I’m in the process of leaving the game now for all the reasons you just said. Like you I’m a D1 beta vet, and since then I’ve managed to find a good group and we’ve done every single piece of content that’s come out. Every raid, every dungeon, campaigns on legendary, every nightfall and even hit the lighthouse twice for myself (my friends have gone much more often) I’d rate myself as an above average PVE player (I don’t solo dungeons, not quite good enough) and I’m a VERY mid PVP player but I am ok with that. For me the game has become unrewarding. Trying to get a specific roll on a weapon has become frustrating. Add in the weight gate revelation and the fact tonics have been buggy and I don’t feel like my time spent is rewarded at all. I feel like there is too much RNG and it needs to be dialed back. Then there’s this last raid that released. I have enjoyed every single raid that has come out but I find salvations edge was and is an absolutely MISERABLE slog to get through it. I agree with you. It was designed for the hardest of the hardcore and it is representative of the game as a whole, and by that I mean that they’ve abandoned the idea of fun. Add in all the bugs and broken/disabled stuff and the game has become more of a chore than ever. It’s a video game. Games should be fun. They can also be challenging if it’s FUN challenging and I realize that both those terms are subjective for each individual out there. But a grind-fest bashing your head against a wall over and over for days or weeks on end to try to get something you want as a way to increase metrics and “engagement” (whatever the hell that is) does not equal fun. Plus most of us have lives and real world responsibilities and can’t live on this game all day every day. There needs to be way more agency in loot. The double drops in the dungeon to make up for weight gate got me a ton of double armor drops that were instantly deleted. That happened to way more people than just me and that is the exact opposite of rewarding. The difficulty spectrum, I’ll admit, is a tough line for them to walk. Cranking things to 11 across the board isn’t going to get new people or casuals to play because they’ll just drop out. At the same time you do need to have some things that people who are really good at the game enjoy as well, but if you go too far you push people away and Neomuna is a perfect example of that. No one I know goes to that location unless they have to. Everything there is a bullet sponge while we get melted by stuff and guess what? That isn’t FUN so that whole space is mostly abandoned by people. Making things super hard across the board has clearly had the opposite effect as we continue to watch player numbers decline. So many builds that used to be viable have also been nerfed into oblivion. Yes, prismatic has added in a few new things, but as helldivers showed, nerfing everything kills a game because people aren’t enjoying themselves. If people don’t feel rewarded, and/or don’t feel like they can succeed at an activity, AND feel like everything they enjoy gets nerfed and isn’t usable, then odds are they aren’t having fun and aren’t going to continue playing the game. If bungie would focus on making things fun and rewarding we would be in a better place, and they would be making way more money. Instead, we have a bug and micro-transaction riddled grindfest that isn’t fun to play and that doesn’t reward our time. THAT is why people are leaving.

I still play, just not a lot. The only reason is that the gunplay is still up there. Its fun to shoot stuff in Destiny. And the game looks amazing, the art direction and music is top notch. As for why I am on the way out of the door .. The story. It's become a joke. This is an amazing world but it's like everything stops so we can concentrate on this one thing over here. And the writing is just atrocious. The Episodes are awful. Echoes ended with us knowing the identity of the Conductor, which most of us guessed anyway, and that was it. Along the way it was four months of therapy for two gay couples. And then, when the Conductor was stood with just a couple of Vex while Ikora, Saint and Zavala and us stood there just watching, she got away by jogging away slowly. As for Revenant, it's been like two minutes of story of which I care not one jot. Bungie are incapable of writing a coherent, engaging story. It has to be about emotions or relationships. There is more story in a Witcher 3 side quest than the entire past two seaso .. "Episodes". And the time gating of a Season Pass is ridiculous. Bugs .. Way too many and way too little effort being directed at sorting them. Content Vaulting .. The amount of content we have lost, that we paid for, is beyond the pale. I want so many locations and their associated activities back and imagine being a new player and not being able to play the Red War or Forsaken ?? .. Ridiculous. The Reef was cool, I loved the Fallen Disco Lost Sector. These are integral parts of the lore that we cannot play anymore. Activities .. I dont Raid or do Dungeons. Raids are just tedious mechanics for me. Haven't touched Vespers Host after hearing about the bugs and the bullet sponge boss a la Ghosts of the Deep. But the core activities of this game are my bigest bugbear. Gambit, we had two modes, Prime was taken away. Armour Sets focused on Gambit roles that we could chase. Most weapons are meh. We got a new map, that you hardly see and we also now have constant catch up mechanic invasions which make trying pointless because the other team are helped to catch up with you. Dares has been left to rot, the loot is terrible and there is hardly anything of it anyway to make the effort worthwhile. Vanguard Ops .. Wow, instead of all the varied strikes we could have we get Battlegrounds, over and over .. and over. We played them for an entire season, enough. Bring back the Devils Lair from Rise of Iron with the Snow and the Guitar solo as well as Pyramidion, Savathuns Song and all the other strikes that were removed. Add in Strike Specific loot and bingo, I'll play that for days. I only play PVP during Iron Banner but the laggy connections, cheaters, and rubbish game modes have killed my interest in that as well. The difficulty .. I like a bit of Difficulty, but c'mon. When I am doing a 2005 Nightfall and my 2030 Warlock with 100 Resilience and 99 Recovery is getting insta melted by a red bar Arc Wizard something is wrong. It feels like the response to improving the game is just to put more enemies, with more health that move around more. And then timegate the Boss as well, the Shank at the end of the Cosmodrome has four different sections for pete's sake. Why ??, it just feels off on so many levels. I am 2010 on all three characters with 20 on the artifact and I don't feel powerful, power level is just a number to gatekeep entry to activities. There's more. But I am bored of typing and cant be bothered listing it.

