Destiny's Death by a Thousand Cuts 

If you could change only one thing about Destiny, what would it be?

I feel that we as a community need to stop becoming divided amongst ourselves between those that play PVE and PVP. We really should be sticking together to demand that the game as a whole needs to be given the focus it needs and deserves. "United we stand, divided we fall" as the saying goes.

Been on a break from Destiny since February for the first time since starting around The Taken King. Doesn’t look like I’m missing much and it’s painful seeing so much potential and talent give way to robotic seasonal content and a crumbling game infrastructure. D2Y2 and everything it did for PvE and PvP will forever be missed. Some of the best moments of gaming in my life.

Crazy to me how sole survivor got absolutely obliterated for PVP. But yet Merc is just allowed to be super random but it’s whatever, right?

I’m glad you guys are finally speaking out. This issue has been apparent for a while. Bungie needs to make some plays

this is a comment for the algorithm

This video really spoke to me. I also love destiny and the entire universe along with it, but playing the game is so painful these days. I haven’t kept it with it much recently, it’s hard to find the motivation when content just gets deleted, or is only available for a limited time. When I come back after a break I literally get CONFUSED on which DLCS I have to buy because there’s so many. Let alone the insane prices. I really want this game to succeed but it’s going to need a miracle. We appreciate this video, pattycakes.

Accurate comparison. Nothing enormous has gone wrong with destiny with it rather being small little creeping issues to where we are now. All so small to be significant enough for bungie to act but put together it’s not good

The part where he talked about mercurial overreach i felt that. I grinded every single week for 3 roses and never got the roll i wanted and only got one of the perks ONCE... and now its gone.

Man the entire community knows what it has, but it's got one last hurrah... Here's hoping the The Final Shape is what we all want.

As long as you’re making authentic content, that’s always the best kind of art/content someone can create!

I really felt the loss of the social piece comment. I have people who I used to run weekly raids with that I haven’t raided with in two season because people have left the game. In terms of titles, Destiny has some unique ones, like any of the dungeons that require solo flawless. There is an aspect of “getting better” from a “platforming” perspective, and honestly since I don’t really have any friends who play the game it’s really been my only endgame (soloing the newest dungeon). I think Grenadier Jake said it best, the only thing that will change Destiny is the community’s apathy. Even bad publicity is still publicity for Bungie. Essentially Destiny has to cease to be relevant in the RU-vid algorithm. Unfortunately, there are many aspiring content creators looking to make their mark, and Destiny offers a level of depth that any new creator begin with, and with the “old guard” leaving in troves, the “new guard” can step in and “breath life” into Destiny from a revenue perspective. It’s a vicious cycle that ultimately works for Bungie because they don’t pay the content creators, and because even if the “old guard” makes videos about the games pitfalls, it’s still publicity. That said the best advice that I have viewed is “find something different to play”. Don’t walk away mad, just walk away. Apathy, and by extension a rapid drop in player bases (loss of revenue for Bungie), will cause Bungie to finally make the changes that the community has asked for over the years, and then the cycle will start over…it sucks that this is how it has to be, but cash is king and Destiny is only relevant because it continues to make bank.

Watching you and all the other d2 creators has helped me improve over the years. I enjoy your strats and techniques.

Even in Plunder (arguably the most recent time apathy got this bad) people were still regularly checking in to mess around with Arc 3.0, run King’s Fall every week and grab whatever shiny new Adept was available in Trials or Nightfalls. My clan leader, who has like 6,000 hours and always grinds hardcore, didn’t even want to do the GM this week. It’s not casuals D2 is turning away right now, it’s the longtime veterans who keep the game alive when it goes through droughts.

Patty completely nailed it! I know the feeling he’s talking about all to well! I struggle booting this game up everyday.

I remember when I first started playing Destiny. I was hooked from the start. I would fall asleep with the controller in my hands while waiting for another Crucible or Iron Banana match to start at 4-5 in the morning. I don’t play anymore but still like watching some of the content creators to see if anything has been implemented that might bring me back and to hear about the newest lore discoveries.

I honestly wish there was a horde type mode

I feel the same way. Pvp was what made me fall in love with D1. It was my first fps so I was horrible at pvp but I was having a blast. I could play for hours. I did my best to improve and met many of my friends by messaging the player who had just wiped the floor with me post game to ask if he would help me get better. These days my friends list is almost empty when I log on. No one wants to play this mess they have turned pvp into but we all wish things could go back to at least 30th anniversary. The amount of decisions that have been made to screw over pvp in the past year alone are mind boggling. I also strongly disagree with Gladd's view of the pvp community. Most are not asking for some ultra competitive game. We don't feel entitled to things Bungie never said but expect them to deliver on their promises. Granted, they keep failing to do so but that does not make hope = entitlement. We also don't ask for anything that was never in the cards as he claims. We just want our fun pvp back. We had it before. We want it back. Simple.

I think for me the thing thwt hooked me in d1 was the mystery and intrigue of what was out there...geting to the moon for the first time after playing the beta and not being able to go there was so much fun. I got a little of this feeling in d2 during forsaken but the seasonal model where everything is extremely formulaic and you know what your gonna get has absolutely killed any vibe i had for d2 😢

I think deep down we've always known this would happen, but then again how many years of great times have we had out of Destiny, when you really think about this its honestly amazing the game has lasted this long.

