What changes/additions (if any) do we all think Bungie is going to implement between now and HoW? With such a long gap between expansions, I would typically expect 1 of 2 things:

a) a LOTS of new content in the next expansion (which I don't think we're going to get)

or

b) smaller updates to fill the gap between expansions.

Personally, "B" seems much more likely to me. We've already had the update to version 1.11 which has brought some great 'quality of life' changes to the game. But what about actual content? Do you think we will get anything new to do before the expansion hits?

In the lead up to TDB, we had the hive attacks on earth and the moon added into Patrol mode; a minor but welcome addition. Will we get similar additions to the public spaces before HoW? If so, what would you like to see?

Personally, I would love to see something added to public spaces that makes them a little more interesting for high level players. A couple months ago, I had just begun leveling up my Titan (I was at 7 or 8 at the time). I was running through the Mothyards on earth when a WarSat public event started. Nobody else was around, but I rushed over, figuring I could handle it myself. Right as the event started, the Agents of Crota invaded the world... right next to the WARSAT. Suddenly, this routine public event became a white-knuckled fight for survival as I defended the Warsat while avoiding the sword-wielding Hive knight and his minions.

I know the public spaces are generally supposed to be low-difficulty, low-stress areas of the game, but having such a challenging encounter out on the fields of Old Russia was really exciting. I think it would be great to have the occasional high-level event or enemy appear during Patrol modes. Something that makes players stop and think "can I handle this on my own? Should I try to get help? Or should I turn around and run?".

Aside from that, I would love to see Bungie continue to add more "quality of life" improvements. New bounties (or even better, Eris-style quest lines) from tower vendors would be great. Also near the top of my list would be more ways to earn Glimmer and materials. Grinding for glimmer has become a real problem in this game. We can buy materials using marks now, which is great, except that I now use ALL my marks buying materials to upgrade my gear. I've complained before that the vendors don't seem to sell much gear worth buying, but even if they did I would never have enough marks because this game requires an insane amount of materials to upgrade our stuff.

That's my wish list. What about everyone else?

If only because it would make the Season-pass' price tag easier to swallow. I still feel burned by TDB.

They've already hinted that 1.1.2 will drop between now and HoW- My theory is that this patch will be focused on quality-of-life improvements (vault space?), and resolving some bugs that are still outstanding (My Iron Banner ship still has a giant hole in it's geometry that clearly isn't supposed to be there).

I just don't think it is going to happen.

I think it will be more or less on par with the amount of content in TDB. 3-4 missions, 1-2 new strikes, 1 raid, 3-4 new crucible maps, new gear and hopefully new quest lines.

The standout addition will be the new public space, if that is in fact happening.

All that being said, the quality of the new content will go a long way towards how "substantial" the expansion ends up feeling. 3-4 or story missions is a great boost in content if they are really good missions. So far, I feel that the story missions are one of the greater disappointments in Destiny. If the story missions included with HoW are more of the same, then that's exactly what they will feel like. But if they are a step up in quality, then I'll be a very happy camper :)

Same goes for the new gear. The only reason I care at all about acquiring all the Dark Below gear is because of my completionist impulses. The majority of the new gear is either underwhelming in terms of usefulness (pretty much all the new weapons) or ugly as hell (just about all the new armor & ships). But if HoW can introduce armor and weaponry that is worth chasing down, I'll be a lot more invested in grinding for it.

My non-expansion wish list? Well:

1. Nobody talks about it much, its more just accepted as "this is the way it is", but I would love to see a fix for Destiny's oddly slow loading of UI elements. You open you character menu and... can't...do...anything...for...a...while because? Because what? Is all the cool tech of the engine so overwhelming that Destiny can't spare the time to load the little icons for the weapons and armor? But it affects more than that! Multiplayer medals often don't manage to show their icons in time before going away. Same for engrams I pick up or bounties I complete. I hear the sound and see the spinning square... that just goes away without showing me what I got.

Worse, is this slow loading affects basic parts of the UI. The other day in a Crucible game the part of the HUD that shows the score didn't load for several seconds after I came back from a menu. I had the little spinny loading icons where the Alpha and Beta scores would be and had no numbers or even colors to tell me who was winning! I've had it where I can't tell how many bullets I have left because the entire weapons display part of the HUD is delayed in loading. Sometimes when I switch characters the menu that asks me if I'm sure doesn't come up for a while, even...

I haven't seen loading this delayed since the late, late texture pop-ins of Halo 2 or the original Mass Effect... and Destiny loads bigger much more visually detailed worlds than any Halo far more quickly than any Halo... so I wonder what's up.

