And likewise with my Guardian, I want to know more about how they fit into the world but it's an irritation, annoyingly so with Destiny. There are bits and pieces that piqued my interest a year ago, such as Toland and the character in the Thorn bounty, but everything else is just too damned open and vague to the point where it isn't interesting.

I'm hoping that the next couple of releases things really improve and I feel like my character has a purpose, but for now it is my biggest gripe about Destiny to the point where I wonder how long I can wait before I can't take it anymore and find something else to do.

It is possible that this is, to a degree, intentional.

It might be part of the story that something is rotten in the state of Denmark and that there are clues in the story and the world that we were supposed to have picked up on.

It could be that Bungie are a little bit dissapointed that we have been so incurious about the world that they created. We just are not asking the questions, at least not here on DBO.

This could be because there has been so much criticism of the game and so much defensiveness that any questions are just seen as attacks on the writing and we just don't want to go there.

Have to agree with that. She's a badass.

That was an interesting point in the video and made me think about my Destiny character and I'd have to say in my case, I don't feel that way at all. At least not yet.

Claude made a great point in the recent Cannon fodder article about HBO that describes my investment with Destiny pretty well.

Basically, 'mystery' is a good thing. But with Destiny and my guardian, I feel like I have too much of it. In the early days of Halo, Chief was vague and I wanted to know more, to the smallest detail. The thrill of the chase and discovery were awesome. So now that they are starting to dig into his character more and leave less open for interpretation to me, the fan, I wonder how it will impact my interest in the series.

And likewise with my Guardian, I want to know more about how they fit into the world but it's an irritation, annoyingly so with Destiny. There are bits and pieces that piqued my interest a year ago, such as Toland and the character in the Thorn bounty, but everything else is just too damned open and vague to the point where it isn't interesting.

I'm hoping that the next couple of releases things really improve and I feel like my character has a purpose, but for now it is my biggest gripe about Destiny to the point where I wonder how long I can wait before I can't take it anymore and find something else to do.

I think Bungie envisioned people playing Raids for the experience, and then mapped the drop rates so that a certain percentage of the population would have maxed out their gear by the time the next Raid activity launched.

If that were the case, then why would Luke Smith be talking about the "Forever 29" meme and how disappointing that was to the developers. Again, he has implied that they were surprised by this situation. Your explanation would mean "Forever 29" was intentional, wouldn't it?

And before you say "oh well that's so rare as to have never happened" I've only ever gotten chest and boots from VoG and it took me until the end of February running CE every week to get a 3rd armor piece for level 32 and hard mode. So yeah, RNG loot is a terrible decision and Bungie should have known better. I'm thrilled they are changing that in TTK.

I've got plenty of helmets from VoG...

I think the reason some of us find vanilla Destiny a bit confounding is that from the outside, not knowing anything about what went on in the studio, some of Destiny's flaws appear quite obvious. The "we were surprised how much people played the game" statement puzzled me a bit too. Bungie are the ones who set all of the drop rates for the various activities. How could they possibly be surprised by how many raids it took most of us to get a full set of armor?

I think they knew exactly how many raids it would take.

I think they were surprised at how many players were willing to do the maximum number of possible raids (one per character per week) solely for the purpose of getting those drops.

Watching other players get drops you wanted, while you got dupes or nothing, just made people more eager to press the button, and more angry at not getting what they thought the game should be giving them.

I think Bungie envisioned people playing Raids for the experience, and then mapped the drop rates so that a certain percentage of the population would have maxed out their gear by the time the next Raid activity launched. Instead, people were burning themselves out doing Raids to get gear that refused to drop, and ragequit before they hit that point.

This just isn't acceptable to me. One of the "exactly" values is "never" when the RNG determines which loot drops. That means you think that Bungie intentionally designed a raid such that some percentage of their players would never be able to get enough armor to achieve max level, and that design was not a mistake?

