Could you please change the reviews to include the changes made to the game, as they have made the game much worse. I'm talking about the content that is now inaccessible and the whole experience point issue that has been made worse. Are you guys getting refunds too? I'm going to try on PC.

My understanding is Bungie has halted refunds as of yesterday and I'd think your odds would lower on a platform they own control over (battle.nte). But you might as well try

As for changing the review, I don't believe Giantbomb has ever done that. It'd be nice if they did, but considering how fews reviews they do in general I'd be shocked if they started to *updated* reviews now.

They’ve talked about this before in podcasts: reviews reflect games at the time of launch.

I agree Destiny 2 is a fucking dumpster fire of a video game and a damn near straight scam, but reviews are based on time of review. They change this review, they gotta go change all the other reviews to reflect all the patches, won't happen. Expansion review is where a new score would be

At the very least reviews should note at the top when a game is one that will likely change a lot after the review, or go back to the review at the point at which the review no longer reflects the current state of the game and say that it's no longer valid source by which to judge the games state and quality.

You guys make a good point. GB can't just update all their reviews all the time. It does make reviews a little less useful maybe even a little misleading for the average consumer because they may not be aware of the shortened lifespan of a review this past year. I guess this is one of those things that are quickly changing in the gaming industry and I'll need to get savvy and pay attention to the version of the game being reviewed. And hope that in a year time everybody will be aware that what you read in a review a month ago may be talking about a different kind of game than what it is now.

If that is the case we should totally sue them. You can't just say 'We ran out of refunds.' Can they?! That seems illegal.

Looks like i made a good decision in staying away from this game.

I was pretty excited at the time when destiny 2 launched, but didn't end up buying it since my friends wanted to mess around in pubg. Man, I am super happy that I dodged a bullet there.

I bought it because the staff and many other sites were very positive when the game launched. The PC port was supposedly great. But of course as soon as I beat the main story all of this bullshit starts happening on the sides and guess what, the game is bad now just like the first one. I don't think I'm going to be buying Bungie software anymore, its obvious that they have lost their touch.

This game may have shifted in public reception quicker than biohock infinite.

I don't think Bungie lost their touch, since the shooting feel is apparently fantastic (I only played Destiny 1 but that had great shooting, and 2 is apparently just as good.)

I think this is just Activision doing what Activision do, which is to turn everything into a games as a service mictrotransaction infected nightmare. Everything that makes Destiny 2 bad is a transparent attempt to sell microtransactions and DLC. If Bungie could just make a shooter that you bought and played it would still be as fun as the Halo games were, but that's not what Activision wants, so you get Destiny, a game designed to addict you and then make you miserable so you'll buy things.

@rasrimra: hate to be a realist here, but you must see the flaws in trying to sue a company like Activision for $60 right?

This is very much an oversimplification. Weirdly enough Bungie tried to make kind of a regular shooter with Destiny 2. A game you play for a month and drop until more content comes out. The main criticism people have with the game is that it's not enough of a game as a service. It doesn't reward or support a sustained player experience.

Now it seems Bungie and Activision execs had the same criticism but their solution is not what people have in mind. Instead of diversifying gameplay, designing more repeatable activities and better PvP they're pushing for more microtransaction. It's weird, players and suits are in general agreement on what's wrong with the game, they're just completely at odds on the solutions.

@wasabicurry: I got a number of hours of enjoyment out of it. The game opens really strong before gradually falling into a glide and then a total nosedive.

It's not a bad game if you just want to check it out and mess around for a while, but the total package of Destiny 2, when compared to Destiny 1, is my biggest video game disappointment of the year, easily.

@bigsocrates: The thing is, they've been making games that feel like this since Halo: Combat Evolved. And Halo: Combat Evolved had better level design, enemy AI, vehicles, etc.

Compare the walkers to the Halo 3 scarab fights.

Bungie had made much cooler stuff on lesser hardware 10-15 years ago.

Edit: The AI in Destiny most closely feels like fighting Brutes in Halo 2. Not a lot of interesting interactions, lots of sponginess instead of interesting mechanics.

@nutter: I will check it out later if they intend on fixing their game, maybe give it another 2 or 3 expansions before I commit to it.

@wasabicurry: Hopefully they do. My Destiny 3 plan is to see what people think about a year after release and see if I can snag the season pass version for about $30.

