So why do the rest of have to suffer these soft caps and almost-Powerful Gear drops? :(

Because we keep coming back. That's how addiction works.

I'm intrigued to see what comes from Community Meeting 2.0 and who will attend. Man I hope they get some Committed Casuals in the mix *coughlikepeoplefromthisforumforexamplecough* *coughdearbungieimhappytorepresenttheslowgogamerscough*

I absolutely agree with almost all of that. The new season is doing a great job of bringing old lore to the forefront and making it really feel relevant.

My only real issue is still with the power grind. I still fundamentally don’t understand the appeal of grinding out an extra 50 power level every three months. It’s bad design. I haven’t really engaged with The Reckoning, because I have to get back on the treadmill to do so, and, frankly, I don’t want to. But now we’ve reached the point where I’m an actual liability in Gambit Prime because I don’t have those perks and I’m underpowered against invaders, so I don’t do that either.

The current progression system is a literal “fuck you” from Bungie to the people that don’t play every week. It makes the entire game less fun.

I still wish they’d kill the soft cap. Make every purple engram a +1 to your average power level. So it won’t be guaranteed to help, but, eventually you’ll still be powering up just from playing whatever you want to play. Keep the milestone system as it is. Make the power tier Powerful Engrams a guaranteed +1 to whichever slot it drops for, make the higher tier Powerfuls either a guaranteed +3 for a slot, or a +5 to your average. Milestones are then still the best way to power up, but they won’t be literally the only way. The current system is complete garbage, especially considering that there’s no path forward if you’re not just grinding old content week after week.

I got hit pretty hard last night with progression system stupidity. I completed most of my Iron Banner bounties and I’m pretty sure all five or six drops I got were below the most powerful item in each slot. What is the point of all these soft caps and bounties and special events if none of it helps? Now, part of the problem is my helmet is 659 where the rest of my gear is in the 680 range, but the “Please Bungie, I just need a leveled _________” has been an issue since D1.

We’re already at the point where some highly pampered players have made it their full time jobs to rush through each new Destiny release in a matter of days. They get tons of attention from Bungie and their viewers and reach max level around a month before many of us do. So why do the rest of have to suffer these soft caps and almost-Powerful Gear drops? :(

I mean. I've only played content that I enjoy and have had a desire to play and still haven't been left behind while still disregarding a fairly large portion of available "legacy content" week-to-week. Even then, I think the tempo of content releases is too fast at the start of the season/release, sadly that has always been the case. But that problem isn't with older content being kept valuable.

In Forsaken, he opposed hunting down Uldren Sov and in the lore he practically turned his back on the Reef and only offered The City's help if Petra Venj and the Awoken would commit to abandoning the Reef and fully supporting The City under his command.

That offer came before Cayde's death.

In the Abide the Return Lore Tab, Zavala actually publicly supports Guardians' involvement in fighting the Curse:

Kamala Rior climbs onto a railing at the top of the Tower in the Last City. "Guardians of the Tower!" she calls out.

A few look her way. One begins dancing at her feet. Others fool around with a purple ball.

Kamala can feel Zavala watching. Tess and Rahool, too, though both pretend otherwise. She goes on, "The Awoken are Humanity's shield. We entered the Reef Wars to prevent a Fallen coup here on Earth. We met Oryx head-on and endured immeasurable sacrifice, all in the name of a shared future."

The dancing Guardian falls still. The purple ball is forgotten.

"We ask you now for your aid. One of our sacred cities is at risk. There are so few of us left; we cannot defend it alone. We do not ask this for free: We will open our armories; we will share our wisdom; we will teach you what we can. Please. Come to the Dreaming City. Fight with us."

"The Vanguard stands with the Reef," Zavala calls, strong and true. Kamala turns to look at him, shocked, and he smiles: apologetic, genuine, honorable.

-------

Is the Light skittish and only in it for itself with the Traveler running away from most of it’s major fights over the last several million years? Is the Light aloof or uncaring in that it makes safe spaces but leave it up to the benefiting races to defend those spaces? Is the Light too rule bound or controlling or fanatical such that following it without compromise would somehow be bad for Humanity and the other races? Is the Traveler a rogue god of creation that is itself upsetting a delicate balance of life and death?

My own theory is that the Traveler's been chased and beaten to a pulp by the Darkness every time it tries to uplift races, but because Humanity is Special™, this is the only time it fought back and remained dormant — allow Humanity to Become Legend™ enough to fight back against the Pathways into Darkness, with Ghaul/the Red Legion forcing its hand into revealing it's been alive.

I think the Praxic Order are the ones to actually have moral objections to using Darkness, with the Vanguard only allowing Gambit/The Drifter to hang around to see what controlled Darkness could do for Humanity. I doubt the Traveler wants anything beyond to be some sort of gardener god. Simplistic and goes along with the Cultivator/Collector dualism of the Light/Darkness.

That or the Traveler is just the Cyborg having fun playing Durandal with his own army of undead.

