The problem is being under the impression you have to do anything under a time limit, or that you have to keep up with anyone else's progress . Just take your time, it'll play out the same either way. Don't feel like you have to buy from Xur every week or get every daily. You will get whatever you need In time. Relax & enjoy it leisurely.

I'm 37.... There are three reliable ways to advance and none of them are quick. I was in a similar rut at one time too. Right now at level 24 your best option is to dump the faction item and go for vanguard marks. The reason is that vanguard marks are MUCH faster to earn than crucible marks are. Put on some lame blue cape/mark/bond and then hunt public events. Before doing any of these pick up all the Vanguard bounties. They're just free chicken and accelerate the methods below. If you have a set of headphones plug them into your controller, grab a buddy online and follow the recommendations below: 1. On your phone check out www.destinypublicevents.com and go to the nearest "green" event at about the one minute mark. They almost ALWAYS show up. Patrol that area (for vanguard rep) until it shows up. Kill the fallen walker, defeat the extraction crews, whatever.... Check your phone and go to the next one. Rinse/repeat. It'll seem slow as crap but it'll net you 4 marks/event and you'll be able to land at least 4/hour if not more. Once you can buy ARMOR!!!!! Armor is MUCH more important than weapons at this point. Buy the "cheap stuff" first! Get the arms/legs for your character before you get the helmet and chest. You'll get a weapon from Vanguard ROC eventually. This will also get you ascendant shards and energy that you'll need once you start getting purple armor and weapons. 2. Do the strike playlist. Run the highest level that you are allowed to. You'll almost always be paired up with 2 guys who are level 30+ so Vanguard Roc will work. There are two benefits to this: You get marks/rep and once in a blue moon one of the gazillion blue engrams you turn in will be a purple item. You will also gain Cryptard rank and when you do you'll get a purple Cryptard package at the post office. Every third one or so will give you a random purple item along with disappointment. You'll literally be able to do 50% of your armor for free doing this. The community likes to bash on Radrool but he has helped countless guardians get to level 31 though none of us will admit it. You might even get that helmet and/or chest piece for free. More than likely you will. Running a few strikes a night for a week will absolutely land you at least one legendary weapon as well. You will probably NOT get an exotic tho. Don't worry, nobody does. 3. Patrol with a fireteam of 3. Split up and do the moon or earth. Or mars....who cares. Go for the "kill target", kill all, and collection in that order. Each patrol will give you 10+ reputation, each kill target is worth 25+, each reputation past 3 will give you a vanguard package that almost always has a useful legendary item. This will fulfill a lot of bounties too. Do this for two weeks and you'll go from level 24 to level 28. Two more weeks after that and you'll be level 31. Once you're level 28 DO THE NIGHTFALL! There is nothing that lands better stuff (save the raid) than the nightfall. Nothing. Do it as soon as you can on Tuesday and you'll get a 25% buff on all experience you gain for the week (plus regular patrols 10+, kill target patrols 31+) along with a ton of marks and rep for completing it. Once you do the Nightfall DO THE WEEKLY on level 30. It's 9 strange coins and the stuff you get from Xur will be a game changer for you. Once you can afford stuff from Xur I'd highly recommend the weapons. If you can land an Icebreaker or Gjallarhorn it'll change your outlook on the game. The weapons will only be for sale once. The armor comes back every other week or so. Daily heroic on level 30 will get you the shards/energy for your weapons/armor too. If you get the Toland's Legacy bounty for Bad JuJu DO IT. That gun will change your outlook on the game. It's essentially an exotic 331 damage Stranger's Rifle that NEVER runs out of ammo. It's one of the most under rated weapons in the game... It will take time but it's the only exotic bounty that gives you a truly GOOD weapon and anyone, regardless of level/skill, can do it. The requirements will seem overwhelming at first but just keep it in your inventory and you'll notice that you'll make a little progress every time you play. Do not be discouraged by the crucible portion either as you keep your progress and can only advance. Even if its only a few kills/match. A light in the dark gives you Thorn, another fantastic gun but the bounty is rough unless you're a crucible god... The other three weapons suck golf balls through garden hoses. A dubious task and a voice in the wilderness aren't hard but they're only worth doing to shard the weapon for the exotic shard (saves 7 strange coins each time you do it). The shattered memory fragment is worthless. It takes for freaking ever to do and yields a fusion rifle that is beyond worthless. Skip it. Honorable mention for Vanguard bounties that you haven't gotten yet. The 5000 point ones are always worth doing. The "You've Woken the Hive" mission on the moon will get you 2/3 of your bounties in 15 minutes. The rest you'll just "get" while running the strike playlist or just patrolling. Same with Eris bounties. Once you're level 28 you can solo the first chest in the Crota raid too very easily (youtube it). Once in a while (30% chance or so) it'll give you a freebie exotic weapon. I got Dragon's Breath and Truth out of it. Right now you just need to get over the hump. Once you do you'll accumulate so much crap your vault will be absolutely overflowing with legendary and exotic items. Add me: MAJ_Bryan on PS4. I'll run stuff with you.

