The Hidden Cost Of Investment Games 

8:20 I meant Final Shape..... gosh I'm tired

Leaving Destiny felt like getting out of a bad relationship. It had its good moments but ultimately you don’t feel happy. I had been playing since launch and started groaning to play with friends. Once I quit it I felt so much better started playing and doing other games that interested me. Gaming felt so much better.

I realize, on paper, Destiny 2 is a better game than Destiny 1. But D1 is STILL my favorite game of all time. The biggest reason for that is simply that the 'atmosphere' of D1 is just better than D2. D1 had (and STILL has, even after playing D2 for seven years now) an air of optimism, wonder and mystery. Every Patrol destination had me looking off into the distance beyond the map thinking 'I'd love to explore over there'. The lore always posed such wonderful and thought-provoking questions. D2 has simply not been able to instill in me that same sense of wonder and mystery. Its much more dark and nihilistic. The Patrol locations, while cool, never really made me want to explore beyond the boundaries (aside from Titan and Europa). And the lore only ever really ANSWERS questions from D1. It rarely presents new questions. As much as I love D2, it just doesn't feel like the franchise that made me into a gamer. And after about $1,000 and at least that many hours into this franchise, that kinda sucks. I think this is one of the reasons that, after no updates in 7 years, D1 is still going relatively strong.

as soon as they vaulted content, it made the game unplayable to new players, i jumped in and couldnt understand what the FUCK is going on, it was such a good game early on, but it's gone now. F

Honestly same when destiny 2 went live service it kinda feels like the magic is gone, I still play it but it does kinda feel soulless now

It was amazing. I was stuck on Destiny 2 nonstop till early 2021 when my daughter was born. We’re talking 1500 hours on Steam alone which only became available when Shadowkeep released. It was such a love/hate relationship with the game, yet I continued playing every day even if I literally had nothing else to do. I’m so relieved I was able to quit when I did. It now felt like miserable time in my gaming life.

I actually really miss my time with destiny but I feel like its such a time commitment that I genuinely miss out on a lot that life has to offer

I quit a year ago then came back. But I've totally changed my relationship with the game. I play maybe an hour or 2 a week as opposed to that much every day.

It's such a shame man, but all good things come to an end eventually. It's how I was able to meet you, Ditty, Cat, the pinapple bois and so many more people I was able to play with and have a great time with. Memories were made, but we all move on eventually. I still love this game even though I don't really play it anymore for those reasons.

I stopped playing Destiny about right before Lightfall released. When I was younger, I had the time to grind Destiny and get everything I wanted while also playing other games. Now I have less time and had to choose to only play Destiny or to drop Destiny and play other stuff.

Honestly, I don't think Warframe actually suffers from many of these problems. i have weapons I had made 9 years ago that I still use and they are still great and even now with Riven mods they get stronger the more people forget about them and stop using them. That investment will always be current and applicable. I take long stretches to play other stuff when I come back there is so much new stuff it always feels like a whole new game again. I don't have any FOMO because almost anything I miss I can just get it later when I'm ready, and the longer I wait the more the grind for those things has actually decreased. the endgame never feels like a collect-a-thon to me, and I wouldn't play it if it did period, but it doesn't because there are always so many different things to do to get me to my endgame goals. Honestly not sure it is even really that responsible to lump it in with these other games, but i get the feeling you have about it. Thing is with ongoing games of this manner, it doesn't work for gamers who are not great at being creative and making fun for themselves. All of these games are based on providing the player with so much agency that it depends on the PLAYER to ultimately determine how much fun they are going to have in the game, instead of the game doing it for you. For example, if I get to endgame in Warframe and my only goals are to constantly acquire things I don't have, well then yeah, if that is your goal it will be a collect-a-thon. Getting those things doesn't serve much purpose to you outside of being able to claim you have them, and making you more effective in a game where focusing on effectiveness is secondary to the optimal experience. If however, that endgame is based around acquiring things you don't have to have more options for making more fun and creative builds in the game, you will continue to have fun, because you are making the game more fun for yourself by focusing on fun builds rather than only the most effective ones. If the meaning for acquiring these things is to make more fun for yourself, it CAN'T feel like a collect-a-thon, because getting the thing is not the ultimate goal. It is simply a means to an end, and if your builds are all super fun because that's what you focused on, it will be fun all along the way, and then even more so when you can apply your new ideas by getting the things you need to implement them. I don't think you can even get to this mindset in these games if you only or primarily focus on using all that player agency to have fun in the game. If your focus with all that player agency is to use it to become as effective as possible, I think this type of outcome should only be expected. I think instead of playing these games and thinking "hey, gimme fun", players should have the approach of "hey, gimme this toolbox to make my own fun."

