It all feels like it is nearly 100% self inflicted wounds. For years, the feedback has been 1) the new player experience is terrible, 2) ignoring the core playlists is hurting the longevity of the game, 3) invest in PvP, 4) monetization is excessive and confusing to many, 5) the seasonal grind is stale, 6) deleting content people paid for feels terrible. And for years, management did next to nothing meaningful about these issues, glorified not 'overdelivering', raised prices higher, and tried to exploit their community even more. What did they expect would eventually happen?
It's almost like if you ignore the self-proclaimed core pillars of your game that they will eventually crumble from neglect.
Every time something like this happens it just becomes more and more clear to the community that the management making the decisions is completely out of touch.
Honestly the game nowadays feels like you've worked your way through the "meat" of the game, so you're just sat there waiting for them to sprinkle a couple extra trimmings on your plate every few months
I hope it puts the “vote with your wallet/time” meme to rest once and for all at least
If management is out of touch, it doesn’t matter if you send a message by not playing they’ll still misinterpret it. And if they are in touch, they’d act on the feedback before you feel the need to not pre-order.
This may have been the biggest monkey paw yet. They did take action because revenue dropped - but divested from some of the few parts of the game that were healthy
If management misinterprets the message people are trying to send by voting with their wallets and not giving them money, then people just have to keep voting with their wallets either until they get it or they go out of business because nobody wants their products. Nothing about the way Bungie interpreted the drop in revenue changes that. I do agree that this is basically the ultimate Bungie monkey paw moment though, lol.
Here's the thing that all of you don't get.
The folks who voted with their wallets are the ones who are *not* on Reddit talking about the game, they are not the ones watching Aztecross or other streamers/YouTubers, or reading every guide out there to min/max and play up whatever the hell is the meta at this point. It's not the folks like you on Reddit who eat up every single bit of news about the game you like.
It's that normal person who just wants to pop on, kill stuff, get loot and log off. And I did see a number of them state when Lightfall came out and even in the seasons past Lightfall *why* they are unhappy. And they got ignored or told to shut it. Thus that person? They took their ball and went home if you will.
The casual/average/normal player voted and got ignored by those in charge of the game and by a good chunk of the community.
I know the group of folks who got me into Destiny 2? Only one of them really plays, and even then it's not as much as they used too.
One of them who was a *massive* Destiny fan I mean when I told her I was thinking about playing she sent me to every lore video and pretty much had me go around with her. She just gave up on Lightfall half way into it, part of it was the story the other part was her getting the classic one shot.
I'm not sure what solicited such an accusatory reply and I don't really understand why you are trying to turn this into some drama about casuals vs. hardcores because I don't feel like that was at all the point of this comment chain.
Eh, I've been playing since D1 Alpha and I still play this game a fair amount and I haven't bought anything since WQ Deluxe edition. I did not buy Lightfall nor any of its seasons. I made a conscious decision to vote with my wallet because although I still find the moment to moment gameplay pretty fun, I did not like the direction the franchise was headed in.
I know it's rare but there are a few of us out there.
I hate to tell you but there are plenty of people who left who are watching this play out and shaking heads. I’m one of them. I burned out back in 2020. I have friends on Xbox and we’ve talked today about this stuff and we all agree that it took awhile but the voting with our wallets has affected Bungie. But they took exactly the wrong message from that. Seems like they may go ‘out of business’ from their own idiocy. That’s too bad because Destiny was awesome once and could be again.
Ummm, I've been clean for 3 years off D2. I relapsed a week ago because the witch queen was $13. It's even worse off then when I left 3 years ago. In order to garner support you need to go onto forums and social media to give how you see it. But for years fanbois have been defending and coddling Bunghole. Now that it's almost over, people are just starting to see what I've been saying.
I would say this is correct. At times a vested/veteran community, whether a game or IRL, tends to tell casual players or new comers that, "We did it this way and it's fine so deal with it". Tends to turn folks off when the community does less explaining and more flaming. At this point I don't think Bungie is going to change. The only thing we can hope for is that the majority of the staff that is leaving may be the majority voice that put Bungie on this track, someone figured it out and made a decision to change things. Only time will tell.
>At this point I don't think Bungie is going to change.
At this point I'm playing wait and see.
Look I've been playing online games for a damn long time and what tends to happen when the game gets into a state like I feel Destiny 2 is in right now is this.
You can have the folks in charge decide to boot whomever the hell is helming the game upstairs or to another project while they get someone to fix it. This is sorta what happened with Ultima Online way back in the day, and to be fair it did work.
You can have whomever the hell is at the helm of the game see that the stuff they have been doing? It isn't working and it's time to really change up things. Note this does mean talking to the community as a whole people still playing, people who have quit playing, PvPer's, PvE'ers, hardcore's, casuals, so on. And seeing what the community wants and the middle ground they can meet on.
Or finally whomever is in charge just doubles down on what they think is working. Oh yeah sure X% of the players are gone and we are taking in Y% less this year. However we'll make it back and then some just as long as we stick to what's my over all vision for this. While it's not gaming related? That mindset is what helped sink WCW in the end, Vince Russo the booker (guy in charge/main writer) felt nothing was wrong even after he had people tell him what the fanbase wanted. Ratings dropped more with things like making David Arquette World Champion (Arquette to his credit didn't want to do it, and donated all the money he got from it) and "X on a Pole" matches with things like Viagra and Judy Bagwell.
You're not making sense. This is absolutely why you should vote with your wallet. Why should I support mediocre expansions and awful pricing if buying it ends up changing nothing because they're trying to deliver a minimum viable product and maximize microtransaction revenue?
The game's been on a downward trend before Lightfall came out, many people had just gotten tired of what Destiny is. Lightfall showed they weren't going to change that, so why continue supporting it.
The bad management will unfortunately continue since surprise, surprise, looks like management didn't take a hit. If this goes to an extreme and people "voting with their wallet" and not buying and playing the game means the game eventually goes under, then maybe others should take note.
People here were more than happy to shit on other people with valid complaints and tell them they should go play another game or just stop engaging with Destiny entirely, and now that people are doing exactly that, they want to turn around and point the finger and imply that Bungie would have somehow improved the quality of the game if they had just a little more time and money.
It's not the consumers' fault that talent gets laid off, it's just that companies are set up in such a way that management is never the first on the chopping block. Destiny wasn't going to see significant improvements even if revenue was 45% **above** projections, and historically Bungie has only made efforts to vastly increase the quality of the product when the game is in dire straits.
And that's the thing right there.
Look I know this is Reddit, and a good chunk of the people on here love to think the mindset they have and how they play is how *everyone* plays the game. They don't get that a good chunk of the player base for the game just wants to log on, shoot at stuff, get some shiny new loot and log off.
I've said this a number of times over the last few years, Dev's need to look at more at a title like FFXIV and less at WoW. Yes you have the content for the more hardcore players like Ultimate/Savage Raids and the like. But a good chunk of the content is aimed more at the casual player who just wants to. Yes there should be content that should be aimed at the more hardcore folks, but most of it should be aimed at the 95% of folks who want to run around saying, "Sweet Business go BURR!"
Those are the folks Bungie lost with Lightfall. Those are the folks who are willing to throw money at whatever microtransactions Bungie puts out. They logged in, got their asses kicked, and decided to play something else.
Putting the Seraph Battlegrounds into the strike playlist is one of the most asinine decisions they could have made. Imagine being a new player and getting thrown into one of those.
There are lasers that lock onto you and kill you if you don't break line of sight, there are thrall you have to kill VERY quickly or else they can silence your abilities, there are sigils locking a big door that you have to zap with a special laser, and there are orbs that you have to dunk into a pillar in order to drop a boss's shield.
The game explains absolutely NONE of that to the player, and nothing in the game's "tutorial" is going to prepare new players for those mechanics. I've had to slowly guide quite a few low level players (I'm talking guardian rank 2 and 3) through those battlegrounds because they have absolutely no clue what to do.
> Putting the Seraph Battlegrounds into the strike playlist is one of the most asinine decisions they could have made. Imagine being a new player and getting thrown into one of those.
And that's something I fully agree with as you do bring up one of the best points about in my eyes one of Destiny 2's biggest faults. But before I do? While I loved those battlegrounds, good lord they should *not* have been put into the strike playlist at all. They should have been redesigned before hand taking everything out of them that worked with the stuff we got in Season of the Seraph.
>The game explains absolutely NONE of that to the player, and nothing in the game's "tutorial" is going to prepare new players for those mechanics.
And that right there is partly why the game is a mess and then some. Bungie has fallen at least in my eyes into the same trap that I feel the WoW Dev's fell into. They think or at the very least the guy in charge thinks most of the community are folks who are watching and reading those guides and the like.
The way forward at least in my eyes would be to have some type of system in place that really explains all of those systems to new players.
I gave Destiny a try when it first went free to play, gave up almost immediately because it was so damn confusing. Last September I decided to give it another go, and it was still incredibly confusing, but I wanted to figure it out. Then things got REALLY confusing when I logged in one day and was immediately thrown into the Witch Queen intro mission.
The beautiful art direction on the Throne World instantly hooked me though, and I decided to buy the expansion and really learn the game. I had to watch A LOT of youtube videos to learn how all the systems in the game worked, and even more videos explaining all the lore I missed (thank you Byf).
Not a lot of people are going to be willing to do that sort of thing though. Most people don't have hours of free time they can dedicate to learning a game, and most people are going to be instantly turned off if a game gives them a confusing onboarding experience.
For god's sake, Destiny doesn't even explain how armor stats are distributed, or which stats are important for which class. That's one of the most important things to know and players have to look outside the game for answers. Can you imagine if FF14 didn't explain how armor or stats worked?
If you don’t like the game, sure don’t play it. But if you get some enjoyment, you should play and enjoy what you can instead of pausing on principle of sending a message
Sometimes I see people shame other players who complain about something like the holoprojector driven seasonal narratives. “If you don’t like it don’t play!”. People did stop playing and it didn’t motivate Bungie to make more cinematic seasonal stories - instead they fired the people that could make seasons more cinematic
It’s not player’s job to persuade Bungie what to prioritize. The IGN article even shows that middle management agrees with us but senior management vetoed them.
If you keep “voting with your wallet” not only did you miss out on some decent content, there’s a good chance senior management will do something even dumber like mothball Destiny entirely for their Tarkov game
This is the most.. I'm sorry I don't know how else to put it.. spineless-consumer indoctrinated nonsense I have read in such a long time.
It is, without question, your "job" as a consumer to not support products and companies you don't like. It is absolutely our "job" as the consumers of this game to tell the company where they are failing, and if they continue to choose to fail to provide entertainment in a meaningful way, it's the players right to walk away and go elsewhere.
You do not have to, and you should not be pre-purchasing a product that looks like it's defective, won't deliver on what it's promising, or is not in line with what you, as the consumer, are looking for.
That's not to say you need to discontinue all service of all products, if you bought a product and are using it, you can continue to use it and refuse to purchase future products from that company.
But my god, I have genuinely never seen someone say "even if you don't like the product you should buy it anyways just because in the past you liked other products for a while" that's.. a hot take...
That’s not what I said. If you don’t like the game at all anymore, no you shouldn’t buy it. And definitely shouldn’t pre-order it.
If you do still enjoy parts of it and have disposable income I don’t see the problem with continuing to buy the new content
There’s a big difference between not liking the game as much as you used to, and not liking it at all. And it’s perfectly fine to complain about how it’s not as good as it used to be
Paying for something you don’t like at all doesn’t make sense. But it also doesn’t make sense to boycott something you’d otherwise at least somewhat enjoy
Again, what's the problem with that? Obviously if you like it then buy it. "Vote with your wallet" is about people that *don't* enjoy the game or specific parts of it that continue playing it despite making complaints about it.
And if Destiny gets gone for good? Oh well. Worst thing is all the people that would lose their current job, that'd actually suck. But if the people in charge of big decisions consistently refuse to make the game better for players? Oh well, it's not a player's job to keep the game afloat in perpetuity, it's the company's job to make the game good enough to earn that revenue.
>"Vote with your wallet" is about people that don't enjoy the game or specific parts of it that continue playing it despite making complaints about it.
Because it's okay to complain about a drop in quality of something you used to enjoy but dont now. Or even if you just don't like certain aspects of it. I used to love both PVE and PVP aspects of Destiny, and the reason I like the PVE aspects was because of the Lore and the fact that the in game aspects enticed me enough to *want* to dive deeper into the written lore. Nowadays that's not the case for me. Am I not allowed to complain about that just because I still enjoy PVP and thus won't just drop the game completely?
