Can you explain this depth of gameplay? I tried my damndest and could never locate it..

In which, D1 or D2? In D1, neither could I - it was just an endless stretch of Strikes and Raids, with a little IB or Trials mixed in, chasing the same gun but different somehow? Got boring doing the same thing after a while. Only "new" thing I did in D1 was the day I spent gathering Spinmetal, Helium Filaments, and Relic Iron for the Exotic Sword quest. In D2, there are 45 PvE Challenges, 18 Strike Challenges, 18 Crucible Challenges, and 57 Adventures to run, and they change every day. More weapon variety, but the guns aren't all mixed-up and they all serve a role, so I actually know what I'm using and they're all good in their intended roles. One day I'll load up on Suros or Hakke weapons and run Adventures, the next I'll planet-hop doing Challenges/PEs with dual SMGs and a GL, the next I'll run Forge weapons in Strikes/Crucible. One day I'll run all one character, and haven't yet completed everything before the day's done. One day I'll run everything on a specific planet on all characters. Currently collecting all the 330 Blues (to add +5 Damage mods to), usually save up Adventures for weekends and run them all at once. So far we're what, 180-ish days into D2? Haven't done the same thing the same way twice yet. If you haven't found the depth, it's because you're not looking, or you don't want to admit all the things this game did right because you have a bone to pick with something you think it did wrong. :) Either way, not "broken," and not "cheated."

Endless destruction of junk gear is better than d1? Thats all d2 is. A useless exercise in destroying junk.

Is this satire? I don’t think you’re doing it right...

Not at all - is it really that difficult to imagine that someone might have paid for a video game and *gasp* LIKE it? Literally the only thing D1 had going for it (from Day 1 until the end of Y3) was "random rolls" - the illusion players were doing something different, when they were in fact doing the same few things with the same guns over and over and over for 3 years straight. That caters to the looter-shooter crowd, but not many others, which is why a lot of us (98%, to be exact) left to find something with more to DO, rather than more of the same thing to GET. I played, finished, and replayed several other 100-hour games during D1, even went back to Halo during most of Y1 - there just wasn't enough to make the time worth it. D2 is activity-based - there's less loot, but more to DO with it. A LOT more. Players aren't at a disadvantage for running unique loadouts - instead of backpacking Icebreaker or Gjallarhorn everywhere they go, I can literally pick any 3 weapons out of my Vault and run everything from Patrols to Heroic Strikes to Crucible just fine. Requires some strategy, but the lack of "god mode" guns means playing smart is actually rewarding for once. And there's literally more to do in a day than time to do it all, which isn't a problem this franchise had during its previous iteration. I still can't quite tell whether players complaining about depth haven't ever played another video game before, are just trolling, or are so heavily invested in the Bungie Hate Train that they literally can't appreciate something good when it's handed to them on a platter - players wanted more content, we got more content (nearly double), and now they're complaining about content. :/

I could care less about the gear in d1... It was the raids and strikes that were fun.. To each his own in what they like.. It’s the claiming of more content and depth in D2 that is the wrongady.. The “raid” is nothing more than a gimmick game show.. Each strike is designed to have you sparrow past 65% of it since it’s not even strike content.. It’s the patrol areas.. As far as other games I have an embarrassingly large collection.. I can honestly say I can count on 1 hand how many of them I’ve disliked.. I’m very easy to please.. if destiny 2 weren’t a sequel it may not be so bad.. But the amount of content removed just killed it..

