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10/16/2024 5:18:37 AM
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Vanguard Ops have been on a slow descent towards misery
It all started back in Beyond Light when Bungie removed a bunch of strikes from the game, many of them really good and beloved by the community. And many bad ones stayed, like Exodus Crash and The Corrupted.
Since then Bungie has been replacing them with Battlegrounds, aka a more boring and dragged out version of strikes, so it's not even a good replacement. Important to note that, currently, there are more Battlegrounds than strikes in the playlist.
Then Lightfall comes out and Bungie adds a bunch of shenanigans to the playlist, like timers and new modifiers to make the whole thing more difficult. On top of that, two strikes got ''reworked'' in an incredibly lazy way, to the point where once beloved strikes now are completely ignored if possible.
Now in Final Shape, Bungie took a huge step forward in making strikes insufferable. First they added a -5 power cap to EVERYTHING, making it impossible to out-level enemies in any activity, and now they are much more tanky and deal much more damage.
With this episode however, Bungie added some of the most DOG-SH*T modifiers know to man.
First they turned ammo bricks into landmines that can very much one-shot you.
Then they made you lose health for STANDING STILL, yes, you literally die for standing in one place.
Then they made a worse version of Togetherness, except in order to regen you don't simply have to stand close to teammates, you gotta kill powerful combatants. And even then, instead of enabling health regen for a few seconds, you just gain a SLIVER of HP, yes, a f*cking sliver of health for each powerful combatant, making the recovery stat completely pointless, while also making regenerating your health a pain.
And now, as if it coundn't get any worse, they added one modifier that sounds awful on paper, and even worse in practice. This new modifier literally makes your weapons (pulses, scouts, grenade launchers/ smgs and shotguns) deal LESS damage as you deal damage with them. And ANY weapon that is not part of said group of weapons, deal SIGNIFICANTLY LESS damage per default. So basically you can only use these 5 weapon types in strikes, and even these 5 are gonna suck after getting only a few shots in. And this direcly conflicts with the active weekly challenge that requires you to get kills with primaries (pulses, scouts and smgs for extra progress).
This is low, like straght up rock bottom. The Vanguard Ops playlist has never been this awful in terms of difficulty (not really, just annoyance) compared to rewards (some glimmer and an enhancment core lol). These modifiers are GM levels of bullsh*ttery, and there's absolutely nothing to gain from this pain. I'm genuinely terrified of what other ''''''''''''bright''''''''''''''' ideas Bungie cooked up for this playlist in the future, seen as their ability of running everything into the ground keeps exceeding my expectations.
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Agreed. I read the Oscillation and Haste and was like, "WTF is this BS!?!?!?" What happened to D1 mods like 'Specialist'? And Brawler and Demolitionist have not reappeared in the rotation either! The only Strikes I have done in the Playlist this week was yesterday when it was two Surges, one Burn and 'Shielded Foes'. Thank the GODS there were none of the BS mods! But that also means I am only playing this content once a week when that combo comes up, so, if Bungie was trying to 'introduce new mechanics' or 'spice things up', well, they failed horribly as all it did was dissuade me from playing their game. Honestly, just having D1 balance would be enough. Remember trying to do the Strike on Venus where you had to get past the Captain at the opening to the Cave? Geezus, just on 'Normal' you'd get DESTROYED if you didn't play smart. However, maybe that's the problem? Bungie made D2 so 'easy' that people just hop on their Sparrows and skip content because, one, they can and two because there were no consequences. Try that in D1 and yo -blam!- gonna get blown up in a hot second! Ugh, why, Bungle!?!?! We didn't need Champions or stupid modifiers!!! We just wanted D1 with better graphics, mantling and more content!!! Remember when nine Orbs of Light from a Warlock Nova Bomb would give you your Super back!? Or the mass of Orbs of Light that used to litter the ground for Players who carefully crafted their Builds to support others? Cool Ghost Mods that gave you bonuses to Grenade or Melee use, creating more orbs? Or howabout the Daybreak Modifier in the Nightfall!? Mayhem levels of Super use in a Nightfall!? OMG it was so FUN! Or howabout 'Space Magic'? When did Destiny become CoD: Infinite Warfare? So sad to see given that I've got close to 18K hours between D1 and D2. If you asked me to pick, D1 all day, baby! Ten year anniversary is a celebration of looking back...cause that's when it was good.
