Your mileage will vary but here are my thoughts. I have taken some (admittedly trapped) time to share them in case anyone cares to read them as I would prefer the game not to die. Context: I played D1 beta right through to Witch Queen when I took my first long break. Not because the game was bad but because it took too much of my time. And 35 looted clears didn't get me mythoclast and no one with thumbs wanted to run VOG any more. Came back for lightfall, realized why I left. Caught up on most content after coming back for final shape, played nothing after that until Renegades. Key point: I have lots of content to engage with right now (if I want to complete seals, do challenges etc) and those of you who have played continuously will feel differently. Thoughts: 1) Renegades has been fun. New weapon types in heat weapons, new (sort of) locations, new area-confined abilities. Absurdly powerful new exotic in form of praxic blade. Fun absurdly overpowered but creates the "why run any other exotic at all" problem. Artifact mods going next episode won't reduce its power that much but you might at least need another weapon for one of the champion types. The good thing is it is easy to get and fun for all. Fun for all is important - casual players keep the lights on. 2) I missed the crazy power grind of Edge of Fate. Levelling from power 10 to 550 was very fast in renegades and happened naturally by playing the game. I played very little PVP because I don't enjoy it. Given everything seems to have a fixed power anyway, surely the power grind is just pointless now and could go entirely. 3) The portal is counterintuitive to people who see it for the first time as I did at Renegades. All the seasonal stuff is locked behind a horizontal bar on the middle right. So you have content located in the destinations/map tab, the portal, and within the portal you find the seasonal stuff. I don't know who designed this but they made a really poor job of it. The portal gets a lot of hate and I see where people are coming from. 4) The story of Renegades was pretty enjoyable. A credible threat and interesting enough characters. I was deeply suspicious of the Star Wars tie in but you made it work. The story of Edge of Fate was pretty so-so for me, 5/10. I don't know why we needed a new emissary but accept that we've had quite enough of Ikora over the years and some fresh antagonists are welcome. 5) Playing with other people is vastly more fun than playing solo. More matchmaking is needed or a much better fire team finder. I'm lucky in that I can play with my son and can call on clan members if we need a third. So far, only master derealize has need a third due to the time pressure (pre timer extension). 6) Selectable difficulty levels are welcome but I can see why people who couldn't play EoF on mythic were unhappy with their terrible loot quality. The game needs to be more inclusive, it mustn't make people feel like they only get trash and top players get the good stuff. 7) I remember the mountaintop, recluse, swarm of the raven era. On one run of Crown of Sorrow we all had exactly the same loadout except for one player running Tractor for some encounters. Things have improved immensely and many loadouts seem viable (though praxic blade currently means you only need one weapon at all...) 8) Guardians' power has grown hugely. I soloed Pit of Heresy (only dungeon I could be bothered to do, not fun for me) when you had a rift, a grenade, a melee and your super. Compare that to current prismatic warlock with getaway artist, helion and praxic blade with close to 100% uptime on multiple abilities. I can see how keeping old context relevant/replayable is an issue. GMs used to be hard enough that there was a streamer industry in cheese slots where you could whittle bosses down without being killed in 0.1 seconds. GM contests are much more doable and more fun. GM Derealize will likely be quite tough with the modifiers and need more than one attempt which is ok. 9) Recent raids - no one seems to play them, or be willing to teach them. My old clan (defunct) used to carry and teach last wish which was the most mechanically heavy of the early raids. I liked Spire of Stars but it was hard to get a group. Replacing Raid Lairs with Dungeons was a good move. Another good move is to make raids with the average raider in mind - and not build them purely for the contest raid race which is what I think happened. 10) Gatekeepers. There are still vocal players who, in order to enjoy themselves, need not only to have the nice things but also for everyone else not to have them. Beware ever listening to these people. Despite likely not being very nice or helpful humans, they will kill your game. I know some players who failed to complete two contest day one raids in a row and left the game as a result. They certainly didn't like having the experience they wished on everyone else. 11) Difficulty and loot tiers- other than the yellow bar captain you need to kill for one of the Graviton Spike catalyst parts it seems fine to me (I assume he, and those turrets, were an error). There are people saying the game is too hard/easy in relatively equal numbers. Edge of Fate got this wrong by putting all the Tier 5s behind Mythic. Drop rates should be higher at higher difficulty but not a total lock-out. 12) It's such a petty, inconsequential thing I'm almost embarrassed to write it- but being locked out of increasing guardian rank until June is annoying. I said it. Moving forward: A) The game needs to be fun for all. There needs to be ways for solo players to easily help each other, including those who are nervous about that. Make it easy, make it low stakes. Reward Sherpas. B) Content droughts are ok - but need to be clearly communicated. Taking breaks should be normal and healthy. C) I honestly believe people will grind for cool cosmetics. This can be a way of engaging those -blam!- like top challenges. Don't put the best guns out of reach of average players, put things like the cosmetics behind raids, dungeons, GMs, mythic difficulty. Think D1 and the ornaments you could add to raid and iron banner armour. Low on dev time, high on player engagement - assuming these are key considerations. D) Make the game more interactive. Have us make choices in game and that to affect the game world. What if the Guardian factions had a conclave and recommended different action and we voted in game for that? What if this led to inter-faction conflict? What if Shaxx attempted to encourage us to settle it in the crucible? What if the crucible is a boring idea and instead players posted their in-game speeches over their recommended action and the community could vote on them? Some players could become famous who know the lore and are articulate rather than being famous for being monosyllabic but with superior hand-eye coordination and reflexes. I do not know the lore. E) More player action affecting the game World. E.g., the hive are massing under a new minor leader, we need to cull them. Set the community targets of Hive killed (GM completion counts as 100, Major kill on patrol is 1 etc). Hit the target and we get some sort of boon. Fail and extra Hive boomers and wizards appear in common activities. I think one of the Mass Effect games did this and Helldivers might have done something similar (I've not played any). Easy way for people to have something to do and for challenges to become easier/harder as a result. Could lead to players attempting harder context they normally wouldn't if that faction was under strength that week as a result of successful guardian action the week before. Fun for players, easier for devs than something totally new. F) Social spaces where your triumphs affect the physical space. You dabbled with this during a Calus-themed season before it was vaulted. There was a much smaller but similar idea in the basement of the cantina in Renegades, shame that area is out of the way. G) Some investment in PVP for the PVP players. It needs some maps at least. I don't know about the viability of dedicated servers and will stay out of things I know little about. H) Reprising all the raid loot. Again. I mean, nice enough but don't mistake this for content. How much of a difference does an enhanced trait make to my gameplay over the base version? I reckon very, very little. In blind tests I doubt most players would know whether they were shooting the base or enhanced version. How many people will go back to those raids to get the gear for the third time? Efforts need to be going elsewhere, this needs to be small print of any update. If you made it to the end, well done. Go well, Guardian.