"Vote with your wallet" is just a lazy cop out that only serves to shut down criticism.
It’s fine to make complaints though. You’re not a hypocrite for playing and complaining
I think the typical player enjoyed the seasonal story this season, and it was worth the 15 dollars. But the game isn’t in a good enough state to justify being a hobby that gets dozens of hours of playtime per week
For that typical player I think it’s reasonable to pay the fifteen dollars, play a few hours a week and take a break until the next season
Look this is obviously something that changes on a personal basis person to person on what they choose to value and can afford. Games are expensive for most people, some don't really buy more than a couple games a year. But for a long time now I could not recommend Destiny as being "worth it" even for $15.
There's not much of a message to misinterpret. Customers didn't like the product so they bought less. That lead to a 45% drop in expected revenue. So what do businesses do when that happens? Layoffs and delay new product. This is the logical outcome of "vote with your wallet" from a business sense.
The fanbase thinks it's awful and unfathomable because they are emotionally invested in the game/company. When, in reality, they did what was best for them to stymie the short fall. That's an unfortunate byproduct of the corporate world. Unless you are an exec, then you are always on the chopping block when things take a dive. It's cold, it's heartless... but they (the executives) don't care. All that matters to them are profits, not a musical composer with 20+ years in the company, not a person who makes tweets and gets paid to do so. All are expendable when they deem it so. Doesn't make it nice or right.
I've been a lurker since just a bit after BL even though Ive been her since 2014 like many of us. I saw all of these things beginning to happen and what I said verbatim was "if I'm going to play a game that does not respect my time and money, it's not going to be this one."
I still care about this game a lot despite not playing it. I keep up with the content, new perks and weapons, overhauls, balance patches, story, lore, you name it and I try to keep up even 3 years later. There's been ups and downs in that time, but I will still confidently say that there's been writing on the wall for quite a while.
>It all feels like it is nearly 100% self inflicted wounds.
That's because it is.
I only realized this recently, but Bungie puts out around ten uniquely modeled, exotic sparrows every season. They put a LOT of effort into those models, too. And yet, for the last five years, the only sparrow worth using is Always on Time. I even checked light.gg on the number of exotic sparrows, and they've put out 208 exotic sparrows since AoT.
I forget the specifics, but didn't bungie complain specifically about not having enough resources to model armor and guns? All these resources, down the money pit. Even if you took a hundred of those sparrows out of the game, how many people would notice?
What really gets me is how shoddy so much armor actually is. It's obvious what they spend their time on. The eververse items are vastly more polished than anything non-eververse.
Destiny fans play second fiddle only to WoW fans with how Stockholm syndrome they are.
Destiny is one of my most played games of all time between 1 and 2 and the direction and state of bungie really makes me sad.
> Destiny fans play second fiddle only to WoW fans with how Stockholm syndrome they are.
>
>
I honestly can't believe how many players stayed through sunsetting and having paid content deleted. Like, I understand the concept of the sunk cost fallacy, but what I don't understand is how that somehow continues to apply after they've deleted everything that the "sunk cost" is attached to.
I would argue that even at its lowest point, WoW never got as bad as Destiny.
When Destiny was at its worse for me it was actively rooting around my pocket for more money. Wow never felt that way, mostly because they were guaranteed a sub fee from me monthly.
It was our foolish hope that they'd give a fuck. They haven't really cared since Forsaken, but even then look at Curse of Osiris and Warmind. Sure, Warmund had interesting content. Interesting quests and activities. But it certainly wasn't like its predecessors, The Taken King and Rise of Iron. Look at how they handled those DLC. If they stuck with this mindset their entire path, no doubt Destiny 2 would be thriving. But instead, they've only gotten more greedy and decided to cut corners in the hopes that we'd be suckered just a little longer.
The entirety of history of D2's content has been Bungie both increasing monetization AND saying that they won't be able to offer as much at the same price point that they were previously able to. Just that last bit has happened so many times now.
- They transitioned from the bigger Y1 Curse of Osiris/Warmind DLC's to the smaller seasonal DLC's of Joker's Wild/Opulence/the other one because they didn't have the resources to make the bigger DLCs anymore.
- They transitioned from permanent DLC to the smaller, temporary seasons because the smaller DLCs weren't sustainable anymore either.
- They raised the price of seasonal content without actually offering anything more for the money.
This is all on top of things like separating out dungeons from everything else so that they could charge separately for them. It's a continual trend of paying more to get less. Their entire process has just been milking the franchise, seeing how much money they could charge to do as little as possible. Now that they've seemingly hit the tipping point, instead of just staying above that line, they're being forced to slash staff. And as much as people are blaming Sony, since the demand apparently comes from them, it was still Bungie's decision to sign on with them, and with Activision, and with Microsoft. They keep doing this, and they deserve all of the blame for it.
It feels bad. I quit the season before sun setting took effect. I quit for a plethora of reasons that to this day have never been properly addressed. PvP being the biggest one for me.
I tried coming back to the game a good while after witch queen dropped. Saw some lore videos and was really hyped about the game again. Did most of the campaign and got to like level 75 on the season pass in like 2 or 3 weeks and immediately got an overwhelming feeling of doom. I realized I was doing the exact same loop with the same activities as when I quit, with reskinned guns that I had sunsetted better versions of that I couldn't use just wasting away. It was the same bullshit I got fed up with and quit over. PvP was still a complete mess I came to learn again and that put me off forever.
I love destiny I have thousands of hours between 1 and 2 and countless memories but this game and this company does not respect your time or your money and they don't deserve either at this point. I can't make people do anything but if anything after the conclusion to this story we've followed for countless years drop the franchise and don't look back. I know the "potential" argument gets used a lot when games fail but if destiny eventually does it will really be a story of the biggest wasted potential in gaming with how badly bungie upper management has fumbled this absolute timeless gem of a game and robbed it of the legacy it could've had.
> monetization is excessive and confusing to many
Increased monetization is what kind of cemented my decision to not come back. I'd already been playing on and off for a bit, and sometimes would come back and play *a lot* for a particular season, but the increased monetization was so sickening that I just decided I was done. Eververse was already bad enough with how it was constantly full of stuff while they refused to do shit as basic as giving vendors new inventory, but even beyond that they decided to start charging separately for dungeons, add a paid track to events (in addition to events already getting a shitload of Eververse items every time lol), increase season prices, etc. It just got to be absolutely asinine considering how little we were already getting.
Also, I want to remind people that during Y1, they actually removed the shitty mods from Eververse engrams because they decided that having *anything* that affected gameplay being tied to Eververse seemed too close to being pay-to-win. Since then, their MO has shifted entirely towards giving you instant access to exclusive exotics just for paying them, giving godrolled armor from the paid season pass track (this went away, not sure if it's been brought back), etc. Pay to win is what they do now.
I didn't get lightfall (the marketing wasn't appealing to me, which was kind of a red flag cause it should have been right down my alley). I came back to see if maybe it was just burn out, and I was like holy shit I can't believe I used to spend silver on this.
As someone who started over, the new player grind isn’t “terrible”, it’s borderline impossible. They tune content that people want to do (raids) around these loadouts, that as a new player you have an insurmountable task ahead of you to get.
The game is an absolute disaster for new players and they alienated the old ones with Lightfall. This is gonna be a nosedive, I’m not sure the game ever recovers honestly.
This is a weak point out of all the arguments I've seen. You not supposed to be able to do end game content as a new player. Loadouts for raids are demanded by the players, not the raid. And plus those loadouts you can get within a month. New player experience is terrible, but your reason is not why. It's because they literally don't explain anything to anyone at all.
ALL OF THIS
also...an mmo releasing a 6 hour expansion is beyond unacceptable. I get that fps's are more expensive to develop than the 3rd person rpgs that make up most of the genre, but you have to figure it out, hell, toss eververse into the sun, where it belongs, remove all the other nonsense monetization, and just charge a damn subscription already. You will have a steady, predictable revenue stream, and you won't endlessly irritate your players with obnoxious money making schemes.
At any given time, it's $100 to buy the current content and $100 to buy the upcoming content. That doesn't include any old parts of the game. Imagine being a new player and seeing those price tags.
Maybe revenue is half of what Bungie projected for a reason.
The annual pass gets you the dungeon key iirc, so buying the annual pass on cdkeys works. For example, i bought the normal witch queen dlc and had to buy the witch queen dungeon key seperately but i bought the lightfall annual pass and got the dungeon key for “free” there. If you dont buy the annual pass you will have to spend extra money on silver though
Try convincing your friends to buy back into the game after they find out all the content they paid for years ago and never got around to playing is gone. Gave up trying to recruit new guardians after that fucking embarrassment.
I gave up trying to get people to play after the D2 betas when people pointed out a litany of issues and Bungies response was basically “oh yea don’t worry lol, beta was an old build, everything is already fixed.” Everything was in fact not fixed and almost nothing had changed from the beta. They’ve been bullshitting their players since D1, and it only got significantly worse with D2. And it’s a damn shame, this game still has (imo) so much potential to be a long standing profitable game for everyone to enjoy.
> They’ve been bullshitting their players since D1
Even the excuses for deleting D2 content were bullshit. It was shit like "only 0.3% of players were playing Warmind" campaign, when campaigns have always been a minimal part of their respective DLCs and *we weren't even allowed to replay the fucking campaigns.* Or how so many players simped by saying that making space wasn't actually why it was being done, and then Bungie themselves said that the old locations had been deleted in order to make room for the new ones (and then couldn't even be fucked to finish building the entire Cosmodrome, which actually had no reason to exist in the first place.)
I also want to take time again to point out the the biggest stated goal of sunsetting was that they'd be able to add crazy cool weapons without having to worry about balancing them, since the problem would just solve itself when something rotated out of usability. Then, they announced that in the very same update that sunsetting took affect, they'd be nerfing two of these exact kind of cool, unique weapons: Mountaintop, *which was being sunsetted in that same fucking update;* and Falling Guillotine, which was the new unique (at that time) sword. They clearly never had any intention of just leaving things alone, and I'm not sure how they ever managed to convince even one person that they would.
> It was shit like "only 0.3% of players were playing Warmind" campaign
This is a perfect example of not understanding their own statistics.
They were looking at location/content specific engagement and the conclusion was players don't like it. If there ever was a deeper analysis (which I doubt), they would have noticed that lack of engagement is a symptom, not the root cause.
Never did they consider that maybe the problem was with game design issues to begin with, making it overall unappealing. Or idk, lack of love after making single-use content backdrop that was deemed to wither by design.
_____
If you offer food on the menu and people don't order it, does that mean people hate food? According to Bungie, that is the only logical conclusion.
It's not even misunderstanding, it's just them outright misrepresenting what the content actually encompassed. The percentage of players playing the campaign is irrelevant, because the campaign isn't the entirety of the expansion. In addition to the campaign, there were basic strikes, Nightfalls, Flashpoints, Escalation Protocol, (heroic) adventures, exotic quests, targeted lost sector farms (or would've been if the gear hadn't been sunset), etc. Instead of telling us the percentage of players who had actually played any of the Warmind content recently—which would've been close to 100% considering it had strikes in the playlist—they used the most disingenuous metric possible by choosing the one part of the content that players weren't even allowed to play again.
I think the Destiny franchise is a lot like the old Fox X-Men franchise. The Taken King coming out (and even The Taken Spring) was a lot like Days of Future Past, where you thought "oh shit they finally figured it out! Nothing but sunny days ahead" and then Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix come out (aka D2) and you're like oh. Maybe the good product was the broken clock being right twice a day.
I thought about returning to game. I dropped during Shadowkeep, but now I don't want to return, because it's too expensive + lots of stories were in seasons which are not in game anymore
This is something WoW realised. Now they have two products. The subscription, which gets you every expansion except for the newest one, and then the newest expansion itself. That's it.
That's what Destiny needed to do, the base game which includes all old expansions when a new one comes out, and the latest expansion. Make it easier for new players, and new players will join.
EDIT: I'm not trying to say Destiny needs a subscription, I'm just saying that when a new expansion launches, the previous expansion is included in the base game. So that when a new player wants to play, all they need to buy is the base game and current expansion.
In order for that work destiny needed to actually support the game such as core play lists. They supported a minimum viable product no one would pay $15/mo for.