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They’re so unenjoyable.
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This entire studio needs the living sh*t slapped out of them. Ban incoming... All of those modifiers are 100% nonsense on the highest levels, and I don't feel I'm going to be participating in Strikes anymore. Not doing that crap.
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[quote]It all started back in Beyond Light when Bungie removed a bunch of strikes from the game, many of them really good and beloved by the community. And many bad ones stayed, like Exodus Crash and The Corrupted. Since then Bungie has been replacing them with Battlegrounds, aka a more boring and dragged out version of strikes, so it's not even a good replacement. Important to note that, currently, there are more Battlegrounds than strikes in the playlist. Then Lightfall comes out and Bungie adds a bunch of shenanigans to the playlist, like timers and new modifiers to make the whole thing more difficult. On top of that, two strikes got ''reworked'' in an incredibly lazy way, to the point where once beloved strikes now are completely ignored if possible. Now in Final Shape, Bungie took a huge step forward in making strikes insufferable. First they added a -5 power cap to EVERYTHING, making it impossible to out-level enemies in any activity, and now they are much more tanky and deal much more damage. With this episode however, Bungie added some of the most DOG-SH*T modifiers know to man. First they turned ammo bricks into landmines that can very much one-shot you. Then they made you lose health for STANDING STILL, yes, you literally die for standing in one place. Then they made a worse version of Togetherness, except in order to regen you don't simply have to stand close to teammates, you gotta kill powerful combatants. And even then, instead of enabling health regen for a few seconds, you just gain a SLIVER of HP, yes, a f*cking sliver of health for each powerful combatant, making the recovery stat completely pointless, while also making regenerating your health a pain. And now, as if it coundn't get any worse, they added one modifier that sounds awful on paper, and even worse in practice. This new modifier literally makes your weapons (pulses, scouts, grenade launchers/ smgs and shotguns) deal LESS damage as you deal damage with them. And ANY weapon that is not part of said group of weapons, deal SIGNIFICANTLY LESS damage per default. So basically you can only use these 5 weapon types in strikes, and even these 5 are gonna suck after getting only a few shots in. And this direcly conflicts with the active weekly challenge that requires you to get kills with primaries (pulses, scouts and smgs for extra progress). This is low, like straght up rock bottom. The Vanguard Ops playlist has never been this awful in terms of difficulty (not really, just annoyance) compared to rewards (some glimmer and an enhancment core lol). These modifiers are GM levels of bullsh*ttery, and there's absolutely nothing to gain from this pain. I'm genuinely terrified of what other ''''''''''''bright''''''''''''''' ideas Bungie cooked up for this playlist in the future, seen as their ability of running everything into the ground keeps exceeding my expectations.[/quote] Yep. Devs just suck at dev’ing,
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8 RepliesAgree patrol is now by far my favourite way to relax
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I will never truly understand the reason behind why we lost the amount of strikes we did when beyond light launched. It could be a technical reason, it could truly have been them trying to combat bloating, I have no idea. They could have just been an innocent bystander that was dinged in the back of the head while they were trying to cut out excess planets that no one interacted with. Without any of us being in those conversations, we will never truly know. I am a massive strike player, it has always been my favorite part of destiny. I have spent nearly 1500 hours in strikes on steam alone, let alone on battle net or xbox prior to the release of d2 on pc. You are misremembering some of these strikes. In total, the pyramidion, festering core, savathun’s song, strange terrain, will of the thousands, tree of probabilities and garden world were all sunset. Many of these strikes were absolutely hated and had a higher chance of people leaving than battlegrounds do today though. I liked them all, but it would be foolish to say that they were all without flaw. Some had issues with ad density, others with pacing, and others were deemed just unfun by the greater community because there was a lot of ground to cover and we didn’t have the utility we have today. Another issue was the difficulty on other versions of the strikes like grandmasters or any of the other 9 million variations. They were good strikes and I miss playing through them, but if they were around today, many people would hate them just like they do the revamped strikes. Battlegrounds are actually a very good replacement for traditional strikes as they fix what most people had issues with in the old ones. Ad density has been vastly improved, pacing has been improved, and the difficulty was also upped. Some battlegrounds are brutal, especially for newer players, but there is a wide variety of difficulty represented across the panel of battlegrounds. As for the lightfalll additions, the timers do next to nothing outside of letting you know how long you have been in there. Most modifiers