To those in charge: After a couple of months now, I have some observations. For what it's worth. Fair warning: this is a bit long. First, let me offer the Pro's of this game, as I see it, before the Con's. I [i]love[/i] the concept, the world setting, the subtle blend of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I love the artwork and stylings. I love the visual design. The music and sound effects are great too, setting the right tone for the game. I really like the basic tactical gameplay, the feel of the weapons and their responsiveness, especially compared to other games. The FPS mechanics for a console are top notch. You guys get that right — this coming from a guy who prefers mouse & kb to a gamepad. [i]My favorite part[/i]: The Public Events. I love having a group of players spontaneously volunteering to come together on their own and on the fly to take on the enemy for a set mission. It's great fun. All-in-all it's a great game mostly, but it also has so many negatives, negatives that keeping increasing with each patch and with each failure to address the problems properly. [i]First and foremost[/i]: All of these problems are compounded by your pathetic reliance on random chance. The freaking RNG constantly rears its ugly head over and over, throughout this game. So many aspects of this game are tainted by the lazy fallback implementation of RNG instead of actual game design and planned strategy. It's so bad that all these other problems combine to make so much of the game arbitrary and pointless. [i]Second[/i], the Story Mode [i]should[/i] have been my favorite part of the game -- but you nerfed it. I guess you were convinced to parcel out the initial story in dribbles and drabs, so as to pad out your glorious ten year plan. But then the other PvE aspects have been degraded as well. So much repetition, for so little rewards (see below) and so little meaning. I know this next point is going to cause a lot of players to disagree, but so be it: So now the story and the PvE has been retarded, you have placed [b]far[/b] too much emphasis on PvP, so much so that it hinders progress in PvE as well. I [b][i]know[/i][/b] there are a lot of Halo-esque twitch gamers out there who like to garner bragging rights over their fellow gamers, but to my mind PvP has always been a side-show to most FPS games, just an added bonus. It shouldn't be the emphasis in an advertised-as-story-driven game like Destiny. And to be honest, if I wanted to play PvP to the exclusion of PvE, I can play a ton of other games where that aspect is better handled. Furthermore, to make PvP the premier means to advancement even within the PvE setting is just... just [i]wrong[/i]. The progress in each should be wholly independent of each other (just like it was way back in Marathon). [i]Thirdly[/i], I cannot fathom the rationale for switching the leveling system out after level 20. Until level 20, we rank up based on our experience points earned. In Destiny, as in a multitude of games going back as far as the original pen & paper Dungeons & Dragons some 40 or more years ago, experience points are given for tasks accomplished, such as defeating adversaries. It's a well-understood, tried-and-true game mechanic. But then we switch to this odd ranking system based on the number of "Light" points in pieces of armor we have to now acquire. And it's contradictory to your own stated intent. On the one hand, we've been treated to "fixes" that nerf weapons and abilities all in the name of "balance" with the added excuse that we should not be relying on any particular weapon or gear to accomplish the goals in this game. Furthermore, some apologists contend that we should just enjoy the game and not be so focused on the lack of weapons drops or the Cryptarch and merchants skimping us. And yet Bungie contradicts itself with this one switch in game mechanics — we [i]have[/i] to focus on item drops now, just to level up. So I ask, why are we forced to switch modes mid-stream like this? Why switch from a tried-and-true, well-understood metric of game progress to this alternate, experimental nonsense that takes emphasis off of accomplishment and puts it on aquisition? Who the heck thought this was a good idea? And even so, the rewards for defeating enemies also seems shallow and lacking — which brings us to [i]The Grind[/i]. As stated above, we have been driven now to acquire items from random enemy drops and encounters just to progress in the game. So many games make you go through a grind to delay the gratification of leveling up. This I concede is a common game mechanic, one found in many RPG's and MMO's. It might not be the best solution, but so be it. But in Destiny, the item drops from any enemy are subject to the terrible RNG, [i]again[/i]. Actually, it's