[quote]For me, it isn't about chasing some loot, it is about having fun and playing with friends. When I play, I'm rarely playing alone. Even if I'm in an activity solo I'm usually in a chat with some friends I met on Destiny joking around and having a great time. I get that I don't need Destiny for that, but Destiny is what brought us together in the first place. If you don't enjoy the game for what it has for replay value that is fine, but don't think there aren't quite a few of us that just enjoy playing the game.[/quote] You and I are a lot alike in that we both play to have something to play with friends. The difference is that me and my group of friends TRULY enjoyed chasing down elite-tier gear and godrolls in PVE, and using that gear in PVP. We cared less about the game being ultra-balanced and competitive because we accepted that in a lootgrinder, your loot is going to influence outcomes to some degree. We still had fun. And when the game removed our reasons for playing THIS game, we moved on to other group-oriented games like Warframe and ESO. Destiny has shown my group that it wasn't the game we enjoyed so much as the people we enjoyed the game with. And we don't NEED Destiny for that. We would ALL love Destiny to be that game though, believe me. But its not going to be that game unless it returns to basics and Bungie accepts/recognizes our reasons and motivations for playing the game. As for you playing D1's PVP and never getting bored, its incomparable to D2's PVP. In D1, you were powerful enough to have those highlight, splash moments, even if you were a committed casual. You always had guns to chase after if you wanted to play the meta. And you may like your current guns, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't want a gun with a different roll just to try out. NONE of that will come into play in D2. It's going to be all teamshotting, all the time. It's going to be using guns that have mediocre rolls by design - no god rolls. And no taking chances because you will be punished more harshly for it. As a DIEHARD Halo fan, I can tell you that that kind of gameplay can only take you so far before the only people left playing the game are committed/sponsored MLG players or nostalgic fans who log on every great while to play a few matches. And the rest of the players move on.

I think we are in agreement for the most part, I just think, by looking at DLCs in D1, that there will be some things added when the DLCs drop. I wouldn't be surprised if they add 8v8 with a DLC and call it something new. One of the reasons I say this is that on the Destiny 2 page in the Xbox store it says Destiny 2 is a 1-16 player game and I can't think of anything in D2 that is limited to 16. Social spaces and patrol areas allow for more than that, and nothing else comes even close to being a 16 player experience. I can't think of any other reason it would be labeled a 1-16 player game unless 8v8 was planned at some point. It is just speculation on my part but I do think there are things that Bungie is planning on adding so their DLCs are a little beefier.

Adding a new PVP mode and a handful of new items to grind for doesn't solve the issue of replayability. Even games like Halo features 8v8 BTBmatches, and they still followed the normal ebb and flow of a traditional FPS. It wouldn't make the game instantly more replayable and instantly bring back the magic D1 had. If they want to bring back the magic of D1, they can start by abandoning their current approach to the game, port over everything from D1 - subclasses, loadouts, gear, etc. (since the new loadout system is gone there is no reason to leave behind everyones favorite stuff), add in RNG-lootbased incentives to replay the game, update the old subclasses with some of the newer abilities people like from D2 (replace Defender's vanilla Ward of Dawn with the Captain America shield ability), Have balancing roughly similar to HoW in PVE and PVP, separate Trials off from the rest of the game in terms of balance and gear, and that's just a start. But I can't even imagine them taking SOME of these steps with any of the first 2 DLC's because such changes represent a major overhaul. I don't think they will simply abandon their quest to make Destiny an Esport after a single month. They'll want to try to see how it pans out in the long haul, meaning significant, substantaive, and substantial changes will not come until their first TTK-like DLC, scheduled to launch sometime in late 2018. I've been wrong before, but I'd bet on the game not changing substantially until then, if at all.

So basically you just want them to turn D2 back into D1? You realize how much hate that would get from all of the people that are already screaming "this is just a D1 reskin"? I get what you are saying and that you must have enjoyed D1 more, but D2 is a little different, and I personally enjoy most of what they have changed. I get that everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but most of the people on my friends list I have talked to that played D1 til the end agree with me that as a whole, D2 is a higher quality product.

I realize they'd catch a lot of hate for it, but why change what people liked about D1? Seriously. Why waste time developing things for a game to try to make it new and fresh when those changes are ill received? Many of these changes aren't even changes we asked for. What we've been asking for this whole time is really simple. More content, separation of PVE from PVP, optional matchmaking, recognition and respect for the time we've spent in this game, more reasons to explore, etc. And what we have gotten is pretty much the polar opposite of what we wanted. Sure, we got more content, but we now have less reason to play said content than ever before so whats the point? [quote]but most of the people on my friends list I have talked to that played D1 til the end agree with me that as a whole, D2 is a higher quality product.[/quote] They're saying that now, but the game is less than a month old. Lets see if that holds true 6 months from now when people start getting burnt out and tired of seeing the same 5 legendary or exotic weapons drop and get tired of having no reason to do the raid, or when they're tired of the way PVP plays (every match being a sweatfest). The core issues are what they are and they won't change, in all likelihood, for at least a year. I wonder how many of your friends will even be playing this game when that time comes.

I would guess most of them will still be playing. 6 months from now I think there will be 2 DLCs, therefore more weapons, loot, maps, missions, strikes, quests, raids, etc. You are judging what the game will be like in 6 months and only taking into account what is there now. That is the purpose of DLCs, to bring new content.

I understand that, but without changing the core system, the new content will suffer from the same ailments the current content suffers from. Static rolls, repetitive drops, guns that don't make much difference in PVE, and therefore, PVE is more of a tedious, repetitive experience that lacks replayability. DLC will temporarily solve those issues by infusing the game with new loot, but the new loot won't be any better than the old loot - just different. It has to be that way to preserve the current PVP system. So that may be enough to keep you and your group playing, but for many others, it'll just be the same old crap, different day. Again, the DLC's will effectively be bandaids to large problems with the core design of the game - that can't be addressed without a major overhaul.

Yea, I think we both enjoy the game for the same things, but for different reasons, if that makes sense anyway. It will be interesting to see what Bungie thinks they have up their sleeves, they said that they were planning events and such so there would be fewer, and shorter dry periods in D2. We'll just have to wait and see what that means.

My guess is more Eververse-centered events, which wouldn't be good for the game. Remember the last Festival of the Co$t? Past behavior is the best predictor for future behavior.

Yea, FoTL was a mess. I hope they learned from it.

Forgive me for being jaded, but this is the same company that failed to separate PVE from PVP to begin with in D2, even though that was one of the Top 3, if not Top 2 problems highlighted by D1. I'm not too hopeful that they will. They've been to successful at what they've done thus far to make significant changes.

On the plus side, after the beta they did up the grenade damage in PvE only so they did make one step toward separating PvP and PvE. A small one, but a step nonetheless.