge your super, probably by at least half in raw time, and removed those perks that used to help charge super.
- Tripled grenade recharge timer (rough estimate), mods nowhere near as good as the Discipline stat in reducing charge time.
- Increased melee recharge timer (probably about same as grenades)
- Removal of Sunsinger Warlock subclass, replaced with Dawnblade (absolute garbage subclass in D2, Sunsinger was #1 subclass for Warlock in Raids/Trials of Osiris)
- Removal of Defender Titan subclass, replaced with Sentinel subclass (probably the worst Titan subclass when before Defender was #1 Titan subclass for Raids)
- Removal of several perks from Destiny 1 off top of my head for guns alone (One Man Army, Battle Runner, Grenadier, Firefly, Shot Package, Rangefinder, Hidden Hand, Final Round, Third Eye) (several were also renamed and it feels like nerfed, exact numbers are never given)
- All sticky grenades received massive nerfs to both damage and the tracking mechanic they had (Tripmine grenades can no longer stick enemies directly) (The "Bolt" grenades, had damage nerfed, detection radius nerfed)
- BUFFED Striker Titan Subclass (was garbage in Destiny 1, gotta give credit were credit due)
- BUFFED Voidwalker Warlock Subclass (was garbage in Destiny 1, probably has the best single skill tree in Destiny 2, its other tree is garbage though lol)
- Crucible in general, all weapons take longer to kill other players, in Destiny 1 the "time-to-kill" an opponent was roughly .8s-1.2s or so depending on headshots/weapon type/etc, in Destiny 2 it is now 1.2s to 1.5s or so, combined with the 4v4 only the "teamshot" or "handholding" meta emerged where everyone just rolls as a 4 man group because a flanker/solo player can't kill/pickoff people with longer kill times, fewer abilities (grenades/melee/super charge all nerfed), in time before getting shot by multiple enemies
- Nerfed Titan/Warlock jumping abilities to make them super slow (as prior you could use their abilities and slopes to propel yourself extremely fast in Destiny 1, was rather difficult to do as well)
- Should charge nerfed, (in D1 was exclusive to Titan Striker subclass, in D2 on all Titan subclasses) cut the damage in half roughly, Titan melee abilities were now the shoulder charge instead of separate like D1, so people started using it as a movement ability to whip around corners/change direction quickly, Bungie didn't like that so they nerfed the movement saying "it wasn't meant to be used this way" (this will be reverted 5 months after the nerf in March 27th update)
Grimoire & Bungie.net (Let's make both non-existent!)
Spoiler warning:
Grimoire - The grimoire is Destiny 1 was basically where the story was at, since it was actually non-existent in the story missions. The Grimoire was earned through kills vs enemies, beat missions, beating strikes, kills with certain weapons, clearing the raid, finding the collectibles in the world "dead ghosts". Earning the grimoire score had ZERO IMPACT on gameplay, it was just a number displayed next to your profile. To access the Grimoire cards you had to go to Bungie's website, and could then view the cards, each card had usually 3-10 paragraphs of backstory. Backstory to the each raid on their cards, backstory on each enemy race and each boss, backstory to the exotic guns and how they were created, about each planet or crucible map location and the history behind it. It was extremely interesting and got players invested in the whole universe (I've read it all). By the end of Destiny 1 there were hundreds of cards. There is no Grimoire system in Destiny 2, in fact they completely removed the Grimoire that was in Destiny 1 from the website, if it wasn't for 3rd party sites that had archived it, you would never know it existed.
Inventory management - I honestly can't remember when they added this to the website, I want to say it was either in House of Wolves or the Taken King DLCs so around 2 years before Destiny 2. But you could transfer weapons/armor/materials between characters/vault, without having to log into the game or you could use the website while logged in so you wouldn't have to switch characters to move weapons. There is no system like this for Destiny 2, they removed the inventory management system from the website, you must use their mobile app now or a 3rd party site that can do the same.
Basically the site boils down to a message board for your clan now, that's it.
Eververse (aka Microtransactions!)
Spoiler warning:
Some backstory, microtransactions in Destiny 1 did not exist until The Taken King DLC, so when the game had been out for a year already. The vendor Tess Eversis in the first year of the game was the "Special Orders" vendor, which was the place to pickup your pre-order rewards, or if you had bought any special editions of the game, and a few redeem codes rewards as well that anyone could do if they redeemed the codes on Bungie's website. After Taken King launched, she was actually removed from the social space for several weeks, until she made her return offering emotes. She would continue to offer emotes and get new ones with other DLCs and holiday events. She did get a unique armor set/ship/sparrow, but they also implemented a way to get 3 free chests that could contain those pieces or other emotes in it each week. Other than one Halloween event, no one really complained about the microtransactions.
