... So, you're saying that if I'm perplexed as to why someone is playing a game so often that causes them to voice such ire and bile, it is because it simply doesn't make sense in the first place and they're playing it out of 'irrationality'?

Yes and no. Our behaviour is irrational but we can make sense of it.

Our behaviour is a product of our irrational natures but that doesn't mean that it can't be understood. Irrational is not a synonym for unpredictable or incomprehensible.

Our irrational natures are generally fairly predictable and can be understood. Blizzard understand our irrational behaviours pretty well and they have a fair idea how to consistently exploit them.

People are not made of reason. We are not chips whose machine code is reason with emotional virtual machines layered on top. We are animals who have gained a limited ability to reason. We can use our reason to, well reason, about our natures.

We tend to overestimate our ability to reason and we construct narratives to explain our behaviour. But the behaviours come first and then we, retroactively, construct "reasons" for our behaviour.

We rationalize our behaviour after the fact. I'd say we are more rationalizing than rational.

What I'm saying is: don't be surprised if people do irrational things: it is our nature.

If you have a model of human nature that is often confounded then maybe you should reevaluate that model. It may not be accurate.

I am not a psychology major but I know people who are and I have paid attention to the subject and what the experts say and their explanations for why they say what they say. They have convinced me and their observations fit with my own observations of human nature.

If someone says to me, "your behaviour does not fit that of a rational person" I would say, "of course it doesn't, people aren't rational". (well I probably wouldn't because that's too glib)

I respect reason and try to be rational but I see it as something to aspire to, a goal to seek as opposed to a given/expected outcome.

Expect has two senses. I mean it in the sense of what you thought would happen as opposed to what you demand should happen in the sense of prediction as opposed to proscription or prescription.

Anyway, what I mean is. I try to be rational but I understand that I am not innately rational and that it is somewhat irrational to expect 100% success in that endeavour (given my nature).

And reason has its limits. I doubt that a life can be based purely on reason but that's a conversation for another time.

If that's the case, what would be the purpose served by criticism borne out of such irrationality?

To explain:

• how the combination of our irrational natures and the game mechanics led us to an unhappy situation
  
• how we feel about it
  
• some of the things we were thinking at the time
  
• and to point out that the addictive parts of Destiny were not put in there by accident

It'd be like someone telling a mystery novelist "For some reason I read all 20 of your novels in a few weeks even though I didn't enjoy reading them. Here's why they sucked..."

Yes but you know we haven't just been saying, "for some reason". We have tried harder than that and have put in thought and tried to give more detail than, "some reason".

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

Nope. It's not upsetting to me that some people on this forum dislike Destiny - most of the people I know and play with are enjoying it actually! And even if they didn't, I'm quite accustomed to enjoying things most people don't. What IS upsetting is to see pretentious, insensitive, rude comments directed at people who are enjoying it, or who made it, or are trying to understand the criticism, whether it's straightforwardly or in a snide, passive manner. Most of my posts these days here are not debating a criticism, but trying to keep those attitudes in check.

I thought that I was being more blunt than snide. I need to work on my bluntness ;-)

Still, I appreciate the apology. :)

You're welcome.

Art Design

Golden age stuff is underwhelming, I mean the things that we are asked to scan. Dinklebot is impressed but I've scanned: pipes, electricity meters, 1970s computer cabinets and (hot water boilers?).

But I love Mars to bits, the Cabal are my faves with their 40K look, their circular tunnels and their trenches. We see damaged turrets but I think that Bungie should have put in aggressive AA fire near the trenches and established in-game that the Cabal have apparatus to block teleports inside the exclusion zone.

Because, otherwise, the trenches don't make sense. Even cabal have units that can fly over them.

I think they should have shown Vex attacks that have some Hydra with them that get shredded by AA fire from all sides when they try to fly over the trenches. This would establish that the trenches make some sense.

I like how cabal dropships pull very high gees; it makes sense given the cabal's high gee world origins.

Some of the Hive tech looks quite artistic/sophisticated. The meathooks don't but details of their seeders and some of the kit leading up to the shrine of Oryx are very nice. They aren't one tone bad guys.

Weapons

I liked experimenting with them but the game tends to throw purples and golds at you and you can get sucked into the upgrade trap because signature abilities unlock late in tech trees.

Characters

I enjoyed trying out my characters' different traits but, again, those traits need to be unlocked... I liked taking part in strikes but I didn't want to be carried by my team mates so I wanted to be fully upgraded in gear, abilities, and weapons.