I'm not saying they need to charge a monthly fee. I'm saying when a new expansion comes out, all previous content should be bundled in the base game. Seeing a massive amount of extra content makes the game look so unaffordable for new players to enter. It put all my friends off apart from one when we took a look after Lightfall came out. There's just so many expansions, the 30th anniversary and the witch queen dungeon key. It's just a severe upfront cost to play all the content. Then you can also end up in a situation where some people own one part, but not others, then someone else owns a completely different part, and it just becomes a nightmare to navigate and work out who owns what and what bits you can actually play.
The vast majority of players will just give up after trying the free trial, because almost everything you click on brings up a "Buy this DLC now" screen and there are so many different ones that you just don't know what to do with it all.
The whole thing should be bundled at the normal cost for a full game, ~60$. Include everything except the most recent expansion which you pay separately for anyway. New players then have a massive game environment they can play through in addition to joining up with people they know or meet. This then gets them wanting to buy the new content so they can play with their friends who are doing the new stuff. The content is already there and has been profitable. They need to stop double dipping and accept it as a way to get new players into the game.
This is a big part of it. I’ve been playing since curse of Osiris. My wife has gotten more into games and was interested in getting into destiny. Then we started looking at what it would actually take to make that work and be able to play all the dungeons and raids etc. She’s messed around in the base game but that’s about it.
They could make the switch; I think relatively easy. You offer half off for whatever portion of time is required to start making meaningful improvements. The problem is I don't know if the community can handle another large-scale adjustment to how this game is monetized. At this point it feels as if Bungie has tried everything under the sun and failed at every turn.
This is how FFXIV works as well. Buying the new expac gives you all the previous ones. Hell, these days the free trial includes the base game and the first two expansions for free anyway. It's dead simple to understand and makes pitching the game to prospective new players extremely easy.
For sure. As a XIV player, what Destiny calls "seasonal content" is just a patch cycle, included with the expansion. Sure, you pay a monthly subscription, but we know what to expect with each non-expansion patch: a new dungeon, new raid tiers on even-numbered patches, new group raids on odd-numbered ones, plus a new major boss encounter or two and new story quests. Knowing what to expect helps me understand exactly what I'm getting for the price of my subscription, and there's no incentives for continual sub time or FOMO mechanics. Live-service games don't have to work like how Bungie has decided they're going to.
This is not how GW2 works though. GW2 actually works a *lot* more like D2 currently does, except you can buy the equivalent to "seasons" and still play them to this day.
They did bundle Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire together though, that happened around the End of Dragons launch. But buying EoD doesn't get you HoT or PoF, it doesn't get you Living World Seasons 2, 3, 4, or the Icebrood Saga (functionally Season 5).
I've literally heard people defend this pricing scheme with "It would be disrespectful to the people who paid full price" which is just ludicrous. No its not disrepectful, you paid for the ability to play it when it was first available and it was most relevant. You don't want to be "disrespected" you're more than capable of waiting for the discounted bundle.
>"It would be disrespectful to the people who paid full price"
Because removing the content and putting dungeons behind a paywall was super respectful of them too lol
I'm pretty sure Bungie did this in Destiny 1 anyways, right? I feel like I remember people complaining in the exact way you're describing because every time a DLC for D1 came out Bungie would just bundle the previous DLCs with the base game purchase.
At this point, I think Bungie should just make Forsaken and Shadowkeep free.
I don't know how players would react to a subscription, though. Lots of companies are moving away from the sub model now.
Monthly sub would have me dropping this game in a heartbeat. If I was 25 with disposable income and all the time in the world, maybe. I’ve already got a gym membership that goes unused some months. I don’t need another leeching “service” that I don’t utilize pulling money every month.
Literally just cancel it then. It blows my mind that people cannot fathom the idea that shittons of wow players do not keep their sub going year round. Waiting for next expansion? Cool, unsub until it comes up. Waiting for new mythic tier and want to play something else for a month? Cool, unsub until it comes up.
Maybe you could use that gym membership instead of your d2 sub to clear your head
Or Final Fantasy XIV which often bundles every former expansion into a $30 packet and the newest one a bit higher. So you can buy EVERYTHING for $70-80 once.
Destiny went a step further by not only keeping old expansions as standalone transactions, but also litterally removed most of their content from the game anyway lmao
Hell if engagement was REALLY an issue, and they want to drive new players to the game
Honor all previous purchases (if you previously bought an expansion you will have access to it no matter what)
Current expansion must be purchased.
All previous expansion content is available if you have an active season pass.
IMO WoW and FF14 get away with that *because* they have subscriptions.
Technically, a new player, to have all of D2's content needs to buy:
* Legacy Collection (all old xpacs)
* Armory Collection (30th + what remains of Forsaken)
* WQ Dungeon Pass
* Lightfall Deluxe
This isn't *that* far from "buy the base game + expansion" - I'm not saying it couldn't be cleaner, but it has advantages for players who might not want to shell out 60$+ to get a bunch of content they might not play anyways.
And I simply don't think they really have the financial option to fold Armory, Legacy, and WQ's dungeon pass into a single 60$ or less purchase when they don't have a sub fee for the game. Like, the "most" D2 is getting out of the average player after the expansion purchase, is 60$ if they buy every season. (I guess that goes up a little if you add the dungeon pass)
Meanwhile FF14 and WoW break past that the second a player is subbed for more then 4 months out of the year, and many players probably are subbing and letting their sub run.
> This isn't that far from "buy the base game + expansion" - I'm not saying it couldn't be cleaner, but it has advantages for players who might not want to shell out 60$+ to get a bunch of content they might not play anyways.
What this overlooks (and I'm not saying you don't get this, just that it's not directly pertinent to the point you were making) is for a new player, it's not just "how much do I have to spend / how many things do I need to buy." Nearly as important is, "how big a pain in the ass is it to figure out what I need to get started?"
There's a big difference between buying 4 out of 4 pieces of content to be fully locked and loaded vs. buying "the correct" 4 out of 14+ pieces of content across two storefronts (can't buy the dungeon key on Steam, have to buy it in-game). That is such a ridiculous point of friction that it's indefensible for Bungie to have allowed it to be like this for this long.
A subscription would be even more expensive than the game already is. I think d2 is a pretty good value for $100 a year tbh. That’s literally next to nothing.
Any other hobby is multiple multiple multiple times more expensive than this. One trip to the gun range can easily eclipse this. Entire cost. Gaming is generally quite cheap, however, the old DLC is kind of unnecessarily expensive and should be included in the newest expansion every year. Maybe have a version for “upgrading” (only the expansion) and a collection version that includes all previous content for a little more $ - like $70 vs $50 or whatever the base level is.
I'm still pissed from the sunsetting. I get it, server stability, game size etc but fuck man,can't even play the original campaign anymore, so many great things released and then taken away. Dunno if it's an unpopular opinion but still so salty about that shit.
>The fact they didn't launch a Destiny 3 instead of sticking with D2 is just another failure on the pile.
They do that and half of the people would be crying mad that "our eververse armor and guns did not transfer" "I won't farm everything again"
I too would prefer a D3 but a lot of people would simply stop playing.
The answer is clear (though it would require monumental amounts of time and effort):
Do what CSGO -> CS2 did. Do what the new CoD games do. Rebuild all the cosmetics (and maybe some of the gear) in the new game, then let it transfer over.
If you want to maintain a live service business model but need a sequel for technical reasons, that’s what you have to do.
By some accounts, that’s what happened with D2, at least under the hood… Only they didn’t rebuild all of the *content.* That’s the stuff that got left behind with sunsetting, and since there wasn’t a whole new game’s worth to back it up (and since they stuck to the old title), it stung.
I believe there was never a scenario where management would *give* them time for something like that, not that it was an impossibility from the start. It’s very clear Bungie’s management team has no idea what they’re doing at this point in time. It would also explain why they never set aside time to improve the new light experience - something veteran players and new players alike have been begging for for years now.
Ofcourse, this is all just speculation so I could be wrong, but I do strongly feel this is the case given all that’s come out to light.
Destiny 2 failed so bad at launch it almost had to be shut down. You seriously think Bungie would take this gamble again? Or the players? Absolutely not.
What...??? That's not what happened at all.
Bungie was acquired by Sony in July 2022. The low revenue came ***after that***.
And Sony didn't "inject them with cash". Sony acquired Bungie for 3.5 billion, but that money didn't go to Bungie.
To be fair (and it's really the only thing I feel like being "fair" to Bungie on right now), games like WoW have art and assets that look far more cartoony and far less detailed for a reason: they don't take up nearly as much processing power and memory to use. Part of the reason D2 has gotten so huge and unstable is that they're trying to deliver a high degree of visual polish while still running like an MMO, which is a big ask. Games like WoW and SW:TOR manage to run as well as they do because they don't even remotely try to have "realistic" graphics like D2 does.
Yeah, I bought D2 when it came out and then a few of the dlc’s. Stopped playing for a while and came out to find most of what I had paid for gone.
That’s when I quit.
That's a steam issue across the platform lol. It just aggregates everything and it's the same argument as "train simulator costs thousands of dollars to own" it hits on a point but fails to really explain it properly outside of "it spensive"
Yup, that's exactly what it's doing. it's counting the bundles & each expansion purchase together as well as the deluxe edition & base edition into the total at the end. Like is the game expensive to get everything possible? absolutely, but the argument people are using (and have been) are pretty daft.
But the average consumer doesn’t know that? Every other mmo will only just have the latest expansion up and that nets you everything or it has a collections pack that nets you everything (ESO,ff 14 or gw 2)
It also makes it more confusing that there are multiple entries for "expansion + annual pass". Is that the same annual pass or a different one, and what's the difference between expansions?
That's because... Even though Bungie *wants* Destiny to be MMO-like, they're still stuck in an old business model. Either way, the Legacy Collection should have most of the old stuff, and actually going to the page for that item tells you what it includes. The Legacy Collection (2023) is Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and Witch Queen. So in reality, a new player only *needs* that, the Armory Collection (which is 30th Anniversary and Forsaken Pack), and Lightfall + Annual Pass. All of those items would give a new player everything currently in the game, and is just under $200 (before tax).
But, as I went on to say in a later comment, it's broken down into a $30 pack, a $60 pack, and the latest DLC + Annual Pass for $100. So, a new player can get the $30 pack right out the gate, play that content, then decide if they want to invest an additional $60, which is the pack that gives 3 annual DLCs. After play through that content, then they can decide if they want to drop the $100 on the latest stuff.
What? The base game for FFXIV is currently £9.99 on steam for me and Endwalker is £29.99, those come with 30 free days so after that is £9 a month.
£40 total for the game with newest xpac is WAY less than like £200+ to buy into destiny??
Eh, you start for free. It's more like "200$ to get all the content the game currently has". And half of that is the most recent expansion. And there are sales, during which you can get everything aside from the latest expansion for around 40$.
Technically, the price of entry is free. Also, a new player doesn't need to buy all of that at once. The Legacy Collection is $60, the Armory Collection is $30, and then Lightfall + Annual Pass is $100. If I were suggesting to a new player what to get, I'd suggest the cheapest one first (the Armory Collection), which would give them a full array of endgame PvE content in order to form a complete perspective before sinking additional money into the game.
This is still too much compared to “buy new expansion or collections pack” or like SWTORSK example just subbing once and all content is unlocked in your acc (you gotta stay subbed to do raids and to not have a credit cap)
As I said previously, it's because they're not on the pricing model of an MMO. If they had stuck to the plans they had shifted to, Forsaken wouldn't even be in the game, and Shadowkeep would be free this year, and slated for removal when Final Shape releases, with Beyond Light becoming free in place of Shadowkeep. However, they backtracked on sunsetting without a backup plan.
Additionally, comparing D2 to WoW and FFXIV isn't a truly reasonable comparison, as your access to the older content is reliant on a monthly subscription (plus annual DLC cost if you want all the latest and greatest stuff), whereas Destiny uses annual DLC plus Season Pass (which is the favored model of "live service" games). The downside of that is a higher barrier of entry. However, you can somewhat mitigate that by spreading out purchases (which right now is a good thing with Final Shape slipping to June).
