In the most recent Bombcast, Brad declared that he had gotten to a bad place with Destiny and deleted the game from his PS4. Looking at his account on Bungie.net, you can see his Warlock fully kitted out with Void weapons and his recent activity is filled with Crucible matches.

So, my theory is that the Thorn bounty finally broke Brad (although I'm unsure why as he seems to have a KDR good enough to get it done reasonably quickly).

What do you think?

Don't know. I asked him, he hasn't responded. I'd like to know what happened between 'that new DLC is pretty good' and 'fuck Destiny'.

All of the crew seems very opposed to multiplayer though. If he needed to do the Thorn bounty, I could see getting to 250 points and then dropping back to 0 break someone who doesn't like playing it. It happened to me months ago when the game first came out, and it sucked. But I liked playing Crucible anyways, so it didn't matter that much at the same time.

Overall, I have to say I don't really like hearing them hate on Destiny anymore. You don't like the game, that's fine. You've covered it, move on to something else. As someone who loves Destiny it is getting a bit hard to keep listening to. Mostly because the criticism is not nuanced and it keeps being brought back up. At this point nobody is benefiting from the Destiny talk. People who hate the game don't want to hear about it, and people who love it don't want to hear you keep bitching about how you don't like it.

I hope this is the end of the Destiny talk forever.

Thorn Bounty is simply tedious, not difficult so I doubt it; I imagine it was realizing that Destiny was in fact Destiny after a year or so of denial and that shooty shooty alone was not sufficient to redeem the game's various flaws.

I really want to know what broke Brad

Destiny is what it is. I get it Jeff, it should play more like Advance Warfare. You say the same thing about Fallout. Anything first person really. Im glad Brad came to the realization this thing is never gonna be for him but he's still gonna try again next expansion and the same talking points will resurface. Considering how often the Giant Bombcast grinds through familiar territory they should love this game but it is what it is.

Just stop it with the 'denial' stuff already. This isn't cute anymore. It's becoming really annoying how everyone is completely oblivious to the fact that some people simply like what Destiny is and is becoming. Some people like The Witcher, it's not for everyone. Some people like XCOM, it's not for everyone. Some people like Persona, it's not for everyone. Some people like Destiny, and yes, it also isn't for everyone. Why people feel the need to say it's just 'denial' or even more fun, 'stockholm syndrome' if you like it, but somehow understand if you like any other game that they don't, is beyond me.

Although, I would say it's beyond me, but it's fairly apparent that it is because of the crew's opinion and loads of people merely copying theirs (not directing this to you in this case).

Let's all just call it off and just accept that some people like this game that others do not like. Can be do that already? It's been long enough.

I don't think Jeff has ever said Destiny should play more like CoD. If anything, the way Destiny plays is the only thing Jeff likes about the game. The problem is the stuff you do while playing it.

I assumed it was last weeks level 35 prison of elders because that's what broke me too

I don't think that's it. For one, Prison of Elders is not as intense as Raids are which he has completed and secondly I don't think he would attempt level 35 when he is 33 himself.

@zevvion: didn't know he was only level 33

but i'v completed both the raids and that final fight in poe with ark burn was bull shit

@zevvion: Whoa no need to be so defensive. I was referring to Brad specifically being in some state of Denial/Acceptance for quite a while which is evidenced by his various tirades on how much he hates various aspects Destiny but can't stop playing it. As far as everyone in general I'm sure if you haven't had an MMOish experience before and you finally got some (admittedly weak) semblance of one that also happened to have good gameplay you could get hooked on it guilt free.

The reason I liked Destiny personally was because I didn't pay for it nor the PS4 I played it on, but then like 8 retail games came out that were significantly better so I played those instead. It was good filler and hell if Destiny was a launch game (it very much feels like one) I think it could have gotten a pass for its various faults.

Now that doesn't mean you can compare Destiny to the Witcher. Destiny is a game with one good thing going for it and shitload of things going against it, Witcher is a game with tons of good things going for it and a couple of things that aren't fantastic (but aren't terrible either). Whereas Destiny is maybe the 1000th best game ever made the Witcher 3 is at least top 50 if not top 20 or top 10 material and is perhaps the first mainstream game ever where player choice actually matters.

I just hope that Brad kicks the habit for good. Listening to him talk about the game on the podcast like an addict is really depressing and frustrating.

@fredchuckdave:Was The Witcher 2 not main stream enough to count? Cause that game had a ton of player choice.

@thatpinguino: Yeah I don't think it was mainstream enough, if we use the metric of "played by more than one of the GB editorial staff."

I'm kinda bummed, actually.

Destiny is a game I have no intention of playing beyond that demo which included all the Earth missions, but I never tire of hearing other people talk about it. It's a fascinating nexus for discussion.

Real talk though, we all know Brad will come back to Destiny someday.

@fredchuckdave: As I said, my post wasn't just directed towards you, but everyone in general. Just getting tired of hate piling on hate of a game that obviously does most things right for the people it is trying to appeal to. We are talking opinions in the end, and I don't like it when hate suddenly takes over people's ability to recognize something isn't for them, but it's actually fine if others enjoy it for exactly those reasons.

