It’s becoming extremely apparent that there are a large amount of players who ignore the basic concepts that a company should follow. Bungie is a AAA game development company, and as such, should have a proper bug testing sandbox, proper net code, and proper balancing sandbox. It really does seem to me that they have decided to forego all of these things. I will explain each and every one in detail. Regarding the felwinter’s bug, if it only occurred in a minority of the population then it would be understandable. Bugs happen, compatibility with certain variables aren’t always foreseen, and people do make mistakes. However (this is for the people who stop reading there normally) no matter how you sugar coat it, this bug should have been squashed immediately due to the large amount of players it affects(100% unless some people are finding some way to jury rig the code to work). I guarantee you they didn’t finish developing this last week. Bungie most likely had this event setup for Months, giving them ample time to have at least 2 singular guardians test the quest. I am not being unreasonable or greedy. I am just stating the obvious regarding a developing team. So the common rebuttal here is “the testing environment isn’t always the same!” Which brings me to the point of having an almost identical engine in both the live version and beta/alpha builds. I’m not going to go into fevered research on whether or not the engine uses for testing is different, but if it is then it is 100% the fault of Bungie. A game needs to have a proper framework before being considered “developed”. The second key thing I mentioned is the net code. Obviously it’s too late to overhaul such a thing within destiny 2, but they chose to use a deprecated “hybrid system” to save on dedicated server costs. Peer to peer should not be a games main way of communicating player data. Destiny 1 had the host system, destiny 2 has a random assortment of data transfer between players and then occasionally verifying key rules with their own servers. Dedicated servers do NOT let the players interact with each others in this way. Fully dedicated servers require players to send data to the server, have the server “serve” the data in real time, and do this simultaneously. This means those people who lag get punished for lagging. They can’t communicate with the server initially, and therefore are stuck in place like the player never gave them commands. This system also allows for the player’s personal data to be protected. This system also prevents cheating and DDOSing (for the most part) by recognizing unacceptable actions before they are served back to all relevant players. But we can really cry over spilt milk. Our third extremely obvious issue with the game seems to be the lack of proper balancing/ new weapon archetypes. [b]This is the one about sun setting[/b] Imagine you consistently make buffs to entire archetypes and only serve out nerfs when a specific weapon becomes to powerful. Imagine these nerfs affect the ENTIRE archetype instead of the actual overpowered weapon itself. Over time, the power crunch which Bungie talks about begins to take place. TTK slowly goes down to a trickle and players are judged based on reaction time and not skill. What would you do to get out of this situation? Two solutions. Add archetypes and use proper testing in the sandbox. Or. Clean slate, fresh start, trivialize all the work the players did in the sake of laziness. We know which one bungie is doing, but for the other one people will ask, “What would you do?” At a certain point I’m sure the entire sandbox does need a reset, but it’s really important the developers see to it this does NOT happen. They could have introduced brand new RPMS on certain weapons and reworked damage falloff ranges. Hand cannons should’ve never had a blanket range nerf. 140s, and below were made almost useless when compared to the almighty 150. That range bar became just for show and the entire weapon took that archetype by the throat. Scouts? Make a new RPM that fires extremely slow, but deals out massive damage. Keep the longer scope zooms on them though. These things can slowly reset a TTK trickle and allow players to keep their hard earned weapons/armor. I’m not going to go over every idea I have for the PvP sandbox, (for the love of god nerf anteaus they should not eat my tether and gain super energy from doing so.) but the idea is there, stop having forcing a meta into the limelight and just properly balance. The social media community will respond to criticism of a company like you spat in their drink. It’s hard to admit something is wrong about your favorite game, but it’s even harder to admit the company is lying through their teeth with glittering generalities. It’s extremely important that we remember our place as the consumer. We do not have to settle for subpar, and we don’t have to constantly be asking for a “better season next time, trust me bro everything’s gonna be great I can feel it.” Always be skeptical of the TWABS, they are not contracts, they are meant to get the community off their backs for a little while. Only by dispensing harsh criticism can this game get better. If we can’t do that, we will see a repeat of the same mediocre cycle until the player base eats itself alive. You can save Destiny 2, don’t be rude or a fanboy. Be firm, cautious, and informed.