Polygon: Is Destiny 2 Dead?

[Chettlar]

There's no reason to bring up good reviews when the game launched. It can take time for issues in a game like this to make themselves known. Many people were loving the game for the first month or so.

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And even then I think a lot of us didn't love it. It was just new and shiny. But right away I started noticing things I didn't like like the ridiculous tone of the ghost and things. And I remember the campaign being pretty ehh, but I was like well hey it's a step up from D1 so surely the rest will be even better!

I think a lot of us were willing to accept the mostly mediocre story because we thought the real good stuff would come after...but...that's almost all there was.

 

[Lothars]

Taking over a year to get your sequel to play like its predecessor is hilariously pathetic and not something I would say addresses the issues since you'll have to pay for all of these major updates when they never should have been absent in the first place. As the article states, this feels different this time around than when D1 released.

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It's really not different at all. The game has issues but it's definitely not a bad game, I could see them going to one big paid expansion a year and the rest of the content free throughout. What I don't get is it seems like you don't like the game but your posting in every thread gloating that you were right that it's you think it turned out to be shit? so why go to that effort if your not liking the game?

The reason the game is in so much trouble is those "big issues" you talked about are man-made. They looked at D1, said fuck it, and made decisions that were completely detrimental to the quality of the Destiny 1 experience. The "big issue" Destiny 2 has is Bungie. Or at least the lead designers who thought D2 was a good idea.

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I don't agree the game is in as much trouble as you or anyone else claims.

If the Division of all things didnt die after it's terrible first year, D2 will be fine assuming Bungie fixes what needs fixing (a whole hell of a lot).

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That to, The division was a much worst game than any Destiny game and they have done a good job of turning that around.

 

[h8bit]

It's dead, Jim

No one I know plays this game anymore. My main grips is that end game content is 100% blocked off by needing 5 other friends ready to spend hours upon hours in a raid. I just think it's unfeasible. DLC was really shallow and I have no intention of jumping back in for the second one.

 

[Raven117]

There's no reason to bring up good reviews when the game launched. It can take time for issues in a game like this to make themselves known. Many people were loving the game for the first month or so.

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I think its still a good game for that one month.

Its a decent enough campaign and march up to raid ready power level. Its after that...that the game COMPLETELY falls apart.

The the move from special weapons to power weapons was a disaster in an already weakening PvE space due to balancing with pvp. It just makes everything feel so flat. So boring.

The loot. Boring.

PvP, boring.

And then, probably most importantly, Bungie finally laid the straw that broke the camels back. With some of the exp issues and the Eververse. Destiny did not deserve the community it had...And finally...Bungie pissed them off one too many times.

 

[panda-zebra]

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Fixed:

 

[jimboton]

No one saw this train wreck.. not to this extent.

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Yeah,.. yeah, we did. Focus on accessibility and awful pvp changes at the root of D2 problems were well known before the game was even out.

 

[KillLaCam]

It's on life support. Bungie is finally acknowledging some big issues, we just have to see if they fix them

 

[SmartWaffles]

It's dead, Jim

No one I know plays this game anymore. My main grips is that end game content is 100% blocked off by needing 5 other friends ready to spend hours upon hours in a raid. I just think it's unfeasible. DLC was really shallow and I have no intention of jumping back in for the second one.

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Raid isn't the whole endgame content is made of. Plenty of other endgame activities are easily accessible by solo players. Raid hasn't been the sole source of endgame gear since Y3 of D1. The problem is none of these D2 endgame content has enough depth, even the raid.

 

[Y2Kev]

I don't get it. Didn't this get super good reviews? I get it's a living service game but seems so odd to me that apparently so many of these issues were immediately made known by the audience. And I don't even follow the game!

 

[Amibguous Cad]

Thus proving Betteridge's Law yet again: any headline with a yes or no question in it can safely be answered 'no.'

"The game launched to rapturous acclaim, from this outlet and from pretty much all the others.

So why does it seem like no one is playing anymore?"

Because these mostly shallow reviews aren't a good indicator for lasting qualities that this sort of game needs? I bet if the majority of reviewers actually took a more in-depth look at the systems and how they would forge the game longterm, rapturous acclaim wouldn't have been there.

