I want to preface this post with saying that I am usually pretty accepting when it comes to the decisions that Bungie makes. I also don't use Reddit all that much; I will read the sub-Reddit's from time to time and discuss some of the theories on here with my clanmates, but I most certainly do NOT make comments or posts, as I am sure you Reddit veterans will be able to see if looking at my profile. So if this does not follow normal formatting or anything then I apologize. But after grinding the first day of S10 for like 8hrs, and seeing some of the cracks to start to come through, I am just starting to get mad at this game and I need to vent.

Let me explain.

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The Good

First of, I think we all need to praise Bungie for the good work that has come out of this season so far. Praise does not get shared around enough in the world these days, and there have been some good things to come out of the season.

• The updated Quest/Bounty menu, or the UI in general. I like how clean it is, and things like the small notification showing there are new emotes on the Character subscreen is a nice touch.
• The Hints when loading in to activities. Though I certainly don't need them, these will go a long way to helping new players understand the game. (Perhaps just add the ability to toggle on/off for us veteran players?)
• The new cut scenes and sense of the story going forward, more than it ever has in the past. I appreciate that the end of S8 led to the beginning of S9, and the end of S9 to the start of S10. I am interested to see what the end of S10 will lead in to, and would LOVE to see some of the older stories being tied up again this way in future. (Exo Stranger, or what happened to Uldren, stuff like that)
• The new stat tracker. I have wanted one of these since launch and love that I can finally see how many clears I have in things like Raids all in one place without having to go to a 3rd party website or check each emblem individually. (Though, this comes with negatives as I am sure you have expected if you have checked the other posts today, more on that below).
• The communication from the team has been the best I have seen in a long time. I love Luke Smith's Director's Cuts, as they provide a deep dive in to the logic behind some of their design decisions. Please keep these coming, as I relish the time to make a sandwich and sit down to read one of these again. The community team has also been great on Twitter and all other forms of communication too. You guys must tolerate a lot, and I salute you for what you do.

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I am not going to lie, I know that Bungie has made some questionable decisions in the past when it comes to Destiny, but I have always tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Any of my clanmates will be able to tell you that I am usually the first person to defend Bungie when changes are made, and that I call them out if what they are asking for is unreasonable, and think about it from a business perspective. (I know, shock gasp, Bungie only has finite resources.)

• I have defended them when people ask for Raids every season, or every second season even. Considering the effort and manpower that goes in to these Raids, things like this are simply not feasible, no matter how much I would LOVE a Raid every few months.
• I have defended them when there is re-using of weapon models and content etc. when introducing 'new' game content. This keeps the size of the game files lower and requires less manpower to then create these experiences, meaning we are able to get more things to play with the resources they have available.
• I have defended them when they put more items in to Eververse when they swapped to F2P, because at the end of the day they need to keep the lights on for however many developers they employ and their families. That being said, I would also love for more of these items to be attainable in the Raids and Crucible etc., but that's not the purpose of this post.
• I have defended them when things like Exotics/weapons/armour in general get nerfed, because I have been there when it gets to the point where LFG's make these items a requirement. I remember being kicked from VoG runs in D1 when people found out I didn't have Gjallarhorn, regardless of how many times I had manage to clear it without that weapon.NB: When weapon archetypes/Exotics are THAT broken, I'm sorry but it's just foolish to believe that they will not get adjusted. For the people that say "Just buff everything else", I would point you to the multiple content creators that have already created vids about power creep, because power creep is how you get a Season of the Drifter/Reckoning situation, something that was incredibly unpleasant to have to play.

THE POINT IS, I take most things on the chin, and will just adapt to whatever the new seasons throw at us. I trust that the developers have a design intent, and they are genuinely trying their best to create the best product they can. Nobody WANTS to create a sh*tty product, that is literally business 101 (I am a Business major at University), because your business won't survive that way.

That being said, the below things have made get to a point where I am finally coming to Reddit to voice my opinion, because I feel like it needs to be said. I needed to vent, and writing things out helps me clear my mind. Whether anyone reads this or not, or how this gets upvoted/downvoted I care little for, I just needed to get it off my chest.

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The Bad

1.)

