Destiny 2, The Destiny Killer

**Sheras** · 11th-March-2018, 18:29

I'm making this a separate post so you guys don't have to see me complain in the Hangout anymore

. 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

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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)

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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)

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Things Destiny 2 Changed for the Worse or Completely left out(Fun times....)

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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

Changes to Weapons/Armor Systems (PLEASE REVERT TO DESTINY 1 *cries*)
Weapon Systems

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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

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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)

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Balance Changes (NO FUN ALLOWED)

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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!)

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Eververse (aka Microtransactions!)

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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?)

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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:

I believe that is it for now, LONG POST I KNOW, there was still some things I could have talked about too

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!

***Slacker Magician*** · 12th-March-2018, 01:13

I guess Microsoft was keeping them on track, on some level, when they were developing Halo.

Spoiler warning:

**Sheras** · 12th-March-2018, 01:41

Originally Posted by Colonel Guile

I guess Microsoft was keeping them on track, on some level, when they were developing Halo.

Spoiler warning:

Haha possibly. There is almost no one left at Bungie that was there in the Halo days though, Joe Staten was who was the original lead writer for Destiny 1 and left after it got rebooted before launch, was one of the last of the "old guard". I mean, the game director for Destiny 2 is Luke Smith, who when Halo 2 came out was a journalist and wrote an article about how much worse Halo 2 was than Halo, which almost no one agrees with. Here is the link to that article. Someone posted that to the Destiny subreddit a few months after Destiny 2 launched and man there was a field day in the comments.

***Slacker Magician*** · 13th-March-2018, 18:35

Did most of the staff change from Destiny to Destiny 2?

**Sheras** · 13th-March-2018, 18:53

Small update #1

Gunsmith

Spoiler warning:

This next part is not confirmed, but Gamestop yesterday put up the second DLC (coming sometime in May) for Destiny 2 on their website and from the small description people are already extremely nervous on the subreddit. 3 big names/faces from the Lore/Grimoire are set to make their appearance, one of which you have had contact with in the past. Most people believe they will screw them up. Players were mad with how Destiny 2s first DLC handled 2 characters previously only mentioned in Lore, the first being the strongest Guardian in history, former leader of the Guardians who was exiled, and having him show up for a 2 min cutscene, and the second having him die off screen without any contact ever.

Last, update on the Trials count. Lowest D1 count was 175K unique players. In January Destiny 2 fell below that mark. The past few weeks has been 77K unique players > 68K unique > 58 K unique > 50K unique (this past weekend).

**Sheras** · 17th-March-2018, 19:06

Roadmap update - so starting in January? when Bungie was in massive hot shit, they shared their internal development roadmap to the community to show their future additions/plans. They have made a few changes to the roadmap since then, here are the roadmaps. Of which there are 3, the latest being released yesterday.

January 31st Roadmap
February 21st Roadmap
March 15th Roadmap

The biggest thing to notice here is most of these features were already in Destiny 1. Other than that, most of the changes revolve around pushing features back.
Nightfall unique rewards were moved back from February to the March update.
They did move the challenge cards forward, from March into the February update, but they also removed the original modifiers that could be found on Nightfalls in exchange for them, so you actually have less variety now. They did come out and say they wanted to go with a clean slate and that this version of challenge cards was Step 1 and wanted to see community feedback.
Exotic repetition reduction (fewer duplicates) was pushed back from February to March. This was in Destiny 1 since Taken King I believe.
Exotic armor/weapon rework pushed back from March until May.
Heroic strike modifiers (something in BASE Destiny 1) was pushed back from March until May. (They stated they found a bug so it got pushed back, and were going to take the time to make sure they are satisfied with them)
Mods 2.0, the complete rework of the Mods system, was removed from the roadmap entirely. (Was previously listed in May).

***Slacker Magician*** · 18th-March-2018, 14:45

Did the engine change from Destiny to Destiny 2?

**Sheras** · 19th-March-2018, 02:12

Originally Posted by Colonel Guile

Did the engine change from Destiny to Destiny 2?