Started a new topic: The reasons this game is perceived to be difficult(7 Replies))

Salvations edge was awful. By far the least friendly to anyone who hasn’t done the raid before.

Bless the mighty A - his viewer numbers are dropping. Mind you he jumped ship a while ago and is mainly posting Warframe so theres that. Its interesting the difficulty thing. I’m bored stiff of doing seasonal activities like PoE and Onslaught salvation that can take up to an hour each. Been reverting to pale heart for some novelty and just running around doing activities whilst eating jaffa cakes and listening to garbage - aka on auto. What struck me was that previously I could do that and have a chill hour or two without dying. Now, since all the tweaks and difficulty balancing of the last year, I find things hitting like a train and my resists are pathetic. So not so chill anymore. Other activities like the early dungeons I used to chill in, are becoming a pain in the -blam!- for the same reason. Can I do em? Course I can - but bow the question is why bother if its going to be more frustration than fun. And that sums the game up right now.

The raid mechanics are not too difficult… The people are. Although rare, when you get a kind person that really wants to teach in this game, it is not difficult at all. The reason it is rare to find said people or friendly raid group is because everything takes up too much time. Patience is tested in this game more than anything else. I do not touch the raids in this game because I am a solo player and deal with enough people in dungeons and in gms that make this game more difficult than it needs to be. And I do not mean bad players or players coming to grips with the game… I mean those players that cry over one death or one fail of a boss fight.. they complain, have something negative to say about a player and they leave. But in today’s destiny, a player needs a 3 or 4 hour window to do something… Or.. in bungies fault of things… Need pay walls to do certain activities etc.. I did a GM the other day through an lfg join on a non meta warlock build and was hard carrying two players.. And the first thing they had to say was an apology because they were dying. And I had to inform them that I am not one of those players… that all was good. We got it done. This is the fun I have. I know for a fact they were apologizing because of the negativity they face while just trying to play the game. Bungie has their issues.. and those issues are pulling the worst out of people. Too many paywalls, too many stretched out content activities with a punishing rng system, and a lack of growth in the core content makes redundancy punishing… But the game is like no other. What we can do in this game does not exist in any other game. And, like stated above, the players themselves are the biggest issue. Too much pride, too much selfishness, and not enough patience. GM’s, PvP, dungeons, raids are not friendly due to the players… not bungie. Bungies needs to fix this game will not happen any time soon… But it is most definitely not bungies fault for the way players act in said activities and the people are the reason in todays gaming that no one uses their mic’s anymore. Obviously this is not towards every player… Because when you meet the awesome friendly players, this game is a masterpiece in any activity.

Yup, Bungie's "Bring back the challenge" mentality has driven away the majority of the playerbase, and ensured that we'll never get any new players, because the game is too brutal on them, and has no tutorial/new player experience.

I have over 6k hours in Destiny 2. I and others were vocal that increased difficulty was not the way to go. Bungie instead listened to streamers who can find other players to run higher tier content easier. I only continue playing to waste time in between other game releases. I don't care if a player doesn't KWTD as long as they are not brain dead I most likely won't leave if the team fails a checkpoint, etc. Sometimes I do have other obligations though. Anyway, I agree that Bungie locks out a part of the player base, I remember when it seemed that they hated solo players.

Reasons i stopped playing: - corporate greed - competent devs got fired, a skeleton crew of devs who dont know their audience and have zero passion for the game is in charge now - game is basically abandonen by Bungie in favor of now failed new ip's - absolute primary focus on mtx's rather than gameplay and player fun - player engagement number focus = wasting players time by stretching unnecessary grinds to satisfy shareholders - zero content for main pillar game modes, instead throwaway garbage content to sell seasons - The DCV - Zero effort to fight against cheaters (ximmers, actual cheaters, network manipulation etc) - Terrible matchmaking that made pvp players leave (SBMM) in casual gamemodes - Ancient netcode - Never listening to actual players feedback but instead listening to elitist 24/7 gamers/content creators feedback - Made the game too hard for the vast majority of players - Difficulty in general is fun and makes games interesting. The "difficulty" these devs chose isnt. Bullet sponges are not fun in shooters. - Ability spam / build crafting focus (biggest strength of Destiny was gunplay). Now you spam abilities cause everything is too hard for the peashooter weapons -Story telling is cringe and uninspired - The games death sentence was signed when they announced they arent doing major DLC annualy anymore Thats my most important and significant reasons. The list would go on but ia have a 30 word essay due tomorrow so i cant continue :) To sum it up, D2 = bad nowadays and has no hope on the horizon to recover.

