Shortly after last week’s Destiny 2 expansion Curse of Osiris came out, it became evident that players who hadn’t bought the DLC were locked out of activities they’d previously been able to play. Today, Bungie acknowledged they’d made mistakes with the existing system and said they’re changing how it will work.
“It’s clear that we’ve made some mistakes with how we have handled content access,” reads an official Destiny 2 blog post attributed to the Destiny 2 Dev Team.
The post goes on to detail the developers’ goals with the seasonal content in Destiny 2, and the various places they feel the plan hasn’t worked. Namely, that in trying to keep endgame content relevant to players by raising the associated power requirement, they locked non-DLC-owning players out of activities they’d previously been able to access.
That move infuriated players, and with good reason. Destiny 2 came out only a few months ago, and just over a month ago if you bought it on PC. If someone recently bought the game and decided to hold off on the DLC, they could be finding themselves locked out of events they’d previously been playing only days before.
The issue was made worse by the fact that by removing access to the Prestige Raid, Bungie made it impossible for non-DLC-owning players to get all the trophies/achievements available on the console versions.
Bungie detailed the changes they’re making, which they say will be applied tomorrow along with the next big game update, as follows:
The Prestige Leviathan Raid will be brought back down to Power 300, and its rewards will drop down to match the new Power Level. All players will regain access to the Prestige Raid.
- This will allow access to “The Prestige” Achievement/Trophy for all players.
- This will also allow all players ability to complete the final step for the Legend of Acrius Exotic Shotgun.
Trials of The Nine will only require Curse of Osiris when it features a Curse of Osiris map. For all other weeks, it will be available to all players.
- This will allow access to “Lest Ye Be Judged” Achievement/Trophy for all players.
- Trials of The Nine rewards that launched with Destiny 2 will still be accessible to all players.
- New Seasonal Rewards that launched with Curse of Osiris, such as the new Seasonal Armour Ornaments, will require ownership of Curse of Osiris to acquire.
The Prestige Nightfall will remain a pinnacle activity, at the new 330 Power cap.
- This means Prestige Nightfall will require ownership of Curse of Osiris.
- Because of this, we will update “The Prestige” Achievement/Trophy to only reference The Prestige Raid.
- Moving forward, we are investigating adding a 3rd difficulty to all Prestige activities, so that we can provide both a challenge that stays relevant with each new Expansion, and a Prestige version that is available to all players.
Normal Nightfall will only require Curse of Osiris when it features a Curse of Osiris map. For all other weeks it will be available to all players.
Time limited events — Iron Banner, Faction Rally, and The Dawning, will be made available to all players.
- We will be postponing tomorrow’s Faction Rally, to ensure all of our players can access the activity and the appropriate rewards.
- Iron Banner and Faction Rally rewards that launched with Destiny 2 will still be accessible to all players.
- New Seasonal Rewards that launch with Curse of Osiris, such as the new Seasonal Armour Ornaments, will require ownership of Curse of Osiris to acquire.
Read the full post over at the Bungie blog.
Comments
96 responses to “‘We’ve Made Some Mistakes’: Bungie Backtracks On Locked Destiny 2 Content”
Why should I go back now. What a joke.
I wonder if I can get my money back.
You had a problem. They fixed the problem.
Go back if you like the game. Don’t if you don’t. I don’t see how you would be deserving of a refund.
*fistbump*
I brought a product with content that I dont have access to. The Prestige nightfall…. 3 months ago.
I should still have access to every thing I paid for.
The problem was fixed. You now have access again. You have the content you paid for. They shouldn’t have taken it away in the first place, but like I said: You had a problem. The problem is now fixed.
For a dad, your reading and comprehension skills sure are lacking.
If you read the article
The Prestige Nightfall will remain a pinnacle activity, at the new 330 Power cap.
This means Prestige Nightfall will require ownership of Curse of Osiris.
So no, I do not get access to all the content I paid for.
You lost a difficulty mode for a piece of content you still have access to, I guess.
