Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

[Rangers]

Honestly I was bemused at all the people worried there was no info on the next DLC...my thinking was we would get two DLC this year per the old leaked roadmap. Rather than after 3 and 8 months (December and May) as last year, leaving too large a gap of 5 months before HoW last time, I expected it would be spaced 4 months apart. So, January and May this time. So, I didn't expect them to start talking about the next DLC til mid-December, and hence wasn't worried about their silence.

But now with the "big reveal" at PSX being...sparrow racing...there definitely seems to be something fundamental up with the game's update schedule, in terms of we dont seem to be getting a DLC soon (assuming they aren't just a month late and it's coming in February), which means probably not 2 DLC's this year. And I have no idea what it means.

Is the game not making enough money and being put on some sort of back burner semi-permanently? No new DLC for Destiny 1 forever, until presumably Destiny 2 releases?

Are they going to do one major DLC this year instead of two? Which would likely mean it comes around the 6 month mark, or March?

My problem with the first scenario is simply, layoffs. I believe the Bungie team is around 500. That's a ton of people, and if somehow Destiny as an entire project was being downsized, we'd have to hear about Bungie layoffs, which we haven't.

Are they simply de-emphasizing DLC (in favor of more minor, microtransaction based updates, most likely) because they think it's a dead end, sales for each DLC are decreasing, and people complain constantly about each DLC being underwhelming anyway? So they figure why not just do away with the bad PR and ditch DLC altogether?

So yeah, I dont know. What are the 500 Bungie employees doing? Well besides the number that needs to keep the minor updates flowing for Destiny 1, my only possible conclusion can be, working on Destiny 2.

Honestly I've always felt like a brand new game every 2 years was possibly too aggressive a schedule and would cause franchise fatigue. Do we really need a full fledged Destiny 2 coming soon? How much of an update can it really be in just 2 years, or will it be just a new coat of paint? So many questions...

 

[orangpelupa]

Probably stuck doing mundane things because their editor engine is a mess. Too bad they foxed the sparrow wall glitch. Now my only fun activity is gone

 

[BRiT]

I thought they didnt need to do a DLC because they made plenty of money with microtransactions for emotes, like dancing. I think something like that was mentioned in the Destiny postmortem, where it was also revealed it would take nearly an entire day to move an item 2 feet using their editing tools.

Hopefully they are spending this time to improve their horrible tools before even thinking of more DLC or a Destiny 3.0.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Me and my group slowly abandoned destiny. Not planned, just happened. I left, then after a few more mesages slowly everyone left. TTK died very very quickly for us. Even the most hardcore guy, another team , recently messaged me that he hasn't played Destiny even though he doesn't have all the exotics yet (apparently a big deal for him).

I never felt like playing the Raid after two runs, its too gamey, no feeling of being a legend, I am just an RPG minion doing thisn in rounds of 3. VOG and Crota had specific roles and people actually became legend in them as others, like me, watched in awe.
As for the rest of the game. I used to play only for the three of coins and the realisation that only a few exotics can drop via engrams ended that too, after a while.
I wanted the Touch Of Malice but soon realised acquiring it not just a matter of defeating difficult enemies but running around for collecting stones. That ended there. I am always ready for a fight, as taking down a difficult enemy with friends is all thats most fun, but running around for day to get some fragments.....got tired of it. Thats not skill, that BS.

As for SLeeper Simulant, the quest still hasn't spawned for me as the Purple thing that u handover to Gunsmith, it just isn't showing up in my game...its randmom, and won't happen.

This was the shortest burst of Destiny euphoria till ow. Even HOW survived longer for us. I am very surprised that my friends quit, cos I play a lot of games and move around but they don't. but after TTK, they did too.

Game si fun at its core, but longevity ideas are't working

 

[orangpelupa]

I never felt like playing the Raid after two runs, its too gamey, no feeling of being a legend, I am just an RPG minion doing thisn in rounds of 3.

Bad bad baaaaaaad news for you. I posted feedback on Reddit containing praise AND criticism. Got negged to hell. All of them think Oryx game-ey mechanic is SUPERB.

bungie cater to the community, if their data also showed people loooooooooooove the game-ey mechanic..... we are doomed. Destiny 2 will be more canned, game-ey mechanic bullshit.

 

[Rangers]

This was the shortest burst of Destiny euphoria till ow. Even HOW survived longer for us. I am very surprised that my friends quit,

My friends list is almost entirely made up of randoms I added after a good raid in Destiny, that I can tell it's still by far the most popular game among them. Judging by that new Xbox thing that tells you how many friends are playing each game in your hub. The like of BLOPS 3, Battlefront and Halo 5 dont even come close to Destiny already. It'll maybe be like 23 on Destiny, 3 on Battlefront.

