Destiny 2: Lightfall

[Mr Ben]

You need Destiny 2 (and to get to the farm) to post in the Off-topic and Gaming sub-forums though

 

Needless to say, all the old Halo players (as well as fans of Bungie's other games) are none too impressed.

[Uncle Mike]

1 minute ago, Mr Ben said:

You need Destiny 2 (and to get to the farm) to post in the Off-topic and Gaming sub-forums though

 

I guess that's what happens when the entire internet just make #removeeververse topics en masse.

[Mr Ben]

Feels a little bit like censorship to me, but unless Cozmo has the keys to the reddit subforum, then it wont really matter.

[RubberJohnny]

The Challenge Card system is the WoW Dungeon Keys system from the latest expansion, I'm betting they've brought in someone from Blizzard to consult again.

 

It's odd how dismissive Bungie are of Destiny 1, their marketing was all this over-the-top "if you were there for Year 1, you are the best of mankind" but they've basically taken all the D1 stuff like the Grimoire off the website (but it still tells you to go there in the game) and shut the forums to D1 people.

[Gorf King]

I think you're probably right about the new raid mode being an addition to existing ones, Mike.

 

I think the issue with the Bungie forums requiring you to have bought and played D2 is that it's the Bungie forums, not the Destiny forums: there are general Gaming and OT forums, for example (edit: Ben got there first). Also, in your latest reply you maybe seem to assume that people who have bought and played D2 don't partake in #removeeververse. I think they've misidenitified the issue and applied the wrong 'fix', and created a little bit more bad PR in doing so, which is kinda relevant to what follows.

 

I did read this week's TWAB last night, and that bit about raids encapsulated a little of why I've lost faith in Bungie: I think your take is wrong again, Oz. I think it's a mistake to assume people will flock back when there's more content, or when the sorts of things talked about in TWAB happen. There are many people who don't like so many aspects of the game they don't really see how it can be fixed at this point. The game seems just to be working its way to becoming a worse version of D1 at the moment - everything seems reactive, a patch up job. I think (not just in me) there's been a loss of faith in Bungie in general, in their ability to deliver on Destiny's initial promise. It seems not to be going forward or developing on its base, but inching gradually towards something it was better than years ago.

 

It's this bit that gets to the heart of the 'unappreciative fan' conundrum, and made me do a double-take:

 

Quote

Going forward, all raids will all have a normal mode active at all times, and each week one raid or Raid Lair will have a curated loadout mode.  


This new version of Prestige requires players to complete raids filled with deadly enemies using a curated loadout of weapons and a special modifier that enhances the way you play. The Raid Team never likes to let you know exactly what to expect, but let's look at some hypothetical examples. These are not the plan of record, but they give you a basic idea of what you might find. [...]



I thought this part was quite funny because back in the halcyon days of last summer I and others speculated that PvE endgame encounters might at some point require a locked loadout, specifically in hard mode. But later Luke Smith reassured us in several comments that this wouldn't happen, mainly because they thought it wouldn't be any fun and would limit the creativity and flexibility inherent in raids; including this comment:

 

 

Cue huge sighs of relief in the comments (and on here, I seem to recall). But here we are, doing locked raid loadouts as a way of making the most challenging endgame content harder, precisely the opposite of what Smith said their design intentions were.

 

It might seem to casual observers as if Bungie can't win here, that they're criticised for the initial state of the game and then criticised (or unappreciated) for making changes, and to an extent I think that's now probably correct. Because the underlying reason for what Oz persists in calling bitching and moaning - personally I think he's simply trolling at this point, moreso than any critic* - is a loss of belief in there being any real vision for the game. Not for its structure, not for its progression systems, and certainly not for its writing (RIP lore). And, in key elements such as the above, not in what has always been Bungie's strong suit: their iron grip on gameplay mechanics. 