1. This is difficult game that requires an investment of time, BUT that time can be used VERY efficiently once you learn how the game's economy works. 2. This game has an unusual and complex economy...and that's where you're having a problem. It takes awhile to figure out how it works. Heres what you do: 1. Decide what kind of player you going to be: Pure PvE (strikes, raids, patrol, etc..), Pure PvP (Crucible), or a strong mixture of both. 2. If you are pure PvE player (which is sounds like you want to be) DON'T WASTE TIME WITH THE FACTIONS. Focus on increasing your VANGUARD rep. Because the Vanguard mentors and quartermaster are the only vendors who accept Vangaurd marks. The Crucible and Faction vendors only accept Crucible marks (and commendations) which require you to play PvP if you want to acquire them with any efficiency. So if your Pure PvP you can go Faction or Crucible rep. But the Factions are really for those players who play a strtong mix of both PvE and PvP, and turn in lots of both Vanguard and Crucible bounties. 3. DO THE BOUNTIES. EVERYTIME YOU PLAY. AS MANY AS YOU CAN. They are the fastest way to gain the experience necessary to level up gear, and to increase your reputation rank with your faction. Vanguard bounties if you're PvE. Crucible bounties if you're PVP. BOTH if you want to do both, and are ranking up with a Faction. 4. Decide (since you sound like you want to be PvE) WHAT you enjoy doing in the game. If you like doing strikes...then START PLAYING THE STRIKE LIST REGULARLY. This is the fastes way to gain Vanguard marks, EXP (other than bounties), and to farm engrams. But can get VERY repetitive if you arent' careful. You can also do Patrols/Pub events. Patrol missions (the beacons) get you exp, but not as efficiently as Bounties. Public events (like Destroy FAllen Walker, Eliminate the Target) is a low stress way to get Vanguard marks. But its not as fast as the strike playlist. Plus you'll need to find a good way to farm engrams (seperately) to rank up your Cryptarch. Good spots for this are areas where the monsters fight each other. Skywatch. Ishtar Commons. The Barrens. You won't get drops to equip yourself with...but you will get enough engrams to provide you with raw material to upgrade your gear, and rank up your Cryptarch. 5. PvP. Simple. Grab a fist full of Crucible Bounties and get yourself to the Crucible. 6. YOu want to do what I'm suggesting for two reasons: a. This is the most efficient way to get the marks, commendation and reputation rank you need to BUY the gear to get you over your current hump. b. This sets a PROCESS in motion where you steadily increase your reputation rank with the Vanguard (for example) and the Cryptarch, and they begin to GIVE you gear. Once you reach rank 3, with each increase in rank they will GIVE you rewards wich will include rare-and-better (often legendary) gear. THIS IS HOW I GET MOST OF MY GEAR THESE DAYS. Since I prefer to play patrol-and-pub events. This will process will get you over the all-rare-gear hump and get you into legendaries. Then you need to decide what your END-GAME strategy is. Do you want to RAID...or do you want to play the end-game strike playlists (Daily Missions, Weekly Heroic strike, Nightfall). 7. If you want to raid, once you start getting legendary gear you want upgrade it, and start looking for chances to raid. I'd try to get to level 27, and then try to get in with a group who still runs the Vault of Glass. That'll get you a chance to learn how to raid and work with a 6 man fireteam, in a setting where most people you'll run into know how to do it and can teach you. Plus it will give you the Ascendant shards and energy you need to max out your legendary gear. Once you Max that out, and reach level 31 you can think about doing Crota's end...and the weekly rhythm of doing the Weekly strikes. 8. If you don't want to raid, start doing the highest level daily missions, weekly strikes you can complete. That slowly get you the upgrade materials you need to max out your gear...and get you to the level 30-31 level you need to be able to do the high level end game activities that hand out the best rewards. Hope this helps.