Too me if anything it seems people quitting gaming altogether might be a bigger factor of my friends list attrition than quitting Destiny for another game.

Another thing I look at is traffic to the reddit forum, and it's still pretty steady. I know people get off on calling this game dead, and they'll keep doing it til eventually the millionth time 3 years from now they might be right, but I dont see any evidence really.

Edit: Except fewer people on LFG for Kings Fall, I noticed that a long time ago.

I dont doubt the game's traffic took a big hit from all the recent huge releases (how could it not), as well as just TTK aging, but from what I can tell it's still holding fine as usual.

The Destiny subreddit currently has 7500 browsers for example. That's a pretty high number, about the highest I've seen is around 10k. Granted todays update is the reason. I've seen in the doldrums of HoW and TDB, traffic slip in the dead of night to under 1k, and I haven't seen numbers close to that low yet with TTK. Of course, this isn't a perfect measure of the game's popularity, none of these are.

Oh, and in the 12/3 weekly update they threw out that 339k players had completed the Warpriest challenge. That's a HUGE number and kind of surprised me, as you normally hear that only a small minority even raid, let alone complete an optional challenge on hard raid.

Anyways, off to get Bones of Eao and Mida! I NEED Bones for the daughters (or sisters or whatever they're called). I always have trouble with relic dunking, making it up top to daughters platforms, etc...no more!

I really dont think I'll bother with Sparrow League. As of now just not that interested, we'll see though.

 

[Rangers]

More on the direction of Destiny issue, basically seems big pay DLC is out ("unsustainable"), events and micros transactions are in.

http://kotaku.com/bungie-confirms-that-theyre-not-doing-big-destiny-dlc-t-1746865949

Derek Carroll: “With Taken King we are moving to a more event-based model - things like Festival of the Lost and Sparrow racing, which is our winter event, and then smaller events such as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris every weekend.

Rather than doing these giant, monolithic DLC packs, this way everybody who’s an owner of Taken King can enjoy these things.”

News that there might not be significant new zones or new raids until fall of 2016 might come as a bummer to some, but sources close to the game’s development have told me that last year’s DLC schedule was unsustainable. In the long run, this could make for a better game.

Not sure how I feel about this, a middle ground of one major DLC per year instead of two (and of course continuing smaller updates like now as well) might seem a better idea to me.

Also I dont buy the stuff about the editor being so difficult to use, if so why is TONS of new content constantly being dropped for the game (like Sparrow League today with a bunch of all new tracks not reused areas) ? An entire day to move an item two feet?? Haha. Although I'm not sure when they move anything... It may be a difficult editor, but a day to move something two feet NO WAY sounds like FUD.

 

[orangpelupa]

But they always avoid moving stuff. Heck they choose to add chest timer instead of moving them. About SRL new map, it's possible they workaround the cumbersome problem by making the map as streamlined as possible, avoiding reloads. Or SRL map actually already finished ages ago and they were standing in the back burner

 

[BRiT]

An entire day to move an item two feet?? Haha. Although I'm not sure when they move anything... It may be a difficult editor, but a day to move something two feet NO WAY sounds like FUD.

Read the postmotem and you'll see it's not FUD. This is why they say producing major DLC is NOT maintainable.

It's not that far fetched to have an overall turn around time of an entire day, when your process is barely stitched together by fairly broken tools. There are multiple steps that need to happen and each step takes quite a while. Typically between the steps the developer will opt to sleep, so that leaves some idle time, but not like they can do anything else on their workstation. The next morning when they come in they can start loading the level then have to wait for it to finish, if the thing doesn't crash on them then they can do their change.

EDIT: Exact notion taken from the Destiny Development Hell Story: http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

“Let’s say a designer wants to go in and move a resource node two inches,” said one person familiar with the engine. “They go into the editor. First they have to load their map overnight. It takes eight hours to input their map overnight. They get [into the office] in the morning. If their importer didn’t fail, they open the map. It takes about 20 minutes to open. They go in and they move that node two feet. And then they’d do a 15-20 minute compile. Just to do a half-second change.”

People who have worked with Destiny’s tech say the company is capable of powering incredible things behind the scenes, like player matchmaking. It’s also clear that Destiny is one of the best-looking video games ever made. But as a tool-set for designers, sources say, Destiny’s engine is subpar, and creating new maps and missions at Bungie can be grueling for developers.