I think that’s one of the big factors that made me take a prolonged break the fact that actual bugs that hurt players don’t get fixed for days/weeks but the moment it benefits the players it’s fixed same day or next day I’m still gonna buy final shape since I’ve put to much time into the game to not play through the story but after that me and d2 are done

PVP is definitely something that needs work, but in my eyes the biggest thing was the shift to seasonal content. Every season for years has been launching an activity when the season starts, then pulling it when the season wraps up, just to replace it with either a new activity or even the exact same one, just in a different spot with similar enemies. With Destiny 1, every update was pushing the base game ahead, and while some spots were getting left behind, a lot of times we were engaging with the same activities and playlists and Bungie would only add more to these activities. From day 1 to the end, we farmed nightfall, strikes, pvp, and raids, and maybe some daily/weekly missions. The activities we already had were only getting updated with more content, and over time we had a lot to play with no matter what you chose. Especially at the end of Destiny 1 when the year 1 raids and activities were refreshed, it felt like every activity in the game was fresh with content with a mix of old and new and could only be made with years of fine tuning. FF14 for example, also proves that iterating on all the content already in the game creates a better gaming experience for all levels. Destiny 2 does not have this because all of the effort that would go into fine tuning everything already in the game is instead being pulled to the seasonal activity and new locations while we ditch the old ones. Nothing is being improved, but rather we are stuck in a cycle of playing the same game with one shiny thing every few months that goes away almost instantly. I had no problem playing Destiny 1 through its entire lifespan, while I have never been hooked on Destiny 2 in the same way. It's always to play the game for a few weeks in a burst to see what's new, mostly grind levels, then drop the game for another year.

I quit like a week or 2 into this season. I find it so fascinating it seems like the community at large is right there with me when it comes to apathy. As someone who played pve just so they could find their way back home to crucible with some new toys its tough. Holding out hope for ages that theyd pour love back into pvp like they promised. After years of hoping and buying in, and over a year of horrific pvp choices, my once favorite part of any video game, is now totally unplayable to me. From lag, map weighting, sbmm, the meta that arose from it all, ability spam, the cheesiest builds constantly, the rubber banding, us having less maps now than we did in forsaken, the only maps they added in years being disjunction and cathedral, 2 of the worst maps in destiny pvp history. Them making unbroken, one of the only coveted titles that actually had any value at all, completely worthless. The list goes on. After all that, we go from witch queen, an absolutely incredible campaign and expansion. Along with a year of amazing storytelling crescendoing in season of the seraph with reds sacrifice, to the longest wettest fart that was lightfall. It feels like they had grand ambitions there, and strand is fantastic, but that was about it. Neomuna is beautiful on the surface, but really fell flat for most people, it introduced maybe the shittiest written and most insufferable npc of destiny history, and dont even get me fucking started on the narrative in lighfall. Thank god it looks like the narrative team is getting their shit in order after the last 2 cutscenes of this season, but a couple cutscenes is far from enough to make me feel like its worth coming back. Never ever felt so defeated or apathetic about destiny in my years and thousands of hours playing. It sucks

I've been playing Destiny 2 since its release when the only campaign was red war. I played every day for dozens of hours mostly. When the game came out I saw the potential in it for the future. More elaborate and more branching world events. Areas with interesting extraction activities where world pvp is allowed, kind of like darkzones in Division. Tuning sparrows and racing them. Sparrows with utilities and machine guns. Eventually space ship piloting and space dodge fights. That we'll see new tanks and armored vehicles and activities associated with them. World bosses with raid mechanics. Tribute halls came and I thought they were testing and eventually we'd get housing and guild halls. A lot of times I thought I had seen everything in the game only to then surprisingly be convinced otherwise and discover the secret dungeon whisper of the worm which was colossal, same case with Zero Hour. I went through Forsaken thinking that was it and was surprised again immediately afterwards when Dreaming City became available to me. An area bigger than Tangled shore full of secrets and content and I had absolutely no idea that this area was in the game.I saw the potential in all of this and expected that as time went on Destiny would build on this. For these things until Shadowkeep came out I loved Destiny. However Shadowkeep came out, then Beyond Light, Witchqueen and Lightfall. There were seasons in between. And during this period when all we got every quarter of the year were activities where we collected motes and deposited them in a bank or lifted orbs from the ground to throw in the bank, and when the activities were basically the same thing only with a different soundtrack, dialogue over the walkie-talkie, and a different background, I naively waited and waited. Waited and kept convincing myself that I still loved the game. It was a nostalgia based on how this game once amazed me. I had Lightfall pre-ordered. When it came out on the very first day I went through the first three missions. And that's where I ended up, and to this day I haven't played it. I'm definitely burnt out. Everything was the same thing over and over again for years. No innovation or experimentation. Shot 1000 dregs with a shotgun. Shot 1,000 guardians with a sidearm. And loot ....This constant chase for power level contributed a lot to my departure. I felt like I was in a casino. Since February, I've given a game called Guild Wars a chance and I'm in love all over again. Huge events in the open world and actually almost all the content takes place in the open world. Content in instances is minimal. There is a big open world area where pvp battles for castles and territories take place and you fight many times 100 players against another 100. Getting amor with the best stats is a goal for years, but once you get that armor, you've accomplished that goal because that armor will remain relevant in ten years. Combat is satisfying and very action-packed. It's not like wow where you have 1,000,000 abilities on the screen. Basically, I found in guild wars everything I expected to eventually find in destiny. Mystery, inovations, exlporing, and minimal repetition.