I think the thing that kills these games for me is the mission with the awesome story beat and the whole thing is finally starting to gain some momentum and wait!!! Go grind this area and kill Fallen until they drop 300 hobknobs and then go run this activity you’ve already run 500 times, and pretty soon it’s been a week since that cool story beat happened but I’ve forgotten all about that. Lol.

I personally love investment games. I got into Runescape and WOW when I was in elementary school. Idk if it was because of how young I was or what, but I would spend 8 hour sessions sitting on our family computer and just exploring the worlds of Gileanor and Azeroth while probably making the slowest progress possible. I didn't care I wasn't speeding through the games or getting the best XP, I simply loved getting immersed in those worlds. To this day I will hop into a new MMO for a good 100 hours if the world look interesting to explore. Edit: I also do have over 1000 hours played across Destiny 1 and 2 for the same reason. I love exploring those environments and getting to see every enemy type. I was even one of the people helping to find the Gold Chests when Destiny 1 first came out. I found one of the Mars ones lol.

I've legit been watching since the very early days of D1 back when you did your podcast Destiny the Show and I always loved your discussion videos especially some of the stuff you've been putting out lately. The magic of D1 is definitely gone and it isn't just nostalgia talking, everything about D2 is designed to farm player engagement rather than create fun or memories. D1 had pretty severe content draughts at point but at least you could play the entire thing start to finish when you bought an expansion, compared to now, where entire years worth of seasonal content and story campaigns have been ripped out of the game and Bungie has gaslit the community into beliving it's a good thing. Destiny 2 should be studied at some point for being the greatest scam of the gaming industry. I really miss the kind of wonder and fun D1 gave me.

When I was in middle and high school, there were periods of time where all I wanted to do every day was play MapleStory. Looking back on it today I couldn't even tell you what exactly it was that so captured my focus, but in some strange way it felt like home. Maybe because my IRL home life wasn't very stable at the time; I don't know. But I was poor and didn't have reliable access to internet. So for a few months I'd play the game almost non-stop, and then I might not have access to it for several more. And this experience over several years made changes stand out to me, both in the game and in my own life. Eventually when things started to stabilize for me and I had my own computer and internet, when I sat down to play I realized I wasn't having nearly as much fun as I remembered, and I struggled to figure out why. I think it's a combination of things. The game had changed, and not in a compelling way. I had changed. And my motivations for playing had changed as well. It was kind of bittersweet though to stand there at the end and make the decision to move on. Part of me wanted to keep clinging to the past just to... Keep it alive in some way. But I think that sensation is an unhealthy one, wherever it manifests in life. To live is to change. It brings both gain and loss. Our most treasured memories become sources of both joy and sorrow, because we know we can never really return to those moments in time. But that's okay. We carry them with us, and they shape who we are and how we interact with the world today. I think this is the plight of all humans. Figuring out our relationship to our own past, present, and future. I find some consolation in the knowledge that it is a shared experience. We're all in this life thing together. I feel ya man.

I went through the ups and downs of destiny 1 on the 360 and kind of hit looter shooter burnout around division 1. Tried to get back into destiny 2 around the start but it just didn't take. Kudos for sticking with it as long as you did though.

Destiny will always be my favorite game. It's themovement, shooting, environment and last but not least the space magic. That said the grind has worn me out (for now).

I stopped playing the game around the time when they introduced predatory pricing and the whole layoff fiasco hit. I no longer felt like my time as a player and my money was respected. Im still in contact with my clan and i try to log in once in a while but i just can't really get myself to do anything. Its either "Do random chores and get reward" or "Do some shit you already did 10000000x before but now for different rewards" Feels akin to depression but i only feel it when i boot up Destiny 2. I mean, i heard that the new updates are actually pretty good. But idk, just aint feeling it anymore

I wish Destiny 2 was an investment game. But with the drop of a hat your investment can go out the window: sunsetting, random nerfs, power creep. Bungie will make sure new weapons will always be better than the ones you already have. I quit cold turkey once Rangefinder got nerfed into oblivion because "adding extra range was too powerful" but they introduced Nadir Focus (Sustained fire increases accuracy and range) pretty much the exact same update. I was like: "D2 is no longer a videogame. It's 100% a rat race." I wish I saw it sooner. That plus Bungie only introduces insanely huge PvP maps where you need your sparrow to go from point A to B. And the straw that broke the camel's back when they fired a big portion of their employees right before Christmas. F*ck Bungie.

