Sunsetting Armor is beyond stupid. It's taken me probably 4 seasons now to finally get a fully masterworked set of PvP armor for a single character. Masterworking armor is already expensive enough when you are just a casual PvP player. Now all that time and materials are wasted.

(Note: This one starts out pretty good... and then dissolves into a rant. Just FYI.)

"The Live Game"

Bungie has to keep the pot from getting stale, much as the problem was in Destiny 1, and we? I don't know. I DON'T KNOW! ... Play the game? I honestly have to question at this point if they know what play means. ...or... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

They aren't FEELING the community, they are just... doing their job, and in doing so, it feels TO ME like they aren't doing their job. Does that make sense? Does the apathy even register? Again... THIS IS A LIVE GAME!

We don't have the full picture of what this looks like, and it seems like, as happy as I am that we are told this stuff in advance, this piece meal approach it seems to me, admittedly suddenly, like it's causing more problems then it solves right now. We are FORCED right now to react to a COG in the LIVE GAME machine. And we can't, shouldn't go back to "silence" as that was bad too! Dam'd do, dam'd don't!

Recently, the internet become awash in fervor thanks to the first look at new tech in the upcoming Unreal Engine 5. I talked about it abit, to help those of us who are purely spectators in all of this understand how big of a deal all this tech being pitched was. It's because of this being still so fresh in my mind that I find myself with these current considerations. In the Demo, there is Tech for Super-High-Resolution Mesh detail, as well as Tech for Realtime Global Illumination. Just ONE of these ALONE is HUGEEE (as I mention) for how the future of REAL TIME VIRTUALIZATION (note... I did not say games alone). But TOGETHER!?! Force Multiplier! And I find myself bringing such considerations here to this TWAB post now and possibly future ones to come.

The question I find myself asking is... the unknown. On on hand, WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT! THE UNKNOWN!?! Seriously!?! And on the other... drip drip drip... we keep getting... one. puzzle. piece... a week. And while I can't say it refutes the very extremely well earned criticism being given in response to the TWABs content, but well... I'm the Warlock right?

I wonder. I can't help but wonder.

It's all aiming to something right? A something that frankly we should broadly already know due to Lukes "Director's Cut" Posts (1-1 1-2 1-3 & 2-2020). And yet... it feels like a bandage being pulled, scab and all... SLOOWWWLY.

Instead of giving a puzzle piece a week, I think it would be plausibly better if they just gave the structure, the forth coming blueprints, all at once. But then, if they do that... much like Destiny 1, they will have little else to show, right? It's not so much a weekly "conversation" as a... momentary blurb. A reaction to a set of clouds in the distance, and so much more unknown. A conversation given through cups and phone tag. It's... a shame. And it only gets compounded from here.

The live game. All these words, and I still haven't yammered about that yet! Let's fix that now. The live game, is... and isn't. So much of these choices that Bungie has to make... are untenable. It's like they are trying to guess the market, but instead of making bets and estimations on funny money, its efforts are for fans from a funny farm (and INSANEdrive). So by the time they get to here in the now, they can't respond to the market, to us, anywhere NEAR as much as I would guess they would like to. And they are drowning... full stop. After all this time, the game isn't built to be live, is is just to look that way. Just enough. THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE TO ME! Yes, true, they can change things here and there, but... they are more a slave then we are, and I don't understand how we are in Year >5 and that doesn't seem to completely utterly horrify them. It seems that they don't plan for failure, and then they fail just about every time. They are just drumming along. "Doing their jobs", doing all they can muster in a fever to keep the pot from getting stale.

...*Sigh*...

...

...

... Right ...

"Hamster Dance"

Bungie has to keep the pot from getting stale, much as the problem was in Destiny 1, and we? I don't know. I DON'T KNOW! ... Play the game? I honestly have to question at this point if they know what play means. ...or... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

So, what does this mean for us? Well, it means we get stuck with our own drumroll. Our own hamster dance.

Why Hamster dance? Because, as classic as it is, it's outdated. We're stuck in a wheel, where it seems like I've seen it all before. The Major Successes. The OK it's good. The Failures. The Failures again. The MAJOR Failures again. The Successes return again. The Highs and Lows. The Pattern in content quality. There are a dozen ways I can metaphor this. I mean... shit! It's defiantly been a real dance, being a Modern Bungie fan.

Ultimately, all of this rabble and effort and emotion and words and ... shit!... it's all about the game play loop. About this game that SHOULD BE (ALWAYS SHOULD BE) so good, but never NEVER EVER can seem to get out of its own dam way! It wins the lotto every time, but it's always two numbers short! SUCK ON THAT RNG, but at this point, it doesn't even feel random. It feels incompetent. And I'm TIRED of it. I'm TIRED of it! I'm so... so ... DONE with this shit. And it CRUSHES my fandom heart. We need to break the wheel without getting dumb and dumber, and with what - keep in mind everything I've said before - I'VE SEEN, it's just too STUPID!