We can clearly tell we are talking opinions too, because I don't agree with what you said. Destiny now only has one very specific thing I dislike about it. The Witcher 3 has a many more for me. I am enjoying both though, very much so. Also, you don't give the first Witcher a fair shake. I'm not saying they haven't improved things, but that game made choices matter as much as I've seen so far in W3. The series is better at that than any other game.

Eh, I would disagree in that it depends on the class you play and how lucky you are with RNG. I have a pretty good selection of void weapons, but my issue was that my first high level character, and the one I enjoy playing most, is a hunter. Hunters don't have the benefit of being able to do void damage with a class variant. Gunslinger is solar damage and Bladedancer is arc, so any kill done in crucible with grenade, melee or supers doesn't help. You need to just shoot people and you can't fall back on grenades/supers etc. It sucks because you want to help your team but literally any kills done without a gun are not helping your kill totals and are actively hurting it if you die.

I still haven't completed it on my hunter. It's just not worth the time and grind. I have completed every other Exotic bounty that I have gotten (except one I just got this weekend) and while they were varying levels of difficulty, they were all possible. Some breathtakingly easy (Super Good Advice) and some were just really time consuming (Bad JuJu) but not difficult. Thorn is difficult if you're a player like me who doesn't want to play a void class and can't grind to get the best void weapons, although I would say I have some of the best (Two to the Morgue, Truth, MG18A Harm's Way) just not a primary which certainly doesn't help.

The Truth bounty, outside the crucible requirement, is super fun otherwise. I helped my husband with it and the final mission and offing Xyur were a hoot. Too bad the crucible part is such a chore.

I can't see that breaking someone playing the game, though. It's not necessary to progress and it's not something that is so annoying that it would make a person drop the game, at least in my opinion.

@jadegl: I definitely think the Thorn bounty is terribly designed as far as forcing you to play badly with regard to teamwork; though the actual achievement non-Warlock is simply time consuming. Additionally I think the Crucible is only fun if you play it exactly the way you want to, not some arbitrary way the game wants you to, hence why the Iron Banner is/was entirely disinteresting.

@zevvion: Again just a matter of the definition of "Mainstream" I don't recall the Witcher 1/2 ever being on the front page of amazon sales for example.

Epilogue and any fusion in rumble and the bounty is actually easy and fun. But then you have thorn, and it's a piece of garbage until you get the perks.

When i went through all that shit to get it done, then finally got my hands on this (at the time) mythical weapon and then had to grind for an equal if not longer period to actually see what's so cool about it I quit playing for a while too.

Also he is already back to it, he mentioned it in the breaking bradborne

@fredchuckdave: You can do the Thorn a bit easier as a Defender Titan or a Voidwalker Warlock. Both of those classes have a void alternative. The hunter does not, so that makes it a bit harder. My husband managed to complete Thorn as a Titan, and he had worse void weapons that I have, but he was able to punch people and use grenades, so he ended up being able to tackle it in a much more balanced way.

The peegs had to put their paws down at some point.

(This thread seems a little weird and we probably shouldn't pry, though it was a pretty funny moment in the bombcast)

The overly defensive position isn't terribly cute either. Who cares if they don't like something you like. You seem to understand that different people have different tastes but get mad when people talk negatively against what you feel. They're doing it as a joke now and it's moderately funny. They do the same thing with DOTA and wrestling. It sure isn't hilarious but it's also in no way offensive. They talked about Destiny for about 30 seconds of a 3 hour podcast and you're this riled up? You should probably get off the Internet.

I played a lot of Destiny. And I wanted to love it. But I can't. I see two types of people mostly with Destiny. The people who try and want to love it, but eventually the clear fumble that it became becomes too glaring to ignore anymore, so they just give in to the disappointment and reality.

Then there are the people who will continue to defend Destiny because they won't let go of that desire to love it. They cling to what it MAY become one day. They convince themselves it will put the broken pieces back together, and eventually be the game we all wanted and thought it would be.

I am not saying there aren't people who just genuinely like it, but I feel that when dealing with people who get overly defensive or overly offensive, it's for one of the two reasons listed above. I wanted to love Destiny, I hoped the first expansion would right the ship, but it didn't. And neither did the new one. For now I am done with Destiny and don't imagine I'll go back. However, I will keep up with it because I still hope it ends up delivering, and would be thrilled to have a good reason to go back. I think Destiny is capable of being an amazing game, but as it is, it is a bad game, and a terrible value proposition.

/rant #jaded

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they're going to be talking about destiny for 9 more years...

Thorn bounty isn't that tough as long as you have the weapons to do so. Namely a a void weapon like atheons and a decent void shotgun. You only have to get a .65 k/d result after each match to make progress. All in all, it's pretty funny as Thorn is mostly a pvp weapon.

@punched: You seem to have missed my point. 'Get off the internet' is also one of those closing lines that is as douchey as it can get.

