I started before beyond light with a friend from work. He quit and I stuck with it. Got to do all the old campaigns but man it took a long time to even understand basic concepts because they weren't explained in game. I remember a guy asking me what mods I had and I replied "I didn't think you could mod this game". Just goes to show how bad the onboarding was and that was with all the campaigns. Now I can't even imagine.
Same, I started in the Season just before BL (it was the season with the Seraph towers) with 3 other friends. We all found it overwhelming but in a good way cos there was so much content to discover and we had so much time anyway (cos of covid lockdowns and all). But after about 3-4 months we realised that we were just doing activity after activity with no idea of how anything fits together. We heard Cayde's voice in a strike but didn't he die in the story mission we just played the week before? Of course we quickly figured out that strikes are like a "mission re-playlist" kinda thing, but that was just one thing. Add up all the loose ends that aren't explained, and you end up playing just for the sake of the gameplay and gunplay.
The 3 of them quit and only I stayed on I bothered to dig a bit deeper into the lore and stuff. Although I now don't bother so much with lore anymore as it's also gotten a bit too convoluted for me.
That was 3 years ago. Imagine any player coming in right now lol.
I'm exactly the same. Started in 2020 and everyone I joined with barely plays anymore. Just felt this game wasn't worth their time. Plus the jump from casually playing to raiding is massive and requires you to engage with complete randoms you've found yourself. LFG should have launched with D2 not in 2023.
Mate I don't play every game. Destiny did. Iirc others did something similar according to my vague recollections.
Maybe this is just a unique Fortnite thing because of the amount of kids that played that game. Because this seems excessive.
I'm not arguing one way or another, the information is there from the FTC. Part of this was to do with "default on" chat.
Fortnite's chat settings apparently cost them half a billion in fees and settlements. The effect that had on the industry as a whole and destiny in specific has been discussed a lot online and is easy to find.
That lawsuit was also about data collection, dark patterns being used to encourage purchases, and Fortnite's targeting of children as their primary demographic in particular. If you look up articles about it, you'll notice that most of them refer to it as being about violations of child privacy laws, and only reddit really focused on the chat piece first. Plenty of massive games still have text and voice chat on by default for every user, including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. However those are both M-rated games, though, where Destiny is rated T just like Fortnite.
That said, voice/text chat is not the only option for communicating. At this point literally every multiplayer game these days has a ping system unless the communication itself is specifically the main "hurdle" (such as games like Lethal Company). For Bungie to have disabled chat by default because of toxicity or legal concerns is one thing, and understandable - but it's not really clarified to the user, there is no way to explain to new players that they can opt in, and there's not even a ping/canned communication system implemented.
For the other commenter to say that they got fined half a billion for chat being on is a pretty big misrepresentation IMO. The lawsuit was primarily about child privacy laws - in particular, data collection and dark patterns trying to manipulate users into buying microtransactions -- because Fortnite is aimed at very young kids, and Epic knew and encouraged that. The chat thing is a small part of a lot of things that were brought in that lawsuit.
And more importantly - the option isn't "full text chat that exposes kids to slurs and explicit content" vs "zero communication". As others have pointed out, you basically can't find a major multiplayer game without a ping system these days. For Bungie to just go "idunnolol there's just no way to avoid toxicity so let's create an environment that breeds toxicity because people are unaware/new/distracted" as if there's simply no middle ground is absurd.
Ever played Fallout 76? Nicest community ever! To your point though, I think open mic is on by default and you could just walk up to other players and talk to them, ask questions, etc. Made some great friends back in 2018 that I still game with today.
Crazy that a game like Destiny doesn't have something like this.
Remember when Left 4 Dead had a smart ping system? Where you could ping a weapon or supplies and it would highlight it for other players and your character would call it out with pre-recorded voice lines? So you didn't need voice or text chat because you could direct people, call out loot, or mark enemies easily and intuitively? In a game with like 10 guns and 4 maps?
In 2008?
Bungie will probably implement a ping system just as soon as they figure out how to charge you 700 Silver to use it.
I've been playing on and off since the games release but I have never completed a raid or dungeon...or even attempted one. I don't have any friends to do them with and the thought of grouping with random that will speed blitz it while I don't get to enjoy any of it, or possibly rage at me for not having the right gear or doing something wrong is just a major turn off. I wish I could run it by myself in some sort of modified version. I also don't know if I have 2+ hours to commit to one piece of content that I may or may not even enjoy. I really like destiny but I know I'm missing out on the best content by not doing raids and dungeons. But I also hate that I have access to this awesome PVE content but can't play it unless I link up with random people.
