And so a month of the new expansion has just about run it's course, hard to believe time goes by that quickly when dare I say it, you're having actual fun. While there are still some of Bungie's Year 1 negativity and mistakes resonating through the air, a majority of what was done for TTK was generally good in nature. They do deserve some applause for what was delivered. This honestly feels like what we should have gotten for DLC 1 and DLC 2 in terms as the size of the content being offered. So, let's sit back and actually talk about how Bungie can keep the positive notion going forward. While I've never had a single dev reply or conversation with them before, you guys in the community have definitely heard what I have been saying with some level of positivity. I hope that can continue here now. [b]TL;DR [i](For The Time Limited)[/i])[/b]: Generally, Bungie did a great job delivering a quality load of content. There are some behavioral changes that do need to be made however if Bungie is hoping to reconnect with a community that is slowly fading. Finally, MTs coming next week are not necessarily bad, so long as they remain cosmetic only and a weekly objective analysis can be provided such that we get a content timetable. Overall Rating: 8/10 [b]I. The Story[/b] So, first and foremost let's dive into the heart of TTK, the new story. And yes! there actually was a story this time and not just a few lines of some random character talking about stuff that connected no dots. The story was pretty basic but got right to the point, Oryx is pissed at us because we killed his son, Crota. He brought a Dreadnaught into the system and then started creating The Taken to hunt us down. Finally, when we decided to come after him personally, he accepted the challenge, got defeated, and left the taken to resonate through the system (And ran off to his Ascendant Realm to await destruction there). There were cutscenes to help us along this time around and the pieces flowed much better. Also no silly lines like "No time to explain". New subclasses are fun and play great! The story gets an 8/10 this time, there is still some work Bungie needs to do. Personally, I think they need to revisit the vanilla content in a DLC and fix the story there. Also, while having "some" cutscenes is good, they could do with more next time around. [b]II. The Strikes[/b] Next up, let's talk about the three new strikes. Gameplay wise, the strikes are much more intuitive in nature. The bosses no longer feel like "Bullet Sponges" that take hours to kill, and there are small mechanics involved with the fights to ease into raiding a bit. Most of the encounters feel right, although some slight adjustments could be made to balance things out a bit (Bungie, I have a 15+ page document on hand with a list of changes that "should" be made. If you want it, it's yours, just PM me), but again overall well done here. Also, nice job "remastering" the old strikes with new flavors. I give a rating of 9/10 here for just some very minor things like mark limits on the heroics, and not remastering all of the old strikes, but generally this is how it should be done, keep it up! [b]III. King's Fall[/b] "The Raid", yes we finally got a new raid. I personally think the decision to pull a raid from HoW hurt Destiny big time in terms of popularity. The weekly update clearly showed a massive drop in overall participation numbers compared to VoG and CE. However, I'm not here to talk about what was, let's talk about what we got. This time, Bungie did an excellent job inventing a raid that demands teamwork and cooperation. This is what a raid should feel like, an activity where you [b]NEED[/b] all six players to be successful. The mechanics were excellent and the overall design and look of the new raid felt haunting and completely uninviting to your player. This is what we've been waiting for since last September. Great job! Downfall wise, there's a few things. Again, the raid seems to be suffering from "flawed loot tables" that were prevalent in VoG and CE. Also, there are a few encounters that are in my personal opinion "too demanding" at the current time. Hard Mode is going to suffer a huge participation falloff due to this. In terms of fixing the flawed tables, one thing you can do is add a Raid Kiosk that players can use their Shards for instead of inside the raid where RNG has a "pretty good" chance of screwing them over. See [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/158151638/0/0]my topic here[/url] for details on that. Lastly, let's talk raid gear quickly. It's very lackluster this time. While Cocoon is an interesting perk, it's really "boring". The guns don't do anything special. The armor is completely useless outside of the raid itself. You guys need to renew the old philosophy of a true end-game reward and bring raid gear back to the pinnacle. Mechanically, minor fixes and adjustments. King's Fall gets a big thumbs up and a nice big 9/10 from me with the only downfalls being reward flaws and lackluster gear drops. [b]IV. The Dreadnaught[/b] About damn time. I've been going through those same old maps for a year now. It was about time that we finally got a new locale to visit. Patrolling in Destiny has always been one of those activities that you can fire up any time and have fun doing something in Destiny. The Dreadnaught answers a lot of what players have been asking for: "More". There's a great amount of little secrets and surprises hidden away in that beastly ship and the Court of Oryx is great. Now you can get together with a lot of players and actually spend time doing a short event and get some sweet rewards out of it. As hard as it is for Bungie to create new spaces like this at a rapid basis, I really hope that future DLCs really look at expanding even further. There's a great big solar system out there, and Guardians really want more places to explore Bungie. Bring it to us! 10/10. [b]V. New Exotics[/b] There's some good and some bad here, so please pay close attention Bungie, this is about the only place I'm going to "grill you" today. In Year 1, players found golden items that could only be used one at a time and in one slot only. These items were exceptional, they provided a unique perk bonus on the edge of being "overpowered", and they felt like the ultimate rewards out there and players became collectors because of these items. Enter Year 2. A large chunk of these items are no longer valuable (But apparently they'll be coming forward, which is good), and the new introduced exotics feel really lacking in terms of power and popularity. We need to go back to Year 1, yes Gjallarhorn was "overpowered" but it was overpowered for the right reason. In PvE, nobody complains about something being too overpowered ever. The only problem was the gating of players due to it which you fixed with quests. Powering up is a philosophy that you guys need to adapt and run by. Start introducing even more powerful guns and armor, make us do even more spectacular things. Now, bad. Sleeper Simulant. What you guys did, absolutely unacceptable. Not one time have I ever seen a game developer shaft their hard working players the way you did and not take more heat for it. You knew from the beginning that it was a time gate and not a treasure hunt and not once did you come out and at least tell everyone that GI had it wrong, even worse, you egged on the people who wasted their hard and valuable time for something that was completely unachievable. You're going to lose a ton of trust there, and I wouldn't be surprised if you took a massive hit in your upcoming MTs from that. In my personal opinion (And I know you're not going to), you need to come out and personally apologize to those players over at /r/Searchforthesleeper/, they spent countless hours on a pointless endeavour that you led them on. Next time, actually [b]do what GI[/b] said was there, make a true treasure hunt. That'll be your redemption for the SS. Lastly, next time please remove any and all instances of exotics that are not going to be added from the database. That will help to mitigate issues arising from data-mining. Finally, we end at the kiosks. That was an excellent idea and it'll definitely help address vault space for a long time to come. 4/10 for lackluster exotics, unacceptable developer behavior for SS. [b]VI. The Future is Out There[/b] So now that the launch is behind us, there are a few things left to happen. Hard Mode needs to happen still, and there's a few hidden exotic weapons out there left (Although given current trends, my hopes are low). Bungie recently came out and said that MTs will be added next Tuesday. This is an interesting move in my opinion. Their motive is suggested to help fund a growing live-team that will provide free content updates to the game. If this is the case, then by all means I will support this endeavor, on one simple condition. Bungie needs to come out with weekly analysis of what their goals are and what they plan to do with the revenue by set dates. Actually tell us what is coming, if they do this and keep MTs cosmetical only, then excellent. Finally we end on the note of updates. Bungie, for the sake of yourselfs, stop stamping out little "glitches" and "non-bugs" that benefit the player's time. That 3oC nerf was absolutely unnecessary. Start fixing actual problems and recurring glitches in the older content. It's just as important as the new content. And that's all! Overall great job! You definitely need some behavioral changes to be more welcoming to your community, but the overall trend is positive.