Hope is a funny thing. It can get you to the next day, but it can also lead to disappointment. Destiny was built and marketed on hope and each day we wait for that hope to be realized and each day it slips further away. A year and a half ago, we had the hope of what Destiny would be. Five months ago we had the hope of year 2. Two weeks ago we had the hope of a new calendar year. Yesterday the forums, reddit and gaming sites were once again aflame with the absolute train wreck that is the state of the crucible, the endless lag, connection issues and yet another broken (Nightfall) Strike. How have we gotten here? Year one for all its flaws and for all this game wasn't in terms of the giant explorable solar system many of us expected, was still immensely fun. If there was one complaint to rule them all in year one it was accessibility and the lack of built in matchmaking features. There was this amazing content in the VoG and it was like an actual job to try to group up to play it. Yes there were other issues like Vault space, zoo errors, bad economies and initially the loss of vanilla gear with TDB, but the strikes were all fun, PvP was a blast and the weapons were phenomenal. Year 2 had problems from the start. First with wonky pricing and making year one players re-buy content to get bonus exclusives, to eventually gutting the game for anyone who didn't purchase the expansion. For a lot of players that was the jumping off point, but for those who purchased TTK, it really had a lot to offer at the start. The new content (yes it can be debated what constitutes "new" as the Dreadnaught was later found to be the original final level) offered more story than we'd gotten in all of year one. The new missions and strikes were fun. The gunsmith and Armsday were a fresh addition. The new subclasses were all a blast and the overall presentation was smoother with the changes to bounty and quest logs. After my playtime in HoW dropping to mainly just Iron Banner when it would roll around, I was back to playing all the time and it started out pretty great until I leveled up all 3 new subclasses. That’s when it first became apparent that unless you had a raid group or wanted to wade into the epeening world of LFG, there was about 4 days worth of meaningful content to run a week and after that there were basically almost no marks or meaningful rewards to acquire until the next reset. When TTK dropped, one of the things that immediately jumped out was how freely purples (and with 3oC, exotics as well) flowed compared to year one. From the first 3 strikes of the week, to Armsday requisitions, it seemed we'd find great gear much easier. The reality ended up being something quite a bit different. In year one I was constantly finding new things to try and they'd become my new favorite. Cryptic Dragon Suros MIDA B-Line Trauma Vanquisher Up for Anything Three Little Words Coiled Hiss Hygeia Noblesse Na3d1 Salvation State Plug One Wizard 77 Plan C Truth Dragons Breath (I liked it) Gjally LDR (all 3 elements) Saterienne Rapier Icebreaker Abyss Defiant Every time something new dropped, it had the potential to be great and not only that, but unique versions of them would drop. I still have 3 Coiled Hiss, one with 3rd Eye, one with glass half full and one the perfect balance laser from the vendor. The weapons year one (and particularly once they introduced Etheric Light to bring forward vanilla gear) were beyond awesome. Year 2 saw us lose all that, but there was the hope that the new gear would prove even better. Instead, 5 months into TTK (yeah, it's been that long), I still not only have yet to find weapons I like or that work as well as my year one weapons, but the semi-decent shit I do find, I can't get with perk rolls I want. Seriously, I've leveled up DO probably 30 times since TTK dropped and not one time have I gotten a Hung Jury in a rewards package. I don't -blam!-ing want Firefly; I want Full Auto, 3rd Eye and/or Explosive Rounds. Same for Last Extremity, hasn't -blam!-ing dropped. It's like the game sees I don't use shotguns, Sidearms or Hand Cannons and gives me them every single -blam!-ing time. 5 month into this Expansion my main weapon is still Last Extremity and I barely used it last IB because of the stupid nerfs that made using Scouts "a crutch". Literally everything I use regularly I got within the first 2 weeks of TTK dropping. Bungie will take that and turn it into their vindication for all the tragic weapon "balancing" they've done, but the fact of the matter is that over the first 8 months this game was out until they decided to completely -blam!- ARs, I used more and loved more weapons in this game than I have in all the time since. When Destiny launched anything was viable. Special ammo was basically infinite and yet I used my primary 90% of the time in PvP. It wasn't until ARs were nerfed that the dawn of the shotgun descended upon us and it's been one painful debacle after another since. I'm not going to go into that full history here as there are enough threads about Weisnewski and his pathological destruction, but the fact is that 5 months into TTK there just aren't any interesting weapons to acquire (even raid gear) and the few that are somewhat interesting either have been nerfed to the point of being pointless or are just not worth the endless grind trying to get versions with perks that just won't ever drop. And that unfortunately brings us to the final straw that's broken year 2 which is all the content that we did love and that was great that was left behind. And no, not just all the amazing gear and weapons. Winter's Run Summoning Pit Devil's Lair The Nexus VoG Crota's End PoE Flaming -blam!-ing Skulls Nightfall XP bonuses Yeah we got Sparrow Racing and it was fun, but it wasn't enough to counter this last weapon patch that was the final straw for a lot of people or the way TTK has failed to evolve and add to its initial promise [i]at all[/i]. [quote]Inscrutable loot filled fortress[/quote] I bet I haven't been to the dreadnaught in a month and a half. I know Bungie read our posts and I genuinely believe that some like Cozmo, the artists, programmers and designers probably care immensely about this game, but I'm not sure anymore that the passions of those who pour their hearts into this game are enough to overcome the minds of those determined to shape it into the twisted caricature it's become. I don't know DeeJ personally, but we all know he doesn't play Destiny. I have no doubt that Mr. Weisnewski is a grand fellow irl, but I hold him more responsible for making this game unplayable than anyone else. So what are the answers and what can fix this? CONTENT AND FUN. Two things that have been ripped from this game at every turn. We never got more powerful, we got nerfed. We didn't find new worlds to explore; we were forced to abandon those we loved. We’ve all been on this roller coaster together for a long time now and those who’ve stayed on the ride and those who’ve jumped off… We all still want the same thing. We want Destiny to be great and even when we spend less time in-game, we’re still here because this community is made up of so many people who genuinely care and want this game to be better and keep hoping Bungie isn’t just listening, but actually taking our thoughts and feedback to heart. It's time to bring back the old content. It's time to make year one strikes and raids relevant again. It's time to roll back all the weapon balancing (the road to hell is paved with those well intentioned patches). IT'S TIME TO BRING FORWARD ALL YEAR ONE WEAPONS and it's time to let us play how we want to play and not how some dev wants us to play this month, because I can tell you right now, I have played exactly once since the last IB ended and it just pissed me off to use the wreck that are weapons in 2.0.1 I have said before that I understand that 90% of Bungie are working on Destiny 2 and I hope to God that they are learning from the sins of this release, but that does not excuse year 2 being butchered and left to die. Hope. It's a funny thing and it's sad watching it die.