Tracking on emblems being removed. I won't repeat it here, as every other post has said it so far, but what was the design thought here? I have lost my 9 Solo Flawless Pit of Heresy tracker, my 69,000 Fractaline donated, my friend has lost her 420 Gambit Games played in S8. And before somebody says it, I know we're not even that bad off compared to some of the other people out there. I genuinely feel for the people that were still rocking Trials of the Nine emblems, or who had some crazy high donated fractaline on them, and any other emblem people felt proud of.Did anyone stop to think how these being removed would affect the opinions of your most engaged and hardcore? The first thing I awoke to this morning when I got on was my clanmate saying "Now, don't get mad, BUT...." because of this, because he knew that I worked hard to get my Solo Flawless Pit of Heresy number to 9.

You say you want to create "had to be there" moments, but when you remove these trackers you aren't giving us the opportunity to show the extent to which we were there. I know you are laying the groundwork for future content, but when it comes at the expense of angering your most engaged and core audience, was it worth the cost?

2.)

Removing the requirement for doing a flawless run of Garden of Salvation to acquire the Enlightened seal.

I'm sorry, I am trying to remain rational here and I am sorry if this offends you, but if you cannot flawless a Raid, then you do NOT deserve the associated title for said Raid. Period. The seal for the Raid is a show of mastery, that you can best any challenge laid out before you in said Raid. That should include being able to do it without dying, be that to enemies or jumping puzzles.Now technically the triumph for flawless was never in the Seal, but the shader you got for it was in the Collections badge, and the collections badge is in the Seal requirements. This shader has subsequently been removed from the Collections badge, with no warning prior to it occurring or explanation as to why.

When I grinded for Enlightened it meant I had been able to prove that I was able to complete the ENTIRE Raid without a single person on my team dying for it, something I spent multiple hours on trying. When I got it, the people in my clan that didn't have it were excited for me, because it meant I had attained an aspirational goal within the game and was able to show it off to my friends. I know people that were at their Flawless attempts for three straights days. They could have stopped at any time, but they kept going because they wanted the bragging rights that came from completing it.

Every Raid associated badge has required a flawless, so why change it now? If any of them were to have been changed, which I don't think they should have been, then I would have argued for Shadow or Blacksmith. Shadow and Blacksmith both of these also require large chunks of their associated seasonal content, Menagerie and Forges respectively, to be completed so are technically not Raid specific seals. But seriously, Enlightened? I just don't see the logic here, and to be frank I, as somebody who has had Enlightened since the first week it was available, feel like that accomplishment has been belittled because it is no longer required. What's next, taking the Petra's Run requirement away from Rivensbane requirement?

Had the requirement for doing flawless not been there since the start of when it was released, then this would be a different story, I wouldn't have cared that it didn't need a flawless. But to change it retrospectively feels like a punch to the gut for anyone who has already done it. I don't want to wear my Enlightened title anymore, something I have proudly rocked for 4 months, because in the back of mind I will know there are players out there that didn't have to do the flawless to get it, and that makes it feel less special.

I am never going to get Unbroken (or probably Flawless) because I am not a PvP player. I despise PvP and it is not the reason I play this game. But do I think those titles need to have their requirements nerfed? No, because there are people out there that love the PvP in this game, and to earn it shows they can hit Legend multiple times. In fact, I congratulate anyone who has earned Unbroken, and feel an almost sense of jealousy as I wish I could be that good at PvP. But by removing a flawless requirement from a Raid associated badge is to me like taking the requirement to hit Legend in multiple seasons away. If I can't go Legend in 3 seasons, I don't deserve Unbroken. Period. But if you are going to take the need for a flawless away from Raids, then why not take this requirement away from Unbroken?

And before anyone argues for accessibility to titles, and that casuals will not be able to get them otherwise; I point you at the direction of Dredgen, Wayfarer, or any of the seasonal titles. Hell, my clanmate was able to get Savior in 4 DAYS after not having played this game the ENTIRE season, in the final week of S9. There are plenty of accessible titles out there, if players decide to dedicate the effort to them.

3.)

The first 8hrs I have played so far of this season I have felt terribly under-leveled to the point where I can't play any of the new story. Season of Dawn had a new Saint mission for the first couple of weeks, which were interesting and kept me coming back. I am all for grinds that last over the season, to give us something to do, but all we got on day one was my clanmate and I grinding powerful drops because we struggle to complete the new Seraph Tower events. (Season of the Forge PTSD anyone?)

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Closing Thoughts

There has been a lot of talk about "aspirational content" in the last few months, and while I agree the game needs more in terms of short/mid/long-term goals, it's hard to stay motivated to grind for these things when you end up removing some of these requirements for them. If you Google the definition for aspirational, it gives you;"having or characterized by aspirations to achieve social prestige and material success"

Why would I go for another cool Title/Emblem, when you may decide to change it without warning your player base and, in my opinion, lower the significance of what other people have already achieved? That to me does not seem very aspirational?

