D1's sandbox design really turned me off (where's all the wild physics and lifelike AI from Halo?) and I haven't seen anything suggesting D2 is different, so I've been working through other games on my backlog. I religiously read all the lore and flavor text, though!

Des2ny is exactly like Destiny in terms of feel, sandbox and AI. The only difference is that it largely gets out of your way regarding the grind. If you didn’t like the act of playing Destiny, you wouldn’t like Des2ny.

It is, but so is actually having crazy opinions in which you wholeheartedly believe, like that every SW prequel was better than Return of the Jedi, which makes Blackstar want to shoot me.

Blackstar would not be wrong for shooting you.

Thank you. I'll go get my gun.

And I had no idea what IDKFA was or that Ayers Rock had two names? Cool, you learn new things everyday, except for the point you were apparently trying to make. Also, trolling is apparently fun.

It is, but so is actually having crazy opinions in which you wholeheartedly believe, like that every SW prequel was better than Return of the Jedi, which makes Blackstar want to shoot me.

No no; that makes everyone want to shoot you.

I would have much rather had a system in place where you can unlock perks on a weapon based off of using it. Say something like every 200 kills in PvE you unlocked an upgrade or every 50 kills in PvP with that weapon you'd unlock something else.

You mean like the system in D1? Personally, I hated that. I was so glad that guns were "whole" with no extra work in D2.

The D1 system was a pile of hot garbage. You spent tons of time unlocking perks only to find out that the gun was trash.

I'm probably in the minority on this idea. But I'd love to see all the variations of the same archetype of a weapon go away. Just give us a fully usable High RoF auto (or whatever) from the moment we receive it, no grinding to level it. Then as we use it more it could unlock something for that weapon. This could be a weapon skin for getting 200 EZD kills with that weapon for example. From that point on, that skin is forever unlocked for you to use on that weapon, even if you change skins to something else.

I'm thinking of the potential perks as more of a crafting system than a leveling system. You get weapon A, and then mod with passive perk 1, passive perk 4, active perk 3. If you don't like the perks, you can change them without having to grind for another random version of the weapon you wanted. keep the mods within reason, but don't have 6 different versions of the same archetype that are different skins of the same base gun just with a small subset of perks. Just have one weapon per archetype that you can use and build to your liking. This would have made things a lot better in D1. I probably have a few dozen weapons that have great perk synergies sitting in my vault that have a scope I hate because RNG decided to give me a weapon I would 90% love instead of 100%.

If I remember correctly, Titanfall 2 has a pretty good weapon crafting system. I just hate all the dumb RNG that is forced on Destiny.

I'm just thinking for us to "become legend" that Destiny forces so much RNG on us that you luck into legend rather than build your own story.

I would have much rather had a system in place where you can unlock perks on a weapon based off of using it. Say something like every 200 kills in PvE you unlocked an upgrade or every 50 kills in PvP with that weapon you'd unlock something else.

You mean like the system in D1? Personally, I hated that. I was so glad that guns were "whole" with no extra work in D2.

Also, just quit liking candy so much. Duh! :D

Most of the original post has gotten plenty of discussion in this thread, but I wanted to address this:

Another thing is that I miss is being able to quickly see both my clan list and my friends list from just opening the menu. Seeing the clan list is nice, but I have to go through a few more steps to see both the clan and friends list at the same time. This just seems like a cumbersome design decision. The UI in general is a step up in the right direction as a lot of the little changes are improvements over D1. Maybe I’m just missing something with this?

To see my clan list, I have to press the menu button, then left bumper once.

To see both clan list and friends list together, I have to press the start button, then right bumper twice.

Menu and Start are right next to each other. I'm really having trouble seeing how the second one is much more difficult than the first.

I look at it as needless confusion. Why have the clan list in two locations? The confusion is part of the carryover from D1 where you just went to a single menu to find your friends/clan mates.

While I miss my Mythoclast and such, the issue was that these were artificially restricted, and players were discriminated against for not having them. While I was excited to get my first Mythoclast, I also had to grind VoG 15 some times before it dropped, and it dropped after CE came out, so I missed out completely on it's heyday.

Legit lol. My one and only Mythoclast dropped after Wrath of the Machine came out. Heydey... heh. What's a heyday?

Another thing is that I miss is being able to quickly see both my clan list and my friends list from just opening the menu. Seeing the clan list is nice, but I have to go through a few more steps to see both the clan and friends list at the same time. This just seems like a cumbersome design decision. The UI in general is a step up in the right direction as a lot of the little changes are improvements over D1. Maybe I’m just missing something with this?

