Or strictly voluntary.

That would be ideal but we can't go taking a yard here. This is a Bungie game after all.

Some of the worse upcoming mods are strictly voluntary. Didn't they make the gravity mod voluntary? The mod system is new and obviously there are problems. Bungie admits that and seems to be actively tweaking it. We'll see what happens. Some of the stuff they do is amazing and some of it misses the mark by a mile. IMHO the automatic "Bungie bad" attitude is not realistic or an effective tool to evaluate things. It's just as bad as the "Bungie is always right" attitude. Both are impediments to understanding, discussing, and creating suggestions for improvements in any given topic. The only way to form a realistic, useful, opinion is to look at the good and the bad. Oh well... a man can dream.

[quote]Some of the worse upcoming mods are strictly voluntary. Didn't they make the gravity mod voluntary? The mod system is new and obviously there are problems. Bungie admits that and seems to be actively tweaking it. We'll see what happens. Some of the stuff they do is amazing and some of it misses the mark by a mile. IMHO the automatic "Bungie bad" attitude is not realistic or an effective tool to evaluate things. It's just as bad as the "Bungie is always right" attitude. Both are impediments to understanding, discussing, and creating suggestions for improvements in any given topic. The only way to form a realistic, useful, opinion is to look at the good and the bad. Oh well... a man can dream.[/quote] I think you're absolutely right, apart from the part where the bungie bad attitude isn't helpful. It's been like tbis since destiny 1. If you look hard enough. Some people aren't so jaded by the nostalgia of the first game, and some of us have had problems and issues with many things in this game since the first ones release. We're tired of it now, after 10 years of playing and being addicted to it, we've finally had enough. Its time people valued all the negativity, and accepted it as helpful, and true. It is helpful, because now Bungie finally see, they can't dictate to us anymore.

So let's skip past the part where you tell me I'm right and then totally ignore my point. I'm also going to shelve my own opinion that players are generally ignorant of the principles and challenges of game design and their input is only useful in very broad or very specific ways. Let's also ignore for now that most times players have contradictory ideas that are primarily based on how [i]they[/i] want the game to be. Finally, we'll ignore that relatively small but relatively vocal percentage of forum posters who are so stupid or ignorant they can't be taken seriously. You say that "it" has been like "this" since D1. "If you look hard enough". You don't say what "it" is, what condition "this" is, or what exactly we should look at. Surely "it" couldn't have been "this" bad or the franchise wouldn't have lasted this long. There must be some positive things. Lots of people have looked very hard at virtually every aspect of this game. From the very beginning - long before they could have been "jaded" by "nostalgia". (Jaded by nostalgia is probably not what you meant to say since that would entail a negative attitude toward the current game. "Blinded by nostalgia" probably suits your argument better.) Anyway, lots of people have been very vocal about the problems they've seen from day one. Fortunately, a lot of people have also talked about the things they liked about the game. And they often disagreed about which was which. But they usually claimed they criticized specific parts of the game because they loved the whole of game. It's not like that anymore. You seem to include yourself in a group of "addicted" players. I fully acknowledge the existence of video game addiction. To be blunt - if you're playing a game because you're addicted to it your opinions on the current state of the game are almost certainly going to be heavily influenced by your addiction. For instance you use the word "dictate" to describe what Bungie has been doing for the last ten years. That's a very emotionally loaded word. It only applies if you're forced to comply with the wishes of the dictator. It doesn't fit very well when describing how a video game studio develops their game. I'm not going to take the easy way out and say that anyone could always just not play. It's more complicated than that. I will suggest that some of your negativity relates to your feelings about your relationship with the game. That's not to say the game doesn't have problems. Or that your opinion is wrong. So if you've finally had enough then the negativity is helpful and true. Bungie really [i]can't [/i] dictate to you. I wish you well in all things.

[quote]So let's skip past the part where you tell me I'm right and then totally ignore my point. I'm also going to shelve my own opinion that players are generally ignorant of the principles and challenges of game design and their input is only useful in very broad or very specific ways. Let's also ignore for now that most times players have contradictory ideas that are primarily based on how [i]they[/i] want the game to be. Finally, we'll ignore that relatively small but relatively vocal percentage of forum posters who are so stupid or ignorant they can't be taken seriously. You say that "it" has been like "this" since D1. "If you look hard enough". You don't say what "it" is, what condition "this" is, or what exactly we should look at. Surely "it" couldn't have been "this" bad or the franchise wouldn't have lasted this long. There must be some positive things. Lots of people have looked very hard at virtually every aspect of this game. From the very beginning - long before they could have been "jaded" by "nostalgia". (Jaded by nostalgia is probably not what you meant to say since that would entail a negative attitude toward the current game. "Blinded by nostalgia" probably suits your argument better.) Anyway, lots of people have been very vocal about the problems they've seen from day one. Fortunately, a lot of people have also talked about the things they liked about the game. And they often disagreed about which was which. But they usually claimed they criticized specific parts of the game because they loved the whole of game. It's not like that anymore. You seem to include yourself in a group of "addicted" players. I fully acknowledge the existence of video game addiction. To be blunt - if you're playing a game because you're addicted to it your opinions on the current state of the game are almost certainly going to be heavily influenced by your addiction. For instance you use the word "dictate" to describe what Bungie has been doing for the last ten years. That's a very emotionally loaded word. It only applies if you're forced to comply with the wishes of the dictator. It doesn't fit very well when describing how a video game studio develops their game. I'm not going to take the easy way out and say that anyone could always just not play. It's more complicated than that. I will suggest that some of your negativity relates to your feelings about your relationship with the game. That's not to say the game doesn't have problems. Or that your opinion is wrong. So if you've finally had enough then the negativity is helpful and true. Bungie really [i]can't [/i] dictate to you. I wish you well in all things.[/quote] I read all that and I find it hard to disagree. Maybe it is my feelings, but how can I help it? This game is the pinnacle for fps feels the movement the shooting, its the holy grail. I said to someone earlier that the most frustrating thing for me is that I feel like Bungie have sat on that holy grail without really knowing how good the thing is that they've got, kinda like smaug sat on the arcanstone in the lonely mountain. I'll admit I'm addicted to it, just like Thorin and his bloodline seem to have become with gold. Anyway, I'm afraid I have come to expect more, probably too much given how hard it is to make a game, but they promised us this amazing huge mmo world, and all we got was a storyline with more holes in it than a secondhand dartboard, and the playability that only angels could conjure. Why are we all still here? Throw enough -blam!- in the air and soon enough some will stick to someone. A lot of this game has appealed to people, but the core issues have been there since the beginning. I guess thats what I mean when I'm tired of it. So frustrating.

