[quote]My Experience and Passion for the game: [spoiler]I love this game. I really do. I have merch bought from the Bungie store, the Cayde-6 statue my brother got me for Christmas, a 3d printed ghost shell and an actual ghost shell, the engram balls that took forever to get. I have quite a collection. This wasn’t meant to flex by any means... I just like the game Not many like to hear the “experience” but my brother played the D1 Beta until he was a level 8 Warlock and ever since I was handed the controller in 8th grade... I was forever in love with playing this game. Warlock main... although they will never be a dominant crucible class in D2 lol. I know when people put their experience it usually follows with “and now I’m leaving” etc etc. I just would like to give some input on the current state of D2. My friends and I had a conversation the other night after doing a Nightfall Ordeal and the main question on the table was [u][b]Why?[/b][/u] [i]Why do we get on each night to play this game anymore?[/i] I initially tried to defend it but I took a big step back and looked at everything to find the incentive. [/spoiler] So I’ll break down the broad topics: [b]PvE:[/b] [i]Where’s the incentive?[/i] [spoiler]You have Ordeal strikes- the same strike over and over and over mindlessly killing these champions for some upgrade materials (I don’t mind the same strike but the champions get on my nerves). I think they made the power levels too high for this season. Do they expect the average person to be 1030 for a Master Nightfall to have a regular shot at attempting it? I was always able to do the Master activities each season being the power level if not higher without ever even doing the raid. I’ve made it to 101 the first season and like 184 cause of the easy Timelost bounties but I may have been ~120 before that. I was never a crazy rank nor was I even the max pinnacle level but I still was able to complete the Master Nightfall without several wipes. Maybe they did this on purpose to create a much harder challenge but with the lack of incentive and current content to do, I don’t see this as the right call. I would suggest lowering the power of Master and Grandmaster by 5 or 10 or making the power bonus exp threshold a little lower so it’s a little more obtainable to the player that doesn’t grind this game as much as others. Even if I was 1010 right now with the 100 season pass bonus (which is +14 I believe) I’m 6 power under the Master rank which was never the case in the last 2 seasons. I was never max pinnacle rank in any season yet I could be over the Master Nightfall recommended power. Maybe a little later on this specific issue won’t exist but man when grandmaster comes out all of those bounty grinders will come out the wood work. Which transitions to my next point[/spoiler] [i]Why are bounties the true endgame?[/i] [spoiler]I am not exactly complaining that pinnacle power is bad either. This is the same concept that Taken King used with the King’s Fall Raid. “You get to 300 and the only way past 300 was through the raid (and I think IB and Trials also)” Just because this was a thing, that didn’t mean the other game become obsolete. Why are bounties the quickest and most effective way to be a viable member in the Ordeal strike... the only place it [b]MATTERS[/b] to be grinding. You can argue Master Nightmares but that’s not a grindable activity. There is truly only one activity in this game where Power begins to matter to the player and it’s not the raid. THAT is one of various issues for me. [b]So okay cool[/b], I grinded all this time to complete the Master Ordeal well enough to the point I can start to farm it... for upgrade materials... that I use... to just go back into the same activity? Upgrading your armor is more often than not used to PvP building but that doesn’t mean PvE building doesn’t exist. I did my first raid the other day and it was actually pretty fun... but why was I extremely overleveled for it? And take this long to even try it? D1YR3 introduced a weekly raid featured at 380 Light difficulty (Light was capped at 400). It rotated between the oldest raid and the newest raid. It was known as the “Age of Triumph”. That was a total of 4 raids but everyone enjoyed going back to they favorite activities for revamped loot, adept exotics, doing raid challenges previously unavailable, and obtaining raid ornaments to make their armor even cooler than before. Not even counting the raid lairs, there are 4 fun raids (imo) that can be brought back in the same fashion as this but introduced in a way as 980-1000 Power Recommendation, Pinnacle Loot, new Raid armor looks that can be toggled on and off, and maybe even adept raid weapons for doing encounter challenges. Intrinsically given Leviathan Raid weapons extra cabal damage, Last Wish have Taken Spec, CoS has Hive Spec, and GoS has Vex Spec. D1 literally had Hive Barrier piercing rounds for Crota weapons... at least it was an additional perk! [/spoiler] [u]To tie up PvE for now:[/u] (I will probably come back to add more but I need a break from typing for now) [spoiler]-Need more [u]Why?[/u] to fuel the players’ incentive to obtain loot and to invest time into grinding this game. -If the EXP grind will continue, bounties have to give a little less and completing other activities should reward even more (like 100K for first raid completion that week and maybe increasing rates per encounter until the end like 10K, 20K, 30K, then 50K- just an example) -Allow players time grind different things like Rotating Raids and even rotate the dungeons and revamping their loot (consider making dungeon-[i]exclusive[/i] loot) -Allow upgrade Materials to drop from other pinnacle sources.[/spoiler] PVP review time- if I am bias just reality check me since PvP is where I have more time played in. I may be more knowledgeable but I could also be more in my own favor. So... [b]PvP:[/b] [i]Where’s the incentive?[/i] [spoiler]I’m playing crucible almost daily. Been 2100+ all seasons, have all the pinnacles, and 2000 away from Unbroken. So now that I’ve said my experience I’ll get to the real point: [b]Why?[/b] Why do I choose to keep playing PvP? My friends and I find it fun most nights if it’s just Quickplay but if you are a solo player... why even bother? If I was strictly a PvP player, I could [i]actually[/i] get some powerful gear through competitive sub rank ups but with the recent addition of Trials aside... where is my endgame reward? Why do only receive 10 Enhancement Cores for a Valor Legend rank? For people who get the valor to reset, that takes [i]way[/i] more time than a nightfall and you can get up to 3 prisms or an ascendant shard from those... that’s like 30-100 cores in 20-30 minutes! There is no gain in investing your time into the Crucible if you are just going to get soft cap gear, blues, and that once in a blue moon exotic drop. I mentioned before that building with upgrade materials mainly applies to PvP building. So why can’t we build if we don’t play PvE? I think we should get [i]at least[/i] 5 prisms on Valor reset and maybe a handful cores per rank (not sub rank). This would reward players for doing PvP.[/spoiler] [i]So I have everything PvP has to offer... then what?[/i] [spoiler]If you are like me, you nearly “beat” Crucible. You got just about all the things it has to offer and have nothing left to do. No ritual weapon was a real slap in the face this season. It gave players something to do but with that aside what is your new reason to play? Perhaps you just enjoy crucible, I know I do, but there is absolutely zero endgame reason to enter the crucible. I think Glory should be the endgame of Crucible (weekly, unlike events like trials and IB). I think 5 cores per sub rank and 2-3 prisms per rank would be suitable. Then 1- 2 Shards for 5500. At 5500 what’s left? Let’s create new ornaments that players can grind for (ie: 200 guardián kills). What I’m about to say applies to PvE as well but a new rotation of armor and cosmetics obtainable through activity is needed... badly. If I get one more Harsh Truths man! But seriously, we need some new weapons and perk combinations. We also need the option to choose what we receive. I swear I only need a helmet and 1000 tokens laters, don’t have it? So why would this help if you have everything? Obviously there will come a time where you play an activity too much and receive everything, but that should not make the activity become obsolete and meaningless towards power progression.[/spoiler] [i]”Crucible is boring and unnecessary and on top of all of that broken right now”[/i] [spoiler]Well to stray away from power progression for a short second, the crucible needs the fun back! We need 2 main things to be introduced: -A Bigger selection of fun game modes -Community Maps/Forge Just off the top of my head... Team Gjallarhorns SWAT Zero Gravity 12 vs 12 Forge could introduce more customization to private games as well Some other ideas -Replay system -Kill Cam... QoL[/spoiler] Thanks for the read, I wrote a good amount for now, if you didn’t catch my PvE side, it’s above. I didn’t mention Trials, that is something I will type up in my next iteration of this thread. Lmk if I missed anything and suggest anything. I’m not the speaker of the community I’m simply a voice amongst other so fine tuning our opinions to creat one common opinion will create a louder voice to be heard[/quote] Thanks for using spoiler tags. Most should learn to use this feature before the expect normal people to read through a wall of ranting.