In Destiny 2, Eververse continued to offer Emotes, but now probably around 50% or more of the shaders in the game were earned through Eververse, ALL SPARROWS AND SHIPS were now through Eververse, All but like 4 ghost shells were through Eververse. Transmat effects are all earned through Eververse. Exotic armor/weapon ornaments (basically fancy shaders for specific pieces of gear) all through Eververse. Once you reach max level, either level 20 or level 25 if you have the DLC. When you rank up again, you earn a loot box, which can contain these items, or you can purchase bundles of the loot boxes directly from Eververse for real money. Even though this was a change many people were not happy with, and it only got worse. After the game had been out for about a month and a half, several players had noticed that it seemed they were not earning the correct amount of XP for activities. Rumors popped up on reddit, and after more weeks of people playtesting this theory it got confirmed, Bungie had input an invisible XP reduction system. If you were earning XP too fast, they started reducing the amount of XP earned by as much as 70%, DESPITE THE IN GAME USER INTERFACE SHOWING THE FULL AMOUNT EARNED WHEN COMPLETING ACTIVITIES. This was discovered because several 3rd party websites can use the Destiny API to track your XP gains, and people were finding out despite the in game UI showing +5000 XP for a public event completion, they were only getting +2000 XP or so. This boiled down to Bungie intentionally capping the XP earned, to reduce the amount of free loot boxes you could get to encourage you to buy more. What was even worse was when they finally acknowledged the cap, they said it "wasn't intended" when a cap has to be manually input into the game by them in the first place. They eventually removed the cap, but also silently DOUBLED THE AMOUNT OF XP needed to rank up effectively making it worse than before. They recently re-decreased the amount a bit, but damage done.
The Dawning Event (Christmas Event)
The Christmas Event was one big microtransaction fest. It added Christmas themed armor set for every character, multiple sparrows, shaders, ghosts, ships, and emotes. You got ONE FREE box that could contain one of those items. They also did daily missions, that when completed could give rewards, but the rewards featured a neutered loot pool, the did not have any armor piece, ships, sparrows or emotes in them. Needless to say, I did not play at all during the Dawning. People were pissed. They also discovered that if you earned shaders from the daily mission they did not dismantle into the Bright Dust material (material earned from dismantling any item from Eververse) but instead Legendary Shards, but those same shaders if received from Eververse did dismantle into Bright Dust. A single shader dismantles into 7 BRIGHT DUST, most items in Eververse store fall between the 500-2500 Bright Dust mark. Cheapskates.....
Crimson Days Event (Valentine's Day Event)
This event did not feature any Microtransactions. They took the massive shitstorm from the Dawning seriously I guess. All new rewards had to be earned through gameplay, several were activity specific! Upon leveling up, you earned both the Crimson Engram which could contain the new items, and the normal engram that could contain the non-event cosmetic stuff. They did let you buy items directly from the store for the material you get when you dismantle/delete stuff you had bought with real money, so if you had previously spent a bunch of money and deleted duplicates/unwanted items you could put the material to use, but no loot boxes for Crimson Days items were offered.
The Bungie Missteps (BAD PR IS STILL PR RIGHT?)
Spoiler warning:
Other than the Eververse and XP debacle there have been a few other issues with their shit PR and decision making
Lost Sector lockout mechanic - People discovered a Lost Sector that you could loot infinitely after clearing it by going halfway through the exit. This lost sector was somewhat unique in having a dedicated back exit (most loop you back around so you exit through the entrance), and lost sectors exist in their unique instance (meaning you cannot meet random players in them after entering them from patrol), because the back exit existed, it had to load you into the patrol area again prior to exiting the lost sector, which you could then just turn around and re-enter through the back (which was right next to the chest then) and loot again. This was only useful during Faction Rally events, as Lost Sectors don't give endgame loot. They introduced a lockout to solve this where if you looted 2 lost sectors within 10 minutes, you would get lockout from any rewards from ANY lost sector for 10 minutes, this was also poorly implemented, and could effect pubic event rewards as well. The biggest problem with this is, prior to Destiny 1 House of Wolves DLC, so 2 1/2 years before Destiny 2, this exact exploit was fixed. In a small event released prior to the DLC, after clearing some special enemies plus mini boss on patrol, a chest would spawn and you had about 1 min to loot the chest. Players discovered if you instantly hopped on your Sparrow after looting, left that Patrol area until the zone switched, instantly turned around and came back to the chest you could loot it again. You could do this until the chest despawned getting 3-4 chances per 1 event. THE VERY NEXT WEEK BUNGIE FIXED THIS ISSUE.