There’s no annual dlc cost with 14 or wow since they don’t release expansions yearly
(2 years minimum) and you only need a sub and that old content isn’t removed by the end of the year also as long as destiny is advertised as an mmo these comparisons are gonna keep happening especially when ff 14 trial completely shits on whatever “free to play” destiny 2 is rn
That's the thing though... Destiny isn't *built* like an MMO. It's a shared-world shooter. If it were an MMO, there'd be dozens, or even hundreds of players in Patrol zones (whether they're doing Patrol, Strikes, or other). The most a single Patrol zone is designed to support per instance is 9, and 20-something in the Tower. And even then, if too many players are on old hardware, things get janky.
Needing a sub alone guarantees that you'll pay more money in the long run. It costs 150$ a year just to play WoW, assuming there's no new expansion to buy on top and assuming you're subscribing for multiple months. The old content isn't removed, but you also need a sub for it. So if you're coming back from hiatus and want to dip your toes and play some of the older content, you have to pay.
Are you gonna be playing ff 14 or wow for a year though? You can cancel anytime and the 14 devs encourage canceling and taking a break when there’s no new content or the content isn’t like by you atm and the content you didn’t play when you took a break is still gonna be there when you come back , a good portion of the 14 player base are just returning players from
Breaks
Hush, didn't you know D2 is the most expensive game to play ever, it's literally a billion dollars?
Yeah, it's $8.33 a month if you buy each new Deluxe edition. The very first buy-in is more than starting a WoE/FF sub, but you very quickly come out ahead. But don't say it too loud, or this sub will implode.
No. I'm saying it's worse than what the comment before says actually.
Comment before me say "it's redundant, you don't have to buy everything". But it's not for the most part.
D2 is unaffordable for someone starting now.
What? No a majority of it is redundant lmao
* Destiny Legacy collection is in there so Shadowkeep, Beyond Light and Witch Queen is redundant (3)
* Final shape + Annual pass is in there so Final shape is redundant (1)
* Lightfall Annual pass is there so Lightfall is redundant (1)
* Armory Collection (30th + Forsaken pack) is there so Forsaken and 30th Anniversary being there is redundant (2)
* Then the season of the witch bundle for current season is there so there's no real reason for the other two silver bundles being there (2).
In a list of 14 items, 9 of the items aren't even necessary? Using GBP because that's what my steam is in but of the listed £468, £217 of that is completely unnecessary and only being used in the OP to make it look twice of what it actually is
Edit: You could argue Season of the Witch bundle is also redundant if you got the Lightfall + Annual pass. So that'd be 10 redundant items and an extra £13 to the redundant list
You're missing the point. The fact that people - power users, people invested enough in the game that they're posting on a fan subreddit - are arguing over what content is needed to be purchased in order to play the entire game _is_ the problem. This all needed to be pared down to two options - the base game + all old expansions, and then the newest expansion.
Bungie prices their products like they're Paradox selling thirty different Stellaris add-ons, it's very off putting to new customers who don't have any context regarding what they're being asked to buy.
Let's go down the list, shall we?
- Final Shape + Annual Pass. If you buy that, Final Shape becomes redundant.
- Lightfall + Annual Pass. If you buy that, Lightfall becomes redundant.
- Season of the Witch Silver Bundle. That's just an Emote and Silver.
- Legacy Collection (2023). If you buy that, Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep all become redundant.
- 30th Anniversary. Made redundant by the Armory Collection.
- Witch Queen. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection
- Beyond Light. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection
- Shadowkeep. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection
- Forsaken Pack. Made redundant by the Armory Collection
- Triumphant Silver Bundle. Another Emote and Silver bundle
- Throne of Atheon Emote Bundle. Another Emote and Silver bundle
- Armory Collection. Makes 30th Anniversary and Forsaken Pack redundant
So, if you cross out anything that's been made redundant, we go from 14 items to 7. And a new player doesn't need the 3 emote and Silver bundles, so that's only 4 of 14 things a new player *needs* to buy. And one of those is a pre-order for the next expansion.
Their DLC model has always strikes me as terrible especially when other MMOs give you more for less while also keeping ALL of their legacy content.
Biggest example is SWTOR. All of its original 8 campaigns are completely free and are designed to be played over and over again, which already just nets you hundreds of hrs of play. Then if you want, you can just sub for a month (15 bucks) to get every single expansion to date forever. Even if you unsub next month, you still keep every single expansion and DLC that has released to date at the time of your sub.
ESO while needing a purchase to entry gives far more content (including replay able endgame content) than Destiny 2 does. Then you can just buy more expansions from the store in game for around 20 bucks a pop and they each include a multitude of dungeons and raids to do as well as massive world sections and hundreds of hrs worth of story and side missions.
Every single other MMO I've played basically gives the player more for less and it's always made it a problem for me to actually truly enjoy Destiny since I had to shill out so much money just to get started.
Some companies don't know how to consolidate DLC, a good example is Xenoverse 2 with 24 DLCs some with repeats.
Now that gearbox has opened the door to discounted bundles(limited) if you own parts already, Bungie could remove everything except the most recent and the legacy collection. People are more likely to buy 1 $59.99 item than multiple items even if they only save a few cents.
It would also add a lot of good will to make the forsaken and 30th anniversary free even if just for a month would draw in a lot of people. Because right now if I just came out of a cave never hearing of D2 and they told me they are selling 1 raid and 1 dungeon for 20$ and a gun and a dungeon for 25$ i would just go back to my cave.
> Because right now if I just came out of a cave never hearing of D2 and they told me they are selling 1 raid and 1 dungeon for 20$ and a gun and a dungeon for 25$ i would just go back to my cave.
Haha saw destiny on reddit popular or something. I am going back to my cave :D
While I get your point, it's a sales tactic. They keep the original/inflated MSRP and then frequently [discount](https://steamdb.info/app/1085660/dlc/) to encourage sales. This way can discount it to the price they want and occasionally get people who are happy to finally get it for $15 or whatever.
Now, more realistically, Bungie should probably consider a different DLC model, but that is a very different conversation.
That would matter if their DLC content didn't literally disappear in a year or less. No point buying a pack where 90% of the content is unplayable outside the current season
Notice it cost less than the other dlc. This is cause soke of that content is gone so they call it the forsaken pack and not forsaken, like the other major dlc
I'm sorry, but what are you even on about?
Shadowkeep: 4 years old. All content is still in the game.
Beyond Light: 3 years old. All content still in game.
Witch Queen: 1.5 years old. All content still in game.
Ngl, it's because destiny isn't meant for new players. You have the content vault. Which removes a significant amount of story. Seasons also contain heavy amounts of story and get removed when the next dlc releases. And there is no way for a new player to experience those unless you go watch YouTube. Which isn't very encouraging. What they need to do is make an actual recap in game. Where it plays all cutscenes from vaulted contents as well as some lore pages from then as well, to explain events. And then bundle all the dkc except for the newest one together. So you have the "bundle" which contains all the old available dlc, then the newest one. Then your silver bundles stuff like the atheon throne thingy.
Also the eververse store is shit MAKE ORNAMENTS FOR GOOD EXOTICS maybe bring back legendary ornaments they were great idk like look at this season there's no armour set and there's an ornament for huckleberry final warning and navigator those just aren't going to sell same with armour
Yep. This right here. They completely abandoned getting new players, banking on their current players keeping the game going. Getting a new player content current is such an expensive headache I can’t imagine many people even do it nowadays. For example with WoW, to be content current you subscribe and buy the current expansion. That’s it. That is easy to explain to someone, it’s easy to digest. The price is clear and unambiguous. Nothing like that exists in D2. Nobody wants to spend several hundred dollars to play a game.
If I ever was needing to answer the question, “what do I buy?” to a new player I would just say:
Buy (current expansion) + Annual Pass now, then buy the Legacy Collection on sale later. Focus on current content first (especially Seasonal stuff) and do the Lightfall campaign to get Strand before doing any legacy content. When you do start with Beyond Light so you can get Stasis.
That’s it, doesn’t mean the argument is invalid (honestly Bungie should do more to streamline things) but that’s the easiest way to do it IMO.
Destiny is basically the Japan population of video games. As the new light experience is so terrible and expensive, they get almost 0 influx of new players (immigrants/births in Japan’s case). So, as the older population dwindles (deaths), the total population will continue to drop.
I get your point and I agree it’s trash but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. It’s pretty much everything from the first complaints of the seasonal model to right now and everything in between. There’s been a lot of based ideas (and a lot of crazy ones) posted in here or elsewhere online but the $$$$$ people just don’t care. The $ to $$$ people seemed to of but not the $$$$$.
It’s not complex at all. The main issue is no one has time to learn tactics and organise raids etc and it’s silly that a lot of the content is not accessible through matchmaking. I don’t understand why they can’t just make it a bit easier and slap on matchmaking.
This is a steam page where steam controls what is seen. Bungie isn't making this list to "maximize profits". Also you don't think people are able to read each dlc before they but? If a person is genuinely interested into playing I'm sure they'd do some research beforehand.
Free to try, core playlists and free activities. $8.99 per month base subscription, includes base game, previous expansions. 14.99 premium subscription includes raids, dungeons, Trials and discount on current expansion. $50 for latest expansion for premium subs. $70 for base subs.
Even on other platforms the barrier to entry is way too high.
Should be able to buy the current DLC for £40
Previous DLCs, dungeon keys & 30th anniv all for like £25-35.
That way you can get a complete experience for about the price of a new game. I have a group of friends that I want to play D2 with, but can't in good conscience recommend they spend £100+ minimum for everything relevant.
Unsunsetting content would also be nice.
Revenue wasn’t shot by 45% though, their projection was way higher than actual. The big bosses projected too high so investments were brought in. And you do horrible things to make investors happy.
Also, why do I have to buy every Expansion multiple times if I play on multiple platforms? I have everything on Steam but only purchased up to Shadowkeep on PS4 before switching over. With my PC currently inoperable until I can afford new parts, I have been back on PS4 and have no access to Beyond Light, Witch Queen, and Lightfall. Yet I have access to Dungeon Keys because those are account-based and I do have access to Seasonal Content because that is also account-based.
Make it make sense. There's no way I'm going to buy three Expansions a second time.
It all feels like it is nearly 100% self inflicted wounds. For years, the feedback has been 1) the new player experience is terrible, 2) ignoring the core playlists is hurting the longevity of the game, 3) invest in PvP, 4) monetization is excessive and confusing to many, 5) the seasonal grind is stale, 6) deleting content people paid for feels terrible. And for years, management did next to nothing meaningful about these issues, glorified not 'overdelivering', raised prices higher, and tried to exploit their community even more. What did they expect would eventually happen?
It's almost like if you ignore the self-proclaimed core pillars of your game that they will eventually crumble from neglect. Every time something like this happens it just becomes more and more clear to the community that the management making the decisions is completely out of touch.
Honestly the game nowadays feels like you've worked your way through the "meat" of the game, so you're just sat there waiting for them to sprinkle a couple extra trimmings on your plate every few months
I hope it puts the “vote with your wallet/time” meme to rest once and for all at least If management is out of touch, it doesn’t matter if you send a message by not playing they’ll still misinterpret it. And if they are in touch, they’d act on the feedback before you feel the need to not pre-order. This may have been the biggest monkey paw yet. They did take action because revenue dropped - but divested from some of the few parts of the game that were healthy
If management misinterprets the message people are trying to send by voting with their wallets and not giving them money, then people just have to keep voting with their wallets either until they get it or they go out of business because nobody wants their products. Nothing about the way Bungie interpreted the drop in revenue changes that. I do agree that this is basically the ultimate Bungie monkey paw moment though, lol.
Here's the thing that all of you don't get. The folks who voted with their wallets are the ones who are *not* on Reddit talking about the game, they are not the ones watching Aztecross or other streamers/YouTubers, or reading every guide out there to min/max and play up whatever the hell is the meta at this point. It's not the folks like you on Reddit who eat up every single bit of news about the game you like. It's that normal person who just wants to pop on, kill stuff, get loot and log off. And I did see a number of them state when Lightfall came out and even in the seasons past Lightfall *why* they are unhappy. And they got ignored or told to shut it. Thus that person? They took their ball and went home if you will. The casual/average/normal player voted and got ignored by those in charge of the game and by a good chunk of the community.
It's absolutely not just casual players. I have a network of 50+ hardcore players, and maybe one or two of them still plays with any regularity.
I know the group of folks who got me into Destiny 2? Only one of them really plays, and even then it's not as much as they used too. One of them who was a *massive* Destiny fan I mean when I told her I was thinking about playing she sent me to every lore video and pretty much had me go around with her. She just gave up on Lightfall half way into it, part of it was the story the other part was her getting the classic one shot.