Honestly, I'm still invested and playing D2, but I feel you dude. When I finish my goal in the game, I sit back and look at everything from the past to now. I take a step back to see what was missing, what could be improved on, and what needs to come back. All my thoughts point to 5 things in particular: -Motif/Esthetics -The Sense of Discovering something entirely New -Ambiance/Mysterious Atmosphere that faded away -The Mythology and Fairytale removed from the foundation -FOMO

The key issue is live service games were supposed to be like tv shows with seasons and a lot of.content . Instead they actually drop content like movie trilogy spread over a decade. It's not fast enough and with enough content and quality is still often subpar

Thank God, I quit Destiny 3 years ago, and never look back, I moved on from Bungie, because Bungie ruined the game for me, and PvP sucks on Destiny.

Y’all gotta learn how to take gaming breaks and stop getting burnt out. When you make content for only one game it’s a job not for fun

Loved this vid, especially when you called into question whether people are just "chasing that carrot." For me, the best test has been asking myself after a gaming session, am I happy I spent my time that way? Sometimes it was a great relaxing time, other times I was clearly avoiding some task or some such

I don't know how people can play these types of games. I already have a lot of guilt trying to carve out some time to play an fps or even a RPG. When you said you had 400 hours on warframe. I was flabbergasted. Not trying to dig on you but it's just how I feel these days.

Yup, I bought Final Shape at the start of this season, because I wanted to try strand and on sale, it was barely more than the price of the season it came with. Honestly disappointed, not by the expansion, but by the hamster wheel. Drip fed content that goes away any ways, rotating restrictions to create fake novelty, it's pretty bad. FOMO everywhere, including content you paid for (what if I wanted to grind a dungeon I paid for this week, but I'm busy next week when it comes up? Wait a month or something! 🙄) I'm done with work games. Once I paid for it, I should be able to enjoy it at my pace. Sure, release more content over time to get more of my money, but rotating buffs, grinds and ephemeral activities? No more.

This video basically summed up my experience with Warframe. Although, I love the game and have over 1k hours on it, after a while you look back at what you've been doing and start questioning what am I grinding for?

I quit right after finishing all annual pass content of Lightfall. I've loved both PVE and PVP but mostly like the PVP aspect back when I started in Forsaken. Things now are just constantly changing and I personally don't like the direction the game is going. With me having less time to play now, the meta changing especially in PVP is not something I can keep up now. Yes it's the Final Shape and supposedly the last expansion but it's not worth spending another 120$ for content that is just a bunch of re-skins and just feels like a chore. Glad I quit for my own overall health to not have to worry about FOMO. The game overall is having a hard time I think focusing and balancing between a new player experience and providing contents for long time players. New Light experience feels rushed and poor guidance. Content released is now is old content they regret removing. Overall i think their putting most of their resources now to Marathon than Destiny 2. Content after the Final Shape is vague and is probs going to be over hyped.

Part of the reason I prefer Warframe over Destiny is the fact that you can take it at your own pace. Destiny has updates every so many months that essentially put everyone back to square 1. That drives me crazy. It makes you feel like you HAVE to grind to get that good gear before it leaves and you get set back to square 1. Warframe never resets your power levels. Reaching the endgame takes a LOT longer in Warframe and you are slowly progressing through all of that. Gameplay wise, Destiny is my favorite. But as a full package, Warframe is my favorite.

Quit 3yrs ago, went back for a week when the witch queen released and I wasn’t interested at all. I have amazing memories and I made some amazing friends. I have grown out of grinding games and I have literally no desire to play another.

For me, the magic is still in the lore and the characters but gameplay wise 100% the grind gets me all too well. Discovered I'm in the 99th percentile of those with ADHD and if I don't get that magic click it's hard to sink more than 45 minutes to an hour into the game. I've had to routinely put it down for long periods of time, especially if the content is just not for me and I'll either just marathon the seasonal content in the last week and see what the next season brings. If there's a season I like then I know each Tuesday on reset I'm playing, with maybe a 2-3 week break here and there. Even with games like Pokemon I just can't girnd like I used to anymore. Essentially, I guess once I hit the grind phase I drop out, then play when there's a lot that I can go through. The Destiny we started with is tragically long and gone. What worries me most is that A) it's console only and B) one day those servers shut down and the game is lost. There's apparently a Destiny 3 in the works where we might be going outside the Sol system, and if we do I hope we can get a sick mix of the vibe and feel of D1 and D2... and maybe a PC remaster for D1 someday.