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It wasn't just the reviewers. The reception for Destiny 2 was very, very positive on these forums. The reason is that Bungie said their priority was to make your first 40-60 hours of the game awesome and have the players quit satisfied enough to come back for DLC. Destiny 2 was received so well to start with because they largely succeeded. Unfortunately, Bungie kind of missed that your most important fans are the ones that play it obsessively and will evangelize about it, so as the hardcore lost interest the whole thing started circling the PR drain, so probably, people won't buy the DLC after all. But the initial campaign and easy to acquire loot are just as good as they were when Kotaku wrote that glowing review/

 

[Theorry]

It's on life support. Bungie is finally acknowledging some big issues, we just have to see if they fix them

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Wich is great. But for alot of people thats really way way to late. And you notice. I mean the "go fast update" didnt do anything really. It did probably something if they released it two months after launch.
They have been way to slow to react on the feedback or even the feedback from the beta. People said 4vs4 was gonna be a bad idea and it was teamshot city. We are 8 months further now. And they just adressed it really. With adding a 6vs6 option.

 

[Hopping_Mad]

Like some of you guys didn't just drink the hypejuice. Saw this coming a mile away.

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If a reviewer is just as susceptible as the average player, then what is their purpose? Gameplay footage where they suck at games? Reiterating bullet points from press event pamphlets? Being just as fanboyish as the dregs of the internet?

 

[Trup1aya]

Man, I don't know what to say. Bungie mostly lost me with their business decisions around Destiny 1. So yeah, I agree that launching D2 as a stand-alone title, made it really easy to sever ties. Poor gameplay decisions most have made it easy for everyone else.

 

[SmartWaffles]

If Destiny 2 launched at its current state and then iterate upon that, things would be much better.

 

[Gatti-man]

For me it's the gear:
What happened to the gear Jesus Christ it's the blandest most uninspiring perks ever. What happened to all our stuff from D1? Not being able to atleast transmog skins from D1 is a slap in the face and a big missed opportunity. The weapon slots, movement, and pvp were all steps back too.

The plot is just throw away and doesn't answer anything from D1 or even really continue it besides vaguely hinting at the end.

I love destiny but there is no reason to play. It's just not fun like D1 was.

 

[Bigg]

I know this has been mentioned before, but if Destiny 2 came out while Luke Smith was still at 1UP, he'd be absolutely fuming at Bungie's decisions and berate them for not listening to the community. Now he's the one facing that criticism.

Wild how things change sometimes.

 

[Hippo_PRIME]

I player so so much D1 and enjoyed my first 40ish hours with D2, but thatst about the point I started to see the cracks. D2 felt like several steps back from D1 and it was harder to enjoy because of it. I largely dropped the game, but came back for Curse of Osiris and it still felt wrong. Not bad, but just lacking the excitement and energy of D1. Dropped it shortly after and I don't really see myself coming back. Bungie keeps promising that they're listening and will make things better, but I don't really think that's accurate. D1 at the end was immensely fun and then D2 just wasn't. How can I trust that they won't pull all this again? Expansions and D3 are certainly well underway in development, I don't feel like playing a game less fun than it's predecessor every 6 months to 2 years.

 

[DNAbro]

I don't get it. Didn't this get super good reviews? I get it's a living service game but seems so odd to me that apparently so many of these issues were immediately made known by the audience. And I don't even follow the game!

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The first 20 hours of the game are much better than D1 and on the surface it may seem better (as in "without the bullshit") but that "bullshit" is apparently part of the reason Destiny 1 was loved.

 

[demi]

The first 20 hours of the game are much better than D1 and on the surface it may seem better (as in "without the bullshit") but that "bullshit" is apparently part of the reason Destiny 1 was loved.

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Depends what your definition of bullshit is.

Many peoples issues are with gameplay (PVP being a low point, blanket nerf of practically everything, hence the "Go Fast" update 6 months later....)

Of course this discussion is like clockwork in the Destiny OT thread so your answer will change depending on who you ask.

 

[jviggy43]

It's really not different at all. The game has issues but it's definitely not a bad game, I could see them going to one big paid expansion a year and the rest of the content free throughout. What I don't get is it seems like you don't like the game but your posting in every thread gloating that you were right that it's you think it turned out to be shit? so why go to that effort if your not liking the game?

I don't agree the game is in as much trouble as you or anyone else claims.

That to, The division was a much worst game than any Destiny game and they have done a good job of turning that around.

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I never said I didn't like the game. I put in 700 hours in D1 and about 120 in D2. Just because I'm sharply critical of bungie and the destiny franchise has no bearing on whether or not I like the game. Additionally if you seriously think bungie is going to give you free content Idk what to even tell you, that's never happening with modern day bungie outside of some trivial sparrow races here and there. They can't create content fast enough to be giving it out for free.

