Would like to see long term goals for loot. It's annoying that only way you can get the highest level gear is "hardcore" stuff like raids, Trials of Osiris or Iron Banner. For my play style, I love the quests, checklists, records books. I enjoy hopping on and farming for 20 minutes, a lot of the time, that's all I can devote. Being able to collect some awesome gear after, 2,000 kills, for example would be nice.

Would like to see some better interface concerning interacting with characters. Constantly having to go back to the tower, then to the reef, go talk to this guy, go talk to this girl...ugh, it gets old.

Please speed up the character inventory screen load times!
Please stop kicking me out of the character inventory screens!

It might be fun to see some faction or class activities. Either directly competitive or cooperatively competitive. Provide some more incentive for choosing your race, class, faction other than weapon and armor choices.

I think they are right on the money with the co-op aspect of the game. Keep it up, more varied activities will take us right where we need to be. I think they are well aware of the need for a higher flow rate content pipine.

What makes me nervous is PvP. Is it going to be more of what we have now, or are we going back to the dynamic gameplay of Y1 Crucible?

Bungie makes it too hard to get to max level, however you want to define that.

The systems having to do with leveling up gear changed a lot over time. I think my favorite point was post-House of Wolves. I had multiple sets of high-level gear that I could change out depending on what I was doing. Bonuses for different enemies, boosting different skills, etc.

I get confused about the timelines after that, but I think right before or after TTK was the worst for me. The first infusion system was completely awful and insulting to the player's time.

Even now, I am still only at 399. That is only using my highest level gear, not my favorite gear.

I can only assume they design it that way so that people "have something to work towards," but I dislike that. I like getting the loot, I don't like getting loot that is worthless due to the number attached to it.

There are so many different systems at play, it is hard for a player to tell what matters and what doesn't. Will I be at an actual disadvantage if I am wearing 395 gear as opposed to 400? It is very unclear. I haven't been playing much for the past half year or so, and I find that those kinds of details are very hard to remember (not to mention, kind of boring.)

Going along with this, gear getting outdated and suddenly becoming worthless is a bummer as well. After it happens multiple times, it starts to provoke a *eeyore voice* "what's the point?" response.

I'm hoping for a more cohesive/alive world.

• Less of a 30 second loop on spaces where all the same mobs respawn
  
• More public events and more variety
  
• If the next mission takes place on the same planet, make it so I can go straight there
  
• I like playing around with different builds, but hate collecting loot/levelling
  
• I want more hard content that is overcome by playing better, not levelling up
  
• Less hard content that allows for sitting back and sniping, make getting up close and personal worth the risk (see the design of DOOM encounters)
  
• Hopefully they've put the fly-bys back in when guardians are landing
  
• More enemies with some kind of character beyond a unique name
  
• 60FPS, dedicated servers for PvP
  
• Have the factions MEAN something
  
• Intrinsic rewards vs extrinsic rewards

A great point was brought up in a different thread. I think it merits its own discussion however. So disregarding the tone of the trailer, worries about pre-orders and remaining customer dissatisfaction after the launch of Destiny, how are people feeling regarding Destiny 2?

What are things you are hoping to see changed? Things retained? New things?

First and foremost, I want to see a plot and storyline that is worthy of the incredible setting that Destiny has. I have very low expectations for this, given the trailer's setup of "a bad guy attacked us" and "get more loot." Hopefully they prove me wrong. Honestly, how hard would it be to hire the Grimoire writers to write the actual game plot? The grimoire is fantastic.

Speaking of, if there is a Grimoire in Des2ny, I want it to be *part of the game*. At the very least it should be a text menu. At best I'd love to see that rich lore dished out in huge heapings of (optional) cutscenes with full voice acting and illustrative art. It certainly deserves as much.

I hope that loot is less RNG reliant. Ideally, I'd like to see a system where your % chance for any given drop increases each time it doesn't drop for you. Something that guarantees those drops after a few completions of the raid (like if you beat the raid 10 times you just get all of the raid armor or something) and allows players to reasonably progress along with the average player. Having been an RNG outlier on the losing side for much of Destiny 1, that experience sucked balls, and I'd like to see concrete efforts to avoid it for all players beyond "increased drop rates" which are still RNG based.

