For example in the first week:

• alt0 picks up a chest engram and a guantlet engram
  
• alt1 picks up a chest engram
  
• alt2 picks up a leg engram

say 0 and 1 are diff classes

If, on the reset, the player cashes in the chest engrams then they decode into class specific engrams but because two diff classes are involved their stats are nudged up slightly.

The player can hold the other engrams until they can compound with other engrams of the same type.

You know, I feel dirty even suggesting this. :-)

aren't the differences between the classes the best encouragements to do that?

Obviously not enough right now. The urge to get to Max level, and the burden of investing XP & shards into armour sets, is too much.

I think a better solution is to simply allow rewards from activities three times per week per account, rather than once per week per character. Same effect as now essentially, but now you don't have to have two other characters of the same class. I could just have one Hunter and do the stuff three times and not have to worry about switching. I think it's silly the system encourages creating three basically identical characters.

Wouldn't it be better to change the system so that it encourages having 3 different characters?

That would either require the removal of class specific armor, or decoupling the level progression from light on armor.

I think a better solution is to simply allow rewards from activities three times per week per account, rather than once per week per character. Same effect as now essentially, but now you don't have to have two other characters of the same class. I could just have one Hunter and do the stuff three times and not have to worry about switching. I think it's silly the system encourages creating three basically identical characters.

Wouldn't it be better to change the system so that it encourages having 3 different characters?

Does it matter? Do you just finish one Raid then move on to the next?

Or would you like the flexibility of being able to have concurrent checkpoints? Perhaps do a stage to try something out and immediately have two more attempts at it as opposed to having to wait until the first raid was completely finished before being able to attempt that stage again.

But for people who want to roll three characters (masochists?) they could at least swap weapons easily or have all characters equipped with the best weapons with least effort.

And yet, they could still also have different loadouts that work best with their character class.

For Example: all three could share one copy of Gjallarhorn and whatever else the player thinks is awesome but could also have a Hunter that specializes in hand canons and some other class that has an auto rifle focus.

But yeah, the simplified economy system in GTA5 means that ANY type of grind you may find yourself in will ultimately get you to where you want to go. I was never able to get into GTA5's death match modes (although I did like MP3's) but with GTA's investment system I don't have to worry about putting time in that one mode to advance my character's standing or progression towards the 'loot' I so desire.

And soon there will be heists...GTA's raid equivalent. Awww yess

I suppose it could be expanded to cover gear as well, maybe via a dropdown that has:

• primary
  
• secondary
  
• heavy
  
• helmet
  
• guantlets
  
• chest armor
  
• leg armor

The Unassigned matrix would hold all available items that are appropriate for the class and light level of your current character so if you had three Hunters then all, character appropriate, Hunter armor pieces would be available to select.

Note

Altering one character's gear doesn't change what the alts have equipped.

Even Better

All alts could have Achlyophage Symbiote equipped as only one alt is active at a time. Indeed all could have the best armour equipped "at the same time" and then you would need to do no further work unless you get a better piece of armour at some time in the future. It would take some make-work out of your day.

levels 31, 20, and 9.

Are you doing some kind of, create character, level up, raid, discard character ploy?

Or did you just give up on the lower light alts?

Naw. The level 31 hunter is the main hunter. I'll give my gear and weapons to the level 20 to do the raid and nightfall / heroic again. The level 9 character is one I might get to 20 to do the same thing, if I can find the time or inclination to do it.

Are you doing some kind of, create character, level up, raid, discard character ploy?

Or did you just give up on the lower light alts?

We can extrapolate from there. This is the game that Destiny is.

As well as the story and how it's going to tell it. Dark Below continues the shitty tradition of bad storytelling. I won't lie, the story was what drew me to Destiny in the first place after being put off initially. After seeing the Alpha, I knew there was a good game under there, and was excited for the world and story.

Bungie did not deliver here, and completely dropped the ball.

There's not a whole lot left anymore.

House of Wolves is guaranteed more of the same. The only thing that can possibly improve things is a complete shift in Destiny 2.

Indeed this is a possible reason to try to keep people hooked. However I imagine that the way they're going about this is flawed in the fact that surely a large number of people are beginning to be put off completely by the incessant grind and some of the more recent design choices. As I mentioned, I'm spending more time on other, older games simply because Destiny is getting exhausting, which is sad.

Sad, but completely foreseeable. I saw it coming 4 years ago! Right now I'm pretty much only playing:

1. Raid on Tuesday reset
2. Nightfall on Tuesday reset
3. Friday to buy from Xur

From nearly everyday, to two days. I figure when I get the gear and shards I can just turn in a bunch of bounties to get the gear leveled to 32.

Destiny (especially its tech) is cool, but its investment system can kiss my ass. In other news, I just bought a 3rd property in GTA Online...time to start grinding to get some of that cash back so I can fill it with new pimped-out rides.

GTA is probably an unfair comparison as it doesn't implement levelling like Destiny - higher levels in GTA online pretty much just dictate the gear you have access to but do not directly influence the damage output of said gear.

The GTAV grind is all about money, which you can go about getting whichever way you like. You want to buy a sweet ride? Go get the money for it. You want to upgrade/mod it? Get the money for it. You want a 10-car garage/ a better machine gun/ RPG/ jet/ whatever? Get the money for those things. However, you don't "need" those things; you can still clock a guy in the head with a crappy pistol and he'll go down.

Today I regret deleting my alt Hunter, but it was nice having a third class to play as again.

Oh wait, and then you have your exotic armor...fucking hell. I can either wait for these damn things to drop again, or I can spend an arm and a leg paying Xur to 'upgrade' my existing gear (which I'll then have to save up on glimmer to upgrade myself)...except I'm stuck with whatever ability modifiers that troll felt like rolling that week. So far, almost all of my level-30 exotics have had better modifiers.

I can't justify my free time in this game if in 3+ months all of that time spent leveling the same exact bullshit up becomes void and I have to rinse-repeat. Oh look, we're making another left turn! At least now we have higher levels so we can make left turns faster!

Destiny (especially its tech) is cool, but its investment system can kiss my ass. In other news, I just bought a 3rd property in GTA Online...time to start grinding to get some of that cash back so I can fill it with new pimped-out rides.

Even a sharp drop coincident with a new popular game release wouldn't tell you why players left.

A sharp drop with no obvious reason? Nah, I still think that would be like trying to read tea leaves.

I suspect that they have some target to meet each month either in hours played or numbers of players or proportion of total players playing all games, whatever.

All those hours you put into your old gear helped them meet their targets for the last three months that are now past.

Unfortunately that means nothing for the months to come. The hours you spent last month don't count for this month or next month or the months after that.

An alternate (or complimentary) explanation is that if you level everything up really quickly then you might be satisfied and would have the time/energy to try out other games. They could tempt you away from Destiny.

Indeed this is a possible reason to try to keep people hooked. However I imagine that the way they're going about this is flawed in the fact that surely a large number of people are beginning to be put off completely by the incessant grind and some of the more recent design choices. As I mentioned, I'm spending more time on other, older games simply because Destiny is getting exhausting, which is sad.

I would be interested to know what the number of unique players is looking like over time.