If we assume Destiny 2 is just a bigger and better Destiny: The Taken King with normal story missions that follow a similarly structured plot line etc., we'll also have a patrol mode. With missions. And the current state of these missions is kind of lackluster to me. I'm going to list them here, what I think of them, and then what my ideas are for how I'd change them to be more friendly to me. I'd love to know what you guys think as well, so please sound off!

Group 1, the easy group:
- Kill anything (white X missions). Just what is says: Kill anything and eventually this completes. Normal reward.
- Kill a specific bad guy (Star in a circle): Go to a place and find a special baddie. Kill him for a big reward!
- Kill a specific type of enemy and collect materials from them (Triangle). These are basically kill guys missions, and as long as you run over the corpses (which you're doing anyway for ammo and engrams) you'll complete these by picking up the materials. Normal reward.

I think there should be a big reward version of the "collect things" missions that gives you a whole shopping list of stuff to find from a variety of enemies on that world who may or may not all be in the specific zone you're in at the time you pick up the mission.

I also think that the big reward missions should be random (maybe a 1 in 3 chance) when you pick up the normal mission that relates to it.

Group 2, the go somewhere else group:
- Scan an item (airplane propeller symbol?). These direct you to another zone where there's an item you have to use your ghost to scan. Normal reward.
- Stand in a place for a while (I forget exactly what this symbol is). These direct you to another zone where you stand in a specific place doing nothing for a while and the meter slowly fills. Normal reward

I think these missions suck and I avoid them whenever possible. Why do I hate them? Because I've decided I want to play in X zone, and these missions always tell me to leave that zone and go somewhere I don't want to be. They need better rewards in order to make me care at all about them. I also think they could be a lot more interesting. If standing in that place gave you improved radar for the remainder of that patrol, or scanning the item dropped an engram... Let me feel like my actions are doing something. In the "kill stuff" missions you have a direct hand - you're killing stuff. But in these missions you're literally having zero impact on the world. It's not like completing 100 scans lets you spawn in any zone you choose or something. There's no reason for them. I'd guess they are supposed to be signposts to direct you to adjacent zones, but there's already a signpost when you complete all missions in the zone you're in, so why make me leave prematurely? No need at all.

I do think they can be salvaged, but I'd love to see better reward structures and more interesting objectives (more on objectives later).

Group 3, which is really just one thing:
- Move through the gates (stopwatch symbol): Purple gates appear on the map in set locations and moving through them fills a meter which slowly drains over time, encouraging you to move quickly through the gates. Normal reward.

I like these missions. The fact that they ramp up as you go is pretty fun (and that the red bull quest requires completing rank 3, which means you have a reason to ramp them up). With the advent of SRL, I think these missions could be modified to be more like zone-wide races rather than sort of random locations (I know the gates aren't actually randomly placed - they always reappear in the same spots, but those spots appear to be randomly distributed rather than in a set path or course). I'd really love to see a big reward version of the races that was a legit time trial in the SRL style to drive a path through the zone you're in (or multiple zones!).

Group 4, which is also just one thing:
- Dread Patrol (skull and crossbones): Go to a specific spot, fight a couple of waves of enemies, and then face a big baddy. Big reward.

The dread patrol is in a unique space in patrol missions as they are really the only challenging patrols. So much so that I wish they didn't direct me to out of the way spots where I'm unlikely to get help from passers-by. And, as with the go somewhere and stand in a spot missions, these always take you out of the zone you're in. Why?? If I really wanted to play in zone X, I'd just go there right off the bat. Clearly I'm interested in zone Y, please just leave me in zone Y. I wish these were more like waves appear in breadcrumb-style, rather than making me move to the magic spot and fighting all of the waves right there. It would be a small change that would make the patrol a lot more engaging (and make moving to another zone more organic feeling).

And last, Group 5L The group of awesome:
- ????????? missions (which randomly show up after finishing other missions): Best missions in the game imo. Super fun, big reward, lots of varied objectives.

I wouldn't change a thing about the mystery missions, except maybe to make them have an even larger list of different actions they want the player to perform.

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Anyway, I have a couple of overall thoughts:

First, I really dislike missions that ask me to leave the zone I'm currently in, to the point where the only ones I ever choose to do are the "kill a specific guy" missions where I already know exactly where that guy spawns and its nearby (the divide is my fave of these). I don't think missions should direct you to other zones, unless those missions are literally "we don't have enough guardians in zone X, please go there and help out with the missions in that area" which would complete the moment you got to the new zone, or give you a buff while in that zone (or extra loot drops in that zone or something of the sort).

Narratively, it's silly that zavala would put a mission beacon for the rocketyards in the divide. Why not just put the beacon in the rocketyards? It's dumb. Gameplay wise, there's no need for signpost missions to send players to other zones. Once they finish the missions in their current zone, and beacon automatically shows up pointing the way to the next zone and more missions. Let people play in the zone they want to play in rather than immediately telling them to go elsewhere.

