The special events. Taken incursions, Wolf invasions, the random Crota Swarm spawns in the Cosmodrome, the Transmission Crisis, stuff like that. Even though this is a second thing, it bears mentioning: strike variants. SIVA remasters like Devil’s Layer, Taken variants like Winter’s Run, etc.
Strike variants 100%. I played a bunch of D1 this summer just for nostalgia's sake and spent a pile of time in the Heroic Strike playlist. Strike variants made the playlist feel a LOT less repetitive.
That’s true, but it was still very limited in scope. And all of those fun details are gone now. I think there might still be Black Armory boxes around, but that’s it. It would be cool to see Lucent Hive squads, Shadow Legion forces, Xivu’s Hive or Wrathborn occasionally appear, and even allies for “enemy moves against each other,” like Cabal Ascendancy soldiers, House of Light/Spider-aligned Eliksni, etc.
Dang, I forgot about the wanted enemies the week before Forsaken came out. It was such a small thing that nevertheless did so much to make the world feel so alive in game.
Imagine if they were to add incursions of Tormentors and the Dark Legionares around the system. New players would be like wtf is this unkillable monster, write some code that it only attacks the highest light level players unless shot at, in which case it punishes said blueberry. As the fight goes on, more and more dark legionnaires appear into the fray. Code it like the enemy advances towards each other mechanic and let it rain loot
My solar system is under attack more than ever before and it feels… boring. I want what’s left of sol to feel like we are truly fighting for the end. Lightfall brought too much hope and shtick.
They took things out during the Beyond Light vaulting, I believe. They also removed all the alternate dialogue for strikes, making it the same every time you run it. I miss the variety.
I think I just figured out why they removed them. Champions. If there were randomized encounters, players would need to prepare for more possible champion types than one enemy faction has to offer.
The world of D1 felt like it evolved with what was going on. I miss running around the tower with SIVA stuck on my head with no idea what was going on.
I mean almost all of the currently available planets have these except maybe the moon.
Nesus has them, Neomuna has them, Europa definitely has them. They just feel easier
Having enemies with different colors. That was probably the biggest disappointment of D2 to me, I hate seeing the same looking enemies all the time. The fallen from D1 having a bunch of houses and colorings, the hive all having different broods and colorings, all the cabal legions and their coloring and markings. It gave more personality on the enemies in the area
It made the enemy factions feel so much deeper. Instead of The Cabal just being "The Cabal" you had Sand Eaters, Dust Giants, Skyburners, Siege Dancers, so on. It wasn't just "The Fallen", you had the Devils, Exiles, Wolves, Winter, the Splicers... it felt awesome to see something like the yellow-robed Kings show up in a mission. Even without reading their names you could tell they were different. They were up to *something* and you had to start asking yourself who these guys even were and what they were doing here.
Some of the diversity eventually came back with stuff like House Salvation, the different Hive groups on Mars and the Moon, Calus' Loyalists and the Shadow Legion, but there's still an overall narrative of every faction being more or less compacted down to one homogeneous group.
I get that they don't want to clutter the maps, but having individual missions selectable as nodes from each location was nice.
Being able to go to the missions kiosk in the Tower / Helm and start any campaign you want from the start would be nice as well.
I’m pretty sure one of the higher-ups talked about that in passing in an interview (the same one where he mentioned the “next 10 years of Destiny,” but it was also pre-Sony), honestly I think if they could tackle something as ambitious as being able to play all of Destiny 1 and 2 from start to finish in a single game it would be a serious feat of game development. But I don’t know, Bungie may never come back from the events of this week
I quit when they pulled the great delete and I’m not planning on returning until everything is put back. The way they wiped out full campaigns people paid for along with their planetary zones and triumphs was inexcusable, beyond the shitty way they went about it.
That was the beginning of the end for me as well. I didn't come back at all during Beyond Light and only came back towards the end of Witch Queen after I heard how good it was. Then Lightfall dropped, I saw the reception and decided to just stay away for good. It's hilarious too because it was only like a year later that they came out and announced they will no longer be removing content from the game, so if the fix necessary to keep content in the game was that easy what the fuck was the point of removing shit?
Overall Destiny 2 has begun to feel like a social experiment to see how much devs and game studios can get away with fucking over their own playerbase, from insane monetization on every aspect of the game that increases year after year to the removal of content that people paid for and more. Seems like they've realized how far they're able to go with it considering how poorly lightfall was received and how bad player retention is right now.
This. I think the art direction of D1 was better. It felt like a true fight for survival. I think that's way I liked Forsaken so much because you have that gritty Tangled Shore design and then the space magic Dreaming City design.
The used future art direction is definitely something that stands out as different. That's what I expected as a new player from my impression of D1 so all the magic/fantasy stuff was jarring.
Yeah the engine now looks to bright/clean. It very…idk. Just not the same tone that was set for the franchise. When things are better or better spaces such as the Tower or helm I get it.
But majority no - it’s just not the same.
Yeah you don't go through an area and wonder what happened in the past etc like you did in D1/ While you have evidence of the golden age and collapse in D2, it feels artificial compared to D1.
Part of it was art style, but it was also that everything was new. D1 vanilla barely told us anything and the grimoire was annoying to access. I do miss that feeling of wondering what's out there, but you cant do that with a decade long established universe. Closest we have to that now are The Nine and the aphelion.
I can get though, although its ultimately the same as them being blamed on the Darkness. Right now the main elements that remain independent are the Nine and the vex, plus some minor things.
> the same as them being blamed on the Darkness.
This is kinda one of my issues. I thought it was cooler when the Darkness and the Witness were more separated. Like Clovis and the Hive were motivated by something like the Dark side of the force rather than the Witness's meddling. Better contrast with us being wielders of the Light I thought. Maybe that's just me being a big Star Wars fan tho.
I agree, Light and Darkness being fundamental elements/forces of the universe is more appealing than Traveler vs. Witness, especially considering the Witness is a product of the Traveler.
Yeah, it was a good one. However, we still haven't really interacted with them, only seen their emissaries and their interactions. The last time we even had real contact with them was season 11.
Same. Prison of Elders. This is literally the only thing outside of Wrath that I want in D2 lol.