2. I harp on it from time to time, but I wish Bungie would place much more strict filters on the Crucible's join in progress. Getting joined into a terrible losing game with a large score spread I have no hope of overcoming or a game that is almost over because of time or score is just so crappy an experience. This weekend I got joined into a very close winning game where the score was like 19,000 to 19,000. I was in the match all of a minute before it ended and even though I won I didn't feel happy. I clicked on the Crucible to play Crucible... not to drop into a game then immediately go back to the menus and wait for another game.

3. I'd still like to see a Exotic bounty for every Exotic weapon. A lot of us are in that spot where random chance is not bringing us the weapon we want to try. Bungie has what would seem to be a fairly easy way to solve this by letting us do specific tasks for specific weapons. (Really, I just want Red Death... :p)

Isn't that mostly an issue with the Xbox One version? I've never had to wait more than about a second for menu items to load on the PS4. I've heard others say it's a unique problem with the Xbox One version. Not that it shouldn't be fixed, just that I could see Bungie letting it slip down the priority list if it's not effecting all players.

I'm 100% with you on the exotic bounties. This far after launch, it would be great to have more ways to track down the specific pieces of gear we each want. RNG isn't so bad in the early days when any gear you get is new and shiny. But it's brutal when all you need are a handful of specific items. It leads to situations like me getting my 8th Mythoclast while I still don't have a Black Hammer :)

Isn't that mostly an issue with the Xbox 360 version?

FTFY.

Isn't that mostly an issue with the Xbox One version? I've never had to wait more than about a second for menu items to load on the PS4. I've heard others say it's a unique problem with the Xbox One version. Not that it shouldn't be fixed, just that I could see Bungie letting it slip down the priority list if it's not effecting all players.

Yeah, not a problem at all on XB1, only 360 and PS3.

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Isn't that mostly an issue with the Xbox One version?

Whoever told you that was incorrect. And probably named Korny. ;) It is quite bad on the 360, though. I would imagine its performance on PS3 is similar to 360, but I haven't played on that platform since the Beta so I'm not sure.

That's my wish list. What about everyone else?

Remember that series of quests where you have find the keepers of Crota's eyes, heart, and hand? There were thrall hidden in the cosmodrome, that if you killed them, spawned a big fight.

Why can't we have more of those? How hard is it to place a few enemies in existing locations, then script an encounter? Make rewards whatever, but I see no real reason preventing Bungie from remixing existing geometry to create new encounters.

That's probably the most realistic substantial thing they could do.

3. I'd still like to see a Exotic bounty for every Exotic weapon. A lot of us are in that spot where random chance is not bringing us the weapon we want to try. Bungie has what would seem to be a fairly easy way to solve this by letting us do specific tasks for specific weapons. (Really, I just want Red Death... :p)

While this is an excellent idea provided the bounties are challenging and fun (HINT - 95% of the exotic bounty steps currently are not), I think there is zero chance this will happen in House of Wolves.

1. Bungie has already built the game around RNG gear acquisition
2. Actually creating interesting Quests for the exotics would be beyond Bungie's means currently, judging by the length of time to create and the quality of missions in The Dark Below.

There is a slightly less than zero chance of this being done properly in Comet, and a slim chance in Destiny 2. Truth be told, we will have to wait for expansions or sequels for any of that; you will not find it in DLC.

but I see no real reason preventing Bungie from remixing existing geometry to create new encounters.

That's probably the most realistic substantial thing they could do.

They're also quite good at it.

**Looks longingly at Two Betrayals**

I wouldn't be so pessimistic about Destiny 2, especially not after hearing that a lot of Destiny's development was rebuilding the engine for the future and that the rebuild took some two years longer than they hoped...

I'd agree that Bungie's priority is not giving me bounties for weapons but I also don't think Crota's End mission were representative of how fast or not they can change things. Rather I'd look to the changes they made to weapon stats, or engram decoding, or the loot cave, or vault + mobile app. My guess is the Crota missions were set in stone before Destiny's launch. House of Wolves and its missions will hopefully provide a better example of what they can do. Not just more time to work on them, but I hope to see something that is clearly based on player feedback.

I've been saying since before Destiny's launch that House of Wolves is the one to look to for what Bungie can do post launch... so I guess we'll see.

I would love more of those. At least 1 in every area.

My addition: make each wave that spawn progressively higher level, and make it never ending. Each wave could be on a timer though. Clear a wave in under 2 minutes and you get the next wave. Don't clear it and the event ends. You would be limited in the number of waves by your level, but as the levels get raised you get at least one more wave.

