We're losing the Doctor? Destiny is truly dead.
I keep trying to figure out why I don't say "Diablo is dead" when I put it down. It's just weird. Diablo is static between patches. There's no limited events. No weekly loot lockouts. No timed vendors. It's just the game in its barest form. But
I always leave smiling & satisfied. But not with Destiny.
I think once Destiny's aggressive hooks (weekly lockouts, time gated events, etc.) lose their novelty, then it becomes plain that they're hooks. And hooks hurt.
For those of you who don't play Diablo 3, there's a new patch 2-3x per year that is almost all buffs. It rebalances the game, but also adds new mechanics (kunai's cube & legendary gems, etc.) and some new legendaries. And a bunch of Quality of Life stuff. That aside, there's been no new major "content" for 2 years. No new story, no new characters or classes. They've added a few small tilesets and a few enemies, but nothing like what we'd want. But I keep coming back to it.
A large part of my love for Diablo is because it fulfills that power fantasy really well. They don't have to balance PvP and as a result, they don't have to punish players or be all "no fun allowed". It's all about making your hero awesome and achieve incredible things. They have achievements for beating bosses on the highest difficulties in sub-60 seconds. When that happened in Destiny they instead nerfed the weapon.
I think it's also because it's pick up and play and that I always feel like I'm progressing no matter what activity I'm doing. I can do Adventure mode to get re-rolling mats. I can do regular rifts to get great gear. I can do greater rifts to upgrade my legendary gems. I progress at any difficulty too.
Destiny on the other hand is such a chore lately to complete anything that could progress you. Nightfall? 292 ghost. King's Fall? Shards. Doing Patrol is tedious even if you need it for planetary mats, glimmer, etc. You don't do anything that feels good with that stuff. And without a transmog system, it's so hard to make my "doll" (their word) look like I want. I just look hideous 90% of the time.
Taking a step back, what even is progress in this game? Being 314 light instead of 313 light? Like that's bullshit. Light as a progression system is horrible because light doesn't change how you play. And gear progression beyond that doesn't exist. Re-rolling is gone, but drops are abysmally low. Even beyond that, the game isn't balanced around perks anyway, so it's like a 5% edge at best. There aren't interesting weapons to chase or to use. Everything feels the same kind of bland.
Compared to Diablo where I can try to build a full class set, try to perfect that set, collect a different class set, try a build with around a different skill, build a set of gear around this legendary or that one.
I really hope Destiny Taken King was "here's what we can do with what we've got" and Destiny 2 is "Here's what we really wanted to do." Because Year 2 end-game is really bad. They wanted Taken King to be a loot game, and the game makes you miserable if you treat it that way. If you play the modes you like, with people you like, not caring about gear, then that's why I have 600 hours in Destiny.