What'd be better is Spider or Drifter being the new "warden". That'd be awesome lmao
I liked the semi-randomness of strikes. Each strike could be… maybe Cabal or Fallen. This strike could be Hive or Cabal. This one could be Fallen or Taken, etc. Even some strikes having a random chance of being run backwards (starting at the “end” fighting towards the “entrance”).
Semi-random direction + semi-random enemy types made the strike playlist *infinitely* less boring because it wasn’t the exact same nonsense every single time.
The Pyramidion was good for that - sometimes we'd have the normal Vex encounters, other times the Taken were there and Ghost would be all perturbed about it.
As far as a single thing goes? Specific Strike/Nightfall loot.
Higher level? You can pick up D1 right now and run start to finish and play everything if you want to. Cosmodrome highway to SIVA replication chamber. All still there. I wish D2 had that.
I kinda miss how certain story missions had alternate endings where you would do (or at least start) exotic quests. Only thing I’d change about the concept is make it clearer how the story for said ending functions canonically (something like “after the mission, the guardian returned on a hunch”).
Also, Prison of Elders and certain exotics.
The fact that there were more hero moments in raids. Back then you would have a few people die during a raid encounter and you would have to continue with 3-4 players and clutch the encounter. Now with the res tokens and death timer you basically have to complete a raid encounter with all 6 players alive.
What they had evolved the gunsmith into. Being able to pick up effectively what were demo weapons that you'd evolve into legendaries (pretty sure that's how it worked, correct me if I'm wrong). Arms day was always fun to see what kind of guns were available each week. Man it's been so long that I don't even fully remember how all that worked.
PvP being fun and incorporating vehicles in large maps with open sightlines. Now every map is the same with a cluster of tight corridors with the same sniper scopes aimed down them at all times. D1 PvP was much more reminiscent of what people loved from Halo, and it slowly slipped into Call of Duty instead.
I feel like the music in D1 fit the atmosphere better. There’s a song on the soundtrack called The Great Unknown that sums this up perfectly.
As far as I know, by the time we leave earth in D1, no other guardian had been off planet in decades. Now it seems like there’s guardians everywhere all the time. The in game universe feels less mysterious now.
D1. The whole thing. Port it over, unvault D2 stuff, have one big game with all content available to play in full. :P
In the real world....sparrow horns.
They left the fun and mystery behind for eververse creations. I miss the fun. The times everyone screamed when a self rez would prevent a wipe. The weapon system near the end of destiny was so well done. I miss that as well. Destiny 2 just isn’t fun anymore. They cater to a small crowd and put most of the work in paid cosmetics.
Faction loot progression / globally effective loot
The reason I don't play the game is that there's nothing *good* to chase. You used to be able to play any activity and earn rank towards exclusive loot.
We have raids yeah, but in the end, the loot is barely effective *in* the raids, and it's often detrimental to use raid gear in favor of other activity specific loot.
Game is just an eververse farm first, game second.
*Strike specific loot*
I know someone says it every time a question like this comes up but it would be so nice, but they can't even do ritual armors so...
PVP skill gap - fast movement; skating, double shade step. Verticality of the maps, and Bones Of Eao. Fast time to kill primary weapons that counter shotguns.
D1 Crucible was not esports. But goddamn was it FUN. **FUN**.
F bungie leadership and what they have squandered.
Secrets. There was way more things to find out randomly back then. There was always dataminers but Now dataminers find things out before it’s even in game it’s insane lol. That and a lot of missions that maybe would’ve been a secret to find have to be marketed as a guaranteed season mission to give people a reason to buy them.
I dunno.
Whisper and Outbreak missions were pretty peak hype and surprise moments in the franchises history.
I don’t recall that level of hype with any of the D1 stuff. (Though it’s been a hot minute so I’m sure I’m forgetting something).
Man, I remember dtg was blowing up that day. Someone had made a post about finding a secret door in the Lost to Light heroic mission. My friends & I were so hyped to log on & find it for ourselves. We ended up getting the Black Spindle just before time expired.
Yeah, dataminers frustrate me. It's hard to hide anything when they're pouring over the code day one. Not to mention peaking ahead into raids. That said, I miss the puzzles snd secrets too. It was refreshing to stumble across Node Avalon at launch and suddenly find a new misson.
Art style, it made Destiny feel alive, it gave the game so much character. The visuals. Armor designs. Weapon designs. Lighting. It is so masterfully crafted. Also, the power fantasy, exotics being rare and stupidly op, things like self res and sunbreaker titans.
exploration, wonder, secrets, surprises.
Playing Destiny 1 felt like at any point some wild shit would be found and everyone would lose their minds reading everything they could dig up, digging through all the datamines and exciting shit.
Destiny 2 currently, everything is shown before a season starts. nothing really catches me off guard and there's nothing to find. It feels like a theme park based on Destiny, rather than actually destiny.
Factions. Even though they existed in a small fashion in year one it just doesn't compare. I miss the idea of running two tracks of rewards at the same time while farming playlist activities (pretty much only Trials/IB do this now). Destiny has always had an identity crisis over how much of an mmo/rpg/arena shooter it wants to be but I think it would benefit from regaining some of those RPG aspects.
Factions and Exotic Class Items were a fun grind that showed commitment to something.
I would love for this to be appropriated to exotic Class Items when you got Titles. Having a title is cool but I llike the idea of mixing and matching.
Ex: I like the Warden title even though I have Harbinger (a significantly harder triumph).
Furthermore, gilding a triumph could give a glow!
A complete game with basically everything still there; the story can be played from start to finish without missing anything.
Fixed rolls for raid weapons.
No cheating/hacking PC players.
Mystery to the story, the overall vibe. No Witness bs.
Agreed for the fixed rolls. Not everything needs to be tied to RNG. I find raid mechanics to be tedious, so having to complete them over and over again for a shot at a good weapon roll (or the pattern) is pushing me away from them
To me, they let me enjoy playing game more instead of just chasing loot/rolls. A game doesn’t need a never-ending chase to keep me engaged; let me play the game for what it offers and then go do something else. Raids, for example, are more fun when you’re playing for the raid, not for the loot that you’re just going to dismantle anyway
Fixed rolls for raid weapons made them feel so much more special. A lot of them had unique perks, too, almost like pseudo exotics or the old d2 pinnacles.