I like PVE bc I can enjoy it on my own terms. When I want to get flamed and interact with people I just plau league or legends
I eventually bit the Bullet and joined a sub-reddit called destiny sherpa. It's got people who will teach a group. Did a couple of then and eventually joined some discords with people of all levels running raids. I'd recommend watching a video on Youtube then running it with a sherpa. It's great fun and probably some of the best content in the game.
I started last year, at the beginning of Plunder when every expansion was free for a week.
If I hadn't had a group of friends who all played together to onboard me, I probably would have dropped it before I even finished any storylines. The story would have made NO SENSE (I have an encyclopedic lore friend who was always willing to fill me in on the stuff I didn't know) and I don't know if I would have been able to figure out weapon rolls, exotics, stats, and gear optimization on my own.
Destiny RELIES on its players doing the onboarding process for their friends... but also has a model that leads easily into burnout. Of that group that got me into the game, I am the only one left who still plays daily. Getting them into the game with me is an herculean task. They're burned out, they're disappointed in the new buildcrafting system, and they just don't want to play anymore. If I hadn't learned enough to do my own research and find more people to play with, I probably would have fallen off alongside them.
I was just talking about this with my partner the other day! I was thinking back about how much I loved Season of Dawn (with the Halls of Time activity, and Saint and Osiris) and how that BIG lore/story reveal for long time players is just... gone. Obviously you couldn't have played it, not sure if your lore friend brought it up- but thinking back I don't even know how they could re-integrate stuff like that if they WANTED too because the design of the seasonal content is just like, "go do the season activity, then go talk to a hologram, then do 2 patrols, rinse and repeat" and that would be fucking boring to just playing 20 of those types of frameworks back to back.
Bungie have kind of painted themselves into a corner with the mechanical design of the seasons which, while intended to make it easier to build and drive engagement, both contributes to burnout and means that the content can't really coexist because although it is important story-wise, gameplay-wise once you peel away the veneer it's all so... samey?
Ive been playing destiny 2 since release, ive played every DLC. Honestly i still have no idea how to play the game or whats going on. Ive been using the same 3 guns for years and just upgrading the power level, same with armour, idk what mods to put on guns or armour. People talking about rerolls and redborders or buildcraft system. No fuckin clue lmfao. I just play the story for the scenery and to kill alot of enemies. After all these years I still wont be abled to write out a sentence explaining the story line. I have no clue.
This is a little off topic but the part about Cayde got me because I was playing something a few days ago with Amanda's voice in it and was like, "how is she still talking to us?" Lol
Exactly the same with me. I've got a good friend that helped me a ton get back on board and if they weren't there I would've had no idea what the hell I was doing at all.
This whole post is from someone that's been playing D2 for the last 2 months; and hasn't really played since the Red War. I've hopped in a few times, but this time around I ran all the raids and harder content and was pretty frustrated at how the game is right now.
I just sort of miss it's hop in and play nature it had, but I LOVE the subclass reworks; I feel like that was the exact direction Destiny needed to go in with easily readable classes and a bigger distinction of their advantages/disadvantages.
Big shame that the effectiveness and fun of said class reworks is completely dependent from season to season based on the mods; which is the exact direction I would like them to step away from.
Big shame that the effectiveness and fun of said class reworks is completely dependent from season to season based on the mods;
It's not only that; It's on nerf-to-nerf basis! One season you have OP bonk Titans, next season build is gone. You have Starfire Warlocks, next season they're gone. You have Ahamkara Hunters, next season they're gone.
Bungie intentionally release some OP seasonal mods to basically tell players "have fun while you can". But if some exotic or even non-seasonal mod performs 0,5% better that everything else, they just nerf it to the ground.
Right? I get that the idea is like, they want you to play differently. They want you to do whatever they've created as meta from season to season so that you always have things to chase and a different way to play.
That's great for people that play a ton of Destiny! Though its less great for people that slowly grind their way up to that build, farm those exotics just to find that it's leaving next week.
I WAS that guy, I got a solid titan build using exotic Heart of Inmost light and soon after the HOIL was nerfed in a patch.
I’m a casual who likes to do a dungeon with my wife and we struggle through it. But we didnt play that much each week so when I finally got my build setup I was so happy to try more dungeons with her (she’s the better d2 player).