Also you didn't really clarify why it's not different. It is. D1 had hope, people wanting it to succeed and a base that stuck with it throughout. That's not happening with D2 and D2 doesn't have the luxury of being in its own bubble given the rise of battle royale games and overwatch. Bungie also wasn't as overtly anti consumer in D1 as they are in d2 which is an additional caveat to consider. It's different this time. A lot different.

 

[Chronos]

For another comparison, very few MP games have 500K concurrent players six months after release.

The game's got issues, but it's got a long way to go before it's on life support.

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That data is not concurrent, but daily active login. Concurrency will be significantly lower.

 

[CloseTalker]

That data is not concurrent, but daily active login. Concurrency will be significantly lower.

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lol fine, my point stands

 

[The Shape]

I'm not keeping up with the game but that's not hard to believe. After I bought the first game on pre order, I decided I wasn't going to follow the probable sequel in any way. And I don't personally know anyone who has bought it or play it. Obviously a lot of people did. Just not the people I know.

 

[upinsmoke]

Well I never bought destiny 2. After destiny 1 (which by the way was probably the best alpha/beta I've ever played and met loads of cool people off gaf to game with) I approached the sequel cautiously. I was dissapointed with how long it took the expansions to come out with D1

Playing the demo of Destiny 2 is just didn't feel right, mechanically. It threw you into a level where you couldn't really explore the freedom like the first game. I played the pvp side and that was really poor. It just felt uninspired, it didn't feel like anything was being built on.

 

[-PXG-]

Only 200-300 people were on DestinyLFG.net on reset day (Tuesday). That tells you everything.

Bungie.net and even the PS4 Communities are basically dead.

Don't expect any serious, radical changes until September, folks.

 

[Wolf of Yharnam]

Just please Bungie, give us interesting weapons and perks and more stuff to do.

It's just so boring last time I played it (DLC 1 release). I'm glad I didn't get the season pass, no way I'll be back for the next DLC which will probably just be another 3 hour campaign with uninteresting characters. Most disappointing game 2017 imo

 

[Deleted member 4044]

Fixing Destiny begins with reverting the loadout system to primary-special-heavy with snipers, shotguns and fusion rifles back in the special weapon slot. They probably should separate PvE and PvP balancing going forward as well so they can actually issue cool exotics again

 

[Turbo Tu-Tone]

Don't expect any serious, radical changes until September, folks.

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[KillLaCam]

Wich is great. But for alot of people thats really way way to late. And you notice. I mean the "go fast update" didnt do anything really. It did probably something if they released it two months after launch.
They have been way to slow to react on the feedback or even the feedback from the beta. People said 4vs4 was gonna be a bad idea and it was teamshot city. We are 8 months further now. And they just adressed it really. With adding a 6vs6 option.

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Yeah, I still have the game installed to see if they'll fix the game before everyone gives up. But I don't really have high hopes for it because of how slow they've been doing everything.

No way am I buying the September DLC if all of the fixes come then.

 

[Chronos]

I don't get it. Didn't this get super good reviews? I get it's a living service game but seems so odd to me that apparently so many of these issues were immediately made known by the audience. And I don't even follow the game!

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If you only play the campaign and a bit of PvP (extent of most reviews) D2 vanilla is a huge improvement over D1, but if evaluated over a longer timeframe with GAAS in mind, D2 regressed from D1 in many important and fundamentalways. Bungie made a game that would review well, but fail to keep its legs as a result.

 

[OtterSpace]

Nah. Players (including myself) are frustrated for sure, but it's far from dead.

 

[SmartWaffles]

I don't agree the game is in as much trouble as you or anyone else claims.

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There are plenty of evidence that the game, population wise, is a shell of what it was. It was in pretty big trouble. Of course gameplay and content wise it is now in a much, much better place, but there are still a lot of things left to improve.

 

[Powerofthecloud]

Destny1 is still awesome. Sadly Destiny 2 is not. I did the end of world raid which was fun and is the highlight of the end game. But sadly that is where it stops. Too many systems are fucked and they probably can not revert stuff back to d1 mechanics so the fall expansion will probably fail. Should be interesting to see what going on in bungie in the news next fall. I am sure some heads are going to roll, sadly its probably going to be the wrong ones. Sounds too much that the whole corporation needs a rework if rumors are to be believed. I actually wonder if bungie will be around in 5 years.

 

[BlakeofT]

I'm personally done with it and I'm glad about it to be honest. I missed out on so many great games during D1 because all I ever wanted to play was it. But I still bought other shit!

 

[hydruxo]

The Fall expansion is the only hope, really. DLC #2 won't do enough to bring most people back.