I want to see better enemy AI that is more adaptive to what weapons or tactics you're using, and that works as a team against the player rather than being a horde of disorganized individuals. The enemies should be more varied as well. I think Horizon Zero Dawn has set the bar wonderfully for what engaging and varied combat looks like.

Space battles!

More exploration, vast expanses, and more raid-style navigational puzzles in the open world. Games like Skyrim, HZD, GTA, and Fallout have shown us that vast expansive spaces are possible, and Destiny is certainly a game that would benefit from that sort of environment.

I also sincerely hope Bungie has developed D2: Gary's Revenge to be nimble in terms of backend updates. A game with this many rotating events and robust pvp needs to be responsive on a weekly basis to balance issues, exploits, cheaters, and general design. In a perfect world, if they see something is wrong (say, for example, a chest on Mars that floats above nothing and is facing away from the player), it takes seconds to fix and is live-patched to all online players instantly. Smaller, incremental, and far more frequent updates make the game steadily improve. Infrequent, major updates tend to break the game anew every time.

Last but not least, I want Destiny to adopt MLG standards for PvP tickrate, get dedicated servers, and eliminate lag wherever possible. There should be far fewer trades and far more crisp, clean shots in PvP in 2Des2ny.

Or perhaps you are more concerned about things you think will be detrimental that bungie does not appear to have learned From? (I know some of these points have already been hammered into the ground.)

A#1, no holds barred, must change (and won't): PS4 timed exclusives suck. They make the game two different games in terms of balance, and they're insulting the Xbone players (full disclosure: I play on PS4). Anything that has mechanics not found anywhere else makes sandbox balancing needlessly complicated. You want to give PS4 players additional artwork with the same functionality as existing stuff, be my guest. Bonus sparrows? Sure. A cool shader? Fine by me. Exotic guns, additional strikes, and anything else with bonus functionality, however, breaks your design and means you're now balancing two games on one game's budget. And the way it's been handled as "at least" one year of timed exclusivity means Xbone users may never get to see those items, and that's truly awful. Treat your customers better, Bungie.

The microtransactions are gross. I don't really mind microtrans existing conceptually, but the implementation of them has made it seem like you're buying a spin on a slot machine rather than buying a specific thing. There should not be microtrans "grab bags" at all. See a thing you want and buy that thing directly. Grab bags should be reserved for non-microtrans incidental rewards (similar to the radiant packages are now, ow whatever adjective AoT is using). That being said, Microtransaction money needs to more obviously benefit the game. It's hard to discern what was planned all along and what was a reward for players because Bungie was so flush with sweet microtrans money that they spent some of it on development. Saying, as they did with D1, that microtrans supported the live team is tantamount to saying that if we hadn't spent microtrans money, the game would not have been supported. Feels like a lie.

I also don't like the constant upsell. I get that they're in the business of selling games, but holy god, does every single thing you release to start and end with "click here to buy?" It's like that guy who won't stop hitting on you no matter how many times you tell him no.

I can't really speak to the game itself, since I've seen none of it so far. The ad looked pretty, I guess. Go art team! I'm glad Fillion is back.

More importantly from my perspective, how are you balancing your hopes for Destiny 2 against your fears for the same?

I'm gonna wait to see what the reviews and you fine people say about it before I buy. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, can't be fooled again!

A great point was brought up in a different thread. I think it merits its own discussion however. So disregarding the tone of the trailer, worries about pre-orders and remaining customer dissatisfaction after the lqunch of Destiny, how are people feeling regarding Destiny 2?

I'm quite hopeful. The fact that they're ditching all the old gear adds to this hope of mine. I am scared for the story telling though.

What are things you are hoping to see changed? Things retained? New things?

• Change: No RNG on weapon rolls, or at least make the weapons names MEAN something. If there must be rolls NAME the weapon with the roll and reduce the # of possible rolls (Matador 64a, Matador 64b, Matador 64c, etc.). There are too many possible perk combinations and too many choices that affect how good the weapon performs, it's information overload for me.
  
