This is an opportunity to optimize the carrot instead of chasing it endlessly and just being happy with the few pieces of carrot you managed to grab regardless of their characteristics.

I don't know what you said.

I think...maybe you are saying just enjoy the game? Forget about chasing loot? Yeah, I get that. Maybe back off and just enjoy it for what it is...

Unless you're saying something different. In that case, ha ha, I'm not a moron! I was just, uh, responding to the wrong message...

This past week has been really fun, and I bet I'll keep playing for at least another week, but I agree that there's just not enough content in this expansion and there's too much loot, too quickly. PoE and ToO feel more like week long events similar to Iron Banner than like endgame content.

All in all, the game still lacks driving purpose and story to pull me in, and now that I've broken myself of my disgusting loot addiction, I have no problem walking away.

The fundamental problem of "we're giving them more health to make up for poor AI" is really prevalent in PoE and it makes the game less fun because my supers are now more like "averages" or "normals" or even "sub-pars."

I'm also super disappointed when my whole raid crew is online and we end up splitting into two 3-man groups because there's no endgame 6 man activity anymore. I feel like I'm losing my friends. :(

House of Wolves has put me in a very strange place with regards to how I feel about Destiny.

The good:

I think the game we're playing right now is in the best state it's been in since launch, by far. The overhauls to the upgrade and materials systems are huge improvements. The new story missions are perhaps the best in the game. Prison of Elders and Trials of Osiris both seem to fill voids that needed filling. Patrol mode feels vibrant for the first time ever. And for the first time since launch, I feel like the playable spaces in Destiny are mostly being used to their potential. Missions and strikes take use to almost every corner of the various world maps, and use the spaces in fun and interesting ways.

The bad:

I'm appreciating most of these improvements in some sort of hindsight. In a strange way, I wish I hadn't begun playing Destiny until this past week. In a lot of ways, I'm past the point where these improvements really benefit me. I love how easy it is to upgrade gear now, but I don't have enough room in my vault/inventory for more than a handful of new pieces. The story missions are good, but not good enough for me to ever go replay them for fun (I'll do daily heroics most days, that's about it). I'm glad we finally have access to those few remaining locked locations, but they're just a drop in the bucket in terms of overall play space; not enough to feel like substantial new areas.

And then, there's the end-game content.

I'm glad Prison of Elders is in the game. It feels like something that should have been included since day 1. But I don't feel it works as the primary driving piece of end game PvE content. I STILL enjoy running VoG and CE multiple times per week, every week, for months now. PoE felt old to me after 2 days. There just isn't enough depth, teamwork, or variety. I know I'm in the minority within the overall player base, but for me the lack of a raid in HoW is a near-fatal blow to my interest in this expansion.

So I feel like now, almost 9 months later, Destiny as a complete package is in really fantastic shape. But as someone who's been logging tones of hours since day 1, I'm left feeling like I don't really have enough to do. I'm ready for substantial new content; new world(s), new subclasses, new weapon types, new forms of play (space combat?), and most of all, new Raids.

This sums it up perfectly, and I haven't even raided a ton. This game would have been fabulous - Patrol really is greatly improved. I wonder if the bulk of the team has moved to D2, and what we're getting now is generated by a relatively small group using (mostly) existing assets?