After reading the GDC slideshow by Bungie, and hearing some opinions regarding its presentation, I've been thinking about the state of the game and ways that could perhaps improve the game's health tenfold. TL;DR: The mentality presented in the slideshow is awkward when considering the overall market competitiveness, while some points are fair, the methodology adopted for Destiny 2's live service development cycle that we've seen so far is weak, showing cracks on the foundation and structure, as the emphasis has been in fast, constant delivery of temporary content instead of maintenance and care of the game as a whole (specially base game). This way, 3 bullet points were presented that could help improve the game's health, going from improvements in base game activities, to rewards and engagement with said activities and the game's world, as well balance with the sanboxes being completely separate. --- In my train of thoughts, the way that Destiny was described and positioned in relation to other titles from the past and now, makes me wonder if there's a true understanding of where Destiny 2 really stands in the market. With its expansion and seasonal format, there's no denying that Bungie is being able to be a live service, and succeed in its objectives with the game. However, with a structure so weak like Destiny's, it does make sense to see a rapid influx of criticism and player burnout. The structure that has been present in Destiny 2 since its launch, and then adoption of seasonal model, proves to be innefficient at retaining players, while being good at creating engagement, albeit temporary or in waves. But one can only take so many waves before feeling nauseous. Currently, the content and activity summary of Destiny 2 is: Core playlists (vanguard, crucible, gambit), patrol areas, dungeons/raids, master/grandmaster modes, seasonal quest/activities, loot farming, and to lesser extent, triumph collecting, exploration, and lore reading. Out of all the things you can do, only seasonal quest/activities and loot farming seem to have novelties each season, but they're temporary novelties as you quickly go back to the rest of the game's old content. And while the recent and planned changes are very promising, they're not enough. So, with all that in consideration, 3 major bullet points that I believe would be very beneficial for Bungie to allow Destiny 2 to prosper even more, are: 1. PvE, as it stands currently, it is the major part of the game, and it desperately needs a major overhaul. Vanguard playlist, patrol areas, dungeons/raids, and seasonal activities are old fashioned activities, seeing little to no freshness in what you do and how you play them. There needs to be an improvement on multiple aspects on each section of the PvE to make it more engaging, and rewarding for both new and veteran players. Vanguard playlist could get a new set of missions that have non-linear progression or new primary and secondary objectives (in similar fashion to Payday 2 and Darktide), where you venture through new levels and do things for the Last City and its denizens, or our allies. Patrol areas could have more challenging activities, with public events and patrols having a higher level above Heroic, that can be activated with a specific item from the area, and perhaps see the use of Adventures once again. As for dungeons and raids, not only they're in its own space of PvE activities, but the respective master/grandmaster modes offers little to no incentives, when it could allow you to run them for extra loot such as ornaments, or improved loot, with multiple rows for weapons, improved armor stats (>42 stat), or resources that allow you to obtain intricacies and reroll exotic pieces. Seasonal activities could get as many changes as previously mentioned, but perhaps bits of them could be permanent, allowing new players to venture through seasonal content in bits to learn the basics that lead into the next expansion. All of this allows an opening to introduce new combatants, that may provide different interactions against guardians and open up for new strategies in missions, increasing the replayability and fun. Maybe introduce AI directors, player, enemy, or level modifiers, new objectives other than A to B kill boss, things that games such as Deep Rock Galactic, Darktide, Payday 2 has. 2. New Light and end game experiences need to be improved and properly defined. Going in tanged with the previously bullet point, PvE is an essential entry point for New Lights, and a retaining point for ongoing and seasoned players. It allows players to engage with the world, with the community, improve upon and then challenge themselves with harder activities. So far, the New Light experience is dreadful. It needs a new format that not only allows players to get into the game and do whatever they want, but also organically let them learn its ropes and mechanics as they play and interact with the starter area. It would be amazing to see New Lights be risen amidst a Lucent Hive takeover of Cosmodrome, and fight through their ranks and defend themselves with their abilities and new weapons. As a player approaches the end game, they'll realize that it isn't all that appealing. Not only it goes in tangent once again with the previous points about dungeons, raids and master/grandmaster activities, but players need more incentives to adhere to the Crucible activities. More and interesting rewards, and a balanced matchmaking is one of the first steps, as I believe that PvP is one important element for end game activities, with the next ones being new game modes, maps, and so on. 3. The PvE and PvP branches need to be truly separated into its own sandboxes, as obvious as it is and simply put. A well separated sandbox allows not only an increase in the game's health and balance, but also allows the design of new subclasses, exotics and changes to be more fluid and less generalistic, since you can tune each problematic aspect separatedly in its respective sandbox (i.e. super charge time and strength in PvE vs PvP). It's very understandable that it's near impossible to achieve such thing, considering the engine and the game it was built upon, however, if the game receives an improved engine anytime, or even a new title, then this should be mandatory. --- The mostly glaring issue with the adopted methodology of development and way of thinking, is that not only content became too predictable, but it also feels lazy, non-innovative, and lackluster. The seasonal content can only do so much to retain players, because after a few hours each week, a player will quickly go back to the base game's activities, which are seriously outdated, and only became even more outdated with the Light 3.0 changes and the so increasing power creep. Seeing the overall health state of the game, excluding financials and focusing in its experience only, just leads me to believe that Bungie definitely needs more hires, new development methodology, a change in seasonal model, and a change on its focus, so they can tackle the game as a whole and not focus as much on seasonal content, which is deemed as temporary content anyway. Given the overwhelming negativity that became present since last season, it's understandable that any meaningful changes will only occur in the next semester or year. However, with the Bungie's acquisition by Sony, and the growing pains since DCV, it's surprising that the game has been left in such state of decay for this long, with an unsynced focus with the community. The issues are now more glaring than ever, and as the player sentimentality just goes down, I do hope that management of Bungie will reorganize and acquire some insight to rescue the game from being stale and uninsteresting. And as of it all, Bungie boasts about 5 million new players in this year, but can they really?