No way am I trusting Bungie to deliver after Destiny 2's current state.

I'm still having a lot of fun with Destiny 2, but I get why people might have issues with it.

Surely something could be done or wouldn't all the laws regarding selling products as a company to customers be pointless?

You'd have to establish dammages. "Furniture that maims people", "this spinach gave me a disease", or "the airbag inflation device sent metal pieces into my chest" are clearly defined dammages that you can argue about in a courtroom where you can trust that a random-ish selection of people will agree that your suit clearly establishes fault on the part of the company.

In addition you'd need to hire a lawyer. The last lawyer I retained was $300 (USD) an hour in 2008. I don't imagine it's gotten much cheaper since then.

EDIT: There's also probably an arbitration clause in the Destiny 2 EULA that means you can't sue them.

What content has been made unaccessible?

My understanding is there was some stuff you could only do at the max light level. This expansion raised the light level, so you have to reach the max again to access the content again. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

@dgtlty: They changed the power requirement for the Leviathan Raid and Nightfall, and lock vanilla players out of doing strikes because the playlist now includes 1 or 2 new ones from the expansion.

This is not true.

They changed the requirement for the Prestige activities which means they now require the DLC. The same is true for Trials of the Nine. But that is it.

If you do not own Curse of Osiris, you can still play the Leviathan Raid and the Nightfall and you can still play Strikes. I will say that how they handled this is shitty without a doubt, but the internet is making stuff up about what is actually locked. There are posts going around in several places that the game is now 'shorter', implying that they cut story missions or something similar from the vanilla game. This is not the case. They locked Prestige activities, that means the content is still there to be played, you just can't play the hardest version of that content.

The problem with what they did is that they locked previously accessible modes behind the DLC and that a should-be-vanilla playlist in Heroic Strikes are reintroduced as DLC content. You can still play the same Strike playlists that were available in vanilla D2. Heroic Strikes were never available for it until now.

@zevvion: The biggest problem, and the problem Sony/Microsoft have with it is that they locked out two Trophy's Achievements that were available to players last week and should be available to vanilla owners. This is actually a very big deal to Sony/Microsoft, which is why they were originally handing out refunds for Destiny 2 until Activision got involves and asked both to stop handing out refunds until they could correct the situation. It is still undetermined how and if Bungie/Activision will fix this, but I assume a patch to allow all players to reach the 330 Power Level in inbound soon via activities already in vanilla. Otherwise Sony/Microsoft will again start handing out refunds to anyone who purchased the digital versions on their services in the next couple weeks, as Sony Reps have already said this.

It is unbelievable how anyone could actually defend what Bungie did here. There was content that was previously accessible and now isn't unless DLC is purchased. That is inexcusable and needs to be fixed.

@zevvion: Your right, I was partially wrong.

@mike: I completely agree. Players getting refunds last week had every right to demand so if they had been locked out of ever obtaining a Platinum Trophy and content that came with the game. As far as some of the activities themselves, I think that might be a bit of a grey area, Leviathan Prestige definitely isn't since it's content that undeniably goes with Destiny 2. Trials of the Nine though is content that follows the Live game with whatever content is current, which right now is Curse of Osiris. This has always been the case since it's inception during House of Wolves in Y1. Including a Trophy for it's play though, was probably a really bad decision on Bungie's part and I really don't know how they plan to work around that except to allow anyone to play Trials unless that week the map (like this weekend) is of a Curse of Osiris DLC map. They could also do what they've done in the past and at each DLC make previous DLC Crucible maps available to everyone for free, and only use those maps for Trials at those points. But that would actively go against what they have historically done by showing off all of the new DLC maps in Trials the first X (Radiant Cliffs, which has been this weekend, and Pacifica are the only 2 here) number of weeks. Same kind of goes for the Nightfall being locked for Prestige, the Nightfall will be on complete lockout certain weeks if the Strike is a DLC Strike, of which there are 2, but outside of those weeks players can complete the normal version of said Nightfall which very much is possible this week since it isn't a DLC Strike. But again not being able to complete the Prestige version of the Nightfall due to Power Level locks is BS, and something Bungie needs to fix asap.

