[Megathread] Destiny

[Bugg]

Working on solving puzzles and encounter mechanics in a 'day-one raid' with your team without spoilers is still the best 'mmo' experience I had.
Pleasantly surprised by WQ so far.

[Fencers]

Wow, that Rhulk fight is just terrific.

[NightZero88]

Wow, that Rhulk fight is just terrific.

Clip that's been circulating the discords and is absolutely hysterical. Spoilers for last boss so if you care obviously don't watch.

https://twitter.com/Haji_chan_Man_n/...2N_pNnjameA_3A

[neik]

Destiny lore was always mysterious and captivating to me. But I'm hoping that the Bungie will start introducing new and different elements after Witch Queen ends rather than keep continuing screechers legacy. I really loved powerful Red Legion and Mars/Mercury elements, there is a lot of good stuff in the past but the hive.

Last city is also here waiting for proper restoration, maybe it isn't enough to spin off entire expansion from it. But instead of sitting and waiting everyone to starve to death, they could just start progressing into more positive and uplifting cyberpunk theme.

I've yet to jump the WQ grind, but I'm looking forward to it. Hated hive screechers since day one maybe that's why I'm longing for change.

[neik]

On that note this is fucking dope. Bungie truly outdone themselves. An here when I was thinking that super important lore character like spider has disappeared into oblivion with Mara's wrath.

[Puri]

Anyone still playing here and has any idea about the game?

Our situation: We played destiny 2 when it was still on the Blizzard Launcher, then we moved it to steam and have not played since.

But as the Legacy Pack is currently on sale on Steam we bought in, hoping we could now play the campaigns to those DLCs.

But we have no idea how to start it? We are completely overwhelmed with all the options. So we played some of those legacy missions, that have more cutscenes than gameplay, but that's not really fun.
So we went to the single mission we found under "campaign", where we jumped from rock to rock (I think following Petras(?) ship) until we found some City of dreams(?) and had to find a sacrifice that we could put in some machine. We did this, and the mission was over. No further campaign missions to see.

How exactly can we play those DLCs campaigns? Is there some way to put us right into some of those DLCs (like Chromie time or something?)?

Help please

[PACOX]

Anyone still playing here and has any idea about the game?

Our situation: We played destiny 2 when it was still on the Blizzard Launcher, then we moved it to steam and have not played since.

But as the Legacy Pack is currently on sale on Steam we bought in, hoping we could now play the campaigns to those DLCs.

But we have no idea how to start it? We are completely overwhelmed with all the options. So we played some of those legacy missions, that have more cutscenes than gameplay, but that's not really fun.
So we went to the single mission we found under "campaign", where we jumped from rock to rock (I think following Petras(?) ship) until we found some City of dreams(?) and had to find a sacrifice that we could put in some machine. We did this, and the mission was over. No further campaign missions to see.

How exactly can we play those DLCs campaigns? Is there some way to put us right into some of those DLCs (like Chromie time or something?)?

Help please

IIRC there's a terminal next to the postmaster terminal in the tower that let's you access old missions. I don't remember the specific name of it.

[Makabreska]

Ummm, sudden layoffs at Bungee happening right now:

https://www.gameinformer.com/news/20...on-acquisition

[Edge-]

Ummm, sudden layoffs at Bungee happening right now:

https://www.gameinformer.com/news/20...on-acquisition

This is so weird, I'm waiting for more context. Because apparently a good chunk of the purchase price was earmarked for employee retention and I'm unaware of any troubles with expansion sales or anything else that would result in them needing to make some headcount reductions, especially for some notable folks. Doubly so given that they're in full production on Marathon + working on another title on top of ongoing Destiny 2 support.

It really feels like the answer to every question in corporate is always "layoffs".

[Makabreska]

This is so weird, I'm waiting for more context. Because apparently a good chunk of the purchase price was earmarked for employee retention and I'm unaware of any troubles with expansion sales or anything else that would result in them needing to make some headcount reductions, especially for some notable folks. Doubly so given that they're in full production on Marathon + working on another title on top of ongoing Destiny 2 support.

It really feels like the answer to every question in corporate is always "layoffs".

They even fired some female worker who was with the company since 1999 or so and an old time composer. Subreddit obviously fuming hard.