• Change: Don't make us level up our gear. If we're going to have to level up our gear then the perks should be static and just make the weapon better. However I'm fine w/ interchangeable sights, but let everyone have access to the same sights with the same gun, no RNG. It's ridiculous to have 2 sniper rifles with the same name but they can't use the same scopes because of RNG on the drop. (this applies to more than just the scopes)
  
• Change: No RNG for getting a drop. Let us acquire loot based upon non-random stuff, such as completing objectives/missions, killing certain enemies, & such. Barring that how about we don't get duplicate drops until we have received the "full set" and we're guaranteed a drop upon completion of the mission. If you must make us grind for something make it clear, such as "you must defeat crota 5 times to get this weapon." Don't treat us like rats you're training to push a button, random reward is dumb (imho, you can like random reward and I won't hate you, I'll just disagree w/ you).
  
• Keep/Change: The definite begin & end to an activity is good. Keep the opening dialog & "end mission" screen. It would be nice to enter an activity w/o going to orbit, also let us stay after an activity is over, but give us the chance to go to orbit from the "end mission" screen or to jump to the start of the next mission.
  
• Keep: distinct missions, don't turn missions into steps in a quest.
  
• Change: more linear main story line.
  
• Keep: side quests are fun little distractions and can nicely add flavor to the main plot & add subplots. Please mark them CLEARLY as side-quests/missions.
  
• Keep: the "Bungie Console Shooter Feel".
  
• Keep: The Vex. I love fighting them. They're the most fun to fight against IMHO. Maybe that's because the units are so different, I'm not sure. Cabal are my least favorite to fight, make them more fun (I suspect this is due to bullet magnetism pulling my shots away from the exposed hand/gun and toward the head making my shot miss & hit the shield, seriously frustrating, I've hated the cabal ever since, plus they remind me of the brute bullet sponges of Halo 2).
  
• Keep: The Fallen & the shanks. I love shooting down shanks, reminds me of the Drones in Marathon.

A great point was brought up in a different thread. I think it merits its own discussion however. So disregarding the tone of the trailer, worries about pre-orders and remaining customer dissatisfaction after the lqunch of Destiny, how are people feeling regarding Destiny 2?

What are things you are hoping to see changed? Things retained? New things?

Or perhaps you are more concerned about things you think will be detrimental that bungie does not appear to have learned From? (I know some of these points have already been hammered into the ground.)

More importantly from my perspective, how are you balancing your hopes for Destiny 2 against your fears for the same?

HOPE: Fuller story, grimoire integration somehow
HOPE: More frequent content generation, deployment
HOPE: Larger Raid teams? 8 people? Maybe not.
HOPE: Raid matchmaking?
HOPE: Better vehicle combat in PvP
HOPE: Functional ships (i.e. sip combat missions)
HOPE: Longer character progression - nothing was better than the initial climb to the top
HOPE: Smooth, ass-play gaming
HOPE: More monumentally challenging Public events
HOPE: More dancing, more emotes
HOPE: More playtime with good people

FEAR: Not much change - i.e. D2 is just D1 again
FEAR: Enemy AI weirdness in pursuit of difficulty (i.e. think Halo 2 punishing AI)
FEAR: Over-promising, over-hype
FEAR: Too much RNG (I don't mind some)

The core gameplay of Destiny 1 is solid. Powers, running, gunning, etc. all felt very satisfying. That can stay.

Things that can be improved is a longer list.

Narrative. Give us a story. The trailers show promise because we have a premise, an immediate plot. D1 had stuff going on, but it was so large picture nothing was done with it, among other things. We also have an actual antagonist with Gaal, but the shortcoming of previous Destiny antagonists was that all they were was a name. Oryx had character, but it was flat and two dimensional villainy. The Codex does not count, because you don't see any of that "depth" in the actual game.

So yeah, good on them for this basic premise. More importantly, have our villains be characters. Have them speak, give them a motivation beyond conquest for its own sake.