What is most surprising however is that this actively goes against how they've handled Light Levels in Destiny 1. In D1, when DLC launched, players were able to gain Light Levels, as high as it was possible for them to, though they were often locked out of End Game activities to get to Max LL. I think the only time that didn't apply was with The Taken King due to the increase of actual Level, which may be the justification here, going from 20-25, and 20 being locked to 305 and 25 going up to 335. But since Prestige activities have been moved up in Power Level to 330, they should just allow Vanilla D2 players to Level to 25 and Power Level 335 as well, albeit only using activities available to them, which would still restrict the Powerful Gear option added to Curse of Osris like Heroic Strikes, Osiris Weapons, Heroic Adventures on Mecury, and the Raid Lair. If Bungie also allows Vanilla players to play Trials on Non-DLC maps, it also fixes the Trials Trophy issue. I have a strong suspicion both of these exact fixes will be implemented soon, otherwise Sony/Microsoft will again start handing out refunds for Destiny 2, which they have every right to, since Bungie/Activsion have removed Destiny 2 content if this isn't rectified. Hopefully they fix this tomorrow in the patch that is dropping.

Update: Looks like I was mostly right. https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46537

After the 7 hour maintenance tomorrow, a hotpatch will be introduced that...

• Lowers the Power Level Requirements for Leviathan Prestige to 300, but also lowers it's rewards to match (thereby making it a waste of time for Curse of Osiris players to do at all... oh Bungie). This also allows the Legend of Acrius Quest to be competed again, which was locked out due to this same issue.
• Trials of the Nine will allow any and all players to compete as long as the map isn't a DLC map they do not own.
• Same goes for the Normal Nightfall, as long as it isn't a DLC Strike, all players can do the activity.
• All Live Events will be accessible to all players, like Faction Rally, Iron Banner, The Dawning, etc.

Things players are still locked out of by NOT owning the DLC...

• Prestige Nightfalls will remain a "pinnacle activity" and thus stay at 330 Power Level.
• Both Trials of the Nine or Nightfalls when DLC Strikes or Crucible Maps are on Weekly Rotation.
• Active Seasonal Armor Ornaments for each Armor Set.

In the Future...

• Bungie wants to a 3rd difficulty of Prestige to activities, one where content stays relevant with each Expansion, but allows them to keep the original so that it isn't removed from all players.
• Bungie also wants to improve Heroic Strikes with new challenges, modifiers, and free access for all players.

Sorry for late reply been, took a weekend away from the internet

My understanding is it doesn't work that way. I think basically the platform holders probably have some wiggle room to offer a token number of refunds, but anything beyond that they've got to get the money back from the publisher. So unless Activision says ok, Msft/PSN are kinda screwed.

And it's not like every platform offers refunds at all, Steam didn't even have a real refund policy at all until a few years ago.

fwiw when I've made purchases on PSN, I've seen language about purchases being non-refundable before.

I don't like that, but there is no obligation that they have provide one.

@hestilllives19: I am not defending Bungie/Activision anywhere in this scenario. It is a little shitty how they handled this in the past, but mostly OK because of how D1 operated. It is inexcusable here and I am offering no excuses. But some people make claims that are inaccurate with what is actually happening.

Bungie's latest outreach stated they will fix this issue, lowering the requirements of the Prestige Raid to 300, which I think is a bad idea but it is the only thing they can do short term. They also re-enabled Trials whenever it is set on a map that is not Curse of Osiris-exclusive, which I said from the get go they should do.

Ideally, they just have Vanilla and Curse of Osiris versions for the Raid. 270 Normal should be renamed to Easy, 300 Prestige should be renamed to Legacy Prestige, 300 in Curse of Osiris should be renamed to Normal and 330 Prestige should remain that. They can enable a lock that if you played either Legacy or regular Prestige you are locked out of rewards for the other for that week. They have done something similar in the past, they know how to do this. This allows you to play with your friends who do not own Curse of Osiris, while still locking people out of playing the new content, but only the new stuff instead of the old updated stuff.

@zevvion: All I pointed out is that locking out Prestige Activities, Trials, and a Quest like the Acrius Shotgun were quite a bit bigger deal than you were making it out to be. Had those things not been tied directly to Trophy/Achievements, this wouldn't have been such a massive blunder on Bungie's part... but they were. I agree, there was talk of more stuff being locked out than actually was, especially Strikes considering there are two whole Strike Playlists now, the one players were locked out of (which makes sense because Heroic Strikes launched with Curse of Osiris) and the normal Strike Playlist. But locking out Trophy/Achievements and preventing Platinum of your game just 3 months (or 6 weeks for PC players being able to do those same activities) after the launch of a game is ludicrous.