Fair enough. There is a small piece of content you had that you don’t. They shouldn’t do that. They say they are going to fix it so you will have access. On principle, you’re right. It still isn’t going to be enough to justify a complete refund on it and it sure as hell doesn’t justify the weird amount of anger coming from the community.
Why are you defending them? They’re completely screwing up this game. I missed Destiny 1 so thought I’d try Destiny 2 to see what the fuss was. Was a bit of a hoot playing through the single player campaign. After completing the raid 2 days after it was released and all the other content I haven’t gone back. Seeing all these dodgey practices (The Bright Engram hidden cap rising, the DLC locking people out – which they’ve 2/3 fixed after the huge out cry), their complete lack of communication… and other design choice that make the game not fun….
There’s a reason you’ve been voted down. It’s the same reason people are hating on EA atm. Greedy practices that they’re trying to get away with and only changing when people complain (which is obviously what this was an attempt at, to force people to get the DLC to keep on doing end game content not the BS reason they posted)… If you support this kind of practice kudos. Wish I could enjoy sub par gaming experiences while filling the coffers of greedy gaming corporations.
I haven’t defended them. They have treated their consumers poorly. They have pledged to fix the experience. Time will tell.
What I said is that hansolai shouldn’t feel entitled to a refund.
Don’t misunderstand me. This is shitty business practice. Activision is likely behind most of these decisions as they are pretty clearly not good for the consumer’s wallet. But we need to keep perspective.
When a dev changes absolutely anything, the internet shits the collective bed. It’s ridiculous. If we want the anti-consumer bullshit to stop, we need to focus on the anti consumer bullshit and not act like (wait for it) entitled children. If you didn’t like the game, then you are not entitled to a refund. Did they do a shitty thing? Absolutely. Does it mean you have some sort of legal recourse to take back the money you spent? Absolutely not.
We really can’t claim the moral high ground on this until we earn it. The problems should be addressed, but screaming about how you want your money back every ten seconds does nothing to help us. What people could do is stop pre-ordering, stop paying more for less, stop supporting bad practices, and contribute to informed consumer action based on reasonable expectations of product for cost. Instead they fuel a perpetual outrage machine and fix nothing.
You buy a car, your happy with the car, its a very nice car.
3 months later the car manufacturer takes the car away with no previous warning.
You can have the car back BUT you have to pay to tint the windows first.
So a utilitarian product being physically removed from your possession is identical to a single difficulty mode for a single level in a video game that was given as free post-release content being locked behind a paywall?
Perfect analogy. Not at all demonstrating the complete lack of perspective I’ve been talking about.
Fiew things you might want to think about….
1. Its not a fix if it was intentional to begin with. Its them going ‘Oh shit, people found out’ and changing it back.
2. This is the SECONDED time this has happened with D2 (the first was the SP gain bullshit after you hit max level).
3. It should not have happened in the first place. The fact that it did is the biggest problem here. It shows that Bungie are ether trying to be greedy fucks, or are being forced to by Activation-Blizzard.
4. Trust is the biggest problem here. As I said in point 2, this has happened before. Its NOT a good thing.
I agree on all points. But that doesn’t mean you can have your money back and demanding it is silly.
I never, ever demanded my money back. I wondered if I could get my money back. You seriously need to work on your reading and comprehension skills.
So you publicly declaring an intention to research how likely you are to get a full refund as a result of a non-refundable issue is nothing to do with the established culture of gamers wanting refunds for non-refundable issues.
All of this is a storm in a teacup. You are not legally entitled to a refund. You don’t publicly question the ability to get a refund unless you feel entitled to a refund. There is no argument that Activision are a shitty publisher who do anti-consumer shit and Bungie for whatever reason is doing the shit Activision like.
I WONDERED! I never demanded. Are you that dense? it was in passing. its not like I went straight to Big W and said I WANT MY MONEY BACK.
I WONDERED. But you keep holding on to this idea that I thought I was entitled to a refund.
I never said I wonder if I can get a refund, I might research this.