Locking Base Content in DLC - So when the DLC launched for Destiny 2, it locked players out of the Prestige version of the Raid, Prestige version of the Nightfall (even when the Nightfall was a base game strike), removing content people paid for in the base game, this also actually prevented players from earning a trophy/achievement if they didn't buy the DLC that was in the base game. They also added Heroic strikes (which were in BASE VERSION Destiny 1 as I mentioned earlier) and required the DLC to play them (they still do), they later made it so those players could play the Prestige Raid/Nightfall without the DLC
Game Engine/Seasons Issue - One of the big arguments Bungie stated about leaving all gear/character progress behind in Destiny 1 was to help them rebuild their game engine so they can update/patch the game much quicker than Destiny 1 (updates were basically only when DLC launched in D1) Seasons were supposed to be the answer to this, they did not state prior to launch how many seasons they were planning in Year 1 of Destiny 2. For Seasons, clan rewards get reset, but nothing else, many people though Vendor gear would get changed for new versions, which was not the case at all. Destiny 2 has been out for 7 months, there as been ONE SMALL balance patch, which launched with the DLC (which was also start of Season 2), and it did absolutely nothing to change the already established meta weapons. The first real balance patch is set to drop March 27th, and the remaining players are basically of the mind that this will either plummet the playerbase even further or keep stuff afloat until the second DLC which is set to launch in May (also the start of Season 3).
Emote Glitch - A certain emote (Bureaucratic walk) from Eververse, allowed any person to glitch through walls when used, instead of simply removing the emote or disabling it temporarily, Bungie instead disabled Trials of Osiris (competitive Crucible gamemode) for two weeks while they fixed the issue.
Dawning/Holiday Silence - This will be short since I covered how bad Dawning was, but amidst all the outrage that Destiny 2 has taken, the worst time was in December, Bungie was silent for a month without saying a word, when they normally make one post a week. This was when the DLC backlash was coming in, the horrible Dawning event, and a glitch/exploit that plagued the limited time Mayhem game mode.
The Community Dwindles (Hello Fortnite, Monster Hunter)
Spoiler warning:
The Streamers abandon the game - Streamers, many big names that entire channels/fanbase revolved around Destiny, left the game, several made formal announcements that they were going to be massively reducing time playing Destiny 2 or leaving until massive updates come in to the game. Majority moved onto either Fortnite or Monster Hunter, several played the Sea of Thieves beta when it was around, and I'm assuming will play it when it launches. Datto, the most popular Destiny streamer said (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) "Destiny 2 does not deserve the coverage I give it, and the coverage I was able to give Destiny 1." One who used all Destiny themed sub emotes, subscriber stuff etc, (if you care about that crap), removed all Destiny branding from his channel.
Player count dwindles - Regardless of what many people thought, Destiny 1 was never a dead game, it actually had a super dedicated fanbase, and while you cannot track the actual playercounts, a third party site called TrialsReport tracks the amount of players who played in the Trials of Osiris Crucible gametype that runs every weekend. This gametype launched in House of Wolves (so ran for 2 1/2 years, as they turned it off in Destiny 1 once Destiny 2 launched), the lowest playercount ever in Destiny 1 was 175,000 unique players. In the second week on January, Trials in Destiny 2 (so game had been launched for 4 months at this point, with a DLC one month old) fell below that lowest Destiny 1 playercount. Last week, the playercount was just 58,000 unique players, 1/3rd of the lowest ever for Destiny 1, and lost almost 120K players in just 2 months time. The PC playerbase for Trials (as the site tracks platforms separately and gives totals) did not go above 5,000 unique players last week. This is partially because the Crucible in general is in a terrible state, but if you go on several group/party finder sites, the population of people looking for groups is sparse as well compared to what it was like with Destiny 1.
Bungie Caused All of This Themselves (REMAKE)
Spoiler warning:
What does the title mean? Well how did the brand new franchise created by the same studio that did one of the most successful well known franchises (Halo series) get off to such a rocky start with Destiny 1? How did Destiny 2 repeat so many of those mistakes and add tons more? REBOOT EVERYTHING is the answer! I'm going to link a reddit thread about Destiny 1content, and then this thread about Destiny 2, and how the content of both games changed. In just short summary, both games were rebooted completely about 1 year before their official launch. In the case of Destiny 1, their lead writer left the company after the reboot, which may be why the story was a complete mess in the first game. In the case of Destiny 2, it was actually delayed by a year as a result! The Rise of Iron DLC was not planned, which started for Year 3 for Destiny 1, Destiny 2 was supposed to launch instead, but they announced they "wanted to give it more time in the oven to get things right" when in reality they were scrapping everything and starting again. This may also be the reason so much stuff that was added in Year 2 and Year 3 for Destiny 1 is missing from Destiny 2.
I believe that is it for now, LONG POST I KNOW, there was still some things I could have talked about too :sweat:
The theme of Destiny 2 is basically we have removed as much of the Space Magic as possible from the game about Space Magic, hope you enjoy!
Basically season pass holders are sticking it out or will come back to try the March update or just wait until May for the next DLC, if nothing is changed by then, Destiny 2 will have officially killed the Destiny franchise.
edit1: added section on Bungie did this to themselves
edit2: The crucible scoreboard was changed this is Destiny 1. I cannot find a D2 scoreboard in game like that screenshot, because it is useless, the scores by player were removed in Destiny 2, and the connection strength bars/colors on the far right for each player. Can't have people knowing someone is lagging or doing terrible in the middle of the match!
