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.

Access to all gear? WHY? Why must everyone have the same thing? Some kind of 90s kids everybody gets a trophy kind of thing? I just don't understand.

Guns aren't trophies. They're tools.

Guns should feel like trophies. Because if they felt like tools that would mean, in my opinion, that you have only one tool for a situation. Bungie has tried to emphasize the "Play how you feel like playing" but that is really hard to do and make fair. Most of the emphasis on grinding to get a gun is not to get it like you are getting a trophy, but you are getting it because you NEED it for a given situation.

I agree with you, but in Destiny most of the guns are tools and they are basically needed because certain guns (Gjallerhorn, Thorn, Icebreaker) are SO much more powerful than their counterparts. Some guns are trophies (Monte Carlo, Thunderlord come to mind) but a large number of the guns feel "required" to compete because (a) a non-zero percentage of the competitive population has them and (b) they provide a real and tangible benefit to the players who have them.

Even the non-tool guns are needed in order to get weapon parts to fund the development of the tool guns, which turns those non-tool guns into tools and not trophies. /sadface.

I personally don't mind gun A being super powerful, but only as long as the best gun from each weapon class (and thus, each style of play) is equally powerful. Balance comes from the top down in any situation where items can get different rolls.

His reply covered it already, but in other words:

Every piece of gear would have a straight forward way to earn it. Not everyone would have everything, but it wouldn't be because RNG screwed them.

I'm not sure how many people would enjoy that, as we've already seen plenty of people upset over ToO gear and the Lighthouse and being "locked out" of an area and gear because they're not good enough.

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.

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.

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.