are fine from this era also, nothing crazy either way but they add a bit of variety per day. It’s a welcome change. The strike revamps were also a welcome change but fell a bit flat. Bungie overcorrected in some areas of arms dealer and lake of shadows, but dropped the ball in others. I think both final boss rooms needed drastic changes to make them more interactive, but they only got more annoying and reliant on cheese strategies to complete it on higher difficulties. Spare the meatball having 9 million health, the other parts of the strike revamps were great. I do very much agree though that recent modifiers and the -5 need to be removed or revamped greatly as they are unfun. Not sure what bungie was thinking about. I don’t mind the -5 in the strike playlist because I have been playing for so long, but more casual players and newer players really struggle with it. It has almost entirely ruined the dungeons and raids too. I don’t even think we should outlevel them, just not permanently be at a disadvantage. The rewards desperately need to be buffed across the board too. For a looter shooter, the amount of loot (especially the kind I care about) is at an all time low.
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I don’t play the vanguard ops anymore, I just change my time and do the pathfinder then I’m out, I play gambit more than vanguard. If I want to play strikes I’ll load up d1 and play that and do a bit of prison of elders.
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You summed it perfectly! I tolerated battlegrounds until they took away vanguard bounties. Haven't run a vanguard strike for quite some time. Stopped doing NF's when they took away pinnacles. When my son comes over I play whatever he wants to do. Otherwise, it's Banshee bounties on Europa and Cosmodrome. That's all that's left for me. My theory is they are attempting to replace the old players with new ones who will be satisfied with less (by less I mean content that cost less to produce) while paying more. The logical path to sustainable profits.
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2 RepliesWell, how else will they balance the playlists?? \s
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8 RepliesEdited by Yosemite Sam: 10/16/2024 6:31:25 PMThe fact that they are deliberately making poor decisions should make everyone wonder why and what do they actually gain by doing this. You just listed off what has taken place with the Vanguard playlist. What about the rest of the game because there are way too many poor decisions that have been made that do not add up to their words that they try to pass off as if they actually mean "they are trying to improve the game" when everything that is wrong is literally in front of everyone's face playing the game. Putting aside that they are deliberately being vague about what they are actually doing with the game, or making sure they use words that they think you want to hear isn't bad enough. Look at the actual facts that do not add up from their words to their actions. it's not hard at all to see what they are doing and it's -blam!- up for them to even be doing it in the first place. I was chatting with someone on this forum the other day about 343/Halo, and these fake devs have this video out trying to pass off that "343 doesn't exist anymore, that the studio is changing and they are changing their ways and coming up with a new formula to bring Halo back." So I did my research and the streamers that actually have the balls to speak up and show the truth of what's actually going on did. Unlike Destiny streamers who are always trying to sell you something to please this business to get views. Everything 343 said in that video is a lie and it shows they have no respect for Halo or the player base. [B]Why would they when they are the ones who posted that they deliberately hired people who Hate Halo to develop Halo Infinite?[/b] I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself that I would like to express, but I will say that the lies actually pissed me off because just like this business that runs Destiny Lies as well and multiple people over the years have caught Bungie lying. The only thing 343 did was change the name of the studio and they have the balls to try and pass off that "it's a new studio and they are changing their ways", but never explained how, not a damn word on how they are changing, what they are changing about themselves as you see them flood Infinite with the political BS while pushing their agenda that has become an issue with this game as well. What all this comes down to is that this Bungie is doing the exact same thing, but they will use words like "We will do better next time" What are you doing better next time? "We hear you loud and clear" What do you "hear laud and clear" "We have a plan to improve things" What are you planning to improve and how are you actually doing it? These are just some examples, but this vague BS that these businesses pull all the damn time to try and sell their product is the actual problem because what they say they are doing and what actually takes place does not line up. Stop the lies Bungie, not everyone falls for the BS. You are not trying to improve the game, your actions are little in everyone's face, and the ones that don't ignore it see it while they are playing the game. You are only trying to get by and hoping Sony will pull you off this project and deliberately making poor decisions just as you did with Activions to help them make their decision sooner then later.