So did you wonder out loud on a public forum because you thought it might be a thing you should or do? Or did you specifically choose to comment on the internet about a thing you thought was an unrealistic and unreasonable outcome to the situation?
Because if it was the second one, you’re completely correct that I jumped the gun. But it also means you’re stranger than duck sex.
Deadset, you’re a dunce.
To be fair, prestige mode came out after release so it wasn’t actually content you got three months ago. I am curious though, do you regularly play the prestige nightfall?
Sure do, love the challenge. Wasnt it time gated though? Because the raid came out after release as well.
I honestly can’t remember if they advertised prestige as a feature before the game was released or if it was a surprise feature they mentioned later. We all knew the raid was coming though. I seem to be prone to getting the dog symbol all the time.
Presuming he or she owns it on PC, they have effectively had 6 weeks to play vanilla Destiny 2 before having core features locked behind a paywall – a paywall that offers very little in terms of value (I’m not even talking about monetary value – I’m talking about value of your time). The Osiris DLC offers almost nothing and Bungie unashamedly extends their hand asking for $20 from a dwindling player base that already needs reasons to stick with it.
I wouldn’t be asking for a refund because of dissatisfaction with the product as much as I simply wouldn’t want my dollars going to a company so undeserving.
By your logic, if a company fixes something only because of rightful community dissatisfaction, all sins are suddenly absolved. I, and I dare say many others, don’t subscribe to that line of thinking.
How is that my logic? They should not have taken away content. That was a shitty thing to do. But it is now fixed.
A product was purchased. It ceased working as described. The creator fixed it so that it would continue working as described. The creator stopping it from working in the first place did wrong, but the product is working as described. There’s no right to refund.
How can you be so indifferent to how you’re treated by a business? I understand where you’re coming from in terms of the legalities, but I’m not talking about legal ‘rights’, I’m talking about what is right.
Again, by your logic, it’s like going to a restaurant and ordering a burger and chips.
Burger and chips are served to you.
5 minutes into your meal, the waiter comes and takes your chips away.
After complaining to the manager, they put the chips back on your plate.
Are you now satisfied with what has been offered? Will you go back to the restaurant? Sorry, but at that point I walk out of the restaurant and never return.
I don’t mean to speak on behalf of another person, but I suspect this is how @hansoloai feels he or she has been treated and they say it in their comment so perfectly: “Why should I go back now”.
I’m not usually a fan of this pokedad person however they tend to have a point in this case. Taking Bungie’s actions so personally is pretty silly. It is ok to be disappointed and to tell them you don’t agree with their business practices. A good way to show this is to not purchase their product. The way this hansoloai person is acting though you would think they rocked up to their house and slapped them in the face or something.
Not happy with the service then make a complaint. If the attempt at rectifying your issue isn’t how you liked it then move on. Just becomes a case of beating a dead horse otherwise. There are more important things in life to be concerned with and this being such a big personal issue for someone tells me they live a pretty easy life.
Sorry? I said I wondered if I could get a refund. Im not picketing their offices demanding a refund. I dont have access to the prestige nightfall. Something I enjoy playing. I wont be purchasing the expansion. Something that was availible to me when I purchased the game is no longer availible to me 3 months after release. In what way is that fair?
Thanks, but I wont be playing Destiny 2 again. Ill just wait for Anthem.
Man I hope EA doesn’t fuck it up for you! Colour me pessimistic at this point, but if they do however nail it, then we’re looking at a game changer.
There’s certainly space in the market after the gap that’s slowly being opened up by Destiny 2’s lackluster start. I just don’t know that Bioware under EA is the company that can fill it, sadly. Hoping I’m wrong.
I’ve heard The Division has really turned itself around so I’m going to be giving that a crack soon. Between that and Warframe, I should have my looter-shooters sorted.
Hit it on the head, just could not be bothered trying to explain it to him.