They kept saying one of the reasons they didn't want to just continually release DLC into Destiny was to help rebuild the engine, and that was why you don't get to carry over your gear from Destiny 1. There were several horror stories/rumors posted to the destiny subreddit about how bad the engine/dev tools were for Destiny 1, and just how slow/difficult it was for them to use. They said doing Destiny 2 would allow them to rebuild their engine so they could make content quicker, and push updates out faster, which has been the exact opposite of what has happened. Same DLC schedule as Destiny 1 Year 1 so far (game launch in Sept, first DLC in Dec, second in May), and just one single balance patch that was tiny and did absolutely nothing.

**Sheras** · 27th-March-2018, 16:55

So today the first actual sandbox update for Destiny 2 is getting launched. They released a small little commentary video yesterday.

Biggest portion of this I feel like is the Dawnblade, shown here, that movement is like 3x faster than possible by any class in Destiny 2 at the moment.
Also this section is a jab at themselves, when the DLC launched, that red laser gun (Prometheus Lens) was bugged in PvP to do way more damage then necessary. Realizing they couldn't fix the bug quickly, they instead made an ingame vendor (that shows up only on weekends), sell the gun so everyone could have it, so there would be a "level" playing field.

Also Trials numbers for last few weeks, it appears to have leveled out. Whether that is good or bad idk. But the past 3 weeks have been 50K > 52K > 49K. (That 52K week was arguably on the best map in Destiny 2, which just so happens to be a remade D1 map, and the better of the two game modes that Trials can be).

**Sheras** · 28th-March-2018, 17:49

Follow up post to my previous one, initial thoughts on the update after a couple hours of playing yesterday. Full link to patch notes here.

The Good
Arcstaff super for Hunters, is really good now, actually can gap close towards enemies decently and has much larger attack range/hit.
Dawnblade class for Warlocks is no longer the worst class in the game! It is actually insanely fast with super running, and the buffs to the bottom tree can make it a really strong mob clearing super.
Linear Fusion rifles hit like a truck in PvE. (they got a flat 50% damage buff).
Pulse rifles are actually usable now, provided their perks were good from the start (Pulse rifles were beyond useless before).
Shotguns got a good damage increase and ammo increase.
Sidearms/Submachine guns got a much needed ammo increase in PvE. (they did also get damage buffs but they already had good damage just zero ammo)
Super cooldowns went from a base 6:40 to a flat 5:00 mins.

The Bad
Nightfall Strike Specific Loot launched, massive disappointment IMO. There are 5 strikes in the base game, 2 added in the DLC, each has one item, 3 of them have weapons, zero armor pieces, 2 sparrows (the vehicles), 1 ghost shell, 1 ship. For a feature that got delayed from the February update until this March one to "give them more time in the oven to make sure they were chasing", these are disappointing. The weapons actually have unique models/designs! but have the exact same perks as all other weapons, and nothing unique in terms of combat. The ghost is a reskin with a small glow around it, the ship is a recolor, both sparrows are reskins of existing models.

Precision auto rifles got a small nerf overall, mainly because they were the best weapon class, but they don't feel any weaker so this is not really that bad.

The power ammo changes in Crucible are deemed really bad so far, basically they lowered the amount of ammo you get per pickup, but if you die you know drop that ammo, while massively reducing the respawn timer for power ammo, and adjusting the amount you get depending on weapon type you are using. Basically player feedback has been, to make the other weapons in the power slot compete with rockets, they had to make it so the weapons that were special weapons in D1, are given a ton of ammo, almost like they shouldn't belong in the same slots as rockets? People are basically complaining that you can almost never be killed by a non power weapon or ability, because it is so plentiful, which is the exact same complaint that people had for parts of D1s Crucible, which led to the two primary system, and now no one uses them still. They didn't adjust the time to kill for primary/energy slot weapons in Crucible at all, so the same scenario of teamshotting still exists, and flanking is still really bad if not in any sort of super.

The What?
One of the only good changes made in Destiny 2 was in Crucible they added at the top of the screen next to the current score, all of the players in the matches classes symbols would be listed on each side, and would glow if super was active. For some reason they took this out in Quickplay playlist for Crucible, to view it you now either have to be dead, or pull out your ghost mid match to see (which puts away your guns)...this was literally never complained about or mentioned about being changed, it just was. They left it visible at all times though for the Competitive playlist. Makes no sense.