To see my clan list, I have to press the menu button, then left bumper once.

To see both clan list and friends list together, I have to press the start button, then right bumper twice.

Menu and Start are right next to each other. I'm really having trouble seeing how the second one is much more difficult than the first.

Most of the Raid Weapons had these positive-pair perk set ups. Even good guns in D1 would get sharded if the perks weren’t good. And part of that is a lack of synergy in perks. Generally bad perks could be fun in the right combos. If only we still had combos.

Except gear in vanilla wasn't boring. The alphabet soup scout rifle with field scout, explosive rounds, and Firefly was buyable for anyone. The Devil You Know was arguably the best hand cannon available, and a top roll was available for purchase. The Vanquisher ruled the crucible. We all loved our vanguard Shadow Prices.

Iirc, Bungie said that the intent was not to get gear from drops (outside of the raid), but to get gear from buying it. Legendaries were so rare because they were all good.

Remember when TDB came out and all the guns were crap? Remember Gothalian acting like an absolute maniac asking for the high impact auto rifles because they were gone from the game? That's what you get when the guns are easy to come by. You must be remembering the craptastic TTK guns or HOW guns and stuff.

FFS, I used my vanilla guns that weren't retroactively nerfed into oblivion (proof of how good they were) in crucible until the end of the game. Light/BEWARE was always available on my dude for some fusion kills.

I think we’re talking slightly past each other... or at least partially. I’m not judging weapons based on effectiveness or efficiency. I’m talking about how “fun” they are (which is a vague and subjective umbrella). There were plenty of effective weapons in D1... but IMO, most of them were boring AF to use. Yes, Fatebringer was insanely overpowered compared to many other weapons, and that influenced how fun it was to use, but it also felt good, sounded awesome, and caused things to explode all around you. It was crazy FUN. My favourite weapon in D2 is the Tractor cannon. Often useless, but I laugh every time I pull the trigger.

In terms of effectiveness, the weapons in D2 are mostly fine. They get the job done. They’re just generic and boring for the most part, same as 90% of the weapons in D1.

I really, really love candy. I want to have some. I don’t want to have to eat 15 pounds of slightly above average steak to earn some candy. I’d rather just not have candy than do that.

At some point, it doesn’t matter how fun the reward is, being forced to grind for it makes the entire experience as a whole less fun than if that great reward just didn’t exist to begin with.

I still fundamentally disagree that making something rare is a good solution to having to balance them. I also disagree that completely equalizing everything to be boring is the answer.

If you want all the best guns at the beginning, do you play Doom with the BFG always out? You might sometimes, but I bet you don't.

You're saying you have to grind to have the most fun experience the game can provide. Yes, I agree. What you're saying now is that because all the guns are worse, the game is better.

Destiny had those insane rolled guns in there because they were rare. They didn't have to balance for them. You know what happened once enough people got them? Bungie balanced the guns with nerfs, ruining the fun. Your idea that they set some kind of fun level, then make guns that are 60% fun, then make Fatebringer at 100% fun is false, and can be shown, again, by them nerfing things as soon as enough people get them, every single time. That cannot be refuted. Every gun deemed too good, fun, and prevalent has gotten a nerf. I defy you to provide me with an example otherwise. Occam's razor suggests that they only bother balancing when a critical mass is reached.

What they did is set a fun level at about that of TDYK and the Alphabet Soup and Shadow Price, and then allowed some game breaking good rolls and really good rolls on raid guns because they are rare and didn't really need to be balanced. Again, we can see this, as the very moment good rolls became prevalent, the guns were nerfed.

Destiny 1 is a dinner where, if you eat enough steak, you can get some candy. You're not a big fan of steak so it will take you a while to get some candy.

Destiny 2 is a dinner where, if you eat enough steak, you ate steak. You get no candy. You want to deprive people of the candy because you think it's unfair that some people get candy who like steak earlier than you. You would rather there be no candy.

There is no world where we all have the all powerful über guns we each specifically want in an always online loot game. They will be patched out. These guns will always be in the hands of a select few for a select time. The rest of people will have to deal with slightly less desirable guns for themselves. By eliminating the all powerful über guns, distributed roughly equally based on playtime by random chance, you have literally, and objectively, removed fun things from the game. This makes it less fun. By definition.

Yes, you may feel happier, as you may feel a sense of good riddance as someone crashes his Lamborghini into a tree, but the world is now worse because of your desires. Lol.