Dear Bungie, Let me start off by saying I love your world building. Destiny 1 may have lacked a coherent main narrative, but the existence of Grimoire entirely made up for that (in my opinion). While I miss Grimoire as a whole, I will not be addressing that issue here. Instead, I will focusing on a specific aspect of it that may have seemed simple, but gave Destiny a true sense of discovery and importance to exploration. That aspect is, of course, Dead Ghosts. Destiny 1 had an allure that I can't quite put into words. Despite the maps being rather samey, they were big for the time, and I was hooked on exploring every nook and cranny of each individual world. Living for the moment where I would stumble across that '???' level enemy, guarding an overlooked cave or building which was neatly tucked away from the less observant. Finding one of these areas almost always yielded a Dead Ghost. The thrill of finding a dormant little polygon only amplified by the tab describing what exactly the Grimoire Card I just received is about. Reading these cards from my phone never ceased to shift my perspective of Destiny, with some discoveries utterly revolutionizing the way I see and even play the game. Eagerly telling friends about this new, incredible discovery, regaling them with theories and speculations as I lead them to the same location to claim the Ghost for their own collection... This was a huge part of the Destiny experience. Now that is gone. Replaced by... What? Scannables which are easily discovered that offer players little more than measly circumstantial tidbits of 'lore' (I hesitate to even call it such), which elicit only grunts and the occasional questioning 'huh'. This may not even be so bad, except for another crucial choice: The new token based loot design. Oh Bungie. You truly have taken two steps forward and one step back with Destiny 2. You want to make Destiny an open world RPG loot-shooter, but won't even dignify the game with carefully hidden chests (that could not even show up on radar perhaps) which give unique loot. Hell, even Destiny 1 had those fleetingly useful gold chests, which was a concept that needed to be better thought out, not entirely scrapped. You've added Lost Sectors, but they're marked on the map and offer little more than Rare gear and tokens, with no 'lore' scannables and not even unique bosses with short backstory. You've added a more rewarding token system, but it sacrifices discovery for convenience, and starts capping gear once you hit 265, which makes tokens useless beyond Legendary Shard farming. You've removed collectible upgrade materials (thank christ), but added borderline useless items that give so little faction Rep it's inefficient to bother picking them up (especially with the anti-grind protocols you put in place). You've added more things to find (i.e Lost Sectors, Region Chests, Cayde Stash's), but slapped a big emblem where they are on the map. No mystery. No effort. Just a road map to the collectible. That is the bane of exploration. That's like if Skyrim or Fallout came fresh out of the case with all of the discoverable locations filled out, and they only greyed once you'd been there. That's not discovery. That's not exploration. That's items to tick of on a checklist. It makes exploring a chore, not an adventure. I could go on, but these are the things I wanted to focus on, as they affect exploration and REPLAYABILITY more than anything else. You have built great, beautiful worlds. Arcology on Titan is gorgeous and fascinating. The strange fossilized life and living trees with purple petals on Io are intriguing. The ominous Shard of the Traveler, hanging over the lush ruin of the EDZ. The stark sandy architecture of the centaur Nessus. All are bigger maps than Destiny ever had. I want to explore them all! Except... Except it is a literal waste of time. Why should I delve into the nooks and crannies of Arcology? There's no Dead Ghosts to find, all the scannables are boring and useless, I won't find a unique high health enemy guarding a high level chest with legendary/exotic loot, and most damningly, I will learn nothing and gain nothing. No loot, no levels, no stories to tell. Hell, there aren't even PATROL ZONES or even a Lost Sector in Arcology! It's a huge, interesting, alluring, mysterious place, and I have NO drive to explore it because I know my time is better spent elsewhere. The situation is woefully similar for every planet. I want to explore, to learn more about the area, but I could go up so many levels in the hours I would've spent exploring just by grinding Strikes and Public Events. I want to find some Dead Ghosts that tell me about the giant sea monsters you can see swimming in the oceans on Titan! (Like seriously, what the HELL is that about?!) Destiny 1 had flaws. No denying it. But I played it for hundreds of hours nonetheless, because there was always more Grimoire to find, always another light level to go up, always something I had MISSED. Not true in Destiny 2. I cannot see myself playing for more than 100 hours. I will hit max Power level, and then stop playing until the expansions come out, because there's no reason to stick around. You've improved Destiny 2 a in a lot of ways. Gameplay, social cohesion, cinematic story, more rewarding loot systems, better customization (No, I'm not even that upset about shaders). But it feels like to get those improvements, you sacrificed aspects of Destiny 1 that worked. I know plenty of people have said this, but I will reinforce it: Nobody wanted Grimoire GONE. They just wanted it accessible. Give us a 'Lore' tab that stores the scannable information, and allows us to see Grimoire in-game. Give us SOME incentive to explore these big, beautiful, intricate worlds you have created. It's the least you can do for the level design team and all their hard work, and for the players that loved Destiny for the allure of it's open worlds and collectible lore. Sincerely, A passionate Day 1 Guardian