I'm not happy to see this.

Compared to the Alpha, you acquire glimmer MUCH more slowly than before. Your resource trade ins are worth much less than before, and there's way less spin metal. Getting 40 to trade in takes way longer than in the Alpha, and when you do you only get 25 Vanguard points. Really?! Might as well just do two missions.

The gun situation is similarly borked. I got a ton of Blue Items in the Alpha, and vendors occasionally sold blue engrams. In the Beta, I haven't had a single Blue drop yet, nor have I seen anything blue for sale.

I hope collection is not this slow in retail. I hate grinding. With a passion. Anything that makes the game more grindy is making it worse.

That being said, everything seems much easier compared to the Alpha, but I don't know if that's because it actually is, or because I'm just better at the game. The strike in particular was significantly easier on Level 8 as compared to Legend.

Expect a fuller post in a few days.

That being said, everything seems much easier compared to the Alpha, but I don't know if that's because it actually is, or because I'm just better at the game. The strike in particular was significantly easier on Level 8 as compared to Legend.

They've toned down the Yellow-bar enemies for sure. No where near as much health as the Alpha.

I didn't play the alpha but even if the strike mission is easier, it still felt extremely grindy in the beta. After defeating the Devil Walker and Sepiks Prime, there wasn't any sense of accomplishment because there is no sense of required skill to beat them. The strategy for defeating them is the strategy you use in other games to defeat bosses you haven't yet figured out the real strategy for.

Compared to the Alpha, you acquire glimmer MUCH more slowly than before. Your resource trade ins are worth much less than before, and there's way less spin metal. Getting 40 to trade in takes way longer than in the Alpha, and when you do you only get 25 Vanguard points. Really?! Might as well just do two missions.

Yeah, I noticed that, too. I'm not going to get too wound about it yet, though, until I see what they do in the final release.

The gun situation is similarly borked. I got a ton of Blue Items in the Alpha, and vendors occasionally sold blue engrams. In the Beta, I haven't had a single Blue drop yet, nor have I seen anything blue for sale.

I found one Rare item in the Alpha, and I've found one so far in the Beta. I get the sense they're fiddling around with availability of loot behind the scenes.

I found one Rare item in the Alpha, and I've found one so far in the Beta. I get the sense they're fiddling around with availability of loot behind the scenes.

I don't know if they're changing things as we go, but I feel like I definitely picked up more loot today in general than yesterday.

@BungieHelp Thanks for testing Destiny and helping us to make the experience better. Changes are already taking effect. Keep it up. (link)

So, they're at least tweaking some things.

I didn't play the alpha but even if the strike mission is easier, it still felt extremely grindy in the beta. After defeating the Devil Walker and Sepiks Prime, there wasn't any sense of accomplishment because there is no sense of required skill to beat them. The strategy for defeating them is the strategy you use in other games to defeat bosses you haven't yet figured out the real strategy for.

This is still a problem. Bosses in the final NEED to have changing forms and stages to keep things fresh.

The first time round the Sepiks fight was fairly entertaining 'cause it was new and exciting, but it became clear pretty quickly that he's just a big, slow, not-particularly-dangerous bullet sponge. Even on the higher difficulty.

A boss needs to be more than just an endless supply of HP.

The level cap and difficulty cap is really draining my continued slamjamming on this game. Having to balance getting good weapons, but not too good so they are out of your rank, is getting tough. But I still keep finding stuff in Explore I've never seen. Team DBO were dominating Pikes last night. Video to follow.