That is not a good analogy at all. It’s more like the last time you went to a burger place you got a burger and chips and there was sauce on the table. This time you bought the burger and chips, but when you sat down, the sauce wasn’t there. You asked the manager what the deal was and they said they now charge for sauce, but since so many people have been complaining, they are going to just start putting it on the table again.
If you had bothered to read my other comments, you would have seen that I am not defending their shitty practices. I’m saying that this culture we have of demanding refunds for every imagined slight is stupid and removes our legitimacy as a culture when trying to address anti-consumer practices.
To be fair, a refund was never demanded. @hansoloai said ‘I wonder if I can get my money back’. I don’t think that’s unreasonable to want a refund if you’re dissatisfied due to removal of content.
If he or she had said that Bungie owes them a refund, then, yes – I would agree with you. I did read your comments, and I’m certainly not having a go at you, but I suppose final summation is that if you’re unhappy with a product that has been significantly altered only 6 weeks after release – a game that proposes to offer ongoing content and asks your ongoing commitment – you aren’t really being unreasonable I don’t think.
He didn’t picket the Bungie offices or anything, but his immediate reaction to a problem with the product was “refund” and that’s bad for all of us.
As far as the alteration goes, I’m neither here nor there on it. They fixed most of the issues. The one thing left was the prestige raid, but as far as I know that was introduced as an extra and was never advertised with the game. It’s shitty to lock it afterwards and I honestly think Bungie don’t know how to stop making players angry while still adhering to the Activision bullshit.
It’s a huge and good game with a lot of content. One difficulty mode on one map that was added as an extra anyway is not a reason to get so bent out of shape. There’s no perspective whatsoever among gaming communities. Literal death threats for weapon tweaks in updates is a known problem. We need to be reasonable.
@ Pokedad: You have stated that you don’t support their business practices. You have stated said business practices were unacceptable, but anyone wanting a refund in response to the display of awful business practices, that person is in the wrong?
You are talking about people being angry over “imagined slights”. So, everyone just imagined that Bungie did this…….because they back pedaled? They still did it in the first place.
And saying “Wow, your analogy was no good” but then breaking it further….? What.
The missing content that got taken away with the patch was not “complimentary sauce”, it was part of the game that was bought and paid for and then got taken away after you bought it, with the condition you would get it back if you bought more. Yes, Bungie backpedalled……..because they got caught and because they got called out on it. Had it not been for the fact that EA got themselves in such hot water for Battlefront 2 and developers are walking on eggs trying not to end up in the same position, Bungie might not even have backpedalled on this. They didn’t when they did it in Destiny 1.
“I won’t defend their shitty practices, but because they said ‘oops’ you as a customer should be totally fine that they did it in the first place and only changed it because they got caught” seems to be what you are trying to say.
Personally my way of showing discontent with poor business practices is to not support the business financially. This wasn’t even a case of Day 1 DLC or other shady practices, this was taking away content that was part of a game someone purchased. Its not “It’s all fine now because they said ‘sorry we got caught’ and you are a bunch of crybabies for being mad about this”
Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Your right to a refund is legally defined. Unless you meet the legal definition, you won’t get it and demanding it is infantile. In this case, you aren’t entitled to a refund, so just learn the lesson that the company is shitty and don’t buy from them anymore.
Your analogy didn’t fit, so I changed it to a better fit. There was a thing that you got for free in the past and it was implied (but never stated) that it would be free in the future. It was not free the second time, but a lot of customers got mad, so the management realised that charging for a thing that used to be free was a stupid idea.
The first prestige raid was released after launch as a free content update. When any one of us bought the game, we did not buy that content.
You have every right to be unhappy. But when being unhappy goes as far as petulance, you are in the wrong.
I don’t see how you deserve to be on kotaku with that attitude.
So I need to earn the right to be a consumer of commercial content, but any time any company does anything you don’t like, it’s ok to demand a full refund, regardless of product consumed?
Deserve. Christ.
Prior to the announcement and patch you would of been entitled to a refund as the DLC broke access to Trophies and achievements from the base game. Aust Consumer Law provisions take a pretty dim view of that and I suspect one of the drivers for the patch was the increasing number of refund requests being put through Sony, Microsoft and Amazon.