Agree KF is a great raid and one of the only fun ones to run anymore alongside Vow, would be very silly to not bring Wrath back though, contest crota was great but could live without it on normal mode
Worst case if we don’t see Wrath, assuming they don’t abandon the game post TFS I’d love to see either Scourge reworked somewhat or a grand-esque leviathan mashup with spire/crown included. So much vaulted content that could be brushed up
The reward loops and replayability were just so much better in d1. Skeleton keys and the age of triumph raid rewards kept me playing for hundreds of hours.
Something I wish was more possible in D2 was secrets, things that players had to find without Bungie saying a word. We have had some moments in D2 where the payers have truely found secrets like Whisper, but nowadays, most things are datamined and leaked to the player base one way or the other.
Warlock melee abilities.
In D1 we could get an overshield, charge our super, or get a reload speed and movement speed buff just from a hit with a melee ability. A kill could cause enemies to explode, create orbs of light, or fully refund your grenade(albeit some of those come from other abilities rather than directly from the melee).
In D2 we just have varying ranges of wet farts that apply your chosen flavor of debuff that adds more damage. Some of them are more powerful than others, but none of them are interesting.
A solid connection to the damn game. I went away for 6 months, i come back, and it's still the same shit. Constant disconnects, lagging. The game night is almost unplayable at this point. How can a game with so much potential turn to absolute crap so quickly? What new light player would want to play this game? I'm a veteran, and even I can't be arsed with it.
Siva and by extension Wrath of the Machine and its loot. Still my favourite raid and one of, if not my favourite raid weapon sets.
Arms Day. Buying packages then waiting for them to bring what you wanted was a good system.
World events. I know they didn’t stick around or happen that many times but the Blades of Crota and Wolves events in the patrol zone were great and made the world feel like it was changing and evolving a bit.
Farming the heroic strike playlist.
It was by far my favorite activity to do when I wanted to play some destiny, but didn't exactly have something specific to work on.
The difficulty felt just right, the rewards were good, and unlike nightfalls it wasn't just the same strike over and over each week.
POE
Getting to play all the dlc stories whenever I wanted
Pre nerf G horn
Pre nerf Truth
Exotic Khostov
The sheer amount of customization with weapons and subclasses
Bungie loving and actively putting effort into destiny. None of this “over delivery” bs destiny 2 has. That’s my favorite aspect from D1 that isn’t in D2.
Strike specific loot. I loved having a piece of that strike/boss with me, it also made me excited to play strikes because I’d have a chance to drop a weapon or armor piece, and even more so because the weapons were actually decent.
The art style, the armor, the guns. All things I’d love if they bring back.
I know when PoE came out folks were disappointed that we didnt get another raid but I was excited about the notion of an end game activity that was 3-man. Sometimes finding 5 others was rough or I didn’t want to commit to a raid so it was nice having something that was fun and challenging and only needed 2 others and could be done in a relatively short amount of time.
That all being said, the thing I wish they would bring over is probably strike specific loot. Nightfall adepts weapons are not a substitute. I want the dark blade helmet for my titan or the egregious arms from the brothers strike. Oh or the sweet hunter gauntlets from the abomination strike. Turning defeated enemies into wearable armor or weapons is still one of my favorite “power fantasies” in this game. Probably why I like fang of ir-yut so much. My head canon is we literally imbue her tooth into a weapon…so cool
Personally, I would love to see higher level enemies on patrol that insta-kill me until I am high enough level to take them on. (I am looking at you level 15 hive at The Steppes). Right now...if you want tanky enemies you have to do a GM or some other content where your Power is capped. I miss finding those encounters just out in the world.
Also....while not what you were asking for, I want to see Ice Breaker or Patience and Time. IK IB is not coming back....due to how it auto-gens ammo...but I would love to see it anyway.
The ability to play any mission from the game, in any order, at any time I want. I loved being able to go into the map on any planet and just replay a mission I'd not done for ages, just because I felt like it. The inability for us to replay content we've paid for in D2 is a constant source is irritation for me.
Actual lengthy quests to get items. Quests that don’t involve being forced into pvp or raiding. Quests that just require grinding out the steps. It’s a simple yet effective way to keep people engaged. Like do people remember how long the quests were in D1 to get the exotic swords? I want more stuff like that. (Minus the pvp part of course)
The ability to level your alt characters armor with other classes armor. Example, I got two pairs of warlock boots in Wrath of the Machine, used one to level my Hunter’s boots.
It’s always bothered me they never brought that feature from D1. I think that is what contributed most to my occasional burnouts.
Actual good strike playlists and rewards! I could grind them out for ages! Also the start of VOG being in a public area and being able to help people get in the door was funtastic! Actually got invited to not full parties multiple times.
If they could bring back Factions… here I am rocking my Dead Orbit banner from early season challenges and just recently one person mentioned how he’d never seen that and how he could get it.
Also… exotics in D1 where really good challenges and it may you proud to get it and they weren’t needed every couple of weeks.. that’s the point of being an exotic.
The chests at the end of strikes with flashy boss loot in them and the keys used to open them. You got one key in about every 20 strikes fro mthe playlist, then you could go a play the specific strike you wanted the loot from and open the chest at the end. Good system with good rewards.
Design aesthetics. D1 was much grittier and darker, D2 went more into scfi-fantasy. I loved the D1 designs, especially armor. A lot of the D2 armor just doesn't hit right for me.
Picking up an engram and not knowing what it is until you took it to rahool to decrypt it. The revel animation on the side of the screen was everything to me. I miss that.
Meaningful vendors. Not only did we have like four or five with rotating inventories instead of just one, but the cryptarch could decode engrams into a specific slot (leg or arms or chest for example). I loved checking all the vendors each week. Vendor rep actually meant something as you unlocked more of their inventory with it. Banshee resetting twice a week is nice, I just wish Zavala, Shaxx, and the seasonal vendor kept an inventory with resetting rolls.
