Before I get into my actual thoughts about the future Moments of Triumph update, there is some emotional baggage I need to get out of the way that is partly tied to the following paragraph from the post: [quote][i]And now, on June 9, we're aiming to deliver a collection of love letters to players across all activity types within Destiny 2. [b]Although many were intended for future releases, we wanted to make sure you had them in this update.[/b][/i][/quote] Perhaps this indicates the upcoming update wasn't originally intended to be the endpoint for Destiny 2. But it does mean that the original Shadow and Order idea, Shattered Cycle, and the Alchemist are not being made, at least for Destiny 2. Maybe they will come with Destiny 3, if that is now in the pipeline. -------------------------------------- So, with as much emotion as I can muster...[u][i][b]WHAT THE HELL, TYSON GREEN[/b]?![/i][/u] Were you trying to mess things up worse than Luke Smith did with the Content Vault?! If Destiny 3 is in development, I don't want to see your name anywhere near it! I can only imagine that Moments of Triumph is happening this early because you butchered the central gameplay loop with the Portal! The Director was enjoyable. The dungeon and raid rotations were enjoyable. Leveling up power levels was managable, but things could have been better if the power grind was removed entirely. That way, players could play whatever activities they wanted. [b][i][u]INSTEAD![/u][/i][/b] You cut all the activities in the Director out of the gameplay loop entirely! You made the power grind even longer and locked behind an increasing power delta to max out power levels! You locked the best gear behind those power levels! You made all previous expansions that players paid for IRRELEVANT, because you seemingly did not want people to play the Destiny 2 built by previous game directors, but only wanted them to play the facsimile of Destiny 2 that YOU wanted them to play! If there is [i][u][b]ever[/b][/u][/i] a strong counterargument to the old Bungie slogan, "We make games we want to play", what you did with the Portal to Destiny 2 would be it! You messed things up so badly that Shattered Cycle and the Alchemist will no longer be! If the Portal was just a node where old Seasonal activities were brought back, that would have been fine. That's all you needed to do, NOT build the whole game around it! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, on to my thoughts on Moments of Triumph. The most bittersweet thing is that Moments of Triumph it will leave the game in a final state that's far better off than what it was. It is set to bring back just about everything that Edge of Fate left behind. All of the Raids and Dungeons are being brought into the new Tier system, with new perks and set bonuses for all weapons and armor. Even the old Destinations are having their armor sets and weapons revamped as well, which brings genuine value to the loot from older expansions again. Now, new players can get their first sets of Tiered Gear from playing the older expansion locations, instead of solely from one spot. The new Pantheon is permanent (on account of it being a final update), but it is also bringing back bosses from the vaulted Raids. Perhaps it is too much to hope that bringing them all back would have been in the pipeline. While the picture shows the Leviathan Raid Bosses (save for one of them), I hope it also brings back Scourge of the Past. The new ability updates were probably going to come with either Shattered Cycle or the Alchemist, including new melees and grenades for classes that sorely needed them. I'm interested to see how they will play. Iron Banner is now every four weeks, and Gambit has finally been brought forward. There is a lot to get my thoughts around, and I can only imagine Distortions might have been a planned activity for Shattered Cycle to bring something new into older destinations. ---------------------------------------------------- It...is so much of what needed to be done to breathe life back into the game after the blunders of Edge of Fate and Tyson Green's management. To make all the old expansion locations and content meaningful again, to reinvigorate the gameplay for players. But it all comes as a final update. To be honest, it will keep me busy for a while. I want to see how the loot of all the old locations, Raids, and Dungeons will change, to see what catches my interest and is worth pursuing. I wish there was a little bit more. I would have liked to see all the old Seasonal Activities have a chance to be brought back into the game before the end, and a return of all the old locations that were vaulted. But aside from that...Here we are. With the final Live Service update, Destiny 2 will become a complete game. Any new players can buy the upcoming Collection and not have to worry about future expansions or even dungeon keys, since everything will be bundled together from now on. I'll keep playing even after this update because, in spite of Tyson Green's mismanagement at the end and the Portal, I still have fun playing the game. I'll probably play through all the old story campaigns again, where possible, as part of seeing the new loot changes, and because the story is part of what drew me into Destiny 2, when Destiny 1 didn't draw me in as much. --------------------------------------------------- Destiny as a story...It means a lot to me. I am sad to see Destiny 2's story coming to an end in this manner, especially when I am still interested in seeing where the story will go, if Destiny 3 is in our future. Because of that story and the gameplay, I will keep playing Destiny 2 for a while longer. There is a lot of stuff I've left "unfinished", if you can call not getting all the loot from Raids and Dungeons for all my characters that, so I'll work towards that going forward. Again, I am sad to see Destiny 2 end in this manner, and I genuinely hope that a new Destiny game is either being made or will be made so we can see the overarching story come to a satisfying conclusion. I also hope that any future game directors do not drop the ball as hard as Luke Smith and Tyson Green both did. It was fun playing with everyone, and I hope it will still be fun to play with everyone even after this final update, whatever comes next for the future of the Destiny story.