Now I’d just stay away because Bungie keep lying and manipulating and really don’t give a shit about gamers, just your wallet.
Can probably only get your money back if you pay for the next DLC.
Depends where you purchased the game.
If it was a physical store, yeah you can get a refund, though anything over a month and you will need to provide a pretty solid claim. (Which by the sounds, you might be able to)
Digital will likely be a dead path unless you are within their grace period.
What a joke
I traded this in after finding out I was locked out of existing content due to mediocre DLC a couple of days ago. I rebought The Division since it’s going cheap and I hadn’t played it in over a year, so all the updates have done wonders to it.
I have heard good things about the new path.
Yeah, such good things that I reinstalled it overnight. Thinking I’ll give it a spin over the weekend, see how the new stuff’s shaken out. Anything that makes PVPers annoyed and benefits PVEers is something that has my immediate interest.
What on earth are they doing? Has half the dev team gone on leave or something? Is no one thinking more than 30 seconds ahead? Alternatively, they’re pushing beyond what they know is acceptable to the player base and relying on the community to push back – not a good way to build trust.
Id say they are testing the waters of what they can get away with. Nobody would design a game in this way if the goal was enjoyment.
Exactly, They did this before but now have Pc players to contend with.
Thinking 30 seconds ahead? Bungie dont think at all these days 😛
Brilliant stuff but as always the Destiny community proves why the online bunch as so abyssal. Bungie did a rubbish thing. They got called out on it. They responded rapidly like they suggested they would the other week by promising to communicate more. Now they have tried to appease the situation so now what is reddit full of? Not a bunch of truly happy non-dlc owners spam posting the good news but the ‘full’ owners complaining that they cant get their faction rally now and other related gems.
Honestly why on earth would anyone be a games developer in this era.
Because none of these issues have been “Mistakes” until they got called out on them, they have been blatantly trying to see what they can get away with.
Who knows how much manipulative greedy behaviour is hidden from us until someone happens to discover it and call them out on it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that patent for matchmaking based on selling micro transactions was intended for some destiny expansion at this point.
hate to break your bubble AAA game makers arent out to entertain us, they are out to make money. that is their primary goal. if you buy any game there will always be the tricks you see and the tricks you dont. If you want want surprises dont buy them. Complaining that they are being manipulative is like complaining that it is hot on a summers days. Of course it is, that is what they do.
Totally right. They’re in it to make a profit. Which they do by entertaining us enough for us to be willing to fork out more money. Make the game entertaining enough, people are more than willing to buy more content. Fairly basic economics – get repeat customers by satisfying them.
But there were already complaints that there was too little to do, and their first major business choice was to punish the core players by removing a chunk of that little amount of content.
How is that ever a good decision?
You don’t make money by pissing your customers off, and that’s what they’ve done. Justifying it doesn’t help, and the problem is made worse while the community is still shitty about the EA lootbox saga.
Theres a sense of entitlement about this, but when the customers have forked over their money, they deserve to get everything they paid for. Which they no longer have.
And try getting a refund 3 months later because the game no longer works as advertised. Do you really think its an idea that will be entertained?
I think there were a lot of people getting refunds which was one of the drivers for them to get their head out of their arse (again!) and patch. To break a game with a DLC after a few months is grounds for a refund, especially if you want to start quoting Aust Consumer Law. Now they have seem to have addressed the main issues, you’re stuck with it.
I mentioned it in jest to the local EB guys, and we all had a laugh. It just wasn’t going to happen.
I wasn’t serious, and they knew it, but gave the serious answer that they’d argue (fairly) that I’d had considerable time being entertained, and that being an online only game it had the disclaimer that “your online experience may vary”.
Bottom line, head office would fight tooth and nail before refunding it. Refunding certainly isn’t the default position.
So because they are about profit. Any shitty thing they do is therefore okay as long its for profit? We arent allowed to complain about shitty predatory practices because they are just trying to make money?