In the early presentations by Bungie developers where they talk about their basic philosophy of game design for Destiny one of their priorities was the [i]feel[/i] of the gameplay. They had all that experience from Halo but as a live game Destiny was different. Their goal was that the player would always feel like they were playing a single player game. They made a lot of their choices about how the game was built based on that idea. Choices about things like networking, the physics system, and how the inevitable conflicts between player machines were resolved. Your machine has authority over your character. You don't experience controller hesitation, audio desynchronization, or self-rubberbanding. You'll see it happen to other players or adds but you don't feel like it's happening to you. Destiny pvp is not considered "competitive" because of the choices made to make the gameplay feel that way. It was a bold choice that required inventing a new networking architecture. It's only one of the reasons the actual minute to minute gameplay in Destiny feels so good. You add in things like the sound design, the way abilities feel to use, and the gunplay, and IMHO there's not another fps game that can compare. The original developers put a huge portion of their attention and resources into making it happen. I think the results were god tier. At that time I think you'd have to rank Bungie's gameplay team as one of the best in the industry. Unfortunately it takes more than great gameplay to make a great game. Some other departments were not on the same level. In the massive and rapid changes the success of Halo and the separation from Microsoft created, some things fell by the wayside. There were lots of reasons for that. One of them was definitely management. I think some others were the transition to a live service game, the negotiated timeline for Activision, and the incredible increase in scope and complexity of Destiny. I think some of the things that happened illustrated that game developers often don't make great managers, business people, or even human beings. I'd guess the Peter Principle was alive and well at Bungie. Destiny was almost stillborn and in a lot of ways Bungie, whatever that is today, is still trying to get over it. Maybe "Bungie", "Bungony", or whatever you want to call it will get their shyt together enough to save the game. It seems plain there needs to be some sort of turnaround. I honestly think it's headed in the right direction although clearly they're going to have to do a lot of tweaking along the way. But it's going to be a lengthy process. I don't know if people are willing to wait anymore. Destiny has got to be good enough to attract new players. Myself, I've found a way to keep playing without losing my love for the game. I play less, I only do things I like, and I don't chase numbers. I'm getting old and my vision sucks so it was fairly easy for me to lower my expectations. I have 257 raid completions. That number may never go up and I'm mostly ok with that. I know it's not so easy for everyone. I think in game, as on the forum, concentrating on the positive without ignoring the negative works the best for me. Despite the fact that I consider the forum to be in a much worse place than the game. You clearly have a great love for this game. I hope you can find a way to accept it for what it is - at least enough to keep loving the good parts. Here's some stuff... https://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731 "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" by Jason Schreier is a great book on the game industry with a chapter on Destiny https://gdcvault.com/play/1022246/Shared-World-Shooter-Destiny-s

How about how d2 has been since launch, before the EOF player time grab/steal initiative

Episode Heresy was divine.

[quote]Episode Heresy was divine.[/quote] I disagree totally. There were good moments, but the woke storyline with Saint 14 and osiris killed those characters off for me, totally wrote them out of my caring. It ruined the whole thing for me and many others. Then what came after was even worse, and the witness? Do me a favour. What kind of crap idea was that? Destiny 2 has literally been a disaster since its release. The only reason we're here now still playing, and still talking about it is, because its an addictive game to play in terms of how it feels to play as a guardian. Literally everything from storylines to crucible matchmaking and raid mechanics have been woeful. Truly bottom tier.

[quote][quote]Episode Heresy was divine.[/quote] I disagree totally. There were good moments, but the woke storyline with Saint 14 and osiris killed those characters off for me, totally wrote them out of my caring. It ruined the whole thing for me and many others. Then what came after was even worse, and the witness? Do me a favour. What kind of crap idea was that? Destiny 2 has literally been a disaster since its release. The only reason we're here now still playing, and still talking about it is, because its an addictive game to play in terms of how it feels to play as a guardian. Literally everything from storylines to crucible matchmaking and raid mechanics have been woeful. Truly bottom tier.[/quote] No one's talking about any of that. Saint-14 and Osiris was Echoes. Episode Heresy was about the Dreadnought, Drifter and Eris and had phenomenal voice work performances and one of the most replayable and rewarding activities in the games history. I think you need some fresh air my friend 😅

Which one was that?

The one before EoF like you said.