You got me into Warframe you bastard. I'm joking no regrets. That game has some of the best story quests of any game in the last 4 decades, I burned out years ago after a sensible 1,000 hours haha. May return sometime the new missions look great. I think Warframe and POE are completely non predatory. You can dip in and out as you like.

thats my goat. I get really addicted to destiny for periods of time and then take long breaks. I played a lot last fall, but stopped playing at the start of the current season until coming back about a month ago. We'll see how The Final Shape plays out. Hope you are doing well duder :)

Hopefully the new Marathon game will be a great fresh start for Bungie after the roller coaster that is Destiny 2

I do not regret playing Witch Queen with my friend long after the expansion released (free legacy pack from epic games store), and I don’t regret playing Onslaught with him. I stopped enjoying it when I realized I was spending too much time, and feeling apathetic I love Warframe, the universe, the story. While I do agree it is a game that can require a lot of time investment, I don’t think it’s on the level of Destiny. There is way less FOMO, and you progress at your own pace.

Feels like from the vidocs it sounds like a love letter to the game, the players, to guardians from the devs, and i suppose they're trying to right the course with this end of destiny 2, the end of a 10 year long saga, the end of our guardian's journey. Don't you wanna be there at the end?

Im very much in the same boat. I LOVED Destiny 1. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing it. Destiny 2 from the beginning never really hit the same for me. I left Destiny 2 during Warmind. Mainly as I was heading to Uni and I couldnt stay addicted to Destiny. So I stepped away. I played Forsaken at EGX London before it released and enjoyed it. But a single mission isnt indicative of the whole expansion. I didnt come back until Season of Arrivals. I finished Uni and saw the reveal stream for Beyond Light and where the revealed Witch Queen / Lightfall etc. I decided to hop back in and had my 2nd love for Destiny due to how much content was in the game that I missed. I got off the wheel again shortly after Witch Queen came out and ive never actively played Destiny daily since. Instead I turned my attention to my backlog that was at the time over 300 games deep and I released that Destiny 2 as a whole was not as fun or worth spending my time in as much as Destiny 1 was. Im going to play Final Shape just to see how the story ends, then I think thats the end of my Destiny 'Commitment'. Most of my friends and clan have loong since ditched the game and any that do stick around are in the same boat and only play around the new expansion releases. I treat the game way more solo than I used to and its just not as fun; not to mention the Destiny 2 community has become so toxic and unwelcoming compared to how amazing the Destiny 1 community was. Live Service and Multiplayer games dont really do it for me anymore anyways. I mainly play single player stuff. I might pop on Destiny every one and a while after Final Shape. But I dont see myself ever commiting to it again unless a 'Destiny 3' comes out

For a lil while i was playing ffxiv for like 10 hours a day and was absolutely loving it, and then after like 3ish weeks i took a break for a couple days and when i tried to get back into it i was like "what am i even meant to do other than grinding for the sake of grinding" was very much a weird experience as i went from loving something to not knowing why i liked it in the first place and giving up.

That whole "Once you step away and look back at your investment game or Destiny 2 you feel differently about it." is so TRUE once i got away after sunsetting and Elden Ring stole my attention i just couldn't do it anymore it leaves such a bad taste now especially after a game as fun and enjoyable as Elden Ring reminds you that games can be enjoyed at your own pace and when you have the time instead of a FOMO gear treadmill. So much truth in this video that i didn't understand until i experienced the whole cycle myself.

Completely understand where you're coming from. D1 equally contains some of my best memories in gaming: me & my buds played for 12 hours straight when TTK came out, it was unreal. D2 failed to recapture the magic for me, no matter what Bungie did with it. Some seasons were good, others not so much, with initial release being particularly rocky with missing features & all. I was playing on & off since it came out, almost on autopilot. Beyond Light was the last expac I've purchased. What completely killed it for me, however, was the DCV: ever since it was introduced, the onboarding process for new and returning players, like myself, was nothing short of atrocious. These days I look at trailers and feel nothing but apathy for this game: it's gotten so bad it even (thankfully) killed my Stockholm syndrome! D1 had its fair share of problems, sure, but it was also a bit of a diamond in the rough, which made us stuck with it through thick & thin. D2 felt like they didn't learn any lessons from D1 and consciously decided to repeat past mistakes, only they made it so much worse.

