I'm surprised dismissing an entire genre of game as bad is still a thing you're doing?

If they're so bad, why are they still around, anyways?

And, preemptive followup question, why does that reason people enjoy them for qualify as bad/incorrect?

Even with Destiny 2 they won't get it completely right. They are so utterly committed to a bad genre and to bad game design principles. It not like Destiny 2 is going to stop being an MMO and become an RPG.

I'm going to break this down because I think it's really untrue.

Even with Destiny 2 they won't get it completely right.

Possible, but TTK was a HUGE step in the right direction, and if all of Destiny followed the TTK formula, I'd have loved it from the get-go.

They are so utterly committed to a bad genre

FPS games? Great genre. MMO? It's not really an MMO so much as a loot-based FPS. Fundamentally these two elements work really well together and in a lovely and compelling way, which is why we're all still playing this game. There's a core framework that's genius. Movement, shooting, it's so, SO good. But the implementation falls short, especially in the end game.

and to bad game design principles.

Vanilla destiny had bad game design. The plot was nonsense, the missions were all same-ey and repetitive, the enemies were not interesting to fight and had crap AI, the strikes were far too focused on very long and repetitive boss fights, resources were scarce, and the most vile element: Almost every reward in the game was pure RNG-based, which is a crappy crap craptastic crap of crap design.

Current destiny is a tad better. The taken enemies contrast well with their non-taken counterparts to make for more interesting combat (though AI is still crap), the new strikes are more mechanics based and interesting than the old ones (and the boss health rebalancing patch from a year or so ago was very much needed, as were the nightfall changes). RNG is less significant for getting viable weapons (though still needed for absolute top-tier loot), and the plot of TTK makes sense, including the raid element. Still almost no improvement to the endgame play loop, however.

Bungie could stand to note that being more generous with loot that's still RNG based for roll in no way hurts their game. Even when I farmed up scads of Grasps last week, it turns out I didn't get any that usurped my other guns, and even if they did, they wouldn't have been game breakingly good. I'd rather play a game where many people have the best gun than only 1 lucky guy. That allows for more fair, even, and balanced PvP situations and finer raid tuning. I'm digressing...

It not like Destiny 2 is going to stop being an MMO and become an RPG.

What? Are you saying massively multiplayer games are fundamentally bad? Are you saying Role Playing Games are fundamentally good? Here's what I think: Throw out the labels. A game that is grindy with RNG-based loot "rewards" feels like a job, not a game, and that's not fun. Vanilla destiny's end game was a job. Current destiny's end game is an improvement from there, but can still be very grindy if you let it. The actual activities have not really changed; they've just had tweaks to them such that you don't feel like you must raid in order to compete in pvp, or be awesome at pvp in order to be successful in the raid. Similarly the infusion change to 100% infusion has made finding new weapons and trying them out far less punishing. But the end game still doesn't really have a focus. Trials is arguably the pvp endgame goal, and that's a good one for pvp, but the raid is too formulaic to be a truly endgame activity for pve. Destiny needs an endless strike mode or survival mode that *isn't* the kind of FPS bullet hell nonsense that original PoE was. Adding points to more activities would help that (and helps focus how the designers would like the players to achieve their goals without outright forcing that).

But none of those things make the game not an MMO or suddenly more RPG-esque than it already is.

What the game really needs is a vastly more compelling plot hook to invest us in what we're doing. PvE endgame would benefit from community goals (kill 200,000 fallen captains this weekend) and PvP would benefit from the addition of AI bots for an endless arena mode that plays like PvP but is actually PvE. All in all, Destiny has a fantastic core gameplay feel, but the trappings of storytelling are lacking, as are meaningful activities for players who have already completed the raid and gone to the lighthouse.

Being an MMO or an RPG neither helps nor hinders how fun a game is. Having compelling activities for players do.