How i feel about the state of the game: I feel like i shouldn't keep all my eggs in one basket (destiny) because it feels like the rug is being slowly pulled out from underneath us:/ I've been hooked on destiny since Y1 destiny 2 and hooked on PVP since shadowkeep. And for the first time since i started, I feel like its time to add some more avenues for content/gaming because I don't know if Destiny is going to be around much longer in the broad sense.

i felt tears come to my eyes when i watched an evolution video for this game. destiny came out when i was 8 i think. when my dad saw the "Become Legend" trailer and immediately he got hooked. me and my dad always bonded over video games, but it wasn't until i was 12 when my dad let me play because he didn't want me to play violent video games at the time. until then i always watched him play some of my favorite video games today like the Arkham series, splinter cell, and halo. when destiny came out i instantly loved it! it was absolutely everything i looked for in a game and more. when i saw my dad playing it with his friends i always felt jealous that i couldn't play with him. it was like i was playing with them but not close enough. it took me two weeks to make a speech to get my dad to allow me to play eventually lol. ever since then it has been the best game i ever played. when i look at it now all i see is a failed game that gave me a full 9 years of great memories. now all i have to give me the nostalgic feeling is the original soundtrack. (journey (feat kronos quartet), and the crotas end song specifically) i miss the glory days of this game so much that if i could time travel that time/era of great video gaming. thanks bungie, but i can't belive i have to mourn you before you die. its like watching a person die from dementia because destiny has forgotten themselves almost entirely

Aside from everything that was stated, an extra couple of cuts that made me finally quit was the combo of seasonal model fomo and steady ramping up of "pay more get less". I was pondering going over to Division 2 for looter itch, it's dirt cheap and still has some playerbase

i started playing d2 about 6 months before the release of beyond light. it was an incredibly appealing time sink for me as i was sick and unable to work, and it gave me an avenue to do something with my time that both was fun and involved other people. i played the hell out of it, playing and replaying story missions, exploring destinations, and eventually learning to run dungeons and raids. i made some of my best friends playing this game and the server we started around it quickly became one of our main hangout spots online. all that said... i havent been able to make myself feel anything for the past two seasons. my only interaction with the game has been playing new campaign, raid, and dungeon content with my friends, and after i beat it for the first time i put it away until the next thing comes out. i am not a game designer, but i feel very strongly that beyond light and everything released after it should have been a new game. destiny 3 would have given the devs the chance to craft a new engine, show some love to classic gamemodes, and introduce all of the new build-crafting systems in a less piece-wise way. instead, weve gotten now three expansions that have only made the game show its age more and more, and made it more and more miserable to play. i think one of the reasons destiny is failing so hard right now is because it is *old.* it is old, its infrastructure is old, its code-base is held together by duct tape and everything they add breaks it a little more. what this game needs more than anything, i believe, is a fresh start. if it doesnt get that, i personally dont see how bungie will ever manage to pull it out of this slump.

the fact that destiny has basically devolved over time breaks my heart, I have always been in love with this game, first at a young age I watched my brother play, and I was enraptured, as I got older I thought on it, and finally got the game for myself, just as I was years ago, I loved it; the gunplay, the abilities, the mechanics. Destiny is a game I have absolutely adored for years, but seeing the state the game is in right now makes me incredibly sad

One major thing you're not mentioning is the level and depth of builds in this game that are so much fun to play. It's a positive note but we've had 4 major subclass overhauls/additions that are such a core part of Destiny that has only gotten better and better with time. For me this is such a big part of the endgame in crucible and PVE, putting together a super fun build and then working to perfect it.

Here’s hoping for the best at the August showcase. Bungie seriously needs to announce bombshells. Like not just stuff that was promised. Stuff that will get people in the game asap. We can’t keep doing the same thing with the content every year. The final shape and beyond needs to stand out or people will leave and most already have.

The amount of content creators slowly preparing us to leave destiny (jake, tdt, cross, fallout, etc) is really scary. I started playing just before witch queen dropped and I totally fell in love. destiny is my first and only fps but I'm really struggling to get into it right now. Glad to know I'm not the only one

Gambit Prime was the best and I don't get why the Tangled Shore and Dreaming City maps aren't back in the game. Annoys me how nearly everyone calls it a failed experiment. Dude, I loved it, got me loving the game, still worth.

The biggest problem Destiny has had over it's entire life, is that it has never had a serious competitor. This is a testament to how good of a game Destiny really is. But without strong competition, Bungie hasn't needed to fight very hard to keep it's audience.