As for the forges queue, that's super weird. I've never had that happen before!

If you have a substantial light difference (I believe at about 50 or so) from the majority of the pool it will not actively match you up with people. Or at least previously that was the function. Only context I am aware of that happening. I've been doing Volundr because I'm still chasing the shader from it and have only had troubles when I stay in the Queue. But it only takes half a round to repopulate.

Yeah, well, that’s just because you’re still playing on the wrong system!

Heh, the point of the post is that if the accounts were reversed, I'd be miserable with my characters on Xbox, because then I'd have the long grindy checklists locking me out of content that might not even be fun in the end, just to start slot-machine pursuits of "good rolls" of tweaked loot.

Ultimately knowing that I hit the finish line makes everything much more satisfying, and you don't get any pangs of disappointment from your drops ever. And it's at no extra charge!

Speaking of at no extra charge, you have two weeks to get the fantastic (and free!) Dex gear!

Not that I really blame you at this point. If I had to choose between starting over with Forsaken or just abandoning Destiny 2, I’d probably just be done. And I think Forsaken is the best era of Destiny. The thought of doing all that again, though . . . No thanks.

I completely agree with your general point, though - if you miss the high-activiity window, finding groups is MUCH harder. :(

I finally bought the Annual Pass when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago. Of the four or five people on PS4 who still play Destiny at any given time, all of them have long-since been done with pre-Drifter content, and I don't want to impose that grind on them again (last night, I barely beat the Forsaken campaign, which unlocked the Black Armory content, though I hear that's a grind, and I'm working to unlock the Dreaming City, and I was able to afford the Jerky from Drifter after some grinding, but that starts a thing on Titan).

So I've been running the content solo. When the game refused to let me do the Lake of Shadows strike because it couldn't find a third, I gave up for the night and went back to WF.

So yeah, I'm a bit behind on content, but since I don't have anything that I want out of it, the motivation to do the long grinds just for the privilege of playing the new content is almost non-existent.

Funny thing is that (lack of Mountaintop aside) I'm actually much happier with my characters on Xbox, which are all permanently stuck at <380. There is no investment system for me over there now (I don't even check the Postmaster half the time; dozens, if not hundreds of things have been lost to time). I just hop onto the events available during Year 1, and there are no sub-powered drops to disappoint, no weekly checklist to keep up with, and no long grind quests to clog up my Pursuits tab. I just hop on, play Comp or Whisper, and bounce without having to care about curse levels, enhanced perks, playing slots to get tryhard rolls, etc.

Cody's right. The Investment system needs an overhaul.

Having to ignore the new content in favor of stuff I’ve done hundreds of times at this point because Bungie doesn’t feel like I’ve earned the privelage of doing new stuff yet is the exact opposite of fun, though. It’s completely ridiculous game design. “Here’s some cool new shit! Go play the old stuff for about six hours and then you can play the new stuff! And then we’ll unlock more new stuff, but you can’t play that until you do six hours of old stuff again!”

It’s like Halo 2 coming out, but after you play the first level, you have to go play The Library six times. Then when you get to Deita Halo, you have to go back and play The Maw.

It’s a stupid way to design a video game. And it’s the laziest way I can think of to keep old content relevant, which is the thing they’re trying to do.

Same here. Are there forum people here who need or want to play older content but are apprehensive about asking for a team? It seems like when I'm on, most of the clan members are doing raid stuff or the same people group up to do certain activities. I rarely send invites out because I don't want to be a bother.

Be a bother. I'm already feeling super-guilty that the last time we connected, I had to bail really quickly. Be a bother.

haha sheesh it's all good. My general schedule is 30 minutes around 8:30pm and an hour or so on weekends around 7am. Not exactly a prime schedule for making a group :P

Same here. Are there forum people here who need or want to play older content but are apprehensive about asking for a team? It seems like when I'm on, most of the clan members are doing raid stuff or the same people group up to do certain activities. I rarely send invites out because I don't want to be a bother.

Be a bother. I'm already feeling super-guilty that the last time we connected, I had to bail really quickly. Be a bother.

So it's just generally frustrating when I fall behind on the grind and miss out on these activities when they're at their peak. Hell I tried to do some Black Armory forges with my dad the other day and we only got a couple people that we ended up matching with over 2 hours... I suppose they've moved on to Gambit Prime/Reckoning.

Other people have mentioned this, and I find it confusing.

I do Forges regularly (5 so far since the reset yesterday morning, for example, and probably a dozen last week, spread out), and I can't remember the last time I didn't match with randoms for the task.

Feel free to invite me when you're doing them - I'm always (well, almost always) up for them, I find them relaxing.

I completely agree with your general point, though - if you miss the high-activiity window, finding groups is MUCH harder. :(

Nah, he’s right.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.

He is right if you only find raids fun. But I would guess that the majority find Destiny fun. I am one of those people who find Destiny fun. I'm not saying there could be some changes to make it better for some people. But y'all are saying we are all on a hamster wheel hoping we can finally get some cheese.

