A lot going on in this post, but I've had similar things on my mind, so I'll try to break it down.
As someone who would like to do other things than play Destiny longer than I originally planned, I'm at a point where I cannot be in groups wiping at silly things repeatedly. Spending 2 hours on HM Oryx, for me, is intolerable. Wiping 10+ times on Daughters HM, however, is an exercise of wondering why I'm thinking it's a good idea to sit and hope by some stretch of the mind that this group of six people can develop the spacial awareness to rationally deduce what to do and where to go for the sake of dying so much at this encounter couldn't have been feasible considering how much time has passed between HM's release and now...or so I thought.
I really think this is damning indictment of the raid, not you or your attitude. The raid is absolutely no fun to fail at. Encounters are 3 minutes when perfect or 1.5 minutes of failure over and over again. And each time you're performing the same actions. The fights are not dynamic or flexible in any way, so things get monotonous whether you're failing or succeeding. Compared to Skolas, which was also challenging. You could fail in 40 minutes, but it was enjoyable during that time. You were doing different things, trying different tactics, etc.
Worse, King's Fall loot is just a kick in the teeth after a rocky run. Spend 2 hours at Oryx and get 2 shards for your 20 shards. Skolas was like this too, but at least you got the Elder Cipher.
In a nutshell, I have no time for shit. I may have been more accommodating back in Year 1 when everyone was doe-eyed and things had the sheen of being new, where we sat in front of a cave and shot enemies. But now? After a year of being on life's equivalent of a Six Flags roller coaster that didn't pass safety requirements? I can't sherpa anymore and I can't carry. Fuck both of them. I know I've hit some sort of masochist quota because I'm already beyond the point where I asked the ancient question "why am I mad at video games?" I do that shit on a monthly basis. My patience skipped town with my tolerance to get away from our abusive relationship. I put them through the ringer and I live with the repercussions.
I'm at this point too. TTK added a whole bunch to the game. Waaay more than most of us can do with 3 characters. I ran 3 characters last year. My goal was always to do the raid and get all the weapons and all the Titan gear. Get all the exotics. Then just play for fun. TTK added so many quests that are just full of busy work. "Kill 500 fallen" "Farm 10 super-rare planetary mats", etc, that it's really imposing. They also made it more possible to just play one character, so I spend most of the time on my Titan, which is a further disincentive to doing all 3 toons. So I'm having to make an adjustment to the autopilot of do everything all three times.
Given how bad the raid is and how punishing the loot system is, I'm honestly wondering how much more I want to do. I have a ton of games I haven't played this year. I've completed Hard Mode Raid once on my Titan. None of the weapons are good. I just want the gear for the shader, which I'll never use. Why keep doing stuff I don't enjoy (especially 2 hour wipe fests) for gear that I probably won't get anyway? But I can't get that through my Year 1 skull.
The problem is that it's quite difficult for me to get groups together. I believe this is a symptom of being away from the game for an entire year, which has relegated me in the eyes of DGAF as an ignorable inanimate object like a table or an elderly person in a nursing home. I'm like the Dick Clark of Destiny GAF when he's doing the New Year's Eve stuff on ABC. I'm invited to do stuff with folks because I was an okay person once upon a time but, for the most part, folks have moved on. Folks have Bungie employees they can play with or streamers, and here I am wanting to have fun and do stuff, but again - I am basically nothing now. I provide no insight. I'm not entertaining. I don't carry folks. I can't stand people with bad attitudes, and sometimes I find myself eagerly awaiting to snap off on someone in parties where folks are being mad.
The game is dead compared to TTK launch, so it's difficult for everyone to get groups together. Drizz and Kadey, some of our most popular & skilled DGAFers, have both had posts this weekend for Trials that went un-answered. Plenty of people have been unable to get groups together for raids or even Oryx kills if it's not Tuesday.
And don't let the fact that a few folks play with Bungie or streamers color your opinion. Most of us don't. Most of us aren't Rubenov that can do amazing ToO carries or Drizz who can solo all the way up to Skolas for giggles. I'm not a sherpa or a carrier, but I've played with you. We're both affable, solid players. And that's what's needed for 6 player raids, because Oryx can't be solo'd. That's who I want raiding with me.
At first, I was mad at the situation, and chances are I'll probably get mad at it sometime again in a week or so, but I am eternally frustrated and sad I suppose. My experience with Destiny nowadays has become an exercise in dealing with isolation. I don't think it's healthy, and honestly, I think I resent DGAF as a whole now. It's a confusing thought.
I got really down on the game the week ToO dropped. I didn't raid on Tuesday and went the whole weekend unable to find a raid group. Everyone was super-salty on Trials and super-restrictive about who could play with them. It felt bad. I know how you feel unable to group.
This patch didn't really do anything to get me back into the game, and there's no info on what's coming other than a nebulous December balance update. I'm skeptical it will even contain meaningful Year 1 subclass balances, which means Titans will be in last place again with Sunbreaker nerfed.
I'm definitely a little jaded, but I'm much less so thanks to DGAF. It's fun to play with DGAF, it's fun to talk about Destiny with DGAF. And even when I'm playing solo, it's fun to try and improve with stuff I learned from DGAF.
I guess in summary, I, like you, am trying to figure out what kind of year 2 Destiny player I am. And I think I'm not going to be a try-hard completionist anymore. Which in Luke's terminology, I'm probably going to stop being the 1% of the 1%, and just be a 1%er.
