WARNING - this is going to be TL;DR for many. I've played and enjoyed Destiny since Alpha. I am a huge fan. However, I have some concerns and these are my thoughts - in no particular order. + + + Is it just me, or does Destiny lack new things to do and completely miss the mark with 'investment'? I'm glad they are communicating, but I'm quite tired of reading about small maintenance changes like they are big news. I don't really care at all that they are adding helmets to the tower, or locking lost weapons... or even mixing up pvp ammo crates...its all maintenance and minutia... none of it will keep me interested. The game needs SO MUCH MORE. I don't want this to be a complaint thread. I'm more interested in - how can they fix it? What do folks really want this game to become, so we can stay and enjoy the world? Surely it's not as simple as 'give me vault space, and I'll grind this stuff as is for the next 10 years.' I just can't believe that... in fact, they could add infinite vault space, and its not going to change my feelings... there's a huge problem, the game is missing investment and content! I feel - they need to act fast in how they address content, before they lose the dedicated crowd and fans they earned. I'm wondering, do others agree? If so, how can they work on this? To base line - in Destiny, I've done it all to date. I've done it all many times. I'm 32 on all my toons. I have a titan, warlock and hunter. I've done the hard mode raids and normal raids (though only completed hm crota once) but I'm just not really into crota. I'm hitting a burn out point. I don't want to, but I am. I really don't even enjoy the crota raid... it feels, artificially harder, just to amp up enemies as more difficult than you can get to, and requires so many things to be perfectly executed that its silly. The rewards in HM crota are not commensurate with effort and so many are of the mind to say - why bother? However, I've had my fair share of all the content in Destiny. I've played since alpha... really enjoy the universe and experience, but I'm sad to say that I'm getting bored with what there is to do these days... and I see it as more grinding work, than enjoyment. I'll admit - I really don't care about PvP. However, I've done that too... PvP just does NOTHING for me. I've played Doom, Quake, Team Fortress, Halo, COD, Battlefield... these 'game concepts' are all the same to me. It's all run and gun with a single kill count or capture the flag type objective. Die / respawn / die - repeat... <yawn> could care less. Shadowrun on xbox360 was the first pvp game to eliminate a respawn, rely on team mates, add enough abilities and class /ability advantages and embrace distinct difference with a focus on building advantage and thought in pvp that I actually enjoyed what they were doing... the concept of 1-shot kills was almost non-existent too, and it scared away most of the twitch crowd which was fantastic for me... I played the heck out of that game, but never seen it come back... sadly. What interests *me* about Destiny, what has kept me here this long, is the RPG elements, the leveling, the prepping for team events like raids, Nightfalls, and tweaking improving gear - BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY - so that I'm ready for new content!! VoG felt like pinnacle content, exploring the mysterious unknown, earning prized gear for venturing where few others could solve the puzzles, and navigating the content successfully... then, with new content of Crota, they completely wiped out the value of all that effort, which was a shame. There have been some real problems with the Destiny philosophy so far. It seems like they have went through several growing / learning pains. 1. Crota content drop shutting down all the effort of VoG was a mistake in investment in my opinion. 2. Then there was the economy rework which was a complete disaster as Radiance Shards completey wiped out the need for Ascendent Shards... however, Energy is still needed for both... and yet, you cannot readily exchange or swap one for one... so folks are accumulating vast quantities of Ascendent materials in many cases. 3. New content does not come often enough 4. Light level tied to armor means I don't get to wear what I want, so I *must* grind for raid gear 5. Playing different categories of toons means I'm at a disadvantage to leveling up quick as compared to those playing 3 of the same toon (i.e. 3 titans) who are swapping gear to run the raid quickly 3 times 6. There's NO dymanically generated RAID, NIGHTFALL, or PUBLIC encounters... nothing procedurally generated at all... no procedurally generated dungeons... nothing... so eventually, you watch the same boss do the same thing... or the same characters and same enemies in the same areas do the same thing to the point that you have it all memorized... and it's tirelessly boring. 7. We are to believe that there are several planets, and we are picking up the pieces of ages lost - but, we can only explore these same well traveled spaces... we are not getting new spaces opened to us, we are not getting to travel and explore more open ground, we are not encountering new enemies, new life.. nothing... 8. The galaxy of Destiny seems dead... there are no NPCs anywhere other than at the tower... that's about as bland as it gets. There's no place to get missions, or random encounters from other than the tower... there's no out lieing frontier, no alien races, no hostile governments we might parlay with, nothing... just the same space of hostile territory and the same unending quanties of threats. + + + Destiny is in dire need of MUCH more regular infusion of content if it hopes to live a 10 year life span. I just can't see anyone staying intersted. There's got to be far more than go get the latest gun. This is the most important facet and challenge facing BNG. Your work and love is dieing. House of wolves and the updates to follow are going to give you diminishing returns. Folks are going to burn out faster and faster as the model doesn't work... once a quarter or once a 6 month update is far too long... folks expect new things to do monthly at longest if they are to stay vested in your world! You need not only major new content drops, but you need regular infusions like MMORPGs have, and you need public events that are FAR more dynamic and ingenious than what you have... you need to revitalize your patrols to be more procedural and mission oriented... you need some procedural content in your strikes... in fact, a whole procedural strike play list would get far more play that static play lists... folks are tired of doing the same stuff over and over... even procedural stuff will get old - if it does not have enough variety in it! Here's an example though... what if during Sepiks prime, instead of the first defense spot, instead of fallen / hive - you didn't get that encounter at all? WHat if, by procedure, vex showed up? What if during the tank fight, there was no walker, but instead a new path rendered by procedure and you were forced to go either left or right? Either path leading you to one of two different routes, both again procedurally generated tunnels that ended up at a completely new zone this time, and happened to be underground, where a hive wizard and ogre were fighting a fallen walker thing, you could engage or wait for a victor and then mop up, but upon engaging, reinforcements arrived.. now this wasn't always the case on sepiks prime strike, but one of 5 or 6 possible procedural encounters that COULD happen... thus, the strike now had NEW possibilities, and yes, you could still get some forms of the old strike, but the chance that you would get all aspects of the old strike are now slim to none. Light level or whatever... leveling in general... needs to be separated from the armor. Armor should have some kind of small benefits / perks, but leave the ability power / level to the character. It makes no sense that a character is higher level only when he dawns a particular gear kit. There needs to be some kind of trinket, item, carrot reward for doing stuff that I can quest for and attach / unattach to armor and guns to make them uniquely MINE and customize them... call it a gem socket... and then let me find / mold and upgrade my gems such that I can bestow abilities to them and then have the gem confer some small bonuses to said piece of gear. There needs to be this kind of ownership / boon / investment into uniquely letting the player take some ownership in his own stuff. Ascendent / Radiant materials separation makes no sense. Is House of Wolves going to have yet another rare material for us to chase? Why not combine these materials into one, then no matter what raid you want to run, you can go do so, and use said material for your raid gear? Done.... simple fix, let folks play the game however they want to play. It also encourages the value of the older raids - as additional opportunities per week to get more ascendent material! It also keeps Ascendent Energy relevant... not matter when / where you got your weapon / armor.