[b]Sunsetting[/b] Lots of angry posts. Lots of hate and rage. The usual players attacking devs on their social media accounts and yet another community backlash. In fact, the only constant over the last 3 1/2 years is that the community is always angry. So yeah, Sunsetting. Let's talk about that. Why is it happening? What is its purpose it is trying to achieve? Bungle stated in last week's TWaB [quote]We want the sandbox to feel interesting, exciting, and dynamic, and to evolve in compelling ways over time in the same way that the game evolves. Our weapons are the primary way that players interact with the world, and Season over Season we want players to discover new weapons that feel powerful, have interesting new perks to explore, and power the builds that players craft in new and unexpected ways.[/quote] With Destiny 2's current kill times, this was almost impossible to achieve because any power creep would break the game. The only way to give weapons a chance to stand out over the last 2 years has been to nerf, nerf and nerf some more; to the point where the only way forward was to just remove weapons to make way for new. The interesting thing about all of this is that Destiny 2 was originally built to not encounter this issue. When D2 released, it did so with kill times that were designed to allow for power creep and for our weapons, and ultimately our Guardians to grow more powerful over time. Of course kill times were only one aspect of that original vision along with other changes like static weapons, etc, but all of it was built in response to 3 years of community feedback in D1 and constant anger at weapon and gear nerfs there. In case anyone has forgotten, the original plan was for our weapons and gear to be sunsetted every expansion. Nothing but exotics progressed into The Dark Below and it was player feedback over 3 years that led to weapons not being left behind to begin with. So what happened and why was almost all of the original vision for D2 scrapped by the start of year 2 and why are we here with sunsetting on the horizon? The answer is one that a lot of players may not like and will inevitably be angry to hear, but it was because of our own feedback as a community and the massive hate campaign that raged on these forums, on YouTube and on Twitter over the winter of 2017/2018. The "dead game", "bungie sucks", and the massively toxic attacks on the game, the studio, the developers, and anyone who actually had fun playing with the whole "positivity is the real negativity" abuse-take. There was a vision in place for Destiny 2 and no, the game wasn't perfect at launch, but it was a foundation being set for a franchise to grow forward in ways D1 never could and to hopefully avoid a lot of its failings and things that led to constant community anger and dissent. We will never know what that game might have been or how fun it could have been here in year 3 because the massive hate campaign did happen, and the Summit happened and by May of 2018 most of the studio had been shifted from developing future content for the franchise to instead creating one of the most massive game design shifts ever implemented post-release. It wasn't just weapon kill times, it was also weapon slotting, random rolls, a complete overhaul of the mod system, the leveling system and the Crucible; and with those massive changes to the entirety of the sandbox and leveling systems, it meant that every other aspect of the game had to be reworked and re-tuned to work with the new systems. Sunsetting was inevitable the moment the decision was made to acquiesce to the community demands and turn the dial back up to 11 on kill times and Guardian power. There was no ceiling to build to anymore and without a ceiling, the only directions you can go are sideways or backwards. The devs have tried to go sideways as much as possible since, but almost from the word go the nerf train left the station again with Sleeper and never stopped rolling. So while sunsetting might be hugely unpopular now, it is a direct result of the impatience and hate that the community turned to 2 years ago that led the developers to acquiesce to community demands and ultimately to this future. It is also worth pointing out that there were other consequences to that massive game overhaul besides the reintroduction of nerf culture. When the entirety of the studio was shifted to rebuilding the franchise (again), it was done not only at the expense of whatever it was the game was originally intended to be, but also in the development of future content in general. It wasn't just Bungie making changes either. Vicarious Visions made changes to Warmind to stop-gap the transition and ultimately Activision and Bungle had 3 studios working to recreate the game. Initially that was a success until the lack of future development from content being scrapped or put on hold during the reboot led to more community angst when players couldn't understand why there wasn't enough new shiny or things to do. There also was the after-effects from the Summit(s), with massive changes to investment, raiding and many other parts of the game that suddenly became much less accessible to average everyday players and solo/small fireteam players, and even led to the split with Activision, the current seasonal model and it's arena-of-the-month setup. I would like to state as well that while I stand that everything we have now is in fact a result of feedback from this community and that anyone who says Bungie doesn't listen could not be more wrong, I also don't hold the top decision makers without fault. Ultimately it falls on them to parse thru that feedback and to decide when to make changes and when to stay true to original visions and over the last 5+ years there hasn't been a lot of faith in any one vision for long. Last but not least I want to say in regards to this quote from the TWaB [quote]We believe Destiny is at its best when you have new desirable things to pursue and when you have active debates with your clanmates about which of those new things to bring into the new raid, or which is going to be hot in Trials next Season.[/quote] I could not agree any less. This statement says to me "we believe the game is at its best when content creators and influencers are engaged" and has nothing to do with the regular average everyday player and what they find enjoyable. This is just one more result of the fallout from the massive hate campaign and that original Summit. I wish we could have seen the game Destiny 2 might have been, but at some point the studio needs to stick to a vision and the community needs to give it time to develop and evolve naturally. Thank you.