It's more than just this, though (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Thursday, March 22, 2018, 13:49 (2515 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

That's all spot on.

Its easy to say "back in the Halo days, Bungie didn't have to deal with the same kind of crap from their player base", but that's ignoring the fact that back in the Halo days there weren't paid expansions where the majority of the content was either recycled from the main game or had to be bought through additional micro-transactions. There weren't such flagrant examples of miscommunication with the player base over issues like XP or investment systems. Whatever side of the debate we land on with any of those issues, the fact that the debates exist at all is a sign that not all is well at the moment, and I don't think its fair to lay that solely at the feet of the players. Because those elements don't have to be in the game at all. On top of that, Destiny isn't the only game in the world. The community looks out at other games like Overwatch, Warframe, Titanfall 2, or The Division, sees the rate of change, the transparency between developers and communities, the general trend of steady improvement (rather than the "2 steps forward, 1 step back, 1 step forward, 3 steps back" path that Bungie has taken with Destiny). They see all of this, and can't help but think "WTF Bungie, would you just get your act together already?".

This is the biggest crux of the issue, in my opinion. It still feels like Bungie itself doesn't know what Destiny is, or what they want it to be. Is it a live game? If so, it needs faster updates. Is it a Halo style campaign and multiplayer game? If so, it needs better storytelling and encounter/mission design. I'm not sure Bungie can support Destiny the way it needs to be supported to be a real live game. Keep in mind, for the decade before Destiny they put out one complete game every three years, made some extra multiplayer maps for a few months, and then went mostly silent until the six months before the next game launched. It feels like they want to keep operating like that, but they can't do that with a game like Destiny. Or they can't and keep people happy, anyway.

I would be thrilled if they returned to that style of development (and that style of game). So no, it doesn't seem to me like the problem is that the "fans" have changed. It's that Bungie made a game that forced us to change, and they refuse to change along with it and us.

I'm in the same boat as you Cruel. I feel like all I do around here is post non-Destiny related shit and complain abut Destiny/Bungie. But everywhere else, I'm the Bungie apologist. My friends still wonder why I even think about Destiny. I got messages from an old friend the other night when he saw we were playing Destiny 1 asking what the hell I was doing.