Plunder was one of the two best seasons last year, only really beaten out because the season of the seraph was pretty much cheating, being one of the best seasons in the games history.
To be honest, its this years seasons that are absolute ass, being shorter, with less content, and at a higher price then last years...
So I legitimately don't buy that, I think bungie is just trying to scam players for more money, and I say this as some one who has been with the game and thought it was pretty great since D1 launched.
After they claimed they don't have the manpower to make one free armour set a year, ONE, yet they can fill the cash shop with a shit tone of items 4 times a year.... I am not inclined to give them the benifit of the doubt of "lets make less content, we promise it will be of higher quality" not when they also as noted, raised the price and lowered the quality this year.
Edited by Imca on Aug 23rd 2023 at 2:27:17 AM
Professional Forum Ninja
Layoffs at Bungie due to job cuts across PlayStation; The Final Shape delayed until June 2024.
Bungie's biggest mistake was to sign that contract with Sony. Makes the time at Activision look like heydays.
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Honestly as bad as I feel for people who lost there job...
I dont really have any sympathy for bungie as a company any more.
"We don't have the resources needed to make one set of free armor a year... oh btw we are raising the price of each season and making them have less content too"
At that point sony grabbing the restructure baton was called for and necicery.
Seriously under activision we would get 12 armor sets every 3 months, and sure maybe that pace was too much understandable.
But throwing a fit that players asked "so where is the armor set" and saying you cant even make one... per year?
Yea fuck that noise, where is your paychecks going at that point... I have defended bungie through a lot, and for 10 years, but at that point there is no more excuses.
Edited by Imca on Oct 31st 2023 at 11:50:02 PM
Once they shifted to four seasons a year plus a major expansion I've always felt was stretching their resources and promising too much for players. Way too much of the discussion over the last 4 years has been about franchise burnout, which wouldn't happen if they weren't constantly pushing for player rewards on a near weekly basis. This is not a matter of money as that could only compound the problem if the direction isn't on point.
Rumors are saying this is because player engagement is dropping and pre-sales for The Final Shape aren't up to par. Others are saying this is partially from Sony consolidating community management. Immense sympathy for those who lost their jobs, but this is always the risk with big companies. It does feel like they waited just long enough after the buyout to keep their promise not to downsize.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
Professional Forum Ninja
Edited by tclittle on Oct 31st 2023 at 9:57:28 AM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
None of this inspires confidence for The Final Shape, considering it was determined as good-not-great by early testers and now it's delayed until June 2024 (from its intended February release). We're about to have a filler season that's even longer than Season of the Lost, and since I have already suffered from burnout since Season of the Deep, might as well pull the plug and uninstall my 5000+ hours experience on Steam.
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Professional Forum Ninja
Here's some more info courtesy of Forbes.
The biggest one:
Executives: "We looked at every lever before layoffs."
Employees: "Did you look at executive compensation?"
Executives: "No and it won't happen here. Now go and clean out your desk."
Leaving it in, but I checked the article again and there was an update saying that executives did forgo annual bonuses before the layoffs, but this wasn't told to employees during the layoffs.
Other points:
- No one is blaming Sony. Some employees were told Bungie would have been in worse shape if they hadn't been aquired.
- Employees are pissed, and vocal about, the fact that failed bets were made and the people who made them are still there.
- There was a clear damaging drop in player activity post-Lightfall that lead to the 45% drop in expected reveune.
- The Final Shape delay has been known for a couple of months, but not enough time to build a 30th anniversary sized drop to split the season. There will be something for the gap, but not sure what.
- The delay for The Final Shape is because they want it to be the best expansion and are taking the feedback from the "good, but not great" comments.
- The campaign and features are solid right now, but they want to go further, but there is concern aboutrevenue.
- The new Pv P strike team and player security team were impacted by layoffs. The new map pack has enough progress so it likely won't be impacted.
- No significant changes to staff announced due to the layoffs. 3 doesn't seem likely soon.