I get that some of these things will not change back, I have already seen the response to the whole emblem tracker and it saddens me, but I want to at the very least know the reasons why these things were changed. The talk heading in one direction, but the actions are leading in another? If there are reasons you can give us, it might not fix it, but it may help to make people like me to understand.

Look, realistically I am the kind of player that by the end of S9 I had 13/14 possible Seals, with Unbroken being the only one missing (read above). I have every single Collections badge complete, with the gold border, with the exception for Drifter's Wild because I need to do the Reckoning for the remaining armour sets. So to say I have played this game a LOT over the years would be an understatement. Not as much as some, granted, but still a lot.

Will I still play this season? Yeah, I most likely will. I will play enough to get most of my season ranks up, and enough for the seasonal badge, then probably take a break and play other games (because that is a healthy thing to do).Look, at the end of the day I have made a lot of friends because of this game, and some amazing memories with said friends in the activities the game provides. And at the end of the day, this is only a game. There are other things in my life I do that give me joy, but to have something you feel like it doesn't love you back sometimes is incredibly disheartening.

//endrant.

PS. Bungie, if you are reading this, please bring Vex Mythoclast back. I loved that gun in D1 and would love to see it return.

PPS. If I spent this much time writing my University essays as I did writing this post then I might actually be an A+ student. Imagine that.

PPPS. Remember to tell somebody you love them today.

Edit

Okay wow, I was not expecting to wake up to 2.3K upvotes on my first ever Reddit post. Thank you to all the people that left kind words to their fellow Guardians! I was NOT expecting this kind of a response.

I have seen a few recurring comments which have led me to want to clarify myself a little bit more, and figured this would be easier than responding to each of them individually. I wrote the original post in a blaze of anger last night so I apologize if some of this wasn't clear before.

1. People have wondered why I "defend" Bungie when some of the things they do are indefensible, and perhaps I used the wrong terminology here. What I meant to say was that I usually try to remind people that there are rational explanations to the actions that are being taken, even if we do not always see that behind the scenes. Bungie is a business, and Bungie will make business decisions, so I do my best to always remain objective.
2. People saying that the communication from Bungie has been bad, we need to remember that everything is relative. Compared to other studios/businesses, I agree, sometimes the communication is not always perfect (but hey who ever is). But I also remember the times where Bungie or the community managers would literally say NOTHING for weeks on end at the start of D1 launch. That is why I believe the communication has improved, because I have seen them out there in the wild. Sure, they might not always share the answers we want, but it's better than what we had in the past and that is why I commend them.
3. Luke Smith is the franchise director for Destiny. But we also have to remember that this man has hundreds of people working under him, a boss that he reports to, and certain constraints he will be working under. To point at him, and him solely, is taking a scapegoat to the situation. I liked his Director's Cuts because as somebody who is a Business student majoring in Strategy and somebody who dreams of one day working in the industry, I find it fascinating to gain insights like the ones he shared with us as to why they want to/did take certain directions with the game. There are dozens of different disciplines in video games, and every person will understand things differently than another so miscommunications are always bound to happen - no matter the attempts to avoid them. Sometimes they will be constrained by the game itself (engine, file sizes, etc.) and so something they dreamed of is simply not feasible to produce/release within the constraints they have - that does not make them awful people. I'm sure if I ever met any of the team in real life I could quite happily sit down and have a beer with them. We don't know these people personally, so lets keep the conversation objective.
4. I realize that the things that I have listed as problems are acutely related to myself and did not cover what some people considered to be problems. I personally don't mind that there are no Rituals this season - it gives me an excuse to play other games. I personally didn't use Worldline myself, though I know this is a sore point for many and I empathize for you. Personally don't care there was no vendor refresh - until weapon sunset most of them would probably be getting sharded anyway. I am not trying to dismiss these as being inconsequential or irrelevant, they just personally didn't affect me as much which is why I didn't mind and didn't originally discuss.

DMG has since I made this post made a comment on Twitter regarding the removal of the Flawless for Enlightened. Not a final answer of course, but it's nice to see it being acknowledged. My reasoning for Enlightenment requiring Flawless still stands, but life will move on regardless of the outcome.

https://twitter.com/A_dmg04/status/1237815879083020288?s=20

Continue to be excellent to each other.

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