This would be a nice addition for those of us who would like some kind of firefight mode.

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They're also quite good at it.

**Looks longingly at Two Betrayals**

You ain't kidding. I'm always confused when people write things about Halo: CE, and mention "re-used level geometry" being detrimental to the game. When I first played through those levels, I remember being impressed. I was excited to see how the areas had changed, and what new encounters there would be.

Would the game have been more interesting with entirely new areas in each level? Perhaps, but I definitely never thought "Oh, this place again? Meh" when playing Two Betrayals.

2. I harp on it from time to time, but I wish Bungie would place much more strict filters on the Crucible's join in progress. Getting joined into a terrible losing game with a large score spread I have no hope of overcoming or a game that is almost over because of time or score is just so crappy an experience. This weekend I got joined into a very close winning game where the score was like 19,000 to 19,000. I was in the match all of a minute before it ended and even though I won I didn't feel happy. I clicked on the Crucible to play Crucible... not to drop into a game then immediately go back to the menus and wait for another game.

Nico and I did a strike this weekend, and our random third dropped as we began. We didn't mind - Sepiks is totally doable with two at level 26. (Hell, it's doable with one, but two is more fun.)

We work our way through, kill sepiks... and in the 28 seconds between when he explodes and we get kicked back to the stats screen, someone joins. :)

He gets a strike completion (with whatever drops during a normal ROC strike) without even being able to fire at a single enemy. :)

I sort of hope he had the Walking Tall bounty in his inventory... :)

They're also quite good at it.

**Looks longingly at Two Betrayals**

You ain't kidding. I'm always confused when people write things about Halo: CE, and mention "re-used level geometry" being detrimental to the game. When I first played through those levels, I remember being impressed. I was excited to see how the areas had changed, and what new encounters there would be.

Would the game have been more interesting with entirely new areas in each level? Perhaps, but I definitely never thought "Oh, this place again? Meh" when playing Two Betrayals.

Agreed. If you had literally played through Attack on the Control Room backwards then sure, it would have been silly. But with some paths blocked off, with different encounters in every single combat space, at a different time of day, with different music? It's also the first time you get a Banshee without tricks, isn't it? That alone lets you explore the level in a completely different way!

Destiny, does some of this. Patrolling the Hellmouth is different from the Sword of Crota mission is different than running a Heroic level Strike trying to survive against the Wizards of Doom in the Crota sword room! But it also falls down on this sometimes like how in the open world spaces there is often only one set of enemies that drops off at any given location and it doesn't change with missions or time of day or storyline progress or anything...

Ha. Yeah... that too needs to be addressed. I've had people join in after I've battled a boss for 20 minutes but never after the boss is dead. That's pretty... special :)

Aside from that, I would love to see Bungie continue to add more "quality of life" improvements. New bounties (or even better, Eris-style quest lines) from tower vendors would be great. Also near the top of my list would be more ways to earn Glimmer and materials. Grinding for glimmer has become a real problem in this game. We can buy materials using marks now, which is great, except that I now use ALL my marks buying materials to upgrade my gear. I've complained before that the vendors don't seem to sell much gear worth buying, but even if they did I would never have enough marks because this game requires an insane amount of materials to upgrade our stuff.

I've been Glimmer & Ascendant Energy poor ever since HoW came out. I've actually started doing the daily missions again in hopes of getting some more ascendant energy, but it seems all I get are shards. ASCENDANT FREAKIN SHARDS! I don't have any armor that needs ascendant shards. I have lots of weapons that need ascendant energy tho' (because the raid just feels like giving me armor & mats).

So, what would I like to see? Either put all those shards to use or let me exchange them for energy.

I've been Glimmer & Ascendant Energy poor ever since HoW came out. I've actually started doing the daily missions again in hopes of getting some more ascendant energy, but it seems all I get are shards. ASCENDANT FREAKIN SHARDS! I don't have any armor that needs ascendant shards. I have lots of weapons that need ascendant energy tho' (because the raid just feels like giving me armor & mats).

So, what would I like to see? Either put all those shards to use or let me exchange them for energy.

An exchange would be great. I do feel like the balance between shards and energy is off. Or maybe too balanced is more like it. I seem to get roughly the same amount of each, but I don't have nearly as many armor pieces to upgrade as I do weapons, so I have a huge surplus of shards. I feel like I'm probably not unusual in that respect.