See, and those were exactly the parts of D1 I didn't care for - they were repetitive, and once Strike-specific gear was added, the rewards were basically 1 of 2 items (and usually not even good versions of them) for Strikes, and a handful of reskinned guns for the Raids. Not saying it wasn't fun - the first few times - but there wasn't 3 years of content in that game, and outside running those activities, there wasn't anything to go do in the world. I'm an old RPG player - I don't want to kill the boss 100 times, I want to kill the boss and have some other reason to come back to the world every day. I have no opinion or comment on the D2 Raid - apart from Exodus Black and The Arms Dealer, there are no Strikes that enter into Patrol zones, most are in areas that aren't even (currently) accessible from Adventures. The fact that people speed through them and skip most encounters is probably the reason they don't enjoy the loot - they're not taking time to shoot things. With guns. In an FPS. Where guns are the loot. Not liking a game is fine - blaming the developer or saying the game is garbage because someone doesn't like it is...childish. (Not specifically directing that sentiment at you, but it's a hell of a way to look at the world if the only two options are "Perfect" and "Worthless" - it's a game, there are others. I'm guessing most players here wouldn't like 90% of the Top 10 games most years going back to the late '80s...doesn't make them bad games, just cater to different crowds.) Considering my first games were text-based, I don't even know how many I've owned, let alone played (game rentals need to make a comeback - let people know what they're getting into before they spend full-game prices, at the very least it would eliminate that as a talking point - maybe 5-hour trials via console services) - and I couldn't guess how many I've disliked. Those don't stick with me. If I don't like something, especially some trivial form of entertainment, I replace it with something I DO like and never give it another thought. I've bought full-priced sequels that weren't great, I either played them or got over it and learned from the mistake (say, for instance, Chrono Cross, the highly-anticipated sequel to Chrono Trigger that didn't feature, let alone mention at all outside a couple of flashbacks, the titular character). And, of course, there's Fallout 4, the sequel-that-should-have-been-phenomenal that just failed to capture my interest - I've played Fallout 3 a couple dozen times, and F4's sitting around here somewhere with about 20 hours in it, likely to never be finished. I recognize it's a good game, just not MY good game. I've rented games so many times I could have bought them several times over for the rental prices, but they'd literally disappeared from the market (pre-internet) and the rental places knew they could make more off me by charging $5/week for a few months than just selling me the cartridge. I've bought franchise-based games (Elder Scrolls, anything Final Fantasy-related) that change so much between releases they're practically unrecognizable. And that's where all the hate for D2 just doesn't make sense to me - it's a game. Games change. If people don't like it, that's their call, I can think of quite a few I've picked up in the past year or so that I didn't get a full weekend out of. Sometimes that's just how long the game is, sometimes I just didn't enjoy it so I stopped playing. I'm not so heavily invested in a single franchise that I can't find other ways to entertain myself if things don't work out, and I am pretty realistic about what I'm going to get for $60. D1 was like Final Fantasy VII - lightning in a bottle (how long's that remake been going - 19 years now?). In both cases, the game itself was a couple hundred hours, tops, but players found a way to turn that couple hundred into a few [u]thousand[/u] - the game didn't do it, the players did. It was the right thing at the right time, and it worked unexpectedly well. And I'm glad they enjoyed it. I did too, both of 'em. And D2 is like Final Fantasy VIII - it's a good game in its own right, but comparisons to its predecessor are watering down some players' experience, and they're translating that into absolute outrage because the sequel, while very good as a game, doesn't PERFECTLY recreate their nostalgic memories. Then they tear apart every tiny decision, until you'd think we were playing Mario Kart 1 instead of a different Destiny game. And that's what D2 is. Destiny, but different. It's up to the players (not Bungie) if they decide to find a reason to squeeze another 5,000 hours out of this game. I doubt most of them will, to be honest, and I think it'll set expectations for upcoming DLC and Destiny 3 more realistically - as a video game, not a lifestyle. (I think the Battle Royale thing has that market cornered right now...those sequels are in for a shock!) And when they continue to support the franchise, they'll enjoy it more once those expectations are tempered. Or they won't. To this day, FF VII remains the single highest-selling FF game - beat VIII by nearly 50%, which is still barely half of D1's sales. And the Final Fantasy franchise is still going strong, two decades later, despite all the disappointment by both hardcore fans and the media. Which is why all the complaining around here amuses me, and I'm not even remotely worried about Destiny tanking. This has all been done before. :)

Also what didn’t you like about fall out 4? I enjoyed it.. It wasn’t the greatest game but I’m all about aimlessly exploring around finding all the small bits of story hidden through a game.. The new Prey was wonderful for that.. It was like Bioshock in space.. Highly recommend..