[Edge-]

They even fired some female worker who was with the company since 1999 or so and an old time composer. Subreddit obviously fuming hard.

https://twitter.com/PaulTassi/status...96652996317488

https://twitter.com/PaulTassi/status...21275494359273

I normally think Tassi is an idiot, and I still think Tassi is an idiot, but I'm inclined to believe he's got some decent sources in Bungie.

So if this is legit this very much just looks bad for Bungie leadership/management more than anything else. Especially the whole "possibly laying off a bunch of folks before their shares vest angle.

The subreddit fuming is basically any day that ends in Y more or less, it's hardly the first time and will hardly be the last time. They'll lose their shit for a week and then things will return to normal. Just look at how basically every expansion except Witch Queen, at least according to Steam reviews, has been utter dogshit. It's just a super toxic "relationship", and they're constantly angry at Bungie for not supporting PvP or otherwise seemingly investing very little of the revenue that Destiny 2 makes back into the game itself. It's a big reason I've never really come back TBH, beyond being horribly lost the few times I've tried and still being salty that they straight up deleted most of the content I actually paid for rofl.

Bungie is such a weird studio. They earned their cred early on, but since I never really got into Halo (PC so only really could play the first one or two) I don't really have much attachment to them historically. And my opinion of their handling of the Destiny franchise is rather low - not that it matters much given how wildly successful and profitable of a franchise as its' been for them.

[Makabreska]

Bungie is such a weird studio. They earned their cred early on, but since I never really got into Halo (PC so only really could play the first one or two) I don't really have much attachment to them historically. And my opinion of their handling of the Destiny franchise is rather low - not that it matters much given how wildly successful and profitable of a franchise as its' been for them.

Well, Sony bought them so they can finally enter the live service multiplayer market after dominating single player games for many years. So Bungee better deliver with future projects.

[Edge-]

Well, Sony bought them so they can finally enter the live service multiplayer market after dominating single player games for many years. So Bungee better deliver.

Yep, but it's a weird as fuck contract best I understand that basically leaves Bungie largely autonomous despite the huge pricetag. I'm still pretty sure Sony was panicking in the face of the Zenimax acquisition and other plays by Microsoft and made a very bad deal for themselves. Great for Bungie though since it appears they're back in that weird, sweet spot of being a first party studio but also apparently seeming to have quite a bit of freedom and autonomy as if they were still independent.

But I'm not so sure this is good for their employees, as we're possibly seeing now, or the community of folks playing their games in the longrun, either.

[rogoth]

i'm kinda curious why people think this is a surprise considering bungie has not been able to land a single deadline they have been set for the entire lifespan of this game life cycle, it took huge crunch hours from activision studios helping bungie to make sure destiny 2 even launched when it did, it took vicarious visions basically taking over development of the entire era of forsaken content to make it so that the game actually had something to put out after the utter shambles of curse of osiris/warmind, and when they did their whole public 'we have split from activision' thing, their first major release after that was a rehashed destination from destiny 1 and ever since then the vast majority of seasonal content since then has been a copy/paste hash job with ~10-15% actually new content, and this is just talking about the gameplay side of things.

as a company they have hired so many activists and woke propaganda pushers that every time they have tried to push 'the message', it blows up in their faces, see the most recent LatinX bollox as a prime example, and the list is a long one of past sanfu's relating to woke ideology, and when a huge amount of the workforce is made up of such people it's only expected they get laid off when they start to go broke, also, seeing as they are now owned outright by sony, it's not surprising to see the level of woke media pushing get reduced and the number of posts about diversity start to fall off.

add into the mix the sheer mismanagement from the top down of bungie for years now, it's not really all that surprising to see the house of cards come crashing down like this.

[Edge-]

i'm kinda curious why people think this is a surprise considering bungie has not been able to land a single deadline they have been set for the entire lifespan of this game life cycle, it took huge crunch hours from activision studios helping bungie to make sure destiny 2 even launched when it did, it took vicarious visions basically taking over development of the entire era of forsaken content to make it so that the game actually had something to put out after the utter shambles of curse of osiris/warmind, and when they did their whole public 'we have split from activision' thing, their first major release after that was a rehashed destination from destiny 1 and ever since then the vast majority of seasonal content since then has been a copy/paste hash job with ~10-15% actually new content, and this is just talking about the gameplay side of things.

as a company they have hired so many activists and woke propaganda pushers that every time they have tried to push 'the message', it blows up in their faces, see the most recent LatinX bollox as a prime example, and the list is a long one of past sanfu's relating to woke ideology, and when a huge amount of the workforce is made up of such people it's only expected they get laid off when they start to go broke, also, seeing as they are now owned outright by sony, it's not surprising to see the level of woke media pushing get reduced and the number of posts about diversity start to fall off.

add into the mix the sheer mismanagement from the top down of bungie for years now, it's not really all that surprising to see the house of cards come crashing down like this.

