The Bad Launch was very smooth for me. I logged into the game basically right away, and during my run through the campaign only error coded once. However, this could not be said for everyone. Console players could tell you more, but they’ve experienced game crashing/ruining audio bugs. Moving on to guns, I said previously guns *Feel* good to shoot. But while they feel just as good as ever to shoot, any players who have any familiarity with many guns and gun perks, are going to notice changes that are inconsistent with patch notes, as in they weren’t in the notes at all, such as Queen’s breaker, which was hard meta due to several factors before EoF, got nerfs to its ammo reserves as well as charge time. Now Bungie has come out and admitted that there were several things left off the patch notes as they had made sweeping changes to the core gameplay loop. However, for many players it only hurts the trust they have in Bungie to be forthcoming on their plans, situation, and frankly the competence to playtest/balance their game. And while the last can be said of a Lot of games, with the still relevant knowledge that Bungie has lost and seems to continue to lose large chunks of their staff this continued failure of full communication doesn’t inspire confidence that they have what it takes to have a release dlc or even season with minimal technical issues, and writing at the same time. On Stat changes To give context both guns and armor drop have been massively reworked, to be a tiered system, 1-5. Tier 2/3 being roughly where most longer-term players were before EoF. The guns I say took to the changes well as it wasn’t too different from the soft tiering of craftable/enhancable/multi perk weapons from before. With the exception of tier 1 guns being now completely irrelevant as you can no longer enhance them to tier 2. There is as little reason to be excited for a god roll tier 1, as much as there was little reason to be excited by a god roll drop of a gun you could craft. Armor…is a different story. Armor also is now tiered, again 1–5, and expanding the stat cap from 100 to 200 while making it so every point in a stat is provides some benefits unlike in the old system where any number that wasn’t 0 a point that didn’t contribute to any benefits. To the longer-term players, who hadn’t need to care about the armor chase in quite some time, this a soft reset. An idea I defended to my friends before the EoF as we got assurances that the new stat system will have more benefits for build crafting. However, players didn’t see these promises pan out. For example, the grenade stat promises that from 1-100 it “Increases the amount of grenade energy from all sources” but when tested with a tried and true perk that returns grenade energy (demolitionist) that before the EoF gave back 10% of grenade energy, ensuring a player using this perk got their grenade by the 10th kill with that gun, still only gives 10%. Meaning if the base cool down of your grenade is 2:00, No matter your grenade stat (if it says +150% energy gained vs +25% energy gained) you will get the same amount of time back as the 10% is taken strictly from the base cool down, not factoring in the supposed benefit of “Increases the amount of grenade energy from ALL sources.” This is also true for melee, class, and super. From 100 – 200 the bonus is extra damage for grenade and melee, and an overshield which is decently strong, but honestly for any experienced player while it is helpful, for any more experienced player not worth not investing in over the only 2 stats that actually make a massive difference in end game (I mention end game, because anything works on patrol), weapons and +100 super. As in destiny 2 the best defense is offence as ads cannot hurt you if they’re dead, and why invest into a grenade or melee when that investment can be in weapons to generate super and supers give orbs to fuel surges? Granted this is falling into the problem of gamers optimizing the fun out of the game, and why don’t you just limit yourself? However, one would counter that in higher end difficulties, if you don’t optimize, the likelihood of a clear, drops dramatically. This is in addition that Bungie will regardless have to balance around the maximizers. As for health, previously resilience. The benefits of running high HP feels… underwhelming at best, and down right pointless honestly on average. Yes, before EoF the recuperation mod on legs was extremely useful, but at this point in the game most people have ways to heal beyond leg mods, and the health stat, meaning for good players who can use such alternative methods of healing effectively, the health stat can be just another dump stat. On the Power Grind We’ve come back to it… grinding for power levels as efficiently as possible no matter how Bungie might try to patch methods out. All I can say is the slow drip of intended route of gaining power feels like a slap in the face, especially since most content now have enforced power deficits, with power really only significantly mattering to the chase of getting higher tier drops as higher difficultly levels are lock until you reach a certain power level. And I can only ask does bungie not remember how people celebrated when the seasonal power grind dropped to only 10 levels? Allowing returning players and more causal players join up on their friends? And again, when fireteam power was implemented, again allowing returning and more causal players to play with their friends and not have to grind meaningless power levels? In short people don’t want to grind power levels. If players want to grind the hardest content and are succeeding, they should be able to earn that loot. No power grinding needed. No gatekeeping the real grind in the form of a fake grind. The best explanation I’ve seen is that Destiny 2 is trying to become Diablo. Where every season the player is reset. The difference is that Diablo and PoE support fast efficient runs that showers players with loot by the end of the run. Meaning by the end of the week after a reset, for many Diablo players they can be ready for end game. These philosophies of gameplay loops are fundamentally at odds, as Bungie seeks player retention through grinds, and time gating. Which is bad for players as Bungie plainly displays a clear lack of respect for player’s times. Bungie asks for player’s time to even start to engage with the new and fun things such as tier 3 guns and armor (never mind t4-5).

The Ugly The bugs, dear god the bugs. From sprint, to sounds, to quests, to not teleporting properly in strikes/dungeons, honestly so many bugs not to even mention the really game breaking bugs of crashing… Frankly looking back after the Final Shape Bungie should have taken a year with small content updates like into the light and rite of the nine, to do a compete tlc of the game, -blam!- bugs and improving the quality of life of the player. The Reality I want to know what Bungie’s goal is with Destiny 2. Who is this game for? Because I can tell you it’s no longer a game for me, not with the power grind to start the grind I want to do guns/armor. Not with the number of bugs. Not with the soulless portal. Not with the 4 dump stats. I loved Destiny 2. I love to teach people new raids, dungeons, and GMs. I loved the gameplay, I watched YouTube videos on god roll guides, xur videos, twid updates. I lived on lfg proving myself through mute confidence, communicating through text chat. But I can’t anymore. To Bungie: No one wants to grind Encore or [insert other old content] to be able to chase the loot they want. If you find patterns like this, do not simply react to by -blam!- it, but really ask yourselves why are people doing this? How can we encourage them to play the fun stuff? And while player retention looks good on paper, if done through methods like the meaningless power grind (due to everything having forced power deltas), resentment will only build as D2 hemorrhages players. And I highly doubt a game like D2 can survive only on whale players (the big spenders).