Destiny 2

75% of the things you can do here are paywalled once you do enough of the main campaign things but the crucible/gambit matches are decent if you dk what else to play/want something to pass the time

the worst and most insufferably boring pve of all time dragging the limp remains of its writing behind it. BUT, the pvp is viscerally engulfing in a way i have not found in any other fps, period. sure, sometimes there's only two meta loadouts, but getting good makes you feel like the most stylish motherfucker this side of mercury.

if it weren't for the godawful dlc model and whiny community, i'd probably never have put it down.

For those unaware, at one point in Destiny 1's development they effectively had to scrap the entire thing and start anew, under orders from Activision. Following this, dozens of staff left the studio, including THE guy who wrote the majority of the Book of Sorrows, and everything from D2 and its expansions has been trying to glue together left over pieces of what he wrote that weren't used already, and every single part that isn't part of that original body of writing is instantly recognizable, and infinitely less interesting, if not outright hack-ish. Retcons abound, terrible reveals plague every expansion, missed opportunities at every turn, and thats just the *writing*.

Gameplay wise, the game is absolutely STELLAR at it's baseline, easily some of if not THE best gunplay in any game, ever. The issue that plagues this particularly section is the complete and utter disrespect of the players time and money, and the mindbogglingly bad balance decisions, and sometimes like thereof, that make the PvP some of the most infuriating in the business. To start, i'm sure everyone is now aware that Destiny 2 has introduced "sunsetting", the vaulting (read: deletion) of older content on a yearly basis. Now, dear reader, if you are unaware you may be wondering why this is an issue, plenty of MMOs have removed content before, or at least made content completely superfluous to the point it might as well not exist, what makes it so special for Destiny 2? Well, unlike every other MMO on the market, what gear you have equipped doesn't just affect numbers. Each gun fires in more or less unique ways, and if you've played any PvP shooter like CoD you'll know first hand that you can run down the list of SMGs and easily pick out ones you like the most without having to even know whats optimal once you do the math. It just feels good to use, so you use it. Now imagine if every few months that gun you liked? It became useless. You can still technically keep and use it, but it will actively do less damage than any other gun you find in the current expansion, and there's nothing you can do about it. Chances are INCREDIBLY low you can find anything that performs similarly enough in the new wave of gear, and you aren't compensated anything for this barely justifiable effective deletion of content. Add to this the fact that some weapons could have taken you dozens of hours to obtain, with many difficult engagements required along the way to even get a DROP of it, let alone a good roll, and you have THE most disrespectful game on the market today.

And of course, you have such exhausting trainwrecks such as the absolute domination of the One Eyed Mask Meta, or even the Mida Meta Tool, which took months to be addressed, and should never have hit live to begin with because of how blatantly awful they were. Bungie has tried to claim they simply don't want to balance differently between PvP and PvE, but that's an absolute pile of shit because its INHERENTLY balanced differently, because guardians don't exist as enemies in PvE so we have no frame of reference for how much damage any particular thing should be doing outside of testing it in PvP.

Finally, what started as an extra source of income for some cool cosmetics in D1, which was mandated by Activision, D2 has turned the Eververse store into the main drive to continue grinding past level cap, and if you miss a cool skin you like you're liable to not see it for months if not years. MMOs live and die on their loot grind, and Destiny 2 has straight up locked a good 50-60% of their content behind paywalls or massive grinds like it's a mobile game.

I played this game the moment the servers went online and it's been with me for so long. though the more I play it recently It continues to be more a chore. the things i want always seem more out of the way than ever. the more time passes the less i tend to play which makes me sad

LFGs make me want to commit suicide.

The level design and combat are absolute perfection. There is something beyond addictive in the endgame loop chasing after that next piece of gear other looter shooters fail to capture. The story ranges from amazing to borderline satire but is on an upward trend with the last few seasons.