Um... definitely strikes and adventures, but dungeons? Both the Moon (Pit of Heresy) and the Dreaming City (Shattered Throne) are remaining, so what dungeons are we losing?

Depends on whose classifying things, but we will be losing the Whisper mission and Menagerie.

Also all the Y1 Leviathan raids, Crown of Sorrow, and apparently for some reason Scourge of the Past (that last one isn't explicitly listed, but is implied by the "only 3 current raids" comments elsewhere).

I'd personally rather not be losing the Raids, they're truly unique content.

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So uh, what happens if you start a new character? You don't get to play through everything again?!

Now or when Beyond Light comes around in September? Now you play the Cosmodrome mission from D1 and then head straight to the current tower with all sub-classes unlocked and at light level 750.

You then get quests taking you through the game’s different elements (Strikes etc) without touching the campaign. You have to go find Amanda in the Hanger to get access to campaigns.

When Beyond Light comes around I assume it will be the same without the optional Amanda questline for the original campaign. You would just have access to Forsaken on.

For me it manifests as being kicked out of a sprint mode when it would not have happened previously. I'm not clear on what is happening or why.

Also, not everyone will care about this, but lots of players care about their masterwork kill counters. For those players, it sucks to have to reacquire their favourite weapon, AND lose their kill count in the process. Why not just let them infuse their original up?

This is a great example of one of the most serious disconnects in Destiny right now. There are many mechanisms in the game that promote becoming invested in your gear or collecting things, while at the same time they keep making changes that make it incredibly un-fun to manage being invested in your gear or collecting.

I really get the feeling that some part of Bungie wants Destiny to become a completely transient game, where the only things that matter are the current things. But this is almost entirely incompatible with the foundation that's been previously laid of long-term connection to gear and items. The whiplash from these changes are the 1000 cuts that lead to fatigue and apathy with the game despite the fantastic gameplay and super-fun new (real not bounties) content.

Agreed. It seems to be a gross oversight. Than again, it's obvious a VISION has been established, now that we know that they have the next two years coursed out in some degree. It occurs to me that this discrepancy we are seeing may be like... growing pains? It's a touch lousy comparison, but hear me out. Before hand, D1 and perhaps Early D2, there was only this more-or-less vague idea of things (a "What is the Darkness? We don't know either") that canonically came about mixing gameplay and "story elements". It seems to me thinking back that at some points things may have been proposed in a more organic way, as there was no real set path. Sky...er Tech is the limit. Then we come to now, and the road is set it seems. The overgrowth must be trimmed. It's not so much growing, but evolving.

Problem is... we are still here because we enjoyed what was being made. Well, most of the time any way. We enjoyed what it was at one point or another. All these ideas and variants of how the game plays. Early D1 is different to Late D1. Early D2 is a WHOLE'NOTHER game, and things have shifted and changed since then.

Returning back to the subject at hand, it seems like all of this... ... ...STUPID, (lets keep it simple,) is a result of some bulldozer mindset in cleaning up from ideas now considered "outdated". Where then we go; AH! You destroyed the thingy the supplies dinglbat to the whositwhatit! Then Bungie goes; Do we have time to fix what the community feels is broken? I guess we'll patch up the loose ends, and destroy it properly later.

Such as... guns that are essentially THE SAME can not infuse their ability to survive the sunset. DUH!

Attached is a picture of Destiny 2 as it works to prepare the road for future years and seasons.

Also, not everyone will care about this, but lots of players care about their masterwork kill counters. For those players, it sucks to have to reacquire their favourite weapon, AND lose their kill count in the process. Why not just let them infuse their original up?

This is a great example of one of the most serious disconnects in Destiny right now. There are many mechanisms in the game that promote becoming invested in your gear or collecting things, while at the same time they keep making changes that make it incredibly un-fun to manage being invested in your gear or collecting.

I really get the feeling that some part of Bungie wants Destiny to become a completely transient game, where the only things that matter are the current things. But this is almost entirely incompatible with the foundation that's been previously laid of long-term connection to gear and items. The whiplash from these changes are the 1000 cuts that lead to fatigue and apathy with the game despite the fantastic gameplay and super-fun new (real not bounties) content.

