I understand giving ramped up rewards for more capable and successful players. The short-game players are well looked after in most games. D1 in particular.

All players should have an path to all content. Be it the long-game, like World of Tanks or availability of much easier difficulty settings at a later date.

It's beyond stupid that I keep buying Destiny only to be deprived of a sizeable percentage of the content.

How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

It's a stupid game not a life requirement. It's supposed to be enjoyable. It should be accessible.

If a game doesn't offer more ways for more customers to achieve fair use of the content then it wasn't planned well enough.

The simplest way for Destiny to let less capable players experience more content is by allowing the original power levels to stand throughout the life of the game. As the players' power levels rise along with new DLC the older content becomes more accessible. This happened for Vault of Glass I believe. Our older group were finally able to finish it without young hot shots to help us. It didn't diminish the value of our success for us. Whether someone else thinks we were given a gold star is of no concern to us.

D2 immediately raised the power level for normal mode raid just as we were becoming somewhat capable of completing individual sections. It set us back to the point we have temporarily given up.

Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

Not to be snarky or anything, but how much of all of this has to do with your general attitude about the game? You and your friends'? Meaning, you guys already sound like you're done with Destiny for the most part. More than just done, even. Just done is "played it, moved on to something else." in the way that I'm done with Hellblade. It sounds like you guys have moved to "actively hostile yet still playing a bit" at this point.

lol. Some of my friends are clearly in that boat. I think I'm in a place where I really WANT to like Destiny 2, but I feel that it's actively fighting the things that made D1 my daily hobby. D2 seems to be the actively hostile element, from my perspective.

Do you think that might affect the numbers of people you play with, or even the numbers of people that will go out of their way to play with you. Certainly you and your friends' willingness to jump to a different game more quickly will play into that, I'd think.

Not sure what you mean. My friends and I like playing together, and on any given night there are between 1 and 8 of us online in chat. When there are 6 or more, we're almost always in Destiny or waiting to join the raid should someone leave. When there's less than that, we tend to play other games or just log off, which has had a depressing effect on the numbers of people online day to day. I'd say that during D1, we averaged 6 people online concurrently every single night. During D2, we're averaging closer to 3.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being hostile towards a game and its gameplay. A while back I asked some friends a question about The Witness. I said: "Knowing I hate puzzle games, should I buy The Witness." And they, correctly, said no.

This is the thing: Knowing I loved D1, should I buy D2, should be a resounding yes.

Well, knowing that you find Crucible simply not fun and the rest of the endgame to be garbage, maybe you should forget about trying to beat the hardest version of the hardest activity and play the games you actually enjoy instead? There are only so many hours to play, after all!

I like the raid. I enjoy the raid. The problem for me is the rest of the game, and the way in which the game seems to work against you when you're trying to get enough people online in order to do the raid.

Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

Not to be snarky or anything, but how much of all of this has to do with your general attitude about the game? You and your friends'? Meaning, you guys already sound like you're done with Destiny for the most part. More than just done, even. Just done is "played it, moved on to something else." in the way that I'm done with Hellblade. It sounds like you guys have moved to "actively hostile yet still playing a bit" at this point.

Do you think that might affect the numbers of people you play with, or even the numbers of people that will go out of their way to play with you. Certainly you and your friends' willingness to jump to a different game more quickly will play into that, I'd think.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being hostile towards a game and its gameplay. A while back I asked some friends a question about The Witness. I said: "Knowing I hate puzzle games, should I buy The Witness." And they, correctly, said no.

Well, knowing that you find Crucible simply not fun and the rest of the endgame to be garbage, maybe you should forget about trying to beat the hardest version of the hardest activity and play the games you actually enjoy instead? There are only so many hours to play, after all!

Neither was as reliable as just about anything with shot package, ime.

Fact. Party Crasher +1 was the best Shotgun at the end there.

Oh how I miss my Chaperone. There was a sweet spot around the start of year 2 where the Chappy was the greatest gun that ever gunned. Required high skill but allowed you to 1v3 if you were in the zone, as it were.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

Dude, invite me! I'll log on if there's a prestige raid.

Will do!

Usually it's so they can smash other people in pvp, a

That's making a pretty huge assumption.

As has been pointed out, raid loot has mostly not been PvP dominating. That shouldn't be that hard to design around.

Going into a raid fully kitted with raid gear that has cool perks that work for raid mechanics is fun. It totally changes the experience, and also works as a difficult selector. Folks that can't beat the raid can earn gear that helps make the raid easier, so long as they can complete a few encounters to get drops.

Raid perks are just fun.

I agree! Raid perks were great! And the only raid where they made any lick of difference was VoG (maaaybe CE but they were sooo situational and the boost was too minor). The KF "raid perk" cocoon was actually hugely powerful in PvP and didn't do anything specifically advantageous in the raid outside of normal operation.

In fact, I think bringing back raid perks would be an awesome way to make raid weapons more powerful for raiding without breaking them for pvp. "Deals more damage to Cabal forces" or "Chains to nearby Cabal" would be cool. "Move more quickly when affected by whatever that debuff is in the pools" or "regenerate health after meleeing psions" etc... Anything restrictive enough that it wouldn't apply in pvp is fine by me.

Sure!

How about a rocket launcher that has cluster bombs but requires a QTE to trigger them?

How about more something along the lines of the shock rifle in Unreal Tournament? Secondary fire would shoot an energy ball, and primary fire a hitscan laser. If you could hit an energy ball with the laser, it would make a huge explosion. Good players could use the secondary fire, then explode it at the best possible moment.

How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

No… you have a little thing called DIFFICULTY LEVELS so that no matter what your skill, you can always be challenged and feel a sense of accomplishment after completing an activity. You can do everything you want to and still have a challenge.

Oh wait…

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

Dude, invite me! I'll log on if there's a prestige raid.

Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

See, that looks pretty sweet to me. I've literally never seen that gear. I don't think its because people don't want cool looking gear, I think it's because the endgame is pretty lame right now and not many people bother raiding whatsoever.

What do you want?

You said you want cool, unique looking gear for the raid and Prestige mode. That's literally exactly what we're getting, but you're still not raiding. The end game is giving you exactly what you say you want, so what's the deal?

I'm legitimately not trying to be snarky, I just feel like we're talking in circles.

I'd raid if my friends would log on.

I understand giving ramped up rewards for more capable and successful players. The short-game players are well looked after in most games. D1 in particular.

All players should have an path to all content. Be it the long-game, like World of Tanks or availability of much easier difficulty settings at a later date.

It's beyond stupid that I keep buying Destiny only to be deprived of a sizeable percentage of the content.

How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

The solution is pretty clear.

Powerful gear that requires mastery to use, then challenges that require you to use the gear masterfully.

Think mega man X. You get all these moves and special weapons, which make the game easier. But then the game gets harder to compensate, and the secrets require you to use that stuff at an absolute master level.

Sure!

How about a rocket launcher that has cluster bombs but requires a QTE to trigger them?

Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

Yeah, if only the regular raid had dropped weapons and armor with specific perks designed to help in completing the raid . . .

(: