I want to start out by saying I am a massive casual player since beginning my journey here at the Destiny 1 Beta launch. Got both games & DLC’s preordered as well as always grabbing the season passes and I’d say i’m dedicated to this game in my free time but i’d say playing 3-4 times a week for 2-5 hour range is casual. I have no expertise in game development and I barely understand humans as is, let alone a community. But i feel like since year 1, we’ve all experienced this game being shit on. By outsiders and other people in the community. Somehow, someway, we got community of the year award and I think that was our proudest moment. But since then, playing raids, running trials, and entering The Vault, The Crypt, The Garden, & The Last Wish in several runs with 5 other random people have given me the insight that people in the community have so many different perspectives of the game and I feel like YouTubers and influencers in the community have always made this “see it one way perspective”. Since i started back in 7th grade (I’m 19 now in my second year of college), Ive never been able to narrow down certain types of players in the community. You have stereotypes, maybe you’re the casual who has stuck to your favorite exotic since you earned it, maybe you’re someone who’s a hollow shell of who they used to be because you had a favorite, they buffed said favorite, and then nerfed it into the ground beyond use (I’m looking at you, you know which exotics, archetype and builds I’m talking about over the years that this applies to), or maybe you just don’t care and use whatever’s good at the time. I feel like none of us have too much differing each of us in the community. I feel like the sweats nowadays, when you play together with sweats, will enjoy and complain as much about parts of the game as a casual player who dies to those sweats but is glad he can play a few games of trials even if he doesn’t go flawless and still enjoys getting a three win godroll because that guy is probably not much different than the sweat who goes flawless for nothing at times but finds happiness in carrying people, streaming the game to show off his skill and make a name for himself. Both enjoy their time they put in, both are capable. All of us have experienced these moments. Acquiring a ghjallarhorn or maybe even finally finishing that title or even back to the pinnacle weapons that took time and effort (and maybe even tears) to finish. These moments of “why i enjoy playing this game”. Well i feel like there are those moments, but lately, myself and others in fireteams, have missed these moments for a long while in the game. Personally I haven’t felt that excitement since i acquired my Redrix’s Broadsword (before it got slightly buffed only to get shit on by Hard Light). For Playstation users, you might remember me as the guy who always is the dude who asks how everyone is and will talk your ear off about my opinion on the state of the game. I am a player who has experience with meeting amazing people through Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 and I value striking conversation in raids and trails with any other average guardian just wanting to complete gear sets or find that god roll weapon that’s tearing up the meta. But this past week while raiding, I’ve experienced the lows of our community. I started my move over on pc finally and went into trails… At least if you play on console, you KNOW your only problem is being outskilled or outgunned. However, Trials, past Bungie’s big talk for anticheat, still hasn’t done enough as requested by the community. And the balancing hasn’t been “steller” as people might say to you, to defend Bungie and the game, both of which will do just fine without players kissing ass to a company with flaws and an underdeveloped development team. Seriously. People have gotten to the point where they have either left the game more and more, coming back only to be disappointed like i was when i went back to hookup with my ex. It’s not good. Look, nobody is perfect, no one game is perfect (except PS2 Cars and Black Ops II) and I won’t go up like so many others have and make a standard. But seriously, stop getting our hopes up for development and then just… shit on our hopes like this season and last. Great amazing storytelling, something i have wished for SINCE THE BEGINNING, but let’s cut the crap. Crucible hasn’t been balanced since The Taken King. Don’t argue with me, it was. I need people to hear this too. The special ammo economy isn’t the problem. Primary balance always has been. Heavys are great, special weapons right now are about as good as it’ll get, i don’t see anyone complaining about fusions needing a buff or sniper flinch or even grenade launchers anymore like mountaintop. Just… fix stuff, go take in several videos of community opinion on the balance needed, go play other games and see their balance, but most importantly, if you keep a good balance across the board, but not so radically make a weapon stronger than others, just for a limited time seeing a weapon stronger in the meta, that would honestly be fine. The phases of weapons being massively strong were good times but you can’t just nerf said weapons into the ground. We’ve all experienced the grief of seeing the same weapons used constantly but we also know when our favorites just can’t cut it in either map size or the gap of TTK in current development. If you just made it all fair and balanced across the board, people could literally use anything they want in crucible. If you went for better map size diversity in CRUCIBLE AKA MAKE SOME MAPS ALREADY I DONT CARE ABOUT A NEW EVERVERSE SET OR WHO WASNT AT THE DAMN BUNGIE SUMMIT. Just… listen to us. Listen. Give us some good reason why story is being laid off for a good while (3 months time), delay a season with 150-200 levels in the pass with filler loot, and take some time to develop crucible. PVE and story can wait, because our community and player base is about frustrated. Destiny is a two sided game: PvE & PvE, nothing is focused on just one activity. You give us options, so balance each part of your development cycle and leave one static balance to boot until a year or so, because this community has complained for good changes, other complaining for the dumbest changes i’ve ever heard, and I think if everyone and everything were actually WEAPON FOCUSED, then we’d have a better time picking what we want to use, exotic would feel exotic, dedicated servers would create the radical environments outside of the static balance, and player morale would flatten out. We can’t stop you from keeping something permanent. Sometimes a set way to have things is good and defines what Bungie is about. Creating a world, creating a story. Players should want to experience these worlds and stories and not have to worry about feeling bad when they want to use a cool weapon only to find out it’s trash. If you take time to develop these weapons, keep them relevant. Because we’ve spent years to develop builds and get used to using a weapon only for sets or weapons to be sunset and we know it’s hard on developers to just put away hard work just as it is for players. Put more maps into the game, new story, new worlds. But for the health of the community, assert a one correct balance to all and use the abilities and seasonal artifacts and mods as the only factors in both pve and pvp to define the metas and gunplay. Maybe this is stupid, maybe i’m stupid. But if everything was strong as can be, then nothing would be strong, so make everything on a fair field, and if you allow more skill, aka the ability for players to adapt to different environments and rules set in like PvE, then PvP should have the same challenges in different maps and playlists. All in all this would help community morale and lower the amount of shit this game and the community gets for all of our toxicity and pain through the game of time spent being useless in the end & confidence in development not being based on the state of a meta, but being judged on what you pump out and the storytelling & world building & competitive raid days/weekends as intended from the beginning. Players in their fireteams talking about how good it is, interested in how the story is forming or maybe coming to a close. All i’m saying is, this game from the start hasn’t been mainly focused about what the meta is, and it shouldn’t be anymore. Yes the seasonal model is good for the only time a meta should be shaken up, every 80-100 days. No, a player should not have to come back only for their weapons to be in the dump or sunset ever again and I’m glad at how community morale has recovered since sunsetting has been sunset since it quite literally took away a LOT of hard effort us players put out outside of raid gear and exotic quest exotics that we can’t earn from random RNG now. Destiny is a time consuming game. It’s about time we stop consuming most of our time crapping on the game and enjoying it sincerely again with better changes and better content season by season. But lastly, can we all agree the music needs to go up a notch, music be a main focus sometimes on the attitude of encounters and not just reused planetary music? Like, -blam!- it up and make some bangers. We love that shit as a community. Music truly has always been a big part of the game and I hope it will continue to be again, instead of yk, taking legal action against Martin O’Donnel aka useless money management into lawyers and court fees.