As far as the changes they are making today, which I detailed pretty well above, I really think they dropped the ball on the changes to Prestige Leviathan. Moving it down to 300, and if their statement is correct, capping rewards from it at 300, is a horrible fix. It literally compounds the problem Prestige Leviathan already has had since it's inception for everyone, which is nobody has any incentive to do it at all. Gear will literally drop at a lower Power Level for Curse of Osiris owners than Normal, and it will be much harder to do since it will be hard capped at 300 (basically it will be the exact same difficulty as pre-CoO, since there will be no scaling for players above 300). So why in the world would anyone want to do the most ball crushingly difficult activity in Destiny 2, when there is actively zero incentive to do so. A Normal Leviathan Raid is drastically easier to do, rewards better gear, and will just generally be easier to find teammates for, due to all of this. The only reasons to do Prestige now are to finish the Acrius Quest, obtain Prestige Trophy, or obtain golden colored (that takes shaders so it doesn't matter) Armor of the exact same type. These are not incentives to run the Prestige version of Leviathan. This is terrible. And why are we maintaining the integrity of Prestige Nightfall's? I don't get that either. They are a joke as it is due to the lack of incentives. They basically invalidated a lot of stuff, just to prevent non-DLC owners from getting to the new Max Power. Why not just allow them to use existing Powerful Gear activities to reach the same 330 Power as Curse of Osiris owners? That way if they do buy the DLC, they don't feel behind still. It gives them incentive to buy the DLC to play the Campaign, do the Adventures for Osiris Weapons, and hit up the Raid Lair... you know, all the stuff all of us are doing right now. I just don't understand why Bungie is just making sooo many terrible decisions lately, it's like they forgot everything they learned over the past 3 years.

@hestilllives19: I disagree with you there. Locking out the Prestige which was previously available is most definitely a dick move (and I said it was), but in terms of actual impact it's almost non-existent. Everyone and their mom complained for months that they didn't attempt the Prestige even once because there was no point to it, and as soon as it was removed all hell broke loose by the same people.

I'm not sure where you got it from that I am defending this move, I am not. But I have learned to truly hate the hypocritical community on Reddit and following the people that start these threads about refunds and bashing all leads to other posts of them claiming they haven't even run the Normal Raid once because 'there is no point'.

It's a bad move by Bungie. But it's highly exaggerated by the community.

@zevvion: I didn't say you were defending this move. All I said was I agree with Mike who said this move was "inexcusable and needs to be fixed" which I completely stand by. It also doesn't seem like you understand why this move was such a big deal, and why Sony/Microsoft got involved and were originally handing out refunds. Breaking Trophy/Achievements puts a game in a faulty state according to their standards, which is why this patch literally had to come out today. Destiny 2 Vanilla on Console was broken and incomplete all last week because the game was impossible to Platinum. To put your base game in a broken state, just 3 months from launch and in what is still considered the launch window of Destiny 2 is extremely bad. So it isn't just Prestige Leviathan, it's the fact that it disabled a Trophy for Platinum. One that the vast majority of players (like myself) obtained by actually doing a Prestige Nightfall rather than the Prestige Raid, which was also disabled to non-DLC players. As someone who follows Destiny very closely, the vast majority of Bungie's slights against the community are way overblown, I agree. This one wasn't, and is the probably the biggest blunder they have ever made in the Destiny franchise. It's just sad that this comes so soon after so much other unrest with Destiny 2 (XP fiasco, End Game lacking discussions, Twitch viewership losses, player counts plummeting, well known community members like Lumi Publicly declaring they are done with the Destiny franchise, etc.), especially when the Curse of Osiris DLC itself hasn't been all the well received, with most people only seeing the bright side of the Raid Lair at this point.

@hestilllives19: I understand it perfectly. But what I am saying is that this doesn't (didn't) even affect the amount of people complaining about it as if it does. I shouldn't have to take someone seriously that has never played the Prestige and openly admits never wanting to play it, ever, while simultaneously complaining a week later that he can't play it.