Arbiter, Thanks for your thoughts.

I played D1 here and there. I stopped playing Destiny as soon as 2 came out. Played for a bit but didn't enjoy it. I then played the month before Beyond Light to mostly do the stuff that was getting removed and had fun. Stopped when the expansion actually came out. Finally have come back for Lightfall to play with my father and it's been okay jumping on occasionally and working on catching up. I'm playing a ton for this last month and I intend on playing a little through Final Shape but my dad and I already agreed that we'll be putting the game down for a while- which is a big deal for him since he's been consistently playing since the Dark Below. I'm ready to move on from Live Service games like this. Enjoying the moment, love the gameplay, but I'm not sticking with any sort of grind for a long time.

I wish D1 was on PC. I don't have a console to play it, and it seems amazing. The fact like D1 is a "complete package" with finite content, and with what looks like a better gameplay loop and environment / feel than D2, makes it seem like it would be amazing to play through for the first time. With it not being live service, I could complete the content at my own pace and enjoy the game for what it has to offer. I greatly enjoyed D2 from launch to Warmind, then I came back for Beyond Light to Lightfall, and the former time was amazing, while the latter time feels semi-wasted, as all the content removal and the drip fed content / narrative with the EGREGIOUS microtransactions just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I mean Vaulting payed Content is insane, well I came in like 2 Months before Final Shape, haven’t played since Red War, but it’s hella confusing now

Bro come to Warframe,we have been player first for so long,the only thing that was not player first was 1 bundle last year and the...loot frames nerf....horrible times,but they actually when like "yeah,that was stupid" and eliminated that nerf

Destiny 1 was the only game I ever got into to that extent

i tried picking this game up with a friend a couple days ago after a several month hiatus. nothing has changed. the formula charges on.

See I only chose Destiny as my game because when I played all these other games like Valorant, CSGO, or Rainbow Six Siege, they never gave me a reward for my time spent into those games. Yes Destiny 2 is different from those games but at least I still get something out of it rather than getting nothing. But I'm happy in a way that the final shape is my end of the game, I think I was just happy about how Bungie communicates with their players unlike most triple a studios

Not first, but close 😄 I've been waiting for this one, dude. Let's see what you have to say

Dropped it a month after witch queen. I've tried reinstalling a couple times to hop on with friends. Still haven't played since. It's a shell of what it was and it's better to put my free time into other games or other things.

Haven’t played D2 since it came out. The release didn’t have the same magic D1 had so I never picked it back up. So I saved myself a few hundred dollars

D1 had such a chokehold over me that D2 just doesnt. 😭😭 in D2 ive taken some seriously long content breaks. That being said, TFS has been really good so far. The story is 🤌🏻 and seeing it come to a finsh has been amazing! Id personally play it for the DLC alone, but maybe not the episodes as of rn at least.

Left Destiny 2 about 2 years ago, eye opening moment, I dont regret it!😬

I have been playing Destiny 2 non-stop since Into the Light. I have been playing Destiny since just prior to The Taken King. I don’t grind Dungeons and Raids, lower level Nightfalls are my endgame. I feel very validated where I am at currently in the game, finishing up things as best I can for The Final Shape. I will say this, The Final Shape is nostalgia bait. The marketing for the expansion is aimed at veterans and lapsed players and not new players. Until Bungie restores the Red War campaign in its entirety this will be the case - Destiny 2 is not MMO that can be picked up easily by new players. I want to show Destiny 2 to my friends but the only way to catch up with the story is to watch RU-vid videos. There is no in game resource for understanding the story. What is the Witness and why do we care about the Traveler is something new players are going to ask when they boot up the Final Shape for the first time. The only thing in-game that helps them is playing the other expansions and looking at the timeline Infograph in the Director. You are better off as a new player jumping into the game now than waiting for the Final Shape to drop in the next 10 days as of writing. It is unlikely that the Final Shape will help with onboarding. Into the Light was a better starting point for lapsed players as you can get some decent gear that won’t be around for too much longer. People are literally missing a good opportunity to start their journey in Destiny 2. The Final Shape is going to be really overwhelming with new concepts and callbacks to older releases to be a good onboarding experience for new players. If I am reaching anyone who potentially wants to play the game, download it now and get a decent kit together and get through the tutorial before the Final Shape releases. This is actually a good time to do so. If anybody wants to hit me up in Destiny my Bungie name is M808B MBT#4675.