In my situation, it's not that I only find Raids fun, it's just that I find the raids to be a lot of fun. I didn't power level fast enough to play the latest Raid when it launched and as it is, the crew I normally raid with has already moved on and I missed out on my "easy" option for doing the Raid and now have to rely on other ways of organizing a raid.

So it's just generally frustrating when I fall behind on the grind and miss out on these activities when they're at their peak. Hell I tried to do some Black Armory forges with my dad the other day and we only got a couple people that we ended up matching with over 2 hours... I suppose they've moved on to Gambit Prime/Reckoning.

Same here. Are there forum people here who need or want to play older content but are apprehensive about asking for a team? It seems like when I'm on, most of the clan members are doing raid stuff or the same people group up to do certain activities. I rarely send invites out because I don't want to be a bother.

So how do us slow-go gamers meet up? The fireteam builder is a great tool. (The issues is just finding interested people that match your schedule)

Honestly, I think the FTB is the best tool. Try different times of the day. I love helping people with raids, if I am free, but I need to schedule it out in advance.

Nah, he’s right.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.

He is right if you only find raids fun. But I would guess that the majority find Destiny fun. I am one of those people who find Destiny fun. I'm not saying there could be some changes to make it better for some people. But y'all are saying we are all on a hamster wheel hoping we can finally get some cheese.

In my situation, it's not that I only find Raids fun, it's just that I find the raids to be a lot of fun. I didn't power level fast enough to play the latest Raid when it launched and as it is, the crew I normally raid with has already moved on and I missed out on my "easy" option for doing the Raid and now have to rely on other ways of organizing a raid.

So it's just generally frustrating when I fall behind on the grind and miss out on these activities when they're at their peak. Hell I tried to do some Black Armory forges with my dad the other day and we only got a couple people that we ended up matching with over 2 hours... I suppose they've moved on to Gambit Prime/Reckoning.

Same here. Are there forum people here who need or want to play older content but are apprehensive about asking for a team? It seems like when I'm on, most of the clan members are doing raid stuff or the same people group up to do certain activities. I rarely send invites out because I don't want to be a bother.

So how do us slow-go gamers meet up? The fireteam builder is a great tool. (The issues is just finding interested people that match your schedule)

Nah, he’s right.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.

He is right if you only find raids fun. But I would guess that the majority find Destiny fun. I am one of those people who find Destiny fun. I'm not saying there could be some changes to make it better for some people. But y'all are saying we are all on a hamster wheel hoping we can finally get some cheese.

In my situation, it's not that I only find Raids fun, it's just that I find the raids to be a lot of fun. I didn't power level fast enough to play the latest Raid when it launched and as it is, the crew I normally raid with has already moved on and I missed out on my "easy" option for doing the Raid and now have to rely on other ways of organizing a raid.

I totally agree that raids are kinda the pinnacle of the Destiny experience. And it's especially hard when some people can level up fast because they have more time. The same thing happened with my blind raid group when the forge dropped. I just don't think we can blame Bungie for setting a "checklist" of content that we have to drudge through. It's called Destiny, if you only enjoy the raids then maybe you shouldn't be playing Destiny.

So it's just generally frustrating when I fall behind on the grind and miss out on these activities when they're at their peak. Hell I tried to do some Black Armory forges with my dad the other day and we only got a couple people that we ended up matching with over 2 hours... I suppose they've moved on to Gambit Prime/Reckoning.

There has been a lot of "now is the time to play it" especially with the raids. And I agree they need to be more relaxed to let more people play it earlier. As for the forges queue, that's super weird. I've never had that happen before!

Nah, he’s right.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.

He is right if you only find raids fun. But I would guess that the majority find Destiny fun. I am one of those people who find Destiny fun. I'm not saying there could be some changes to make it better for some people. But y'all are saying we are all on a hamster wheel hoping we can finally get some cheese.

In my situation, it's not that I only find Raids fun, it's just that I find the raids to be a lot of fun. I didn't power level fast enough to play the latest Raid when it launched and as it is, the crew I normally raid with has already moved on and I missed out on my "easy" option for doing the Raid and now have to rely on other ways of organizing a raid.

So it's just generally frustrating when I fall behind on the grind and miss out on these activities when they're at their peak. Hell I tried to do some Black Armory forges with my dad the other day and we only got a couple people that we ended up matching with over 2 hours... I suppose they've moved on to Gambit Prime/Reckoning.

Nah, he’s right.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.

He is right if you only find raids fun. But I would guess that the majority find Destiny fun. I am one of those people who find Destiny fun. I'm not saying there could be some changes to make it better for some people. But y'all are saying we are all on a hamster wheel hoping we can finally get some cheese.

The game is designed so that “fun” doesn’t matter. It’s just a checklist of stuff to do every week, and if you don’t do that checklist, you can forget about keeping up and doing the newest, high tier content.