Next, I think the kill things missions are too easy and too much like exactly what you're doing anyway. I'd like to see at least a little finesse or thought required ("kill them with headshots so we can collect their armor," or "no headshots, we want to study their brains").

Which leads me to the next thing: Patrol missions could easily take the place of bounties for PvE. Throw a couple of beacons at the start of each strike for strike-specific objectives and cluster a few around the spawn of patrol mode and story missions, let players pick up more than one mission at a time, and then you can just move all PvE bounties to the beacons. This would be a bigger change, but I think it would be a good one. You'd have to make them a tad smart, so that some missions (go through the gates etc) would disappear from your quest log if you left the area, but that seems like pretty minor code work compared to the overhaul I'm suggesting.

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And then there are ideas for more varied mission types:

- I've been playing a bit of helldivers, and they have some really good ones. Find and dispose of unexploded ordinance is great. You have to use a metal detector to find hidden bombs in a designated area and then enter a string of D-pad directions to disarm them, all while being attacked by enemies. Destiny could do this using the ghost as a "detector" since he can turn and face the nearest once and give a hotter/colder sort of ping sound or VO to help.

- Carry the object to the place missions. There are a bunch of objectives like this in story missions and the raid in TTK, but there are no patrol missions to do it. Again, it makes speed and elusivity important over just killing things. You could also make the result fun, like dropping a turret at the final position after you carry the turret beacon there, and then you have a turret to use in that zone for a while.

- Commandeer an enemy vehicle missions. There are already enemy vehicles in patrol mode to a small degree, why not add some missions to find one and kill its driver. You get mission rewards and a vehicle!

- More serious recon missions. Send the player through the same areas of the strikes, but in patrol mode, and have them plant a camera or data mining device. Completion gives the player a bounty to finish that strike and then collect the planted device along the way, maybe give them a buff for the remainder of the strike, too, since they now know more about their enemy.

- Find the lost ghost missions. For players who haven't found all of the ghosts, occasionally spawning a mission that points them to one would be really nice. Maybe make it a "post mission reward mission" similar to the ????? missions so you couldn't just continually zone in until you found one. Bonus reward is they get a grimoire card!

- Help a guardian missions. Activating these would move you to a solo-player's instance of another, harder mission such as dread patrol, and your mission would just be to help them complete their mission. Make a friend as well as complete your mission. A trickier version would be to allow players to flag themselves as "I need help" which would cause the "help a guy" missions to start spawning. Then you could help people with strikes and such, too.

Just thinkin'.

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This so much. One of the biggest issues I have with the mechanics of Destiny is the way you travel between missions/exploration. I have never felt like I was traveling the milky way destroying the Darkness. Granted part of that is due to the lack of ship involvement, but another part has to do with the way you progress through missions. You complete a mission and immediately go back to your ship. ???? Why can't I look around? Sometimes its convenient if you need to go to the tower, but what if your next mission is on the same planet? Why can't you just take your speeder to it without leaving? Another alternative is to have an on planet Director, so you can go from patrol straight to a mission. I am not a game developer, but I know this is all easier said than done with the way it was set up.

All in all, this could just be me. I never really feel like im exploring ruins in the Old Cosmodrone when questing or even patrol. I just feel like im walking down a tunnel. Again, this may just be me.

from a developer standpoint, I totally get why they did what they did.

But v2.0 deserves improvements. I hope we see them as opposed to "moar content" being the focus. Things like seamless joining or dropping from fireteams. Story missions starting in patrol areas. Spawning into different locations on patrol as opposed to the "patrol start" location. (suggestion on that -- triangle on start patrol would allow you to choose a from a regional map. Unlocked as you do patrol objectives) Having cross-zone battles, reverse target-elimination (they really are out to get you, and they'll chase you down too!)... lots of things.

Here's hoping. =)

This so much. One of the biggest issues I have with the mechanics of Destiny is the way you travel between missions/exploration. I have never felt like I was traveling the milky way destroying the Darkness. Granted part of that is due to the lack of ship involvement, but another part has to do with the way you progress through missions. You complete a mission and immediately go back to your ship. ???? Why can't I look around? Sometimes its convenient if you need to go to the tower, but what if your next mission is on the same planet? Why can't you just take your speeder to it without leaving? Another alternative is to have an on planet Director, so you can go from patrol straight to a mission. I am not a game developer, but I know this is all easier said than done with the way it was set up.

You'd complete a Mission and could press a button to leave, or explore the area some more (sometimes you could head all the way back to your vehicle and explore some more.

All in all, this could just be me. I never really feel like im exploring ruins in the Old Cosmodrone when questing or even patrol. I just feel like im walking down a tunnel. Again, this may just be me.

I was hoping for Skyrim with guns like you, instead we got Fable 2's donut regions, connected by lifeless zones. Not a terrible thing, when you consider the technical side of things, but... Ya know, I wanted to explore woods, and abandoned towns, and enemy-controlled factories with side quests inside...

I was hoping for Skyrim with guns like you, instead we got Fable 2's donut regions, connected by lifeless zones. Not a terrible thing, when you consider the technical side of things, but... Ya know, I wanted to explore woods, and abandoned towns, and enemy-controlled factories with side quests inside...