This is all nice and all but it really falls apart when you remember that most of Sony's internal studios are all equally woke as hell and they've been shipping gangbusters. Insomniac, who are woke as all fuck, shipped three titles so far this generation. Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank Rifts Apart, and now Spider-Man 2, all of which are both critical darlings and apparently very strong sellers. There are few AAA studios putting out games at that pace, with that scope, and meeting that quality bar.

So while I can absolutely buy lots of bad management (I've always thought they've done a shit job with the Destiny franchise from the very start and maintain that opinion), the rest of your argument doesn't really seem to hold much, if any water.

[Makabreska]

This is all nice and all but it really falls apart when you remember that most of Sony's internal studios are all equally woke as hell and they've been shipping gangbusters. Insomniac, who are woke as all fuck, shipped three titles so far this generation. Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank Rifts Apart, and now Spider-Man 2, all of which are both critical darlings and apparently very strong sellers. There are few AAA studios putting out games at that pace, with that scope, and meeting that quality bar.

So while I can absolutely buy lots of bad management (I've always thought they've done a shit job with the Destiny franchise from the very start and maintain that opinion), the rest of your argument doesn't really seem to hold much, if any water.

Kinda amazes me how quick some peeps are to put the blame for company failings primarily on "wokness", and not on, you know, bad management/greed.

[Gorsameth]

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2.

Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting.

Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall.

The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product.

In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up.

But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts.

Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month.

The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office.

TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.”

PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign.

Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...pularity-waned

Revenue at 45% below expectations is going to send basically any management into a panic if true.

[rogoth]

Kinda amazes me how quick some peeps are to put the blame for company failings primarily on "wokness", and not on, you know, bad management/greed.

I didn't say that though, I stated quite clearly that the vast majority of this is down exclusively to shit management, and has been from the get-go, I stated that the whole woke agenda bullshit has been the icing on top of this shit pie and is one of the many reasons they have so little trust in the community now.

[Edge-]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...pularity-waned

Revenue at 45% below expectations is going to send basically any management into a panic if true.

Wow, maybe Lightfall was finally bad enough that people just left and didn't stick around for the "good" seasonal content and narrative. That's a bummer, but totally unsurprising given the extremely negative reaction to it (and every other expansion save Witch Queen) and the fact that this seemed particularly pointless/galling in many ways.

I'm kinda surprised that Destiny 2 has been paying the bills for as long as it has been tbh. Bungie management really needs some humility, because it really seems like they feel like there's a large enough core fanbase for anything they make that they're "untouchable".

Welp, it's Sony's problem, now. They're the ones that grossly overpaid for the studio and gave them an incredible amount of autonomy and freedom, it's their mess to deal with rofl.

[rogoth]

This is all nice and all but it really falls apart when you remember that most of Sony's internal studios are all equally woke as hell and they've been shipping gangbusters. Insomniac, who are woke as all fuck, shipped three titles so far this generation. Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank Rifts Apart, and now Spider-Man 2, all of which are both critical darlings and apparently very strong sellers. There are few AAA studios putting out games at that pace, with that scope, and meeting that quality bar.

So while I can absolutely buy lots of bad management (I've always thought they've done a shit job with the Destiny franchise from the very start and maintain that opinion), the rest of your argument doesn't really seem to hold much, if any water.

again, I stated quite clearly that the level of mismanagement from the top down is what has led to this, and from a gameplay perspective they have shot themselves in the foot time and time again.

however pushing the woke narrative continuously has destroyed any sort of community support they could have fallen back on, as evidenced by the fact that revenue is down 45% on projections, meaning that all the harm the company has done to its image through the woke fiasco's over the years has now started to hit them where it hurts, their wallets.