My main complaints with this game are as follows. They lean too far into the grind. No one wants to play an activity 900 times for progress.
These shield, barrier and overload champions really killed the end game. It dosent make it hard it just makes me use weapons I don't want to and that's horrible design. You are catering to people playing your game. There is a level where you can dictate but this has always been overbearing.
However with these in place I'd mostly just play the campaign and then pop in for a season or two and that was fine. Would like to play all seasons but they are so grindy and that was my choice.
Lightfall however is an embarrassment at best this has been the worst story (or lack of story) that they have told in the entire destiny franchise. I get covering subjects but this didn't even end on a cliffhanger. And they say it's going to be spread out during the seasons? I bought the annual pass anyway but that is really predatory sales practices. It would have been better of you just asked for $100 upfront for lightfall but they know that no one was going to pay that for the campaign.
Kind of sad, I hope the final shape is better if not, that may be the end of destiny for me. Always wanted to complete the story. If they don't, then I am not sure I'd want to start a new adventure after this concludes.
Well in my opinion it is the worst yet. You are free to disagree if you like. No matter whether anyone liked it or not, spreading the story though the season passes was deceptive. I have the annual pass but just because I do, dosent mean it's not a -blam!- move.
I stopped in Nov-2022 for similar reasons. Excessive grind, lack of PvP support, buffs/nerfs I didn't agree with and increasing limitations on how you are allowed to play the game.
Regarding this last part, one big contributor is definitely Champions but another is the nuking of Protective Light in favour of Well mods and it looks like they have done it again with Powerful Friends.
Why did I have to make all my weapons match the energy type of my armour? Why did I have to only use weapons that have an artifact mod just to be able to defeat the Champions?
Bungie rarely listens and when they actually do, they misinterpret. For example, people don't want less ability spam, they want less ability spam in PvP, specifically. It therefore might make sense for a 1-minute cooldown to the grapple in PvP but in PvE? No.
Another example is Citan's. It got nerfed to the ground when it was an extremely balanced Exotic. The barricade it produced was incredibly easy to counter: Fusion rifles, storm grenades, Witherhoard, Hakke weapons, avoid it altogether.
What happened is Hunters were frustrated by not being able to jump over barricades like they used to due to the AE changes but Bungie took that and decided to completely annihilate not only Titan 's class ability but also Citan's, when buffing AE would have sufficed.
Every time Bungie takes a step forward, it takes three steps back. They can't help themselves and have to constantly try fix things that aren't broken whilst not addressing the gaping issues the game has.