I feel like their main target is now the world's first raid completion streamers. They're setting high power level bars just for the sake of upping the difficulty for these people. This same strategy went into escalation protocol. They don't want the optics of the all-day grinders blowing through new content, so they set the power level high with no way to grind it high enough for day 1. Of course, if you aren't an all-day grinder, you're doing good to be leveled enough in month 1 of new content.

Nobody seemed to do a sanity check on this expansion. They just set the level for the hardcore guys right off the bat. I feel more and more that their intention for people to experience the content is to watch the streamers do everything first rather than play it.

Same thing here. I feel a little duped after paying for the annual pass and I can't even participate in the stuff. (Let alone it be the stuff that is open to everyone.) So I guess I paid for the special stuff that I'll never be powerful enough to acquire anyway.

Anyway, I guess this is how it goes. Destiny has changed, or is changing. Which is fine, I'm just disappointed that it's changing in a direction that isn't parallel with what I like. I've never been the person that plays the game for the chase. It's fun just to get on and do stuff. But now the "stuff" is so above my light level that it can't even be done? Na. It's time to move on.

Jumping into the update yesterday was one of those experiences that leaves me utterly confused about what Bungie's plan or thought process is when it comes to their "player experience" or whatever we might call it.

I'll back up a bit: I've been having LOADS of fun since the launch of Forsaken. I think the quality of the content, along with the breadth of the sandbox makes Destiny a lot of fun to play right now. The tangled shore is really cool, and the Dreaming City is spectacular. All the extra story missions and challenges, plus the way the plot is unfolding slowly over time, plus Gambit and the new strikes... it's top-notch Destiny. I love it.

Still, Forsaken is not without its problems. It has become increasingly clear that Bungie's insistence on locking content behind arbitrary level grinds is a big problem for a significant portion of the player base. And let's be realistic... anyone who is still playing Destiny 2 at this point is a big fan of the franchise. We're beyond alienating the "casual" players here... we're at a point where even hardcore fans feel like they can't keep up unless their schedule leaves them room to play for several hours per day, most days of the week.

One thing that has always struck me as strange is the way Bungie appears to be completely tone-deaf when it comes to understanding the experience they've created. I just ranted about how much I love the Dreaming City. But when I first got there, all the wonder and amazement and desire to explore was immediately gut-checked by the realization that I was waaaaaay too under-leveled to do almost anything in that space. And I wasn't under-leveled because of some mistake I'd made. I just played the content that Bungie had put in front of me, and followed the path they laid out. I went to the Dreaming City when their game lead me to it.

It's such a strange 1-2 punch; "here, look at this amazing place that you can't wait to explore, and you just spent all this time working and grinding towards! Now you're finally here! Isn't it great? Well, jokes on you because you can't do any of it yet!" Like... really? Why introduce the player to a new area if that area is still out of their reach? Could you imagine watching a movie, having it build towards the climax, only to have the movie abruptly stop with a message saying "rewatch the first 2/3rds of the film several times over the next 2 weeks and then we will show you the ending"? Ok, I know that isn't a perfect analogy, but you get my point. Why not have the pre-Dreaming City content take you up to the minimum light level of the Dreaming City content... without weeks of repeating the same milestones over and over? It's such an obviously frustrating moment for the player to be lead towards a goal, work towards it, then to feel like they've gotten there only to discover that they can't really experience it yet. It's just so... mean.

This is a pattern that Bungie keeps recreating. We saw it during the Oryx raid (and most raids since that, to varying degrees). We're told "here's the required level to do this activity" only to discover, mid-activity, that the required level isn't actually good enough to finish the activity. We saw it in minor ways during the D2 campaign, where we would run into level gaps between story missions that would prevent us from doing the next mission until we leveled up more. But at least there, we had other Adventures and Patrol activities to facilitate the leveling up process; other new content to bridge the gap. More and more these days, Bungie seems determined to put these gaps in our way, make them increasingly bigger, without providing the right amount of side content to fill those gaps. Escalation Protocol was the flagship endgame activity of Warmind, but completing the Warmind content didn't bring the player anywhere remotely close to the level that would allow them to play EP. EP should have been one of the activities that we could grind in order to level up, rather than making it this totally out of reach activity that we all basically ignored until 2 months after Warmind's release when we were finally leveled up high enough to give it an earnest try.