And here is the bit about the DLC not being maintainable:

Once Destiny launched in September 2014, Bungie’s staff didn’t have much time to celebrate. Over the next few months, the developers had to grind constantly. First they had to deliver two DLC packs that each justified $20; then they had to release a massive $40 expansion the following fall. They needed a live team working on constant patches and bug-fixes, and they also needed to plant flags to set players up for the major changes that The Taken King would eventually bring.

The grind of this process led Bungie to approach Activision with another proposition that would alter the ambitious release schedule they’d previously agreed to: They had released two DLC packs, The Dark Below and House of Wolves, and they had released one expansion, the codenamed Comet that was properly titled The Taken King. What if, instead of releasing two more DLC packs after The Taken King, they tried something new? What if they sold cosmetic items in the Tower? And then put out a dripfeed of free content to keep people playing in the months before “Destiny 2”—or whatever they wind up calling it—in the fall of 2016?

“There was a bet that was, ‘Hey if we did microtransactions, I bet you we could generate enough revenue to make up for the loss of DLCs,’” said a source. “Instead of it going Destiny, DLC1, DLC2, Comet, DLC1, DLC2, they’re actually just gonna go [big] release and then incremental release. So it’ll just be Destiny, Comet, Destiny, Comet every year. It’s basically just switching the game to an annual model.”

 

[RenegadeRocks]

@Rangers my post isn't about Destiny dying, I just posted that my group along with another hardcore group has stopped playing Destiny. It's not a doomsday post. It's more like I expected TTK to last much longer, being a bigger dlc of the 3. Also, me moving around in multiple games is normal, I do that all the time, but recent admissions from hardcores that they have lost interest made me take notice.
Btw, a lot of ppl from year 1 don't Raid Oryx simply because there are no worthwhile rewards. The weapons are BS. Everything interesting is acquired outside teh raid.

Game is fun and will keep going strong, after all there are a lot of new players in too, it was on sale and its the holidays, etc but its the first time that the disinterest that only I feel has spread over a major portion of my friend list. I mean real friends, not the ppl I met in Raids, they are still playing Destiny, except for a few who I saw playing other games. After all there is no real replacement of Destiny out there, its one of a kind ! Except for BorderLands collection maybe, cos playing that right now , I can literally see that Destiny copied wholesale from this game, from ideas, mechanics to even scenery ! And BL2 is still more fun in co op(last gen game otherwise ppl would have migrated to this, IMO) but also has the same problems of repetition after a while. But having more content than Destiny helps.

Edit; oops so many spelling mistakes !

 

[NRP]

I've certainly lost interest in Destiny after the Dark Below.

 

[orangpelupa]

what i think can makes destiny fun a lot longer:

• enemy that smart, not act super game-ey
• allow player to play with enemy AI
• allow enemy AI to have longer attention span
• give environment that is changing depending how you play (e.g. The PS Exclusive vex strike, the revamped Flyers strike)

but, everytime i mentioned that, i always got negged. I have tried mentioned something like that on comments, on new threads with various disguise (i made 3). All of them got negged into oblivion. Basically, they LOVE the stuff that makes destiny more and more "canned" like CoD than Crysis/MGSV/old Battlefield.

what i gather is the hardcore destiny player (redditors) want the game be be more linear, predictable, and game-ey. They dont want dynamic and emergent experience. If Bungie's statistics also showed this.... Destiny 2 may be awesome but it will dry very fast if Bungie cannot keep up manually making new contents in rapid succession.

the trend on FPS also going this way, more and more game chasing this "canned" experience just like CoD. Player play the game just to enjoy the "theme park", just "enjoy the ride". Player are not allowed to do anything with their own imagination and crazy experiments.

but bethesda still selling their very sanbox game selling very well every time.

 

[DrJay24]

Dec patch is out. 18GB on the PS4. I got my year 2 Mida Multitool.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Dec patch is out. 18GB on the PS4. I got my year 2 Mida Multitool.

It isn't 18gb, it was few hundred mbs, the patch size is total of all patches which is shown in the download list. Haven't fired up the game. So, the patch brings new exotics and weapon balances, right?

 

[DrJay24]

It isn't 18gb, it was few hundred mbs, the patch size is total of all patches which is shown in the download list. Haven't fired up the game. So, the patch brings new exotics and weapon balances, right?

I learned something new! Ya, new year 2 version of old exotics, changes to some old exotics and tuning for all gun types. Shotgun PvP nerf woot! They also added the sparrow racing, which is pretty bad IMO. There are armor rewards that are unique, not sure if it is worth the hassle though.