Prey was fun enough. Sucked about the story cutting off access to certain areas, missed some collectibles thinking "I'll come back for that" and the area was inaccessible next time I was through. Don't know if it's worth playing a second time just to get them. Simply put, Fallout 4 did what Destiny 1 did - it forced players to use Power gear. I wander the Wasteland with a Hunting Rifle (and Lincoln's Repeater) and a worn jumpsuit, beat Fallout 3 multiple times with 2 guns and no armor. Traded Mini Nukes for Steak and .32 ammo, learned to engage at range. In F4, random Legendary enemies, especially at lower levels, made that impossible - there are encounters in F4 that are not winnable with small-arms fire and minimal armor, and many enemies rush faster than they can be dropped, with more health than can be melted with every bullet I've got. (There was a swamp somewhere in the SE part of the map, bunch'a adds and a shack with a random Level 50 Legendary Glowing One variant that spawned inside, was part of some early mission. I lost that character because I'd saved just inside his detection zone so every time I reloaded he was chasing me - can't fast-travel while "engaged," couldn't run away, didn't have any explosives or big guns and no power armor, so my only save was in an active encounter I couldn't win.) If I want to be a superhero, I'll play Skyrim (although I typically don't overpower my builds there, either) - I don't play Fallout for the power complex, and F4 required that, so I stopped playing.

So you are coming from a campaign mission and side mission point of view.. Although D2 had a terribly short and uninspired story.. There was a little more than in the first Destiny... As far as you saying you can’t find a reason to do the strikes and raids more.. You answered that yourself.. Because it’s fun.. In D2 however.. There just isn’t any interesting loot or exotics.. You may not notice it doing the story and patrols but people arnt mad for no reason.. The guns are terribly weak and boring in the endgame.. It makes it not fun running around primary weapon killing everything.. Didn’t you get this game to be a badass space god? I sure did.. Also the raid weapons in D1 weren’t just reskins.. The vision of confluence.. Fate bringer.. Fang of ir yut.. Those are just 3 of my main primaries.. All better (more enjoyable) than any weapon in 2.. No matter what way you slice it D2 stripped so much from D1.. Small things.. Heroic strike modifiers.. Random rolled weapons.. To bigger things like the two primary system and our gaurdians abilities becoming super dull and slow.. As an older rpg gamer do you honestly enjoy that they dumbed down most aspects of the rpg gameplay in this game? Rpg is my favorite genre by a long shot.. The skill trees in D2 are terrible.. No perk trees on weapons.. No Grimmour type lore things to find.. ( random scannables that don’t get added to a lore section to read later don’t cut it) If you like the game that’s fine.. But you can’t assume the 96% of us who dislike this game are just spoiled gamers.. I’m sure there’s plenty of this .. Especially in the Destiny community.. But the rest of us do have real reason to hate this game.. And the liars making it..