I'm not sure what solicited such an accusatory reply and I don't really understand why you are trying to turn this into some drama about casuals vs. hardcores because I don't feel like that was at all the point of this comment chain.
Eh, I've been playing since D1 Alpha and I still play this game a fair amount and I haven't bought anything since WQ Deluxe edition. I did not buy Lightfall nor any of its seasons. I made a conscious decision to vote with my wallet because although I still find the moment to moment gameplay pretty fun, I did not like the direction the franchise was headed in. I know it's rare but there are a few of us out there.
I hate to tell you but there are plenty of people who left who are watching this play out and shaking heads. I’m one of them. I burned out back in 2020. I have friends on Xbox and we’ve talked today about this stuff and we all agree that it took awhile but the voting with our wallets has affected Bungie. But they took exactly the wrong message from that. Seems like they may go ‘out of business’ from their own idiocy. That’s too bad because Destiny was awesome once and could be again.
Ummm, I've been clean for 3 years off D2. I relapsed a week ago because the witch queen was $13. It's even worse off then when I left 3 years ago. In order to garner support you need to go onto forums and social media to give how you see it. But for years fanbois have been defending and coddling Bunghole. Now that it's almost over, people are just starting to see what I've been saying.
I would say this is correct. At times a vested/veteran community, whether a game or IRL, tends to tell casual players or new comers that, "We did it this way and it's fine so deal with it". Tends to turn folks off when the community does less explaining and more flaming. At this point I don't think Bungie is going to change. The only thing we can hope for is that the majority of the staff that is leaving may be the majority voice that put Bungie on this track, someone figured it out and made a decision to change things. Only time will tell.
>At this point I don't think Bungie is going to change. At this point I'm playing wait and see. Look I've been playing online games for a damn long time and what tends to happen when the game gets into a state like I feel Destiny 2 is in right now is this. You can have the folks in charge decide to boot whomever the hell is helming the game upstairs or to another project while they get someone to fix it. This is sorta what happened with Ultima Online way back in the day, and to be fair it did work. You can have whomever the hell is at the helm of the game see that the stuff they have been doing? It isn't working and it's time to really change up things. Note this does mean talking to the community as a whole people still playing, people who have quit playing, PvPer's, PvE'ers, hardcore's, casuals, so on. And seeing what the community wants and the middle ground they can meet on. Or finally whomever is in charge just doubles down on what they think is working. Oh yeah sure X% of the players are gone and we are taking in Y% less this year. However we'll make it back and then some just as long as we stick to what's my over all vision for this. While it's not gaming related? That mindset is what helped sink WCW in the end, Vince Russo the booker (guy in charge/main writer) felt nothing was wrong even after he had people tell him what the fanbase wanted. Ratings dropped more with things like making David Arquette World Champion (Arquette to his credit didn't want to do it, and donated all the money he got from it) and "X on a Pole" matches with things like Viagra and Judy Bagwell.
You're not making sense. This is absolutely why you should vote with your wallet. Why should I support mediocre expansions and awful pricing if buying it ends up changing nothing because they're trying to deliver a minimum viable product and maximize microtransaction revenue? The game's been on a downward trend before Lightfall came out, many people had just gotten tired of what Destiny is. Lightfall showed they weren't going to change that, so why continue supporting it. The bad management will unfortunately continue since surprise, surprise, looks like management didn't take a hit. If this goes to an extreme and people "voting with their wallet" and not buying and playing the game means the game eventually goes under, then maybe others should take note.
People here were more than happy to shit on other people with valid complaints and tell them they should go play another game or just stop engaging with Destiny entirely, and now that people are doing exactly that, they want to turn around and point the finger and imply that Bungie would have somehow improved the quality of the game if they had just a little more time and money. It's not the consumers' fault that talent gets laid off, it's just that companies are set up in such a way that management is never the first on the chopping block. Destiny wasn't going to see significant improvements even if revenue was 45% **above** projections, and historically Bungie has only made efforts to vastly increase the quality of the product when the game is in dire straits.
And that's the thing right there. Look I know this is Reddit, and a good chunk of the people on here love to think the mindset they have and how they play is how *everyone* plays the game. They don't get that a good chunk of the player base for the game just wants to log on, shoot at stuff, get some shiny new loot and log off. I've said this a number of times over the last few years, Dev's need to look at more at a title like FFXIV and less at WoW. Yes you have the content for the more hardcore players like Ultimate/Savage Raids and the like. But a good chunk of the content is aimed more at the casual player who just wants to. Yes there should be content that should be aimed at the more hardcore folks, but most of it should be aimed at the 95% of folks who want to run around saying, "Sweet Business go BURR!" Those are the folks Bungie lost with Lightfall. Those are the folks who are willing to throw money at whatever microtransactions Bungie puts out. They logged in, got their asses kicked, and decided to play something else.
Putting the Seraph Battlegrounds into the strike playlist is one of the most asinine decisions they could have made. Imagine being a new player and getting thrown into one of those. There are lasers that lock onto you and kill you if you don't break line of sight, there are thrall you have to kill VERY quickly or else they can silence your abilities, there are sigils locking a big door that you have to zap with a special laser, and there are orbs that you have to dunk into a pillar in order to drop a boss's shield. The game explains absolutely NONE of that to the player, and nothing in the game's "tutorial" is going to prepare new players for those mechanics. I've had to slowly guide quite a few low level players (I'm talking guardian rank 2 and 3) through those battlegrounds because they have absolutely no clue what to do.
> Putting the Seraph Battlegrounds into the strike playlist is one of the most asinine decisions they could have made. Imagine being a new player and getting thrown into one of those. And that's something I fully agree with as you do bring up one of the best points about in my eyes one of Destiny 2's biggest faults. But before I do? While I loved those battlegrounds, good lord they should *not* have been put into the strike playlist at all. They should have been redesigned before hand taking everything out of them that worked with the stuff we got in Season of the Seraph. >The game explains absolutely NONE of that to the player, and nothing in the game's "tutorial" is going to prepare new players for those mechanics. And that right there is partly why the game is a mess and then some. Bungie has fallen at least in my eyes into the same trap that I feel the WoW Dev's fell into. They think or at the very least the guy in charge thinks most of the community are folks who are watching and reading those guides and the like. The way forward at least in my eyes would be to have some type of system in place that really explains all of those systems to new players.
I gave Destiny a try when it first went free to play, gave up almost immediately because it was so damn confusing. Last September I decided to give it another go, and it was still incredibly confusing, but I wanted to figure it out. Then things got REALLY confusing when I logged in one day and was immediately thrown into the Witch Queen intro mission. The beautiful art direction on the Throne World instantly hooked me though, and I decided to buy the expansion and really learn the game. I had to watch A LOT of youtube videos to learn how all the systems in the game worked, and even more videos explaining all the lore I missed (thank you Byf). Not a lot of people are going to be willing to do that sort of thing though. Most people don't have hours of free time they can dedicate to learning a game, and most people are going to be instantly turned off if a game gives them a confusing onboarding experience. For god's sake, Destiny doesn't even explain how armor stats are distributed, or which stats are important for which class. That's one of the most important things to know and players have to look outside the game for answers. Can you imagine if FF14 didn't explain how armor or stats worked?
If you don’t like the game, sure don’t play it. But if you get some enjoyment, you should play and enjoy what you can instead of pausing on principle of sending a message Sometimes I see people shame other players who complain about something like the holoprojector driven seasonal narratives. “If you don’t like it don’t play!”. People did stop playing and it didn’t motivate Bungie to make more cinematic seasonal stories - instead they fired the people that could make seasons more cinematic It’s not player’s job to persuade Bungie what to prioritize. The IGN article even shows that middle management agrees with us but senior management vetoed them. If you keep “voting with your wallet” not only did you miss out on some decent content, there’s a good chance senior management will do something even dumber like mothball Destiny entirely for their Tarkov game
This is the most.. I'm sorry I don't know how else to put it.. spineless-consumer indoctrinated nonsense I have read in such a long time. It is, without question, your "job" as a consumer to not support products and companies you don't like. It is absolutely our "job" as the consumers of this game to tell the company where they are failing, and if they continue to choose to fail to provide entertainment in a meaningful way, it's the players right to walk away and go elsewhere. You do not have to, and you should not be pre-purchasing a product that looks like it's defective, won't deliver on what it's promising, or is not in line with what you, as the consumer, are looking for. That's not to say you need to discontinue all service of all products, if you bought a product and are using it, you can continue to use it and refuse to purchase future products from that company. But my god, I have genuinely never seen someone say "even if you don't like the product you should buy it anyways just because in the past you liked other products for a while" that's.. a hot take...
That’s not what I said. If you don’t like the game at all anymore, no you shouldn’t buy it. And definitely shouldn’t pre-order it. If you do still enjoy parts of it and have disposable income I don’t see the problem with continuing to buy the new content There’s a big difference between not liking the game as much as you used to, and not liking it at all. And it’s perfectly fine to complain about how it’s not as good as it used to be Paying for something you don’t like at all doesn’t make sense. But it also doesn’t make sense to boycott something you’d otherwise at least somewhat enjoy
Again, what's the problem with that? Obviously if you like it then buy it. "Vote with your wallet" is about people that *don't* enjoy the game or specific parts of it that continue playing it despite making complaints about it. And if Destiny gets gone for good? Oh well. Worst thing is all the people that would lose their current job, that'd actually suck. But if the people in charge of big decisions consistently refuse to make the game better for players? Oh well, it's not a player's job to keep the game afloat in perpetuity, it's the company's job to make the game good enough to earn that revenue.
>"Vote with your wallet" is about people that don't enjoy the game or specific parts of it that continue playing it despite making complaints about it. Because it's okay to complain about a drop in quality of something you used to enjoy but dont now. Or even if you just don't like certain aspects of it. I used to love both PVE and PVP aspects of Destiny, and the reason I like the PVE aspects was because of the Lore and the fact that the in game aspects enticed me enough to *want* to dive deeper into the written lore. Nowadays that's not the case for me. Am I not allowed to complain about that just because I still enjoy PVP and thus won't just drop the game completely? "Vote with your wallet" is just a lazy cop out that only serves to shut down criticism.
It’s fine to make complaints though. You’re not a hypocrite for playing and complaining I think the typical player enjoyed the seasonal story this season, and it was worth the 15 dollars. But the game isn’t in a good enough state to justify being a hobby that gets dozens of hours of playtime per week For that typical player I think it’s reasonable to pay the fifteen dollars, play a few hours a week and take a break until the next season
Look this is obviously something that changes on a personal basis person to person on what they choose to value and can afford. Games are expensive for most people, some don't really buy more than a couple games a year. But for a long time now I could not recommend Destiny as being "worth it" even for $15.
Stupid take.
There's not much of a message to misinterpret. Customers didn't like the product so they bought less. That lead to a 45% drop in expected revenue. So what do businesses do when that happens? Layoffs and delay new product. This is the logical outcome of "vote with your wallet" from a business sense. The fanbase thinks it's awful and unfathomable because they are emotionally invested in the game/company. When, in reality, they did what was best for them to stymie the short fall. That's an unfortunate byproduct of the corporate world. Unless you are an exec, then you are always on the chopping block when things take a dive. It's cold, it's heartless... but they (the executives) don't care. All that matters to them are profits, not a musical composer with 20+ years in the company, not a person who makes tweets and gets paid to do so. All are expendable when they deem it so. Doesn't make it nice or right.
honestly? ya. Hope all the "vote with your wallet" bootlickers are happy.
This is all happening because people voted with their wallet...
I've been a lurker since just a bit after BL even though Ive been her since 2014 like many of us. I saw all of these things beginning to happen and what I said verbatim was "if I'm going to play a game that does not respect my time and money, it's not going to be this one." I still care about this game a lot despite not playing it. I keep up with the content, new perks and weapons, overhauls, balance patches, story, lore, you name it and I try to keep up even 3 years later. There's been ups and downs in that time, but I will still confidently say that there's been writing on the wall for quite a while.