Really hoping The Final Shape changes a lot of the soulessness of it all. I will say, since The Witch Queen, Taking several weeks off at a time has certainly helped with the feeling of boredom. I have BARELY touched the Into The Light content, and I probably won’t come back til The Final Shape. If it isn’t a banger/doesn’t fix a lot of the major issues…it will probably be my final “hurrah” at Destiny

Investment gaming can be detrimental to your life, and you dont even realize it. You can get addicted to it like drugs. I lately have felt myself falling back into it and have to take a break. Unfortunately for D2 youtubers, that means i have to basically hide and not watch anything they put out, or it could pull me back in. 😢

honestly agree with you once again, i tagged out of destiny 2 along time ago and i was thinking the other day, so i go back in and check out whats new? cant bring myself to do it personally. I dont resonant with investment games anymore, for me its simply a way of getting FOMO, its like if you dont play this seasonal content then your missing out. Ive got back into diablo 4, and enjoying it. But i dont feel compelled to come back every season because... just simply dont have the time, nor the inclination to do so. My time is precious

I feel bad for both the devs and people still playing this game. They both deserve so much better.

So, I've been trying to find feedback on a problem I've been having with warframe. I love most everything about the game, but it just seems to get boring quickly for me. I think I've narrowed it down to the gameplay loop of warframe lacking a certain feel. I compared it to titanfall 2 and helldivers 2. While one is pvp and one is pve, I feel like their gameplay loop catches the same magic. In titanfall 2, you start with limited gear and inexperienced mechanics and work your way up to grind for better skill and better gear. Same with helldivers, you grind, learn more and get better gear. The thing that sets them apart is their gameplay. Titanfall 2 is all about refining your style as a pilot and clashing your skills as a pilot with other players. Helldivers 2 is all about your ability to synchronize your gear and your knowledge to work with your team to complete a campaign of objectives. What's warframes gameplay loop? Granted, that's relative to the activity you're doing, but I feel like it boils down to going to RU-vid, finding the best spot to farm a resource to make your gear stronger. Then going to that location with a group or friend needing the same resource and pushing one or two buttons while standing still. After you're done farming you're closer to that cool weapon or gear you want. Only to find out the weapon is weak and you now need to grind for days more to make it passable. But back to the maint point I think where warframe pushes me away and the others draw me in is the way in which you farm resources to get more gear and experience. In all three examples, it's grind, but grinding in Helldivers means a wide variety of missions with multiple cohesive objects, backed by satisfying gunplay and engaging enemies with unique mechanics/behaviors. In titanfall 2 its the rush of pvp and pve smashed in a mosh pit of adrenaline, speed and gunfire. Yet like Helldivers facing a titan, pilot, reaper or grunt is all unique from one another and engaging as a collective. Then their's warframe. It doesn't really matter that the enemies are different when I push three buttons and everything dies in a flash of 2 billion damage. It matters even less when the objective is a forgetable 5 to 10 minutes of bland tasks. Even the open world objectives, which are a lot like Helldivers in their constructive structure, boil down to "do you have enough damage to nuke everything and push a button on the terminal?" Nothing has that same mechanical intrigue or engaging combat, I guess. This whole rant was just to ask for a second opinion on everything. Am I missing something from warframe? What makes a gameplay loop fun? What keeps you playing a game? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

whilst I completely agree with your take and was the reason I left well over a year ago now with Lightfall, the free Into the Light update got me back in and it has been fantastic. This last month it feels like they're finally listening to the community The recent blog posts and Vidocs about TFS look promising. But of course, that's always the case with a new expansion. We're perfectly justified to remain sceptical based on the track record but I can't help but want to feel optimistic for the future

