While I definitely enjoyed the Vault of Glass with my first group of friends with our experienced Raid Leader, subsequent tries have been more for gear than fun. It's no longer fun, and worse the game has become brutally random. No gear, just useless crafting materials and duplicate items. I've pretty much given up at this point. Gotten my 3 characters to 27+. Crucible matchmaking is hopelessly broken, being paired with teammates that have abysmal kill/death ratios only to have someone quit and leave you short handed. The gameplay is fun but the game is undeniably broken, and Bungie shows less than encouraging signs that they will ever fix it.

I think I'd like off this train.

So, after a wild roller coaster ride experiencing Bungie's latest venture into the FPS genre, it is finally time to say goodbye. When you reach level 30, there is naught to do except hire your attributes out to other people doing Raids and weeklies, even the need to farm shards and energy is pointless because the amount of dud Raid runs has put the number of each well beyond 100. Every trip to the Tower is now fraught with a barrage of game invitations, frantic messages wishing to fill a slot in their Raid party with a bullet sponge and giddy poppin' and lockin' Guardians who have yet to experience the game's disappointing end product.

Saying that, this week has by far been the best week of Destiny for me where drops are concerned. Scurrying to finish my last NightFall mission of 3 on Monday Evening, the week began by giving me the Splinter Cell Hunter Helmet, highly coveted now more so that Xur Double Agent of 9 decided decided how much fun it would be to give everyone the 4-shot Golden Gun helmet I received after getting my ass kicked in my first ever NightFall: Summoning Pits.

As Tuesday rolled over, it was business as usual, the schedule of 3 Raids, 3 Nightfalls and 3 weekly heroics would greet me, but not before I get some Crucible in to warm up BOOM! First game granted me the Exotic Plan C Fusion Rifle. Being numb to the game and its bullshit drops and all that jazz, I take it in my stride without a lick of guilt:



Raid TIME

First Raid gives me nothing but a bread crumb trail of shards and energy up until the incredibly rare Atheon's Epilogue (energy disguised as a weapon drop) and the extraordinarily, hardly ever seen shader Chatterwhite that I am sure nobody has. Also, having a ship as an end-raid item drop is just insulting, because a free loading screen after the games hardest portion is exactly what I want. My Shard game is so strong right now, my Energy game is ok, but my shard game is pimp status.

Raid TWO

Holy SHAT! A goddamn Raid chest! FINALLY I can look like every other level 30 Hunter! Between Xur and the absurdity of Raid Gear being the only gear that nets you a level 30, the Tower is soon going to turn into a Twilight Zone of carbon-copy Guardians. I also found the Found Verdict for the twentieth time, it helped boost my energy game. The rest of the Raid was just shards shards shardsshardsshards shards shards. ERRYBODY

Raid 3 HARD MODE!

Did I mention I have 3 Hunters to increase my chances of getting a level 30 Hunter quicker? I do. After trying Hard Mode last week and only getting to the 1st chest, my friends and I banded together with our level 29 and level 30 Guardians and tackled it on Hard Mode. Hard Mode just requires more concentration and a lot more tact. It also requires that level 30 Guardians take point, even though it says the Raid is level 30, by the time you get to the end all the enemies have ascended to level 32.

To note, there is a significant damage boost between level 29 and level 30, lets just say you each get a triple threat of a Fanatic, a Goblin and a Hobgoblin bounding towards your conflux, lvl 29 panics and says 'shit' starts firing, level 30 says 'meh' and starts firing, eventually they have both emptied a clip and need to reload except the lvl 29 has only taken 1/3 of health from one enemy and the lvl 30 has moved on to the final third of his firing range. Huge difference.

The hardest part of the Hard Raid is the Templar, and the fact that if you die there is no respawning, you have to wipe and do the section again unless you're confident enough in your team that as each of you get picked off one by one by persistent HobGoblins that others can pick up the slack, unless you're all Warlocks, then I guess you'll be saving Sunsinger's ultimate ability of resurrect for a Raidy day (I'm not sorry).

This run would be my largest haul in Raid history:

Vex Mythoclast
Legendary Sparrow
HardLight
Raid Helmet
SHARDS SHARDS SHARDSSHARDSSHARDS SHARDS

Basically, everything that I wanted. :D

It was almost as if the game knew I would make my exit at level 30, everything just seemed to go my way

The Weekly coughed up its usual 27 Strange Coins, Nightfall coughed up 22 Ascendant Energy, I levelled up all my new gear and headed for the Crucible where the walls of Jericalling bullshit on that one reared its ugly head and I realised this is it.These are my exact sentiments where the Crucible is concerned, I will be revisiting this game properly in maybe half a year to a year and hopefully by then it will be a much better game.

This has largely been my experience with Destiny

I should have bought an Xbox One. From watching a few of your videos, this isn't the first time I've noticed just how God awful the opponents are on XBL. Seeing Titanfall, Battlefield 4, Plants vs Zombies, they just can't shoot back!

Like 90% of everyone who plays BF4 is awful at it.. I'm not sure why.

That was the most shocking thing about playing Planetside 2. There were all of these people, talking to each other, about what was happening in the game. And they like, knew what they were doing and stuff. It was really bizarre.

Divekick is all tactics and accuracy! ;)

I really expected Bungie to have a better handle on this stuff. I mean, there are RPG's that appear to handle PVP balance better. They should take a long hard look at the original Guild Wars.. and then make it an FPS.

All the heavy weapons are noob friendly, which is why the heavy ammo is dropped so rarely. My problem is that it gives up to 3 teammates ammo, it should be one player. Also, more modes, some where Supers/Heavy ammo is restricted/removed. Would also be nice for a Juggernaut type mode where only one player has it.

Hard to get excited for the new Expansion pack gear when I know how much time I've put into the main game versus what it's given me for spending that time. I remember how people made a big deal about the exclusive gear and weapons Playstation users were getting. Do you know how much of that exclusive gear I've gotten after spending $90 on the Limited Edition and over 100hrs playing? None.

I've beaten the Vault of Glass eight times now and gotten 3 weapons and 2 pieces of armor. Everything else was upgrade materials for weapons I do not possess. Meanwhile some people keep getting duplicates of the same weapons I'm trying to get. It's infuriating for everyone.

Netcode is really breaking down with the latest "stability patch". More lag, worse team matchmaking. But this game can be amazingly fun with a good team, or even people you like. My friends list is consistently playing Destiny daily despite its many, many faults because the core gameplay is fun. Just wish they'd do something to liven up the shell that gameplay is in.