Breaking: Bungie Still Behaving Horribly

I mean if it's an expansion-ass expansion, $40 seems totally reasonable. FFXIV just got one and that's 50+ hours of additional playtime.

If not... then fuck them.

Destinys problems can basically be distilled into tow sentences:

You need to provide what people perceive as a full games worth of content before it feel ok to charge for more content.

If people feel the initial thing they got was value for money, they will be much more comfortable with paying more money for more stuff.

Isn't this really just Bungie being given their marching orders by Activision and then having to toe the company line? What do you expect Luke Smith to say? "Yeah man, that's real fucked up. You probably shouldn't buy it."? Not gonna happen. I have a hard time believing this is the direction Bungie wanted to go in.

When do we get the Snoop voice pack for Destiny?

Never said it was a good value just that the contents of the digital collector's edition is now available for everyone. At least it's there for those who think it is a good value. I know I'll be getting the expansion but I will not get the cosmetic bundle.

Bungie seems to think that how many hours people put into a game is all that matters. Just because you made it that it takes 25 hours to finish your base game, doesn't mean it's a full experience. They need to look deeper.

One of the top Destiny streamers, King Gothalion, put out a video yesterday and it was point by point exactly what I think about the topic. It's pretty good. His follow up was pretty funny too.

Can't take his word with any kind of seriousness though. This is a guy who makes his living from the popularity of Destiny, he's not going to say much against the game. Conflict of interest defined. Part of the reason I stopped following Planet Destiny so closely, some of their podcast guests became nothing but Bungie appologists. I get it though...

I'm on a break from Destiny right now. Before House of Wolves, I had 3 characters at 32, all exotic guns, 800 hours into the game, etc etc. I stopped recently because I really didn't like the direction that Bungie took the game with House of Wolves. I'm hating this Collector's edition stuff and now the Red Bull promotion even more. A couple of weeks ago, I was certain I would return for The Taken King, but now Bungie is going to have to do some work to get me back. They have plenty of time to do so, and you might think I'm just one voice, but plenty of people are upset about all of this.

@thiago123: I don't know if I can agree with the sentiment that a lot of people had in regards to Gothalion making money off Destiny's popularity and being willing to throw his integrity to the side to toe the company line that he doesn't work for or make any money from. He's a streamer, who did just fine streaming Borderlands before Destiny, and who's numbers stay just fine when he streams other games on his channel. People watch his channel because of his personality, period. Has his channel grown since Destiny, obviously, but one could also make the argument that it is thanks to him and other streamers like Professor Broman, TripleWreck, and LacedUpLauren that have made Destiny what it is on Twitch, which is a consistently top 10 streamed game. Like he said in his follow up, he would have directly made a lot more money if he made a flaming post that agreed with most of the fanbase, because he makes all of his money from Destiny fan's, not Activision or Bungie. In all honestly, what he posted actually lost him money from Subscribers and Donations from people upset that he didn't thrash Bungie. So I think money is a really bad reason to discredit anything he said on the matter.

I totally get the break from Destiny. I'm getting to the same point. I have 3 34's, each class, and the only Exotic or Raid weapon I'm missing at this point is Dreg's Promise, of which I already have a half finished Elder Cipher on my Hunter. Almost all of my Legendaries are 365 now and all that is left are ones I don't use really. The only Exotic Armors in the game I'm still missing are Bones of Eao, Peregrine Greaves, and The Ram (man I want that helmet). At this point I run Raid's for giggles with friends because there is no other use after we finally attempted and finished a Flawless Raider this week (that was much easier than I thought it would be, only took an hour). So I can completely understand where you are coming from, because if it wasn't for my group of Destiny friends, I would be completely done until September.

I think your opinion is completely valid to be upset over all of this, and it's a sentiment that I agree is widely shared by a large majority of the player base. But my opinion, and apparently one that is shared by many as well is that the idea that these few bad decisions and one horrific interview does not speak to this ere of money grubbing f*** the Destiny player base attitude at Bungie. I don't think that is a thing. I think Bungie has been put in a corner and told how DLC is going to work and they are trying to toe the Activision company line on all of this. My hope is that all of this uproar gets some Suits/Tie wearing Exec's at Activision to take a much harder look at their monetization strategy for Destiny in the future.

@hestilllives19: All fair points. You are right that Gothalion, Broman, etc, did fine for themselves before and may do fine if they continue after Destiny, but that doesn't mean that you actively seek to hurt your current cash cow. Many players say they are mad at Bungie and that they will 'stop playing because of this' or whatever (keep in mind that I stopped playing Destiny before the controversy), but the truth is that the majority of those who spoke up won't actually stop because unfortunately this issue is just par for the course with games now (and arguably not that big of a deal). The people who actually listen to Gothalion's opinions are the 'choir' so to speak and may actively be seeking for the justification to keep playing the game. I know I sort of was - I could always see the issues with the game, but still had fun playing it and digesting all the Destiny content I could from youtube, etc. I always find it hypocrytical of the GB crew who always attack Brad for liking Destiny, while preaching that games are for everyone and if someone likes playing something, there's nothing wrong with that. And so, I found some refuge in content put out by the likes of Planet Destiny. Recently though, it seemed to be getting a little bit too apologetic, and too reverential of Deej and Bungie. Anyway, I'm probably rambling now.