And now we have Black Armory. I jumped in with my expectations fully in check. I knew we weren't getting a campaign. I knew not to hope for a big story progression or new patrol spaces or a bunch of new activities... But I did expect that when I start the single new quest line provided to me, I would be able to actually do the quest without grinding light levels for a week or two in between quest steps. It's not like the nature of the level grind has changed, either. It is literally the exact same things we've been doing for 3 months now. I hit 600 on all 3 characters weeks ago... this should mean that when a new piece of content is added to the game, my characters will be ready for it. Instead, what Bungie has done is hit the "pause" button on our ability to progress. Why didn't Bungie raise the level cap a week or two ago? If we're just grinding the exact same content anyway, why not let the players make that progression ahead of the new content release, so that when the new content that we've paid for comes out, we can actually play it?

I love Destiny, and I have all the respect in the world for the hard work and talent that goes into creating this game. And I'm equally sure that a few weeks from now, once yet another level grind is partially behind me, I'll be enjoying the new content that Bungie has added. But I feel I need to make this point strongly:

Bungie, THIS IS NOT HOW YOU SELL CONTENT TO YOUR FANS/CUSTOMERS.

This tradition of keeping the player in a state of feeling perpetually behind, locked out of content that they've paid for due to unnecessary and arbitrary level caps and minimums... it burns people. It makes them feel taken advantage of. It makes them think that you, as a studio, don't value their time.

Obviously, not everyone will feel this way. The super mega hardcore players who burn 10-12 hours per day will crash through the grind so fast that they'll forget all about it in a few days. Other people who just don't care as much or are ultra-zen about everything will wonder what all the fuss is about. I know that tone can be difficult to convey in a post like this, so I'll add that I'm not mad or angry. I just think that this is absolutely not "ok" practice.

I should say one last time, just to be crystal clear, that I think this is a big problem specifically because I think Bungie is doing such great work with a lot of what is going in to Destiny these days, and I worry that the implementation of their progression system/level requirements/grind very well might ruin many players' enjoyment of what is otherwise a fantastic game.

I think the new mode will be fun once we're all leveled, but it was an abrasive and grindy wall to hit. Plus, the plot is super dumb to me this time. I loved the Dreaming City stuff, but this guns-for-gun's-sake thing feels like it would be better handled in a Borderlands fashion than a serious tone. Tell me a legend about it. Make the chase ridiculous as a wink to the fourth wall. Keeping it serious just feels a bit off-putting.

I must admit that I’m baffled. I fully expect to look back appreciatively in five weeks of all the fun I had and am having grinding out Black Armory weapons. But I expected a bigger impact on day one of new stuff still. The lack of new armor is disappointing. Every season should have new ornaments for Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit sets. That seems like a no-brainer to me.

That said, I also don’t really care. I will continue to just have fun playing Destiny. I had so much fun playing Gambit with Claude and Talli and Disciple a few nights ago. I had a blast last night doing the Nightfall and Heroic story missions and Crucible. Even our failed attempt at the first Forge was a lot of fun.

It’s a disappointing first day, for sure, but I’m willing to see the run of the first month before I really judge—this was explicitly advertised as new end game content, designed to keep the hardcore players coming back. That’s what this is—we’ll see how good it is at accomplishing that in a month.

I ain't even gotta hashtag it.

Anyway, the Annex was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It feels like 30% more Tower, with some neat visuals here and there... So it's weird that it's entirely lifeless and empty. Not even a single scannable... That said, it's clearly meant to be populated in the future with more vendors and such, so I'm not writing it off as a total waste yet.

Also, it's weird that the long-hidden Golden Age armory is A.) Located in the outer wall of the Tower, built long after the Collapse, and B.) a place that The Spider knew about, but nobody on Earth did (except for the dozens of Guardians who know about it immediately after we do. Guess our Guardian just doesn't know how to keep their mouth shut...

Hmm.

Bleh. I think enough has been said about how underwhelming the Day 1 content is, and how weird that the Tutorial Forge requires grinding at least a dozen light levels worth of Milestones before you can do it, essentially making it so that you can't access much more than the people who didn't shell out $35 for the privilege of seeing that wall...

But keep in mind that there's another one coming on Friday (as well as a raid), so really, you should probably just do what Bungie wants and ignore the new Forge stuff for now. Focus on doing your milestones like normal, and have fun. Those who plan to drop into the new raid, don't expect to beat it the first week, because RNG will be RNG with drops, and your team will probably be all over the place level-wise.

For people who don't play Destiny religiously, but bought the Annual Pass for whatever reason, you just have to wait for a Christmas Story 650LL gun during the Dawning, and just enjoy the fun inherent in the friendgame.