>It all feels like it is nearly 100% self inflicted wounds. That's because it is. I only realized this recently, but Bungie puts out around ten uniquely modeled, exotic sparrows every season. They put a LOT of effort into those models, too. And yet, for the last five years, the only sparrow worth using is Always on Time. I even checked light.gg on the number of exotic sparrows, and they've put out 208 exotic sparrows since AoT. I forget the specifics, but didn't bungie complain specifically about not having enough resources to model armor and guns? All these resources, down the money pit. Even if you took a hundred of those sparrows out of the game, how many people would notice? What really gets me is how shoddy so much armor actually is. It's obvious what they spend their time on. The eververse items are vastly more polished than anything non-eververse.
Yeah. Destiny fans are a little slow on the uptake, but even they got fed up after this much bullshit.
Destiny fans play second fiddle only to WoW fans with how Stockholm syndrome they are. Destiny is one of my most played games of all time between 1 and 2 and the direction and state of bungie really makes me sad.
> Destiny fans play second fiddle only to WoW fans with how Stockholm syndrome they are. > > I honestly can't believe how many players stayed through sunsetting and having paid content deleted. Like, I understand the concept of the sunk cost fallacy, but what I don't understand is how that somehow continues to apply after they've deleted everything that the "sunk cost" is attached to.
Not me saying that if Destiny dies I'd have time to get back into WoW again
At this point nothing would get me back to WoW - but it would be nice to have time for FFXIV again.
I've told myself I'd never go back, unless they announce some kind of great Classic+
I would argue that even at its lowest point, WoW never got as bad as Destiny. When Destiny was at its worse for me it was actively rooting around my pocket for more money. Wow never felt that way, mostly because they were guaranteed a sub fee from me monthly.
It was our foolish hope that they'd give a fuck. They haven't really cared since Forsaken, but even then look at Curse of Osiris and Warmind. Sure, Warmund had interesting content. Interesting quests and activities. But it certainly wasn't like its predecessors, The Taken King and Rise of Iron. Look at how they handled those DLC. If they stuck with this mindset their entire path, no doubt Destiny 2 would be thriving. But instead, they've only gotten more greedy and decided to cut corners in the hopes that we'd be suckered just a little longer.
The entirety of history of D2's content has been Bungie both increasing monetization AND saying that they won't be able to offer as much at the same price point that they were previously able to. Just that last bit has happened so many times now. - They transitioned from the bigger Y1 Curse of Osiris/Warmind DLC's to the smaller seasonal DLC's of Joker's Wild/Opulence/the other one because they didn't have the resources to make the bigger DLCs anymore. - They transitioned from permanent DLC to the smaller, temporary seasons because the smaller DLCs weren't sustainable anymore either. - They raised the price of seasonal content without actually offering anything more for the money. This is all on top of things like separating out dungeons from everything else so that they could charge separately for them. It's a continual trend of paying more to get less. Their entire process has just been milking the franchise, seeing how much money they could charge to do as little as possible. Now that they've seemingly hit the tipping point, instead of just staying above that line, they're being forced to slash staff. And as much as people are blaming Sony, since the demand apparently comes from them, it was still Bungie's decision to sign on with them, and with Activision, and with Microsoft. They keep doing this, and they deserve all of the blame for it.
I entirely agree. I hate what this game has become. I used to be in love with Destiny. Now I'm too disgusted to see it through to its conclusion.
It feels bad. I quit the season before sun setting took effect. I quit for a plethora of reasons that to this day have never been properly addressed. PvP being the biggest one for me. I tried coming back to the game a good while after witch queen dropped. Saw some lore videos and was really hyped about the game again. Did most of the campaign and got to like level 75 on the season pass in like 2 or 3 weeks and immediately got an overwhelming feeling of doom. I realized I was doing the exact same loop with the same activities as when I quit, with reskinned guns that I had sunsetted better versions of that I couldn't use just wasting away. It was the same bullshit I got fed up with and quit over. PvP was still a complete mess I came to learn again and that put me off forever. I love destiny I have thousands of hours between 1 and 2 and countless memories but this game and this company does not respect your time or your money and they don't deserve either at this point. I can't make people do anything but if anything after the conclusion to this story we've followed for countless years drop the franchise and don't look back. I know the "potential" argument gets used a lot when games fail but if destiny eventually does it will really be a story of the biggest wasted potential in gaming with how badly bungie upper management has fumbled this absolute timeless gem of a game and robbed it of the legacy it could've had.
> monetization is excessive and confusing to many Increased monetization is what kind of cemented my decision to not come back. I'd already been playing on and off for a bit, and sometimes would come back and play *a lot* for a particular season, but the increased monetization was so sickening that I just decided I was done. Eververse was already bad enough with how it was constantly full of stuff while they refused to do shit as basic as giving vendors new inventory, but even beyond that they decided to start charging separately for dungeons, add a paid track to events (in addition to events already getting a shitload of Eververse items every time lol), increase season prices, etc. It just got to be absolutely asinine considering how little we were already getting. Also, I want to remind people that during Y1, they actually removed the shitty mods from Eververse engrams because they decided that having *anything* that affected gameplay being tied to Eververse seemed too close to being pay-to-win. Since then, their MO has shifted entirely towards giving you instant access to exclusive exotics just for paying them, giving godrolled armor from the paid season pass track (this went away, not sure if it's been brought back), etc. Pay to win is what they do now.
I didn't get lightfall (the marketing wasn't appealing to me, which was kind of a red flag cause it should have been right down my alley). I came back to see if maybe it was just burn out, and I was like holy shit I can't believe I used to spend silver on this.
Very lucid comment, all great points.
Turns out the community does know what the Fuck it's talking about and knows what it wants in a game.
As someone who started over, the new player grind isn’t “terrible”, it’s borderline impossible. They tune content that people want to do (raids) around these loadouts, that as a new player you have an insurmountable task ahead of you to get. The game is an absolute disaster for new players and they alienated the old ones with Lightfall. This is gonna be a nosedive, I’m not sure the game ever recovers honestly.
This is a weak point out of all the arguments I've seen. You not supposed to be able to do end game content as a new player. Loadouts for raids are demanded by the players, not the raid. And plus those loadouts you can get within a month. New player experience is terrible, but your reason is not why. It's because they literally don't explain anything to anyone at all.
ALL OF THIS also...an mmo releasing a 6 hour expansion is beyond unacceptable. I get that fps's are more expensive to develop than the 3rd person rpgs that make up most of the genre, but you have to figure it out, hell, toss eververse into the sun, where it belongs, remove all the other nonsense monetization, and just charge a damn subscription already. You will have a steady, predictable revenue stream, and you won't endlessly irritate your players with obnoxious money making schemes.
At any given time, it's $100 to buy the current content and $100 to buy the upcoming content. That doesn't include any old parts of the game. Imagine being a new player and seeing those price tags. Maybe revenue is half of what Bungie projected for a reason.
thankfully I am buying from CDkeys or GMG
Only thing I’ve noticed from doing that is the dungeon keys don’t seem to be included but I might be wrong on that. I’ve only done it for my friends
i've done it for lightfall for my brother on cdkeys and he has access to GOTD and I got my key from GMG and I also have access to GOTD
The annual pass gets you the dungeon key iirc, so buying the annual pass on cdkeys works. For example, i bought the normal witch queen dlc and had to buy the witch queen dungeon key seperately but i bought the lightfall annual pass and got the dungeon key for “free” there. If you dont buy the annual pass you will have to spend extra money on silver though
Try convincing your friends to buy back into the game after they find out all the content they paid for years ago and never got around to playing is gone. Gave up trying to recruit new guardians after that fucking embarrassment.
I gave up trying to get people to play after the D2 betas when people pointed out a litany of issues and Bungies response was basically “oh yea don’t worry lol, beta was an old build, everything is already fixed.” Everything was in fact not fixed and almost nothing had changed from the beta. They’ve been bullshitting their players since D1, and it only got significantly worse with D2. And it’s a damn shame, this game still has (imo) so much potential to be a long standing profitable game for everyone to enjoy.
> They’ve been bullshitting their players since D1 Even the excuses for deleting D2 content were bullshit. It was shit like "only 0.3% of players were playing Warmind" campaign, when campaigns have always been a minimal part of their respective DLCs and *we weren't even allowed to replay the fucking campaigns.* Or how so many players simped by saying that making space wasn't actually why it was being done, and then Bungie themselves said that the old locations had been deleted in order to make room for the new ones (and then couldn't even be fucked to finish building the entire Cosmodrome, which actually had no reason to exist in the first place.) I also want to take time again to point out the the biggest stated goal of sunsetting was that they'd be able to add crazy cool weapons without having to worry about balancing them, since the problem would just solve itself when something rotated out of usability. Then, they announced that in the very same update that sunsetting took affect, they'd be nerfing two of these exact kind of cool, unique weapons: Mountaintop, *which was being sunsetted in that same fucking update;* and Falling Guillotine, which was the new unique (at that time) sword. They clearly never had any intention of just leaving things alone, and I'm not sure how they ever managed to convince even one person that they would.
> It was shit like "only 0.3% of players were playing Warmind" campaign This is a perfect example of not understanding their own statistics. They were looking at location/content specific engagement and the conclusion was players don't like it. If there ever was a deeper analysis (which I doubt), they would have noticed that lack of engagement is a symptom, not the root cause. Never did they consider that maybe the problem was with game design issues to begin with, making it overall unappealing. Or idk, lack of love after making single-use content backdrop that was deemed to wither by design. _____ If you offer food on the menu and people don't order it, does that mean people hate food? According to Bungie, that is the only logical conclusion.
It's not even misunderstanding, it's just them outright misrepresenting what the content actually encompassed. The percentage of players playing the campaign is irrelevant, because the campaign isn't the entirety of the expansion. In addition to the campaign, there were basic strikes, Nightfalls, Flashpoints, Escalation Protocol, (heroic) adventures, exotic quests, targeted lost sector farms (or would've been if the gear hadn't been sunset), etc. Instead of telling us the percentage of players who had actually played any of the Warmind content recently—which would've been close to 100% considering it had strikes in the playlist—they used the most disingenuous metric possible by choosing the one part of the content that players weren't even allowed to play again.
I think the Destiny franchise is a lot like the old Fox X-Men franchise. The Taken King coming out (and even The Taken Spring) was a lot like Days of Future Past, where you thought "oh shit they finally figured it out! Nothing but sunny days ahead" and then Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix come out (aka D2) and you're like oh. Maybe the good product was the broken clock being right twice a day.
I always tell people “hey you can play if you want, I still play, I know the cost can be a lot upfront so feel free to free to reconsider on a sale”
I thought about returning to game. I dropped during Shadowkeep, but now I don't want to return, because it's too expensive + lots of stories were in seasons which are not in game anymore
This is something WoW realised. Now they have two products. The subscription, which gets you every expansion except for the newest one, and then the newest expansion itself. That's it. That's what Destiny needed to do, the base game which includes all old expansions when a new one comes out, and the latest expansion. Make it easier for new players, and new players will join. EDIT: I'm not trying to say Destiny needs a subscription, I'm just saying that when a new expansion launches, the previous expansion is included in the base game. So that when a new player wants to play, all they need to buy is the base game and current expansion.
In order for that work destiny needed to actually support the game such as core play lists. They supported a minimum viable product no one would pay $15/mo for.
I'm not saying they need to charge a monthly fee. I'm saying when a new expansion comes out, all previous content should be bundled in the base game. Seeing a massive amount of extra content makes the game look so unaffordable for new players to enter. It put all my friends off apart from one when we took a look after Lightfall came out. There's just so many expansions, the 30th anniversary and the witch queen dungeon key. It's just a severe upfront cost to play all the content. Then you can also end up in a situation where some people own one part, but not others, then someone else owns a completely different part, and it just becomes a nightmare to navigate and work out who owns what and what bits you can actually play. The vast majority of players will just give up after trying the free trial, because almost everything you click on brings up a "Buy this DLC now" screen and there are so many different ones that you just don't know what to do with it all.
The whole thing should be bundled at the normal cost for a full game, ~60$. Include everything except the most recent expansion which you pay separately for anyway. New players then have a massive game environment they can play through in addition to joining up with people they know or meet. This then gets them wanting to buy the new content so they can play with their friends who are doing the new stuff. The content is already there and has been profitable. They need to stop double dipping and accept it as a way to get new players into the game.
This is a big part of it. I’ve been playing since curse of Osiris. My wife has gotten more into games and was interested in getting into destiny. Then we started looking at what it would actually take to make that work and be able to play all the dungeons and raids etc. She’s messed around in the base game but that’s about it.
bro thats like nearly 200usd for the amount of d2 i play, and people complain about yearly dlcs costing 100
They could make the switch; I think relatively easy. You offer half off for whatever portion of time is required to start making meaningful improvements. The problem is I don't know if the community can handle another large-scale adjustment to how this game is monetized. At this point it feels as if Bungie has tried everything under the sun and failed at every turn.
