I agree that they do real damage. But I believe one can oppose them, while not losing sight of their humanity. People usually are who they are for reasons (a mix of trauma, socialization, culture, parenting, biology, etc.). If you tweak those variables, we become someone very different. I try to be mindful that if you shift some of those in my own life, who knows, perhaps I become someone more hateful. At minimum, it at allows me to move through life with a bit more humility.

It seems like such an unhappy way to live. So much anger, fear, and energy going into working themselves into a frenzy, with such little curiosity to try to learn about what they clearly don't understand. As distasteful as I find the video, part of me also feels bad for those caught on that path.

It also enhances part of the moment to moment fun. I've been maxed at samples for basically months, so the only reason I ever pick up samples is for my teammates. If we lose them, I don't actually care, so it changes me gameplay decision. Now I'll be more likely to risk finding samples, or push myself to extract more, as they have a purpose to me again.

This. It really is on Bungie to promote the player behavior they want, or at least not actively motivate detrimental player behavior.

I've basically opted out of farming them. The mission is great but not rewarding enough. I've done some chest loop farms for a few, but none were the role I wanted, and I'm kinda over it. I really wish Bungie leaned into the lesson from Onslaught, and focused on activities feeling rewarding instead of prolonging engagement. 

Sure, take your time.  But the game seems struggling to build hype as it is. Not announcing a date for even the most minor of content additions seems... ill advised.

Targeted farming and shineys made the mode one if the most simultaneously enjoyable and rewarding in Destiny; all of that sacrificed at the alter if promoting previous FOMO.

It's too weak, it takes far too much of a character building investment to get going, it doesn't last long enough, any the share cooldown limits are way too harsh.  I could never see relying on it for end game survivability in its current state.

I don't believe the ritual Pathfinder is meant to incentivize engagement; Bungie are too smart, with far, far, far too much player data to accidentally mess it up. From it's structure, to the difficulty of the challenges, to how they are placed, to not letting players change challenges they don't like, to not having individual Pathfinders for each ritual playlist, to rarely having a straight path one could take within the game playlist; it all absolutely feels like a convoluted bright dust nerf to me. Notice how convenient and reasonable the Pale Heart Pathfinder is. Notice anything else about it? No bright dust as a reward.

I'm so curious to see how much the average player bright dust obtainment has plummeted since the ritual Pathfinder system.

I really appreciate these posts; thanks!

19 out of 20 times, the correct response to a friendly fire is to not sorry about it too much. If you are killed, it's usually just an accident, which is baked into the core gameplay tension. If you do it - even if they ran into your line of fire in a chaotic moment - just reinforce them, hit the "I'm sorry" callout line - and ping their gear. Yes, you'll have your occasional tantrums from people being upset, but just ignore them. If they keep it up, boot'em or leave of it's ruining your vibe.

I've been beating the drum that the game will need regular 'inflection points' to galvanize the community (positively), and most importantly, encourage lapsed players to come back. Most live service games have seasons or expansions for this; big events that tell the community "Hey! There is a bunch of new and fresh stuff to play". Warbonds are far too small (and apparently smaller and less frequent now) to do that. Drip feeding new content (enemies, stratagems, missions, biomes) into the narrative is cool, but it inherently means you can't really market it beforehand (and it's also too little too service as an inflection point). It also feels like we used to get these small additions weekly,  and now it feels more like monthly. 

Big plot points can very briefly get people engaged (destruction of Automation, making the black hole at the super colony), but they're too fleeting and don't really serve as inflection points either. 

I believe the game needs an inflection point it can market. Single releases of new enemies, a mega Warbond, a big plot point, new stratagems, biomes, and missions, all at the same time. Without it, the game will probably just keep gradually declining.

Occasionally I also can't collect more data after the bar is 90% full. It's happened several times and the only way I've found to fix it is to just kill myself, and then I can collect enough data to fill my bar again. 

It really is a mediocre activity. I'm excited to get my red borders so I can stop playing it completely.

I feel Prismatic has done probably irreparable damage to the feeling of individual subclasses. Why do some things when you could do all, or at least most of the things? Plus you get a mini super to play with. I just can't really motivate myself to play with a fraction of the power in individual subclasses. And I have no idea how Bungie can address this now.

I feel like Prismatic has already done massive damage to the subclass identity and subjective fun of the other classes. Why play one subclass when I can just mix many of their best parts together? Not to mention have an ability spam playstyle and a second mini super every minute or two. Everything else just feels lackluster and boring now, and barring massive buffs and further power creep to the old subclasses, I don't know how they fix this issue now.

The Spear feels so well balanced now and it's hilarious it only took fixing the targeting. It's the strongest single shot weapon in the game, but you have to lock on, ammo is tight, and you can't control exactly where it hits a target.

The fact you were not doing the "drop and catch" method to move the shell quicker was irrationally aggregating.

Or value the player experience more than this avenue of profit. This is still the only AAA game I know where they sell you a currency to transmog, afterall. 

Bungie are always testing how much of the golden goose they can eat, while still having it produce golden eggs. Sometimes they cross that line and players revolt, and they walk it back; but I just don't see this being an issue to get that traction.

It's simultaneously the best co-op game I've played in years, and the worst technical state I've seen in a "successful" game. The community genuinely holds their breath every patch, waiting to see what gets broken this time. I'm amazed that simply adding friends in this CO-OP game has not reliable worked in almost 5 months since launch.  It just feels like the developers, as amazing as they seem to want to be, are out of their depth a bit. Which is a pity because the actual game feels groundbreaking.

I think you're missing the main complaint. What people wanted was 3 bigger drops per episode, 1  each Act, with minimal timegating between Acts. A balance between this constant obsession with engagement, but actually getting to enjoy the story at a pace that didn't necessitate awkward reasons to drip feed content, or "go run the seasonal activity again to further research the macguffin by killing enemy X ".

This system is actually padding out the time to engage with the system further. It's terrible, and feels just like a season but with worse timegating. I don't want a reason to play every day of my life. I want quality content, made to satisfy it's audience on it's own merits, and to happily play other things after. 

I TFS had to tell it's story over 6 weeks, it would be vastly more disappointing and less impactful.

I'll say what I said the second they were announced, and everytime this comes up; not a chance. They are going to sell people silver only ornaments for at least a few seasons. The massive desire to make them look different is exactly why Bungie is going to sell the solution; not give it to players for free. 

Scummy? Yep. But that's Bungie.

It's been an issue for some time and Bungie haven't really changed course. They moved the ritual resources to seasonal activities, but because the vast majority are temporary and not "evergreen" content, it has a lower the quality bar because it's ultimately disposable. Overtime, it's meant we get less high quality content meant to be replayable, and more medicore seasonal content that really reinforces the notion that Destiny can be stale.

The lesson of Onslaught would have been people will play more if you give them lots of loot.

Not to mention, as a looter shooter, the grind is baked into much of the design philosophy of why people play. People watch the chase things, but also have the chase be fun and rewarding. Such a balance is possible; look at Onslaught last season. 

Thanks for collecting this info. So much of what Bungie said was just a lie. We are out of story in 3 weeks, and we used to have story for 6 weeks+. Episodes are as disappointing to me as the Final Shape was amazing; why is this always the duality of Destiny?