 

[Turkoop]

They've had enough time

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No, it's just six months since release. R6 Siege was awful at launch and after 2.5 years it's incredible.
Bungie has done the same with D1, after The Taken King the game was very enjoyable. People think, to patch games, address bugs, add new features and more takes just several weeks. That's not just like cooking noodles.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

Depends what your definition of bullshit is.

Many peoples issues are with gameplay (PVP being a low point, blanket nerf of practically everything, hence the "Go Fast" update 6 months later....)

Of course this discussion is like clockwork in the Destiny OT thread so your answer will change depending on who you ask.

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Yeah, basically. Bungie made two decisions with D2's design that's pissing people off - they leveled the power curve and they made it much easier to get all the loot in the game. Combined, it's not a very good design for a loot shooter and it makes chasing after loot uninspiring. On the other hand, you can't really fault them for not listening to player feedback. People complained that the best guns and max level gear behind raids, and that Gjallarhorn was so much better than everything else, made the game inaccessible to newcomers. Again, judging from the day one reviews, they knocked it out of the park in making it accessible. They just made it much less worth accessing.

I think what's pissing people off the most is that it feels like these should be easy fixes, and they were stuff they got right in D1. It's not hard to understand that Destiny is a looter, and you need to make getting the loot be somewhat exclusionary in order to make loot that matters. It's not hard to figure out that the player wants exotics to feel much more powerful than they are right now, even if it means the level 15 player in the crucible is going to get smoked by Thorn every time. It's not hard to figure out that people liked the chaos of 6v6 and lighting fast TTK, even if that makes teamwork and teamshotting less important. To a significant degree, the current problem is that Bungie took the criticisms of Destiny 1 too much to heart and massively overcorrected. And now that they're in this mess they've decided the solution is to stop overcorrecting based on player feedback, but now they're undercorrecting and pissing off the playerbase to boot.

 

[ghostcrew]

I'm still a Destiny 2 defender in that I played the game for a hundred hours or whatever it took me to play through it all (including the raid) and loved that experience. I don't need it to be a constant living game. It would be awesome if it was but I'm also totally content to leave my D2 experience at that. Had good value for money.

 

[Chronos]

lol fine, my point stands

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It's about relative perspective. Many devs would kill to have D2 activity numbers, but D2 is only a fraction of what D1 was even at its lowest points. It is absolutely underperforming (in player activity) to its historic baseline. Saying it is dying or dead is not necessarily wrong relatively speaking.

 

[jviggy43]

No, it's just six months since release. R6 Siege was awful at launch and after 2.5 years it's incredible.
Bungie has done the same with D1, after The Taken King the game was very enjoyable. People think, to patch games, address bugs, add new features and more takes just several weeks. That's not just like cooking noodles.

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Theyve had enough time given the missteps in D1 and them repeating almost all of them for the sequel and then some. Placing the barometer at what should be acceptable to give devs' time at "release game in a poor state before taking 2.5 years to patch the game to get it to an acceptable place (and paying for such updates along the way no less)" is a sad state of affairs for any dev, especially one that just went through this exact process with their previous game in the same franchise.

 

[forrest]

Pretty sure Bungie said we're supposed to be playing other games in between content drops right? Yeah, not sure I'll be back. The Taken King didn't bring me back in D1 and not sure much can bring me back for D2, but I'll keep my eye on the content/changes just to see. I think for me Destiny will just never be what I wanted it to be and though disappointing, I think I've come to terms with it.

 

[bonch00ski]

No, it's just six months since release. R6 Siege was awful at launch and after 2.5 years it's incredible.
Bungie has done the same with D1, after The Taken King the game was very enjoyable. People think, to patch games, address bugs, add new features and more takes just several weeks. That's not just like cooking noodles.

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You're right Bungie did the same with D1 and had all that experience and still managed to fuck D2.

They've had enough time and they fucked it all up.

 

[Deleted member 16365]

Article is exactly right about the transition from 1 to 2. I spend a ton of hours grinding, farming, and raiding to get the best possible gear to make my Guardian the ultimate badass. When I found out that my stats and items weren't going to carry over I immediately stopped even though D2 wasn't coming for another few months. It took the wind out of my sails.

I get not wanting me to be OP on Day 1, but at least give me the equivillent or depowered versions of my stuff. Hell, would it have killed them to at least try to make my Guardian look the same? When I booted up D2 I didn't even recognize my Warlock that I'd spent so much time with.

 

[Bloodbathnbyond]

I enjoyed the campaign and the strikes for about a month, But I dropped it for other games, so I feel I got my money's worth, but there was no way I was gonna get the expansion pass after the shit they pulled with D1, and that proved to be a wise decision.

I also think it's too late for D2. I can't imagine people being excited for what they reveal for the fall which requires forking over more money for a game that can't sustain itself over time.

 

[bbq of doom]

I don't think we can do a proper post-mortem until Destiny 2's Taken King-equivalent launches. Then--and only then--will we know.

 

[Lothars]

Also you didn't really clarify why it's not different. It is. D1 had hope, people wanting it to succeed and a base that stuck with it throughout. That's not happening with D2 and D2 doesn't have the luxury of being in its own bubble given the rise of battle royale games and overwatch. Bungie also wasn't as overtly anti consumer in D1 as they are in d2 which is an additional caveat to consider. It's different this time. A lot different.

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There's more people wanting it to succeed than not. D2 has hope as well. So yeah It's not different. It's the same type of thing that happened in D1 which shouldn't have happened but it has again. Ultimately I feel the game will be fine long term and I still haven't seen anything to convince me differently. Articles like this are exactly what I said more bullshit than anything.

 

[Smokey_Run]

No, it's just six months since release. R6 Siege was awful at launch and after 2.5 years it's incredible.
Bungie has done the same with D1, after The Taken King the game was very enjoyable. People think, to patch games, address bugs, add new features and more takes just several weeks. That's not just like cooking noodles.

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They're putting shit back in that should've never been taken out in the first place. It's not our fault they decided to nuke development and start again halfway through development. You think they would have learned their lessons from the first game, but nope.

I still believe the September expansion won't have the same kind of impact because they're pushing a lot of those features and systems out the door as soon as they're ready trying to maintain their current players while trying to entice others to come back.

 

[Nephtes]

I never really understood the "microtransaction" problem with Destiny 2 and Eververse...
I probably had something like 80 hours invested in Destiny 2 before I pulled the plug, but I never once felt compelled to touch Eververse outside of the stuff that was given away for free.

I absolutely enjoyed the main story of Destiny 2 more than Destiny 1, but ultimately, I never put in the hours into second game that I did its predecessor ...why?

In my opinion, for all the shiny coat of paint on top Destiny 2, the problems with the game stem from its Exotic weaponry and the ease with which the equipment is given out.

After completing the too short Destiny 1 story, my character was granted exactly 0 exotics and maybe 1 legendary item.
Exotics were rare, earned through random drop, Xur and his strange coins, or laborious tasks.
They were rare and hard to come by in the original game, so when you got one it was a feeling of elation. When you sae another player with Thorn in the crucible, you knew that player had put in some effort to get that gun.

By the time Destiny 2 came about, players had amassed so many Exotics, Bungie had to be fearful that no one would jump in to Destiny 2 if they felt Exotics were too hard to get, so the game showers you with Exotics to the point where your reaction to receiving one is "oh... Another exotic to grind into bits...sigh".

For me, the same feeling of accomplishment I felt gearing my guardian up in Destiny 1 didn't really exist in Destiny 2... Worse the rate at which it spit out exotics felt like it undermined my time spent in the original game... These powerful and rare things from the first game lost a lot of their lustre when they became so common.

Oh, and then they went and made the most fun/choatic PVP mode since Titanfall into no fun zone by nerfing TTK, super charge up time and removing 2 team mates from both sides...

Destiny 1 was akin to something like the Oasis from Ready Player One (the book). You could fly around from planet to planet with your mates, shooting things and trying to find rare artifacts or drop into a PVP zone to blow off steam and show your cool loot to other players (mostly on the receiving end of it)... And Destiny 2 broke that by making nothing special.

 

[VincentMatts]

It is to me. Ive preordered D2 with expansions (like an idiot) expecting Bungie to have learned their mistakes from D1. What a mistake.

Im officially done putting money into another work in progress (we'll do better next time) game.

Its dead to me and i dont give a shit what changes they make.

 

[Aztechnology]

The whole Destiny 1 collection is $40 at best buy while 2 is $30 and I've seen it go lower than that. It's crazy bad it didn't stick with the fanbase.

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I sold my original copy, with the knick knacks of the limited edition for almost what I paid. Recently rebought it for $11 as I had the season pass from my "limited edition" and regret it already. Haven't even opened it. I guess the next "season pass DLC" will probably be dissapointing again. Then we'll have a big Taken King type DLC which rounds the game out. And people will be forgiving it and talking about it again. Until we do it all over again with 3. It's a shitty GAAS cycle of development and I won't trust Bungie again with it.

Bungie got away with it because they had built up a name and reputation. A rapport with their community during the Halo days. They squandered it. Most likely at the behest of higher ups/senior staff. But that's technically Bungie in reality. So yea, faith lost.