Destiny 1 had WAY more guns and WAY more armor, each tier of gun or armor (white, green, blue, and purple) had random rolls while with Destiny 2 only legendaries and exotic armor have random rolls, the weapons were more balanced (hand cannons especially didn't suck, with excessive amounts of recoil except for one archetype), weapons and grenades actually felt deadly in PvP, ability trees were more fleshed out with more perks allowing for more customization and build options, the music sounded different (more acceptable IMO, even in D2 when the old tracks come up they are immediately distinguishable from the new ones as they sound simpler in design), there was skeleton keys, strike specific loot, legendary and "adept" (or exotic) raid weapons, there were more exotic quest weapons, there were a number of ways to decorate armor, shaders, ships, ghost shells, and sparrows were free in the keyosks and shaders didn't disappear when used, SRL, joinable factions (none of this once a month "faction rally" BS) [i]and[/i] they had faction specific exotics, weapons day, faction vendors with weekly rotating stock (and I'm talking a bunch of weapons and armor, not just two or three items to choose from) with random rolls, trials, Prison of Elders (along with unique weapons and armor for that), WAY more loot drops in Crucible and also the ability to see what other people got at the end of a match... the list goes on. Also the PvP maps felt more open, not cramped and chocked full of choke points (weather they be doorways or simple line of sight obstacles). Destiny 2 doesn't feel like Destiny because it isn't really Destiny, it's something else. A last minute slapped together turd in a box with a Destiny paint job, and it shows. At this point Bungie is just playing with the turd, trying to shape in into something remotely fun.. a castle maybe, I dunno.

D1 in the hand is worth more than D2 in the Bush.

That’s the point... I’m sick of bungie constantly trying to reinvent the wheel and failing.

Agreed. I started a new hunter on D1 and I’ve had one hell of a time compared to D2 in its entirety.

It’s not nostalgia, D1 felt better. Yeah Forsaken is great and all but, D1 year 3 compared to D2, D1 wins hands down.

If they assign a 3 to the next installment of Destiny, I know it won't be for me.

The raids were better. The leveling system was better in vanilla, as the only way to max light was by raid (possibly iron banner too?). Now you can get max by killing boars in the forrest.... The planets were better and over time you knew them off by heart, I still go to Nessus and have no fling clue of my bearings! PvP maps were faaar better.

The reason you myself and many others feel this way is bc bungie built D2 from ground up for esports...... the way they implemented supers skill trees grenades armor weapons... everything in D2 was built with pvp balance in mind and that’s what’s wrong with D2. You can’t take a game that’s pve at its core and build it around pvp. It did not work out and I for one hope bungie has learned that the majority of us are not here for pvp.

Are there still a lot of players, enough to make revisiting a worthwhile experience for raiding and such?

Its a mix of nostalgia and destiny 1 actually being good. I personally believe if you compare destiny 2 to destiny 1 destiny 2 is as good as right before the taken king launched. forsaken fixed soooo many issues so much that I was very surprised when I joined back. annual pass isn't made for fixing things just adding new content, this next fall expansion most likely rise of iron size will most likely bring destiny 2 to where it was after the april update. But this is my opinion its gonna take time for destiny 2 to get better but one its at the end of its life cycle I think it will be a bit better than destiny 1.

I guess enjoy playing D1 with a limited number of people? D1 had a lot of charm, and I can definitely see playing it again for like an hour for nostalgic reasons. But with really no new content, no things to strive for, there's really no reason for myself to touch the first game ever again.