@pyrodactyl: Honestly, every time I hear the Destiny 1.5 argument I don't really understand it. Destiny 2's biggest problem so far was actually it's departures from Destiny, rather than things not being iterated enough on. The entire weapon system was overhauled, loot system, microtransactions, the way classes function, etc. The problems are they solved these "issues" in terrible ways. The vast majority of the playerbase hates the double primary system. It's awful for both PvE and PvP. The loot changes to static rolls have made loot go stale extremely quickly, and Bungie has no chance to create loot fast enough to fix this issue. And an awful Mod system (Bungie even recently admitting to this) to replace Armor Perks was one of the worst loot based decisions possible. Microtransactions went from a few loot boxes for Events and Emotes having a $ value to everything based on loot boxes, and don't even get me started on the newest Prismatic Matrix scam they have going. Classes were not only not really updated, but they were actually all dumbed down by locking us into Perk Clusters that we could pick 1 of 2, removing any sort of creative Class Builds that happened frequently in Destiny 1 because players could pick individual perks. Almost all of these changes (Microtransactions excluded) were made to simplify the game for both Bungie and players, and essentially make development of content easier on Bungie because players were too powerful in Destiny 1, even after 3 years of constant nerfs. One of the biggest things Bungie needs to clue in on, and be ok with, is a portion of the Destiny userbase is extremely good at this game. No amount of arbitrary challenge is going to stop them, and forcing that on the entire rest of the playerbase isn't smart, it just makes the game less fun to play.
Luckily, lately, Bungie seems to be realizing some of this. Like you mentioned Pyro, a lot of these bad systems will be being reverted in September. Based on some information talked about by community members who went to the Bungie Summit last month, and Bungie's own Development Roadmap, here are some of the upcoming changes for September.
- Weapon Slot Changes - The Weapon Slot changes were shown to players at the Summit. Pretty universally they said the community will be happy with it when it comes out. It's very likely a return to Primary/Special/Heavy like in D1, but maybe we will get something else, who knows.
- Weapon Randomization - This seems like it might be heavily linked to Mods 2.0, of which it should have been all along. Similar to how Exotic Weapons have added the Catalyst slot, we might be seeing Random Roll perks return in some form of Masterwork or extra Mod slots, where you have to track down Mods in varying Activities. Either way, content creators gave Bungie a list of Pro/Cons for why Random Perks on Weapons/Armor are valuable to Destiny and the problems they create. Hopefully Bungie can do something worthwhile with this.
- Lowered PvP TTK - Pretty self explanatory, the PvP community has been demanding it since around December, especially after the Prometheus Lens "bug", of which more people enjoyed Crucible that week than in months, which was a completely broken gun. It will 100% happen in September, as it already started with the Exotic Weapons pass on certain Exotics that kill in the 0.8s or under.
- Subclass Customization - Vaguely mentioned by some content creators and others present at the Summit, Bungie is working on something that they already showed players last month. Those players said it was a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done, something they told Bungie. Hopefully in the 5 months Bungie has from the time of the Summit until September, they will do just that.
- New PvE Activity - Across the board the Content Creators at the Summit loved this new Activity. Many said it will define Destiny going forward, just like Raids have. The only real hint about it that we have though was that in 2015, Destiny had some Activity that felt similar to MoreConsole. But we have no idea what that meant.
Since you mentioned Exotic Armor changes, those are actually dropping in 1 week, and more in July. Likely most of the vanilla Armor pieces will be touched up and Masterworked next week, and some of the newer DLC ones in July. One of the things I'm most excited about coming is Crucible Labs, "Crucible Labs will give every player of Destiny 2 access to experimental PvP content. We’ll then have a chance to solicit your feedback to guide our final iterations." This sounds like a in game PTR, at least I really hope that is what this is. All in all, I'll be the first one to say Destiny 2 isn't in the place it should be right now, but it is in a much better place than it was in December. And with all of the changes coming between now and September, I'll definitely be coming back. Destiny 2's biggest problem so far is that it is boring for the sake of balance, and hopefully Bungie is realizing that is a massive problem, and the reason Destiny 2 is doing so poorly.
@jonrambo: Just as a side note, while Spire of Stars is listed as a 370 Activity, the enemies in the final room do go up to 380 (which doesn't take Mods into consideration), so you have to be Max Level to not take extra damage and do full damage. Escalation Protocol is also I think a 370 Activity, but enemies on Round 7 actually scale to 400 Recommended, which is 15 higher than possible this DLC. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of any of this, especially Escalation Protocol, which basically requires 9 people above 370 Power to finish currently. This is bad game design, and artificially making your game difficult, and not mechanically like it should be. Spire of Stars has interesting enough mechanics, so leaving enemies in that final room at 370, and bumping them up to Max for Prestige that launches in July is what should have happened. And Escalation Protocol with Delta Scaling, and being a Public Space Activity... I have no words to describe how terrible that is. One of the things many players may not realize, is that most of the problems have been exasperated by the other changes to the Level Scaling of Incoming/Outgoing damage. Being even 10 Power underlevel is tough, as it makes you take 37% more damage, and deal 23% less. If you go down 20 Power, that's 119% inreased damage taken and 35% less damage output. It's really harsh, and EP forcing 77% more damage and 29% less damage because of Delta Scaling is awful. As far as the rest of the leveling process goes, I'm rather torn. I like the slower progression to an extent, but for it to work, Bungie needs to bring back Smart Loot. Getting 5 Gauntlets in a Row, when you only have a finite amount of possible Powerful Gear drops per week is devastating, especially when Powerful Gear is only giving you +5 Power per drop as well. The game needs to give you Gear you need, and the leveling needs to go quicker than it is now, because as it currently stands, even players like myself who are playing 4+ Raids, 2+ Flawless Trials runs, every single Milestone, and even smaller stuff like Double Nightfall on each character per week for the 2 Powerful Gear drops, are barely going to hit 385 in one month. That's far too slow, especially when the two pinnacle activities for this DLC, Spire of Stars and Escalation Protocol require such high Power Levels. I do like the changes being made next week to Heroic Strikes, dropping 360 loot, but the worst part is that will be dropping a bit late after most players have already grinded Heroics and are now past 360. Hopefully in the future they will get Leveling better, because it's far from perfect right now.
Side Note: I completely agree about the Warmind Story. It was pretty awful, and worse than Curse of Osiris IMO. Even worse, it wasted the potential of some really important (Lore Wise) characters. Part of me wants to say in the future they should just leave the story stuff to Bungie, and out of Vicarious Visions hands, but Bungie doesn't do a very good job of it either. Maybe just grab some random Lore YouTubers and have them write the Destiny 2 DLC's, haha. MyNameIsByf would certainly write a better story for Destiny than anybody over at Bungie, because unlike Bungie he actually knows the game's Lore...
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