It's dead for most players, not just casual players. Because of changes to make the loot tables casual/solo-friendly, the endgame rewards are terrible and there is no reason to replay some of the most fun content Bungie produces for PVE (the raid and nightfall). You can get ALL of the games best guns without doing anything harder than a normal heroic strike. You can get max light by just doing strikes, although if you don't raid, you don't do nightfalls, and you don't play trials (as a large majority of the community does now), then you don't need max light - its functionally capped at the challenge level of the content you are doing. This, combined with the persistent neutering of our weaponry and guardian abilities for PVP purposes, and there is no fun to be had in PVE. It's just an endless strike fest chasing god-rolled legendary weapons to use in PVP, when most people hate how broken the PVP is in this game and avoid it like the plague. Those that do play it are doomed to suffer a lag-laden experience with cookie cutter kids running around with their meta weapons and builds - because god forbid Bungie actually make every gun in the game good at once. The game COULD be so much fun, but it simply gives you no reason to play ANYTHING really, which is why I decided to bypass RoI. There wasn't a major change in direction (back to how things were in Y1) that this game needed for long-term sustainability. Like it or not, RNG kept us chasing the games elite weapons for a much longer period than people do now.

Casuals play COD. Destiny isn't a place for you. It requires time put into it. No free handouts.

I'm casual. It's not dead but there isn't much there. As for trials it's a dead gamemode to anyone but streamers

I'm a casual player and its far from dead from where I'm standing. There is no shortage of people to do strikes with, have people wanting to do the hard raid daily and pvp is fun because you're competing with others AND yourself to get better, and to top it off you get the chance of good rewards after a match. Not to mention there are a wide variety of weapons in each game so there's always a new challenge. It just seems the hate is all focused on this forum, online I've met many cool players who just play for fun as well and my experience overall is positive. So as a casual I say the game is alive and well.

I agree but for the most part Destiny needs to just die off. In terms of video games, Destiny is an old fart. I was hoping that the move to next gen consoles would bring some advances to game play and mechanics. It didn't. All the move did for the game is give somewhat better graphics but still limited because of the code. Since Bungie can't really do anything with the game ,except do some re-skinning at this point. I would say its time to let go. If your new to the game? Have fun, make friends. But don't expect much more than just what you have now.(you are getting in at the end of the games life). Will Bungie/Activision do something surprising and fun to kick new life into Destiny? 90% NO. Heres why. Its not their style and in three years they haven't really done anything like that except for paid DLC content. Bungie is more about control. Controlling what weapons are used, where players can go and what players can do. They will put more effort into putting up an invisible barrier to keep a player off of something or out of an area than they do into expanding and opening areas. Weapons? Think about it. We have just a very small amount of 20th century weapon archetypes to play with and most all of them are just small variants on the others. It's like Bungie lost all its imagination when it comes to weapons. How about a freeze ray or a target tracking bullet or even a slow moving smart rocket that relentlessly tracks its target. But then again, think about the gameplay in Destiny. It is completely offensive gameplay. There is no defensive gameplay. So I guess theres no need for defensive weapons. Can you even imagine what this game would be like if they introduced turrets and big guns as defensive weapons? The turrets that are in a couple of the strikes are not really turrets. These turrets are nothing more than ads stuck to a wall that can be knocked out with a couple of shots. Turrets should be like a tank and take real effort to destroy. Lots of innovative things could have been done to this game over the past couple of years but wasn't. Instead we got cosmetic changes and hit point balancing. To put it bluntly, all bungie has ended up doing with all of its "balancing" is to nerf the entire game to the point of people loosing interest. They have also began to really hurt the old players who have been on this ride since beta, listened to all the broken promises and still stuck around. When a 6 year old can get the game and within a couple of weeks, achieve and do everything a person who has been playing since day 1 has? Somethings wrong! Certain things should come with time and loyalty and perseverance. Not just a stupid cosmetic emblem. "Become a legend" , nice PR but impossiable as the game is now. The guys at bungie keep castrating all of us guardians. So whats the point?

Sounds like you need to move on to a different game then because the game has evolved to be more rewarding whichever mode you choose to play.

Yea, I'm sure it's already been said that ToO [u] ISN'T[/u] for casuals, so there's that. BUT... This is the most casual friendly it has ever been. You literally get a guaranteed matador from a quest. Even if you don't you can get a matador drop just for playing crucible. I deleted two of them yesterday. You can buy one of the best Hand cannons in the game from a vendor. As a matter of fact many of the vendor weapons are viable. The reason everyone is running around with "perfect 2 tap 3 tap primaries' is because it was dropping like candy in IB and im sure it will again. It's not like Doctrine where only a hand full of people had it. Geesh people complain about everything.

The lighthouse isnt meant for casual players.

Is this about Destiny or trials? Because it sounds like you're whining about a non casual activity not catering to casuals.

Definitely not playing as much as I have before the game is broken and the mess looks a mile high from here so I don't devote my precious time to their game anymore. I suggest just stop playing if the cons outweigh the pros for you because your life will be a lot less stressful in my opinion. All we can do is hope that Destiny 2 will be everything it should be but even then if it's the same people running bungie I don't think it will magically be any different than Destiny 1 as that would be magical thinking on my part.