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I've had FIVE friends try out Destiny 2 since new light launched and it's just been an absolute disaster. Out of those 5 only 1 actually stuck with it enough to overcome the mess. And since I'm a veteran player I have no idea what the new light experience looks like so I can't guide them through it. But the experience is messy, doesn't teach you ANYTHING about the game and ultimately ends up overwhelming and intimidating players.
Every single person who has tried D2 through new light ends up just going to the EDZ, doing patrols, public events and adventures and says "is this all there is? I thought this game had a story?".
But joke's on them because the only story you can do is the red war which first of all doesn't reward you with anything, gives you no context for anything that's actually going on since there is no Destiny 1 story recap or anything.
On top of that there is the other issue, this game has a lot of icons that Bungie assumes people will understand, but nothing is really explained. One of my friends asked me how he was supposed to know the elements were solar, arc and void and truthfully I don't know how, it's just something you know or intuit from the rest of the mechanics, but the shield matching isn't explained anywhere and it's never explained that energy weapons do less damage than kinetics but are more effective vs shields.
Speaking of which, for some reason the concept of your gun slots has been one of the most difficult things to explain to people. What I assumed was a fairly straight forward system in that you have a kinetic, energy and heavy slot and in kinetic or energy you can either have primaries or special weapons actually doesn't resonate with people well. Every single person has referred to their kinetic slot as a primary and gets confused when I speak about kinetic specials. I don't think the system is the problem it's just that you never sit the player down and explain it to them. Which means that they will go off what other games teach them about load outs. 1st slot is primary, 2nd slot is your back up and 3rd slot is your big gun.
New players are the life blood of Destiny 2, and the game is insanely popular and new light is bringing fresh people who are willing to give it a shot. But it feels like you're inviting people to learn some basic statistics but then you instantly throw nonparametric regressions at them and laughing in their face when they ask you what that means.
TL;DR Destiny 2 feels ridiculously hostile to new players, people just starting out feel directionless and don't really know what to do. Most of the mechanics don't feel properly explained. The Red War campaign feels like the natural starting point for a new player but not only is it pointless to play for progression because it doesn't give rewards like it used to, the story almost requires you to have awareness of Destiny 1's characters to make sense.
I love this game so much, and I wanna see people be able to hop in and enjoy it without asking more than: What class do you think I'd like?