One of the really good things Bungie did with their exotic upgrade revamp was removing the requirement for ascendant shards or energy in exotic armour and weapons upgrades, and instead the final upgrade for each class of items is unified as an exotic shard.

Looking through the database, it's clear that they had unique items in place for each at one point (see here and here), but common sense prevailed and everyone is happier for it.

Makes me wish they'd go all the way and just convert everything down to a single unified "Upgrade" currency. It can still be something we need to grind for, but at least we wouldn't have to worry about all the wasted time (and vault space) collecting currencies that are no longer useful.

Get rid of upgrading gear altogether.

Eliminate attack values for weapons. All perks activated when you get the gun. What matters now are the weapon stats, and the perks (as in crucible currently). The fact that certain awesome perks are only available on rares (for instance shoot to loot) makes this even more amazing, as now you'd actually have a possible reason to use a blue. Of course, using a legendary grants you another perk, and an exotic grants exotic perks, so they are still "better".

For armor eliminate light and defense. Again, only the perks matter. How leveling would work past 20 I don't know yet.

This eliminates the frustration of leveling gear, encourages a wider variety of gear usage, more experimentation, and no fear of gear becoming obsolete. I would go so far as to completely eliminate random perks as well and have each weapon have predefined perks, as that way it would be easier to plan and balance all the weapons with each other, as well as give new weapons in DLC enough value to warrant acquisition.

Add in a non-random way to acquire any of the weapons and armor, and I've just improved upon one of Destiny's biggest failings. I don't give two shits if people don't play for 3 hours per day anymore because they don't have to grind. That's the entire point.

Add in a non-random way to acquire any of the weapons and armor, and I've just improved upon one of Destiny's biggest failings. I don't give two shits if people don't play for 3 hours per day anymore because they don't have to grind. That's the entire point.

Give a man a free lunch and he'll figure out a way
To steal more than he can eat 'cause he doesn't have to pay

(Lyrics belong to the Rainmakers, but the basic idea is much older - whether it's true for you or not, it's true for the majority of us. Give us weapons and armor that don't need work to be their best, and we won't value them. You call it grinding, I call it pride through investment.)

I ENJOY watching a weapon improve from the time I get it to the time it's encircled by a yellow border. I don't consider the process a grind - I consider it a labor of love. Or at least like. (It's a digital representation of an object, not a real object, after all.)

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I ENJOY watching a weapon improve from the time I get it to the time it's encircled by a yellow border. I don't consider the process a grind - I consider it a labor of love. Or at least like. (It's a digital representation of an object, not a real object, after all.)

I did too, back when you could level up your guns during the course of normal play through the game. When and if you reach the end game, where everything is a repeat and the object IS ONLY to get more stuff and level it up, it will grow tiresome.

Give us weapons and armor that don't need work to be their best, and we won't value them. You call it grinding, I call it pride through investment.

I disagree about as hard as you can, and in fact take a great disdain toward that viewpoint and games that foster it. What a terrible lesson for life when you are proud of a non-accomplishment as trivial as leveling a gun up by doing many many easy things over and over.

but I see no real reason preventing Bungie from remixing existing geometry to create new encounters.

That's probably the most realistic substantial thing they could do.

They're also quite good at it.

**Looks longingly at Two Betrayals**

I think they did a pretty good job with the Dark Below DLC when they re-used the Blast area from the opposite perspective. At first I thought it was a completely new playspace. I'd never noticed that huge building in the distance. (The building reminded me of ONI Alpha Site.)

I ENJOY watching a weapon improve from the time I get it to the time it's encircled by a yellow border. I don't consider the process a grind - I consider it a labor of love. Or at least like. (It's a digital representation of an object, not a real object, after all.)

I did too, back when you could level up your guns during the course of normal play through the game. When and if you reach the end game, where everything is a repeat and the object IS ONLY to get more stuff and level it up, it will grow tiresome.

Give us weapons and armor that don't need work to be their best, and we won't value them. You call it grinding, I call it pride through investment.

I disagree about as hard as you can, and in fact take a great disdain toward that viewpoint and games that foster it. What a terrible lesson for life when you are proud of a non-accomplishment as trivial as leveling a gun up by doing many many easy things over and over.

I guess being a flawless raider is not trivial. Here's news: it's all trivial. It's a f*cking game. You may have shown some skill and dedication to have achieved that milestone, but even I could get it if I raided every night. It has no effect on your life.