Out of all the negative videos going around recently, it is this one that I can agree with 100%. Weapons skills replaced by abilities, server issues, and the feeling that it is pointless to become more powerful because power is capped, and the rewards are not worth it anyway. I saw the Lightfall trailers and said, " no I'm not buying this". And the same with the Deep. Thanks Patty for highlighting the most glaringly obvious problems in the game, and proving to me that I'm not alone 👍

I quit Destiny after Lightfall entirely; but in reality I checked out years ago. That apathy you're talking about here really set in for me even at D2's launch and cemented it self with Curse of Osiris. I loved D1, and when I tell friends about how many hours I had played they are in genuine disbelief. This franchise, despite only having 2 games has had so many highs, but so many low lows that I couldn't continue. I sincerely want the best for it, and I hope for those of you that still play that it does bounce back and reaches the heights I always hoped it would.

Don’t forget the FOMO of seasonal weapon crafting too. I have too much schoolwork to do to get all my guns crafted nowadays, so I just straight up do not get to do all the things I literally paid for with the ANNUAL PASS. It’s such bull crap to not have access to the content for a given year for the entire duration of the year.

*Main PVE player* Before it was to do the raid/strikes once a week with a full squad of friends, now it is to enter an lfg at the final boss and pray that you will win the weapon, it no longer makes sense to do the whole raid with random people and not win anything at the end. Since Roots of Nightmare released, I've completed it every week on all three characters but never won the weapon, one chance a week to have to count on luck to win the exotic is just so bad... It doesn't matter how well you did in the raid, the damage you did, the skill for it, if you're an unlucky person like me, you'll never earn it... I played destiny every day, but slowly I lost the will, if the goal of the raid is to win the exotic, it shouldn't take years to play to get a weapon, and when you get it *if you get it* it will already be nerfed to obsolete state. If I could change the way to win the exotic raid guns, I would do the same as those in the vault but slight different! You would have to complete the raid challenges and have a specific number of spoils, by completing all the challenges you could earn a coin from the raid to exchange for the weapon along with the spoils, this gives a motivation for the grind of it completing the activities/challenges, depending on luck it's a not consistent and very discouraging thing.

As a PVE first player, running trials to get the sweet Egyptian themed gear was so fun back in D1.

I started playing Destiny 2 after it went free to play during the Shadowkeep season. I remember being amazed how incredible the game universe was and how strong the lore was. There were 3 campaigns in the F2P back then: the red war, the osiris one and the warmind one. It was incredible that I got over 10+ hrs of campaign content from a F2P game! Frankly, that's what got me invested in the Destiny 2 universe. I bought the shadowkeep and forsaken expansions and played though with my friends. I started watching Byf lore videos to know more about the universe. I started playing PvP and really liked it. Crucible momentum was my fav. thing to do. I play mostly CSGO so a competitive shooting experience was something that attracted me. One think I really like about CS is not that some virtual character improves; its YOU who improve. I remember iron banner being my fav. thing to do in a season. Those free to play content was what actually got me to spend money in destiny 2 to buy the expansions and play it more. Its very sad to see that's not the case anymore. It seems like all bungie cares about now is to milk the game as much as possible before it dies. Evrything is being paywalled now. There is nothing now comparable to the free to play experience I had back then. I stopped playing after beyond light. Sunsetting was a terrible thing to do imo. It completely made the time I invested in the game seem irrelevant. And I'm NOT going to grind back again. I hate grinding anything that only gives me smething virtual. If I'm going to grind a game, its going to be a game like counter-strike where the time invested would never feel like going to waste. Somewhere in between their greed and priorities, Bungie lost the plot. The forgot what made destiny a great experience for old and new players alike. Destiny 2 is still my 2nd highest hrs played game in steam after CSGO (800 vs 5400 with 3rd highest maybe in 100s). A reasonable grind with satisfying and rewarding gameplay, like it was before might make me want to jump in back again. Sadly, I don't see that happening the direction Bungie is headed.

The last time I played consistently was during Beyond Light. All my friends said they were pre-ordering Lightfall, and even I felt like had an obligation to play, "of course I'm getting it". I'd had this feeling of pursuit rather than enjoyment since probably Forsaken, I ignored it and continued to play.But as I saw the trailer I realized what I'd been searching for, since that first contact with Destiny 1, had long since been lost.

Destiny 2 used to be THE game I played with my friends over the years. Then they started dropping off one by one. A handful in Beyond Light, a few more in Witch Queen, and Lightfall saw me finishing the story... then putting the game down myself. This season I literally just picked it up twice: once to do the new dungeon with my OG fireteam (who are the only 2 left playing regularly), and one more time last week to do the entire seasonal story in one go. Maybe I'll play next season. At this point I don't even know.

I don't have any content I'd like to see from you because the chances that I even install destiny again are slim to none, but I really enjoyed those couple years that I was hooked on Destiny, and watching your videos through that time. I already paid hundreds of dollars for the game, and after I switched to PC and found out I had to pay for everything again I was basically just done with the game I was already starting to dread playing. Destiny 2 PVP was perhaps the best competitive shooter experience I ever had, but where once I thought pvp was great and a few minor tweaks would make it "perfect," all I can think the last few times I got on was how much fun I wasn't having by not playing almost anything else. I hope you keep making content, whether it's destiny or otherwise, and I hope there's something you end up making that I end up having a reason to start watching. I still think it would be really awesome if I saw a video from you that said "DESTINY 2 PVP IS BACK" but at this point I really doubt it will happen. If it does, though, I can guarantee you I'll be back too.