You hit the nail on the head, IMO. *Transient* is exactly what the focus of this game is shifting towards, and I can’t see it being a good move. Rather than improve the pieces of content that need improving, Bungie will just take them out of the game for a year or two, then slap them back in when everyone is sick of the limited activities that remained active. PvP maps won’t be fixed or reworked, they’ll just be rotated through.
We’ve already seen some of this in action, with the Exodus Crash strike and a few PvP maps.

It’s almost like Bungie has given up on the idea of making content so good that it’s essential to the game. Like they realize most of their patrol spaces are redundant outside of the aesthetics, most of their strikes fail to deliver the replay value that they should. It’s sad to me, because they CAN create some truly stellar activities. The Dungeons, Whisper/Zero Hour missions and their attached quests/catalysts, the raids... these are consistently excellent pieces of content. I’d gladly sacrifice all of the seasonal filler content that Bungie has been churning out in favour of a trickle of hi quality activities that have real staying power. A single whisper-style mission per season would do more for me than all the seasonal filler content that the live team has been pumping out over the past year.

Not gonna lie, I would not want to be a software engineer on a large online game. You are always pissing someone off.

I don't envy the teams working on games like these. Reddit blew up because of the change to sprint and is having a collective aneurysm. I want the change reverted but I can appreciate how it could've gone unnoticed as a bug. On the other hand, sunsetting "old" weapons with identical "new" versions is an intentional design choice and it's stupid.

-SR

Those two categories are both bad on their own. You need both. Metrics and data guide how the game is doing overall and helps you understand what is actually happening. Fun and instinct is great in the moment but it doesn't give you and idea of where you are going. You can't have one or the other, you have to have both.

I disagree. Metrics do not qualify the game experience. All that matters is the fun you have. Metrics tell you little if anything about the actual things people are feeling when they play your game. Fighting games are a great example. Super Turbo is in no way 'balanced', with tons of advantageous character match ups and many underused characters. The metrics would say it's a mess. And yet, somehow, it is one of, and some might consider THE, greatest fighting game of all time.

Also, fun and instinct are a personally thing. You can just do something and assume everyone is going to have fun with a change. That is why for such large games like this that you have to have those metrics to guide the best fun for the most amount of people.

Metrics do not measure fun.

For the most part I agree but lets not pretend that gear snobbery does not exist among a significant part of the playerbase? Remember D1 how Gjallerhorn was basically seen as necessary in some groups to raid?

Okay yes, this is a good point, because gear acquisition is random.

Bungie should have had enough faith in their design to ignore the community on that one. It's only caused more and more problems

Except that the weapons ostensibly most responsible for the sunsetting philosophy (Mountaintop, Recluse, Revoker) are static rolls. Even in the static rolls environment there was clear weapon "overuse" - Uriel's Gift anyone?

This is actually part of why I liked Pinnacle weapons being so dominant in the crucible... I knew EXACTLY what I was up against.

I did too. It meant I was going to die a lot that game. I'm not that competitive in PvP, but I'm not bad either. Whenever I died to a pinnacle weapon I knew I was in for a rough game.

Bungie should have had enough faith in their design to ignore the community on that one. It's only caused more and more problems

What if returning random rolls was strictly an internal decision, "backed" by particular parts of the community but championed by certain employees?
I feel like this was probably a fairly divisive issue internally at that time? I think there were maybe some articles or Tweets that can halfway back up the internal struggle, but I can't point to any specifically.

Except that the weapons ostensibly most responsible for the Sunsetting philosophy (Mountaintop, Recluse, Revoker) are static rolls. Even in the static rolls environment there was clear weapon "overuse" - Uriel's Gift anyone?

Again, I think that putting these pinnacle type guns in game, particularly in their Over Powered state within the Sandbox was an internal decision made by employees who are responsible for managing the ever-changing game world?
Who decided it? Why was it decided? What did they think would happen with these weapons in the Live environment? These guns didn't just magically appear in the game overnight.
IF, these weapons are the most responsible for the Sunsetting philosophy, why does it then sort of feel as if we as players are in a way being "punished" with Sunsetting since these weapons existence stem from intentionally made internal decisions or seemingly off the cuff changes in design philosophy?

Aren't Pinnacle weapons even sort of joked about/commentary between Saint-14 / Shaxx during the end of the Devil's Ruin quest if you hang around and listen?