“This person is robbing me but its fine because he is trying to make money!”
Seriously companies like EA would love people like you on their PR team who will readily swallow any vomit they push out.
Why wouldn’t the robber be a female?
These are not developer decisions, they are marketing decisions.
of course they are, AAA games arent about entertainment, they are about profit.
No.
They. Can. Be. Both.
If no-one was capable of proving this wrong, that’d be one thing, but when there are so many fine examples of games that respect the player’s time AND money, that bullshit, “What do you expect from us, we’re AAA?!” excuse just doesn’t fucking cut it.
A little dissappinted that The Witcher 3 wasn’t amongst your links but I agree! “They gotta make a profit” is no excuse.
Imagine if films were doing this kind of thing. Half an hour in and the film stops and says “to be continued” and you gotta wait for next year to buy another movie ticket for “Part 2”
No thanks.
(*cough* Harry Potter *cough*)
Yeah, I honestly just picked games from this year. Frankly the entire fucking post could’ve been each word great AAA titles of the last couple years that respect your time and wallet.
I was like this with SF V. Really pissed off. Because I was disappointed. I’d looked forward to it for years and when it finally came it was average, required tons of grinding, had microtransactions and had many fighters locked behind the paywall.
There was nothing capcom could do to make it up to me. I didn’t want the game they’d provided and I was pissed off because I loved 2, 3 and 4. So I think that’s where a lot of the angst is coming from. And I don’t think it can be fixed without some huge, huge changes.
This is a really interesting time for gaming. I can’t remember a time where there was so much pushback against the industry. I’m hopeful some things will change for the better. I just don’t want to feel like a commodity. I want to feel like a game was first and foremost, designed to be fun. Not designed to take all of my money.
Every single one of your comments boil down to
Step 1: Agree that what the game company did is bad
Step 2: Sook about reddit
Step 3: Use that small rabid minority on reddit to invalidate the wider communities complaints.
Literally all of your comments are “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH REDDIT WAAAAAAAAAAAH”
It boggles my mind why you stay on reddit if you dislike it so much.
Easy tiger, you tend to have a bit of a whinge on occasion too. Let’s try to have a civil discussion instead of the usual downvote because I disagree and force them into moderation mentality that goes on here.
I know i whinge. Boy do i whine 🙂
I just get frustrated at this dude. Any time there is widespread outrage about something. He drags in a rabid minority on reddit as an attempt to discredit the entire community. And then excuses anything companies do because they need to make money (Like that somehow makes it okay)
He acts like we should take anything game companies give us and we arent allowed to complain at all.
I agree we should hold them accountable but at some stage we just need to realise they won’t change and move on to something else. Kind of like being in an abusive relationship really.
I think we should kick and scream as much as possible. Do you want all publishers becoming like EA? Or do we want more CD Projekt RED?
We are already seeing change because people kicked up a fuss, the cause and effect is undeniable at this point.
there is nothing ‘minority’ about rapid masses over at reddit at the moment. anyone who speaks with any interest in the game is immediately a white knight or fanboy and is immediately personally attacked. sort of like you always do here. When it could be just they are perfectly reasonable adults, with realistic expectations of the game industry and the fact that when we buy games we buy access (not even own anymore) to the content, not the developers soul.
Now I have all sorts of problems with D2 but at the same time even through all this chaos I am still finding reasons to play through the disappointments. (so no not a fanboy) I have no love at all for Bungie (quite the opposite really, so not white knighting) I am just an adult could can recognise this constantly generating outrage culture that is social media, and want absolutely no part of it, and while it might make you feel all good about yourself to keep personally attacking me, I have no time for it.
The why do you keep commenting and sooking about it, and going onto reddit?
“This fire is hot and burning my hand, But im going to keep my hand in the fire”
and yet once again here you are personally attacking without talking about the issues.
