[quote]Maybe this was all a love letter to long-form communication[/quote] As someone often mocked for "walls of text" I can appreciate this. I, too lament the advent of reducing communication to flippant one-liners, memes, and thoughtless jocularity (I'm looking at you, trolls of the forums mindlessly chanitng "git gud scrub" in response to every report and complaint about game-breaking bugs like somehow you're too "skilled" to experience glitches, lag, or DDOSing shitlords). Unfortunately this trend means not only will few people bother reading the DC blog, fewer still will bother with any of my threads responding to it. But alas, were we are. Get thee hence. [b]Action vs. RPG[/b] In my experience and opinion, the great thing about RPGs, and what truly [i]makes[/i] them RPGs, is the ability to "power level." To grind so far above and beyond what is necessary that you are able to obliterate your foes and shrug off their best shots (except in scripted encounters, e.g. every fight against Beatrix in FF9) with the exception of the final dungeon or certain sidquest bosses (the "Weapon" creatures in FF7, for example). This is an RPG staple element that has never existed in Destiny. Destiny has never given me that "power fantasy." You talk about "the frequency of “999,999” showing up in your HUD" but I've never seen that, not even when singes, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs, activity mods, and all the stars in the galaxy all align. Not even using the absolute top damage-dealing combo in the entire game against a Level 1 shank. When "Action collides with RPG" in Destiny, RPG always loses. Kinda seems like the one and only RPG element we get is "Grind forever, Guardians!" [quote]we’re lowering roaming Super damage resistance[/quote] This is one of the many examples of the "works for everyone but me" phenomenon in Destiny. Random opponent pops Stormtrance, shrugs off all 7 drones from The Colony and a shotgun blast straight to the face before frying my whole team. I pop Stormtrance with a full set of masterworked armor and 10 resilience, two rounds from a sidearm to my foot from halfway across the map puts me down. So honestly, I can't say that anything you're doing here will make a significant difference for me, personally. Some have had the same experience as me (or worse), some have not. I don't know what the solution is because I don't know the root of the problem (here's where those trolls I mentioned before jump in with "git gud" like inconsistent damage disparity is somehow skill-based). [quote]This isn’t just a PvP problem.[/quote] Yes, damn it all, it IS just a PvP problem. We need to specifically curate our loadouts to focus on supers, invest a shit-ton of materials to make those "orb making machines," and tweak our usual playstyle to fit. Masterworked sniper and scout rifles don't do you any good when your options are subject yourself to ranges where those weapons are a detriment, or give up all those orbs you generated because they'll vanish before you get there. PvE pits us against dozens more enemies at any given time compared to PvP, all of which give more orbs per super kill than PvP, we have teammates who are operating in closer proximity, we've got random "blueberries" generating orbs when we're in public spaces, OF COURSE we're going to be generating more orbs overall and using supers more often. This isn't a problem, this does not need to be fixed. I have never heard anyone, not a single one, complaining about being able to use our supers so often in PvE. Nobody complains about that. And IF someone ever did or does, send them my way so I can box their ears in for it, because this is NOT an issue. Getting kicked to orbit fifteen times a day, THAT is an issue, not this. [b]Heavy Ammo Available[/b] Got no problem with this, so long as it doesn't translate into "PvE is going to get -blam!-ed over." You know, like literally every single time you've ever "fixed" a strictly PvP problem to date. See related: previous section. [quote]PvP is in need of some quality-of-life improvements and restructuring[/quote] All together now...[u][i]YA THINK!?[/i][/u] Let's see: massively inconsistent player experiences, frequent KTOs, player/weapon models randomly failing to load (and suggested "workarounds" are far from reliable), and all of this to get sub-par garbage drops 99% of the time in the hopes that eventually we'll finally appease the "god of grind" and get that pinnacle weapon everyone else has been slaughtering us with for months only to find it it, too, suffers the "everyone but me" curse and then two weeks later gets nerfed into the ground. PvP sucks. The rewards suck. And far too many of the players I come up against are t-bagging assholes so the overall experience just sucks. There is much to fix here. Problem is you keep breaking PvE trying to do it. Put away the sledgehammer and practice your aim. Because like everything in PVP, it sucks. As for the changes (complete overhaul) to the director and PvP in general, how will this effect existing bounties/quests? For example, a pinnacle weapon quest I have requires completing 10 Competitive matches. When "Competitive mode" is no longer on the director, how will this quest translate? [quote]We want playing Destiny to feel like you're playing in a game world with true momentum, a universe that is going somewhere. A game where things are happening—not just in terms of new items and activities but also in terms of narrative[/quote] Well then maybe you shouldn't have made the idiotic decision to nix all attempts at a campaign after Forsaken. Hard to progress a narrative when you fire the narrator and burn all the books. [quote] It’s frequently seemed like Destiny was treading water in terms of moving the world’s narrative forward.[/quote] Because all your best storytellers are stuck writing lore tabs hardly anyone ever bothers (or even gets a chance) to read, instead of having their work brought to the forefront. Halo had amazing storytelling. And the story never stopped. We were immersed in it at all times unless we stepped out for PvP. Destiny has all the potential to make even THAT be "immersed in the narrative." And you're doing jack-all with it. And this has been the principle issue with Destiny from the start. It is the root of the love-hate relationship I have with this franchise. The potential is infinite. Nothing personal, but the execution, however, has been horrendous. The number of missed opportunities is countless. We need more voicework, more cinematics, more story, more IMMERSION. We're just galactic gophers. No idea why we're doing anything we've been doing the last, well, 5 years, actually. You know, considering you guys have said that an unspecified (but majority) amount of D1's "canon" has been retconned out of the story. Or what passes for a story, anyway. And with it, all the knowledge we had of what motivates us, what this world is, why we do anything we've done. And D2 did more or less nothing to address the new gaping holes in an already sparse narrative. [quote]This year will see events that last for three months and offer new rewards to chase, although at the end of that period, some of the activities will go away. For a time, the rewards will too.[/quote] I already hate this. No, I don't need to try it first. Some things you just know are horrible. Have you noticed people still demanding you bring back Trials of Osiris? SRL? Factions? And every other mode and feature that once was and is no more? We don't like things we like disappearing. We don't like "limited time." That shit is stressful, bro, because it makes a lot of us feel like we're not allowed to have a LIFE outside of this game. That's frustrating enough with free "holiday" events like Dawning, Festival of the Lost, and Solstice. Now that same formula will be applied to PAID content? -blam!- that. I am not paying one -blam!-ing cent for content you all took your sweet time dispensing but I can't take MY time slogging through.