This thread comes as an answer to a few things that have irked me since day one: 1. Story sucks, we've heard it a million times no need to explain. 2. Exotics are "super unique" but come from random chance, passed out every Friday, or are handed to you after you do a laundry list of barely unique tasks in the same five places. The quest system added a bunch more flavor text which was a good start but we all know the good stuff is cutscenes and dialogue. 3. Each exotic piece has a story but it's hidden behind a little paragraph in the grimoire. 4. The old "Earner" in me that has no idea if you got that exotic from beating a really hard raid boss, killing the winter Kell over and over, or if you bought it from ol' tentacle face himself. Hell for most of my exotics I couldn't even tell you. Generally in all of this there's the lingering feeling of "I have all these cool super weapons but I got most of them through a bunch of impersonal ways that feels really hollow" So, in a "perfect" Destiny here's how exotics would have worked. I will use Red Death as the example: a gun that has a bit of lore behind it but nothing concrete. For Red Death let's say it branches from a certain point in the Shaxx intro questline and has a prerequisite that you need to finish the vanilla campaign. All exotic questlines should be accessible through a consistent method and not left to rng. Cutscene time: Shaxx and Zavala call you into the situation room and show you footage of a crucible game that was ambushed by bandits, resulting in the permanent deaths of three guardians. One of these bandits is using the infamous guardian killer and you are sent to hunt them down. You get the questline and now have to do the checklist items from regular quests: patrol the cosmodrome to look for clues on where they went, grind out some fallen strikes to find data on their location, that kind of thing. This can be anywhere from easy mode to challenging in the same way that chaperone was challenging. This culminates in a half story mission half strike complete with intro cutscenes, player dialogue, the works. The bandit was a former guardian who cursed the traveler, killed his own ghost in paranoia, and dedicated his reborn life to ridding the world of these undead heroes using a weapon of his own creation. Actually fighting enemy humans would be incredible and unique for this weapon but if human death is too hardcore for the T rating let's say that shortly before we get to his hideout in the forgotten shore he is killed by a horde of fallen led by a certain vandal with a surprising amount of strength. That's right our boss is Randal the Vandal who kills Red Death's creator and steals his prized possession who's reputation is also known by the fallen and coveted for its guardian killing potential. You defeat Randal and take Red Death from his Ether leaking corpse. In a cutscene. Your character actually picks up the freaking weapon. Fade to black, red death icon and grimoire shows up. You talk to Shaxx who thanks you for avenging the dead and you convince Zavala to let you keep the weapon despite the vanguard policy to destroy it on sight. Sounds awesome right? It's like the exotic is a real tangible reward. Now imagine this for every single exotic in the game. Every weapon and every armor piece. Some will be easier or harder than others as it should. Now what do we do about ol tentacle face? He should sell legendaries with unique aesthetics. Weapons with rolls not otherwise possible in your usual rng. Xur gear should look Golden Age Era, worn with time and possibly a little corrupted by the alien unknowable Nine. Xur can also be the start point for some exotic quests, information he sells you in exchange for your coins. He's still Arms Dealer Santa who may sell you an outlaw reactive reload auto rifle or a sidearm with firefly but you won't be buying Red Death from him. What do you think?