Just like you have no idea why I still go to reddit (because I am not afraid to read things I disagree with), I have no idea why you constantly do these attacks instead of just let me stand in my corner with one opinion with you in the other with yours. I dont presume I am right, merely a person with an opinion
I do these replies because all your replies to any widespread gamer outrage is always the same. Your logic is always retarded and you always bring in reddit as some way to dismiss legitimate complaints. You are the definition of a contrarian. Any time there is widespread supported outrage about something. You have to take the opposite view and sook like a toddler about “Outrage”.
Get over yourself.
just because mass opinion is one way that doesnt make it right, it just means reasonable voices are way less powerful when shouting into a hysterical wall of ridiculousness. Just because some gamers lose complete rationality and concept the thing they are getting so hung up about is just a computer game.
Popular opinion doesnt make something right. Trump, Brexit, Pauline Hanson’s of the world. Just because the masses are gullible, it is the contrarians, the rational people who have the unpopular life. Not the ones who easily join a fad and just go with popular opinion. It is far harder to think about things rationally than your opinion of the world think ‘oh look everyone is saying X , it is totally true, I dont need to think for myself. Why bother, that many people cant be wrong. So lets keep personally attacking those who are saying um maybe this real thing isnt quite as real as the hysterical masses makes out’.
Closer to home, Imagine the whole gaming culture now without contrarians saying ‘you know what, this whole misogynistic Gamergate is all kinds of rubbish. I refuse to join that popular movment.’
So by all means keep thinking ‘the masses’ are always right and contrarians are always wrong. Because here in this reality. Life is a tad more complicated. (And yes it means sometimes I choose the wrong side, as I am sure you have yourself, even if you are too scared to admit. Its called being human)
Jesus christ.
How far is your head up your own rectum?
You are now acting like you are some self righteous hero for going against the masses.
You are delusional.
as least I dont think there is only one ‘correct’ opinion to have and if you dont share it, that some how makes one a contrarian. how does that even make sense?
Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself……………….
“We’ve made some mistakes”
So fucking learn from them. Think about what’s going to piss your player base off. Locking them out of content that was in the original game certainly should have been a no-brainer.
We had a similar situation when the ‘The Dark Below’ dropped for D1! So they haven’t learnt any lessons from the first game or alternatively are just trying to get as many people on the DLC before they fix it. Pretty convenient for them to ‘forget’!
I’ve lost all confidence in them now they are taking up EA’s practices!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/12/09/destinys-weekly-strikes-locked-behind-dark-below-dlc/#3a27bdbf2559
To be fair, in TDB the reason the NF was locked that first week was because it was the DLC strike (as Eric Osbourne states at the top of that article you linked). NF was still available to everyone whenever it was a vanilla strike.
That said, it still caused controversy, so it’s mind-boggling how they thought people would be alright with it in D2.
Every mis-step Bungie made with D1 was excused by DeeJ et al with the pat justification: “Well we still have tonnes of people playing so we can’t be doing anything wrong!”
That was their literal excuse. They repeatedly put it out there that, ‘Our data tells a different story to the complaints, and it tells us that people fucking love our game, so suck it, haters.’
It’s making me wonder how the numbers are for D2 now that the shine has worn off, and it’s proven to be more of the same. I strongly suspect from their first few years’ behaviour and communication that if numbers were high, they wouldn’t be bothering with communication at all.
Remember they released stats from the beta in D1, and nothing at all from D2’s, makes you wonder
I remember it well in their community announcements too.
First it was how many people were active playing, then they began to announce vaugue numbers like how many many logged in at certain time.
By the end they were saying crap like how many Guardians has been created as though it was an indicator of current population.
Everything stunk of investor fluff rather than meaningful communication to players.
Still kinda has that smell all over it.
Perhaps the consumer should learn from those mistakes and be more wary with future purchases. Wait until they see the improvement they expect before spending money on blind faith.
All well and good in hindsight. With the state of the industry, if we were all that prudent, there would be no games to play.
Sadly I think you are right. Where is Captain Hindsight when we need him?