I am not talking about the crew. I'm talking about the crew saying something and the community immediately copying what is said and ignoring the fact that opinions can differ. Nobody is doing this with Dota. When you go to the forums and say you like Dota, at the very worst you're going to hear: I don't even want to play that, but I can see how you'd like it.

When I go and say I like Destiny, I'd hear: that's just stockholm syndrome. That game is actually just bad. You don't agree? Then you're in denial.

I'm saying let's stop doing that. It's immature and annoying. If someone tells me they hate what I and/or others like, that's fine. If they come tell me I should hate it too and I'm just not seeing their great wisdom... Screw that.

It happens. Sometimes you get in deep with a game and something happens that makes you say "No, fuck this, fuck everything" and immediately uninstall. Especially with those with a MP focus.

It is incredibly condescending to suggest that the only reason someone likes something is because they don't know any better.

This. The shooting is the good part of Destiny. The problem is the immense lack of content.

Also, for the record, the shooting in Fallout is completely terrible.

@jadegl: I did it as a hunter and I can attest to it being a huge pain in the butt that made me actively dislike the game. The mechanic of losing points for dying is cute and interesting in theory but in practice it can make you tear your hair out of frustration. It also means you will be an asshole in multiplayer because in order to get those points you can't play matches regularly. You have to hang back, make opportunities happen, which will sometimes mean camping corners while using invisibility.

I doubt that broke him though.

I'm pretty sure the economy broke Brad. He got something and realized how much grinding of rep or whatever arbitrary new progress bars they've added he will have to do and called it quits.

I had a similar moment when the first DLC came out and I saw the regular vendor gear was better than the Vault of Glass stuff my team spent literal weeks acquiring. All those 2-3 hard mode raids, completely invalidated in an instant and a ton of new rep and whatever suddenly showing up that I'll need to start grinding from the very beginning.

That's when I personally felt like Bungie was giving me the finger while laughing all the way to the bank.

That's a nice theory, except there is barely any of that in this new expansion. The ascension system means that every old weapon or piece of armor can be useful again. They learned that players didn't like having their past efforts invalidated, so now any piece of old gear can become relevant again. There are vendors with which to gain rep, but it's pretty much just to acquire cosmetic items, the new weapons and armor are acquired simply be doing the new content, with much less reliance on RNG. They also simplified the out of hand currency system by reigning it in to only a handful of currencies, and implementing a way to exchange the defunct currencies for stuff you actually need.

The economy is the thing they arguably improved the most with this new expansion.

@ll_exile_ll: Then who knows. It was a nightmare before, and if they really changed it as much as you say then good on them because if anything Bungie was almost hostile to the player base in terms of what they chose to implement in the game and how. Maybe it had something to do with keys although I'm so out of the loop at this point that I don't even know what those do. I know Dave Lang has been grinding for them like theres no tomorrow.

I actually really liked the shooting in Fallout 3, though the added iron sight option in New Vegas did wonders. The weapons just felt so damn beefy.

Destiny is fascinating to me. I keep wanting to like it, but the missions are just so uninteresting.

Everyone in this thread: just be cool to each other.

Destiny seems to me to be one of those games that people really don't enjoy playing at all, but at the same time cannot stop playing.

Fuck Destiny indeed.

I started laughing uncontrollably when I read the next step in the bounty progression, then proceeded to remove it from my inventory. Eventually deleted Destiny.

Also Fallout is an RPG with shooting, its not a shooter. In the same way Deus Ex is a first person stealth game with shooting, but not a shooter. So people who play those games like "why cant I do the things I always do in shooters" well you're playing the wrong game. The game isnt broken, your expectations are wack.

I agree. All goofs aside, Brad sounded like he really didn't want to discuss it and we should respect that.

Hm. I managed to do the Thorn bounty back when I was still playing Destiny. I don't think I'm good or dedicated to that game in any capacity. Although I did quit playing the game forever immediately after completing it, so maybe it is shit.

But there's fun stuff to see and do in Fallout. Was definitely more willing to put up with Fallout's shitty shooting but be able to do some exploring in a place I actually wanted to see.

At one point during the podcast he did mention how he ran VoG hard a bunch with a group of people and one guy in the group got 3 very coveted guns while the rest got nada (Brad got a bunch of armor he already had).

He seemed quite aggravated by this, as it was also accompanied with quite a few "Fuck Destiny"s, so it may have partially contributed? Perhaps not the primary cause, but who knows what that may have been..

I like Destiny a lot, but the PVP has become toxic and the worst part of the game (if it wasn't already from the start). Their balancing has made it so only a handful of guns are viable anymore, and the Trials of Osiris has created a new breed of elitist assholes who will deny anything wrong with the game because they're superior to people at this particular game mode.

You know that whole StarCraft thing where Blizzards goal is to have you win 50% of matches to achieve a good competitive balance? Destiny goes to the complete opposite with trials, because if you aren't winning nearly 100% of your games, you're a piece of shit who sucks at the game. It's ludicrous catering to a small part of the audience at the expense of everyone else.

I don't blame anyone for being off-put by the pvp, even to the point that they delete the game from their hard-drive. It just encourages all the worst parts of competitive shooters.