- In game LFG is extremely difficult tech wise and the devs only learned about it when it was announced to players.
- Devs want to reduce microtransactions, but execs say they need them due to high costs, and players keep buying them, despite complaints.
- Bungie wants to be a multille IP studio, but there are no plans for mass migration from Destiny's to other I Ps like Marathon.
The ups and downs of a company is a natural part of any business and working within any market, it sounds like certain steps could have been taken to improve the situation but it's impossible to say this was entirely avoidable. That number of 45 percent under revenue projections is a nightmare, but as I said before it's probably because of content burnout rather than strictly Lightfall's reception. It's been obvious they had been dividing team resources for other games and the current rumor is after a player summit the Marathon sequel was not as hyped as they hoped it would be (which doesn't surprise me, it was a reasonably popular game for its time but is more of a historical footnote as the game Bungie did before Halo). Other rumors say the main devs have been asking management for resources to alleviate player criticisms (probably like new pvp maps, debugging and server management) but the cost-effectiveness wasn't seen as important at the time.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
"Wasnt as hyped as they hoped" is an understatement.
Multiple people who were there have said when they asked the question. "Based on what you have seen today how many of you intend to play this game"
...
Not a single hand was raised.
That all you got?
I was really disappointed too when I learned about it and I wasn't even invited. Marathon is one of Bungie's oldest and most well-regarded I Ps that inspired a FUCKLOAD of their later stuff (particularly Halo) and then it's brought back as...a PVPVE multiplayer shooter.
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
Yea, I just... have zero intrest in a PVP always game any more, especialy from bungie and how there handling the crucible in destiny.... like I know they have the halo pedigree, but it seems like they lost the ability to make enjoyable PVP along the lines.
Ironicaly by trying to appeal too much to the compeditive crowd.
I only said that because it is second-hand rumors of a single event and not a verified report on their entire pre-production marketing analysis. The truth is every IP has a max-popularity shelf life and Bungie needs to be thinking of some diversifying of their brands, and bringing back an old IP didn't strike me as a particularly bold move. It's almost like Epic Games making a big announcement their next project is Jazz Jackrabbit.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
Ehhh not sure agree with the concept of a max popularity shelf life.
Pokemon has been around as long as I have been alive, and is doing fine.
Mario has been around longer and is still going strong.
As much as I hate the series COD shows no signs of slowing down.
FIFA was also good as gold until EA got into a rights dispute.
It's more like companies instead quit delivering what the consumer wants and then blame the IP.
Edited by Imca on Nov 5th 2023 at 2:21:19 AM
...You're both right? You can keep an IP going for a long time, but you need to constantly be gaining new fans. If every single major entry in a series isn't an easy entry point with broad appeal you can expect the series not to last more than 15 years
I was meaning more about peak popularity of a single game with active online gameplay, not about a franchise with new releases every couple of years. Natural changing environments have an ebb and flow where not every work will top what came before. "Pokemon is still releasing games" is very different from "Pokemon is still the phenomenon it was 25 years ago."
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
So for all the drama recently, Bungie still knows when to drop some cool story development. Savathuns ultimate secret is a Ahamkara egg, and has been in possession of the 15th Wish hidden in a pattern on her wings. This is presumably the answer to the Traveler portal. Next is Season of the Wish.
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
Season of the Wish launch trailer.
- Yesterday was an official announcement The Final Shape will be delayed until June. The article breaks down what will fill the gap and Joe Blackburn did an upfront video with a few more details.
- Guardian Games will be moved up a few months.
- A weekly "Wish" activity will come about.
- A Moments of Triumph event, which implies it's similar to Age of Triumph in Destiny 1 where they cleaned up all content to make it evergreen in anticipation of Destiny 2.
- Riven is officially back. Mara implies she knew this was inevitable. Riven's voice sounds a lot like Savathun, though it could just be the melodic cadence.
- A heavy implication someone will die to earn a Wish Dragons favor.