Some games, the environment is just there to be pretty, or matches the occupants at a very basic, visual level. But in Bungie games (and some other developers) you can notice so much more. They inform the story as much as the cinematics, for me. You learn things in the parallels and differences between the races and cultures. And even after you think you've seen it all you read something pivotal in the Grimoire (or Terminals, etc.), and you can go back and examine everything again in a new light. So far I've gotten a dozen theories on each enemy race from thinking on their art direction coupled with relevant Ghosts. I've even started to form some stories based on the similarities between the Sepiks Prime, the Shrine of Oryx, and the Traveler.

With each new Crucible map, I go in and go get killed because I'm staring at the skybox. Just last night, I played a little of the new Raid and got to see one of the coolest skyboxes yet, and it gave plenty to speculate on.

Beyond the art side, I'm finding and buying new guns and gear that behave differently. I'm exploring their uses and caveats and perks. I didn't even use a Fusion Rifle for the first two months of the game, and am just now learning how to use them effectively. I've only recently been able to comprehend the best ways to use my Hunter classes, and I've got a Hunter coming along to do that all again with, not to mention a Warlock someday.

So that's how the game is still giving back to me, still explorable.

If people have reviewed the previous answers and didn't find them satisfactory then they should say why they didn't find them satisfactory. That at least gives us something to base a reply on.

That's why I was asking different questions and coming at the topic from different angles. I was using metaphors, joke images, etc. Because I was attempting to understand and was getting confused.

In a situation where someone tries to understand a bunch of negativity coming from some people, and they receive negativity ot hostility directed back at them for doing so, it really closes down any possibility of understanding and conversing meaningfully. If that happens, it just becomes about people typing to hear themselves type. And if we're not here to converse, then what are we here for? :)

If there is anything that doesn't make sense about our behaviour it is probably down to a mistaken idea of how people work. Perhaps he thinks that people are rational. People who think that people are rational should do a psychology course then they wouldn't be surprised at the things we do. It would be nice (I think, not really sure about that) if people were rational but given how we came about it is to be expected that we would not be rational.

Stop thinking of humans as rational entities, consider our evolutionary baggage and constraints and then be impressed that jumped up monkeys can reason at all.

... So, you're saying that if I'm perplexed as to why someone is playing a game so often that causes them to voice such ire and bile, it is because it simply doesn't make sense in the first place and they're playing it out of 'irrationality'?

If that's the case, what would be the purpose served by criticism borne out of such irrationality?

It'd be like someone telling a mystery novelist "For some reason I read all 20 of your novels in a few weeks even though I didn't enjoy reading them. Here's why they sucked..."

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

Nope. It's not upsetting to me that some people on this forum dislike Destiny - most of the people I know and play with are enjoying it actually! And even if they didn't, I'm quite accustomed to enjoying things most people don't. What IS upsetting is to see pretentious, insensitive, rude comments directed at people who are enjoying it, or who made it, or are trying to understand the criticism, whether it's straightforwardly or in a snide, passive manner. Most of my posts these days here are not debating a criticism, but trying to keep those attitudes in check.

Still, I appreciate the apology. :)

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

That bounty is actually easy.

Step 1. Get a mythoclast :-p
Step 2. Hold trigger and kill stuff
Step 3. Bounty complete

(Mythoclast counts as a fusion rifle, so quick kills with the trigger held down count toward the bounty).

This reminds me of a story Click and Clack told once on Car Talk. One of the brothers was just learning about car repair (he was still a teenager), and someone told him about a repair series that was worth getting. He went into a bookstore, and saw that all of the books in the series were pretty short, and a quick flip through showed lots of pictures to boot, so he figured "this is the series for me!" He bought the one for the car he was currently working on, and took it home.

He flipped to the chapter about whatever repair he was currently working on, and started reading.

"Step 1. Remove the engine.
Step 2. Below the engine, you'll see blah blah blah"

(That's as far as he got - he returned the book. That 'Step 1' was a doozy!)

Or the old Steve Martin joke:

Here's how you get a million dollars and not pay taxes:

First, get a million dollars.
Then, don't pay taxes.

All this to say, nope, still not doing that bounty. ;)

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

That bounty is actually easy.

Step 1. Get a mythoclast :-p
Step 2. Hold trigger and kill stuff
Step 3. Bounty complete

(Mythoclast counts as a fusion rifle, so quick kills with the trigger held down count toward the bounty).

That's why I put "grind" in quotes. Not a whole lot of my life feels grindy, but I'm sure there's lots of people who hate their jobs, hate studying, hate upkeep tasks like cleaning, laundry or home repair, etc. I sure hate doing laundry, so I take it to a place, then pick it up several hours later washed and folded.

