For me, besides the ability to interact with the environment; NPCs, climbing and moving through terrain, influence upon combat, acquirable equipment and weapons, movement between sections of planets and the planets themselves. The most prevalent point of interest would be the character customizations. For example interactions with different weapons, movement and jumping capabilities, damage modifiers, appearance, how players earn their improvements, etc.
It would be a great idea for members of the community to throw around some of their ideas for how Bungie could possibly tweak their plans and ideas for player customization.
First off, how do players earn the opportunity to improve their player's characteristics, and what options are users presented with once they have achieved the required milestones. Will we have the option to radically change our characters, or will there be a set forth design for each class. Skill trees have worked out well in some games, such as Deus Ex and Borderlands. Also an improvement system primarily based upon how the player chooses to play the game, Elder Scrolls, works out quite well also. Or will it be so that the moment you choose your character, it has the greatest effect on gameplay through the entire game?
I would like to see the type of upgrades that are reflected by how the player goes about the gameplay. A sniper cannot improve his sniping abilities without actually doing some sniping.
I could talk all day about this, anybody else?
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Please, for the love of all things great Bungie, DO NOT TIE LOOKS TO PLAYER STATS! Make customization easy and accessible. Where you lose player identity is when everyone looks the same. Why does everyone look the same? It's because you lable some gear the 'best'. You need to spend a shitload of whatever on this piece of armour. OF COURSE PLAYERS WILL ASSOCIATE THAT WITH THE BEST ARMOUR. Hardly anyone wears the default or beginning armours, because they associate it with being a low price, therefore not worthy of being worn, even if it does look good. Then a crapload of people wear the expensive armour, no one wears the cheap armour, and everyone looks the same. Even worse would be making our armour and what not tie in with stats. This helmet is clearly better because it gives you the best health/stats. Even if it looks bad, people will still wear it, because it gives them the most competitive edge in the game. THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT TIE PLAYER LOOKS TO STATS. Give us a wealth of customizability to begin with, not just 2-3 options. If you give us armour based on a currency, the most expensive will be the most worn. If you give us loot based on difficulty, the most difficultly achieved armour with be the most worn. So, although player incentive to play the game is based on rewards, and giving us armour as a reward seems like the logical thing to do, it really gets rid of player identity.