These are my opinions. Your opinions are a lot more important (and better xD) to me and I would be very happy to hear them :)
I would like to see patrols become the PVE equivalent of the crucible, where you can go and have some fun and a challenge. At the moment patrols are boring and tedious, and when doing bounties and or material farming, they make for an un-enjoyable experience. In this topic, I'm going to split my views and opinions on how to improve patrols into two main segments; Scenery and Patrol mechanics, the more important being the latter in my view.
I know bungie are going to try and improve patrols with the taken king, but I fear once the exotic has been obtained by everyone and the whole place explored (unless they use the same effect like on the vault of glass), it, like the other patrols will become unused.
So the first obvious solution to making patrols more interesting is to make the scenery more interesting. At the moment, all of the patrols feels the same, just with a different skin on top of it, if they could re-create a similar atmosphere as in the vault of glass, mysterious and still not sure everything has been discovered, I feel patrols will be a lot more used.
Some of my ideas for scenery are;
Sky City
Sky city is a large vex labyrinth in the sky, with a rat way of bridges and path ways criss-crossing making it very easy to stumble off the edge. Instead of focusing on the map horizontally, make it vertical, so you climb up and down to different sections. Making the whole place narrow will make the map seem a lot bigger. Also add vents and small ducts to crawl through and add to the maze type feel of the whole place, making it seem mysterious and bringing people back. Have ancient vex golems patrol the halls of the labyrinth adding to the mystic (more on this in the mechanics section)
Space Station
Similar to sky city in the vertical aspect, the space station would be very dark and require your ghost to light up the gloomy chambers of the golden age space station. This theme is based on the Alien movies. The darkness could conceal countless secrets adding to the atmosphere, and since its in space, the gravity at points should change, but more on that in the mechanics section
Frozen Wasteland
As seen in some of the concept art, a frozen wasteland would be amazing. A snow storm that would come and go would reduce visibility making shelter and necessary thing to find (more in the mechanics section). What would set this apart from the patrols presently would be that the buildings and would be explore able leading to interesting battles and manoeuvring around the general map. Having more freedom to explore will attract more guardians to the patrol to explore. And being and frozen wasteland, it could lead to some interesting mechanics
Foggy Swamp
Similar to the Frozen waste with low visibility, the swamp instead would have a thick mist that would come and go. The swamp would have a zombie esque atmosphere about it, making you uneasy as you waded through it (or shoot over it with your sparrow). With you at a disadvantage to your enemies, fights will become more interesting rather than running into the group of level 1 dregs and beating them all to death.
Open plains
Unlike the first two, which focus on narrow passage ways and tight spaces, this area would be lush green open fields of grass, huge area requiring specially provided vanguard vehicles to traverse (sparrows would be to slow) this open space. This would be just fun to mess around on with the vehicles, zipping through the grass weaving in and out of stone vex structure sticking out the ground. (idea came from the Easter island; http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/027/546/i02/easter-island-heads.jpg?1337958102).
Another way to make patrols interesting are to add unique mechanics into each patrol to make the experience more exciting and less boring and monotonous. These mechanics won't be escaped by any level no matter the gear.
I’m pairing my ideas for the scenery with these mechanics
Sky City
As I mentioned, this large vex labyrinth will have large ancient vex golems slowly patrolling the hallways (not in groups), but what makes this so interesting would be, no matter what level you are, there level would be "??". This means that you won't be able to kill them and they will be able to kill you with ease. They would patrol the hallways on set paths and timings, slowly trudging along like clockwork, meaning that you will need to you your whits to sneak past them and avoid them. They will be less frequent compared to the gorgons, having 1-3 to an area, and easier to escape death, but non the less, you cannot enter un-prepared.
Space station
Also as mentioned in the paragraph above titled space station, the space station would be very dark, requiring your ghost to light the way. This makes the perfect opportunity for jump scares >:). Having enemies sneak up on you will always keep you on edge and ready. Also with the space station being in space, this is also a great opportunity to mess with gravity, having your guardians walking along and looking up to see another casually walking on the ceiling. This would provide a lot more interesting exploration and depth to the patrol.
Frozen wastelands
The mechanics of the frozen wastelands would be that you can only stay outside for a certain amount of time due to how cold it is, meaning say after 20 minutes outside, you start to freeze up and die, forcing you back to orbit unless you seek shelter inside the buildings. This combined with the low visibility of the snowstorm that comes and goes would make the outside a lot more intriguing.
Shrek’s Swamp
Similar to the mechanics of the frozen wasteland, with the exposure to the cold, Shrek’s swamp would only allow you in patrol for 2-3 hours per day due to radiation exposure. This would make people keep returning to discover the secrets it keeps due to them being harder to discover
The open plains
An area so big with gentle rolling hills would provide perfect space for an all-out open war between to alien races, this could happen randomly every day for a certain amount of time and the battle will dwarf the small skirmishes seen on the current patrols.
Other mechanics;
Other ideas for mechanics could require more than one person in your fireteam to unlock certain chests and areas and certain switches and leavers could open up other areas the other side of the map, making the exploration a lot more fascinating.
Other things that make patrols boring at the moment are how un-challenging the enemies are. this can be fixed by making some patrols have enemies at the level cap, making traversing the areas not for the faint hearted. The other problem is the loot you receive from patrols are pathetic at the moment. In my opinion, to better this they could add unique emblems, shaders, ships, sparrows and even some unique weapons and armor (like in the ttk we think).
These are my opinions, but yours matter much more!
A like/bump would be appreciated but a comment twice as far.
If you bothered to read through all of the above, well done to you good sir!
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Edited by RemedialLemur: 8/18/2015 7:59:26 PMI really only patrol for the Mission x 6 bounties, Public Events x 3 (if I'm in a hurry), or if I'm waiting for my friends to assemble (because waiting in the tower is [i][b]a lot [/b][/i] more boring than patrol. Other than that it's pretty much a waste of time anymore. Edit: Squatting at the bottom of the stairs in the steppes to block farmers can be a lot of fun too if you do so to the right one.