Engagement: Everything is about how much you can stretch out a goal, not how you can engage the player. It's painfully obvious too. I'll identify a couple pain points and then point toward something that I think should be considered to at least give [b]meaning[/b] to the endless grind. I work in digital content creation, I get it, time and resources (especially without Activision) are at a premium. But the lack of vision (or flimsy mutating vision) has meant Bungie appears to be flailing around taking this and that idea from users and sprinkling them into something that already lacks a solid framework. That's led to a massive shift in playability, fractured play, and overwrought complexity that doesn't enhance the game. It's complexity for complexity's sake. For solo, casual and beginning players, doing the same things day after day for a trickle of reward and little to no hope of reaching any end goal (max light, titles, etc) means why try? You're just going to start over next season with more of the same. Moving the goalposts over and over again is maddening! It's time to step back and look at your third act, it's the hardest to do, and it's a mess. Rather than make the [b]gameplay[/b] complex by adding yet another barrier to progress, [b]make the story complex[/b], the rest just might come along for the ride. Example: You've added even more requirements to upgrade armor. Why? Meaning, what exactly is the story motivation for this? Is a resource scarce? Did the Vanguard find better sources of energy? Can you find some way to make me [b]appreciate[/b] the change? Can you work this into the story? Doing this feels punitive as do all other illogical and unmotivated changes to the gameplay. "Why do they require this new thing on top of the old ones?" "Because they want you to grind even more for literally [b]NO REASON[/b] other than the grind." RNG (glad you're moving away from this...sorta, take old RNG quests and make the solvable without dumb luck) I know several players that took 67, 88, and 108 (?!!) tries to get the One Thousand Voices from the Last Wish Raid. One got it mercifully after 32 tries. I tried 12 times and decided I no longer cared to have the weapon. When they were done, they were [b]not[/b] satisfied. They did not feel accomplished. They weren't even all that happy. They felt relieved they could stop. I don't know about you but I have a job, not a position. I'd lurv to see your telemetry on gameplay. Maybe if that was obvious I'd understand the decisions? I think you know this, you apparently increased the drop rate. Stop it. Make it achievable like Divinity or for God's sake, give things like this and Izanagi to Xur. Enough time wasted is enough time wasted. In your minds does playing more automatically mean players are more engaged or does it just mean players are just...playing more mindlessly? Non-solo or casual players may be goaded into playing by teammates but even now I'm seeing some clans evaporate over apathy. I don't know about you, but leaving something happy because it's [b]over[/b] isn't what you want your audience to feel. The idea I may rarely pick up the game again doesn't fill me sadness or fomo, it fills me with relief. I have no "reason" to collect, play, retry, for anything other than spinning some wheels on the road to oblivion. Some competing games that have been released have fizzled, but you can bet the more inaccessible and meaningless you make Destiny to play the more likely the bar to flee to something else will be lowered. I want you to succeed, I want to see the story play out. But I'm satisfied to wait for YouTube to tell me what happened. When making a change, it needs to have a purpose. Pixar asks, "What if?" Futurama asks, "Why if?" "Why" indeed.