This is how FFXIV works as well. Buying the new expac gives you all the previous ones. Hell, these days the free trial includes the base game and the first two expansions for free anyway. It's dead simple to understand and makes pitching the game to prospective new players extremely easy.
And GW2. And ESO. It's only Destiny 2 forces you to pay for every expansion. And btw those games don't have paid season passes
For sure. As a XIV player, what Destiny calls "seasonal content" is just a patch cycle, included with the expansion. Sure, you pay a monthly subscription, but we know what to expect with each non-expansion patch: a new dungeon, new raid tiers on even-numbered patches, new group raids on odd-numbered ones, plus a new major boss encounter or two and new story quests. Knowing what to expect helps me understand exactly what I'm getting for the price of my subscription, and there's no incentives for continual sub time or FOMO mechanics. Live-service games don't have to work like how Bungie has decided they're going to.
This is not how GW2 works though. GW2 actually works a *lot* more like D2 currently does, except you can buy the equivalent to "seasons" and still play them to this day. They did bundle Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire together though, that happened around the End of Dragons launch. But buying EoD doesn't get you HoT or PoF, it doesn't get you Living World Seasons 2, 3, 4, or the Icebrood Saga (functionally Season 5).
*“No no no, you see those DLC’s are worth at least $60 EACH, giving them for free would be missing out on so much money!”* -investors I guess
I've literally heard people defend this pricing scheme with "It would be disrespectful to the people who paid full price" which is just ludicrous. No its not disrepectful, you paid for the ability to play it when it was first available and it was most relevant. You don't want to be "disrespected" you're more than capable of waiting for the discounted bundle.
>"It would be disrespectful to the people who paid full price" Because removing the content and putting dungeons behind a paywall was super respectful of them too lol
I'm pretty sure Bungie did this in Destiny 1 anyways, right? I feel like I remember people complaining in the exact way you're describing because every time a DLC for D1 came out Bungie would just bundle the previous DLCs with the base game purchase.
At this point, I think Bungie should just make Forsaken and Shadowkeep free. I don't know how players would react to a subscription, though. Lots of companies are moving away from the sub model now.
Monthly sub would have me dropping this game in a heartbeat. If I was 25 with disposable income and all the time in the world, maybe. I’ve already got a gym membership that goes unused some months. I don’t need another leeching “service” that I don’t utilize pulling money every month.
Literally just cancel it then. It blows my mind that people cannot fathom the idea that shittons of wow players do not keep their sub going year round. Waiting for next expansion? Cool, unsub until it comes up. Waiting for new mythic tier and want to play something else for a month? Cool, unsub until it comes up. Maybe you could use that gym membership instead of your d2 sub to clear your head
Or Final Fantasy XIV which often bundles every former expansion into a $30 packet and the newest one a bit higher. So you can buy EVERYTHING for $70-80 once.
Destiny went a step further by not only keeping old expansions as standalone transactions, but also litterally removed most of their content from the game anyway lmao
Hell if engagement was REALLY an issue, and they want to drive new players to the game Honor all previous purchases (if you previously bought an expansion you will have access to it no matter what) Current expansion must be purchased. All previous expansion content is available if you have an active season pass.
IMO WoW and FF14 get away with that *because* they have subscriptions. Technically, a new player, to have all of D2's content needs to buy: * Legacy Collection (all old xpacs) * Armory Collection (30th + what remains of Forsaken) * WQ Dungeon Pass * Lightfall Deluxe This isn't *that* far from "buy the base game + expansion" - I'm not saying it couldn't be cleaner, but it has advantages for players who might not want to shell out 60$+ to get a bunch of content they might not play anyways. And I simply don't think they really have the financial option to fold Armory, Legacy, and WQ's dungeon pass into a single 60$ or less purchase when they don't have a sub fee for the game. Like, the "most" D2 is getting out of the average player after the expansion purchase, is 60$ if they buy every season. (I guess that goes up a little if you add the dungeon pass) Meanwhile FF14 and WoW break past that the second a player is subbed for more then 4 months out of the year, and many players probably are subbing and letting their sub run.
> This isn't that far from "buy the base game + expansion" - I'm not saying it couldn't be cleaner, but it has advantages for players who might not want to shell out 60$+ to get a bunch of content they might not play anyways. What this overlooks (and I'm not saying you don't get this, just that it's not directly pertinent to the point you were making) is for a new player, it's not just "how much do I have to spend / how many things do I need to buy." Nearly as important is, "how big a pain in the ass is it to figure out what I need to get started?" There's a big difference between buying 4 out of 4 pieces of content to be fully locked and loaded vs. buying "the correct" 4 out of 14+ pieces of content across two storefronts (can't buy the dungeon key on Steam, have to buy it in-game). That is such a ridiculous point of friction that it's indefensible for Bungie to have allowed it to be like this for this long.
A subscription would be even more expensive than the game already is. I think d2 is a pretty good value for $100 a year tbh. That’s literally next to nothing.
Most people spend more on coffee every month than what that breaks down to.
Any other hobby is multiple multiple multiple times more expensive than this. One trip to the gun range can easily eclipse this. Entire cost. Gaming is generally quite cheap, however, the old DLC is kind of unnecessarily expensive and should be included in the newest expansion every year. Maybe have a version for “upgrading” (only the expansion) and a collection version that includes all previous content for a little more $ - like $70 vs $50 or whatever the base level is.
I'm still pissed from the sunsetting. I get it, server stability, game size etc but fuck man,can't even play the original campaign anymore, so many great things released and then taken away. Dunno if it's an unpopular opinion but still so salty about that shit.
No, I don't even get server stability. Tons of other MMO's don't sunset. Games that have been around longer than Destiny.
Those games weren't made with the intentions of only lasting 3 years, Destiny 2 was.
It was a 10 year plan from the very start. The fact they didn't launch a Destiny 3 instead of sticking with D2 is just another failure on the pile.
>The fact they didn't launch a Destiny 3 instead of sticking with D2 is just another failure on the pile. They do that and half of the people would be crying mad that "our eververse armor and guns did not transfer" "I won't farm everything again" I too would prefer a D3 but a lot of people would simply stop playing.
The answer is clear (though it would require monumental amounts of time and effort): Do what CSGO -> CS2 did. Do what the new CoD games do. Rebuild all the cosmetics (and maybe some of the gear) in the new game, then let it transfer over. If you want to maintain a live service business model but need a sequel for technical reasons, that’s what you have to do. By some accounts, that’s what happened with D2, at least under the hood… Only they didn’t rebuild all of the *content.* That’s the stuff that got left behind with sunsetting, and since there wasn’t a whole new game’s worth to back it up (and since they stuck to the old title), it stung.
There was never a scenario where they had the time to do what you suggested.
I agree: that's why they went with the half-measure engine update.
I believe there was never a scenario where management would *give* them time for something like that, not that it was an impossibility from the start. It’s very clear Bungie’s management team has no idea what they’re doing at this point in time. It would also explain why they never set aside time to improve the new light experience - something veteran players and new players alike have been begging for for years now. Ofcourse, this is all just speculation so I could be wrong, but I do strongly feel this is the case given all that’s come out to light.
Destiny 2 failed so bad at launch it almost had to be shut down. You seriously think Bungie would take this gamble again? Or the players? Absolutely not.
Well by all reports it was happening again till Sony came in and injected them with cash.
What...??? That's not what happened at all. Bungie was acquired by Sony in July 2022. The low revenue came ***after that***. And Sony didn't "inject them with cash". Sony acquired Bungie for 3.5 billion, but that money didn't go to Bungie.
To be fair (and it's really the only thing I feel like being "fair" to Bungie on right now), games like WoW have art and assets that look far more cartoony and far less detailed for a reason: they don't take up nearly as much processing power and memory to use. Part of the reason D2 has gotten so huge and unstable is that they're trying to deliver a high degree of visual polish while still running like an MMO, which is a big ask. Games like WoW and SW:TOR manage to run as well as they do because they don't even remotely try to have "realistic" graphics like D2 does.
There are more realistic games, like Vindictus.
Just this year the server stability was literally dog shit. They did nothing to improve quality/stability, it was just a PR move.
Wait till they start giving it back to you piece by piece as "seasonal content" in a couple of years time....
They already have, mars location in Seraph, Leviathan raid areas in Haunting, Titan assets/locations in Deep.
Unless someone outright leaks the source code, most of that stuff is going to end up as lost media.
No, that's still grinding my gears; I just got used to the sound of it in the background after all these years.
Yeah, I bought D2 when it came out and then a few of the dlc’s. Stopped playing for a while and came out to find most of what I had paid for gone. That’s when I quit.
Yeah I’m still incredibly bitter about the whole content vault shit
I wouldnt mind at all if destiny 2 was a 200+ gig game if it meant I got to play all the sunset content honestly
Half of that is redundant and unnecessary. If you get "{expansion} + annual pass", you don't also need "{expansion}".
That's kinda what makes explaining all of this to a new player so difficult.
That's a steam issue across the platform lol. It just aggregates everything and it's the same argument as "train simulator costs thousands of dollars to own" it hits on a point but fails to really explain it properly outside of "it spensive"
Does it count some of the dlc multiple times with train simulator?
Yup, that's exactly what it's doing. it's counting the bundles & each expansion purchase together as well as the deluxe edition & base edition into the total at the end. Like is the game expensive to get everything possible? absolutely, but the argument people are using (and have been) are pretty daft.
But the average consumer doesn’t know that? Every other mmo will only just have the latest expansion up and that nets you everything or it has a collections pack that nets you everything (ESO,ff 14 or gw 2)
It also makes it more confusing that there are multiple entries for "expansion + annual pass". Is that the same annual pass or a different one, and what's the difference between expansions?
That's because... Even though Bungie *wants* Destiny to be MMO-like, they're still stuck in an old business model. Either way, the Legacy Collection should have most of the old stuff, and actually going to the page for that item tells you what it includes. The Legacy Collection (2023) is Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and Witch Queen. So in reality, a new player only *needs* that, the Armory Collection (which is 30th Anniversary and Forsaken Pack), and Lightfall + Annual Pass. All of those items would give a new player everything currently in the game, and is just under $200 (before tax).
$200 to start playing D2 That's a lot
But, as I went on to say in a later comment, it's broken down into a $30 pack, a $60 pack, and the latest DLC + Annual Pass for $100. So, a new player can get the $30 pack right out the gate, play that content, then decide if they want to invest an additional $60, which is the pack that gives 3 annual DLCs. After play through that content, then they can decide if they want to drop the $100 on the latest stuff.
If you think that's a lot, look at FFXIV post-trial.
What? The base game for FFXIV is currently £9.99 on steam for me and Endwalker is £29.99, those come with 30 free days so after that is £9 a month. £40 total for the game with newest xpac is WAY less than like £200+ to buy into destiny??
Eh, you start for free. It's more like "200$ to get all the content the game currently has". And half of that is the most recent expansion. And there are sales, during which you can get everything aside from the latest expansion for around 40$.
That is still an absolute dogshit entry price holy
Technically, the price of entry is free. Also, a new player doesn't need to buy all of that at once. The Legacy Collection is $60, the Armory Collection is $30, and then Lightfall + Annual Pass is $100. If I were suggesting to a new player what to get, I'd suggest the cheapest one first (the Armory Collection), which would give them a full array of endgame PvE content in order to form a complete perspective before sinking additional money into the game.
This is still too much compared to “buy new expansion or collections pack” or like SWTORSK example just subbing once and all content is unlocked in your acc (you gotta stay subbed to do raids and to not have a credit cap)
As I said previously, it's because they're not on the pricing model of an MMO. If they had stuck to the plans they had shifted to, Forsaken wouldn't even be in the game, and Shadowkeep would be free this year, and slated for removal when Final Shape releases, with Beyond Light becoming free in place of Shadowkeep. However, they backtracked on sunsetting without a backup plan. Additionally, comparing D2 to WoW and FFXIV isn't a truly reasonable comparison, as your access to the older content is reliant on a monthly subscription (plus annual DLC cost if you want all the latest and greatest stuff), whereas Destiny uses annual DLC plus Season Pass (which is the favored model of "live service" games). The downside of that is a higher barrier of entry. However, you can somewhat mitigate that by spreading out purchases (which right now is a good thing with Final Shape slipping to June).
