We, namely myself and my husband. Let me explain, because I want to express how much Destiny means to us, and why we’re frustrated with this game. Buckle up, it’s a long story (trust me, it’s relevant), but I’ll provide a tl;dr at the bottom if you can’t be bothered (I don’t blame you). [b]I will not engage with insolent players. You are welcome to disagree as long as the discussion is respectful moving forward, this goes to our fellows who post here. Thank you! [/b] [b]Disclaimer[/b]:[b] Please think twice before commenting on this thread.[/b] You'll make yourself look silly if you make assumptions before reading at least my tl;dr, or reply with some nonsense that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The reason why I'm posting my frustrations here is because I have small hope that Bungie will see this, but I'm not holding my breath. They [b]need [/b]to understand why their “loyal players” are wavering and dropping like flies. ———————————————————————— We preordered Destiny 1. I picked it up on September 9, 2014 at GameStop, making us day one players. We were so excited to see Bungie’s next biggest installment after Halo, that I beelined straight to the mall right after work, giddy with anticipation—like so many others. I’ll never forget how some people recognized the box in my bag, and saying how they were on their way to pick up their game, too. Employees expressed how excited they were to get their copy. I remember how the line was very long at GameStop. Got home, husband and I slapped in the disks, and waited for a wild ride we thought Destiny would be. At the end of the vanilla campaign, I remember my husband’s long silent deliberation as the credits started. We were vaguely listening to Paul McCartney’s dulcet tones. I asked what’s wrong, and he said, “….that’s it?” I told him that we still had the DLC’s to look forward to, since we preordered them. But my heart had sunk as well. The vanilla campaign was… off. Something about it made us both scratch our heads in confusion. “Destiny wasn’t supposed to be like this,” we both decided. The Dark Below dropped. It was so dismal that we considered quitting. The gameplay… y’all. We finished it in an hour BEFORE WE LEFT FOR WORK. We were excited enough to play it, BUT! We hadn’t expected an [i]hour’s[/i] worth of gameplay and story. It left such a scar in our hearts that we [i]wanted to quit[/i], but I reminded my husband that we still had House of Wolves since we paid for that already. House of Wolves came a-howlin’ in. We reluctantly booted up the game, already jaded. Oh. Huh. It actually wasn’t half bad to start. The Fallen had always been an interesting enemy. It had some politics. Variks was cool, the first Eliksni “friend” we ever made. Prison of Elders was neat. The Queen was our boo. My husband and I agreed it wasn’t as bad as Dark Below, but… the campaign still felt short. We decided to give Destiny more of our time, so we preordered the next DLC. The Taken King sealed my adoration for Destiny as a whole. It was around this time that I started purchasing Destiny goodies. I have shirts, earrings, necklaces, a dope Hunter’s knife someone made on Etsy, and more plushies than I know what to do with. I was what you’d call a hardcore [i]fan[/i]. Comic cons, I had to take all the pictures with the Caydes and high five the epic Destiny weirdos like me. My husband was still more jaded and guarded than I was. He said he was playing Destiny mostly for me. However, he admitted that he was starting to enjoy it. The raid was amazing, the campaign did extremely well. It exceeded our expectations. Probably because we had set the bar so low. Because of this, we decided to buy more expansions. Rise of Iron was my husband’s personal favorite. I liked it a lot, but I preferred Taken King. Not much to say—we thoroughly enjoyed it. My love for Destiny continued. For goodness’ sakes—I started making Destiny OC’s. Talks of Destiny 2 started to roll around. We were [i]excited[/i], to say the least. You better believe your pants that we preordered our copy. When September 6, 2017 came around, we were ecstatic. Vanilla Destiny 2 was [i]really[/i] good. My husband and I were happy. History has a way of repeating itself. Curse of Osiris… not much to say, we played it and hated it. They did Osiris dirty and could have done better. We immediately had our guard up after having flashbacks of The Dark Below. Warmind. Ehh. We started, then we fizzled out. It was dull, and we couldn’t be bothered. We started to