I sometimes wonder if the compromises needed were worth it to allow other random players to populate patrol spaces. It leads to some neat encounters with Rando Calrissians, but I'm not sure they're neat enough to give up more fully realized play spaces. I was expecting something similar to the way Borderlands is built. That's basically what we got, I guess, but it doesn't feel as fully realized for whatever reason. Maybe it's just that the play area is divided up between planets and having to return to orbit and use the Director makes everything feel more divided rather than a coherent whole.

I'm not sure, and I certainly don't have a fix for it, but I'd give up the world population and move to a BL style party system in a heartbeat if it allowed for better area design with less segmentation.

I'm a fan of the director.

Lately there have been a lot of good ideas for patrol on this forum.

I think public events could improve a lot. The simplest idea is just have them happen more often. If not more often, at least at more predictable times. I played Defiance for a short time and all the public events happened on a set timetable, so big crowds of players would show up before the thing crashed down and kicked off. It was cool.

Another idea is adding more complex but zone-specific quests that combine elements of the current patrol activities and public events. Basically quest chains like: go here and survey, destroy the walker in the public event, take an item it drops to a different area, kill a miniboss, place the item. These steps all basically already exist as patrol activities, but having them linked would add to a sense of purpose.

I've always been a fan of encountering random players, and I hope to see that played up even more in Des2ny. If there were more to do in the public spaces, having random players swoop in would be even more awesome!

I've always been a fan of encountering random players, and I hope to see that played up even more in Des2ny. If there were more to do in the public spaces, having random players swoop in would be even more awesome!

I do like encountering other players too. But for me it doesn't add enough in its current implementation if the trade off was smaller less intricate play spaces. I'm not sure that's true, but I definitely picked up that impression somewhere along the way.

As for patrol in general, I would love to see more intricate public events. They took some steps in the right direction with TTK with the Taken Champions, and Court of Oryx I suppose. CoO suffers from being in a dedicated, out of the way area. I rarely saw other players there. People are smart when it comes to Destiny--I think CoO style bosses could be encountered more organically out on Patrol and it would be great.

Really, I think that's the key for me. I think everything needs to happen more organically. Instead of the Director, let the Patrol space serve as the Director. As you're out on patrol, you'll receive the call to go do that strike or that mission or whatever. I'm not entirely sure how that would work or what it would look like, but I think it would feel like a more cohesive experience of that stuff happened a bit more naturally than what is basically a mission select screen we have now.

I would also love to see NPCs out on patrol. Maybe an established base camp in areas that could serve as a way to get missions. Here I'm reaching quite a bit, as I would love to see Destiny fully embrace it's MMO roots. I'd love to see just absolutely tons of missions and side missions. Each destination could have abase camp of sorts with different NPCs that can give quests in place of the patrol beacons (or in addition to patrol beacons).

I'm not expecting Dest2ny to make huge drastic changes like that, but I'd certainly enjoy if they did. I really want it to be huge.

I realize I'm more than likely just setting myself up for disappointment, but I can dream. /:

...is that all the enemies simply spawn and stand there.

They really should all have a purpose. I mean, how hard would it be to do something like:

1- enemies drop in.
2- they move to an objective point.
3- they secure the position.
4- they get reinforcements.
5- they start a public event as their objective.

Bonus when factions of enemies "move against each other". I swear some of this was planned, they just didn't get this far along. I hope they do at some point.

How it's currently set up on the surface, it looks like enemies are there for a reason. But quickly you find out that they really are there because shooting things. I think adding some living purpose, while potentially challenging, would add a ton more depth and purpose to patrols.

Also patrols offering more unique experiences would help as well. Other than public events, patrols are pretty monotone.

I would love to see enemies in areas without many guardians building bases, calling in support craft, etc.. and making themselves really buff and hard to fight, while enemies in areas with lots of guardians pull back and withdraw. The result would be large groups of guardians "clearing" an area and then moving on to the next area where the enemy was in the middle of building up defenses, and solo players could play "ez mode" by staying near the spawn area in the more frequented zones where the enemies were thinner, or play "hard mode" where they venture off the beaten path and encounter heavy fortifications and higher level enemies.

Other impacts on the game world would be cool, too. Maybe having too many enemies running free in an area makes it a darkness zone, and clearing them out lifts the darkness. Maybe There's a cache of golden age relics and the enemies are trying to excavate it before you can clear them out and then transmat it with your ghost to get some sweet loots.

I'd also be down for missions like "stay out of sight and observe the enemy activity in this area." You'd have to stealth to a ridge and use a scope to watch the enemies and see what they're doing, with chances of it being "they're setting up fortifications, clear them out!" or "they've found a loot cache, go get it!" or "they're escorting a VIP, go kill him!" or "They're surrendering, go accept on behalf of the Tower." or "That's... oh, oh dear. They're cleaning the latrine. Time to leave, guardian. Death would be a kindness to them at this point, and they don't deserve it."