I've not read anything other than the first paragraph of the original post by breitzen, which is where I'll start from.

I too have been underwhelmed by the day one experience. In thinking about why, it occurred to me that there was no real lead up to anything. It was just - oh go do this!

It's not that we need pomp and circumstance, just that... there were missed opportunities. Of course. Benefit of the doubt says that this stuff was made a year ago, so they coudn't have known what they knew a month ago... but yeah.

So what would have been better? TL;DR: Destiny becomes Harry Potter in the weeks before. Here's a scenario I'm just throwing out straight of my head for this post...

Three weeks ago a generator of some sort stops working, as we're still working out the kinks in rebuilding our tower after The Red War. This puts things in stand-by, we see frames scurrying about, blinking lights indicating a low power mode... a whole shebang.

No doubt, during this time we need to find parts of who knows what in the EDZ. Pretty simple. At the end there an enemy-less storyteller mission with Amanda in some underbelly where Titans can use percussive maintenance, Warlocks can use Arc Based light, and Hunters... I don't know. Use golden gun to intsa-weld something? :P

Lights are on by reset, things reset to what we expect in default... except for one thing. A door control is sparking, and in fact the whole area has been evacuated so that the maintenance frames can figure out what is going on. The Calus bot... at least for this moment is gone (but will be back after...?). The Drifter is back on his ship, replaced by a frame nestled in the connecting tunnels adjacent storage area. Ikora Rey is... thinking... by Cades old spot, and Hawthorn is Chilling in the secret room. "Hey look what I found" she'll say. "I wonder if there any other hidden rooms", she'll tease. And of course, we'll go to the spot that's sparking and we'll see "Press X to..." what have you. "Must have overloaded in the reset" no doubt our ghost, ever the observant one and fan of the obvious will tell us. The door... will then open alarmingly quickly and break. Spark.

Finally! What EVERY GUARDIAN HAS DREAMED OF has occurred... and oh look, no one else around. Neither Guardian, nor... Non-Guardian? Anyway, you go down and explore, or maybe you don't. Either way it's your only chance to see this without anyone else around, because once you leave, by the time you get back it will be public. Yet for this case, you go down. All seems abandoned. Remembrance of what once was.

Then you see an area that looks like a path to something... but only leads to a wall.

You scan it with ghost... "Something not right" he'll say. Something something "energy signature" then too. Then that all leads up to out happy fat friend giving us a shiny card and a name... "The Black Armory".

LOL!!!

Nahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Lets just turn on the DLC. That's far more "living world".

...and that my friends is part of why Forsaken was so successful.

----------------------------------------

As for everything else...Oh...and this game hates me now. Everyone around me is getting Geomag Stabilisers, and I'm getting reeeeeeeeely salty about it. Like, I'm regressing over here. You know what I got last night? I got a master worked RATTLER! Nope, not a year two... year one! Static roll and everything. Got a Masterworked Braytech Osprey too. Year One.

Exotics? Warmind Weapons? Freaking NEW DLC jazz...just...err...NOPE!

*Sigh*

I want my OLD RNG back. ;_;

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/47501

They've reduced the power requirement for the first forge (whatever that means, I haven't played yet, LOL) by 5. Not a HUGE difference, granted, but it might help some folks. They say they're going to be making other changes toward the same end, but they're not saying precisely what those are yet.

Which is absolutely fine by me. Stringing things out gives me a reason to get on for an hour or two when I have the time. The dlc model in d2 with warmind and osiris was terrible.

I guess playing other mmo's makes me not too worried about the "grind"? At least I'll be motivated to play...which was not the case in warmind or osiris. I'd just log on to raid once a week and that was it. The idea of getting a collection of cosmetic gear sets has no appeal to me.

Some thoughts:

• I know Bungie is going to address things as soon as they can, but man oh man, what a terrible opening experience this has been. Why is something like this being addressed with emergency Power Level reductions and Weekly Updates? It really feels like nobody at Bungie is advocating for the normal player anymore. Yes, streamers who are literally paid to play the game all day probably can beat it early, but the rest of us are just stuck now. And, sheesh, even though I'm still stuck, there are plenty of people well below my Power Level who have zero chance of beating this first forge this year! "New Content! (that you can't play or enjoy)" totally sucks.
  