And before you say "oh well that's so rare as to have never happened" I've only ever gotten chest and boots from VoG and it took me until the end of February running CE every week to get a 3rd armor piece for level 32 and hard mode. So yeah, RNG loot is a terrible decision and Bungie should have known better. I'm thrilled they are changing that in TTK.

If you want true playstyle balance, it has to be that the top gun of every archetype has to be as good as every other, and probably the Exotics, too.

This is exactly what I meant. You have to balance the best case scenarios against one another, and then pass that down through the lower tiers (and maybe buff the worst ones at the bottom, independently of your top tier balance), rather than balancing "all hand cannons" and then not adjusting for that super powerful but very rare magic roll of perfection.

Then again, playstyle suitability make me better with a Doctor Nope than a Wolfslayer's Claw, even if the latter is better, so they just have to be roughly close.

For what it's worth, I've never felt like I needed a gun in a certain situation when I didn't have it, except a decent shotgun in PvP. Then again, I have Ice Breaker and Gjallarhorn, so maybe I should just shut up. (I've never felt Gjally was crucial to my success except in Crota, but that's just because of the tracking, and Ice Breaker was only necessary for certain tactics, not to be able to do a certain encounter at all.)

It's not so much "I need this gun" as "wow, gun X is dramatically more powerful and useful than anything I have." Again, Thorn in PvP or Gally in PvE are the standouts for this. People without those guns are not as competitive or effective (gross generalization) as people with them. The net result is that you feel like you need a specific weapon in order to measure up, regardless of your actual skill level. That's not the real case, but it's the easy superficial judgement that strangers will put on you when they see you.

I think the reason some of us find vanilla Destiny a bit confounding is that from the outside, not knowing anything about what went on in the studio, some of Destiny's flaws appear quite obvious. The "we were surprised how much people played the game" statement puzzled me a bit too. Bungie are the ones who set all of the drop rates for the various activities. How could they possibly be surprised by how many raids it took most of us to get a full set of armor?

I think they knew exactly how many raids it would take.

I think they were surprised at how many players were willing to do the maximum number of possible raids (one per character per week) solely for the purpose of getting those drops.

Watching other players get drops you wanted, while you got dupes or nothing, just made people more eager to press the button, and more angry at not getting what they thought the game should be giving them.

I think Bungie envisioned people playing Raids for the experience, and then mapped the drop rates so that a certain percentage of the population would have maxed out their gear by the time the next Raid activity launched. Instead, people were burning themselves out doing Raids to get gear that refused to drop, and ragequit before they hit that point.

Then again, playstyle suitability make me better with a Doctor Nope than a Wolfslayer's Claw, even if the latter is better, so they just have to be roughly close.

For what it's worth, I've never felt like I needed a gun in a certain situation when I didn't have it, except a decent shotgun in PvP. Then again, I have Ice Breaker and Gjallarhorn, so maybe I should just shut up. (I've never felt Gjally was crucial to my success except in Crota, but that's just because of the tracking, and Ice Breaker was only necessary for certain tactics, not to be able to do a certain encounter at all.)

Personally, I think little rewards like The Lighthouse are fine because it is just a little bonus that stands on its own. If there was another activity in Destiny that required a piece of gear to access it, and that gear could only be earned by going flawless in Trials, then that would be a problem IMO.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. I think in the ideal world, no single piece of gear would lock you out of any content. There should never be the equivalent of not getting that final piece of VoG gear to hit max level.

Basically, each activity should have guaranteed rewards. But it could be more in depth than just beat activity, get rewards. Trials, again, is a great example. Do well in Trials, get a cool primary. Go flawless in Trials, get a cool elemental primary.