Inwould be interested in the more narrow context of such a ruling. However, the key thing about it not being "sold as such" is that it also wasn't not sold as such. Having HoW was access to a living event. In the same way Queen's Wrath was supposed to be the PvE Iron Banner but that's sure gone. And they didn't really try to salvage it, if you ask me.

Yes and no. They sold Destiny has having monthly live events. The first one was Queen's Wrath, which they eventually replaced with Iron Banner. I guess vanilla D wasn't sold with specific monthly events attached, but it was certainly sold with monthly events. HoW was similarly specifically sold with Trials of Osiris. So people who bought both are losing the monthly events they were promised in vanilla (whatsoever those might be), and trials, which they were specifically promised.

I honestly don't know how many people are going to be actually affected by this, but it really offends my sense of what's right and what's wrong.

Glad to help you figure that out. Haha. ;)

I mean it's not like people are all that surprised when parts for their 1998 Buick Century are discontinued.

Does Buick show up at their house and rip parts out of their car when the discontinuation rolls around?

Things work very differently for software licenses versus hardware purchases.

People are always quick to use the car analogy, and I've never actually seen it be anything close to accurate.

You're probably not wrong.

But for the type of game Bungie made, it seems like they made it in a really stupid way. It's like they didn't even consider what would happen when they abandoned the old consoles or what would happen to folks who don't get the newest DLC. They apparently just don't care, and that's shitty.

To be fair, there would still be the issue of balancing stuff. Given it obviously won't be the exact same sandbox (new guns, armors, perks), current-gen wpuld have to rebalance separatly from old-gen. Maybe they don't have that capability without also killing the events.

It seems weird to me that they couldn't just lock current gen into a time capsule and have trials continue to give current gen the same rewards they get now in perpetuity. We already know there's no one at the wheel when it comes to random bounties and rewards since bungie de facto admitted that when they launched with bounties able to show up on day one of an event that said things like "wear the shader, emblem, and class item and kill 10 guardians" which was physically impossible to do. And rather than add a human curator to dummy check these things, they just removed the potentially impossible bounties from the rotation.

I'm sure people at Bungie and Activision looked at TTK sales on 360 and PS3, looked at the current player-base on those platforms, did the math, and realized it just wasn't financially worthwhile to continue supporting the 360 and PS3.

Yeah, apparently ~10% of active players are on legacy consoles, so you can definitely see their reason. And that's not counting the number that may not have bought TTK, estimated drop off rates, or estimated upgrade percentages.

I agree, but I'm also sad for our brothers in old consoles who will be getting their game neutered in August.

Me too. As with most, it doesn't affect me, as I've never played on a last-gen console, but it still sucks on principle.

It seems weird to me, too, that they would choose this expansion. It seems like Destiny 2 would be a more natural point to drop support for the old consoles. I imagine it's just about division of labor and resources at this point, and maybe TTK didn't sell all that many copies on old consoles or something.

Probably. I mean, we're a fairly large community, and do you see many active last-gen people here?

I think it's matter of realistic expectations. Everyone knew Destiny was a ten-year game. Did anyone realistically expect it to continue to be supported on last gen for more than a few years?

I assume there are business/financial reasons for this (ditching last gen now, rather than waiting until Des2ny). Releasing any game or expansion on a console brings with it a substantial cost to the developer/publisher. Between licensing & cert, platform-specific development, testing and support, the financial obligation is significant.

I'm sure people at Bungie and Activision looked at TTK sales on 360 and PS3, looked at the current player-base on those platforms, did the math, and realized it just wasn't financially worthwhile to continue supporting the 360 and PS3.

This is ancient history, but back when I worked on the "Adventures of Lego Island" video game, Microsoft paid us extra to develop it just for windows 95 exclusively instead of making it backwards compatible with Windows 3.1. If that sort of strategy was viable way back then, I imagine it could be used today as well. *I have no evidence that this is the case with regards to Destiny*; I'm merely pointing out historic precedent.