Nice video! Great take and definitely understand your frustrations

it’s crazy how far we’ve gone from the destiny we used to know, this is the game that got me into gaming, i remember watching every single one of your videos to get better in pvp, and i felt it happening! i could feel like i made a difference in games i was in and was consistently on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the game. it’s the first time i’ve felt accomplished in a game and loved it. but there was a huge shift after beyond light. i no longer feel the same feeling of achievement i used to in pvp, even when i make good plays it’s tainted by some horrible lag or ability that i had no way of avoiding ending my streak. my friends that don’t play pvp don’t get my frustration and some of them think i’m overreacting when i die in pvp to ability spam. but it’s just… not the same :((

Justin GDC 2022... his last game credits before joining Bungie was for a game called "The Saboteur" and that game failed so hard that the company that made it even shut down afterwards... this is the guy that was hired with high honors by Bungie (whoever takes the calls there) and got continuously promoted to the highest position inside the company

Me and my friends opened up destiny about 2 weeks ago, and as soon as we were grouped together in orbit, we talked about random stuff for about an hour before realising that we hadn't actually done anything and honestly didn't really want to either. We all felt drained and didn't have any drive to play at all, so we all went to play Deep Rock Galatic instead which we haven't played in months and we had an absolute blast, definitely going back to that more often over Destiny

I have 0 will to even log in for the 15 minute weekly mission.

MY third drop of the sniper was snapshot opening shot... I was like "wait, did I just win PvP? I guess I am done now"

Totally agree. It seems like the company people who had a real love for the game and vision for it left and those behind are just meh about their task of creating a game worth playing. Even the lore seems less inspired than ever. I really miss the Red War days - It seemed like the game really rocked then.

I’ve played since destiny 1 beta, and have almost 4700 hours on D2. This has been and probably will always be my favorite game of all time. To be honest I can’t ever really thank or repay bungie for the memories I’ve made playing or even more the amazing friendships I’ve made along the way. I’ve gone from having virtually no online friends/community. To having hundreds of friends and a wonderful gaming community to play with daily. That’s all because of and thanks to bungie and the destiny franchise and our group love for it. That being said, I feel little to no motivation to play right now. It seems to be the same for those I’ve played destiny with on a daily basis in the past. I can’t really articulate with any specificity what is is about the game that’s grown so different to me. I hear all the content creators takes and all of them are accurate and insightful to the state of affairs of destiny right now. But I’m just a simple consumer and not a game developer. All I really have to go off of is what I “feel” about a game when I play it. And, to be honest I don’t really feel anything when I log on destiny right now. That more than anything has me worried and quite honestly saddened by the current state of the destiny franchise. I know what I can be, I’ve experienced it. I see what it could be and isn’t (I know that’s maybe a bit naive of me). But, to see it where it is. Just kind of makes me pine for the yesteryears of the game. As far as whether or not you should play other things and what those should be? My best advice from a modest old gamer is play what brings you joy. Just the basic act of loving something you’re doing becomes infectious. People will always gravitate towards love. Great content bud, you’ll succeed at anything you pursue! (Sorry for the novel haha, just really care about destiny!)

Yeah after 9 yrs I feel the same way you do about the game. I can only take D2 in small doses . I log on play pvp for about 2 hrs and than I log off . My desire to play this game has greatly diminished.

R.I.P. Bungie/ Destiny/ Marathon. You lost so many of us. Supporting you in the future, no thank you.

Speaking of the current lagging server epidemic in PVP, I have be banned multiple times for "leaving matches early". However I never left the matches willingly, I was constantly crashing to main menu and Bungie has to acknowledge this happens to their players

I’ll always love destiny franchise been with me since 4th grade now I’m 18

Played on and off for a really long time, since 2014 and just enjoy playing when I can and appreciate all the innovations to the game as well as the new weapons. Never minded the grind, just enjoyed playing with the clan and doing challenging activities. I have a few friends I play with one night a week...kind of like poker night, but we catch up and just do whatever in Destiny....honestly we all enjoyed the fishing. I think the long breaks allow me to really appreciate it when I come back. Your videos on strategy, practice, and finding your rhythm have always been very entertaining and informative. I am sorry you feel this way as well as other content creators, but have noticed many of them stepping away not just in Destiny, but other content completely. You are coming up on 10 years of playing the same game. I hope to play with you or against you someday, it would be an honor and imagine if you critiqued the individual performances of other guardians showing weakness and triumphs. Just a thought. Best to you in the future whatever you choose to do. I look forward to your next video.

no way the gun called "something new" is a reskin of another gun 💀

I am happy to see all the big Destiny content creators making these videos, Thank you! I think most of us have been so frustrated seeing Destiny fall apart the way it has recently. This has been my favorite game for years and i have now hung it up. I cannot play this game again without some serious changes. Not just some QOL changes. If the final shape is just more of the same ill have to sit it out and watch a streamer play the game. This is the first time i wont preorder an expansion and it bums me out a bit.

