Well, you're not though. You've described an actual subscription, the value proposition is totally different, and I never play games with subscription fees, I personally just can't do it with my personality type and habits.
I'll give you an example. If you're a PvP-only player, the DLC is nowhere even remotely close to a solar system's worth paying for IMO. The new maps and weapons alone are just simply not worth it. But they can continue playing, actually as much as they want, without any real disruption, and should as long as they feel like it.
I am however. You're conflating my complaint with another matter entirely.
The Will of Crota is only available to those who bought the DLC. This exclusive content has locked those without the DLC from participating in their usual weekly activities - the Weekly Heroic and Nightfall, which are one of the very few ways to progress in the game. Let's say it is to get the elusive Gjallarhorn or get a newer version of an exotic item. Before, this was never an issue as everyone could participate as long as they met the level requirement. However, since the DLC has been released, The Will of Crota strike has been the weekly event twice in the past 4 weeks. Do you not realize how significant this is when the value of Strange Coins has risen and the need for Exotic Shards to upgrade exotic weapons and armor? I lose out on the opportunity to gain 18 Strange Coins out of a possible 36 from this month alone. And when Xur is the only guarantee to get exotic items in this game and the most solid form of advancement and reward provided in this game, it's ridiculous Destiny is paywalling this. What else are non-DLC players expected to do? Play the Vanguard Tiger that has diminishing rewards? Do Vanguard and/or Crucible bounties to accumulate how much of a week's worth of bounties and exp for Motes of Light just so Xur may or may not sell an exotic engram? This is ignoring the fact an awful lot of the Daily missions has been the 3 (!) DLC story missions with some odd frequency in the past month.
If I were going to try to sell Destiny today in the sense of recommending it to a friend, I would first ask if they were able to buy it on PS4 or not today. Much as it sucks, to me the game is simply worth more money right now on Sony's console despite their shittier online infrastructure.
Then I'd tell them it's $45 and they can probably get their money's worth if they had fun with shooting things in the early Halo games, and aren't averse to PvP, and also he'd have people to play with.
Then if they bought it and liked it, I'd say that there's a way overpriced DLC with another raid, for $20 or $17.50 if they were on board enough to want another after that. But, if they could hold off, the chances of a game of the year edition or discounts on both the base game and expansions were pretty high.
My recommendation is based on Destiny regardless of platform. I wouldn't even recommend Destiny for $20 because the value proposition isn't there at all for what the game currently offers even more so with the recent changes. The story is non-existent and because of that, actions in the game is devoid of any meaningfulness. Why should I compel the story forward with my meaningless actions if the game gives me little reason to beyond my compulsion? There's nothing there to see. What's left is the PvP if I wanted to just shoot things, but I hate PvP in this game. It's balanced because of the imbalances of each class, but it's still imbalanced overall as the Hunter is just too good more often than not. This is ignoring the bad maps for Control like Blind Watch and Firebase Delphi. Every time I participate in a PvP match, I'm always reminded after one or two matches why I abhor PvP because there's really no reliability to avoid supers for example. Why does an enemy I kill during his super animation - namely, Strikers - still have their super meter full when they respawn? Why does activating a super automatically provide a near 50% defensive boost when their killing potential is absurdly strong? Why does heavy ammo spawn at set locations after set periods of time? And so forth.
I guess I know a couple friends who would probably enjoy destiny and I used to play Halo co-op with but don't have PS4s, and so I can't play with them, and my guess would honestly be that they'd wind up buying at least TDB after getting hooked. But that's really neither here nor there and speculation of course. I'm sure you all have anecdotes of your friends quitting forever that you could produce on demand too, I'm just bringing it up because it's something I think about. Beating Halo 2 Legendary with my buddy that grew up on the same street as me is such a fun memory from like over a decade ago... I would love to raid with him one day.
I don't think Destiny is enjoyable because I played the game to such an extent to understand how the damage scaling roughly works. It's through that understanding that I cannot recommend the game ever because of how unsatisfying it is to complete a strike underleveled. Because the damage is relative to enemy level and the game's tendency to overwhelm the player with swarms of enemies instead of unique encounters, there's a lot of camping involved that's ultimately tedious like the Nightfalls.
Generally speaking, the value proposition of Destiny (in a different way than, for example a game with a traditional monthly subscription model) increases for new players the longer the game has been out, because that's the way boxed game sales work. Guild Wars 2 is $40 and goes on sale for $20. I could buy Starcraft II for $18.30 right now if I didn't own it.
But it doesn't right now because Destiny has locked what was once basic features in the game behind DLC requirements, and until Destiny releases a bundle with the included DLC, Destiny is a valueless proposition compared to 3 months ago when it first released.
Combined with that, Destiny will always include mechanics that ease the burden of the intermediate stopgap (levels 21 through around two levels below the cap) for a new player compared to a veteran. Upon hitting 20 you don't have to catch up to people, and then go after the new viable tier of gear- you just start working toward that tier from the baseline.
Easing the burden? The commendation system is a laughable addition that's only purpose was to further delay the progress of players behind restrictive systems already in place. How many commendations do players have in excess now, and how often do those players even want to buy the vendor version of weapons? I suppose if people are playing Destiny infrequently, the most reliable form of advancement is purchasing a new weapon from the vendor since Destiny is so stingy on legendary weapon engrams and drops, but there's already a mark earning cap of 100 a week and 200 mark cap already in place... I'm just baffled by these decisions Bungie makes unless their intentions were to be so prohibitive to new and old players.
But by all means, if you don't support what Bungie is doing, and don't want to reinforce it, that's a better reason not to recommend it. Sales don't come with asterisks, and the better Destiny sells the more likely Bungie is to stay the course than to dramatically alter core systems or change course. Don't purchase any future DLC either- especially when it first comes out. And that last part will be most important when Destiny 2 comes out- don't buy it at launch unless you want to indicate that Destiny is a good thing that you want lots of. Those numbers mean things to the industry and I think the signal most people want to send is the one that would be sent if Destiny 2 sells less than Destiny 1.
Anyway, this actually is sort of an experimental pricing model. How it performs over the next few years will definitely influence if Bungie keeps doing similar things as well as if other companies attempt to replicate it.
What I don't support is the lack of content, and Bungie's insistence on artificially increasing the difficulty of progression in this game. Would it hurt to add more rewards to the Vanguard strike playlist? Look at the PSN trophies for Destiny. 15% have completed a raid and 8% (8!) have only completed a hard raid. The best content in Destiny hasn't been completed by a quarter of the PS3
and PS4 Destiny player base. That's astounding to me as I'm reminded of the grind between 20-28 with the new commendation system and DLC shenanigans that have taken place. I could not in good conscious recommend such a game that's promoting practices like this.
