I couldn't agree more. I refused to buy EoF because of the extreme changes to armour, the phased sunsetting, and because I will not pay for a 2025 version of Pong, refering to Kepler. However, I have been enjoying the rest of the game and casually levelling up through the portal...... Until I got to to 270 light level. If I stay at expert, even if I put maximum negative mods on, I can just about get a B reward, and if I attempt master, I can barely take damage off rank and file ads. It's as if the game as gone from a regular strike to a GM nightfall . It states master starts at level 300, so why try to force us in at 30 power under? Honestly, I feel like having a nice long break from this until they reduce us back to level 200 again.

I would not say "may have missed", but instead "have missed" :) Over the years Bungie have increased the time needed to play to achieve anything in Destiny. That is, the time to complete even the basic story missions have been prolonged with not one final boss, but bosses in the middle and in the end two or three bosses with three stages. I left missions just because it took too long. Then all the fluffyfluff, like potions and countless other time sinks. And, of course, all the grinding. I think Bungie thinks that players have been playing Destiny for so long, so they have gotten better, so in order to provide challenge they must make it more difficult. But the percentage that plays to win everything in Destiny is quite low. Most players are between the thumb and forefinger, in the casual span. My personal opinion (and I think many may agree, and also many who won't), that master and grand, and raids, should be easy enough in their "easy" setting that anyone should be able to complete it. It should not take 8 hours of studying different YouTubers walkthroughs, years of building and getting guns, and at least half a day of playing to get through. For those who seek even more difficulty they can always make things harder by playing a more difficult version of it, play with a less good build, etc. I know I'm not good enough to even try playing a raid, and I will not have the time either. A game should be inviting for everyone, and everyone should be able to participate in every activity - even if you are a newbie, an older guy as myself, a casual or a pro player. Destiny have over the years alienated more and more players. Making everything take longer, everything - even the "easy" playlists more difficult, just alienates the larger player base. When I sit down and play Destiny, I want to chill. I want to have some shooting action to wind down after work and relax my brain. I also want to feel that I achieved something in Destiny after sitting an hour. I should not have to feel that I did not make any progress at all after that hour leaving me feeling it was pointless to play. Too often that happens now. I've not even started to grind yet. I will start the last story mission somtime when I have time. But so far I've been annoyed over the puzzle-spam in the story missions. Get Matterspark, search a hole, get motion sickness, find a relocator, find what to shoot, go back, find antennas, shoot antenna, again, find matterspark and so on, and so on. While not too difficult, I've often reverted to a YouTube walkthrough so I don't have to spend any extra minutes in game jumping around searching. Also, buggy sidequests. I've started one that popped up, got to the finish to find out that I could not complete it because I could not scan the things on the ground. So fun, I spent that playing time in vain.

I agree. Bungie forgot about the casual players. For harder content there always is end game content. Now they made casual game content super challenging too. Sometimes you run fireteam ops and there are missions where you just can’t get the score or finish it in time or both. Even if you run it with a team of Conqueror+ players together. It is too brutal some levels and you don’t get a lot of room for errors or slowing down a bit. Or you have to wait for mechanics. And then after 400 barely anything is rewarding anymore. You have to play like 20 games and then you get 1 item that is +3. So 60+ games to get your level up 1 light. Hope they tune everything down a bit and put the timers up a bit more on some fireteam ops because it is just ridiculous on things that should be for casuals to play. Also I went flawless this week in solo Trials because the stars were alligned perfectly I guess because this week I played absolute bad. At the lighthouse being flawless I got 4 T5 drops but not even a guaranteed pinnacle.

And how did all these changes help? Everyone who complained about advancing too fast and that things were too easy ended up getting to 450 in a couple weeks anyway. They bought themselves a couple extra days before they could start complaining again.

Not just you. I tried the expert conquest (admittedly solo, which was probably my first mistake, but my regular fireteam aren't all at that level yet) to see if I can get GR 6 and honestly it sucked so hard. Like it is NOT the same as a regular expert activity. I've decided that I think GR 5 is probably going to be as high as I go for a long while which sucks because I've normally topped out on GR 7 pretty much since it was introduced.

The power level nonsense is too much. I’ve barely started but see 10 pts of progress in a week. I like the idea of replaying content with modifiers and different difficulties, but when high level rewards are locked behind -stupid level- difficulty. I’m out. Hope the streamer kids are having fun. Banging my head against the wall is not for me. So I’m playing less not more because of the current system.

Fireteam ops has to be one of the biggest failures they have given us most of the time people just eager edge past everything and not even caring about the bonus the master MM activities themselves feel like pure hell with hardly any positive modifiers in them, they sometimes feel even more of a challenge than the GM stuff The reward system is horrible as well

The biggest issue with fireteam ops is players aren't understanding the ads are what get counted for points. Which means you can push the boss to a point, but if there are still ads spawning in killing the boss early kills your score. Some people are fine with a B grade, I'm not one of them.

I just hit 400 and all difficulties felt that same. Not really hard to me, but to others maybe. I pretty much soloed the whole way. Just the mines are horrible and boring.

[quote]I am an older guy that really enjoys your game. That said, my rank is 7 and have 350 points and find myself maxed out. I do not enjoy your higher tier things they are just too difficult for me. Tried to play a master tier fireteam op and was quickly reminded why I prefer playing solo. Could not do my fair share and one of my teammates was pissed hitting me and shooting at me. Can play solo ops master tier with a B grade which only gives me one point which I find a bit silly.[/quote] Destiny and any other looter shooter have never been casual games. You can play them casually if you make the choice, but that doesn't mean anything needs to be catered to those people making that choice. If you're playing with randoms, then just ignore them and whatever they do. I've had many of them tell me or other people how to play while they spend most of the time dead or just ride the bottom of the team, be it in pve or pvp. If you're not wanting to run solo ops all the time or fireteam ops with sh*tty randoms, then I recommend finding someone to at least play with. At least then you're a 2 stack, so the 3rd is just there as either a safety net if 2 of you down or they are just an added target for the enemies to focus on.