The Final Shape Developer Preview
For any updates on recent events:
- Bungie created "Into the Light" as a mini-season of sorts to fill the gap until June.
- A new Horde Mode called Onslaught and defending the Last City from the Witness forces. Set up defenses, go 50 waves, every wave 6 and 10 involve entering a pyramid ship to defeat a boss. They made a point that the boss has no immunity shield, you just do Scratch Damage until you earn certain buffs.
- The Whisper and Zero Hour are coming back, with Whisper of the Worm and Outbreak getting craftable options. The missions themselves will be different, base mode is a 40 minute timer while legendary mode is the original 20 minutes.
- 12 other weapons across the franchise are returning with new attributes, including Mountaintop and Recluse, with random rolls but the original perks are still present, if maybe tuned down. Both Micro Missile and Master of Arms are being reconsidered into being new sub-types of their own.
It's easy to be a little cynical about them just rehashing old content, but the promise with Sunsetting was they would refurbish old gear in order to bring it back and that really didn't happen barring a few weapons and token locations in seasonal events. Getting Whisper and Zero Hour with new mechanics as part of a free event is exactly what they needed to do in order to rebuild player trust.
Developer Preview:
- A new subclass is the focus, Prismatic. Literally All Your Powers Combined, merging light and dark attributes together. Not a whole lot on how it exactly works, but describes a separate power bar that needs to be filled and you can mix supers, grenades, melee and class abilities from any subclass. The energy effect is identical to the portal in the Traveler. They say the combination options are insane.
- A new enemy faction associated specifically with The Witness is introduced, The Dread. They are clearly based on Rhulk, Nezarec, Tormentors and Shadow Legion in design, but take on a little of DND monsters vibe. They center on Stasis and Strand abilities, including a dragon-like flying enemy type.
- A new exotic class item that will apparently have random rolls that can combine attributes of different exotic armor, even cross class. So a Hunter can get a Synthoceps perk.
Well, from that opening gameplay and three major gameplay changes the players have been begging for, I would have to call it as probably the most successful reveal in the history of the game. It's been said that Bungie seems to thrive under pressure and this was a big victory.
Edited by EmeraldSource on Apr 9th 2024 at 3:10:47 AM
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!
Journey into The Traveler Trailer
One of the biggest TWID updates.
- Power scaling and difficulty levels are being overhauled. The general intention is to make the game more newcomer friendly.
- All gear will have a power floor of 1900 and a pinnacle cap of 2000, the smallest range of any given expansion.
- The power grind will be shared account wide rather than by character.
- Core light level in a fireteam will be dictated by Fireteam Power, the player with the highest power level will be the Power Leader and draw underleveled players to five levels under them.
- Because of this system, all weapons that were previously level capped will be uncapped. Basically, after 3 1/2 years all Sunset gear are fully useable again. Because a lot of people dismantled old gear, they intend to be more thorough in bringing back the old gear updated with new perks and origin traits similarly to the Brave weapons.
Showcase for Final Shape and further Destiny reveals:
- Next season is Season of the Witch, Eris seemingly allows herself to channel Savathun in full demonic possession. This season will use Tarot-esque cards to modify game modes.
- The Final Shape we go inside the Traveler, which has been altered by the Witness due to their head start but our arrival causes the environment to emulate things from our history, including the Tower from D1. The MacGuffin is the Travelers Pale Heart, which is the source of its power and the reality warping inside.
- Another light subclass revamp, new supers for Arc Hunter, Solar Warlock and Void Titan. New aspects/fragments give Titans an oversized void shield and Warlocks a Solar Soul similar to the Arc and Void Souls. Probably not as extensive as Light Subclass 3.0.
- After the Finale Shape the serial story will change to episodes, changing four seasons in favor of three slightly larger episodes. This is similar to Year Two which didn't have a concurrent season for Forsaken, and I've heard the sentiment that content overload compounded the fractured state the community is in. It created inconsistent quality of each season with some that could have been told offscreen with little trouble (Plunder, most notably).
Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!