Then theirs the actual context, the game world. See, we're going to be playing D2 a lot, by design. Thats not a bad thing to have a grind. Problem with that and D1 is that we have so little gameworld to go around. The individual planets are TINY, not even touching how they're further divided into bubbles. I was expecting something more like Halo's expansive levels. As railroaded as they were, they felt truly large in scope.

Second part of that is enemies. I could do some levels, some strikes, by rote memory. I go so far down THIS hall, and I'm already aiming to headshot the two Fallen around the corner before I see them. I doubt they'll do something like Warframe with entirely randomized, procedurally generated levels, but just do SOMETHING so I don't sleepwalk through the game on the second playthrough.

Weapon balancing could also be looked at. I mean, everything is balanced, don't get me wrong. But its so precisely balanced, to the point where a lot of guns just didn't feel rewarding at all. None of them really had a special something, because well we don't want to overshadow scout rifles or something.

Part of that I think is applying PVP changes to PVE as well. The values for the two game modes are so exclusive, they're probably better off giving us a set arsenal of crucible only weapons. They can do whatever they want to those things, and leave the weapon type as a whole unmolested.

Also, character creator, while we're at it. More options. And let us actually rotate and zoom in the creator. How anyone forgot those functions in this day and age I'll never know.

Finally, obsolescence. Every Destiny update made all the previous content trivialized. People only went back for nostalgia, trophies, or specific quests. Heck, I was trying to do a fresh Warlock and I found myself having trouble with quest-specific strikes and such. No one was doing them. They could not be done because it was outside that quests popularity window and the quest was designed with multiple people in mind. Not everyone has a good friends list to help them out.

If only they could add a simple chat function, right?

I'm going to wait a month or two post-release to even consider D2. Too much pain in the rear piled on a good shooter build. Trailer is good, but it doesn't reassure me in the slightest.

A great point was brought up in a different thread. I think it merits its own discussion however. So disregarding the tone of the trailer, worries about pre-orders and remaining customer dissatisfaction after the lqunch of Destiny, how are people feeling regarding Destiny 2?

What are things you are hoping to see changed? Things retained? New things?

Or perhaps you are more concerned about things you think will be detrimental that bungie does not appear to have learned From? (I know some of these points have already been hammered into the ground.)

More importantly from my perspective, how are you balancing your hopes for Destiny 2 against your fears for the same?

I'm posting this before reading the rest of this thread.

So... sheesh. Where do I start...*sigh*. Shit. I already know where I'm going to start, because of course I have to reference it. As the lot of you may be aware from a certain "1000 views" post, the overall whole year one result of Destiny hit me pretty hard. Fuck... I'll even go so far as to say I think something may have broke inside me, which is pretty an impressive thing to have done to a person that's is built together much like a Golem is rock.

I trusted Bungie, and I don't any more, or at least as long as Activision hovers menacingly in the background. In retrospect there were out word signs to be seen if I had bothered to pay attention to that sort of thing. I guess when you look outside-in among all the other bits of noise life can throw at ya, my missing of these little details might not be so surprising. I also wasn't as... well versed, in video games and their creation when it comes to business; so I guess there is that too. Anyway, enough of this public inword banter... Destiny 2.

The first thing I think of when I say Destiny 2 right now, is how much I want to mod again. I haven't modded a game since, well... my foundation Halo days. Ancient History. Geez, the original admins kid is probably... at least 13 years now. I can't seem to recall the date. Anyway, modding Destiny on the PC would be the biggest draw for me. This all would also depend on how modding would work in a "shared world shooter", and also the route Bungie/Activision take for DRM, since license code keys are no longer a thing, sadly (which was a thing last time I gamed on a computer). If they go with the ever ubiquitous Steam, then there is a chance that Destiny 2 can run on Linux, which would be nice.

That said, my hopes aren't very high currently for official modding capabilities. But I want... I WANT. WANTS... THE PRECIOUS!