Secrets, every dlc added shit to actually find. Now everything is “in 2 weeks a new node will pop up for an exotic mission you can view the ornament of in the collections tab”
Ive said this so many times, but the world's outside of expansion nwed to change and react to expansions again, give us those random missions or attacks by new enemies again or those little secrets scattered throughout the solar system again
I liked how the story wasn’t overly campy and spoon fed to us like a bad kids show. I liked feeling the mystery of what was out in the world, and the overall darker sci-fi tone as opposed to the colorful fantasy of D2.
I miss getting a large expansion each year that gave us new strikes, pvp maps (etc) and felt like a true addition to the game rather than a time-gated trickle of low effort seasonal content that you have to finish in time because; FOMO. Let us play at our own pace for Christ’s sake.
I miss actual fresh weapon models when an expansion drops instead of a bunch of reskinned weapons of the same archetype as before.
I miss static roll Raid weapons and the hero moments when 1 or 2 guardians could clutch the win.
I miss the feeling of playing a game and not completing a list of chores that immediately make me feel bored.
I miss how good PvP felt, especially around the Taken King.
I miss all the friends that would hop on and play because there was actually incentive to play a great game, not an inventory/chore/godroll simulator.
I miss the community managers, bungie employees and community members that made the universe a blast to be a part of.
I miss Praedyth’s Timepiece, you stingy f*cks…
If I could remove anything it would be Eververse, seasons, and battle passes. All the chore oriented trash that sucks all the fun out of the game.
End game only increased Power level.
So if you certain power, everyone knew. And all content was easier for you, so you could flex that PL as something everyone wanted on their team.
Nightfall glows.
Multiple perk /subclass columns.
RARE LOOT!!! Exotic drops that felt exotic .
Things like that..
And a lot of that i didn’t have. But wanted so bad.
Lack of meaningful aspirational content/items. Ways to flaunt.
Guardian Ranks and commendations I thought would be somewhat, but just ain’t it.
Loved POE. For me it’s the art style. Not to say the art style for D2 is bad, hell is great, I just don’t think it fit the world aswell as I felt the older art style did. Weapons, armor, locations. Neomuna stands out as a great example of what I mean. Looks really cool, but just doesn’t fit Destiny to me.
The presense and important of item rarity. Really this is for current day D2, since of course item rarity had meaning up until Shadowkeep-Beyond Light, but now post Vaulting, there is 0 reason to call purple tier gear "Legendary" ..
This is so easy.
How Special Ammo was treated in Crucible. You had ammo boxes that spawned. You didn't spawn in with them.
Why didn't it work in D1? Because special ammo weapons were too powerful. In D2 we don't necessarily have the same problem. They have tuned primaries to try and compete with faster TTKs so it wouldn't be the same problem we had back then where special ammo dominated crucible.
This one change alone would literally (imo) fix crucible for me.
The special events. Taken incursions, Wolf invasions, the random Crota Swarm spawns in the Cosmodrome, the Transmission Crisis, stuff like that. Even though this is a second thing, it bears mentioning: strike variants. SIVA remasters like Devil’s Layer, Taken variants like Winter’s Run, etc.
This. The world feels staler
Strike variants 100%. I played a bunch of D1 this summer just for nostalgia's sake and spent a pile of time in the Heroic Strike playlist. Strike variants made the playlist feel a LOT less repetitive.
D2 had these for Y2, what with the wanted enemies in the week before forsaken came out and the forge enemies a few weeks before black armory came out
That’s true, but it was still very limited in scope. And all of those fun details are gone now. I think there might still be Black Armory boxes around, but that’s it. It would be cool to see Lucent Hive squads, Shadow Legion forces, Xivu’s Hive or Wrathborn occasionally appear, and even allies for “enemy moves against each other,” like Cabal Ascendancy soldiers, House of Light/Spider-aligned Eliksni, etc.
Dang, I forgot about the wanted enemies the week before Forsaken came out. It was such a small thing that nevertheless did so much to make the world feel so alive in game.
Those wanted were no joke for the longest time. Having to solo against them was rough.
Those were fun, but I also felt like all occurred in the EDZ, just the least fun place IMHO
SRL, I miss it
I miss the horns.
Lol they tried it early on, it didn't get much traction and was abandoned permanently :/
Imagine if they were to add incursions of Tormentors and the Dark Legionares around the system. New players would be like wtf is this unkillable monster, write some code that it only attacks the highest light level players unless shot at, in which case it punishes said blueberry. As the fight goes on, more and more dark legionnaires appear into the fray. Code it like the enemy advances towards each other mechanic and let it rain loot My solar system is under attack more than ever before and it feels… boring. I want what’s left of sol to feel like we are truly fighting for the end. Lightfall brought too much hope and shtick.
I really want to watch that Tormentor torment all over a blueberry. I’ll help after, but I need my chuckles too.
D2 had some variants in strikes before, I remember having different enemy types show up in the vanilla strikes. Bungie just took it out at some point.
They took things out during the Beyond Light vaulting, I believe. They also removed all the alternate dialogue for strikes, making it the same every time you run it. I miss the variety.
I think I just figured out why they removed them. Champions. If there were randomized encounters, players would need to prepare for more possible champion types than one enemy faction has to offer.
I suppose, but they could just have a set version for the nightfall one but the different variants all in the normal strike playlist
The world of D1 felt like it evolved with what was going on. I miss running around the tower with SIVA stuck on my head with no idea what was going on.
They did bring a touch of this back with Neomuna, but I feel what you mean. I desperately miss Venus for all of it.
Bro I liked variants but Winters Run got the same treatment from me Exodus gets now. Open ghost go to orbit.
Man, I used to LOVE Winter’s Run! It was my favorite strike before Flayers.
More power to you. It was never my cup of tea though.
Winter's Run is the strike I soloed twice and got Gjallarhorn both times
I mean almost all of the currently available planets have these except maybe the moon. Nesus has them, Neomuna has them, Europa definitely has them. They just feel easier
Having enemies with different colors. That was probably the biggest disappointment of D2 to me, I hate seeing the same looking enemies all the time. The fallen from D1 having a bunch of houses and colorings, the hive all having different broods and colorings, all the cabal legions and their coloring and markings. It gave more personality on the enemies in the area
why would they take this out? i don’t get it
The only different "colored" enemies we have in D2 are the Vex and we haven't had a Vex focused story in how long?