I can be clear: if anyone wanted to play the Prestige Raid for example and couldn't because of this, that is super shitty and I won't even attempt to excuse the design around this whether intentional or an oversight. But it's pretty clear that people are looking for the next reason to bash Destiny 2 for every single day. This like many other things, were the subject of tons upon tons of misinformation being spread, sometimes purposefully so, to fuel that. I don't like that. It won't help make Destiny 2 better.

To be fair, people don't really need to look for reasons to bash Destiny 2. Bungie has been giving them plenty of reasons.

@mike: No argument there.

Threads like these make me realize how ridiculously inconsistent people are with their gamer-rage. So many misconceptions and lies about what's happened with this game that it get's a bit ridiculous at times. The truth is that the prestige activities were barely being played by anyone to start with (in fact most people were whining that they weren't worth doing) and then suddenly after the power level moves up (which Bungie has been doing with it's highest level content since D1) those people start bitch moaning that they can't access that content. Bungie has fucked up plenty, sure, but the people complaining are just as insufferable. Between Destiny 2 "controversies" and loot box pissing matches, 2017 has just been the most cringey year in gaming in a very long time.

@wetracoon:

Isn't it mostly a matter of principles? You don't release an expansion pack and then take away content for people who didn't have the money shortly after release, or hide information about how they moderate XP gained (while also selling XP boosts that didn't function properly)? To me it doesn't matter if everyone or only 1 person used to play prestige. It's just the wrong thing to do and inexcusable.

---

Hmm well if it's so easy for a corporation like Activision or Bungie to dodge the law/ethics and don't even need to have a proper return policy, then as a group of consumers I guess the only thing we can do is never spend money on their games (and help guide consumers to better games when the reviews go out of date). And try and create laws to protect consumers from corporations? (This is no longer about Destiny but:) The idea that a corporation can tell you to not file a class action lawsuit after you bought and installed the game and before playing the game (well obviously they wouldn't want consumers to protect themselves, what corporation wouldn't do this >__> ), and this making it harder to sue them seems weird to me, but I admit I don't speak legalese so probably I don't get it or I don't see the whole picture. Because I thought class action lawsuits were made specifically for cases in which many consumers experience the same legal problem with a company (which could happen with a video game?)

Matters of principle shouldn't affect reviews. Reviews are experiences with a game distilled to recommendation. You called for an adjustment to the existing review and went for a refund. If the actual thing that happened does not impact your experience at all, which is the case for 98% of the playerbase, this shouldn't matter to that extent.

What they did is shitty and inexcusable. You are right about that. And you are entitled to ask for a refund if you think you deserve one. But when your experience leads you to review a game a certain way, then changes happen that do not alter your experience at all, you can't or shouldn't change your review. In this case I can guarantee you that the content affected wasn't even looked at by the crew.

Even after all the missteps and issues of Destiny 1 I was willing to give them a chance in Destiny 2. They said all the right things leading up to the game's release but most of that was literally a lie (yes, a lie, not deceptive marketing). I totally understand they can't have World of Warcraft style support but they can 100% do better than this. While risking hyperbole I can say with confidence that the Bungie I used to love is dead and no longer exists. What is left is a company of people, that are clearly talented, but who are hampered either by lack of resources, lack of talent/direction, or a suffocating contract with Activision.