wonder if playing Destiny was worth it. We seriously considered quitting. Forsaken, though. Hoo boy, let me tell you. When we saw that trailer drop, we [b]knew[/b] we had to play. The love for the game rekindled. The only complaint we had is that they spoiled Cayde’s death. Not cool. But we still played it. We [b]loved[/b] it. Maybe I cried during Forsaken, maybe I didn’t. I’ll never tell. We didn’t play Shadowkeep. After Forsaken, life got in the way, and Shadowkeep just didn’t steal our attention from what was going on in our lives. I got pregnant with my first kiddo! We were the happiest we’ve ever been. As a result, we stopped playing D2 altogether. For some reason, my interest in gaming took a steep nosedive as I focused on nesting for baby-to-come. We didn’t come back to the game until we moved into a new house, and tentatively dipped a toe in. This was around when Beyond Light came out. I spoke with my husband, and his interest seemed to rekindle. “I miss Destiny,” he admitted wryly. So we bought it. I liked Beyond Light, but it wasn’t… my favorite. We got darkness powers, ooooo. This was also the first time we became part of a clan after we got serious with Destiny again. They were also kind and extremely forgiving because we weren’t always reliable players and popped off randomly (we had a newborn!). They were the ones who helped fill us in on what we’ve missed (not much, apparently). Destiny 2 was in a VERY good place. Witch Queen. It was so good. My husband and I completely forgot about that obvious “twist” at the end, so it had a huge impact on us. Easily the best DLC in a hot minute. We liked it a lot. We raved about it for days, unable to believe that we didn’t see such a painfully obvious thing coming. This is where my journey runs bleakest. [b]Season of the BLUNDER[/b]. Bungie… what the hell happened? These last few Seasons were just so… [i]bad[/i]. Mithrax and Eido’s daddy/daughter drama makes me roll my eyes so hard they’re about to go flyin’. Eido was supposed to be the sweet and charming “little sister” the Guardian wants to protect, but it felt incredibly forced. Eramis had [i]no business[/i] shoehorning herself into the Season. The gameplay was lacking and boring. My husband and I got bored SEASONS ago. Needless to say, our disappointment exceeds our enjoyment. So anyway, we talked at length last night. My husband is DONE with Bungie jerking his time and investment around, and I couldn’t agree more. We stopped our preorder. That didn’t mean we wanted to quit. I will explain. We have decided to be cautious moving forward. We will play next season since we’ve already had money set aside and/or thrown at it. We’ve invested so much time and money into Destiny, that we WANT to continue playing, we WANT to see it to the end, but Bungie is making it hard to WANT to keep playing. Whether we play Lightfall or not remains to be seen. Frankly, I want to play it, truly I do. I still love Destiny. Or maybe it’s the [i]idea[/i] of Destiny that I love. ———————————————————————— Rewriting this section to be more concise. I'd be happy to answer any questions and extrapolate on these points. The problems we have with Destiny 2 as it stands: 1. The writing needs to be better. The story was going good, but something is very wrong with how the lore is laid out these days. Are there different writers for each season/DLC? Are they communicating with each other? I have SEVERAL issues with the lore of the game. 2. The Eliksni Quarters was a joke. Enough said. 3. The gameplay used to be fun. I'm tired of the repetitive nature of the game. 4. The game has lost its heart and soul, but whether it had it at all is questionable. Look at Warframe. I feel like the developers love their game, but it does not feel like Bungie loves Destiny. 5. I feel like my time and money investment is disrespected. 6. The power fantasy is gravely lacking. That’s all I can think of right now, I’ll probably add more later. Thanks for reading. ———————————————————————— [b]tl;dr: Disgruntled wife and husband played Destiny since the day it dropped on 9-9-14. Loyal fans/players until recently. Decided to stop our Lightfall preorder because we are tired of our time and investment being disrespected. Cautious moving forward and will tentatively look at Lightfall reviews first. We are not quitting yet. We are going to play next season because we bought the Witch Queen deluxe edition. We aren’t sure if we want to play Lightfall, but we aren’t wasting our time with the preorder benefits.[/b]