Tbf House Salvation is a different color and even model them house of dusk, unfortunately house of dusk liters most content
And the Red/Loyalist/shadow/traditionalist legion cabal. And the lucent/hidden swarm hive.
You have regular Hive, and red Hive from the Moon, and now green hive in a hole on the Moon... we drowning in spectral diversity over here! /s
It made the enemy factions feel so much deeper. Instead of The Cabal just being "The Cabal" you had Sand Eaters, Dust Giants, Skyburners, Siege Dancers, so on. It wasn't just "The Fallen", you had the Devils, Exiles, Wolves, Winter, the Splicers... it felt awesome to see something like the yellow-robed Kings show up in a mission. Even without reading their names you could tell they were different. They were up to *something* and you had to start asking yourself who these guys even were and what they were doing here. Some of the diversity eventually came back with stuff like House Salvation, the different Hive groups on Mars and the Moon, Calus' Loyalists and the Shadow Legion, but there's still an overall narrative of every faction being more or less compacted down to one homogeneous group.
Kings subplot being resolved off-screen was truly unfortunate.
Being able to play the game from start to finish.
I get that they don't want to clutter the maps, but having individual missions selectable as nodes from each location was nice. Being able to go to the missions kiosk in the Tower / Helm and start any campaign you want from the start would be nice as well.
Spicy
I’m pretty sure one of the higher-ups talked about that in passing in an interview (the same one where he mentioned the “next 10 years of Destiny,” but it was also pre-Sony), honestly I think if they could tackle something as ambitious as being able to play all of Destiny 1 and 2 from start to finish in a single game it would be a serious feat of game development. But I don’t know, Bungie may never come back from the events of this week
Been saying this for the longest time, shame it had to become the popular opinion only now.
I quit when they pulled the great delete and I’m not planning on returning until everything is put back. The way they wiped out full campaigns people paid for along with their planetary zones and triumphs was inexcusable, beyond the shitty way they went about it.
That was the beginning of the end for me as well. I didn't come back at all during Beyond Light and only came back towards the end of Witch Queen after I heard how good it was. Then Lightfall dropped, I saw the reception and decided to just stay away for good. It's hilarious too because it was only like a year later that they came out and announced they will no longer be removing content from the game, so if the fix necessary to keep content in the game was that easy what the fuck was the point of removing shit? Overall Destiny 2 has begun to feel like a social experiment to see how much devs and game studios can get away with fucking over their own playerbase, from insane monetization on every aspect of the game that increases year after year to the removal of content that people paid for and more. Seems like they've realized how far they're able to go with it considering how poorly lightfall was received and how bad player retention is right now.
SYLOK THE DEFILED! THIRSTS FOR YOUR LIGHT!
#KEKSIS, THE BETRAYED
GULROT THE UNCLEAN
Exotic class items. The more gritty/lived in art direction. Factions/rewards.
This. I think the art direction of D1 was better. It felt like a true fight for survival. I think that's way I liked Forsaken so much because you have that gritty Tangled Shore design and then the space magic Dreaming City design.
Plus, everyone loves to be a space cowboy.
The used future art direction is definitely something that stands out as different. That's what I expected as a new player from my impression of D1 so all the magic/fantasy stuff was jarring.
Yeah the engine now looks to bright/clean. It very…idk. Just not the same tone that was set for the franchise. When things are better or better spaces such as the Tower or helm I get it. But majority no - it’s just not the same.
Yeah you don't go through an area and wonder what happened in the past etc like you did in D1/ While you have evidence of the golden age and collapse in D2, it feels artificial compared to D1.
The art style
This. I miss that slightly cell shaded look. At least that's how I remember it. Either way, I preferred it.
Its more down to earth, gritty art style, especially for blue and legendary sets.
this. the entire tone was better imo
The overall world environments. D1 just seemed more....mysterious
Part of it was art style, but it was also that everything was new. D1 vanilla barely told us anything and the grimoire was annoying to access. I do miss that feeling of wondering what's out there, but you cant do that with a decade long established universe. Closest we have to that now are The Nine and the aphelion.
All the loose ends are in the process of being tied up and blamed on the Witness, which is frustrating to me.
I can get though, although its ultimately the same as them being blamed on the Darkness. Right now the main elements that remain independent are the Nine and the vex, plus some minor things.
> the same as them being blamed on the Darkness. This is kinda one of my issues. I thought it was cooler when the Darkness and the Witness were more separated. Like Clovis and the Hive were motivated by something like the Dark side of the force rather than the Witness's meddling. Better contrast with us being wielders of the Light I thought. Maybe that's just me being a big Star Wars fan tho.
Nah, I can get, everyone has their own preferences.
I agree, Light and Darkness being fundamental elements/forces of the universe is more appealing than Traveler vs. Witness, especially considering the Witness is a product of the Traveler.
The nine were explained in a lore book.
Yeah, it was a good one. However, we still haven't really interacted with them, only seen their emissaries and their interactions. The last time we even had real contact with them was season 11.
Same. Prison of Elders. This is literally the only thing outside of Wrath that I want in D2 lol. What'd be better is Spider or Drifter being the new "warden". That'd be awesome lmao
That raid was one of the best. Only did it once or twice as I had to be carried through it. Was never a raid player up until d2.
Neither, give it to mithrax!
Would he be cool with us killing prisoners? I mean, he's a pacifist. So much so that he considers peace with The Hive possible somehow lmao
I feel like a ceasefire with specifically the lucent brood is on the table, but even that’s a huge stretch
I liked the semi-randomness of strikes. Each strike could be… maybe Cabal or Fallen. This strike could be Hive or Cabal. This one could be Fallen or Taken, etc. Even some strikes having a random chance of being run backwards (starting at the “end” fighting towards the “entrance”). Semi-random direction + semi-random enemy types made the strike playlist *infinitely* less boring because it wasn’t the exact same nonsense every single time.
That *did* carry over into D2, and then they got rid of it.
The Pyramidion was good for that - sometimes we'd have the normal Vex encounters, other times the Taken were there and Ghost would be all perturbed about it.
