Tl;dr: This game has changed drastically since the release of Taken King. Everything from the way you upgrade gear, to the gameplay itself. It may take some time to get used to it all, so if you do decide to come back then enjoy the game at your own pace and have fun. I put your specific inquiries in the spoiler since it is a long wall of text. If you have any more questions feel free to ask! [spoiler]The things you noticed specifically: Light level/Guardian level: The max Character level for a guardian is Level 40. Everything has a Light Level now; Weapons, Armor, Ghosts and Class Items. Your Guardian Light Level is determined by the average Light Level of all of your Gear. The more Light you have on your gear, the more powerful your Guardian will become. The max Light Level in the game is 400. -------------------------------- Exotics: Year One exotics cannot be upgraded to Year Three Light Levels, so yes this does render said piece of gear obsolete unless of course you want to use it for fun. This goes for everything else Year One: Legendary gear, Rare gear, etc. You must acquire the Year Two/ Year Three version of said gear(if available) for it to be useful. You can reacquire a lot of Exotics at the Exotic Weapon Blueprint kiosk and at the Exotic Armor Blueprint kiosk, both located in the Tower by the Vanguard Mentors (Cayde, Ikora, Zavala) Year One gear has a max light level of 170, which will drop your light level quite a bit. Year Two/Year Three Legendary and Exotic gear have a max light level of 400. ------------------------------ Currency: Motes of Light can be used to upgrade gear that hasn't been fully upgraded, and can also be used to rank up factions (Future War Cult, New Monarchy, and Dead Orbit) Strange coins are still used for Xur when he comes around on the weekend. Silver is a bonus currency that can be used to buy extra goodies at the Eververse store. Silver however, can only be purchased with real money. Legendary marks can be used to purchase gear and also infuse gear. Three of coins was a new currency introduced in the Taken King. Sold by Xur, when activated these coins give you a chance to receive an random Exotic engram the next time you kill an Ultra, or upon completion of a Crucible match. ------------------------------ Crucible: Trials and Iron Banner are still around. A lot of new maps have been added, and a few new game modes. The Iron Banner questline gives you a reward when you reach Rank 3 and Rank 5, but other than that you no longer receive Rank 3 and Rank 5 packages from Iron Banner, but now you complete bounties which give you Iron Banner gear, alongside the chance of receiving items after a match. Special ammo has seen a lot of changes. Other than sidearms, whenever you die you lose all of your special ammo and have to find a special box on the map. This has led to a heavy increase in sidearm usage.[/spoiler]