Once we have Sunsetting Kit, WHAT IS THE LOOP ANYMORE!? THERE IS LITTLE TO NO REASON now TO INVEST TIME INTO YOUR KIT! In finding a roll, be it weapon or armor, that complements your style of play! WHY BOTHER INVESTING time into the expanse in MASTERWORKING kit, or polishing your skill with time invested loadouts, when the game even fights ya to do that! #VaultSpace #RatKingRatNest

While yes, it only technically effects endgame stuff... as a long time Destiny player (#D1BetaTester) who trends towards PVE more then PVP, THAT'S MA SHIT! I play stuff where LIGHT matters! Unless Bungie has something hidden in their sleeve, a puzzle piece if you will, involving...say, Patrols or something, LIGHT MATTERS! And all that build up...it's all going to go POOF anyway. And I know, I've had this discussion with some folks already. So let me just fill in so perspective here...

...

...I don't play this game to chase shit endlessly, like a hamster. Perhaps it's the RPG guy in me, but I want to get the nice kit, and then have the game change from gathering to building. Bungie is afraid of Power creep? Not sure why, not everything has to get a bump in damage. Anarchy, 1000 Voices, The Scientific Method. It's not JUST ABOUT DAMAGE! It's about FUN NEW WAYS to DELIVER that damage, or... to just.... get this now... PLAY!!!! AND after all, Bungie said themselves... they can't keep adding forever, so whats going to give?

I, myself, would much rather they stopped adding legendary guns and gave us - oh I don't know - ACTUAL CONTENT TO PLAY IN!!!! MORE STRIKES! MORE PVP MAPS! MORE THEN "ONE RAID" A YEAR!? If that's even possible. I don't play this game JUST for loot. There is a PURPOSE in the loot. THe loot is the force multiplier, not the GAME its self! And it feels like Bungie has lost sight of what Content really is.

And hey, if we're going to do this "Sunsetting" AKA Weapon Pool Restrictions, can we just get rid of RNG rolls? At least then Collections might be useful then. Ya know that thing that's been there for over two year that mostly irrelevant! Yeah.

/rant over

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It’s a real shame. It’s still a great first person shooter. It’s just finally reached the point where that’s not good enough to overcome the bullshit that’s been dragging the game down since day one.

If their next game isn’t an always online loot game, I’ll be interested.

How the mighty have fallen.

Come play Deep Rock Galactic! The combat and upgrade systems aren't as deep as Destiny, but they also have never taken away or obsoleted anything I've earned.

How many times can I plug the same non-Destiny game before it gets annoying?

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I'm still archiving a bunch of crap in my vault on the off chance that some sandbox change makes me glad I kept it or because it reminds me of fun times past.

More than anything I don't see this as a very big deal*, but if they can't/won't expand the vault maybe this is at least a reason for me to let go of some stuff. It's WON'T, because I'm still too much of a packrat, but IN THEORY.

* 1. SO, end result is that some old items will be less useful than new items if you are in Iron Banner, Trials and new Raids a year from now, right? Or am I missing something? Honest question.
2. Lots of people seem to want them to make a D3 rather than keep working on D2. Won't that be this same problem an order of magnitude larger? I didn't;t like giving up all by stuff in the D1/D2 transition, but I do miss that feeling of hoping for some new hotness.

To address that last point first, I think the difference with a full blown sequel is that while it may suck to lose your old gear, jumping into a sequel usually entails so much “new” that it feels worthwhile. Plus, a sequel usually comes on the heels of the previous game’s “ending”, which would hopefully leave the player with a sense of completion, which then in turn leads nicely into something of a “fresh start” with a sequel.

To your first point about vault space, this is actually one of my biggest concerns with weapon resetting: the needs of “right now” will override everything else when it comes to how we manage our storage space. I wrote a post a couple months back about jumping into D1 for the first time in a couple years, and what a sour experience it was for me. I booted up the game with the intention of nostalgically revisiting a bunch of my old favourite gear, only to find that I’d been “forced” to delete a bunch of it due to obsolescence-via-sunsetting. Our D1 Vaults were a lot smaller than our D2 vaults, and as such, when faced with the choice between keeping weapons I loved but couldn’t use in endgame content vs new weapons that I needed for endgame content but had no attachment to, I kept the new stuff. Rediscovering this was a disheartening moment. I realized that the D1 I wanted to go back to doesn’t actually exist anymore. Many of the pieces of gear that I remember fondly are gone from my vault, and in their place is a whole collection of mediocre guns that I didn’t even remember existing, which I’d prioritized due to their light level.

This issue extends down into sandbox tuning as well. Using Fatebringer in D1 today isn’t as fun as using Fatebringer in D1Y1 because of the changes that Bungie made to hand cannons over the span of the game. I’m generally in favour of ongoing balance tweaks if they are done with the intention of moving closer and closer to a final conceptual state; a “feel” that the designers were aiming for from the start. But that doesn’t feel like the arch that Destiny is on. To me, it feels more like Tinkering for the sake of tinkering. The game isn’t really any more balanced or refined than it was 5 years ago. They just keep changing things for the sake of changing things. And this has created a situation kinda like George Lucas continuously messing with the Original Trilogy; whatever version of Destiny you prefer, it no longer exists. We might all disagree on which year or season had the most enjoyable sandbox, but most of us are in the same boat; our favourite version of Destiny is already gone, and won’t come back. And for the few players who prefer Destiny as it is right now, they just have to wait until the next update... then they’ll be in the same boat as the rest of us.

