izigame.me

Despite what it says on the tin, Destiny 2 is NOT a free to play game anymore. It used to be, but I'll get to that...
Destiny 2 is a very fun game at times and a place to vibe, explore, meet new people and grind, however I cannot in good conscience recommend Destiny 2 to a new player since they are unable to play all the content I was able to play back when Shadowkeep first came to Steam. I would also say that Destiny 2 has a yearly subscription model in terms of its expansions ans seasons (provided of course you buy the deluxe versions of the expansions with all the seasons included to save a bit of money). The difference between this and an MMO, however is that you're not locked out playing the game when your subscription ends. This comes as a direct result of "sunsetting" whole expansions/destinations/pvp maps/seasonal content/weapons/exotic weapon quests/power capped gear and barely anything returning from the Destiny Content Vault. A new player would have to spend a lot of time watching Youtube videos to be caught up to the point where they would start the game. I would rather them just be able to just play through it. Red War was my introduction to Destiny 2 so it has a special place for me, Curse of Osiris was just too short and lacking in content but had cool characters, The Warmind was mediocre but being able to explore a large area of Mars was cool, Foresaken was a turning point for the game in general and I enjoyed the story, Shadowkeep and Beyond Light were both mediocre, Witch Queen was excellent and I hope Lightfall improves upon what people liked about Witch Queen. We are still missing five original D2 raids by means of the Leviathan and Scourge of the Past. I would hope that at the very least the expansions and stories that people paid for return.Forsaken was the last thing to go and bungie have stated they plan on stopping sunsetting for future expansions, but with no news about prior ones. The new/free to play player experience is the worst it has been since this game came out on steam. Red War, Curse of Osiris and Warmind used to all be free and fully playable pre-sunset. Now that is all gone. The only way to get exotics to drop if you do not have them already is to get them from the kiosk and exchange materials and in game raid currency. Once you own all the exotics, the only way to get new ones that come with a new season is by grinding master lost sectors or go for better rolls either by doing GMs or lost sectors. Secret missions used to be a thing for weapons and their catalysts like Hawkmoon, Bastion, Whisper of the Worm, Outbreak Perfected and Dead Man's Tale, however things like these will probably never return. Instead we now get two weapons. one from the season pass and one from content released within the season itself. This then becomes accessible to free to play players through the kiosk after the season ends.
The Seasonal Stories are solid additions to the game however the caveat is that seasonal content and activities get old quite quickly when it is the only thing available. There should be a playlist made available to play the old seasonal activities for the sake of variety both three and six man. Also being there during the time where it was possible to do 12 man raids, I hope bungie decide to add that sort of thing in future.
Weapon crafting is a neat addition to the random rolls however there are some weapon perk combinations that you can only get from random drops such as triple tap/fourth times the charm allowing you to fire for an extensive period of time, even more so with exotic armor pieces like Actium war rig.
PVP is not in a good place. It is in need of a rework and certain changes need to be undone such as the introduction of in air accuracy, flinch increase across the board (both pvp and pve) making certain weapon types far more desirable than others, the nerfing of movement exotics and the nerfing of movement itself such as sliding, dashing and ape-ing where arguably most of the skill is, This has encouraged a "boots on the ground" approach to gameplay which just isn't what Destiny is. The map selection is stale considering they added one new crucible map and one reprised from D1 with the return of the King's Fall raid, in a three year period with a lot of D2 maps still missing and the map rotation playlists being biased to certain maps causing people to quit more often. Bungie's solution to this was to punish players by adding a competitive quitter penalty for a casual playlist mode like control. To date there are still no game mode playlists either. instead it's the same 6 slots with one rotating mode, private matchmaking and either trials or iron banner in a seventh slot.
Gambit while referred to as another core activity is not fun, has no variety, the prime variant came fused as part of the main game mode however the prime rewards were all sunset. Occasionally you might have fun maybe team wiping, but otherwise you will be one-shot by people who have memorised the spawn locations of the three gambit maps left in the game with either a linear fusion rifle, Xenophage or Gjallahorn.
With the most recent seasons have come class overhauls much like with stasis when it first came out where you can customise your class, so bits and bobs from each class are shared whether it be equipment or abilities, however this has positively affected certain classes and neutered the identity for others. I play warlock exclusively and it feels like the void and solar trees have been affected by this a lot. We lost a melee ability, atomic breach and in turn got a projectile melee that grants devour and does not trigger with enemies that are immediately in front of you. Also you now have to sacrifice being able to use more powerful grenades if you want to be able to dash at all and the only way to dash twice now is by consuming your grenade not to mention you do not move very far at all when you dash and momentum is lost.
Overall the game is still good, but bungie keeps making questionable decisions with where they want to take the game. I can understand why people have left, but I will be sticking with the game for the time being.