 

I guess the sort of 180 turn represented by the new locked raid loadouts should give hope that even something as baked-in as the weapons system, and the slow TTK and team-shooteriness of Crucible might also in team be completely revised - although they are, of course, far tougher nuts to crack. But what seems to happen instead is a slow erosion of belief that Bungie have any sound principles in mind at all when they designed these things and made these adamant statements of intent. And that they don't really understand what many committed players found so great in the first game (or even what they're really asking for - they didn't ask for locked raid loadouts, for example, but they did ask for the old weapons system etc). That they're just chopping and changing stuff that they were apparently dead set on as a matter of principle, to see what sticks and what doesn't. And the result is that I (and I know many others) just don't have faith in whatever the next thing they'll do is. That's the key thing: not lack of content, but lack of sound ideas. You just never know what they're going to do next, just that you didn't like what they did last time, and can't trust what they say about what the next thing will be or how it'll play. And that's the death knell for day one expansion or sequel purchases, and certainly for pre-orders. And if you're not there day one, in a game like Destiny, you're kind of missing the boat, and missing the point, imo.

 

So yeah, not sure what they can do at this point. But your analysis is way off, Oz. Bungie really can't do much about what many people's main problems with the game are - and it is not 'lack of content' that they chew through too quickly. It never really was. 

 

PS #removeeververse

 

* Any critic apart from the now execrably clickbaity Skill Up, whose descent into the murkiest depths of your typical 'this game is the best game ever, it is GOD/this game is the worst piece of shit ever it is THE DEVIL AND WILL EAT YOUR SOUL' internet exaggeration-that-passes-for-critcism is now complete. And curiously mirrors exactly Bungie's own fall from grace. Odd, that.

 

Further edit: I've just approved Norrie's application for clan membership, since the notification's been sitting there a while. End times.

[Uncle Mike]

5 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

Also, in your latest reply you maybe seem to assume that people who have bought and played D2 don't partake in #removeeververse. I think they've misidenitified the issue and applied the wrong 'fix', and created a little bit more bad PR in doing so, which is kinda relevant to what follows.

 

I'm 100% sure D2 players did partake in #removeerververse. I'm just pretty sure loads of non-players amplifies it also. Whether it's the best move or not, I don't know. But I can see why, if your data suggests (for example) 80% of the posts weren't attached to a Destiny account, you might choose to reevaluate.

 

On the other point, I don't think they're doing locked loadouts (excepting in the case where Riskrunner is mentioned - and I don't know what happens there if you don't have it?) Limiting you to hand cannons in your primary would suggest you can change to a different one if you want without quitting.

 

I've said in here, and continue to think, that I'm concerned that they're solely reacting now, and lost sight of a vision for where they want to be. I think that does have weight. On the other hand, reacting is better than ploughing on regardless.

[Gorf King]

Sure, they have to react. But my point is that I don't think the sorts of tweaks and changes they're making can address the underlying issues that many - no, it's not just me - have with the game. Or with the way they threw out or radically changed the parts of D1 that for many people were the reasons they played, and why they put up with the less-than-great parts. I don't think they're all that fixable - not within D2, at any rate. It's too big a ship to turn within the time they have, going by the way they've developed past products. I mean, people get tired of waiting for them to eventually get round to making a game nearly as good as D1, which is all they seem to be doing to me. And they tend to opt out of buying the expansions that incrementally move toward that.

 

I think 'a curated loadout of weapons' is locked loadouts by another name. It's saying 'you have to use x, y or z to do this'. I don't even think it's inherently a bad idea. I just think it's another case of not having any vision for the game that's worth a damn, beyond the obvious thing that I think is now at its core and will never be removed. I just don't think they can undo that perception, because I think it's true. The next proper expansion might be great - in many ways, at least. But I've just lost faith in them, in the core of what they're doing with the franchise. Because I read what they say now and think, 'nah, you'll just go back on that, or you're just patching up a bad job so you can do another bad job later, and you'll not be transparent about what your actual core product is - because, Eververse aside, you don't know.'

 

So like I said, it's lose-lose at this point. You can understand why they'd get fed up with that in their audience. I can imagine they're circling the wagons against that onslaught of criticism at Bungie HQ; defending against an argument that can't be argued against. But it's a problem of their own making. They've lost an awful lot of credibility, and certainly any belief I had that they know how to make an RPG/pseudo-MMO/progression game/whatever it is now. I really do hope at this point that the wish I keep expressing comes true - that their next project is a straight shooter. They still have the skills in spades to make a great one. RPGs, though, they should just walk away from. I don't think they really get them, and I think a lot of their audience - more on the RPG side of things - have seen through that now.

[alex3d]

Are there any statistics available as to how many people are still playing it? I'm going to start playing this tomorrow.