Oh no… I'm using microtransactions in real life to pay to avoid the grind! :-p

You should post the name and address of the place you take it to - if the cost of a full load of clothes, washed and folded, can be characterized as a 'microtransaction', I'm sure most LA denizens would love to get in on the deal. :)

Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

Ah, but you see I am most certainly NOT on the side of competitive players with regards to multiplayer anymore. The changes I propose would be possibly even more beneficial to 'casuals' than to the 'hardcore'.

That wasn't my point at all. My point was, sitting here, outside of the development environment, it's pretty easy to say "everything I'm suggesting benefits the biggest complainers and doesn't change the experience at all for the folks who are already happy." (This is exactly what both the competitive players in Halo and you are saying, in general terms.) When it comes right down to it, though, it's not NEARLY as simple as anyone on the outside thinks.

If it were, there'd be far more 10-rated games.

(You've said a number of times that there are lots of Destiny that you like a lot - but I'm having trouble figuring out what, besides Raiding, is on that list. At one point multiplayer was, but you said recently that you were tired of it.)

Not tired of it, but I just had no motivation to do Iron Banner. It's basically the raids and the nightfalls really… I'm not giving up Destiny completely, just pretty much everything but those until I can comfortably beat Crota on Hard.

There is very, very little in my life that I consider 'grindy'. The fact that the dog needs walking twice a day, even when it's pouring... that might be considered grindy (but only on days when the weather sucks; on other days, it's an enjoyable break from sitting in front of my computer or running electrical wire or whatever it is I'm doing at the time). Pretty much nothing else in my day-to-day existence is 'grindy' - so 2 15-minute spans per day (many of which are handled by my wife or my son), on days when the weather sucks (which is less than half the days, I'd guess) is a level of grind I can live with. Maybe the issue here is not the grind, but perception of grind.

That's why I put "grind" in quotes. Not a whole lot of my life feels grindy, but I'm sure there's lots of people who hate their jobs, hate studying, hate upkeep tasks like cleaning, laundry or home repair, etc. I sure hate doing laundry, so I take it to a place, then pick it up several hours later washed and folded.

Oh no… I'm using microtransactions in real life to pay to avoid the grind! :-p

It's not just a matter of thought control or attitude adjustment.

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

Here, you and I totally agree.

I've done that bounty ONCE - and that was by accident. (Sort of. I took it by accident, and then couldn't bring myself to just abandon it, so I completed it. Didn't enjoy it at all, have never and will never pick it up again.)

I load up every time I play on bounties that will be completed by default in whatever activity I plan for that day. If I feel like a light romp, and think I'm just gonna patrol for a bit, I grab the 9000 experience without dying, the kill 20 enemies without taking damage, and the melee 30 enemies bounties. If I want to play a story mission, I see which ones have bounties associated with them, and grab the ones that sound enjoyable. If I'm going into the crucible, I grab the generic bounties (capture 10 control points, kill 25 titans, etc) and ignore the specific ones (kill 10 people with a sniper rifle, etc). And so on.

I rarely have to do anything outside of the normal play I was intending on engaging in anyway to complete the bounties in my inventory. And I LIKE playing that way. It's not grindy at all. (I suppose, by a pretty strict interpretation of 'grindy' as doing the same thing over and over again, my first stop every day in the tower, to pick up the bounties in the first place, could be considered 'grindy'... but I also use that time to chat with my playing partner or just get into the gameplaying mode if I'm alone; I don't really consider it a chore.)

What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

There's lots of stuff in real life that is a 'grind'. Take working out for example. However the difference is that these types of activities give you tangible benefits, in this case to your health. You can even make these types of things more fun, by working out in a different place or a different way. Grinding in a video game gets you absolutely nothing of worth.

Again - if you consider it a 'grind', maybe you're doing it wrong. I'm doing THE SAME THING YOU ARE, but I'm having fun doing it. (I'm doing far less of it - but that means my progress is even slower, so there's that tradeoff. I can live with it. ;) )

I'm not trying to tell you how to play video games. I'm simply saying that if the only part of a game that you enjoy requires doing large amounts of things you DON'T enjoy... why not just find a game that has a better proportion of fun/not-fun?

(You've said a number of times that there are lots of Destiny that you like a lot - but I'm having trouble figuring out what, besides Raiding, is on that list. At one point multiplayer was, but you said recently that you were tired of it.)

Further, a lot of the grindy stuff in real life cannot be avoided. All grindy stuff in video games can be avoided, since you can simply make the game without them.

