http://kotaku.com/five-months-in-hardcore-destiny-players-are-hitting-a-1684813586
This is not a bash. It comes from someone who, like many of us, really likes Destiny but is reaching a point of burn-out. The things that popped out to me are the lack of carrots and poor communication from Bungie.
If you trawl the forums, you'll find many threads dedicated to each point made, but this is a handy summation of the frustration hardcore Destiny players are, and have been, facing of late.
I'm no hater, and like Kirk, the article's author, I know there's an unbelievable game inside Destiny. I'm looking forward to HoW, but until then, it'll just have to be a strike now and again.
Edit 1: You guys all rock. It's been a very clear-headed conversation in here so far, aside from some weak trolls. And thanks for the bumps! I think it's good to read what a lot of us have been thinking.
Edit 2: I'm pretty sure the forum ninjas have buried any Kotaku-related posts so they don't trend. That's their prerogative, and somewhat understandable despite the normal levels of vitriol you can generally find on these forums.
Feel free to bump if you think others should read it but, after over twenty-four hours of pretty constant replies from you crazy, magnificent bastards, it's fair to say that we don't need an article to spur healthy discussion about one of our favorite games.
[spoiler]You guys are -blam!-ing killing my phone.[/spoiler]
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This is spot on. 3 32s (each class), I haven't played for about 3 weeks, and I got everything except ghorn and hardlight. Just started playing Warframe and while it certainly doesn't have the polish and smooth gameplay of Destiny and follows a traditional co-op matchmaking, it does every rpg element right. It's still a grinder with rng but it feels balanced in a way Destiny is not. The economy is balanced. While rng governs resource drops, rarer items are typically linked to harder difficulty, rewarding team work and skill. Everyone in the game gets the same loot (as long as they pick it up). Certain bosses or timed event guarantee a drop toward a certain item so while you are still farming, you are farming toward a particular goal. It took about 10 runs, but my squad got all the parts to build the Nyx last night. Now we have to farm materials for the 3 pieces, wait 12 hours for them to build then farm more and wait 36 hours for the new character to build. Once built you could spend 30-60 hours invested to rank up the character and mod it to your playstyle. This sounds painful, but it is a logical and extremely rewarding progression. Oh, did I mention that the environments and enemies are procedurally generated? While you will conquer the same room many times, the battles rarely play out the same way (other than the horde/survival maps which are pretty consistent). And oh, did I mention it is free to play?! You need to invest money if you want to have space for lots of weapons and warframes (characters which there are about 15 with unique abilities), but you can acquire everything in the game without paying a cent and the space they give you is enough for about 50 hours worth of grind (more than enough to decide if you should spend money) If you are fed up with Destiny, I would check it out.