Now that we are a few weeks into the new expansion, there's a pretty big issue I'd like to address. House of Wolves is a major step up for Destiny, but one can't help but feel that Bungie seems to only care about the PvP players. The Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner both offer guaranteed etheric light, and a lot of it, too. The Prison of Elders has only two activities that guarantee it. TWO ACTIVITIES. Yes, I understand that the nightfalls offer a chance to get some, but let's be honest here. The drop rate for etheric light in nightfall strikes is so abysmally low that there's virtually no point in doing them. This leaves us with 2 etheric light for PvE players, and at least 4-5 for PvP players with all of the activities they enjoy. Who thought this would be a good idea? Bungie, when your numbers show that most players prefer PvE to PvP, in addition to the multitude of polls and topics created every day on the forums that support this reality, why is the result always more PvP activities? From the Destiny box: [quote]From the creators of Halo and the company that brought you Call idle Duty. In Destiny you are a Guardian of the last city on Earth, able to wield incredible power. Explore the ancient ruins of our solar system, from the red dunes of Mars to the lush jungles of Venus. Defeat Earth's enemies. Reclaim all that we have lost. Become legend. Embark on an epic action adventure with rich cinematic storytelling where you unravel the mysteries of our universe and reclaim what we lost at the fall of our Golden Age. [/quote] Where is the cinematic storytelling, exactly? The campaign left more questions than answers for me. Who is the Exo stranger? What is the Traveler? Why do the Awoken in the Reef not question the fact that my Warlock is also one of the Awoken? [quote]The next evolution of the first-person action genre that provides an unprecedented combination of storytelling, cooperative, competitive, and public gameplay, and personal activities that are all seamlessly woven into an expansive, persistent online world. Venture out alone or join up with friends. The choice is yours.[/quote] Lots of stuff here. Once again this 'storytelling' aspect is mentioned, when we all know it's virtually nonexistent. Sure, there are the Grimoire cards, but I have to go to a separate website to view them, rather than be introduced to the lore in game. [quote]The choice is yours.[/quote] Is it now? I can't even explore the map without running into 'Turn Around!' when I should be able to explore this area. Where is this expansive world that was mentioned? And as far as play style choice is concerned? We're forced to group up to do any of the activities that are worth while, that's hardly a choice. [quote]Personalize and upgrade every aspect of how you look and fight with a nearly limitless combination of armor, weapons, and visual customizations. Take your upgraded character into every mode, including campaign, cooperative, social, public, and competitive multiplayer.[/quote] Apparently Bungie's idea of customization is a handful of preset facial configurations, with 4 armor sets per class and shaders that we can't even customize. -blam!-ing Morrowind has more customization than this. What was that $500,000,000 budget REALLY spent on? Strippers and coke parties? Destiny had MASSIVE potential, and it still does, but I hate to see the direction that it's going in. You talk about player choice, then kill the loot caves and tell us that your 'philosophy' is all about forming up groups to play effectively. You nerf the weapons that are literally only complained about by the PvP crowd, and have been very adamant about ignoring the valid complaints and arguments for matchmaking up until it was recently added to the wishlist. Where's the choice in that? Edit 1: After re-reading my OP, I realize that some articulation may have been lost on my part due to the fact that this was all typed up on my phone. I don't want to bash Bungie too much, due to the rumors of what was supposed to be, according to that fabled Reddit post a while back, and I can't help but think that it has to be at least partly true. I know that Bungie does listen to player feedback. I remember when exotics required ascendant material to upgrade, which was changed due to player feedback. Matchmaking was added to the weekly heroic due to player feedback. The etheric light system was added due to players feeling like Crota's End gear, as well as the new vendor gear in the Dark Below expansion, invalidated all of the gear that was acquired before, in the vanilla release of the game. I just don't understand how a developer that prides itself on awesome storytelling, as well as near perfect competitive multiplayer and matchmaking as seen in Halo, could take such a big step backwards and alienate a good portion of their player base with the questionable decisions that have been made in the development of Destiny. Some have argued that Destiny is a first of it's kind for Bungie, which is a fair point. But that still doesn't explain the lack (removal?) of a storyline, which we all know Bungie is perfectly capable of. And for a developer that also prides itself on popularizing the matchmaking system, the lack of at least some form of an LFG system in-game truly perplexed me. Edit 2: We've made it to the top of Trending already! Whether or not DeeJ or the devs respond to what we're talking about, let's make sure they know how we feel! Edit 3: Not even 24 hours and we are already at the top of Highest Rated! For those of you that would accuse me of whining or crying: if you're going to put the effort into commenting, you can at least argue why Destiny is perfect, in your opinion. I'm not the kind of person who is just going to assume that anyone who disagrees with me is wrong, but when the best response you have is "quit yer bitchin' nub" you automatically invalidate any points you may try to make. Edit 4: Over 100 replies now! I've been seeing a lot of people mention how they've felt that PvP is the thing that's been shortchanged until recently, and I can see where you're coming from. Let's take a look at the Dark Below plus the activities that existed in the vanilla version of Destiny. 2 raids, a daily story, weekly heroic strikes and nightfall strikes. 5 activities that have to do with PvE, not including the several strike playlists and patrol activities. PvP had the crucible and Iron Banner. 2 activities. On the surface, it seems like there's much more favoritism for PvE, but the numbers are deceptive in my opinion. As far as loot is concerned, the only things worth doing for high level players would be the two raids and nightfalls. PvP only has iron banner with guaranteed rewards, yet this only comes once a month or so. Again, PvE seems to have the favor of the Bungie gods, but let's get into even more detail. Bungie released statistics that stated only 15% of player time was in PvP, the rest being in PvE. Now, this could be a result of the numerous PvE activities next to PvP. But we've all seen the threads requesting for 'nerf Suros, nerf Thorn' etc. Nearly all of these threads gave arguments pertaining to PvP. What did we get? The infamous auto rifle nerf, as well as a few tweaks to fusion rifles and hand cannons. All of which were applied across the board, where the shotgun tweaks were stated to only affect PvP. In fact, shotguns got a buff to damage against AI opponents. Remember the developer open house? Nearly all of those devs had a focus in PvP. Where's our PvE open house? Bungie may have had intentions on having some awesome PvE stuff initially, but they've been pretty consistent in addressing the crucible complaints while ignoring legitimate problems with PvE activities (raid bugs anyone?) Almost every weekly update written by DeeJ contains info on crucible plans, with little to no mention of PvE, with only a handful of exceptions. Us PvE folks can't help but feel like we're being left behind.