Just recently from the forums this was told to us by Deej: [quote]Tomorrow, we had planned to conduct the final stream prior to the launch of “Curse of Osiris” to show off some of the weapons and armor the expansion includes. Instead, we are investing all our efforts into delivering some higher priority information about Destiny 2. You’ll hear from studio leadership about their assessment of Destiny all up, they’ll talk about our goals for the game going forward, and you’ll also learn about how we’re reacting to your feedback with some game updates that will arrive in the next few weeks. That will appear on the Bungie Blog on Wednesday.[/quote] As a veteran in Destiny and a non-casual player, I am in a love-hate relationship in this game and after reading the forums for some time now, I would like to hear how people are responding to this. Bungie has had this second chance to provide an immersive and powerful sequel to a great game. I realize that based on the opinions of people will vary based on the amount they have played and currently play but these are just my thoughts on the game getting adjusted to appeal to everyone: 1) With Bungie's focus aimed towards everyone, their economy has changed in a few ways... - Weapons come pre-upgraded: I question the use of planetary resources now since any green resources is less than one planetary token, and the grind for tokens of any sort is what the community is aimed towards. - Weapons come with concrete perks: I personally am okay with this AS LONG AS at some point in the (near) future they can come up with a way to flesh out their current mod system replacement. Given that mods are earned throughout the world and a majority through bright engrams, these can be fleshed out probably 5X more than they currently are. - Weapon mods for PVE: These are almost irrelevant in the current state. The only case in which one would need 305 power would be in the prestige activities (this is okay). - Weapon mods for PVP: These do not exist and have 0 purpose. Yes, adding a mod will up a weapons power by 5, BUT Bungie has removed light level advantages to allow more players to experience some of their end-game and time-gated crucible events (Trials and Iron Banner). - Armor mods for PVE and PVP: These are more fleshed out and the mods themselves are currently not in a bad state. BUT, there is one thing to take to note for both PVE and PVP: Due to the increase in cool down times compared to D1, the incentive to use cool down mods have become less desirable from what it seems. The desire from most players is to get the mods that affect either handling, stability, or reload of one's weapons. - The Token-Heavy Economy: This change has both its advantages and disadvantages: The positives are that it grants players a streamlined way to get gear by allowing to grind their respective activities with an expectation of how much they will progress in vendor reputation. This is a similar system to D1 and though tokens get bashed, this is a great system, BUT... The negatives seem to be all rounding around the fact that vendors do not sell ANY gear besides a few that sell low level green and blue armor pieces. This lack of vendor selling can remain for some of the vendors such as the planetary vendors like Devrim and Ashir but in situations like Iron Banner, the inability to choose an armor piece or weapons piece during a one week long event has been very detrimental. Given that there have only been two Iron banner events in Season 1 and Season 2 is very near, people who have grinded for full sets of armor and weapons have been stuck not receiving one gun or weapon. This system inflates the grind for people for a limited amount of time while basing the amount of time spent on RNG (which is okay but their needs to be a way to purchase weapons or armor). - The Unfortunate removal of raid-specific perks for both weapons and armor: In D1, Kings fall guns had the perk Taken Will which bonus damage to taken. In fact, all guns had perks that provided some sort of either effectiveness in the raid or effectiveness in the general PVE world. In regards to armor, the ability for armor to be desirable through providing specific advantages to the gameplay in the raid and the game world incentivized grinding for the armor. The lack of raid-specific perks and instead leaving it to solely mods removes the special feeling and purpose of raid armor. Unfortunately, adding some additional flowing colors to armor does not make guardians any more powerful (but does make them look a bit more stylish). The incentive for grinding normal Raids and Raid activities has been higher off which is good, but that is due to the fact that the incentive to complete a harder rate for statistically equal armor is not worth it to some. - The uncapped power level of rare armor and weapons: If a guardian desires to grind for blue guns and gear, it will not be left unnoticed. A new group of guardians has emerged known as the "Blue Crew" who use solely blue weapons and armor due to the fact that the only differentiation between blues and their higher tiered counterparts is perks on guns and the amount of mobility, resilience, recovery on armor. Some people in this group claim that the rarity of rare 300 pieces of gear is their way to grind now that they have gotten all of the gear. The ability to get rare blues at equal power level of legendaries and exotics, and also have the ability to infuse legendary mods into them use deincentivized the grind and purpose for achieving end-game loot and power. 2) The Ever-Long Discussion of PVE PVP Separation: - Could D1 weapons system have succeeded if they were separate? The answer... probably not still but this would have made many people less angry that about the unintentional tuning towards PVE after a PVP nerf or buff. The randomized weapon perks would have still been an issue unless they were also kept seperate between the two activities then it would work. - Could a D1 weapons system be implemented into D2? The answer... in the current state of D2, this would not even be addressed... the extensive ways that Bungie has taken to attempt at equalizing the PVP system in their game has resulted in a very difficult situation in regards to ever trying to implement a D1 similar system. In order for this to occur, the entire sandbox would have to change entirely (guardian sponginess, weapon flinch for "specials", and ammo changes for both "specials" and "heavies", etc.) This change has made people in PVP somewhat balanced but it incentivizes teamwork all the time with little offering of a solo opportunity. The incentive to "Team-shoot" in the Crucible: Team-shooting has become the method of eliminating guardians, a method that can kill an opposing guardian instantly if they are not careful. This method is based entirely on team-work, and though people who can excel going in solo certainly exist and should be noticed, the majority of players do not enter solo. The crucible has been created for primary and secondary weapon competition which is a great thing, but a few things need to be taken to mind in order to flesh out the crucible to live in greater harmony. Solo playlists like Rumble and other non-4v4 playlists or at least the choice of said 4v4 playlist must be an option. Team-shooting is prevalent and in the heat due to the fact that it seems to be one of the only ways to play successfully in the Crucible. With a more diverse range of options the heat might decrease (though in 4v4 gamemodes there should be no expectation that it will slow in likelihood). These are the current comments I have based on the status of the game so far. There are most likely more that i forgot to address but i hope this is an overall address to some of the major things in Destiny 2. Please up-vote if you found this helpful and I eagerly await your responses. GT: LowCo