Ever since D2 came out I have questioned the point of this expansion. Let's be honest here, D2 is not a full game, it's an over blown expansion of D1, that removed a good chunk of progress in terms of quality of life due to poor planning in regards to how and when this game was developed. I am an app developer. Not a game developer, but one of the core ideas in development is usability. Making things function as intended, but also useful to the end user. Whether it is a shopping cart or a survey. Getting the user from point A to point B in the most efficient and useful way possible is always at the forefront of the development process. Are compromises necessary? Of course. But the user experience always has to come first. Destiny has never been great at this, but at least in D1 there was some tangible improvements year after year. D2? Far too many systems that simply do not feel as if they mesh. Be it the clunky inventory system or the repetitive activity structure. Most things in D2 "work", but they do not work well together. Consider your character. You have a level. A power level. Then 3 core attributes(mobility, resilience, recovery). Which seemingly operate independently of one another. What does level 50 do for your overall power? Nothing. It's an arbitrary marker and a means of gaining access to early game activities and loot. Attributes? At max level, power and character, can you really feel the difference in general game play between 5 resilience and 9? I don't. Getting sniped in the Bergusia forge feels pretty much EXACTLY the same between setups, with my subclass skill tree seeming to make more(if ever so slight) of a difference. Is Kill Clip THAT much more powerful than Rampage? Are .2 second TTK increments really the determining factor in gunfights? No. I being a shitty crucible player can seemingly take forever to kill someone with the exact same gun that always seems to 2 shot me when used by someone more skilled. So why bother? What will having top tier gear do for me, or players like me? Nothing. Why? Because none of these systems seem to work in conjunction. So the incremental differences ultimately don't make any real difference other than on paper. Which brings me to the title of this post. Everything, and I mean everything just feels tedious. You need gloves to hit max power? Welp, grind out your milestones and hope RNG doesn't give you weapons. You want to complete that crucible quest? Welp hope you get good teams, seeing as most quests are prohibitive when it comes to progress vs time spent. How does being 70% of the way towards Last Word feel, only to get three full stack ass whoopins in a row. Now you are back at zero progress... Why? You want a fast reload? Here, let us gimp your range, or stability, or magazine. Again, why? Grind, sure. But why? What is the point? Do these things ultimately make enough of a difference to be worth it? No, IMO, not really. And I think that is why a lot of players, average players, keep playing. I have a group of friends who don't really pay attention to the minutia of D2. They use what they like and muddle through. They don't care about TTK, or which perk is better. They just play. And what they end up doing is playing the same 3 things week after week, chasing the arbitrary power cap, just to get there. They haven't even touched the forges. Are just unlocking their subclasses, and only play PvP for the milestone. How is that a good thing? And why do they play that way? Because there is no clear reason for them to play any other way. Why worry about stats when they aren't going to see any noticeable difference. Why run a 20 minute strike when all they are going to get is the same useless loot they get from doing a public event? Why spend 20 minutes when you can achieve the exact same results in 5? Two new locations came with Forsaken. How many materials do you have from each? Yet week after week, "collect 25 of this" or "go into X lost sector". It's a waste. And it is, as I have stated in the past, poor design. Bloated, poorly implemented design. The fix? Make things meaningful. Period. Everything in the game should have a purpose. A means to obtain it, and use. EVERYTHING. From strikes and adventures, to your vault and the destination vendors. All of it should be meaningful. Not tossed in, only to be rendered useless or obsolete with every update. The shooting is fun. That's it. That is why I still play. It's fun to shoot. Otherwise this game is terrible. remove the shooting mechanics and no one would be playing. Grinding out milestones week after week. dealing with the worst PvP system in the industry. No one. Destiny used to be a hobby. Now it is a diversion. something I do to pass some time. But I don't care about level, or what I can and can't collect. Gone are the days where I hunted for things. Ironic, that we have a collection that I use for little more than a cheaper and more reliable means to gear. Destiny 2 still sucks. And I don't really see that changing. But I also see the wasted potential, and still LOVE the shooting. So I still play. For now. Cheers.