Hold up. Warframe isn't an investment game. You don't need to invest anything at all to play other than time to play it, and if that's a requirement to be called an investment game, then Tic Tac Toe is equally an investment game. I hope we can agree that Tic Tac Toe is NOT an investment game just because it takes 60 seconds to play. You don't need to grind for the newest Warframe and guns. I know a guy who to this very day refuses to get off Rhino and Boltor, and he's been playing for the past 5 years. He gets on, kills a bunch of enemies, then gets off. Sure, the endgame isn't there anymore, but to say you need to invest time into Warframe is a huge misnomer. Investment games require you to invest time before you actually start playing. You need to learn mechanics, grind spots, META builds, and so on, then you can start playing. Warframe doesn't really have that. Only games with an endgame or has competitive elements require such things. I wouldn't say Destiny 2 is an investment game, or at least an investment game in the traditional sense. The only real investment you need is power level. You don't need shaders, you don't need ornaments, you don't need transmog, you don't need any of that. The Rhino Boltor guy from Warframe also plays Destiny 2 and refuses to play anything other than Ward of Dawn Titan (Much to the chagrin of the others in the clan). And if you think buying an expansion is a requirement to be called an investment game, then Tic Tac Toe is equally an investment game since you need to buy paper and pens. Again, can we shake hands and agree that Tic Tac Toe is still NOT an investment game? It's a silly notion to consider a game about X's and O's being placed on a hashtag shaped playing field is an investment game since you need time and money to play it. What it really sounds like is you're just burnt out on the games industry as a whole. I'm right there with you in that regard. I'm tired of the carrot on a stick mentality many games have now. It's why games like Baldur's Gate 3, Hades 2, Tears of the Kingdom, and many other single player games have become so popular over the past few years. You can hop in, play for an hour or so, then walk away for awhile. Nothing will have changed in that time, and you don't need the latest DLC to keep playing.

I still play destiny since it's really the only game I play after I'm off from work. Newer games, just don't do it for me anymore. But tbh it's honest and very fair to take

I felt the same way with Halo Infinite. It's not an investment game, but its missing polish and features, and stingy content made me think -- for some reason -- that if I stuck with the game through its crap, I'd be rewarded later. In other words, I thought if I played through the game's seasons and events, and got better at the game, I would have something to show for it when the game would eventually get better. Maybe I'd have unique cosmetics, or be at the forefront of new techs and game-knowledge. It was an investment in a way. But the game never got better. Every new season was a disappointment. Fixes to bugs either broke something else in the process or added entirely new ones, "new" features were actually features that were missing, and those came with their own set of bugs. I couldn't enjoy any new maps, content, game modes, or cosmetics without running into bugs or glitches that screamed low-quality doomed game. I took more than 2 years to realize that uninstalling it was the best thing I could have done for myself.

I still laugh at how I told my brother a couple weeks before prismatic that bungie should just make D2 an ability spamming game more than ever since everyone's so scared in fps combat....... and then bungie introduced prismatic... Honestly if they toned down the ability spamming or leveled it in the crucible and reduced the HEAVY aim assist/ bullet magnetism it would be an enjoyable game but going to other games that I genuinely enjoy to D2 to just basically "do my homework" is rough do to how it's not enjoyable whatsoever.

You’ll be back

I like the topics this channels talks about.

Destiny The Show viewers represent... NEEEEEEEEWWWWWWSSSSS!

I started destiny 1 around beyond light and then moved to destiny 2 about lightfall it is getting worse I agree. but i do still play and its still kinda fun

Even during its best periods I just haven’t enjoyed playing Destiny 2 very much. Never had that issue with D1 and it ain’t cause of rose tinted glasses. I’d just log on and not feel like playing the game, it just feels like a chore. I also didn’t like how they abandoned the D1 art style, it was far better.

Oh and i remember buying and playing Armored core 6 non stop and not touching Destiny 2 only to realize that i wasn't really enjoying my time with Destiny 2 anymore.

Naaahh, you didn't quit. You can't, in fact you still have it downloaded. We'll see you on the Final Shape. ❤

Investment games are like chasing a carrot on a treadmill. If you ever actually get the carrot they eventually take it away or make it worthless. If you’re having fun it’s fine. But it you’re not it’s a soulless and annoying.

Hang in there guys. Bungie will rerelease something you grinded for a year, two, or five years ago, and it will be GREAT! Once you have that “god-roll” gun, the perfect stat split, and mastered your favorite pvp play style; you’ll dominate once every six/seven matches when you get that exotic good connection from everyone in the lobby because Bungo didn’t load you into a game with a bunch of cross play, three country away tryhards because of your “skill level match”. So until then, grind that strike for the 5,000th time because it’s nothing like the battlefield content you ran ad naseum two seasons ago. 🙄 /s

FFXIV is worth playing simply for the story. The Endgame loop is a bit tiring just because it hasn't changed in 6 years, and there's fewer choices to be made in terms of gear or abilities than almost any other modern MMO, but it's a very good mix of story, challenging content, and rewarding gameplay

I still enjoy Destiny 2. For me a love the game play and sandbox. No other game feels like destiny 2 it serves it purpose. I also still play FFXIV since ARR. Yoshi P stated something that a lot of gamers should take note of just take a break un-sub if you need. ALL live service games goes through this. Maybe you are not part of the other game communities, but Fortnight, COD, League, WoW all complain about the same thing, so many content creators say the same thing they, i can literally copy and paste all these quit video's and interchange them. When expansion or DLC comes out all just play it until I am done. I'll just move on. I've noticed that a lot of players don't have self control, so they play games when they don't feel like it. Once people grow up and mature they will realize this is just a hobby not a job. Do you really need a God-roll of a weapon to beat any content in Destiny, nope. So why stress or force your self to chase something that is not needed. But hey to each their own.