 

[djskribbles]

Sparrow racing is alright by yourself IMO, but it's a blast playing with buddies. Don't know how long the fun factor will last though. Probably a good thing that they're making it a limited time event like Iron Banner. No doubt they will add more maps etc.
If I play with my buddies (two of them in particular) I always place ~3rd, but when I play by myself I can win half of the races I'm in. Learning the track is the most important thing, and also learning how to take sharper corners. There's a lot of obstacles that can really mess you up (especially on the mars track) which is very frustrating. I've been in a battle for first on the last few turns of the race, only to hit an obstacle placing me last.
From what I hear, you can get 320 gear once you hit rank 4.

@RenegadeRocks, yeah the patch brings SRL, weapon balancing, Titan tweaks (sunbreaker nerf, thank god) and some year one exotics.
Titans no longer have T-rex arms as they extended their melee range close to, or even higher than a hunter, but still lower than a warlock. They nerfed sunbreakers by slowing the hammer throw rate, reducing the damage reduction and I believe they reduced the splash damage radius.

In a nutshell, auto rifles and most handcannons got buffed; shotguns, pulse rifles and fusion rifles (why?) got nerfed. Auto rifles got damage buffs and handcannons have improved accuracy when ADS. Pulse rifles and shotguns got range nerfs. And fusion rifles have reduced stability when firing from the hip.

Auto rifles may make a pretty strong comeback. The low/mediumish impact auto rifles received the biggest buff, so ARs like hard light, monte carlo, supercell etc... any AR with a damage rating of ~8. These ARs may be very strong in crucible as they were already pretty good.

 

[Rangers]

I thought I saw a post on reddit yesterday that the AR buffs never materialized. They do no more damage after the update.

I could tell my nerwins was nerfed, not only did it feel much weaker but it was doing 29 crit instead of 32 (probably less at range). I switched to my uber roll Dis-43 as I dont have yr2 Mida yet (should get it today).

I'm wonder if something like AR-sniper may be the new meta. Cover all ranges.

Even pre-update Snipers were beginning to dominate. Yesterday I got killed by a shotgun ONE time in a few matches. They're already nonexistent (imo they pretty much were before the update).

I dunno, I'm thinking of trying sidearm/scout?

The bad thing if I go to mida as my main is I lose Truth, which I have been using basically since TTK came out. In TTK all the rocket launchers either suck or they have a inventory of 20, so they only pick up two rockets. Except possibly Ash Factory, which good luck getting one with the right roll (and I'm not even sure as on some launchers tripod overlaps with G&H). Anyways so without Truth I either have to go with my Smolder which picks up 4 but has crap velocity, or a machine gun.

 

[Rangers]

@Rangers my post isn't about Destiny dying, I just posted that my group along with another hardcore group has stopped playing Destiny. It's not a doomsday post. It's more like I expected TTK to last much longer, being a bigger dlc of the 3. Also, me moving around in multiple games is normal, I do that all the time, but recent admissions from hardcores that they have lost interest made me take notice.
Btw, a lot of ppl from year 1 don't Raid Oryx simply because there are no worthwhile rewards. The weapons are BS. Everything interesting is acquired outside teh raid.

Game is fun and will keep going strong, after all there are a lot of new players in too, it was on sale and its the holidays, etc but its the first time that the disinterest that only I feel has spread over a major portion of my friend list. I mean real friends, not the ppl I met in Raids, they are still playing Destiny, except for a few who I saw playing other games. After all there is no real replacement of Destiny out there, its one of a kind ! Except for BorderLands collection maybe, cos playing that right now , I can literally see that Destiny copied wholesale from this game, from ideas, mechanics to even scenery ! And BL2 is still more fun in co op(last gen game otherwise ppl would have migrated to this, IMO) but also has the same problems of repetition after a while. But having more content than Destiny helps.

Edit; oops so many spelling mistakes !

I haven't played Borderland and have no interest since it's boring single player, and yeah I'm sure it "inspired" Destiny (though Destiny's main inspiration is Halo which came out long before Borderlands), just as many games are now copying Destiny, but I heard the loot is 99% useless garbage. all these games people want to put out as perfect compared to Destiny have their own problems people gloss over.

Anyways it's a shame you lost interest and I guess we wont be seeing you and NRP in the thread anymore. Oh well it happens I guess. I'm looking at The Division as the one that could pull me away.

 

[DrJay24]

I fully upgraded my year 2 Mida, but I'm unclear what the Multitool perk is supposed to do. What does feather trigger imply?

 

[djskribbles]

@Rangers, you're right, seems like the update differs from what they said before... ARs only got 0.x buff.

@DrJay24, I believe it allows you to fire a shot with less trigger pull, so it doesn't increase the fire rate per se, but it will probably slightly increase the rate at which you can fire the weapon.