* 1. SO, end result is that some old items will be less useful than new items if you are in Iron Banner, Trials and new Raids a year from now, right? Or am I missing something? Honest question.

That depends on how they handle public spaces going forward. Equip some 700 gear and try to play on the moon. What was it like when we first hit the Dreaming City White we were underpowered? The idea that power only matters in end game is one that doesn’t hold true in the game as it is right now. Next fall when the new expansion comes out and the base power level of the new area is 1500, the year old guns that are capped at 1200 aren’t going to be of any use.

The whole thing really falls apart when you talk about Crucible. If they’re ostensibly doing this for “balance,” are they just admitting they don’t give a shit about normal Crucible? It doesn’t actually fix a problem.

2. Lots of people seem to want them to make a D3 rather than keep working on D2. Won't that be this same problem an order of magnitude larger? I didn't;t like giving up all by stuff in the D1/D2 transition, but I do miss that feeling of hoping for some new hotness.

A new game at least has the potential to be worth the trade off, as it gives them the opportunity to start over and maybe do something interesting.

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All good points. Just to add to your post, one of the many problems that I have with this whole sunsetting idea is that it will directly remove gameplay variety from D2. The weapons we choose to equip are, in a way, additional nodes on our skill tree. Playing the game while equipping Revoker, Hardlight, and a sword is a very different gameplay experience from equipping Mountaintop, Recluse, and Line in the Sand. And while there is a great deal of overlap between many of the guns in D2, some of them are quite unique. Luna’s Howl and Not Forgotten sit in a category all their own. Even after their nerfs, they are the only 150rpms that handle and feel like 180s. They’re not my favourite hand cannons purely because of their effectiveness... they’re the only hand cannons that feel and hit like they do, and when they’re gone, that’s it. There go the only hand cannons in the game that I really enjoy using. (Unless Bungie goes and replaces them with a “new” hand cannon that feels and performs just like LH and NF, to which I would say “then wtf is the point of sunsetting, other than adding MORE needless grind?”). Or how about Mountaintop? There is no other weapon in the game like it. Martyr’s Retribution is similarly unique. There are plenty of more subtle examples too. Bygones is the only adaptive frame Pulse Rifle in the kinetic slot. Randy’s Throwing Knife is the only Scout Rifle that does what it does. The list goes on.
These guns are often the centrepieces of our entire builds and play styles. They are where the gameplay variety in D2 comes from. Let’s face it, there are no encounters in the Destiny franchise on the level of the 3 scarab battles in Halo 3, or warthog sections on Earth in Halo 2, or the hot landing at the beginning of Silent Cartographer in Halo 1. 99% of the content in Destiny 2 is dull and repetitive by comparison, until you start to add the weapon variety into the mix. Halo has Scorpion Tanks, Destiny has Sleeper Simulant. Halo had Warthog Chased, Destiny had Fatebringer. Taking away our ability to use the guns we want to use, in the activities we want to play, essentially kills my ability to “play for fun”. Because for me, fighting D2’s enemies with most of the guns in the game isn’t fun. Fighting them with my favourite custom loadouts is. But Bungie just can’t let us do that anymore, can they?

I’ve long been an advocate for just playing Destiny for fun and ignoring loot. That’s counter to the base design of Destiny, but it largely worked to make the bullshit inherent to Destiny feel less bad.

However, loot is obviously and important motivator for parts of Destiny. The season I got both Luna’s Howl and The Recluse was some of the most fun I’ve had in the game, and the season that taught me to love the Crucible. That journey was worth it for its own sake, but it’s also a journey I would not have undertaken if those guns weren’t at the end of it. Likewise, Loaded Question is one of my favorite guns in the entire series, and that’s a journey I absolutely would not have undertaken if the gun wasn’t there. Why would I continue to go on those journeys for weapons with a limited lifespan? Hell, I think Luna’s Howl was basically a year old when I actually got it.

While I’ve personally had to quit trying to cheat certain things to avoid the feeling of grind, I do think the rewarding weapons can work really well to push players to try things they otherwise might not. My Crucible journey for Luna’s and Recluse is the perfect example. It’s something I would never do again for gear with an expiration date.

And what if old activities. Forges will now reward gear that’s functionality useless. So will Reckoning. Will world drops even from old locations like The Dreaming City be updated to drop new weapons, or is it just not worth going there at all anymore?

I'm not really in the Destiny scene much anymore. But I guess I just want to add a couple notes to this. As someone who worked for and loves Loaded Question, I will be disappointed when I can't use it to its full effectiveness in the future. My two points to this is that We can still use it for anything that isn't really Light oriented. So no more raiding with it... but most other things like roaming the world we can still use it! And then my second point is that this will really depend on what kinda of new pinnacle weapons they create and also how hard they are to get. If they still make interesting weapons that aren't REALLY hard to get in a season, I could be okay with this.