The much-awaited weekly “This Week in Destiny 2,” by Bungie, was released, and the community was in shock-they did not really like it. So much so that it was an open revolt by the fans. The exciting things the update talked about were: new ViDoc for the Renegades expansion, Ash & Iron event for some weeks, previews of ability tuning, a return of Iron Banner next week, and charity bounties. But the conversation remained only about progression changes. When I say ‘talk,’ I really mean rage.
Without even giving a chance, it’s being called a ‘straight leveling nerf.’ No, two. Now, Bungie had said that progression was being sped up in the update. But in actuality, it has been slowed down? You have a volcano of comments and opinions erupting and poisoning Nintendo’s poor being. One comment read, “Every week I think there is no way you guys can screw up any more than you already have, and every week you somehow top your terrible decisions from the previous week. Literally a dumpster fire.” Heavy words, indeed.
This sentiment is expressed throughout the entire thread: people calling that the power grind needs to be removed entirely; leveling is not content; and that Bungie is out of completely touch with their player base. In one comparison, they were deemed as a “petty boss who shits on his employees; then the employees quit, and he wonders why his sales and business are going to shit.” Damn.
Wait, there’s more devouring drama; apparently, this Bungie employee celebrated something! Wildly, comments went on with demands for firings with what sounds like some political stuff. “One of your employees Dennis is celebrating murder! Fire him now!!!” and further comments speak of “glorifying Charlie Kirk murder.” I don’t even know what’s going on there, but I’m assuming it’s probably not good.
Really, at the heart of it all is the progression. Too, drops under 400 power are supposed to be plus five, but instead, the game “sucks ass prior tier 4 gear.” All the changes feel “half-baked,” and in essence, they gatekeep high-tier loot from casual players. Just get in 1000+ runs in their activities and start getting good stuff.
Somebody logged everything from +900 runs of activity with almost 100 Pinnacle Ops runs to get to level 450. That’s one crazy amount of grind. And soon with these changes? The fear is this grind is going to get even worse. By the sentiment, the hard-core are more or less 400+ and are getting their T5 loot, while plenty of others are struggling so hard to make the raiding of the Destiny 2 stuff like a second full-time job.
Now, some positives: one of which is about the Presage timer, which was increased from 13 to 20 minutes, with the original timer being described as “diabolical.” So some QoL improvements from the patch. But as a whole? Week.
Good thing is, so many of them are starting to talk about Borderlands 4 releasing today on the question of whether Destiny 2 can survive. Actually, one comment literally reads, “With Borderlands 4 coming out today, will Destiny 2 survive? Maybe your team should hurry up and fix the mess you made of things.” Serious concern is expressed by that user.
This whole thing really smelt like a failed attempt on Bungie’s part to keep players playing by increasing the grind, not by making them fall in love with it. Several comments give voice to the desperate attempts to keep players playing “by any means not by the game being fun.” That is a pretty heavy indictment from your own player base.
Outpouring for apologies and acknowledgments. People want Bungie to admit when they intentionally slowed progression again. They want to be open. They want this game that they love to be actually good again. Such disappointment comes through from some of the long-time players, maybe from even since Marathon and Myth saying, “RIP to the once GOATed studio.”
Here is proof that these people are so passionate about this. Destiny 2 means so much to these players and they are watching something that they love just- kind of… fall to pieces? The comments are between outraged and genuinely sorrowful for the state of the game. One comment said they are done with Destiny and so is his entire family. That’s a hard landing.
Looking at the big picture, Bungie has a lot of work to do. Renegades expansion looks good with all those ViDocs and everything, but if the core progression system is making the players this upset, the new content is only going to do so much. They want to feel that their time is respected and not made to feel like they have been put through an endless grind just so they can stay on pace.
Maybe the return of Iron Banner next week will offer some distraction, but till Bungie actually intents to fix progression, it is going to stay in every discussion. Hopefully, they will pay heed to this feedback because far more important work now needs to be done rather than just clicking and shifting some numbers around to subject Destiny 2 to an even longer grind.