With that idea out of the way, I shall be blunt, Destiny 2 needs a purpose. Purpose in story. Purpose in game play. Purpose in loot. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose. Destiny 1 was an aimless mess of ideas. Some of those ideas were very good! Some of those ideas even were able to captivate continued game play three years later for some, but not as many I figure as Bungie would like. For Destiny 2 I also have the same well documented (as I did alpha and beta reviews too) concerns as I did for Destiny 1. I can also say, if I find they have screwed up again, there will be no time to charm for a third.

My biggest 'Fear' regarding Destiny 2 is that guns won't be fun to use, given the trend of weapon 'balancing' throughout Destiny's lifespan. I enjoyed the game the most when I was using fun weapons to kill dudes while talking to a friend in party chat.

I hope they separate weapons in PvE and PvP. I get that field scout was an issue for machine guns in PvP, but I miss having ammo for my secondary/heavy during long PvE encounters.

There are plenty of obvious things I'd like to see in Destiny 2 (better storytelling & character development, better mission design, 60fps, etc etc etc). I could go on an on here, so I've narrowed things down to 2 big ideas that I hope to see in Des2ny.

1) Levels, be gone.

I've posted before about my feelings towards light levels and character ranks in Destiny. Basically, of all the ways character leveling changes the game, I don't think any of them are positive. It twists the focus away from doing that activities we want to do, towards doing activities we need to do in order to reach the light level required to do the activities we want to do. And it can take MONTHS of constant grinding to get a full selection of weapons and armor leveled up to the point where a player can bring their guardian into any activity and have a full set of tools at their disposal. Destiny has lots of great, fun, exciting content (from raids or Trials or Nightfalls to cool weapons and gear). But the game places SO MANY barriers between the player and their ability to just enjoy that content. The whole level-up process is the largest and most obtrusive of those barriers. You don't need levels to have a difficulty progression (just introduce more challenging enemies/encounters). You don't need levels to have our guardians get more powerful over time (we already have a power-upgrade tree, and new weapons and armor could have higher damage and health ratings).

This first week playing the Age of Triumph update has helped confirm my opinion. For the first time since the release of Destiny, we have an update that doesn't include a light level increase. As someone who is going into Age of Triumph at max level, the difference to my experience is huge. I'm able to jump in and play whatever activity I want with my friends with zero concern over grinding, deciding which gear to level up first, playing the first half of a raid over and over until I've leveled up enough to beat the 2nd half, or any of that nonsense. Destiny right now is probably the most fun it has ever been, and the lack of level-cap increase is a huge part of it.

2) A more seamless world

I think the area of Destiny that holds the most untapped potential is Patrol mode, and the "hub-world" areas in general. For all its faults, the Division does some things with its open world that I'd love to see worked into Destiny. The way story missions and strikes resolve with the player right back in the open world (patrol mode) keeps things feeling seamless and connected. Being able to look at a mission marker on your map, walk over to the start location and seamlessly begin the mission is very cool too (no need to go from patrol out to orbit then back down to the same planet to start a mission).

Horizon Zero Dawn has been getting lots of attention for its open world, and rightfully so. One element that jumps out as being particularly relevant to Destiny is the way they handle enemy spawning. The map in HZD is filled with machine "zones"; specific areas where you can consistently find specific types of machines roaming. Very similar to the way you will find specific enemy deployment in the various patrol zones in Destiny. Except in HZD, you never see the enemies spawn. There are no "monster closets", you just happen upon them wandering around.

The other great thing that happens in HZD is that the various herds of machines move around a bit, which leads to plenty of unique encounters. On your first trip through an area you might come across a couple Snapjaws and have a cool battle with them. Your second time through, you might be fighting more snapjaws in the same location, only to have a Sawtooth come wandering into the fray and completely change the dynamic of the fight. Adding various factions into the mix makes things even more dynamic. Destiny tries to do this in a few places, but that usually boils down to a few patrol locations where the same group of 4-5 vex keep teleporting into the exact same spot and fighting the exact same group of cabal, over and over and over, forever.

There are so many ways that Destiny's open-world could be brought to life. I'd love to see as much focus on that as possible :)

The thing I'm most excited for is playing it on the PC.