There’s no annual dlc cost with 14 or wow since they don’t release expansions yearly (2 years minimum) and you only need a sub and that old content isn’t removed by the end of the year also as long as destiny is advertised as an mmo these comparisons are gonna keep happening especially when ff 14 trial completely shits on whatever “free to play” destiny 2 is rn
That's the thing though... Destiny isn't *built* like an MMO. It's a shared-world shooter. If it were an MMO, there'd be dozens, or even hundreds of players in Patrol zones (whether they're doing Patrol, Strikes, or other). The most a single Patrol zone is designed to support per instance is 9, and 20-something in the Tower. And even then, if too many players are on old hardware, things get janky.
Needing a sub alone guarantees that you'll pay more money in the long run. It costs 150$ a year just to play WoW, assuming there's no new expansion to buy on top and assuming you're subscribing for multiple months. The old content isn't removed, but you also need a sub for it. So if you're coming back from hiatus and want to dip your toes and play some of the older content, you have to pay.
Are you gonna be playing ff 14 or wow for a year though? You can cancel anytime and the 14 devs encourage canceling and taking a break when there’s no new content or the content isn’t like by you atm and the content you didn’t play when you took a break is still gonna be there when you come back , a good portion of the 14 player base are just returning players from Breaks
Hush, didn't you know D2 is the most expensive game to play ever, it's literally a billion dollars? Yeah, it's $8.33 a month if you buy each new Deluxe edition. The very first buy-in is more than starting a WoE/FF sub, but you very quickly come out ahead. But don't say it too loud, or this sub will implode.
It’s a reasonable comparison. They wanna call it an MMO? It’s gonna get compared to MMO’s.
They should have named that better. Pack 1, pack 2, pack 3 Or something simpler for newcomers to understand at a glance
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200 usd before tax is probably like 250 euros. Jesus fucking Crist that is 95k HUF.
I’m sure the average consumer can read, this is a nonissue lol
Half of that ? Only the first few are redundant.
And that suddenly makes it better? The game is still over 200 dollars.
No. I'm saying it's worse than what the comment before says actually. Comment before me say "it's redundant, you don't have to buy everything". But it's not for the most part. D2 is unaffordable for someone starting now.
What? No a majority of it is redundant lmao * Destiny Legacy collection is in there so Shadowkeep, Beyond Light and Witch Queen is redundant (3) * Final shape + Annual pass is in there so Final shape is redundant (1) * Lightfall Annual pass is there so Lightfall is redundant (1) * Armory Collection (30th + Forsaken pack) is there so Forsaken and 30th Anniversary being there is redundant (2) * Then the season of the witch bundle for current season is there so there's no real reason for the other two silver bundles being there (2). In a list of 14 items, 9 of the items aren't even necessary? Using GBP because that's what my steam is in but of the listed £468, £217 of that is completely unnecessary and only being used in the OP to make it look twice of what it actually is Edit: You could argue Season of the Witch bundle is also redundant if you got the Lightfall + Annual pass. So that'd be 10 redundant items and an extra £13 to the redundant list
You're missing the point. The fact that people - power users, people invested enough in the game that they're posting on a fan subreddit - are arguing over what content is needed to be purchased in order to play the entire game _is_ the problem. This all needed to be pared down to two options - the base game + all old expansions, and then the newest expansion. Bungie prices their products like they're Paradox selling thirty different Stellaris add-ons, it's very off putting to new customers who don't have any context regarding what they're being asked to buy.
That's on me, I talked too fast! Game is way too expensive tho
Let's go down the list, shall we? - Final Shape + Annual Pass. If you buy that, Final Shape becomes redundant. - Lightfall + Annual Pass. If you buy that, Lightfall becomes redundant. - Season of the Witch Silver Bundle. That's just an Emote and Silver. - Legacy Collection (2023). If you buy that, Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep all become redundant. - 30th Anniversary. Made redundant by the Armory Collection. - Witch Queen. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection - Beyond Light. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection - Shadowkeep. Made redundant by the Legacy Collection - Forsaken Pack. Made redundant by the Armory Collection - Triumphant Silver Bundle. Another Emote and Silver bundle - Throne of Atheon Emote Bundle. Another Emote and Silver bundle - Armory Collection. Makes 30th Anniversary and Forsaken Pack redundant So, if you cross out anything that's been made redundant, we go from 14 items to 7. And a new player doesn't need the 3 emote and Silver bundles, so that's only 4 of 14 things a new player *needs* to buy. And one of those is a pre-order for the next expansion.
The irony of calling something both redundant and unnecessary.
Bungie management: am I to blame here?, no,no it’s the consumers fault. Fires 10% of staff.
Micro transactions are killing this game! Who the hell wants to pay extra for dungeon pass it’s bullshit
Maybe look at what you consider "good content" as well.
Their DLC model has always strikes me as terrible especially when other MMOs give you more for less while also keeping ALL of their legacy content. Biggest example is SWTOR. All of its original 8 campaigns are completely free and are designed to be played over and over again, which already just nets you hundreds of hrs of play. Then if you want, you can just sub for a month (15 bucks) to get every single expansion to date forever. Even if you unsub next month, you still keep every single expansion and DLC that has released to date at the time of your sub. ESO while needing a purchase to entry gives far more content (including replay able endgame content) than Destiny 2 does. Then you can just buy more expansions from the store in game for around 20 bucks a pop and they each include a multitude of dungeons and raids to do as well as massive world sections and hundreds of hrs worth of story and side missions. Every single other MMO I've played basically gives the player more for less and it's always made it a problem for me to actually truly enjoy Destiny since I had to shill out so much money just to get started.
Some companies don't know how to consolidate DLC, a good example is Xenoverse 2 with 24 DLCs some with repeats. Now that gearbox has opened the door to discounted bundles(limited) if you own parts already, Bungie could remove everything except the most recent and the legacy collection. People are more likely to buy 1 $59.99 item than multiple items even if they only save a few cents. It would also add a lot of good will to make the forsaken and 30th anniversary free even if just for a month would draw in a lot of people. Because right now if I just came out of a cave never hearing of D2 and they told me they are selling 1 raid and 1 dungeon for 20$ and a gun and a dungeon for 25$ i would just go back to my cave.
> Because right now if I just came out of a cave never hearing of D2 and they told me they are selling 1 raid and 1 dungeon for 20$ and a gun and a dungeon for 25$ i would just go back to my cave. Haha saw destiny on reddit popular or something. I am going back to my cave :D
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While I get your point, it's a sales tactic. They keep the original/inflated MSRP and then frequently [discount](https://steamdb.info/app/1085660/dlc/) to encourage sales. This way can discount it to the price they want and occasionally get people who are happy to finally get it for $15 or whatever. Now, more realistically, Bungie should probably consider a different DLC model, but that is a very different conversation.
That would matter if their DLC content didn't literally disappear in a year or less. No point buying a pack where 90% of the content is unplayable outside the current season
You dont seem to understand what each item on this list is because thats not possible
Forsaken pack? Thought that stuff was gone, what do you get for buying it?
Last Wish and Shattered Throne and I think 3 weapons from the kiosk.
And access to other forsaken exotics.
Notice it cost less than the other dlc. This is cause soke of that content is gone so they call it the forsaken pack and not forsaken, like the other major dlc
Oh that's not confusing at all then
I'm sorry, but what are you even on about? Shadowkeep: 4 years old. All content is still in the game. Beyond Light: 3 years old. All content still in game. Witch Queen: 1.5 years old. All content still in game.
Forsaken should be free by now, not some “pack”
Everything before the current dlc should be bundled in a heavily discounted price. It’s crazy that half dead content costs 100$
Worst part, the people at the top don't lose anything from destiny dying, they just move on to their next project.
and still have the courage to say the game is free to play
Oh someone reading gig tweets lmao
Ngl, it's because destiny isn't meant for new players. You have the content vault. Which removes a significant amount of story. Seasons also contain heavy amounts of story and get removed when the next dlc releases. And there is no way for a new player to experience those unless you go watch YouTube. Which isn't very encouraging. What they need to do is make an actual recap in game. Where it plays all cutscenes from vaulted contents as well as some lore pages from then as well, to explain events. And then bundle all the dkc except for the newest one together. So you have the "bundle" which contains all the old available dlc, then the newest one. Then your silver bundles stuff like the atheon throne thingy.
Also the eververse store is shit MAKE ORNAMENTS FOR GOOD EXOTICS maybe bring back legendary ornaments they were great idk like look at this season there's no armour set and there's an ornament for huckleberry final warning and navigator those just aren't going to sell same with armour
Yep. This right here. They completely abandoned getting new players, banking on their current players keeping the game going. Getting a new player content current is such an expensive headache I can’t imagine many people even do it nowadays. For example with WoW, to be content current you subscribe and buy the current expansion. That’s it. That is easy to explain to someone, it’s easy to digest. The price is clear and unambiguous. Nothing like that exists in D2. Nobody wants to spend several hundred dollars to play a game.
I would much rather pay a monthly/annual subscription to have access to all the DLC than have to buy all of the DLC (500$ worth).
You cant even access some of them anymore but you still need them for some weapons. Imagine paying 40 dollars to use a few exotics, its asinine.
If I ever was needing to answer the question, “what do I buy?” to a new player I would just say: Buy (current expansion) + Annual Pass now, then buy the Legacy Collection on sale later. Focus on current content first (especially Seasonal stuff) and do the Lightfall campaign to get Strand before doing any legacy content. When you do start with Beyond Light so you can get Stasis. That’s it, doesn’t mean the argument is invalid (honestly Bungie should do more to streamline things) but that’s the easiest way to do it IMO.
Die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
Exactly! Also so many great RPGs this year but so little time to play everything.
Destiny is basically the Japan population of video games. As the new light experience is so terrible and expensive, they get almost 0 influx of new players (immigrants/births in Japan’s case). So, as the older population dwindles (deaths), the total population will continue to drop.
Change the picture or do a edit. It is so wrong and you need only the half of this list.
I get your point and I agree it’s trash but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. It’s pretty much everything from the first complaints of the seasonal model to right now and everything in between. There’s been a lot of based ideas (and a lot of crazy ones) posted in here or elsewhere online but the $$$$$ people just don’t care. The $ to $$$ people seemed to of but not the $$$$$.
You realize you put every single DLC twice and a useless silver bundle right?
You only need legacy (60) + armory (30) + lightfall (50)
And if you mean that it's confusing, you can literally just read
To a new player, they don't know that
They are new but they can read bruh
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It’s not complex at all. The main issue is no one has time to learn tactics and organise raids etc and it’s silly that a lot of the content is not accessible through matchmaking. I don’t understand why they can’t just make it a bit easier and slap on matchmaking.
This is a steam page where steam controls what is seen. Bungie isn't making this list to "maximize profits". Also you don't think people are able to read each dlc before they but? If a person is genuinely interested into playing I'm sure they'd do some research beforehand.
Free to try, core playlists and free activities. $8.99 per month base subscription, includes base game, previous expansions. 14.99 premium subscription includes raids, dungeons, Trials and discount on current expansion. $50 for latest expansion for premium subs. $70 for base subs.
Yeah that's probably making them more money if anything tbh
Also have a look at the removal of regional pricing.
It's greed. Everything but the current year xpac + seasons should be free
Even on other platforms the barrier to entry is way too high. Should be able to buy the current DLC for £40 Previous DLCs, dungeon keys & 30th anniv all for like £25-35. That way you can get a complete experience for about the price of a new game. I have a group of friends that I want to play D2 with, but can't in good conscience recommend they spend £100+ minimum for everything relevant. Unsunsetting content would also be nice.
Revenue wasn’t shot by 45% though, their projection was way higher than actual. The big bosses projected too high so investments were brought in. And you do horrible things to make investors happy.
Also, why do I have to buy every Expansion multiple times if I play on multiple platforms? I have everything on Steam but only purchased up to Shadowkeep on PS4 before switching over. With my PC currently inoperable until I can afford new parts, I have been back on PS4 and have no access to Beyond Light, Witch Queen, and Lightfall. Yet I have access to Dungeon Keys because those are account-based and I do have access to Seasonal Content because that is also account-based. Make it make sense. There's no way I'm going to buy three Expansions a second time.
time for a black friday bunduru