Edit = I feel I need to start this off by saying; I generally [i]like[/i] Destiny 2. I didn't think I would, my wife bought me a copy as a surprise, and most of my negative opinions pre-release have been proven to be wrong. I'm man enough to admit that.
So, yeah... I like Destiny 2. Generally, it's a good game.
However; my biggest and most prevalent gripe about this game is the lack of Loot and quality rewards.
Seriously, Bungie; the "Loot Rewards" (or lack of...) in this game are just -blam!-ing atrocious.
I go through a bunch of activities; Lost Sectors, "High value Targets", Public Events, Strikes, etc., and all you get [i]FOR HOURS[/i] is Glimmer, Blue items that drop consistently five power levels below your current level, and a Token (maybe 3 Tokens if you're lucky...)?
For a development crew that crowed on and on and on about "more and better loot in D2 than in D1", the rewards are pure shit!
I can literally play for HOURS and not get a single Legendary engram from ANY of the in-game activities. I get a Legendary drop, it's more from it dropping from an enemy than from an activity.
And even then, it's more like: "The system sees that you've been killing enemies non-stop for three hours, but all you've received is Blue Equipment, Glimmer, and a few Tokens; so here's a sympathy-engram... KEEP GRINDING!!!"
Exotic Engrams? lol Forget about it...
I like a ton of things about Destiny 2. But the sheer lack of rewards for performing the activities the game itself places in front of you, is atrocious and awe-inspiring in all of the worst ways.
And I don't honestly understand why this is as it is...
After three years in Destiny 1, you guys had the Loot pretty well figured out. The RNG was still triple-dipping (and that sucked balls...); but you not only had consistent rewards as well as guaranteed rewards for various activities, but you offered people a multitude of different ways to get to Max Light regardless of what/how they wanted to play the game.
What ever would possess you guys, as a development team, to look at Y3 of D1 and think: "Well guys, we finally got the Loot figured out, and Players are so very happy that they have multiple ways to get to max Light, even though the RNG system still confuses us. For Destiny 2... let's do none of that. Scrap it all and put in a vastly inferior system. Cut down on the number of Equipment Sets available, 3 Sets per Character Class is the definite way to go here! Give them crap Blues and Glimmer most of the time, and they'll surely grind twice as hard to receive less than half of the reward!!"?
Bungie: Right now? As of how things stand today? The severe lack of rewards for the activities you place in front of us, is the greatest temptation and incentive to NOT play your game.
Absolutely -blam!-ing horrible rewards...
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Here's a funny irony about Loot, and Bungie's "vision" for end-game Loot. In an attempt to make it easier for Bungie to keep the Crucible and Weapons/Armor balanced; they removed the "unique" factor from Raid Items, and made them no better/worse than regular trash you find in the game. A side effect of this is: Since Raid gear is now no better/worse than any other gear in the game, what's the point in grinding the Raid for full Sets of weapons or armor? Go through the "toughest challenge in the game" for weapons/armor that is no better than you could get from any old Chest/Vendor as a reward? That's not an incentive to play the Raid at all. With the VoG, Crota's End, the Prison, etc.; there was an incentive to grind out the Raid each week, and on multiple characters. The Raid gear was [i]the best gear in the game[/i], and thus gave you a tangible benefit to the time/effort necessary to conquer the toughest content in the game. With the Leviathan Raid? Aside from Weapon/Armor aesthetics, there's no reason to play the Raid more than once. There's literally no tangible benefit or effect on the game for grinding the Raid to get the gear from said Raid. I love the irony in this conundrum Bungie created for themselves. They figuratively shot themselves in the foot, to appease the "balance at any/all cost" niche crowd.