[quote]So you are coming from a campaign mission and side mission point of view.[/quote] I mean...yeah. There's only 1 Raid, which everyone says isn't all that fun, so I figure why not enjoy the 99% of the game that isn't that? It's half-RPG, so I'm enjoying the RPG half. Also, didn't say I don't run (and enjoy) D2 Strikes - I said the D1 Strikes were far more repetitive and boring since people ran through them instead of shooting things, and I didn't find the randomized but limited loot alluring enough to change my mind. The fact that players are doing the same in D2 doesn't make D2's Strikes any more or less fun, it means people don't like shooting in an FPS and would rather dress up their cartoon avatars. Weird. [quote]There just isn’t any interesting loot or exotics.. You may not notice it doing the story and patrols but people arnt mad for no reason.. The guns are terribly weak and boring in the endgame.. It makes it not fun running around primary weapon killing everything.. Didn’t you get this game to be a badass space god? I sure did..[/quote] No, I didn't, I got it to be a Guardian. But I didn't play Skyrim to kill Dragons in one hit either, so apparently my lack of need to be superpowered to win fights makes me a minority...or just a whole lot more creative. Not sure what you're using that's "terribly weak" - considering I follow a guy who solos Prestige NFs with dual-Sidearms or dual-SMGs, I'm guessing any ineffectiveness you're experiencing with your weapons are due to user error. You don't have to like them, but even the "bad" ones are perfectly capable of getting kills when used correctly, regardless of activity. [quote]Also the raid weapons in D1 weren’t just reskins.. The vision of confluence.. Fate bringer.. Fang of ir yut.. Those are just 3 of my main primaries.. All better (more enjoyable) than any weapon in 2..[/quote] VoC and Fatebringer (and the rest of VoG gear) were gold-painted reskins of Y1 Quartermaster guns (manufactured by Daito, who provided most Vanguard gear). Fang of Ir Yut was the starting Nadir Scout (Trax Mallus III, I believe?) with some Hive goop stuck on it. WotM guns were Gunsmith drops with black-and-red paint jobs. Like what you like, enjoy what you enjoy, but admit it's preference - for me, The Steady Hand and Annual Skate are as good as Fatebringer, and I prefer the Armillary PSu and Call To Serve/Haunted Earth over any D1 Scout. I like Outlaw, but I don't need fancy perks to do my work for me, and I'm not going to hate the game because I can't double-stack them anymore. [quote]As an older rpg gamer do you honestly enjoy that they dumbed down most aspects of the rpg gameplay in this game?[/quote] They didn't. They required players to make choices that fit play style, and stick with those choices, learn to operate [u]inside[/u] them rather than forcing the game to conform to them. D1 was the "dumbed down" version, mix-and-match whatever and just run with it - D2 requires a little more character thought and specialization. [quote]Rpg is my favorite genre by a long shot.. The skill trees in D2 are terrible.[/quote] That second statement makes me very much doubt the first. [quote]But you can’t assume the 96% of us who dislike this game are just spoiled gamers.[/quote] I can, and I do. Also, it's not 96% - it's 94%, and that's the percentage of people who played and moved on. (In D1, it was 98% - by your logic, D1 was worse than D2, but your math is flawed.) Of the remaining 6%, a third (2%) don't like it and two-thirds (4%) are still playing, which means of the people who care, the ones who don't like it are in the minority. They're just loud. But hey, you're free to hate Destiny and hate Bungie - just makes me wonder why you're not playing something else instead. :)

You have to be trolling me.. If you are bravo.. You’re a pro at it.. If not.. I am actually very proficient in the Pve aspect.. You can check if you so need.. It’s not that I can’t run through a nightfall solo with nothing but a slingshot.. It’s that the slow ability charge times and having two primaries isn’t fun.. Sure you can kill things.. But it’s sure a lot more fun having space god skills to use if you so choose.. Also it’s sounds as though you are the one lying about enjoying rpgs.. In D2 there is none of this thinking about your choices you speak of.. It’s either top..Or bottom skills.. D1 skill trees were also lacking.. But mixing and matching is infinitely more in depth than the forced choices in D2.. Also I have moved on from Destiny.. However the forums are enjoyable while using the bathroom😁 And regarding the population.. Come on now.. Destiny was never this low.. This games failing numbers are a matter of record..

Well, I doubt either of us will change each other's minds, so I'll leave you to your preferences. As for population - D1's numbers are also a matter of record. As are several other games', for comparison - two points don't make a trend, or a valuable sample size. I've spent days researching player habits and attrition rates (it's the statistical analyst in me, can't help it), you can do the same if you want. Or not. But if you let the numbers themselves tell the story, you'll find two things - A) Every opinion on this forum about the "life" of D2 is wrong, and B) Every game says the same thing. The only true conclusions that can be drawn are that the majority of people don't play video games, and most people who play any given video game don't do it for very long. The rest of the discussion gets into fine details about very small subsets of minorities, and those people play what they like, regardless of "popular" opinion (which still mostly says video games are a waste of time and money reserved for people with nothing better to do).

If you think I’m trying to change you that’s not my intent.. It was more to see the side of those of us who were let down by what D2 turned into.. Numbers can fit any narrative the author twists them too.. But still.. The amount of people who left D2 in the short time it’s been out.. That didn’t happen in D1 to anywhere near the degree or as fast.. And people these days don’t have their own opinions.. They have the opinion of what ever their favorite YouTuber or streamer person they watch.. It’s given multiple games bad reputations even before releasing unfortunately.. Apparently YouTube opinions are considered facts to them..