[Harsin]

The biggest challenge they're going to have is convincing people to come back in the first place even if the changes are the best thing ever. Games as a Service (urgh) was still a relatively novel concept when Destiny launched, it really didn’t have much competition in that space until The Division launched and luckily for Bungie/Activison, Ubisoft massively shat the bed during the first year of that game. Now there's loads of games trying to gobble up people's long-term spare time. I'd imagine most people only have room in their life for one of these type of games at a time, maybe two, and they get to feel invested in them. I'd argue that once people have hopped off the hamster wheel that investment is broken it’s actively much more difficult to get people to return than it was to attract new customers in the first place.. The danger for Bungie is they put in place all these changes, go 'Look, we're 80% of the way back to what the 2nd and 3rd years of Destiny 1 we’re like. You liked it then, right? and people go 'Those changes sound nice.' and just turn around and go back to playing Monster Hunter/Fortnite/Sea of Thieves/[insert games customers have invested loads of time in instead here].

[Shimmyhill]

Lol, the sooner Activision take Bungie out into the woods the better.

 

What an incredible fall from grace, once the most open and connected to fan base dev team are now worse than EA.

 

Meanwhile back at bungie PR...

 

[Oz]

43 minutes ago, alex3d said:

Are there any statistics available as to how many people are still playing it? I'm going to start playing this tomorrow.

PC? PS4? XBONE?

[alex3d]

Sorry, Ps4. 

[Oz]

these are the the top players on PS4.

https://destinytracker.com/d2/clan/579822/rllmuk-renegades

probably top 15-20 are on from time to time. 

[El Spatula]

I'm still enjoying it a lot. I still prefer Warframe overall for this kind of gameplay but I really like Destiny 2. Never played Destiny mind. 

[tnman]

On 08/02/2018 at 11:00, Uncle Mike said:

Ha. Just looked on destinysets.com to see how far off all the Exotics I was. Turns out at least some of my dupe problem is that I'm only waiting on three weapons. I already have all the Titan Exotics. Just need Sunshot, The Colony and Jade Rabbit. (And to finish off Acrius, but I need people for that!)

 

Xur is selling the Bun Gun.

[Uncle Mike]

Awesome, thanks. I may have wasted Shards on a Fated Engram to get The Colony, as well, but don't tell anyone.

[Broker]

I do fucking love burning shrine, but it’s really annoying that the only things they’ve got to get me excited are reused D1 stuff and new dances.

[sbrandon111]

Well i'm still enjoying playing, both on PS4 and PC. For those that doubt that its possible to get people back playing, take The Division as an example. It's had a huge resurgence of players due to the changes it made (and partly due to the D2 backlash). Bungie tried to change too many things too quickly with D2. What people wanted was D1.5. They changed things that either didn't need changing, or didn't communicate why they were being changed. 

On the flip side, imaging the uproar if all Bungie did was release D2 as just more story missions and new crucible maps, and changed nothing. People would be shouting "theres not enough content, its just more of the same". 

[Shimmyhill]

Bungie shouldn’t have done a numbered sequel, change for changes sake is not usually a good thing especially when you have taken years to finesse the original.

 

Destiny with a new Raid, proper one at that, more content (as in strikes, missions and quests for content like e optics etc) and multiplayer that’s on dedicated servers and 60fps and the playerbase is still onboard.

 

The Division isn’t getting great numbers but good luck to them, they don’t have the issue that Bungie has that most of the old playerbase don’t trust them anymore and there are plenty of people who have clean washed their hands with them and will never come back.

[Broker]

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-destiny-2-failed-its-fanbase-analysis

[Gigga]

I've been enjoying crimson doubles, I think the mechanic they have used to force a certain way of playing works really well. 

 

We've only had one game where we were really trounced all the way through, mostly it's felt pretty even and felt like we were fighting up to the end. 

 

It is quite fun going fully Rambo and taking the other team out by yourself, especially at sudden death, and there are a lot of tactical considerations. It's also so fucking beautiful to be able to rely on your grenades recharging, and to be able to use them offensively. 

 

I hope they keep it in the rotation, and use the data they collect to see that we need grenades back in crucible full stop. 

[RubberJohnny]

On 13/02/2018 at 22:27, Broker said:

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-destiny-2-failed-its-fanbase-analysis

 

Worth it for this, which points to D2 not being some outlier but instead a continuation of a trend.