Imagine if VoG gave specific rewards for specific things. Rather than a drop after each part of the Vault, completing different goals would determine rewards. Just straight up beating the Vault would net you say, Praedyth's Timepiece and the gauntlets. Beating Hard would get you Found Verdict and the Helmet. Flawless Raider would get you Mythoclast. Downing Atheon in a set amount of time gets you Fatebringer. No one in your Fireteam getting marked would get you VoC. Or whatever circumstances they designed, but you get my drift. There would be a clear way to get whatever piece of gear you wanted. Would everyone get Mythoclast? No, probably not. But not everyone has it right now, so how is it worse? I'd actually prefer it, because at least I could try to get it, and if I didn't, it would be my fault for not being good enough, not because RNG screwed me again.

And you wouldn't need to get Mythoclast (or the Raid Boots, or whatever), because there would be other options available from other activities, with similar goals to meet.

But I'm starting to believe more and more that many other elements of the game were being scrambled together right up until launch.

This is the only thing that remotely makes sense, and would explain so much.

It's troubling though. Back when Bungie was independent prior, they would not give out release dates, and release a game when it's done. Now that they are once again independent, that should be a possibility. Clearly it is not. The only difference is Activision.

Weird. Curious. Maybe the answer is that we (and you) don't know the half of what went on during the development of the game.

Or maybe we are right and Bungie messed up. They are not infallible.

Those 2 scenarios are not mutually exclusive :)

Bungie is clearly aware that they messed up in a few places. Just look at the way they're talking about vanilla Destiny in all the interviews coming out in recent weeks. It's not like it's a big sin or something. Mistakes happen all the time, Bungie is aware of it, and they're working to do much better next time around.

I think the reason some of us find vanilla Destiny a bit confounding is that from the outside, not knowing anything about what went on in the studio, some of Destiny's flaws appear quite obvious. The "we were surprised how much people played the game" statement puzzled me a bit too. Bungie are the ones who set all of the drop rates for the various activities. How could they possibly be surprised by how many raids it took most of us to get a full set of armor?

I suspect the answer to this and many other questions is simple: I believe Destiny came in way hotter than we suspected at the time. Mechanically and visually, the game is a masterpiece. But I'm starting to believe more and more that many other elements of the game were being scrambled together right up until launch.

Weird. Curious. Maybe the answer is that we (and you) don't know the half of what went on during the development of the game.

Or maybe we are right and Bungie messed up. They are not infallible.

Bungie has the entire game and a slew of playtesters. Their predictions about the future should be better than mine. Plus they know how to make games, and I don't!

I... you just... that says... HOLY COW.

Okay, joking aside, I do know how to make games, and it kind of strikes me as wholly bizarre that Bungie's Destiny team didn't. Which is beyond weird. They have made plenty of very awesome, yet wide ranging in terms of genre and style, games. With fantastic level and encounter design, compelling stories, and very rewarding gameplay. Yet... Destiny 1.0 happened. I don't think it's unrealistic for anyone who's seriously played video games for a few years to say that they could have done a better job designing the missions, writing the script and story, and laying out the encounters. Anyone who's played any WoW endgame content should have been able to see the loot issues from a mile away, well before any of that was coded, as well as been able to point out that gating content based purely on RNG anything (in this case, loot drops) is tantamount to permanently denying at least one customer from ever seeing that content. Adding to the crazy, I used to work for Activision and I know a bunch of the people who worked on that side of the game's development and they're all really good, passionate people who would want the game to be the best that it could be, and who have the knowledge to point out those mistakes. Curiouser and curiouser.

But I tire of complaining about the past - I'm with you on hoping they have foresight in the future.

Weird. Curious. Maybe the answer is that we (and you) don't know the half of what went on during the development of the game.

The Elemental primary rewards you get from the lighthouse are acceptable for two reasons: You can get non-elemental versions of them from Brother Vance (which are identical to the Adept versions in the crucible), and you can earn other elemental primaries in different activities.

In addition to everything you just said, I think the Trials Adept weapons help balance things out for those PvP players who don't raid very often, therefore have few options for elemental primaries. The elemental damage has no benefit in PvP, but at least these players have more tools to help them out with Nightfalls and other top level PvE content.