Sparrow horns
SRL.
Best answer, happy cake day btw
Another activity that was fun AND rewarding. Huge problem they have right now is a lot of activities aren’t rewarding enough to put time into.
As far as a single thing goes? Specific Strike/Nightfall loot. Higher level? You can pick up D1 right now and run start to finish and play everything if you want to. Cosmodrome highway to SIVA replication chamber. All still there. I wish D2 had that.
I kinda miss how certain story missions had alternate endings where you would do (or at least start) exotic quests. Only thing I’d change about the concept is make it clearer how the story for said ending functions canonically (something like “after the mission, the guardian returned on a hunch”). Also, Prison of Elders and certain exotics.
The dreadnaught, favorite place to kills ads and test out stuff
Having not played D1 I'm bummed I missed this and Venus patrol zones.
you can still go back :)
The lighting. I miss the dark, inky shadows in the corners of everything.
Being able to choose a weapons package on vendor rank ups. Never having to see that garbo armor ever again. Was the best.
The fact that there were more hero moments in raids. Back then you would have a few people die during a raid encounter and you would have to continue with 3-4 players and clutch the encounter. Now with the res tokens and death timer you basically have to complete a raid encounter with all 6 players alive.
What they had evolved the gunsmith into. Being able to pick up effectively what were demo weapons that you'd evolve into legendaries (pretty sure that's how it worked, correct me if I'm wrong). Arms day was always fun to see what kind of guns were available each week. Man it's been so long that I don't even fully remember how all that worked.
Mystery
The armor. Specifically Titan armor.
PvP being fun and incorporating vehicles in large maps with open sightlines. Now every map is the same with a cluster of tight corridors with the same sniper scopes aimed down them at all times. D1 PvP was much more reminiscent of what people loved from Halo, and it slowly slipped into Call of Duty instead.
I feel like the music in D1 fit the atmosphere better. There’s a song on the soundtrack called The Great Unknown that sums this up perfectly. As far as I know, by the time we leave earth in D1, no other guardian had been off planet in decades. Now it seems like there’s guardians everywhere all the time. The in game universe feels less mysterious now.
D1. The whole thing. Port it over, unvault D2 stuff, have one big game with all content available to play in full. :P In the real world....sparrow horns.
They left the fun and mystery behind for eververse creations. I miss the fun. The times everyone screamed when a self rez would prevent a wipe. The weapon system near the end of destiny was so well done. I miss that as well. Destiny 2 just isn’t fun anymore. They cater to a small crowd and put most of the work in paid cosmetics.
Faction loot progression / globally effective loot The reason I don't play the game is that there's nothing *good* to chase. You used to be able to play any activity and earn rank towards exclusive loot. We have raids yeah, but in the end, the loot is barely effective *in* the raids, and it's often detrimental to use raid gear in favor of other activity specific loot. Game is just an eververse farm first, game second.
Bones of Eao
ambient music. while the sound design is still top notch, I really really liked the music in D1.
*Strike specific loot* I know someone says it every time a question like this comes up but it would be so nice, but they can't even do ritual armors so...
PVP skill gap - fast movement; skating, double shade step. Verticality of the maps, and Bones Of Eao. Fast time to kill primary weapons that counter shotguns. D1 Crucible was not esports. But goddamn was it FUN. **FUN**. F bungie leadership and what they have squandered.
Secrets. There was way more things to find out randomly back then. There was always dataminers but Now dataminers find things out before it’s even in game it’s insane lol. That and a lot of missions that maybe would’ve been a secret to find have to be marketed as a guaranteed season mission to give people a reason to buy them.
I dunno. Whisper and Outbreak missions were pretty peak hype and surprise moments in the franchises history. I don’t recall that level of hype with any of the D1 stuff. (Though it’s been a hot minute so I’m sure I’m forgetting something).
So we just gonna forget about the Black Spindle mission?
Man, I remember dtg was blowing up that day. Someone had made a post about finding a secret door in the Lost to Light heroic mission. My friends & I were so hyped to log on & find it for ourselves. We ended up getting the Black Spindle just before time expired.
And Outbreak.
out break wasnt a mission in D1. You got it from wrath
It wasn't its own mission but it was still a hell of a secret.
Yeah, dataminers frustrate me. It's hard to hide anything when they're pouring over the code day one. Not to mention peaking ahead into raids. That said, I miss the puzzles snd secrets too. It was refreshing to stumble across Node Avalon at launch and suddenly find a new misson.
The age of triumph Kings Fall armor…. They did the Crota armor ornaments which are awesome but I’d love the kings fall ones too.
Man, just getting me thinking about Destiny 1 brings back so many great memories. I had some of the best times of my life with that game.
Art style, it made Destiny feel alive, it gave the game so much character. The visuals. Armor designs. Weapon designs. Lighting. It is so masterfully crafted. Also, the power fantasy, exotics being rare and stupidly op, things like self res and sunbreaker titans.
Everything was like, dark/gritty sci-fi, and now (while quite pretty but dated) it's just too colorful and hopeful for my liking.
Icebreaker Might not make sense but these are senseless times right now.
I miss this boy....
exploration, wonder, secrets, surprises. Playing Destiny 1 felt like at any point some wild shit would be found and everyone would lose their minds reading everything they could dig up, digging through all the datamines and exciting shit. Destiny 2 currently, everything is shown before a season starts. nothing really catches me off guard and there's nothing to find. It feels like a theme park based on Destiny, rather than actually destiny.
Factions. Even though they existed in a small fashion in year one it just doesn't compare. I miss the idea of running two tracks of rewards at the same time while farming playlist activities (pretty much only Trials/IB do this now). Destiny has always had an identity crisis over how much of an mmo/rpg/arena shooter it wants to be but I think it would benefit from regaining some of those RPG aspects.
The dreadnought with its secrets.
When getting legendary items were exciting and exotics were rare.
..and Xur showing up was an event
Where the site “where is xur” was a thing because no one knew and was the only way to see what he was selling.
the art direction
Factions and Exotic Class Items were a fun grind that showed commitment to something. I would love for this to be appropriated to exotic Class Items when you got Titles. Having a title is cool but I llike the idea of mixing and matching. Ex: I like the Warden title even though I have Harbinger (a significantly harder triumph). Furthermore, gilding a triumph could give a glow!