Because it is a game, people have fun with it in different ways. This is one truth that you never seem to grok. Claude doesn't need my defense, but I bet his experience isn't much different than mine. Although I haven't completed everything on hard or gotten every trophy, I think I've experienced most of what the game has to offer at least once. I go back because it's fun. As I'm having fun, if a perk unlocks on a new weapon, and I'm having more fun shooting stuff because of it, that's not a grind. I'm not obsessed with leveling up, but leveling up a bonus that adds to the fun for me. Whatever terrible lesson it offers, it rings true. I value what is valuable, and what is valuable is that which is not freely given.

Whatever terrible lesson it offers, it rings true. I value what is valuable, and what is valuable is that which is not freely given.

My point, was that leveling up a weapon fully is practically freely given, since it requires nothing of any difficulty whatsoever. You are also correct about the fun. Being proud of any sort of video game related display (except in rare circumstances, such as AGDQ) is pretty silly since it is generally meaningless, and often a detriment to your life if the activity is demanding enough. But, I think being proud of a flawless raider is much more justified than being proud of leveling up a weapon. Not that I would say I'm PROUD of having flawless raider; it was simply fun to do, which is why I'm doing it again on the Crota raid even though I will get no reward at all.

Whatever terrible lesson it offers, it rings true. I value what is valuable, and what is valuable is that which is not freely given.

My point, was that leveling up a weapon fully is practically freely given, since it requires nothing of any difficulty whatsoever. You are also correct about the fun. Being proud of any sort of video game related display (except in rare circumstances, such as AGDQ) is pretty silly since it is generally meaningless, and often a detriment to your life if the activity is demanding enough. But, I think being proud of a flawless raider is much more justified than being proud of leveling up a weapon. Not that I would say I'm PROUD of having flawless raider; it was simply fun to do.

I played Halo levels hundreds of times, as did many here. I had fun trying new things, different approaches. This is no different to me except that every week or so I've gotten new toys to play with. One key point: except when I feel underleveled for an activity I want to do (which is less and less), I don't care when I level up. It's gravy. Tasty gravy.

Whatever terrible lesson it offers, it rings true. I value what is valuable, and what is valuable is that which is not freely given.

My point, was that leveling up a weapon fully is practically freely given, since it requires nothing of any difficulty whatsoever. You are also correct about the fun. Being proud of any sort of video game related display (except in rare circumstances, such as AGDQ) is pretty silly since it is generally meaningless, and often a detriment to your life if the activity is demanding enough. But, I think being proud of a flawless raider is much more justified than being proud of leveling up a weapon. Not that I would say I'm PROUD of having flawless raider; it was simply fun to do, which is why I'm doing it again on the Crota raid even though I will get no reward at all.

I have fun when I obtain a new weapon and I get to feel and investigate the way it changes and improves as it levels up. For instance, I really enjoyed playing with my new Suros Regime over the last week and figuring out what the heck its Exotic Upgrade actually did and didn't do. Working on my first Gjallarhorn now. :)

I disagree about as hard as you can, and in fact take a great disdain toward that viewpoint and games that foster it.

Don't like this. Not one bit. No sir, I don't like it at all. I can't even think of a gameplay concept or viewpoint I disdain. I'm not a fan of old school RPGs with chibi graphics and scrolling maps with random encounters. I don't think quick paced platformers or FPSes have any real place on touchscreen devices. But disdain goes so much farther than I feel and seeing you express it makes me feel sad... Mostly for you. :(

I've said this before, but Destiny + person with strong completionist mentality = new heights of frustration. I think the approach you and Claude are describing is a far more enjoyable, perhaps even healthier way to approach Destiny. I think the players who often have problems with Destiny's end game/upgrade system are those who can't tune out the carrots on sticks. This is something I struggle with myself. I'm a huge supporter of the "if it's not fun, don't do it" school of thought. And yet, when I pull up my equipment screen and I see weapons sitting there un-leveled, it bothers me. Literally, it bothers me. And that's kind of insane.

But to Cody's point, Bungie baked this form of "reward" system right into the game. The first 20-30 hours are a constant stream of new gear, new missions unlocked, level up, more new gear, new planet, upgraded gear, new powers to use... And then it just stops. Worse, it doesn't stop in a way that feels satisfying (because the story and missions themselves aren't particularly satisfying). The only way to continue the positive feedback loop is to continue leveling up, but that stops. So you focus on getting all the guns, but then you either succeed or get too frustrated to care about the few that you're still missing. So what's left? Upgrading all your stuff.

Now, the REAL reason I keep playing is that I adore the combat in Destiny, the Raids are spectacular, and the strikes are mostly a lot of fun. There is plenty of end game fun to be had here. I just feel that the "investment system" ends up being more of a detriment in the long run.