I was thinking about this, thinking about games running their course, when it occured to me that I never finished Skyrim. I stoppled playing because it had so much content and I wanted to play something else for abit.

I haven't either, and I was talking to someone else who hadn't finished. But I suffer from a case of "If you think you are going the right direction, go a different direction to see if there are goodies there" Which in a game like Skyrim is a bad idea.

I think you're underestimating the number of players who focus on single player while completely ignoring multiplayer. If I remember correctly, the stats for Halo 3 showed that 70% of the people who played the game never played a single round of multiplayer, ever. Multiplayer gamers are typically some of the most hardcore & vocal fans within a community, and as such we often forget that we are the minority in terms of actual numbers.

I missed that stat. Hrm. If true, it does change things a bit. I'll have to do some more research. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. (And sorry it took me so long to respond, I completely missed it.)

You can bring your guardian forward from previous gen. I never finished all the Borderlands 2 DLC, and never played the Pre-sequel, so I expect to be spending some time with that starting next week.

I wonder if that had any effect on the timing of HoW? They didn't want to release at the same time as Borderlands?

Out of curiosity, what is your favorite activity in Destiny? You seem to enjoy PvP a lot. Personally, I think Patrol has a lot of potential. Playing it with friends is great, and I think there's plenty of room for Bungie to do lots of interesting things with that mode in the future.

It really depends on the day, I guess. PvP is high up there, because it's different all the time. I enjoy running through the Daily Heroics, I enjoy (most of) the Nightfalls, I enjoy patrolling. I enjoy the raids, periodically, too. I just find that they're higher in the frustration category than most other activities. ;)

Disclaimer: it's not upgraded.

This forum also seems very 1%ish, in terms of completion; I don't see a lot of the most frequent posters who play casually. I'm actually quite curious what percentage of the player population plays 'casually'. Although determining what actually constitutes casual in this game is a monster of a different nature.

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

So 80% of players have only played the worst parts of Destiny. Yet another argument for making the raid accessible at low levels.

Once again, I'm thanking whoever's in charge that you aren't in charge. :)

(I, personally, have less fun playing the raids than I do doing a lot of other things in Destiny. I think there's probably a significant chunk of the userbase that would fall in my camp over yours.)

That could very well be true, but if they've never even played the raids, we can never know ;)

I wrote an article a while back where I basically pitched my idea for Destiny 2. I suggested a campaign similar in structure to what Rockstar did with GTA V, where a series of increasingly difficult Raids mark the major milestones through the campaign, with smaller missions and strikes filling the gaps in between.

As Cody suggests, it wouldn't really harm players who prefer other activites (since we'd all be through the main campaign in the first week or two, and could then focus on replaying the stuff we actually want to play) but it could help introduce players to the raids sooner, and give the lower leveled guardians a chance to have a similar (if easier) experience.

Out of curiosity, what is your favorite activity in Destiny? You seem to enjoy PvP a lot. Personally, I think Patrol has a lot of potential. Playing it with friends is great, and I think there's plenty of room for Bungie to do lots of interesting things with that mode in the future.

Ahah. If that's true, then these developers are idiots.

1. If the players don't finish, then all the effort you put into the beginning didn't work to get them hooked after all. You've failed.
2. These players demonstrate a lack of interest in finishing your game. Why are you trying (and failing, as in point 1) to please the people who don't want to play?
3. The end is JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE BEGINNING for a satisfying experience.

Again, not necessarially true on any count, regardless of how you take it. There have been multiple articles on why making a game easier and more accessible doesn't necessarially make it more fun or better. In fact, there's high rate of players who forgo the campaign entirely in favor of the PVP portion.

And yet, despite all this data that no matter how good you make the campaign people will quickly abandon it in favor of PVP, the exclusion of a single-player campaign mode is seen as a sign of laziness on the part of the developer. See Titanfall, which had solid gameplay, good mechanics, fun multiplayer, and was lambasted for not having a single player campaign.

I'm not defending the industry here. Believe me, I'm not. There's a lot wrong with it, and unfortunately I don't have the patience to explain what is wrong, or how many of your suggestions fit in with that problem. However, I would suggest that you look into systems thinking, as it goes in depth into system tampering. You might find it enlightening.

I think you're underestimating the number of players who focus on single player while completely ignoring multiplayer. If I remember correctly, the stats for Halo 3 showed that 70% of the people who played the game never played a single round of multiplayer, ever. Multiplayer gamers are typically some of the most hardcore & vocal fans within a community, and as such we often forget that we are the minority in terms of actual numbers.

Also, Gjallahorn isn't the end all of rocket launchers. I much prefer Truth in Crucible.

So I've avoided pushing on getting a fatebringer. I don't want only one primary that is the best thing I'll ever use. I want variety, and I'm willing to sacrifice a little to help keep me on my toes.

It's not the be all end all. I have one and I use plenty of other primaries. It's great, but you won't want to use it in every situation.

Ahah. If that's true, then these developers are idiots.

1. If the players don't finish, then all the effort you put into the beginning didn't work to get them hooked after all. You've failed.
2. These players demonstrate a lack of interest in finishing your game. Why are you trying (and failing, as in point 1) to please the people who don't want to play?
3. The end is JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE BEGINNING for a satisfying experience.