@sammo21: Honestly, from following Destiny extremely closely, it really isn't their resources (Activision has literally given them two extra Studios to help work on Destiny with High Moon and Vicarious Visions) or Activision (maybe some of the Eververse push is on Activision, but it's even Bungie there with the discretion of how to implement Eververse). It is a problem almost exclusively with really awful upper management at Bungie themselves and their management pipeline. It's extremely evident from what we've seen with Destiny 2, that half of the people working at Bungie both don't play their own Live Game, or communicate with the Live Team and what is being done to fix issues created by the Design Team. And the only real team that work with both frequently, the Sandbox Team, is headed by the most egotistical, arrogant turd in video game development with Jon Wisnieski. He has consistently led the Sandbox Team is a bad direction, mostly because he doesn't understand his own game, it's strengths and weaknesses, and has been the chief designer behind some of the worst decisions bungie has made gameplay wise. When your teams don't communicate between each other (very evident by the staggering amount of features put into Destiny 1 since The Taken King that just don't exist in Destiny 2), actively butt heads (Wisnieski talked about arguments the Sandbox Team has had with the Live Team about changes the Live Team wanted to make to Destiny 2 but seemingly wasn't allowed to, listen to this at 12:30, specifically 14:00ish, and try not to be shocked at how disfunctional they sound) about how the game should work, and have no real central direction until it is too late (revealed by Wisnieski in an interview, 34:50, where it sounds like they basically blindsided Luke Smith with the Kinetic/Energy/Power weapon changes for Destiny 2 when it was too late in development to change it, and when Smith, the Director was against it), it's not really a surprise Destiny 2 is in the shape it is currently. Bungie needs to fix their management pipeline, and get real direction moving from top to bottom, and that's a problem with people like Jason Jones just not running the company properly and giving lower level employee's too much latitude and lack of supervision. For a better idea of just how disjointed Bungie has been over the past 5 years or so, hitting up Blood, Sweat, and Pixels or just some of the Jason Schreier articles paint a pretty good picture of the lack of leadership over at Bungie.

I don't think it's any of that. The people that designed various aspects of the game such as the newest Raid Lair are not just talented people but also very passionate about what they do. But someone, somewhere, wants to make more money off Destiny at the cost of that passion and unfortunately he or she apparently gets to call the shots. I'm willing to bet the bulk of the Bungie employees feel like they are trapped. They are working for the mythical Bungie and creating truly stunning things; a dream come true. But that Bungie has shifted course from engaging with the passion of its potential playerbase, to engaging with their credit card numbers.

I am by no means against microtransactions, even in a game that is full price. But all of it, and I mean all of it, that which is in Eververse, should be a static reward for completing various activities. Calus Raid rewards this Legendary ship at a reasonable chance and a small chance to get this Exotic ship. You can get emote X as a drop from completing encounter Y. So on and so forth. None of that is in here. It's just a random slot machine.

And while I have said in the past that you can get everything from Eververse without paying, that doesn't mean that it is a good functioning system. I already own a fifth of the Season 2 cosmetics and we're only a few weeks in. I will undoubtedly have earned all of it before Season 3 starts. It still complete shit as is.

I don't know if Bungie as they used to be is dead. I don't think they are, since the core of what makes them Bungie is still there. If I was the one in charge at Bungie, I bet I could fire 50 people or less that would root out the corruption taken hold over them. It's just that those people are in charge, for whatever reason.

I don't buy into the "it's the suits over there that force the monetization in the game". At the end Bungie is willing to put it's name on the product and are rightfully called out on it's quality.

If I just look at the latest news. Apparently they sell some sort of drop chance enhancing items for real money. People where under the impression they don't work properly and Bungie in the meantime admitted they actually don't work as intended in Heroic Strikes.

They aim to bring a fix in early 2018 but don't remove the items till then from the shop. Under no circumstance should you ask your players to spend real money for something you know doesn't work (and probably a certain rate of people are not aware of at the point of purchase).

I still like the idea that Bungie and Bethesda are the same; they release a shoddy product and people are head over heels to ignore the gaping flaws because in Bungie's case "it has good shooting" or for Bethesda "it has a huge world".

I don't get the argument for Destiny having good shooting, it feels like any other half decent FPS and has nothing remarkable about it at all.

Well Destiny 2 on PC is a damn good and smooth experience mechanically. Coming from PUBG makes you arpeggiate just how well coded Destiny 2 is.

@darlingdixie: Bethesda made Skyrim/Fallout 4 with just ~100 people its a remarkable achievement, Bungie are 750+ strong with two support studio's and can't do the weekly reset correctly or update the game without breaking something.

Bethesda should get praised to high heaven for creating giant worlds with lots of moving parts without ballooning AAA costs but instead they get dumped on.

@zevvion: I just don't think that has anything to do with the core issue of Destiny 2, honestly. There needs to be more things to do, the loot table needs to be 3x as large, there needs to be a a selection of endgame content, and they need to give you things to do that are a challenge.

@sammo21: The loot table to me is just baffling I don't see why each gun can't have multiple variants with one fixed perk, it would triple the loot table very easily and help prevent undesirable items.

@thepanzini: Yup, calling Destiny 2 a "loot" game is really generous, especially considering everyone is trying to get the same small selection of weapons/armor.