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Wut? I guess for historical purposes and retro competitive modes this should be left in... but I would prefer H2 playlists be devoid of this nonsense. Halo MP has always been about positioning, strategy, G/G/M and teamwork to me with a bit of old man aiming skills and the odd noscope.

I boot up old Streetfighter games when I want to have fun with BS input nonsense. I guess I'll have to make do with Blackout.

Same goes for super-bounces. If these were so critical to Halo funness they would have left it in later games, just like Street-fighter did with cancels. I guess jetpacks and mancannons did do this in terms of superbounce but whatever.

At least, I'm not seeing it on here:
http://www.ign.com/wikis/halo-master-chief-collection/Achievements#Halo_2_Achievements

There are LASO achievements, one for getting the Scarab Gun... not seeing any BXR/glitch combo ones.

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This game is also made for those gamers who are yet to play. To each of them, these changes represent a potential for Destiny to be even better for them than it has been so far for us.

The ride so far has been pretty good and I haven't even tried VoG yet.

The AR Nerf needed to be a buff for other weapons instead, making them more viable in PVE and PVP. The shotgun nerf was pretty much pointless considering how Shotguns are supposed to work in arena shooters. Hell, I never much saw the issue and I had an Invective and I rarely used it solely because the range wasn't that great. And now they SHORTEN it? Come on.

The towers on Templar? Still bullshit. Of the SIX towers, there are only two that allow people to even hit Templar and enough Oracles to make a difference. The Kill-Barrier doesn't even prevent cheesing because you can still make the jump from Left-Front back to the Spawn-Cliff and stay there anyway.

And this talk of making Atheon random? It's stupid. It just forces people to play the game in a random way, just like the fucking rest of the game. My Raid runs have two of the lower level people go into the Timestream with a higher level player to man the Relic, that way the high level people can easily hold the portals, which is very hard when you have 26's or 27's doing it instead.

All this shit is straight up immaturity on behalf of Bungie because people are having fun in their game the way they want to, and Bungie didn't like it.

That said, it is an ever changing game. These kinds of changes happen constantly in online-only games, just go talk to any MMO or MOBA player.

And the game is still in its infancy. Devs are never going to catch every issue in the beta. There are still people who want to purchase the game that haven't got around to it yet. Too early to be worrying about details like these, I think.

Is there anywhere we can see statistics on the percentage of the player base that have even attempted the raid?

The funny thing about the AR or Shotgun nerf is I don't think anyone would have even really noticed if they had just said "balanced weapons." The ARs feel pretty much the same, the only difference you'll find is it's SLIGHTLY easier to kill someone with an AR at range with a different primary. And as someotherguy has said, even the Shotgun range nerf is a misnomer since you can still kill a fully shielded enemy at the same range as before, you just can't pick off weak players from as far.

That said, it is an ever changing game. These kinds of changes happen constantly in online-only games, just go talk to any MMO or MOBA player. Even with the changes Luke talks about the changes are incredibly minimal compared to your average MMO or MOBA. And on a similar vein, a nerf in those kinds of online games (or my favorite: TF2) meant your favorite OP weapon turned into a wet noodle. A "nerf" in Destiny means barely noticeable adjustments.

I bet the volume of data they consider is just huge too. Think about what we've had access to externally since Halo 3; where, internally, is Bungie now?

shiiiit Bungie can probably tell when I've gotten up to get a drink and/or use the bathroom

Investment systems are not behind these changes, more like the ability, dev resources and a title designed to facilitate such changes are the reasons behind it. Most these changes would happen in a modern game without those things. Sure, they could modify the game according to the mobs desires, but what kind of game does that make? I'm sure plenty of them exist already in any case. And normally, yeah, I would say leave the co-op stuff alone but being so connected with the PvP it needs to be treated with the same amount of respect.

See Starcraft, Dota, Streetfighter or any RTS I can think of from the last few years for examples of games where balance is messed with after release by the developer in order to create a more varied and interesting game. And it's not done by "buffing everything else". And maybe it doesn't always work every update, but there can be more updates! Vanilla is rarely considered superior in any MP game. There are plenty of games not touched afterwards, but this is not because the dev does not want to, it's because nobody will pay him for his time or for QA or 1st party fees to make their vision reality. Bungie seems to want to create an ecosystem where this is not a problem anymore.

The alternative = do nothing worked for Halo, exploring the quirks and flaws were fun. But they are not making that game. They are making a different game, or a series of games, that they will have the money, dev bandwidth and expectation to evolve over time. This is difficult when you have 3 years between releases. Is it ruined by having persistance/investment system? For some of you yes. And you knew this before release and purchased it anyway! That is so insane!

I am the biggest Halo nerd I know IRL, maybe not alpha level like some of you but way up there, and I never played one of those titles almost every day for a month+ straight. Ever. And I worked a lot less and had a lot less children back then. Nor did I enjoy as high a percentage of the time spent as with those titles as I do with Destiny. Except maybe H1, that shit was baller.

I can see where this game is less than it's predecessors, often by design but also by omission. I can also see where it is more. And for a first release it hits a lot of what it needs to in order to keep me hooked. I may not play all the way through till the EXP, but I'll definitely be back for it if I stop and I've already got more value out of the base title than almost any non-sandbox games in my steam or console library so Bungie has succeeded where it counts as far as I am concerned.

In fact, I just checked it to be sure. https://steamdb.info/calculator/?player=feralgoat&currency=us

At almost 4 days played, Destiny is right up there near the top. Against games I have owned for years. Only Kerbal and Civ 5 beat it (And Civ 5 only because of epic lan action). And it's not my only investment game, I own all the Blizzard stuff as well. None of them are as fun or rewarding for me. I don't see where this narrative of this game being junk is coming from. It's a fantastic Bungie game. It's not a fantastic Halo game maybe, but hound 343 if you want one of those as this was not meant to be that.

The biggest problems I have had are with recent Bungie/PSN networking issues that didn't exist in the alpha/beta or first few weeks of release, and the lack of some social features I hope to see later and may be because of 1st party issues or unwillingness to dilute the MM pool. Every hopper you add reduces the quality of those remaining in theory, and there are already so many due to your hated investment system and the level spread it creates. But maybe that's not such a problem in the US where most people play from and can be corrected. I hope they sort them out.