Destiny has become a lesson in addiction - ever-diminishing returns but players keep chasing the high of the "good old days." I was a big defender of D2Y1, because I thought it was finally focusing more on gameplay than the difficulty and randomness of rewards (and screwing people with bad RNG), and allowed "casuals" to at least participate in the game and earn the same rewards the self-proclaimed "elitists" did - IMO, D2Y2 went to hell and has stopped being even remotely fun to play. The re-introduction of Random Rolls (ugh) means I have a ton of very sub-par weapons, the new Infusion system and material rarity/grind means I'm constantly running under-leveled gear just to have something halfway decent, and since Forsaken dropped the only Exotics I've seen were in Xur's inventory. I liked D2Y1 because it felt more like a FPS/RPG hybrid where "grinding" wasn't as important as gameplay, but I came to accept it's alternate persona as a "looter-shooter" (whatever the hell that is). With Forsaken, Destiny isn't even that anymore - there's no loot, and I'm not having fun shooting things with crappy guns hoping a better one will drop (spoiler - so far, none have). It's literally become a time-sink simulator, and is making me realize how much I enjoy every other game I've played in the past year than I'm enjoying Forsaken. I'm slightly more than "just" a hobby player, but consider myself more a "casual" than a "hardcore/elite" player since I play solo and don't Raid - I've never had a problem putting some realistic amount of time into earning upper-tier rewards, but I don't expect ANY game to take hundreds (or even thousands) of hours just to acquire gear. Exotics in particular are a big selling point of this franchise, and making it so only all-day streamers and die-hard players ever have access to them is doing nothing but depriving most of the player base of an essential part of the experience - IMO, any Exotic or gear-related quest should be able to be accomplished by a player of mid/average skill in, at MOST, a long Saturday or a week of maybe 3-hour-a-day play (I'm looking at you, Broadsword/Luna), rather than dangling the carrot in front of everyone but only allowing ultra-dedicated or highly-skilled players to rub the rewards in everyone else's faces. (The very fact that some players finish these quests in the first 1-2 days, and others struggle for weeks or months, is exactly what Destiny has done wrong - if elitists can do it in a day anyway, it's an artificial gate to make average players feel inferior without actually contributing anything to the game.)

Look at the trophy achievement completions for the game and dlc. Im on ps4 and its amazing how low they are.

Apparently so. They catered wayyyyyyy too much towards the “playing for a living” part of the community. I wanted a grind too but not this kind of a grind. More on a RoI grind. I only have 1 character at 535 and haven’t really touched my other two and probably won’t. There is just way too much to do and it takes way too long.

May people liked the old days of destiny 1 and how it basically perfected its self at the end. The problem now is that they made the people that loved destiny 2 as it was unhappy. Things came quick and easy and not its more like D1. I will say I am not happy with some of the changes but I cant deny the D1 feel. Its frustrating but it was then too and I still liked it. I blame the older players for this honestly complaining things were too easy and lost interest. Now they made it BALLS HARD and frustrating like it was in D1 and its kinda jarring to deal with. I liked when Xur gave me new stuff I payed for the content let me get at least one new thing every week that does not require a crap load of grinding. Over all they need to tweak some things but I think they are almost there....Until the malfesence quest became a thing that is just a total train wreak in a dumpster fire on planet crap.

Exactly. I have three characters and I feel burnt out. I can’t even use the guns I want to because of the mastercore situation. I’m forced to spend most of my time in the dreaming city, and doing repetitive boring rounds in the well to level up. This is because the dreaming city is the only area that makes it worth your time to level up at a certain point and just about all the endgame content is there now due to lazy programming. I paid for an entire universe to explore and level up in. The game now feels like more of a chore than a fun experience since forsaken came out. Some people might like that kind of grind, have the time for it, and don’t play anything else but Destiny, but a good amount don’t. D2 started out as a casual player game and turned into a hardcore player game. Bungie should have gone for the middle ground here so all kinds of players could have fun with the game and progress in an enjoyable way.

Totally agree. There was that sweet spot in D1 when there were reasons to keep playing for gear and progression. In D1 I played IB and Nightfall regularly but haven't touched either in D2 because the drops aren't worth dealing with the toxicity of the player base or the time it takes to find a team (I'm sure at this point somebody will mention LFG but it seriously took me 20-30 mins at times to find a nightfall group only on several occasions to be booted right before the end). Unfortunately there's a large base in the game that argue against casual players being able to progress as if it somehow affects their own enjoyment of the game. And this is the group that Bungie listen to.

Agreed. I'm not even majorly casual either I play everyday and I still only hit 550...it sucks playing this game now.

I agree. Rise of Iron's Light Level progression felt really good. Forsaken's progression just feels like you're riding a dying truck that's just lurching forward on square wheels. The RoI factions, PvE endgame and all the other activities felt like you were rewarded for having fun on your terms. With Forsaken, it's almost always 2 tokens and a blue even in the Well.

In a word, yes. Those "youtubers and no lifers" are the one and only group that Bungie listens to. You need no further evidence of this than the obscene joke that was the "Community" Summit in which Bungie PAID to fly a bunch of Twitch streamers and YouTube "content creators," people who literally sit on their asses 8-16 hours a day playing video games for sponsorships and Patreon "donations" making more money in their boxer shorts than I've ever made in gainful employment and they asked these jokers "what do you like about this game" and those asshats said "give us more grind" so they'll have an excuse to keep playing the same tired game in front of their bored viewers because of this infinitely immobile "progress bar" to nothingness they can imagine they're chasing. Best advertising investment Bungie's ever made, too, because these twits will throw every one of us under the bus with horrible suggestions then fly back home, hop in front of their cameras, and tell US to rush out and buy the latest cash-grab garbage heap because "Bungie listens." And like sheep, so many of you did. I'm looking at the way things have been going steadily for the last 4 years and said "no way in hell I'm paying $40 for more of this."

It takes to long to level up. I can’t even do the dreaming city quests because the minimum light is 540. I haven’t even got past 510 since foresaken launched. I don’t play every free moment I have because I have a life, but Destiny is pretty much the only game I play. It takes to long to level up. The work put in vs reward (and is has become [i]work[/i] not a [i]hobby[/i]) isn’t close enough to warrant the time needed to be able to play this game anymore.

What's the rush? the game isn't going anywhere... Also, last time Bungie made the game for casuals the game died after you all complained that there wasn't anything to do and all left.