  
• Escalation Protocol "worked" because it could be (had to be) ignored for the first several weeks weeks because there was other stuff to do. There was a story to beat. There were collectables to find. There were Strikes to complete and get good at. There were Exotics and special Legendary quests to go after. With Black Armory, there is absolutely nothing to do except fail to complete the first forge over and over. (Of course, Escalation Protocol didn't really work either. Remember, Bungie had to do one of these server side emergency tweaks to it too. What is it with Bungie not respecting their players these days??)
  
  
• Why do all of these team events totally suck when it comes to rewards if you don't complete them? When me and a couple of random got the boss down to 25% health we got a green triangle and a blue engram that did absolutely nothing to help me succeed. 580ish rewards when I'm being stomped by 620-625 level enemies is just stupid. I'm not even sure why this forge drops rewards, because they don't mean anything. They're more like an insult or middle finger than a reward. Actually completing the event should still be rewarding, and it looks like it might be given Ada's extensive screen of stuff to earn, but not beating it shouldn't be a complete waste of time like it is now. And that goes for things like EP and the Blind Well.
  
  
• This obsession Bungie has with starting us off with a nearly impossible uphill climb needs to end. Why can't Patrol, or Strikes, or matchmade activities, or Raids be enjoyable from day one? Why does the challenge keep coming from me dying in two hits instead of clever mechanics or an overwhelming number of normal enemies? If there needs to be an extra challenge beyond mechanics and normal enemies, why can't selectable light levels be a thing again? Remember back when there were four levels of Strikes that you could progress through? Black Armory sure could use a system like that right now!

And so, I end day two of Black Armory with no one to play with and a new vendor who won't let me buy anything because I only once even got close to unlocking her two screens of inventory... :(

...I'm sort of glad I haven't after reading this thread. I don't plan on raiding due to logistics and power level -- still more or less blind on the last raid. And I was able to get the quest and go into the annex, but I need the annual pass to go beyond the first visit to the vendor. Clever marketing.

I did get to see that I can't exchange armor mod materials unless I buy the annual pass. It was only a little insulting.

I'll continue to play a few times a week, but I'm disappointed that other than a seemingly better RNG, I'm starting the 560-600 grind from 600-650. Just as I was mostly to a single set of masterwork armor. Ah well.

Maybe the dawning will be a bit better.

So, I thought this up in my 10 minute drive to work this morning. Just posting here tk see if anybody thought ot would be a good idea.

What of they had a set powerful engram level that increased on a set schedule? No matter what your light level going in (assuming you had reached max 1-50 level) you would get powerful engrams at set level each day.
For example:
Black Armory launches with an increase in max light level from 600 to 650.
Day 1 - All powerful engrams drop at 605, regardless of your personal light level.
Day 2 - All powerful engrams drop at 610, regardless of your light level or if you played the previous day.
Day 3 - All powerful engrams drop at 615, regardless of your light level or if you played the previous day.
Day 4 and so on - drops increase by 5 each day.

Raid releases on Day 3 with a light level of 630-640. Everyone who has played can be at 615 with a reasonable amount of playtime. The raid is still challenging, but is available to play for players who have been playing constantly and players who are returning after a break. Larger pool competing for world's first.

By the end of the 2nd week you could be at max power level. I suspect the hardcore grinders will be there by that time anyway under the current system.

Returning players who didn't play days 1-whatever can still level up at an easy pace. Play one day of powerful engram activites and you should be caught up with your friends and ready to raid.

They had just unlocked the 650 cap at the start of the season. Giving people a week to bring their light up a little bit would have gone a long ways toward the gap they created. Not only that it is a time where people know there is going to be content coming where we want to be as high as possible for while also not being able to see that dangling carrot.

Now that I've had some time to level up and tackle the Forge some more, I'm really enjoying it.

I've come close, but still haven't managed to beat the Gofannon Forge (seriously, those Servitors are a pain in the ass). I've completed the Volundr Forge around a dozen times now. It's a really neat activity!

It's a bit disappointing that the only difference between the two available Forges are enemy mixtures. I wasn't expecting, but I was hoping for them to have some mechanical differences, with a unique twist for each one.

In any case, I'm really enjoying the new stuff. The bounties are a cool addition. They're a great mix of doing old stuff to and running the Forge.

I do worry about how fun the Forges will remain once everyone is at or near the level cap--the challenge level seems nearly perfect when just above 610. I hope they remain as fun when they're significantly easier. Blind Well and Escalation Protocol are fun now that they're easily largely because of the large numbers of players and the public nature of the events (at least that's a huge part of it for me), but the Forge doesn't have that to sustain it.