[quote]My List of Criticism for D2[/quote]

My biggest criticism of D2 and more appropriately, Bungo, is their continued punting of the social features of this game to outside parties. I continually laugh every time I see it saying someone’s at “Earth: Social” aka the Tower. The fact our IN-GAME social systems are lackluster to nonexistent ensures that between 10% (and I think that’s a generous number) of this game’s community will participate in ANY activity that involves matchmaking. In the end, we can talk about all the other numerous issues this game has. But until Bungo acknowledges that this is an issue, those others will persist.

I’d really love if they’d add strike specific loot back, as it’d give me a reason to start doing more pve, and I always found the stuff from d1 really unique and cool looking. Maybe slowly update the strikes with loot as the seasons go on (not only ghost shells, ships, sparrows) but armor and weapons.

Two things I’d add to increase the longevity and depth of this game. 1. A theater/free cam mode to facilitate content creators of all types to get destiny in various media 2. Heavy progression based cosmetic loot for all walks of gameplay. Like for instance, perhaps at your 25k kill (pve/pvp combined) with arcstrider, you got an arc staff finisher. At 50k, an arc staff emote. Something along those lines for all subclasses. Have those milestones in many areas of the game to give people cool things to work towards as they do their activities. On top of that, have rare randomized cosmetic loot be obtainable through strikes/raids/trials etc. Opening your flawless chest? Here’s a rare shot at getting a trials sparrow/shader/ship. Just beat this strike? Rare chance at strike specific loot. It would leave the floor open for people to always have something to chase either through merit or rng while they both hold value. These are just two ideas that would increase player engagement if done correctly. Realistically, this would likely have to be implemented in a Destiny 3 for the amount of work required rather than fix Destiny 2 way after the fact.

Do you play Halo 5? That Forge comment made me laugh. My buddies and I still hop in every once and awhile for crazy custom/community game modes.

Ah, yes. Finally. A fellow Warlock who likes PvP.

You have been Red Pilled, welcome to the real world...

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 well done

I added Spoilers so you can focus on each section at a time rather than it being a block of content to read through. My tie up is basically the tl;dr but I suggest giving it a look

Good points. I feel like the way we earn XP makes no sense. Early in the game we earn XP and obtain new abilities during the story campaign. Afterward our character experience level is capped, and then we start climbing up in a new category - power level - determined by the average of our equipment power level. Which is strange. Now we have artifacts that have their own experience levels independent of character level, that also boost power level. Then we have bounties which pile on XP, which mostly affects artifact level, but not any sort of meaningful player progression because the artifact resets each season. I think we’re wittingly helping the Vex run a simulation that leads to guardians just giving up after they realize that XP and power levels in Destiny are arbitrary, meaningless, unrewarding treadmills. Which then clears the path for the Vex to take the final shape at the end of the universe.