Again, not necessarially true on any count, regardless of how you take it. There have been multiple articles on why making a game easier and more accessible doesn't necessarially make it more fun or better.

I don't think I ever advocated making a game easier. I'm advocating making sure the entire experience is the best it can be, and not pouring focus on the beginning only. It's a losing strategy. You won't win over the people who stop playing, and you will disappoint those who don't.

I've sort of avoided getting one for this reason. I use a number of weapons here and there, and my favorites change based on what activities I'm doing.

I've avoided getting fatebringer for precisely this reason. I don't want a weapon that is so much better than everything else.

This is also how I feel about gjallarhorn. That's a tough one for me because I'm a big rocket launcher fan in FPS games in general. I did some amazing things with half-life's guided missile rocket launcher. I was amazingly good with the RL in Doom. I loved the RL in Marathon. I'm a RL guy. But the problem is, most RL's in destiny don't even come close to the utility of gjallarhorn in many situations. Gally should be a 1 tube RL to even it up with everything else probably. It's just too good.

So I've avoided pushing on getting a fatebringer. I don't want only one primary that is the best thing I'll ever use. I want variety, and I'm willing to sacrifice a little to help keep me on my toes.

But I'm also an anomaly in that I like a real challenge, rather than a script to follow to get what I want. =)

Ahah. If that's true, then these developers are idiots.

1. If the players don't finish, then all the effort you put into the beginning didn't work to get them hooked after all. You've failed.
2. These players demonstrate a lack of interest in finishing your game. Why are you trying (and failing, as in point 1) to please the people who don't want to play?
3. The end is JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE BEGINNING for a satisfying experience.

Again, not necessarially true on any count, regardless of how you take it. There have been multiple articles on why making a game easier and more accessible doesn't necessarially make it more fun or better. In fact, there's high rate of players who forgo the campaign entirely in favor of the PVP portion.

And yet, despite all this data that no matter how good you make the campaign people will quickly abandon it in favor of PVP, the exclusion of a single-player campaign mode is seen as a sign of laziness on the part of the developer. See Titanfall, which had solid gameplay, good mechanics, fun multiplayer, and was lambasted for not having a single player campaign.

I'm not defending the industry here. Believe me, I'm not. There's a lot wrong with it, and unfortunately I don't have the patience to explain what is wrong, or how many of your suggestions fit in with that problem. However, I would suggest that you look into systems thinking, as it goes in depth into system tampering. You might find it enlightening.

This forum also seems very 1%ish, in terms of completion; I don't see a lot of the most frequent posters who play casually. I'm actually quite curious what percentage of the player population plays 'casually'. Although determining what actually constitutes casual in this game is a monster of a different nature.

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

So 80% of players have only played the worst parts of Destiny. Yet another argument for making the raid accessible at low levels.

Once again, I'm thanking whoever's in charge that you aren't in charge. :)

(I, personally, have less fun playing the raids than I do doing a lot of other things in Destiny. I think there's probably a significant chunk of the userbase that would fall in my camp over yours.)

Okay, but you can still do those other things if the raid had an easy mode that was level 20. It would not have one effect on you, but it would have a positive effect on many many people who enjoy or would enjoy the raid, but simply can't level up or don't want to. There is absolutely no downside at all.

This forum also seems very 1%ish, in terms of completion; I don't see a lot of the most frequent posters who play casually. I'm actually quite curious what percentage of the player population plays 'casually'. Although determining what actually constitutes casual in this game is a monster of a different nature.

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

So 80% of players have only played the worst parts of Destiny. Yet another argument for making the raid accessible at low levels.

Once again, I'm thanking whoever's in charge that you aren't in charge. :)

(I, personally, have less fun playing the raids than I do doing a lot of other things in Destiny. I think there's probably a significant chunk of the userbase that would fall in my camp over yours.)

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

I don't think this is necessarially a good metric for drawing conclusions. I mean, wasn't there a study years ago that said that something like 80% of players didn't finish the single player of their games? I remember it being a reason developers touted as to why they put more focus on the first half of the game than the second half.

Ahah. If that's true, then these developers are idiots.

1. If the players don't finish, then all the effort you put into the beginning didn't work to get them hooked after all. You've failed.
2. These players demonstrate a lack of interest in finishing your game. Why are you trying (and failing, as in point 1) to please the people who don't want to play?
3. The end is JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE BEGINNING for a satisfying experience.

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

I don't think this is necessarially a good metric for drawing conclusions. I mean, wasn't there a study years ago that said that something like 80% of players didn't finish the single player of their games? I remember it being a reason developers touted as to why they put more focus on the first half of the game than the second half.

This forum also seems very 1%ish, in terms of completion; I don't see a lot of the most frequent posters who play casually. I'm actually quite curious what percentage of the player population plays 'casually'. Although determining what actually constitutes casual in this game is a monster of a different nature.

According to PS4 trophy data, about 80% of Destiny players have never even played a raid. So there's that.

So 80% of players have only played the worst parts of Destiny. Yet another argument for making the raid accessible at low levels.