Saint-14: Shaxx? The Crucible? What have you done with it?
Shaxx: Its not the Crucible by which You and I were forged.
Took Years, but Twilight Gap changed everything. After that day out there the Crucible went from a place where we settled our differences, to a place where we bettered ourselves.

S - 14: I heard you give out some Amazing weapons to your fighters.
Shaxx: Those weapons are earned with blood, sweat, and tears.
S - 14: Are you sure your fighters are bettering themselves, or chasing hardware?
Shaxx: Listen, even Guardians need to get paid ever once and a while.
S - 14: *Heuughh*, When you put it that way you sound like that sad lonely Rat man who lives downstairs
Shaxx: The Drifter? Keep your enemies close right? Watch him for us
S - 14: I was shocked to see Eris Morn again, She is not as she was.
Shaxx: She represents the best of us, Ghostless, and stronger than you and me both
S - 14: Perhaps we could get her a bigger gun? She would not have to carry that rock all the time.

Speaking of guns, ah, tell me more about these weapons you’ve crafted, I’m not allowed to earn them.
I have heard you made one for Young Redrix, ah, Redrix’s Claymore?
Shaxx: Broadsword.
S - 14: Whatever. There was a Handcannon as well? You made one for Josef, ah, Luna’s Howl?
Shaxx: Yes, Luna was his dog. She passed on the moon fighting Hive.
S - 14: Those bastards. I’m glad you killed their king
Shaxx: Are these questions leading anywhere Saint?
S - 14: Yes! The long rifle you designed, The Revoker, whats the story behind it? What does it do?
Shaxx: It shoots bullets, Saint, Its a gun ”

I mean, doesn’t this dialogue sort of parallel our Crucible and “chasing hardware”?
Can we trace back to a Root Cause of any kind? And no, it was not Shaxx.

I know, it is never that simple, nor cut-and-dried. Development as you go, over time, is messy. And there may not be direct cause->effect with these. But why does it seem like in some ways the onus for Sunsetting is passed back to us?

All good points.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that part of what you’re driving at here is the internal conflict, or lack of internal consistency within Bungie. I’m often struck by the way previously learned lessons seem to be “unlearned” not long after. For example, Bungie has in the past posted TWABs that explicitly discussed the problem with having guns that break the ammo economy, and how they can throw a monkey wrench into the entire crucible as well as PvE encounters (this was specifically in response to Ice Breaker and Black Hammer). Fast forward a couple years, and Bungie goes ahead and reintroduces Black Hammer with its original ammo regeneration abilities, followed by Revoker. Sure enough, Whisper of the Worm is eventually nerfed into the ground, and Revoker is held up as one of the reasons why we can’t have Pinnacle Weapons anymore, AND why sunsetting needs to happen.

Another example is the recent Sniper Rifle buff and nerf. Snipers were under-utilized in PvE, so Bungie buffed then. At the same time, Bungie releases a raid that features several boss fights where the boss is 100 feet away, retreating backwards down a hall or way up in the air. Naturally, the snipers are now ideal weapons for these encounters, so players start using them a lot. And Bungie’s reaction is “wait, we don’t like how much people are using sniper rifles all of a sudden, so we’re going to revert the buff”. Like... what? Weren’t they unhappy with that situation just a few months earlier, and now they’re intentionally going back to it?

I have a theory based on nothing more than my gut feelings (so take this with a gigantic grain of salt), but I get the impression that Bungie isn’t particularly good at knowing which of their guns are going to be really great. Hence the discrepancy between the effectiveness of a gun like Oxygen vs something like Recluse. I know there will always be outliers and surprises, but I think the sandbox team could save themselves a lot of trouble if they did a better job balancing their weapons out of the gate. Anyone who got Recluse back when it’s original form could tell within a couple hours (if not less) that is absolutely trounced all other short-mid range PvE primary weapons by a mile. It wasn’t subtle, nor did you have to be a top-tier player to see the difference. But they shipped it, left it in it’s overpowered state for ~6 months, and now it gets held up as one of the other justifications for sunsetting.

Also the possibility of finding a weapon that feels good but also has useful rolls. I love using my Every Waking Moment SMG, but if it only came with disruption break and auto loading holster I would never use it. And since it comes in multiple rolls, I can use my demolitionist roll on my grenade specced warlock build, and swashbuckler roll on my hunter.