The final shape will be my last experience with Destiny.

I deleted all of my characters and loot just to make sure that I never ever go back to D2. That hurt to do but I haven’t been back😂

I still jump in and jump out of these games. It's a matter of perspective, not game type. I haven't played Destiny in like 6 months... But if I see something that interests me, I'll jump back in. That's the beauty of these games. FOMO is the real hurdle. And TBH I couldn't care less about not having all the things.

I think investment (time) games should be played with others. The company of others smooths out those potholes in game sessions, and makes grinds go by faster. I played WOW from Oct 2004 until the tail end of Wrath. I would jump in and out at different expansions looking for something I lost. What was it that made me play uninterrupted up until Wrath? Social interaction. It just so happened that Dungeon Finder and multi instancing the open world killed the social aspects of the game. Guild disintegrated, and now it was solo run for everything. That did it for me. Arenas killed PVP. Mythic Plus killed PVE. Dungeon Finder killed social interaction. They wonder why this game lost so many players?

This is why I stopped playing Fortnite two years ago, to much fomo.

I quit destiny 9 months ago and i had over 10 000 hrs and a couple ascendant rank seasons. But pvp going to hell made me quit. Stasis and strand turned pvp into a shit show. My friends want me to get the new expansion but i dont wanna go back. Bungie wants you to live in the game to be able to compete in trials and comp and i cant give my them my time anymore

have you played any of the warhammer games? off topic but curious

The last expansion Lightfall was an awful cringey story… but there was a lot of improvements to the game itself. I’m still enjoying it, however I don’t have hope for it in the future. It doesn’t have to be all in or all out. Solo playing the Crucible is fun, being the best blueberry I can be.

D2 still have its charm if you just ignore the drama

I quit after witch queen. Game isnt worth it. Should've quit earlier. I came back just to look at some destiny 2 news and, low and behold, super nerfs, weapon nerfs, exotic armor nerfs. We can't have nothing. Anyway, I feel free now. I missed out on so many games and now I'm catching up. On all these great games. Don't need to play destiny 2. I've had more fun now than ever before.

I still enjoy playing Destiny 1

I virtually played Destiny like crazy until I found good alternatives. Destiny 2 is really fun, but it's a terrible money sink despite great elements. Been enjoying Helldivers way more anyway

At this point, all games are investment games as they all demand you play daily and have limited time content and battle passes that expire. I’ve stopped playing these manipulative games.

As an avid Destiny player who went over after the garbage Halo Infinite, I'm happy to say this game is great. Cannot wait. In 1.5 weeks, the Final Shape will be out and I'm super excited to see what's in store

Live service games are litrally built around FOMO

Play LAIKA: Aged through Blood! Do it! Do it now!

UNRELATED : On nexus vortex I’m getting an error saying that “mods can’t be deployed”. I’m not sure but I believe this is a problem due to the directory settings in vortex. I tried pressing the fix button on the notifications and going through those steps but nothing changed. Can someone please show me a fix or give me some guidance on how to fix this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated👍 On nexus vortex I’m getting an error saying that “mods can’t be deployed”. I’m not sure but I believe this is a problem due to the directory settings in vortex. I tried pressing the fix button on the notifications and going through those steps but nothing changed. Can someone please show me a fix or give me some guidance on how to fix this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated👍

Yeah I don’t get the feeling of mystery and wonder anymore from destiny. It definitely stopped after forsaken. Can’t beat destiny’s original soundtrack 😕

I stopped playing when bungie gutted my universal remote back in D1.

not gonna lie Final Shape is kinda amazing

I picked up destiny 1, and as soon as I saw the god-awful robot writing, I immediately quit, and never looked back!

Pretty ironic you just posted this, I put down Halo Infinite after 90 days played, been playing D2 for the past few weeks and having a complete blast I’m hooked

You can't watch prismatic game play and tell me the game is recognisable anymore

Give Xdefiant a try, it’s a blast!

I dont think the magic was ever there with Destiny its always been a well made game but its never really lived up to its potential thanks to bungies determination to turn it into a nickle and diming machine