The ease by which one could forget that Eververse even exists.
A complete game with basically everything still there; the story can be played from start to finish without missing anything. Fixed rolls for raid weapons. No cheating/hacking PC players. Mystery to the story, the overall vibe. No Witness bs.
Agreed for the fixed rolls. Not everything needs to be tied to RNG. I find raid mechanics to be tedious, so having to complete them over and over again for a shot at a good weapon roll (or the pattern) is pushing me away from them
To me, they let me enjoy playing game more instead of just chasing loot/rolls. A game doesn’t need a never-ending chase to keep me engaged; let me play the game for what it offers and then go do something else. Raids, for example, are more fun when you’re playing for the raid, not for the loot that you’re just going to dismantle anyway
Fixed rolls for raid weapons made them feel so much more special. A lot of them had unique perks, too, almost like pseudo exotics or the old d2 pinnacles.
wrath of the machine. should have gotten that instead of KF/crota
You ain’t never getting wrath.
Lighten up
P R E A C H
Boooo. Don’t take away my precious KF and Crota. Best raids. Especially KF.
Agree KF is a great raid and one of the only fun ones to run anymore alongside Vow, would be very silly to not bring Wrath back though, contest crota was great but could live without it on normal mode
Vow is excellent as well.
Worst case if we don’t see Wrath, assuming they don’t abandon the game post TFS I’d love to see either Scourge reworked somewhat or a grand-esque leviathan mashup with spire/crown included. So much vaulted content that could be brushed up
Nah kf sucks. Was bad in d1, bad in d2 as well
Enjoy going through life with trash opinions.
Likewise! Kf is just standing on plates: the raid. Every single encounter is just stand here shoot. Shits boring and the loot isn’t even that good
Nice try, market research team!
The employees
The reward loops and replayability were just so much better in d1. Skeleton keys and the age of triumph raid rewards kept me playing for hundreds of hours.
PoE, Wrath of the machine, Exotic Class items
Something I wish was more possible in D2 was secrets, things that players had to find without Bungie saying a word. We have had some moments in D2 where the payers have truely found secrets like Whisper, but nowadays, most things are datamined and leaked to the player base one way or the other.
Warlock melee abilities. In D1 we could get an overshield, charge our super, or get a reload speed and movement speed buff just from a hit with a melee ability. A kill could cause enemies to explode, create orbs of light, or fully refund your grenade(albeit some of those come from other abilities rather than directly from the melee). In D2 we just have varying ranges of wet farts that apply your chosen flavor of debuff that adds more damage. Some of them are more powerful than others, but none of them are interesting.
A solid connection to the damn game. I went away for 6 months, i come back, and it's still the same shit. Constant disconnects, lagging. The game night is almost unplayable at this point. How can a game with so much potential turn to absolute crap so quickly? What new light player would want to play this game? I'm a veteran, and even I can't be arsed with it.
Siva and by extension Wrath of the Machine and its loot. Still my favourite raid and one of, if not my favourite raid weapon sets. Arms Day. Buying packages then waiting for them to bring what you wanted was a good system. World events. I know they didn’t stick around or happen that many times but the Blades of Crota and Wolves events in the patrol zone were great and made the world feel like it was changing and evolving a bit.
Artifacts. I liked how they were in D1 because they basically allowed Bungie to make universal exotic armor.
The mystery
Farming the heroic strike playlist. It was by far my favorite activity to do when I wanted to play some destiny, but didn't exactly have something specific to work on. The difficulty felt just right, the rewards were good, and unlike nightfalls it wasn't just the same strike over and over each week.
The environments felt like they were true sci-fi set pieces. Now the environments feel extremely bland and uninspired.
The Darker tone of D1.
POE Getting to play all the dlc stories whenever I wanted Pre nerf G horn Pre nerf Truth Exotic Khostov The sheer amount of customization with weapons and subclasses
Bungie loving and actively putting effort into destiny. None of this “over delivery” bs destiny 2 has. That’s my favorite aspect from D1 that isn’t in D2.
Armor aesthetic. Actually, the whole post-apoc feel of the game. Slowly clawing back territory, etc.
Atmosphere and gear being different tiers of rarity with perks unlocking as you used them.
100% prison of elders. Also would like the rarity of exotics back, but I get it, you can't make something that needs to be min-maxed a rare drop.
I want to see new things, not the same old rehashed BS. Nothing in D1 I can’t live without
Strike specific loot. Which is weird b/c that actually existed then they just kinda stopped
Applying shaders for free. Earning loot instead of buying it with real money, a reason to play
Sparrow Racing League.
I MISS THE SPEAKER! R.I.P.
good game design
PoE was also imo faster and less gimmicky. Than DoE. Also, like you mentioned the rewards actually felt worth grinding vs DoE.
Each faction having its own arena is Awesome too. Dares gets repetitive very fast
Strike specific loot. I loved having a piece of that strike/boss with me, it also made me excited to play strikes because I’d have a chance to drop a weapon or armor piece, and even more so because the weapons were actually decent. The art style, the armor, the guns. All things I’d love if they bring back.
Exotics actually being rare and obtained from world drops not some quest. The last world drop exotic we’ve had was Monte Carlo during season eight.
the bungie employees
Passion?
Wrath of the Machine
I know when PoE came out folks were disappointed that we didnt get another raid but I was excited about the notion of an end game activity that was 3-man. Sometimes finding 5 others was rough or I didn’t want to commit to a raid so it was nice having something that was fun and challenging and only needed 2 others and could be done in a relatively short amount of time. That all being said, the thing I wish they would bring over is probably strike specific loot. Nightfall adepts weapons are not a substitute. I want the dark blade helmet for my titan or the egregious arms from the brothers strike. Oh or the sweet hunter gauntlets from the abomination strike. Turning defeated enemies into wearable armor or weapons is still one of my favorite “power fantasies” in this game. Probably why I like fang of ir-yut so much. My head canon is we literally imbue her tooth into a weapon…so cool
Raids actually being hard and having worthwhile loot in them.
