I think the thing I'm most excited about is to move away from Savathun's featureless throne world. Hive architecture has never been my favorite part of Destiny. There's just a smoothness, sameness, and boringness that always seems to come with it. That section over there is the apothecary, you say? How can you tell? There's nothing external to the Light-drenched Hive chitin structure that makes me think of a place to mix and formulate medicines and drugs. There was certainly very little inside that made me think I was in a place of experimentation and solutions and arcane combinations of exotic elements searching for revolutionary concoctions.

My feelings exactly. Although the hive-based expansions have been very solid, it's my least favorite aesthetic in Destiny.

Thanks for your response! I can see that about the throne world, though I do like Hive Architecture. I'm looking forward to grappling around, personally.

Constast that with Mara's Dreaming City. There's not really that many more distinct materials in use over there... but from the foggy shore to the sparkling, twinkling crystal tunnels, to the spacious elegant rooms inside the towering white buildings, to the beautiful gardens... there's something more to the non-Hive destinations that I really enjoy a lot more.

And, now we have Bungie saying that they're trying to add more detail and senses of place to Neomuna. A location that, even by itself, already screams that it's more visually interesting than the Throne World. If nothing else, I'm very much looking forward to the rad, neon-lit secret city.

I wonder if it has to do with networking, lag, etc. Reach felt pretty good for AI, but fell apart with a bad connection. For Destiny, in order to get the smoothness of movement for players and the ability to navigate increasingly more complex geometry, I wonder if they just had to gut the AI to compensate. It really is jarring for company responsible for Halo to have released Destiny's AI. That being said, I do think they've done a decent job of balancing challenge by just throwing lots of thrall at you, which are fun do delete en masse with ridiculous powers/abilities.

Yeah, I suspect the network model/requirement is probably a huge contributor to the style of AI in the game. I was really disappointed in the Lightbearer Hive… they weren't smart or even particularly difficult to combat. Instead, Bungie just made them cheat and let them spam their supers and grenades every few seconds. The most "tactical" part of combating them was to make sure you were close enough (and safe enough) to finish off their Ghost before they respawned.

A lot of people really liked that for the challenge.

I loved the Legendary campaign, and I want all future Destiny solo content to be like that. Felt properly tuned to slow you down a bit and provide a challenge without being completely overwhelming.

There are some things that I have to look up, but only because some stuff isn't explained in-game.

And yeah, this has been a problem since Day 1…

I like that continue the story a little bit each week, it allows things to drag out at a trickle pace, instead of just hooking me up to a firehose. However, it would be nice to see some diversity in those weekly activities. The last few seasons, it's been "Go play seasonal event 1, now go play seasonal event 2, now go talk to 5 different venders all in different locations" - every week.

^This. I would like be able to progress the weekly story by playing a dedicated mission. It doesn't have to be a crazy big one, just a fun one. Release a seasonal activity on theme if you want to get rewards etc, but don't make me hate it by requiring it to play the story. The seasonal activities are fun the first 1-5 times. I think I would even enjoy it beyond that if it weren't required.

With 3 characters, you have to advance it 3 times to get rid of the quest. (Yeah, I know, I can abandon it.) You don't even get goodies for 2 and 3. :( (I'm thinking specifically of the weapon Spider 'gives' you this season, each week.)

I like that continue the story a little bit each week, it allows things to drag out at a trickle pace, instead of just hooking me up to a firehose. However, it would be nice to see some diversity in those weekly activities. The last few seasons, it's been "Go play seasonal event 1, now go play seasonal event 2, now go talk to 5 different venders all in different locations" - every week.

^This. I would like be able to progress the weekly story by playing a dedicated mission. It doesn't have to be a crazy big one, just a fun one. Release a seasonal activity on theme if you want to get rewards etc, but don't make me hate it by requiring it to play the story. The seasonal activities are fun the first 1-5 times. I think I would even enjoy it beyond that if it weren't required.

If someone were to pick up Des2ny now, today, and they didn't go on /r/DestinyTheGame for help, how many of the systems in the game currently are 'discoverable'? Just how complex are they? I kind of felt like Des2ny already had a bit of that problem when I stopped, so I'm curious where it's at now.