even worse than that. There is no distinction in the randomness of the chances for item drops or their contents between a lowly dreg and the biggest bads of the entire game. [i]No[/i]. [i]Freaking[/i]. [i]Difference[/i]. So then you actually wonder why so many people abandoned the pointless strike and bounty missions to spend hours cave-farming? [i]Really[/i]? I know excuses have been given that you think its not a good incentive to give more rewards for the bigger bosses than other enemies, but I think those are just hollow and wrong-headed. It flys in the very face of the gaming systems that have worked well for decades before. Why on earth would one spend so much time and costly ammo to take down a world-crushing major bullet sponge when they offer no better chance at a drop or reward than a measly second-level underling? For more XP? But then you demphasized that metric after level 20, [i]remember[/i]? Why take on a worthless target like Phogoth, yet again, for example, when I could instead spend the time and resources that effort would take and apply it to going through hundreds of dregs and vandals, each one increasing the slight chance for an item drop? Just. So. Stupid. And so, "the Grind is Real", as they say. And the grind in Destiny is senselessly hard to justify, and the rewards so slim and aggravatingly [i]arbitrary[/i]. [b]Arbitrary[/b]! I have said it before in other comments, I feel like I could get better entertainment from just randomly rolling a handful of dice. Certainly the Strategy has been ringed out of the game bit by bit, and now it seems wholly geared to just twitch-shooting and spinning the roulette wheel. And frankly, the whole broken loot system would be far less annoying to me if only the payoff via the story itself had not been skimped on, leaving us with even more questions and hardly any answers at all. It's not what we were advertised or promised. These are the big issues I am finding. There are lots of little annoyances I could list, odd design decisions that don't have such far-reaching impact, but are mind-bogglingly face-palming just the same. Just a few examples, among many: • Why the heck do I have to depend on the whims of my ghost to turn on or off my lamp in dark spaces? Why can't I manually override that light? For that matter, it's the freakin' future, where's the night-vision? • And why is our ghost asleep so darn much of the time, never present except to give pithy comments and man our only flashlight? Instead, why isn't he providing useful tactical assists and a HUD, ala' Iron Man's Jarvis? • Was the art of Cartography lost or something? Access to an area map while planetside would be nice, right? Why do we have to go to orbit just to view any map, such as they are? • Where the heck are our [i]real[/i] melee weapons, like the Reaver vandals and captains have? Why tantalize us with just a taste in Sword of Crota? • And [b]why[/b] do you insist on zeroing special and heavy weapon ammo after one switches weapons and at the start of a session? If you're worried about ammo hoarding, at least leave us with a normal reasonable amount! Or pay us in Glimmer or Marks for the things you take away! • Forcing a player to join a fire team just to run a strike is stupid; why not allow as many — or as few — players as want to join a given mission? Or even a pick-up game midstream, AKA. Join In Progress? Give me a reason to [b]want[/b] to join a team and a mission, but don't [b]force[/b] me to have to. And if I decide to go solo or with fewer than normal team members, then tailor the difficulty accordingly. Likewise if we choose to lead a whole freakin' platoon or even a batallion into battle. Adapt the mission parameters accordingly. So much potential. Lots of huge gaping holes. Where are the strategy elements? Where are the team efforts, ones that actually encourage skill and coordination between people of different but necessary roles? You know, the MMO elements? Where are the freaking campaigns with whole legions of guardians taking on the enemy? Why is this game becoming so increasingly stingy and pointless? Most importantly, where is the sense of [i]meaning[/i] to what we are doing, that which we are fighting for? Why has the emphasis been placed more upon dog-eat-dog gameplay to the utter exclusion of common purpose and comraderie among players? Above all, why are you addressing only the wrong "problems", non-problems or just the symptoms of actual problems — all without actually analyzing and understanding just why players are trying to work around these issues as they do? Again, Destiny has great FPS mechanics, but all the other game mechanics and the many missing elements, not to mention the bizarre choices made in the patches, make for an increasingly aggravating experience.