I agree, all of my buddies I've played with since D1 are falling off and I'm drifting away myself. Never thought it would happen

I started having issues with my PC last year and started logging in less and less after years and thousands of hours put into the game. My PC finally died during the last weeks of Season of Plunder. It was honestly the best thing that could've happened to me. I was upset at first since I have no budget to build a new PC, but I got over it and just felt liberated. Lots of grass has been touched since then. I usually check in with content creators like yourself to see how the game is doing, but it's clear to me I have no desire to go back, and from what I see that probably won't change any time soon.

I met my best friend when I LFG'd with him for Shattered Throne back when it came out. We've played nearly every piece of content together since. My wildest moments from clutching 1v3s in Trials to beating Vow Day 1 with less than a second before wiping were with him. He's closer to me than my own brother and we met in person about a year ago for a football game. After Lightfall was incredibly disappointing on almost all fronts, Day 1 RoN being a cake walk, the server instability issues, FOMO and monetization ramping up again, PvP being at arguably its worst state since Y1 (our main activity), and the seasons falling flat, he's quit playing except for Iron Banner Eruption. It is hard to play without him now because it doesn't feel the same anymore. With all of the issues plaguing the game and loss of my main buddy to play with, I have so little drive to boot up Destiny now. Bungie's own sense of overwhelming apathy towards Destiny has caused both him and I to feel the same towards the game and it sucks.

As a solar lock, I was done when the solar 3.0 season dropped. 4 weeks into that season was the last time I really seriously played the game. I bought lightfall, experienced the shit show that came with it for a week and now I have completely and officially quit, and I’ve requested steam to remove the license from my account. Game is so unhealthy for me and I almost feel abused, which I never thought I’d feel from a video game. So many issues with this pile of garbage. Too many to count, and yet the community knows them all.

The only activities I really busy myself with in D2 are GM's and the occasional raid or dungeon since those are all intense and rewarding. There's not much else that I can do in the game since I don't enjoy PvP and Gambit is one of the experiences of all time no matter how I play it. But hey, I'm keeping myself entertained with other games like Armored Core and it's series since the 6th installment is coming out late August.

I feel the exact same way, I’ve been playing this game since the beginning and I loved it. it was so easy to get immersed into the world and play for hours, the game felt alive. Destiny was how I found some of my closest friends, I’d get on and see at least 2 of my friends ready to get in a voice chat and play destiny. but now it just feels empty, all my friends left the game and gameplay just feels like I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing for years. Now I’m just watching the story through RU-vid, that’s pretty much the only thing im still looking forward to. I’d love nothing more then to relive the magic of playing the game at its best but it’s just not there and I don’t see it coming back.

Comparatively, I'm a newer fan of the game, starting in 2020 after the game became F2P on Steam. Season of Arrivals was where I really started playing, and it was genuinely what hooked me into the game. In the span of that season, I went from a new player to doing every single depreciating raid in the game at the time because my friends and I wanted to do them before they got vaulted. I got invested in the lore and characters and story and knew that this game was something truly special. I played Beyond Light like it was a drug when it launched, day 1'ing DSC and eventually flawlessing it. Like you, I had so much enjoyment with it and I actually consider it to be a fantastic expansion (though a lot of that is probably bias talking). With Witch-Queen and crossplay, old friends that played D1 and D2 on console came back and we played together for months, raiding every week and having some of the most fun I've ever had in a game. That's not to say that cracks hadn't started to show; at some point something shifted, and I noticed less and less of those friends playing the game while I kept going on. And then Lightfall launched, and it was like the thing finally broke entirely. Those friends who I played with, raided with, flawlessed and day 1'd content with decided that they just didn't want to play the game in the state it was in, and I agreed with them. For the first time, the game that I would sink hundreds of hours into just...didn't appeal to me anymore. Even the lore and story, the things I loved most about the game, didn't interest me. I started watching content creators and their recaps of the story instead, something I'd NEVER done before because I always wanted to experience it myself. Last season I only barely managed to hit rank 100 on the season pass, whereas previously I would have doubled or even tripled that. I don't know if it's apathy, or disappointment with the direction the game is going, or frustration over the increasing monetary and time investment required without equal reward, or-more likely-all three, but... I just want to be able to play the game I fell in love with without it feeling like a second job. I want to be able to enjoy playing it with my friends again or even just on my own. sorry for wall of text, I just wanted to put my thoughts out there

The crazy thing about pvp is there is no way to objectively tell if you are getting better. The comp rank system means nothing.

I am in the same boat as you with the feeling of regret when playing the game. As my dad bought the game for me and him to play after we loved the beta being that he came from halo. after me going from 7 to 16 years old playing this game I really hope this community reaction makes bungie change and not just leave us in the dust for their new games.

