[b]Just a fair warning: The following post is going to get pretty ugly in a few spots. Not in the sense of derogatory language, but rather calling out a certain group of players in the community quite harshly. The truth needs to be told, and I'm not afraid to shine the Light on the denizens of Destiny.[/b] [i]Part 1 Here[/i]: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/179137342/0/0 Before I begin I'm going to make an admittance: I haven't been the nicest person lately. The constant barrage of nerf posts drives me mad; I'll gladly pick up most weapons and use them, but when a weapon I really like gets destroyed, and I'm forced to start from scratch, it's irritating. Moreover, as I pointed out in Part 1, the constant cycle of overbearing nerfs, combined with overcompensating buffs, is only serving to kill entire classes of weapon, which is even more annoying. What angers me the most, however, is the possibility that these patches by Bungie may not be entirely calculated. Why do I come to this conclusion? Allow me to elaborate. [u]I played a lot of Call of Duty. I started back in Modern Warfare 2, and played every title up to Advanced Warfare. I wasn't almighty, but my stats did climb up and peak through Modern Warfare 3. The problems started in Call of Duty Black Ops 2. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 was touted by David Vonderhaar as the "most competitive friendly" entry in the franchise. He was right, too: Every aspect of the game was specifically catered to so-called "professional" play. The maps were carbon copy, three lane monstrosities, and there was also the nightmare that was League Play. Now, I could care less if you sit on your couch for hours, even days at a time, to play a game and do well at it. More power to you. [i]However, I do have a problem, when you begin to believe that your time put into the game, entitles you to dictate how I play.[/i] Treyarch had a small circle of players, including Fwiz and Hastro, that had direct input and impact on the patches that went into Black Ops 2. The result was a disaster: [b]A combined 14 nerfs for two guns alone.[/b] A shotgun, two SMGs (which caught the aforementioned 14 nerfs) and multiple Assault Rifles caught a barrage of nerfs, which all piled up and made those weapons utter trash. By June, the player base had [b]dropped off from over 100,000 players, to just under 20,000 in public lobbies[/b]. [i]At least 80 percent, EIGHTY[/i], left the game between launch and June. The remaining players were largely quickscopers, because Sniper Rifles were the only weapon class that hadn't been utterly wrecked. The above numbers I observed don't even take into account the abomination that was League Play. I'm not opposed to a competitive playlist, but I am opposed to the toxic players that they draw in. The League Play playlist was rife with DDoS attackers and cheaters; I think I managed to play one LP match that was legitimate. After about four or five times of being kicked offline and Hellish lag, I never stepped foot into a League Play lobby after that.[/u] It's not just the cheaters themselves that are toxic. There is a catalyst that causes it, at least to a certain degree: The attitudes of "high level" players. There are a lot of them in this forum, more so than I expected out of a cooperative game like Destiny: The ones that throw tantrums when they cannot admit they were beaten, or that use stats to try and belittle others. Here's a prime example of such elitism at work, taken from Part 1 of this post: [quote] Zackman71492 3h 9m ago YOU HAVE YOUR HIGHEST LEVEL CHARACTER 304 AND A KD OF 1.0 YOU JUST GOT THE GAME AND DON'T KNOW SHIT. THE GAME GOT MESSED UP AFTER THE DARK BELLOW WHEN ALL THE CHRISTMAS NOOBS STARTED WHINING. YOU NEVER PLAYED RELEASE YOU DONT KNOW HOW FUN THIS GAME CAN BE. AND PROBABLY PARTICIPATED IN THE NERF POSTS. YOUR JUST A WHINING BABY. GET SOME GRIMIORE 3 Replies Boomstick1911 3h 6m ago @Zackman71492 ... ... I'm not even going to dignify this with an intellectual response. Get out of Destiny; you are not welcome here. Zackman71492 @Boomstick1911 You suck at the game you have barely accomplished anything in the game you have no rite to say shit. You get the -blam!- out Boomstick1911 @Zackman71492 I've played since Day 1. I stopped playing for a while after House of Wolves, because the game became stale and boring. I've come back to The Taken King with a more PvP oriented mindset, and have been focusing on improvement. The Grimoire has meant little to nothing to me, simply because it's not in the game itself, but merely a ploy to cut corners and gain traffic on Bungie's website. Not that I have to explain myself to you. I doubt you'll even comprehend this sentence, let alone the aforementioned paragraph, or the purpose of my OP.[/quote] I'll admit that a few things I said probably weren't necessary, but my points still stand firm. You can break these types of players into two categories: [b]1)[/b] The player who dies to something they don't like, and wants it nerfed. [b]2)[/b] The type of player that dies and wants something nerfed, but claims their stats validate their opinon. Now, usually you can write off the first type of player. They just ramble and cry about how they died to something, and it's suddenly OP and needs a nerf. No big deal, throw them under the bus and move on. It is the second type of player, the one that uses their stats to validate their opinion, that is infinitely more dangerous, and toxic to the game. They use KD as a means to not only try to invalidate others, but to make them feel inferior, and to make them feel as though they have no say. They bully, and belittle those that they feel are inferior to them. This is a very, very scary thing for the game, because it drives new players away, that may see the real problems that Destiny has. Now, I've run into a lot of players like this, especially in Call of Duty. This mentality is what ran Black Ops 2, ultimately into the ground: A few players ended up doing only what was best for their small circle, and ruined the game for everyone else. [u][b]Cheating, and how elitism drives it[/b][/u] The type of bullying and elitism I described to you earlier, drove another massive force that destroyed League Play in Black Ops 2: Cheating. DDoS, boosting, etc. ran rampant in League Play, destroying the game for those who wanted to play fair. There was no sportsmanship either: Hate being spewed in game chat constantly. Little to no teamwork. Toxic, hateful, nasty players. Karma at its best: Put hate in, hate comes out, and it festers and multiplies; a plague of boils causing the community indescribable pain and harm. [i]The same exact behaviors I have described in every word before this paragraph, are repeating themselves in Destiny. Here is my theory: Bungie is making knee jerk decisions, to appease players that simply cannot cope with being beaten. Whether they have below a 1.0, or above a 2.0, they aren't wanting for balance: They're crying nerf to justify being beaten. Activision is notorious for catering to these players, as shown with Black Ops 2.[/i] Granted, this theory may be only partly true, due to the fact that Luke Smith came out and talked about having "cycles/seasons for weapons." While this type of one-weapon meta cycle is complete and utter folly, the nerf herding in here only feeds it, and gives a false justification to Bungie's abhorrent patches. It needs to stop, otherwise the same cycle is going to repeat until we end up with a Call of Duty carbon copy, where all of the guns are bland and boring. [b] This will carry on in the next post; unfortunately everything that needed to be said exceeded 10000 characters. LOL :P[/b] [b]Part 2B Here:[/b] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/179664897/0/0