Well, I'm your typical dumb-dumb that doesn't do things like "read instructions" and I have no idea how to do anything. I mean, scroll down a bit to see that I just learned that armor has elemental powers. If you're curious if something is accessible on the surface, just ask me and see if my eyes glaze over or not.

I like that continue the story a little bit each week, it allows things to drag out at a trickle pace, instead of just hooking me up to a firehose. However, it would be nice to see some diversity in those weekly activities. The last few seasons, it's been "Go play seasonal event 1, now go play seasonal event 2, now go talk to 5 different venders all in different locations" - every week.

It seems like they have their hot zone locations, and places like the Moon, Nessus and now Earth are none-essential destinations.

I really enjoyed deciphering the treasure maps you unlock this season, even though the rewards were menial (which is ok) I enjoyed the steps along the way.

As long as they don't MAKE me play crucible.

I have to say, playing through some of the older Halo games on Legendary really highlighted for me just how terribly dumb the Destiny enemy AI is. I want to have more tactical fights, not just brute-forcing my way through waves of thrall. But I sort of think that's a tall order… maybe for D3??

I still feel like HCE on Legendary had the best mix of difficulty scaling and combat behavior I've ever played against. I didn't need elites or brutes to mount boxes so I could snipe them out mid-climb. Eh, you can never go home again.

I wonder if it has to do with networking, lag, etc. Reach felt pretty good for AI, but fell apart with a bad connection. For Destiny, in order to get the smoothness of movement for players and the ability to navigate increasingly more complex geometry, I wonder if they just had to gut the AI to compensate. It really is jarring for company responsible for Halo to have released Destiny's AI. That being said, I do think they've done a decent job of balancing challenge by just throwing lots of thrall at you, which are fun do delete en masse with ridiculous powers/abilities.

The big thing is that if you want to try different builds, juggling requires a 3rd party app because switching back and forth is just insane without them.

Getting a builds switcher in Lightfall!!!!!

If it's like the dress-up tool they added, it'll be great! If its like the Companion App, well...

The big thing is that if you want to try different builds, juggling requires a 3rd party app because switching back and forth is just insane without them.

Getting a builds switcher in Lightfall!!!!!

If someone were to pick up Des2ny now, today, and they didn't go on /r/DestinyTheGame for help, how many of the systems in the game currently are 'discoverable'? Just how complex are they? I kind of felt like Des2ny already had a bit of that problem when I stopped, so I'm curious where it's at now.

Interfacing with the mod system is a little like trying to learn how to play a deck builder tabletop game (e.g., Dominion) without a rulebook, using only the text on the cards.

And doing it without most of the cards until Ada sells the one you need every six months.

If someone were to pick up Des2ny now, today, and they didn't go on /r/DestinyTheGame for help, how many of the systems in the game currently are 'discoverable'? Just how complex are they? I kind of felt like Des2ny already had a bit of that problem when I stopped, so I'm curious where it's at now.

Interfacing with the mod system is a little like trying to learn how to play a deck builder tabletop game (e.g., Dominion) without a rulebook, using only the text on the cards.

Is part of it that because of the MMO elements of the game, experimentation is discouraged because of the time investment? That seems like a problem to me. If it takes a long time to get the mods and level everything up, then experimenting and getting it wrong would be a huge waste of time and frustrating. I could understand just turning to streamers to see what works best.

I don't think time investment is the problem. I got all the mods and tools rather passively. It is also low-cost to retool your armor mods etc so FOMO or sunk-costs on builds is pretty minimal. The big thing is that if you want to try different builds, juggling requires a 3rd party app because switching back and forth is just insane without them.

You can also ignore these systems completely and have a good time, but it can start to make a difference in end-game content. I was playing Challenge mode King's Fall with Claude and noticed that my character was definitely weaker because I had shied away from the systems. After biting the bullet and following the youtubers, it turned out to be really fun to engage with them.

To add to what Robot was saying, I'm finally letting the YouTubers do the work. They often include links to DIM so you can copy their load outs without a lot of work. I admire the people that get into it, and there's part of me that would love to experiment and figure it all out for myself, but it's hard enough for me to find the time to finish the basic content and get exotics.

Is part of it that because of the MMO elements of the game, experimentation is discouraged because of the time investment? That seems like a problem to me. If it takes a long time to get the mods and level everything up, then experimenting and getting it wrong would be a huge waste of time and frustrating. I could understand just turning to streamers to see what works best.