The "play for hours for a chance at maybe a 3/5 roll" kills the drive to play

I got into destiny around a year and a half ago, i played like crazy at first and loved it. I deep dived into the lore and basically know it all, i had moments where I stopped playing for like two weeks from time to time but i always came back, because of the world, the lore, the gameplay. But now, feels like its all going to shit, I wouldn't be suprised if the game has only a couple years left in its life before people just move on. Its worse for those whove been playing since the beginning, been there through every high and low only to have their dedication and support sorta just be throw away rn, feels bad, all their years of support cast aside like its nothing. Destiny feels a powerful fire, it bright and warm and draws in so many people, but over time due to neglect of the one who made it dies out and those stayed with it leave it in serch of new fires to keep them warm. (I don't comment in general so sorry if this isn't really easy to read or good in general, just wanted to get my thoughts and feelings out)

They fell so hard..I remember back in Halo 3, getting to level 50 rank in pvp was a huge accomplishment. there is nothing like it here.

this might not work but I think that in pvp fixing some of the ability spam could be done by: 1) half ability recharge rate, and disable armor mods that affect ability regen (not aspects and fragments or exotic armor or weapon whatnot though) 2) make explosive abilities (e.g. grenades) have a smaller AOE, or have large AOE grenades do far less damage 3) make blinding effects from shoulder charges less potent, or last for less time this would just be for pvp and while it might require some finetuning I think that these modifications would help put a higher emphasis on gunplay in pvp and increase the skill required to successfully use abilites. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

It was really hard for me to put into words "the change" that happened with Beyond Light. It just changed the feel. We still got some banger content since then, absolutely. Glykon will forever be one of my favorite missions in all of Destiny. But something just switched, not just that PvE/P situation. The whole world and way how Bungo made stuff, it all got.. different. I am excited for Final Shape because of story conclusion but then it is either D3, or I will say my goodbyes and hopefully fall in love with Marathon. Extraction shooters are my jam so there´s hope at least for that.

Pointed comments from the channel I've looked to most during my foray into Destiny and FPS in general. The "how to live longer and shoot better" basics videos you produced have turned FPS from a genre I groaned at and endured to have something in common with my kids to something I enjoy and try to improve. I hope if the light fades, you'll find something that keeps the content and sharing your knowledge and experience enjoyable.

I remeber coming back in Dawn, I left post forsaken because I had no one to pkay with. I immediatly hit Comp to grind out Recluse and Lunas. I had goals I wanted to reach, I needed to get better to reach those goals. I busted ass, grinded comp. I saw myself gey better, started hitting headshots with snipers and learning how to position myself properly. I was so happy to watch my KD climb from a .4 to a 1.3. I miss that feeling, everything just feels like cheese these days. Idk where this game is going anymore, I love it to death but I am worried that I wont recognize this game at all in a few years.

I've been around since the beginning, more or less. Was never super serious about the game but I mean I was in high school when it started back in 2014. Wild to think that one of my original fireteam has a baby now. We still play every once in a while. But PVP was definitely the piece that always dragged me back. Didn't matter if I hadn't played the game in six months, you could always convince me to hop back in to the crucible. That endless improvement thing is real addictive. PVP would not be half of what it is without PVE, the magic for me was always going into the expansive universe and coming back to the crucible with a new weapon to set towards mastering. That was the gameplay loop that kept me here. But for me, and for many that I think kept the game alive when it shouldn't have been, PVP and the crucible is what carried the game. Destiny PVP is something special, there is nothing quite like it. Living through it being mistreated always hurt. Destiny was a repetitive experience of seeing something come so close, and with so much potential, to fall short. But frankly, to see something that I have had no problem loving for a decade now, get pushed to the side for Marathon. Hoooh it makes my blood boil. Like you never even gave it a fair shake. Just throwing away something unique and amazing. I'm not the only one who felt how the crucible made me feel. It's bloody heartbreaking haha.

I agree with everything ya said. I've been a Destiny player since D1 and have dedicated thousands of hours day by day to this game and loved so much of it, but I haven't played much of the game in the last couple weeks and it seems like I'm barely gonna be touching it until the final shape just to see how this journey ends. The state of the game, servers, pvp... it sucks, and I wish I didn't have to see this game I've loved for a decade die by a thousand cuts.

I think ive watched about a dozen of similar videos at this point and i ask myself why i keep watching them like a moth drawn to flame. I think its some kind of subconscious effort to find SOMETHING, some little piece of insight, that makes me feel okay quitting this game. Ive been addicted to the feeling of destiny since D1 and i have taken plenty of breaks but never fully quit. But i think we are headed towards a gaming version of game of thrones. Everyone has been so hooked for so long that we are being taken for granted and, before long, all of us will actually move on and it will be too late to ever go back. Big sigh of sadness.

As a PVE only player, I agree the abilities are just nuts right now. I blame upper management for telling the abilities team "Make awesome MMO abilities" and the weapons team "Make new perks but don't break anything" and the level design team "Make story missions and strikes more accessible".

It makes me sad that i have been playing this game since I was 5 in the beta with me sharing my xbox with my dad but now we both have little interest in playing this game but your videos help me come back to this game when you upload.

Apathy. That's the best description. I thought we had turned some corners with the Witch Queen campaign story writing wise, but was followed up with some lackluster seasons. the PVP fallback has just been on a constant downhill slide as well since the 30th Anniversary period. To your point, the PVP does hold up the game when the PVE is the same reskinned, drip-fed content in-between flashes of greatness. (Raids, certain campaigns, etc) However just as you mentioned, the PVP is just not there anymore. I used to be able to spend hours solo in a variety of PVP modes and get up at the end of a session feeling like I had fun and I had (ever shrinking) free-time well spent. That just isn't the case anymore sadly. Glancing at my friend list, I'm not the only one.

oh the D1 VoG clip with Suros Regime...brings back fond memories

It’s such a chore…I can’t even get my light higher than 1815, the RNG just screws me so hard that I don’t want to play anymore

Single Player gamer to Multiplayer gamer: “Wow, sucks to be you.”