Fair enough, but I've already seen that side - the forums are full of it, as are the forums of every other video game I've looked into. According to most players, there hasn't been a "good" game released in nearly 15 years...which, incidentally, is also around the time online forums became easily accessible due to broadband availability, and the Internet became a place for anonymous people to flood every space they could find with negative bitterness. I used to hang out on a lot of forums that had "no bullsh!t" policies when it came to negativity and borderline abusive behaviour - if you didn't like the thing everyone else was there to discuss, go somewhere else and find something you DO like (games, music, etc.). The mods enforced that rule with an iron fist, and the result wasn't "watered-down" products, it was helpful contributions (and general conversation) from people who DID enjoy the thing they were talking about, which led to MORE enjoyable things for us to enjoy. I guess their thinking was, if someone doesn't like A, but the fans of A like A, chances are B isn't going to appeal to the person who didn't like A, but positive input about why the fans like A in the first place help make B even better for the fans. Making B more like what the person who disliked A wants, and LESS like what the fans of A already like, leads to a situation where the fans don't like the changes to B, the person who disliked A still doesn't like B, and no one is happy. Let's apply this to Destiny. (And, to be fair, let's limit this to the +/- 5% of people who stuck around long-term, so we're not including short-term players or "true casuals" [pop in and out of a dozen games for an hour here or there] in the mix - we're talking true Destiny fans, on both sides.) Initially, a lot of people didn't like Destiny (if you think D2 reception is bad...), and didn't really know what it was. Was it a Halo MMO? A WoW FPS? An RPG with guns and PvP? A looter-shooter? The answer's still fuzzy, but I think a fair answer is "a mediocre version of all of them mixed together." It does none perfectly, but has elements that none of them on their own have. (We're leaving out the non-players - many of them left precisely because Destiny isn't a great FPS, it isn't a great RPG, and it isn't a great looter-shooter. There are better games in all of those genres, because those games focus on one thing.) There were some early positive impressions from players (particularly regarding VoG and the Raid Guns, which dropped with set rolls, looked and felt like the Vanguard models, and had good perks unique to the Raid - these became very widely used in PvP and PvE alike), and then a whole lot of negativity - Exotics dropped too infrequently, Legendaries/Raid gear dropped too infrequently, leveling up was too hard with the Shard/Energy-gated system and RNG barring progress, PvP was an unbalanced mess (and random rolls played merry hell with trying to fix it), not enough loot, bad RNG, not enough to do in the world, lack of Elemental primaries, too much emphasis on Endgame (or not enough, from the Elitists), the list goes on forever. Mind you, this is during the time early D2 was being worked on, so that's what Bungie were hearing when trying to design the framework. All the stuff people DIDN'T like. The positive feedback, as it does today, got ignored or criticized by the upset players, using the same "If we don't yell at Bungie, they'll never change" message they do now - when, in reality, they should have found a game they liked more than Destiny, and let the players who LIKED Destiny, for what it was (rather than what it "could be"), drive it forward. Instead of capitalizing on things like VoG's uniqueness and REALLY good static-build guns available to everyone (I think much of the issue there was that they couldn't do away with Random Rolls without literally deleting everyone's Vault...hmm, if only they'd worked that into the Story somehow...), they listened to the community's [u]complaints[/u] and focused on what was WRONG, rather than what was RIGHT - so we got a larger quantity (but generally lower quality) of RNG loot, easier leveling, more frequent high-level gear, attempted (but unsuccessful) PvP fixes that hurt PvE weapon performance, more story missions/quests and world activities instead of purely-Endgame-focused gaming, full-time Elemental weapons, basically all the stuff people NOW don't like about D2, but specifically "asked for" in D1 (by complaining). And, of course, more of the one thing no one really complained about at all - reskins and ornaments. So when Mr. YouTube/Ms. Twitch gives their quoted-and-copied-straight-to-the-forums opinion about D2, and hits all the talking points about Random Rolls, lack of End-game, how "useless" the many world activities are, leveling's too easy, "everyone had all the loot in 2 weeks," dual primaries, reskins, ornaments, and Exotic repeats, and ends with "THIS IS NOT WHAT WE ASKED FOR!" I have to look back 3 years, take a breath, and say "Yeah, it is." If players had focused more on the GOOD things in D1 at the time, that would have been the message Bungie received and implemented into D2 - THAT is the game I'd rather be playing right now. And this community had the power to make that happen. But they chose to complain, instead. And now they're complaining about the result, having not learnt their lesson. The thing we should all be doing (and should have done last time) is talking about what we like - not what we WANT, but what parts of [u]this[/u] game we enjoy and don't want to go away, and trust Bungie to turn that into a better game. Instead, the community's blaming Bungie for making [u]the community's[/u] game, and now they don't like it as much as the one Bungie made, before all the changes. I'm shocked. :/ At this rate, D3 is going to be Smaug's pile of gold, except a pile of Random Rolls. 100-player Battle Royale, instant kills, Power weapons in all 3 slots, always-full supers, instant respawns, and whoever "wins" gets the "god roll" at the bottom. The 99 losers don't deserve "participation rewards."