The rotating game mode playlist launched (which people are still up in arms about they just want normal playlists where you can choose your game mode instead of the "one of three gametypes in this playlist crap")
Rumble is the first game mode for this week (free for all). For some reason they upped the playercount to 8 (was 6 in D1). Big surprise, it is a giant clusterfuck. The spawns are awful and you dying and instantly being able to see other players on spawn, or getting spawn killed yourself occurs often. Who knew putting 8 players in free for all on maps designed for 2 4-man teams (so usually two main spawn locations, or three I guess for Control game mode) is a terrible idea?

In Summary, the update makes your guns feel better in PvE, with more variety, but Crucible is still not exactly fun to play. The core problem of most rewards/loot not mattering is still there, just the weapons in underperforming types (like Pulse Rifles) that had good perks are now usable. People still keep saying they need to bring back random rolls & the Primary/Special/Heavy weapon system instead of fixed with Kinetic/Energy/Power (double primary).

**Sheras** · 3rd-April-2018, 23:07

Report time

Last week trials saw a small bump in playerbase! Mainly due to people coming back to not only try out the sandbox update, but they made it so there was no radar in Trials to try and give flanking a better chance (since teamshot meta is so strong)
Trials numbers was 63K, week prior was 49K.

The second strike specific loot was revealed (people knew it was a ghost but didn't know the perks on it). What a pile of shit. This ghost gives 10% XP of Nessus (a single planetoid), and cache/resource detection (for planetary materials which are useless). These perks can be rolled onto any single legendary ghost. It also has the telemetry generating perk but those are actually useless as they give like 1% reputation needed for level up at the gunsmith.
Even worse is that there is one exotic ghost in the game (through Eververse so loot boxes) that gives 10% XP boost on any activity, anywhere. And another exotic ghost (also lootbox) can give that cache tracker on every planet at a longer range.

**Sheras** · 9th-April-2018, 17:40

Even though I'm sure no one reads this I like venting so I'm going to keep writing them.

Bungie announced they are going to do a Community Summit. They already invited a bunch of streamers/youtubers, a few of the subreddit mods and like some analysis community people to Bungie to have them playtest future content for them. The quote was like "we want to show you what we've been working on, and have you test it while there is still time to react to your feedback." So everyone knows this won't be DLC2 content (which comes out in early May) but will be content they have planned for the Fall (usually September) DLC.

Speaking of DLC2, everyone is expecting some sort of trailer to come out sometime this week (a lot of people think today for some reason with past release times and such).

Bungie also did a Bungie bounty stream where they just have some employees play PvP and if you beat them you get a special emblem, but during matchmaking they actually did Q&A stuff. Most of it boiled down to, we're working on it, we've heard you say that, more details soon. Although one of their answers to a question pissed me off. About how in PvP you can't pick your gametype, like you know, every other PvP game lets you. Their answer to "Will we see specific gametype queues exist again?" One of the PvP leads they had on answered this with "We did this to try and ensure good connections & faster queue times (I honestly see no difference in any of this) and with DLC2 update, private matches (custom games) will make a return to Destiny so whenever you want to play Control or Clash you can just make your own." This pisses me off for 3 main reasons, #1 You have to make one yourself? With who? My friends list is honestly small on PSN (38 people, but literally all but 2? I met while playing Destiny or Destiny 2) and if I log in to Destiny 2 at any given time, I'm lucky if there is 1-2 guys playing it because the game is in that bad of a state. #2 Even if you have several people on your friends list, they all have to be willing to play PvP with you (will need at least 7 others), and #3 be willing to play for no rewards since it is a private match, they don't give you any loot.

Lastly, they said sometime this week they will do a new roadmap (probably Wednesday based on past roadmap releases), with more focus on future (so hopefully they will remove the January & February updates that were still listed on the last one) and include just the March one that just happened, then upcoming May, hopefully some sort of summer update, and then the Fall update.

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