There is very, very little in my life that I consider 'grindy'. The fact that the dog needs walking twice a day, even when it's pouring... that might be considered grindy (but only on days when the weather sucks; on other days, it's an enjoyable break from sitting in front of my computer or running electrical wire or whatever it is I'm doing at the time). Pretty much nothing else in my day-to-day existence is 'grindy' - so 2 15-minute spans per day (many of which are handled by my wife or my son), on days when the weather sucks (which is less than half the days, I'd guess) is a level of grind I can live with. Maybe the issue here is not the grind, but perception of grind.

Killing 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over three characters - turning in the bounty - then getting a new bounty, "kill 2 or more with fusion riffle twenty times over"

that IS a grind.

OK, maybe hypnosis would persuade me that I was having fun.

I genuinely miss the loot cave because, although it was a grind, it was a short grind. If I was given the option of shooting a wall for five minutes at the start of my night's game play and that would get me all that I get through the grind - then I would probably start playing the game again. I'd jump back on the strike playlist and have fun.

According to Bungie.net, you put in about 440 hours between launch and December 1. Levi's put in less than 150, total, in a two-week-longer time period. I have no clue how your hours were spread throughout the 12 weeks you played it, but for the sake of simplicity, let's assume it was more or less even. That means when you were at the point that Levi is now (in terms of hours played), it was early October. Yes, you'd probably seen most of the areas there were to see in Destiny - but are you telling me that in early October, you'd already exhausted the fun there was to be had, and the subsequent 8 weeks of 5hr/day (average) playing was just because you'd been hooked and couldn't figure out how to quit?

I can only speak to my experience, but around October the majority of the fun was exhausted except for the raid. So I can see how one could say the fun is gone, yet continue to play the one activity that IS fun. Now that we've done a flawless raider, and given that Crota is relatively easy in comparison the the Vault of Glass to master (normal mode anyway), the only reason I'm playing now is to get what I need to be able to do Crota on hard come January. Running Nightfall / Heroic / Raid over the course of the week isn't the worst thing in the world, but if I had to play story missions I'd be bummed.

Also 440 hours wow!

You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

Given that this thread has pointed out, repeatedly, that Levi has played fewer than HALF the number of hours of the people arguing against him, this is a pretty unreasonable question.

No it's not. He has been playing for months and has said that he is still finding stuff, still exploring. So it is reasonable to ask him what is he finding and how much of the world does he think is still unexplored by him.

He has finished the story so he has visited every planet. They are big but not incomprehensibly big. He has a had a couple of hours per night with time off. So he has probably visited every area at least once. he must have some memory of what he has done and where he has been and some idea of what is left. It is not at all unreasonable to ask him what he is discovering and how much he feels is left undiscovered.

Okay, maybe you missed my point.

According to Bungie.net, you put in about 440 hours between launch and December 1. Levi's put in less than 150, total, in a two-week-longer time period. I have no clue how your hours were spread throughout the 12 weeks you played it, but for the sake of simplicity, let's assume it was more or less even. That means when you were at the point that Levi is now (in terms of hours played), it was early October. Yes, you'd probably seen most of the areas there were to see in Destiny - but are you telling me that in early October, you'd already exhausted the fun there was to be had, and the subsequent 8 weeks of 5hr/day (average) playing was just because you'd been hooked and couldn't figure out how to quit?

Asking Levi what he's finding that you haven't noticed is unreasonable because I bet you can't even REMEMBER what you had or hadn't noticed by early October. Absolutely, he's not finding anything you haven't seen by NOW - but unless you'd exhausted everything there was to see or do in those first four weeks, or Levi is vastly more efficient at finding stuff than you are, the question (today) is unreasonable.

What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

There's lots of stuff in real life that is a 'grind'. Take working out for example. However the difference is that these types of activities give you tangible benefits, in this case to your health. You can even make these types of things more fun, by working out in a different place or a different way. Grinding in a video game gets you absolutely nothing of worth.

Further, a lot of the grindy stuff in real life cannot be avoided. All grindy stuff in video games can be avoided, since you can simply make the game without them.

Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

Ah, but you see I am most certainly NOT on the side of competitive players with regards to multiplayer anymore. The changes I propose would be possibly even more beneficial to 'casuals' than to the 'hardcore'.

You say that you like exploring but I feel that the Alpha was enough to know the Cosmodrome and that I know: Moon, Mars, and Venus pretty well now. What things are you still discovering that we haven't noticed? How much of the maps do you think that you have left unexplored?

Given that this thread has pointed out, repeatedly, that Levi has played fewer than HALF the number of hours of the people arguing against him, this is a pretty unreasonable question.

No it's not. He has been playing for months and has said that he is still finding stuff, still exploring. So it is reasonable to ask him what is he finding and how much of the world does he think is still unexplored by him.