 

Quote

Throughout Destiny’s lifespan, as amazing as it often was, Destiny’s nerfs were based in a strange interpretation of the data that assumed popularity was equivalent with power, and reducing power would make everything equally viable. Bungie appeared to prefer making enjoyable mechanics less fun to acknowledging less popular mechanics and making them better.

 

When players relied heavily on Hand Cannons, Bungie nerfed them. When people resorted to certain shotgun tactics like blink and slide-shotting, Bungie reduced shotgun range. As the sniper tactic of res-sniping gained prominence, Bungie nerfed ammo counts. Throughout Destiny’s entire lifespan, Bungie’s entire strategy seemed to be to find the most popular, most fun mechanics in the game, and nerf them to be in line with the gameplay that players didn’t enjoy. Worse still, many of these adjustments were made based on PvP data, despite PvE being considerably more popular.

 

One of the last major updates to the game dramatically limited ammo spawns in competitive play. Players who enjoyed using shotguns, snipers, and fusion rifles were no longer able to enjoy those weapons as they once had. The game’s community hated this change, but Bungie failed to acknowledge their concerns at all. In fact, it was about to make things a whole lot worse.

[Shimmyhill]

3 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

Worth it for this, which points to D2 not being some outlier but instead a continuation of a trend.

 

 

Destiny PvP was crap at the end due to awful matchmaking and weapon changes that destroyed a lot of the fun element that kept people playing even when there were clearly ‘better’ online shooters on offer - play it now and it’s so much better than the sequel even in its final broken state! 

 

It’s almost impressive how bad a job Bungie have done with it esp as it was clearly the focus of the sequel, e-sport dreams when the userbase laughed at the suggestion basically ruined the franchise.

 

[Broker]

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

I hope they keep it in the rotation, and use the data they collect to see that we need grenades back in crucible full stop. 

 

 

Part of their strategy seems to be creating new content for their starving fanbase then pointlessly gating it off behind time limited events.

[sbrandon111]

Crimson Days is awesome. Even matchmaking with a random as your team mate has worked for me. Some really tight, tense games and hero moments

Scout / Burst Sidearm is my loadout of choice just now. The game is flinging Bright and Crimson engrams at me now too, weirdly hardly any exotics though. RNG gods not smiling at me i suppose.

[LiMuBai]

When’s the next expansion due? Is it March?

[Kevvy Metal]

4 hours ago, Shimmyhill said:

It’s almost impressive how bad a job Bungie have done with it esp as it was clearly the focus of the sequel, e-sport dreams when the userbase laughed at the suggestion basically ruined the franchise.

 

 

For someone who so fervently hates the game and what Bungie has done, you should do post a lot about how much you hate it.  

[Shimmyhill]

19 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

For someone who so fervently hates the game and what Bungie has done, you should do post a lot about how much you hate it.  

 

Not sure I’ve ever posted that I hate the game, the first part is really good but the rest is a broken mess of push to pay garbage - I hate what has become of Bungie and the disdain they have for a previously loyal fan base but of course still have an interest in the series - I had something silly like 1400 hours on Destiny and expected to do the same on the sequel so it’s a sad state of affairs.

 

 

[Mr Ben]

3 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

For someone who so fervently hates the game and what Bungie has done, you should do post a lot about how much you hate it.  

Should he just not post at all then? Last I checked this is rllmuk, not Bungie's official forums.

 

Bungie threw away any and all goodwill they had with Destiny 2. They have to earn it all back, which will be an uphill struggle. If they are turning the game round, it seems to be with additional game modes, and options, rather than fix the problems already there.

 

At this point they could copy the weapon system of Destiny 1, and make everything like it was there (which I know they wont do) and that would be the only way to get me back, but even then I wouldnt touch Destiny 3, because they have no clue what to do with the franchise anymore. The writing and dialogue is grade A dogshit to boot, the following is just cringe inducing:

Its like its done for 12 year olds, but even 12 year olds think its shit. Nolan North should have said "I'm not fucking saying that!" at the time of recording.

[Uncle Mike]

If any Renegades are still playing, you will find that the Nightfall and Crucible clan engrams are available this week (for the first time in ages.) @Deeptone, @markh and I hit the NF yesterday. It's been Torrent for a few weeks on the trot now, I think?

 

Crimson Doubles is fun, even if randoms on the internet pay no attention to positioning.