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Slow decent? Brother we’ve been down here for years
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3 RepliesSo Bungie double downs on negative modifiers for GM, Dungeons, Raids, and master playlists. To make content “exclusive” not just in light level but for entry. This in turn this makes teaching extremely difficult. Provides a strong gatekeeper for filthy casual masses. Tuning every week to make build crafting almost impossible for the masses let alone experienced players. Great work.
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4 RepliesIs it weird how strikes used to be the shortest average match times and now gambit which used to be like 12-15 min match averages now are like 8 min and strikes went from like 5-7 min to like 20 because of so many gating mechanics.
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9 RepliesMan, I just can't stand the corrupted strike anymore. We should have ALL D2 strikes available and be able to choose which one we want to play.
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Edited by N ♡ ツ: 10/16/2024 2:43:07 PM"BuT wE liStenEd tO ThE StRimmErS sO BasiCAllY u VoTED fOr tHeSe cHanGeS siNce u waTcH aKa suPpoRt tHem!!" - Bungo
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Edited by BrothaMob: 10/16/2024 11:45:22 AMAnything to give the game a false sense of depth while forcing the player to stay engaged as long as possible with absolute minimal effort is the Bungie way. They rearrange, re-use, and reskin just about everything then sell it as new content only to have it removed in a future update. These people are lazy trash.
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It seems deliberate. The easiest and quickest fix to add fun to strikes is enabling the power curve. Then the negative modifiers have less impact the more you grind up. Boom. Makes the gameplay more fun and rewards playing the loops to grind up.
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I’ve been trying to say this, I thought I was the only one who thought they removed all the really great strikes and left the ok ones. We already grinded the heck out of those battlegrounds, why would we want them in the damn playlist? You are right I get way more battlegrounds in the vanguard ops playlist. I had to actually find inverted spire on the map to try the new version because it wouldn’t actually come up on the playlist. What since that make.
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I've been thinking the descent has been more like the Hindenburg plummeting to the ground in a maelstrom of flames, but your take on the decline on the Vanguard activities is quite valid too.
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3 RepliesI say the same things when normally I’m forced to use Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, and Launchers. Oh no you had to use swords and space magic for a day. The humanity
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Nightfalls have also made them obsolete as well
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They should just separate them into different playlists, battlegrounds and strikes.
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I don’t know but if it changes things up, I’m down to see how it goes. So far, the strikes I done have not seems any more difficult? Maybe I picked a good day lol.
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Not just Vanguard Ops, but the core playlists as a whole. Just doesn't really seem like there's much of an incentive to play them. You grind, you rank up, for what? Some enhancement cores, upgrade modules, and a ghost projection? You can easily get the first two from the Gunsmith or Rahool. One thing that actually made strikes worth playing was strike-specific loot in D1. But those days are long gone. Gambit has hardly gotten any attention beyond a map or two being brought back in the last several years. Crucible, well, that's a whole other story.
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2 RepliesWent downhill after they stopped strike specific loot
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Let's be fair now - it wasn't slow, Bungie saw that cliff edge and just went for it...