It’s a good arguemrnt.. One that has a flaw though.. D2 was started right around TTK.. When the game was at its best.. If a billion dollar company is foolish enough to make snap decisions like you suggest by listening to the cry babies on the forums... They deserve to fail.. It is their job to weed out useful info from salty pvp players.. Blaming the community for developers making lazy decisions leads to bad games... It’s the communities job to let a company know when the game they’ve made is utter garbage to most people.. Most of these changes have nothing to do with the community as well.. Double primary is to make pvp balancing easier.. Slow abilities? Pvp.. 90% of loot going through the cash shop? Greed.. The overall simplification of every system in the game? Try to appeal to the average casual player.. Which backfired heavily.. Destiny was a game I enjoyed to a great degree.. Asking me to simply accept what they’ve done to the franchise is how you end up with what is Destiny 2... A simplified casual boring money grab.. This should be Destiny year 4.. Not Destiny year 1 round two.. In life, you call someone who ignores years of experience to repeat mistakes.. A fool.. Here we have Destiny being foolish..

[quote]If a billion dollar company is foolish enough to make snap decisions like you suggest by listening to the cry babies on the forums... They deserve to fail.. It is their job to weed out useful info from salty pvp players..[/quote] Which is why they're not implementing as many player suggestions at this point, and weeding out the useful ones. They tried doing it the community's way, it didn't work, now they're doing it their way. [quote]It’s the communities job to let a company know when the game they’ve made is utter garbage to most people..[/quote] Except there aren't many "utter garbage" games around, just ones some people don't like. You said yourself, listening to cry babies isn't a good idea. :) [quote]90% of loot going through the cash shop? Greed.. [/quote] Ahh, this argument again. The only "useful" loot that Eververse carries is ONE set of unmodded LL10 armor, IF people want it - it's all cosmetics. And we get 9x freebies per week, plus ~3/day through normal pay. So not 90%, and not a "cash" shop. I've gotten multiples of everything Tess sells without spending a penny, and it's made 0 difference to my gameplay.

AAhhh this argument... Everything is cosmetic so using that excuse is nonsense... Being able to get it all for “free” is besides the point.. The game is designed to funnel you to miss money bags.. Their is no denying that.. The expansion and holiday events.. 100% designed for Eververse... Hiding the best looking cosmetics behind Everese in a cosmetic game.. Poor game design at best.. Shady tactics far more likely..

But they're not the best looking, and being able to get them for free is [u]exactly[/u] the point - players can pay to get them today, or [u]play[/u] and get them tomorrow, they BOTH get them either way. That's a fairly standard microtransaction model, and unlike D1's pre-RoI Eververse there are currently NO locked items (Sparrows, Shaders, armor sets) that [u]require[/u] direct purchase. And yes, standing at her shop may make some people want to pay to get those items faster - but most people choose not to, and they can still get every one of them by playing alone. You're not wrong that the Holiday events use Eververse as the vendor to distribute them, but only because Tess + Eva are now a single vendor and they're where cosmetics happen - makes more sense than Zavala handing out pink shaders. I got everything Crimson had to offer through random drops/Engrams without spending a penny, the fact that Tess was the person who gave them to me doesn't make it "designed for Eververse" any more than the Milestone system was "designed for Hawthorne."