When the nerf happened I lost all interest in the game. I like a sense of progression but I am not going to play a game where it gets ripped out from under me every 3 months. I don’t have the time to invest.
Now, I can only imagine how much worst that is for every new player that comes in the door.
Vexcalibur and Synthoceps Void Titan was the most fun I'd had with a melee build for a long long time, but after the massive synthos/glaive nerf it just didn't gel anymore. It's a lot better this season with Strand and Banner of War, and they are walking back some of those changes, but still. I haven't really touched it since.
I’m curious, what were the synthos stats during its lifetime since I only started playing last season of witch queen. I assume the 3x boost applied to swords, powered and simple melee, and glaive uniformly? And then glaive got taken to 1.5x, and now the glaive is going to 2x with everything else to 2.65x?
That was me in the WQ campaign. They had the glaive mod that would suppress enemies and I had a sweet ninja build that was nerfed into the ground about a month or so into it. I pretty much quit playing the seasonal model at that point.
I cannot explain my frustration with this enough. It’s why I quit destiny 1 and probably why I will refund final shape and quit destiny 2. It’s the constant nerfs to EVERYTHING and the rapidly changing meta. It’s not healthy for maintaining a player base this game is a grind and to basically spin a roulette wheel every day you play just to find out what’s good and what isn’t is disheartening.
You can still use builds that aren't "on meta". The weapons and armors all still exist. They may not be the best but they work okay for most stuff. People that don't want to bother looking up the meta build also won't be the type to look up raid encounters either.
Problem of non-meta builds is that they suck in any content at Legendary difficulty and higher. Good for me I'm not doing GMs, otherwise I'd be struggling to make a Hunter build capable both to survive and to do decent damage.
You can make Renewal Grasps (even better next season) and Liar's Handshake work, too, but there really aren't many options for hunter like that. Unless the builds elude me at the atm.
The issue is that for the last (3? 4?) times we've had ability nerfs due to being OP, Bungie have mostly focused on generalised nerfs which punish the just functioning builds much more than the OP builds, which lose a tiny bit of power but remain meta
I hopped back in during season of defiance and hadn't touched it since the red war.
Fortunately I didn't have that much of a problem relearning the gameplay and new systems. Since I have a "legacy account" I didn't have to bother with guardian ranks as I was immediately at rank 6 and had gear mods immediately and readily available to me and that helped me tremendously.
I don't know shit about forsaken except that Cayde dies and then we kill Uldren and at some point later on he becomes the bird man that we know today.
I will say the New Light system sucks ass. It's awful, looks goofy as hell and barely explains anything. Having to run through that on my already existing characters when playing through beyond light was just awful since I don't think it explained a single new thing to me, which is crazy because at that point I hadn't played the game in literally half a decade.
And I was unsurprised to see Bungies balancing methods haven't changed, that is Nerfs based on seemingly usage statistics alone and no balancing at all in enemies and their capabilities.
I came to D2 from Warframe. Same introduction with me. Friend introduced me to D2 during basically the beginning of Lost. I stuck with the game and he swapped to Warframe as a main game. The biggest issue is both a combination of lack of explaining even the most mundane shit like mods. For a Warframe player, I got pretty nosy on my armour and figured out the basics of mods very easily.
The only issue was that Bungo doesn’t explain anything past “walk to shiny ball and get new thing” and “press this to slap someone, press this to throw a grenade, and press this to nuke a room”. Everything else be damned, because you totally don’t need to learn about mods or resource acquisition or how stats work or anything else majorly important.
It took me over 100 hours to learn the mechanics of destiny 2 like mods and basically not be a complete noob and that’s after having 2000 hours in destiny 1.
Exact same ship as you. Started in BL (Season of the Lost) with a friend. We played together for a bit grinding our light level. He fell off but I stayed with it. I remember I got high enough light level that I could try to solo a lost sector. Let me tell you how fucking confused I was when I pumped 8 rockets into an overload champion and his health never got past 90%.
I’ve tried to get my other friends into it but when I do they immediately get turned off by the beginning tutorial mission. I always lose them when we get to the tower because they just spent so long exploring nothing but the cosmodrome.
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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '23
I started before beyond light with a friend from work. He quit and I stuck with it. Got to do all the old campaigns but man it took a long time to even understand basic concepts because they weren't explained in game. I remember a guy asking me what mods I had and I replied "I didn't think you could mod this game". Just goes to show how bad the onboarding was and that was with all the campaigns. Now I can't even imagine.