Looks at D1’s AoT raids – all with original difficulty levels and a further “Heroic” difficulty at 10 below the LL cap. Bungie, you’ve already solved this problem. You’d end up with two prestige difficulties for old raids – one at the original released prestige difficulty level, and one at the cap. It’s about as much effort as you put into the Heroic Strike playlist – copy the existing activity and raise the numbers.
Welp, glad I got that trophy from the nightfall a few weeks back; I’ve yet to find anyone willing to touch the prestige raid.
I don’t understand gamers turning on other gamers, and siding with a corporation because “their goal is to make money, you should know better”. Online multiplayer titles are hitting a crossroads now about what is and isn’t acceptable practice, and it’s the people kicking up a fuss that are stopping it getting ridiculously put of hand. Thank them, stand with them, don’t belittle them because you’ve already admitted defeat.
It’s not good enough and should never have had to have been fixed in the first place.
They knew what they were doing and sure enough with the backlash comes the “oops, my bad, we’ll fix it… there we fixed it, we’re so good to you”.
It’s bad enough paying what we do for games that “aren’t complete” and then you go and pull this crap. Twice!
I’m glad I’m yet to purchase it and looking less and less likely to. I’d be well versed to look into legal matters to see if anything could be done. I paid full price for a game where I had access to all it’s (current) content and then you locked away the content I’ve played since launch behind a paywall? There has to be something there, doesn’t there?
What an absolute PR shite-fest! I cringe every time Bungie talks. Feels like they wanted to handle the content for this game in a manner that would potentially work better with a ‘subscription based’ payment model, but they are trying to do it through paid DLC.
Guess I’ll wait for Destiny 3. I’ve kept tabs on the original and #2 from a distance but any chance of purchase was snuffed out by multiple accounts of of weapon nerfing and bad dlc implementation, among things.
Their Fix nerfed people who paid for the DLC. DLC players cant get power level 330 item from the old raid anymore..
The most telling thing here isn’t that they owned up to a mistake, it’s the fact that they didn’t think it was a mistake in the first place. If it weren’t for all the bad press they would have gone on thinking that locking out content your players previously had access to was a perfectly okay thing to do. I mean, this is supposed to be an established studio with experienced devs yet they needed everyone else to point out that their blatently bad idea was a bad idea.
I am going to subscribe to a conspiracy theory here…
I am going to propose that Bungie knew very well what they were doing with Prometheus Lens and Prestige Raid. They released CoO in this state to encourage purchase from those who wanted the powerful gun or to raid with friends, then promised to fix the gun and change the raid. Naturally, Xur was programmed to sell the gun on the first weekend under the guise of balance, but really it was like a pre-order reward that you could see in use and could still get within the first week of the DLC.
I believe that a number of people have purchased CoO just so they could continue playing with their friends and not miss out and so that they could get the advantage of Prometheus Lens in the Crucible before it is nerfed.
This is not that much different to what Blizzard used to do with underplayed classes in WoW. Boost them to attract interest and then stabilise them afterwards, except in here we are talking about cashing on that tactic.
Yes, I am Destiny fan and I play Destiny 2 and own Season Pass so I was not effected by any of the above. I have been playing video games for 35+ years. Speaking from experience, this is not a mistake but a “mistake” 🙂
After all it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission…
Yeah I think they knew damn well about PL and it was a marketing ploy. No way something that broken makes it through any kind of basic QA. I’d say it worked a little, but then nerfing it into the ground will just drive people away again.
That company appears to have zero clue about the game they developed for 3 years or its player base.
So when did ‘mistake’ start meaning, ‘intentional design decisions we didn’t expect people would get upset and/or find out about’?
I believe that expression is often considered as “corporate speak”… EA is very good at it and Bungie is catching up. Like I have said… it is easier to ask for forgiveness after you have made an unpopular decision (that you knew would be unpopular) rather than for permission…
Mistake? Does nobody recall they did this with destiny 1? Every time a new dlc dropped the daily and weekly challenges switch to an exclusive dlc only rotation. And stay there. Even if you bought the previous dlc the day the new one drops if you didn’t own it you’re locked out.