I have about an hour-ish to play each day (maybe a couple on weekends) and from personal experience I can say that the transition period from rare to legendary gear is the hardest part of the game. What you're going to want to do with your time on destiny is do as many vanguard bounties as you can; this will increase your reputation. At rank 2, you will be able to purchase legendary vanguard gear for vanguard marks (obtained by playing in the vanguard strike playlist and completing public events). At rank 3, you'll be able to purchase weapons. Continue to do this until you've gotten all 4 pieces of legendary armor. Keep doing bounties, as every rank past 3 will drop random legendary loot for you and the XP gain from bounties will help you level your gear. Also, do the daily story mission for the legendary materials; it's only about 20 minutes per mission, and you get an XP boost, random engram, and some legendary upgrade materials depending on the difficulty. Once you're hit level 29, do the weekly nightfall and weekly strike. The nightfall gives you random legendary or exotic loot, and the weekly gives you strange coins, which let you purchase exotic gear from Xur. What you've got to understand is that this isn't a game that's meant to be completed in a day or two; I nearly gave up when I hit the rare-to-legendary wall, but now that I got past that hurdle? I couldn't be happier that I kept going.

I understand your frustration. I have played this game every day since it came out. Most of the replies that I have seen here are spot on so I won't repeat the same advice. Up until last week I had put it about 560 hours into Destiny with just one character. Last Saturday night I decided to start another character in a different class. Wow what a hassle! I could not believe how much harder running these simple missions are when you are using such lousy armor and equipment. Particularly when you are used to crushing everything in PVE on Roc Strikes and hard missions with highly rated armor and weapons. Going on patrol and doing most of the bounties are like swatting flies using the higher ranked gear. It has been a real eye opener for me as I had forgotten that you can't just walk into to a room or area with a lower ranked character and take all kinds of hits while blasting everything to pieces. Destiny gets to be really fun when you are Level 29 and above. As other folks have mentioned there is no need to be in a rush here . . .hopefully the game will be around for a long time. So take your time do the bounties and strikes and you will get your rank up in time . . . it is worth the trouble.

I’m 56 and very old for this game but here is what I do. Farming sucks, don’t farm. I stink at PvP so I stick to PvE. As the other people have said, focus on the vanguard marks, do the daily and bounties every day or as many as you have time for. While you’re running your bounties watch for the things you need, spine metal, helium, chest and stuff. Also one night a week I reserve for Destiny, so at my house Tuesday night is Destiny night. I can knock out the Nightfall, Weekly and the Daily plus bounties and a bunch of Roc strikes. The daily will give you the shards and energy you need for your upgrades. Use your vanguard marks to buy armor and weapons that you need. You cap out at 100 vanguard marks per week, so one week you can get gloves and boots, and then it will take a week and a half to get a helmet and the next week or maybe two your chest armor. And of course as soon as you buy an item that item will drop on a regular basses. As you collect molts of light trade them to Xur and get armor you need and your coins will buy armor and weapons. As you do your daily and bounties you will also collect glimmer you will need for everything. Weapons and armor that drop break down into things you do need also. You’re getting a ton of good advice on this forum so you came to the right place. Do as many strikes as you can at the highest level you can and maybe join a clan. If your on PS4 Send me a friend request if you like, I’m on almost every day from 4:30 to 5:30 Mountain time USA you can tag along as I run the daily at 30 we can get you some stuff. Once your level up Nightfall and Weekly are in your future.

Don't worry about the marks. I am part of DO and use all of my Vanguard marks on materials. Just keep ranking up your faction and you will get packages from them that contain Legendary items. Once you start to raid you will never buy things from the factions again anyways. Edit: I am 35 have a full time job and a 2 year old kid. I only play for a couple hours after my kid goes to sleep at night.