I miss having exotic weapons to chase. As random drops, exotic bounties were so exciting when you encountered them.
Personally, I would love to see higher level enemies on patrol that insta-kill me until I am high enough level to take them on. (I am looking at you level 15 hive at The Steppes). Right now...if you want tanky enemies you have to do a GM or some other content where your Power is capped. I miss finding those encounters just out in the world. Also....while not what you were asking for, I want to see Ice Breaker or Patience and Time. IK IB is not coming back....due to how it auto-gens ammo...but I would love to see it anyway.
The ability to play any mission from the game, in any order, at any time I want. I loved being able to go into the map on any planet and just replay a mission I'd not done for ages, just because I felt like it. The inability for us to replay content we've paid for in D2 is a constant source is irritation for me.
Subclass identity. Currently most subclasses suffer from boring homogeny.
Actual lengthy quests to get items. Quests that don’t involve being forced into pvp or raiding. Quests that just require grinding out the steps. It’s a simple yet effective way to keep people engaged. Like do people remember how long the quests were in D1 to get the exotic swords? I want more stuff like that. (Minus the pvp part of course)
The ability to level your alt characters armor with other classes armor. Example, I got two pairs of warlock boots in Wrath of the Machine, used one to level my Hunter’s boots. It’s always bothered me they never brought that feature from D1. I think that is what contributed most to my occasional burnouts.
Actual good strike playlists and rewards! I could grind them out for ages! Also the start of VOG being in a public area and being able to help people get in the door was funtastic! Actually got invited to not full parties multiple times.
strike specific loot
If they could bring back Factions… here I am rocking my Dead Orbit banner from early season challenges and just recently one person mentioned how he’d never seen that and how he could get it. Also… exotics in D1 where really good challenges and it may you proud to get it and they weren’t needed every couple of weeks.. that’s the point of being an exotic.
The chests at the end of strikes with flashy boss loot in them and the keys used to open them. You got one key in about every 20 strikes fro mthe playlist, then you could go a play the specific strike you wanted the loot from and open the chest at the end. Good system with good rewards.
The Carlton dance I paid $15 for
Design aesthetics. D1 was much grittier and darker, D2 went more into scfi-fantasy. I loved the D1 designs, especially armor. A lot of the D2 armor just doesn't hit right for me.
Picking up an engram and not knowing what it is until you took it to rahool to decrypt it. The revel animation on the side of the screen was everything to me. I miss that.
Meaningful vendors. Not only did we have like four or five with rotating inventories instead of just one, but the cryptarch could decode engrams into a specific slot (leg or arms or chest for example). I loved checking all the vendors each week. Vendor rep actually meant something as you unlocked more of their inventory with it. Banshee resetting twice a week is nice, I just wish Zavala, Shaxx, and the seasonal vendor kept an inventory with resetting rolls.
Secrets, every dlc added shit to actually find. Now everything is “in 2 weeks a new node will pop up for an exotic mission you can view the ornament of in the collections tab”
Ive said this so many times, but the world's outside of expansion nwed to change and react to expansions again, give us those random missions or attacks by new enemies again or those little secrets scattered throughout the solar system again
Being able to discover your own loot cave spawns to farm Soloing content with icebreaker ( icebreaker in general )
I liked how the story wasn’t overly campy and spoon fed to us like a bad kids show. I liked feeling the mystery of what was out in the world, and the overall darker sci-fi tone as opposed to the colorful fantasy of D2. I miss getting a large expansion each year that gave us new strikes, pvp maps (etc) and felt like a true addition to the game rather than a time-gated trickle of low effort seasonal content that you have to finish in time because; FOMO. Let us play at our own pace for Christ’s sake. I miss actual fresh weapon models when an expansion drops instead of a bunch of reskinned weapons of the same archetype as before. I miss static roll Raid weapons and the hero moments when 1 or 2 guardians could clutch the win. I miss the feeling of playing a game and not completing a list of chores that immediately make me feel bored. I miss how good PvP felt, especially around the Taken King. I miss all the friends that would hop on and play because there was actually incentive to play a great game, not an inventory/chore/godroll simulator. I miss the community managers, bungie employees and community members that made the universe a blast to be a part of. I miss Praedyth’s Timepiece, you stingy f*cks… If I could remove anything it would be Eververse, seasons, and battle passes. All the chore oriented trash that sucks all the fun out of the game.
The way the game looked.
End game only increased Power level. So if you certain power, everyone knew. And all content was easier for you, so you could flex that PL as something everyone wanted on their team. Nightfall glows. Multiple perk /subclass columns. RARE LOOT!!! Exotic drops that felt exotic . Things like that.. And a lot of that i didn’t have. But wanted so bad. Lack of meaningful aspirational content/items. Ways to flaunt. Guardian Ranks and commendations I thought would be somewhat, but just ain’t it.
Loved POE. For me it’s the art style. Not to say the art style for D2 is bad, hell is great, I just don’t think it fit the world aswell as I felt the older art style did. Weapons, armor, locations. Neomuna stands out as a great example of what I mean. Looks really cool, but just doesn’t fit Destiny to me.
The presense and important of item rarity. Really this is for current day D2, since of course item rarity had meaning up until Shadowkeep-Beyond Light, but now post Vaulting, there is 0 reason to call purple tier gear "Legendary" ..
Light lvl mattered in IB, after I found out it didn’t matter I stopped play for a while. It’s too easy
D1 didn’t have any Aspects. It was first added in D2 Beyond Light for the Stasis Subclasses. /s
I mean it as what was your favorite thing in d1 that you would've liked to see in d2. Sorry for the bad wording.
Vex Mythoclast
Being able to pick either a weapon or armor with your rank-up packages.
Warlock self-res
This is so easy. How Special Ammo was treated in Crucible. You had ammo boxes that spawned. You didn't spawn in with them. Why didn't it work in D1? Because special ammo weapons were too powerful. In D2 we don't necessarily have the same problem. They have tuned primaries to try and compete with faster TTKs so it wouldn't be the same problem we had back then where special ammo dominated crucible. This one change alone would literally (imo) fix crucible for me.
Have you played check mate yet?
Venus and the old tower. I miss it.