He has finished the story so he has visited every planet. They are big but not incomprehensibly big. He has a had a couple of hours per night with time off. So he has probably visited every area at least once. he must have some memory of what he has done and where he has been and some idea of what is left. It is not at all unreasonable to ask him what he is discovering and how much he feels is left undiscovered.

He's not discovering things you haven't noticed - he's discovering things you discovered months ago. The point is not that he's getting MORE out of the game than you are - it's that he's getting it at a slower pace, and avoiding many of the frustrations of the sprint.

It wasn't a sprint. It was just an attempt to try out what the game had to offer in terms of: gear, characters, play styles. It was definitely a marathon and not a sprint.

I say 'he' but I should say 'I' - my playstyle seems to match Levi's pretty closely, and my hours of play are even with (or maybe even a little less than) his. I haven't had much time at all to be on the internet this week, or last - so I missed most of this thread when it came around, and many others - but reading it as a block, now, makes me feel bad for Levi. He's not trying to insult anyone, but you're telling him he's being repetitive and not listening. He listens more than most here, I think, and he tries really hard to avoid both hyperbole and ad hominem attacks - he's probably the worst target for your ire you could have chosen. :(

Not every reference to a person's behaviour is an ad hominem attack. Ad hominems are logical fallacies because they are attempts to avoid engaging with a person's argument. But, for example, if a teacher prepares a school report and mentions that a pupil is disruptive at school that is not an ad hominem attack even though it is a direct reference to the person. It is the context that makes reference to someone's behaviour an ad hominem attack.

But, perhaps, you just meant a personal attack. As I said to Levi, I have nothing against him personally. He was just the guy who asked the question again and I know he has raised that point before so he was the one that I replied to. It could have been anybody who had asked that question a couple of times before.

Given that people are repeatedly asking, "why are you guys still playing X hours per week when you don't enjoy it" and people are constantly answering that question. It seems reasonable to wonder what is the point of answering again and to point out to the person asking that question that they have asked it before and it has been answered before. Review the previous answers.

If people have reviewed the previous answers and didn't find them satisfactory then they should say why they didn't find them satisfactory. That at least gives us something to base a reply on.

If there is anything that doesn't make sense about our behaviour it is probably down to a mistaken idea of how people work. Perhaps he thinks that people are rational. People who think that people are rational should do a psychology course then they wouldn't be surprised at the things we do. It would be nice (I think, not really sure about that) if people were rational but given how we came about it is to be expected that we would not be rational.

Stop thinking of humans as rational entities, consider our evolutionary baggage and constraints and then be impressed that jumped up monkeys can reason at all.

Anyway, back to Levi

I can see that I hurt his feelings and cut deeper than I intended. At the time I just thought that he was being too thin skinned, "I said that it wasn't personal so that should be enough". But I get the impression that Levi is genuinely upset that Destiny hasn't turned out so great for a lot of people. I think he is feeling rather raw and so can't shrug off stuff easily right now. So Levi, I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I can't say I didn't mean what I said but I didn't intend it to have such a large degree of impact to your feelings.

As to the future: I imagine that I will still gripe a bit about the game but, as I'm not playing it right now, I doubt that there will be as much bile directed towards it. The grind is not really so bad when you are not doing it. It's a relief to be free :-)

I certainly have noticed the impact of your approach on this forum and I wish more people would take the time to communicate as thoughtfully as you.

Or that, you know, you're only right in your case, and not everyone else's. :)

The thing to note is that if they addressed everything I criticize, then your experience would not get worse at all, and would in fact most likely improve. Everybody wins.

You know, I've heard that argument before - it was made by competitive players about Halo.

343 actually took it to heart, and hired a whole crew of competitive players to help implement the stuff they'd been asking for for years.

The end product(s) are demonstrably less clamored-for than the games that were originally complained about.

I think that if it were as simple to 'fix' the problems you see in Destiny, they would have been fixed by now. (In some cases, Bungie doesn't even consider your criticisms to be problems that require fixing, I'd guess.)

Also, building things to please millions of people at once without annoying anyone is really really hard.

grind free.

By definition you are meant to invest your time in them.

Anyone who doesn't do that has managed to avoid the hooks built into the game and its economy. Well done them but they are not playing the game as it was designed.

Levi has said he plays a couple of hours a day, on average. (Barring weeks when he can't get online.)

To say that a couple of hours a day is 'not investing your time' is ludicrous. There are very, very, VERY few things that meet that level of commitment in my life. (My job, sleep, sometimes my family. That's it.)

He simply invests LESS of it than you. (Well, than you DID.) He is DEFINITELY playing the game as designed.

What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.