As for the state of Destiny...I'm with you. The thing that kept me going was the camaraderie of playing with my clan etc. Raids, Nightfalls, Iron Banner, those are still fun activities for me. I only collected about 10 or so Etheric Light before calling it quits though. The direction that House of Wolves took the game still seems crazy to me. I understand that Bungie wants to please the fans, but I remember clearly when they announced the new upgrade system, showing a picture of Fatebringer jumping to 365 damage. While reddit did a backflip for joy, I sat there an thought: "So, I can upgrade the BEST handcannon in the game now. Cool. Remind me again what the incentive is to go get the NEW handcannons?" Then, Trials of Osiris was shown. I'm not shabby at PvP, but I generally don't like elimination type games (Counterstrike, certain Gears modes, etc). To lock away some of the coolest gear behind getting flawless victories in that game mode seemed completely counter to the rest of the game. Finally, there's PoE. I know they've 'fixed' Skolas now, but I hate that the new end game content is all for 3 man teams. This has created all sorts of fractions and cliques with clans.

In essence, this is a cooperative loot game in which HoW has 1) limited the amount of loot you can store, 2) removed the incentive to find the new loot, 3) locked said new loot behind terrible boss design and/or pvp performance, and 4) made it harder to play with all of the friends you are used to playing with.

I want to reiterate that I consider this a 'break' from Destiny. I will still likely return for TTK, assuming the raid is good. I'm not out there beating the ridiculous "I'll never play this again, FU Bungie!" drum. If I don't come back, it will be because something like Battlefront grabbed me away, not because of principal. With that said, I think it is a little unfair to say that this is Activision's fault. Bungie signed with them willingly. Everyone knew how Activision operates. Bungie was a free agent up for grabs, it is ludicrous to think that Activision was the only ones who wanted to pick them up and are now forcing them to do things they don't want to do. Are there developers there who hate the new model? I'm sure there are. But are the Bungie execs themselves enjoying the fruits of the deal? you bet.

For me, the whole takeaway from this controversy is that Destiny still has a large content problem. Before announcing this exclusive thing or that exclusive emote they should've laid out the content that's going to be in the game this fall.

They need a second PvE end game activity that's as meaningful as the raid so people have some variety of stuff to do when they finish the ''campaign'' on day 2 or whatever. Nightfalls are cute and all but they just don't cut it anymore. You barely feel the modifiers outside of burns 80% of the time so they're just the same strikes you keep running for the hundredth time.

This game needs content. Surprising content. Everything we've seen up to now has been a very slow and gradual crawl towards a better destiny. No surprises, just the bare minimum for destiny addicts like me to justify a purchase. Come on Bungie, make me feel good about buying one of your products again.

@thiago123: I think a lot of that "apologetic" attitude for Deej and Bungie came from looking back on just how much has changed, for the better, with Destiny since launch. Since the launch of House of Wolves right up until the Eurogamer article I think Bungie had built up a lot of good will with the Destiny community. Then, in one week, they kind of shredded all of it with how badly they botched talk of The Taken King. Which is not necessarily a bad thing for us, the players, because it keeps them looking over their shoulder for our approval. I hope this doesn't interfere with planned content in a negative way though because they are now making a mad dash to create emotes and junk.

Anyway, I completely agree with the 3 man content segmenting the Destiny population. It use to be relatively easy for my group of 4 or 5 to grab an extra for a Raid from our friends list. But it seems the 3 man content has, at least for us, given all of the other players we played with in groups of 3 already and us sitting with 4-5 pretty frequently and not being able to play as easily together. It's why it's so sad that there wasn't any 6 man content in HoW. Heck I would have been happy if they allowed up to 6 people to patrol together, because as it stands we can only run old Raid's we have all run 100 times together.

I wasn't trying to insinuate that you were in the FU Bungie camp, sorry if it came across like that, just that the mentality of that is pretty prevalent right now. I also agree that the heads at Bungie jumped at the giant bag of money thrown at them. I wonder if the rest of Bungie regrets that a bit now, or if they are happy as clams.

Luke Smith is cool, or at least was cool. He's from 1up and starred in the first great/big gaming podcast "1up Yours". People getting upset about 3 dance moves seems pretty dumb unless there's more content besides that. Really, gamers should've stayed away from Destiny, Evolve, and other half-assed games that don't have enough content to justify $60 and a season pass AND content beyond that season pass. If I had to choose any gaming community I'd be the least sympathetic towards it would probably be Destiny.

It's a stupid price for a stupid game. I wouldn't want to play Destiny even if it cost $10 for everything. Glad I have invested literally nothing in this shit show of a game.

Glad I got bored of it before paying for any of the DLC. I was so excited for Destiny, too. :(

Perfect: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/480637-update-16100/

Warframe, still a better game than Destiny. -- 2015