I stopped playing because the repetitive content. Buggy content that never gets fixed. Realized Bungie doesnt care enough to fix the bad issues but they'll trip over themselves to fix a cheese that benefits the player. Finally the toxic community, cant tell you how many times I, and many others, have been told "if you dont like it, leave" Well, we've left.

Bungie-- DO YOUR JOB. This person's opinion is more common than not. Any reasonable, normal adult is expected to perform at at least an acceptable manner at work. So do you. Well, I apologize-- I forgot that you are better than the rest of us... You have managed to take one of the best player bases in video games, and reduce it by half since January 2022. I'll skip publishing my analysis. Simply look at the published averages of all independent sources regarding player numbers, average them together, and look at the trend line. BTW, I had time to post because I was banned from Trials for leaving a match early-- which I DID NOT!! This is not the first time this has happened. As an ex-programmer of just average skill in this field, I could (and would) easily program a game to prevent this from happening. But that's because I care about the quality of my work, and I care about how my work serves the clients who pay me to DO MY JOB. Clearly you do not. Your contempt for the solo player, your complete lack of respect of your player base, your repeated intentional lying, and your attitude that you are superior to your customers is blatantly and sickeningly obvious. Seriously Bungie, please GROW UP AND DO YOUR JOB. (You have been paid very well, yet you refuse to perform in at least a reasonable and professional manner.) On another note, I'd like to thank some of the ridiculously skilled players of this game. I am only an average player at best, but for ten years, this player base has realized that I am honestly trying as hard as I can when I am in a team activity, and has routinely carried me through some obnoxiously difficulty main campaign missions-- with no thought of reward. As a 60 year old, with badly damaged nerves and severe arthritis, this player base has managed to make the game "playable" for me. The world really needs more people like you.

I've been saying this for years, ever since the Duality Dungeon, the dungeons had become a silly ads fest and over relying on builds and mechanics but as long as the top 0.0001% is happy then it's alright then. Any new player will try it once and leave. Me and my fireteam just cannot do the last 3 dungeons, just too much and we paid for content we cannot do (Elitist f..ktards - f..off with any "Get Gud" BS). Bungie really needs to listen to the normal player base and do some QoL changes to allow us to play the content we paid for. Make a GM version of dungeons for the sweat lords and let us play the normal stuff. Your "Edit 1" is spot on.

I don't think that it is dying, i think it just looks like it because some new games that people were excited for came out. Path of exile 2 is massively popular right now. My friend is playing non stop right now since it launched. Aztecross mentioned it as well. Perhaps people are just waiting for the next dlc to see what the next story and focus is.

I have pretty much left Destiny. I've played since D1 and it was one of only two games I actively played. (Ironically the other game is a PVP game but I HATE the fishbowl, sweat-fest that is the Crucible!). Now, I only pop into D2 from time to time. Such is the mess they have made. Too many poor decisions and a culture of pandering to the sweaty minority. Pantheon was polarising. It took a toll on clan culture. Then there's the appalling decision to take away craftable weapons. Initially these weapons were a flop. After buying levels was made available, it was such a satisfying achievement. The decision to remove them brought into stark contrast how disconnected Destiny management is from the goals of their players. Crafting is a grind. You can't just waltz into the enclave and make a weapon but it delivered a meaningful reward on the back of the grind which players don't mind. Now, it's gone. FFS listen to your community!!!! Season 25 brought us 100 extra vault slots. "Great!" I thought. With ten years of game history my vault is permanently hovering at 95%-99%. THEN they gave as ergo sums, ECIs and a ton of seasonal weapons. I am sick and tired of not having the space I need. Don't bother telling me how empty your vault is. Meta changes. I have lost count of the number of times I've gone looking for a selection of roles and sub class on a weapon for a specific task only to drag out an obscure little gun collecting dust perfect for the task. If you're not hoarding, you're missing opportunities and Destiny is the one place where FOMO gets me every time! This latest Seasonal content has been utterly woeful with vague pathways and obscure clues. Originally, everything we needed to know was in-game. Bungie now leans so heavily on their partners (like Aztecross) to reveal essential in-game information the game itself is often unplayable. Too much content is only able to be completed by seeking out a external videos for explanation. It's a pain in everyone's backside. Some content like this is fine. Almost everything is NOT! Bottom line: I'm doing the math on the cost of playing Destiny. It's flat out too expensive for the glitch-ridden, grind-heavy, low value content they're delivering. They need to return to their (successful) roots and STOP LISTENING TO THE SWEATY MINORITY!

Yea he helped kill the game. Dude needs to go away go stream something else and destroy it. Tired of all them dudes really.

Streamers are toxic to the game. Streamers keep manipulating Bungie to constantly change the game and then gaslit the game when real gamers hate the changes and leave the game for good. Streamers and Bungie ruined D2. Bungie is out touch with their own gaming community and only make changes that cater to streamers. I'm gonna play Marvel Rivals, at least the game looks fun. I can't say the same for D2 right now.