TL;DR: Back after a long time away, some good and still some bad in Destiny and I need new friends to Raid with. Greetings Programs, Its been quite a while since I played Destiny or engaged on the Bungie forums. It took a long time for Destiny to become a game I considered playing again. To summarize I was a vocal member of the Day 1 community and [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Post/289707/72793837/0/0]offered a considerable amount of feedback[/url] before making the decision to depart and get my season pass refunded prior to the release of The Dark Below. In the interim I have played a ton of single player RPGs and focused on games like Rocket League with my friends. I was also a Day 1 player of Division this spring which I anticipated being a Destiny killer. In truth Division has been plagued with the many of the same problems that Destiny was hit with early on (minus the console exclusive content nonsense). No I am not abandoning Division either, its just that there is only so much to do there so I imagine I will be bouncing between the two worlds now. I can only make so many 90 degree turns down another nameless street per week in Division. In any event the bundle of TDB, HoW, and TK reached a price point on the Xbox Marketplace that was under my original cost for the first season pass last week and my sons have never stopped playing Destiny so I saw it as an equitable time to return to the game and have a new avenue to plays games with my boys who are 1100 miles away from me. Now that I am back, have reached level 40 and pushed my light rating to over 300 I am just going to share some thoughts. [b]1. Infusion is a good system and I hope it stays[/b] First off things in Destiny are clearly better. The infusion mechanic is one of the best things I have seen. Early on in the VoG raid everyone looked the same with a different shader. Now there is legitimate diversity in the way players look and you cannot judge someone's progress by the armor they are wearing. [b]2. A Unified Endgame Currency is Good[/b] Secondly, the combination of Vanguard and Crucible marks into a single currency may be the single best decision that Bungie made in my absence. Yes I need to get my Crucible Rank up to a minimum of 3 still but there is less of a requirement to play PvP which I still do not enjoy. I sit in one Crucible match per day to get the Legendary Marks it provides and then go back to bounties and grinding out the PvE. [b]3. Dynamic Content Still Absent but Overall the World is Better[/b] In addition there is finally a decent amount of content. In all honesty Destiny is a much more flushed out game now. I am a little taken aback that in my time away only one new patrol area has been added essentially as I would have expected more. Also Public events are still on the same rotating timer and given the strength of my character, even after this substantial layoff, they are side thought sort of events. The bounty systems isn't improved per se, there are just more of them, especially on the PvE side. This is better than nothing as it gives me more things to aim for prior to calling it a day. I do wish Queen's bounties were more frequently updated. The gunsmith is also a good idea but I will withhold my overall opinion until I actually get his rank to 1 and can place orders. One thing I was bothered by was the inability to use or infuse my year one content. I put a ton of time into acquiring that stuff, especially the weapons. In the end it was worth some exotic shards, and some Motes of Light. [b]4. Still some of the Same Broken Things[/b] Many of my original criticisms of the game hold true to this day. The Tower factions are still largely meaningless apart from serving as vendors. However It is nice to just carry their token now instead of having to don their cloak. Iron Banner is something that bridges the balance issues of PvP by essentially saying "there is no balance". At least its honest about it. Still I won't be playing any IB. There are more bounties but largely all of the open patrol areas are still fairly predictable. The Taken spawns make patrols slightly more dynamic so that is a plus and the chaos that can ensue from enemies moving against each other right when the Taken Champion comes in can be fun. [b]5. Item Trading[/b] I see that item trading still does not exist, and that is baffling especially when we are still at the mercy of the RNG. This is something Division nailed for the most part. You can drop items to fireteam members in specific areas for a limited amount of time. Destiny needs this badly especially with a smaller player-base. Simply make it so that items are trade-able in social areas. The game knew that I had year one engrams in the vault and subsequently gave me year one items for them when I decrypted them. The is no reason therefore that the game cannot know I looted a legendary secondary weapon engram while playing with BestBuddy420FTW and once decrypted keep that item trade-able between the two of us for a few hours while at the tower. [b]6. Social Aspects still not there in-game[/b] The "social" aspect of this game is still extremely bad. Clan management is still done via the website and that is stunning. There is still no veto option for playlists. There are still no no-reward custom games for PvP where people can just have some meaningless fun. The social functions are ever so more important now with obvious fewer players playing the game. I used to have enough people to go run the raids anytime I wanted to. Now I only have one friend who is still a daily player and as such have not run any of the new raids. I would like to. Using LFG.net and the Bungie Discord LFG channels hasn;t netted me a group yet. The lack of matchmaking or an in game LFG for Raids is another glaring omission as a two year anniversary approaches. Anyway, I'll be around. If any of you remember me from the early days or just want to get a raid group together my GT on XBL has changed to: OzForceOne Additionally you can talk to me and a bunch of my friends on the Big Top Outlaws Discord Server: http://discord.me/bto Be Excellent to Each other, //Oz