That thumbnail too accurate

I agree totally on the gunplay part. It is one of the best in the industry. "Endless list of things to do" After years of playing the game it's a handful of activities with reskins... Take the weekly story missions as an example.

"But just like you can ruin a dish with too much spice, you can ruin a game with too many low-skill/high-reward abilities"... I would extend that to weapons as well.

I remember being REALLY excited for the OG Destiny... me & my mates would grind the HELL out of it before every update to be as powerful as possible... but when Destiny 2 came out, I left it after Warmind because I saw the direction it was going in, I went to Warframe & never regretted that decision.

5:35 still shocking the amount of Titan players I've seen whinging that Loreley was balanced

My day one team doesn't even play together anymore with the 6 of us, it really sucks.

It's a PvE game balanced for PvP. No fun for pve players, no content for pvp players.

Well said. This time does feel different. Didn’t even try for the new exotic which is unheard of from me. Friends can’t be bothered either to get it. Sincerely hope bungie can do something but it would take 10 new strikes/maps with specific loot and a full refresh to get people back like it used to be.

I’ve been a Destiny veteran for a long time. I considered myself a end game PvE-player and a good PvP-player. I managed a go solo flawless a couple of times and I am quite proud of that. I soloed GMs - even the Corruped and the Lightblade. But this season, it was too much. I put the game down and even hardly played the weekly story, just like the rest of my clan did. I can barely bring myself to even launch the game anymore. I rather replay Elden Ring or start Bloodborne, even Jedi Survivor and Diablo (I didn’t like Diablo though…). The „death of a thousand cuts“ sums my feelings up perfectly!!! It’s just so much and without PvP to look forward to with trying the new guns and all, it’s just hollow. Empty. Soulless. Servers, bugs, Bungies response to glitches, mediocre DLC, price increases, the pointless ban waves, balancing updates or the lack thereof, cheaters (yes, especially the „accessibility devices“)… it’s just too much. Thank you for making this video!

Remember when people complained that they wanted more "hero moments" in pvp back in Y1 (which translates into ability spam)? I do. And some said "no, that will be bad for the game".

Pancakes i know you wont see this but i wanted to say thank you for the experience. You were the one that made me want to get into sniping. On ps4 with controller i have about a 75-85% accuracy with a 70% headshot ratio and i came to pc but never got as good. Im getting back into destiny now and plan to get back to that sniping percentage

When D1 came out I wanted it so badly it hurt, but I was worried it wouldn't work w/o X-Box Live (spoiler alert, it did, just not crucible which I was fine with), which my parents wouldn't pay for and I and my brother didn't have the funds for since we were young at the time. Then I saw a D1 Taken King copy at Target that came with a few months (I think 3) of X-Box Live so I bought it with some leftover birthday money, and I fell in love immediately. I never played the game with friends, and I never needed to to enjoy it, the gunplay and power fantasy of being a magical space wizard was more than enough for me to sink hours upon hours into the game. I joined D2 a year late because I didn't have a PC to run it on yet, but when I did get it I felt the same levels of enjoyment. I didn't follow content creators, I didn't know my friends played at the time, hell I didn't know what a raid even was. I just loved the looter shooter with all my heart and I felt like nothing could ever take that away. But now, the spark is gone. It's like I could feel it fading when Light Fall came out, but suddenly it's just not there anymore. I have to play on Bungie's time if I want to do things, be it getting a title for my favorite raid, the NF weapon of the week, the exotic fish (which I missed the first week's btw so while everyone else is out there getting the new exotic I have to wait a week to get mine). I can't even do the Xenology quest on my time, because if I grab it on the weekend and complete it while Xur's away, he refuses to give me another one the following weekend because I already have one in my inventory, even though we can hold 5 now. I'm done playing on Bungie's time, and I'm kinda done with the game entirely at this point. I'll play when friends are on because then I can have fun with them, and I'll be sure to play Final Shape just to see how the story ends, but rn, I'm not even sure I'm gonna buy the next season, especially with the price increases. It hurts me to see a game I was once in love with crashing and burning, but looking back I think it's been like that for awhile and I just didn't want to notice it.

I can't play the game for more than 15 minutes without the game crashing on me. Its been like this for around a year and its so frustrating. The devs do not care about the people who pay for this game. not one single bit

these issues have existed since before forsaken but everyone ignored them because they were too infatuated & in love with the game (addicted.)

I still play D2 once or twice a week just to meet up with a couple of friends… however my main focus is now playing COD MW2 ‘DMZ’ which is become really popular & fun. Plenty of PVE & PVP combined with plenty of loot & cosmetics to grind for

As long as content creators are making videos about destiny, bungie is satisfied and wins. When people simply stop talking or making any destiny related content and completely quit playing, things will change. I just quit because I know millions of other players will not and that’s okay, but I’m moving on.

As soon as I cut Fomo out of my gaming, I've been way happier. Deep Rock Galactic is a treasure.