So TTK is fantastic and more than I expected out of Bungie. They've rekindled my faith in their company's design ability.

Which is why a couple of sort of glaring design flaws still stand out as weird to me, and I've compiled them here, so it sounds like I have nothing but complaints (when, in fact, I'm loving this expansion and look forward to playing every night):

- The game holds 12 players on a PvP server, but the list of who is in your game caps at 11 with an extra page dedicated to the single player. Why not just make this 12? Seems simple and obvious.

- Grimoire is still not in the game. I can think of no good reason at all that this should be so.

- Legacy art issues (missing textures on ships) still not addressed.

- Shotguns as one-hit kill machines. Honestly, I think if shotguns did as much damage as a sniper body shot, they'd be completely fine, and you could make their range much longer without breaking them. It would also carve a niche for fusion rifles as more than just "shotguns that need to charge up first." Personal preference here, but the balance of shotties still feels off from the rest of the weapons. Skilled players would still be able to pull off the shotgun + melee combo for nearly instant kills, but you wouldn't feel quite so cheated by someone who could do that.

- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.

- Tracked quests and bounties should be displayed while in orbit without the need to scroll through menus (or displayable via a single button press).

- Preference for what to display at the ghost screen (scoreboard, modifiers, tracked quests or bounties) should persist through games.

- During the death screen in PvP, players should be able to see tracked quests and bounties, either by using the same preference as the ghost screen or by using a single button press. It's the most natural time, during a game, to check that sort of thing.

- Load times in menus have been dramatically increased on PS4. I can only assume it's the same on Xbone, and some kind of horrible nightmare on 360 and PS3.

- I really want to be able to slightly steer my ship during loading screens, a'la Warframe. Maybe let me do some booster jets or fire a gun, too?

- Shaders and emblems, despite being stored in a menu in the tower, are still items which you have to carry around with you. Why not just make it a select-a-wheel in your inventory that unlocks as you go? Seems like poor underlying engine design to me, and is probably a massive fundamental change in code such that this will never be fixed.

- Mission wrap-up screens don't show you bounties you completed during that activity, but do show you item upgrades that you earned. Should be consistent (and I'd prefer if it shows all completions). It would be even better if it let you choose to cash in those bounties from that screen as well.

- The sword seems fairly unique, but there's nothing in the game which actually tells you "Hey, don't delete this; you should instead upgrade it to get an exotic quest later." Seems weird.

- Only an issue because of legacy characters, but these crucible intro missions give light 37 rewards. Seems like an easy fix to make all rewards scale to your level.

- Custom PvP games for private groups. Come *on* already.

- Why can't we apply shaders to weapons and ships?

- A huge number of the new cloaks don't take shaders at all, which is very frustrating. Is this the same for Marks and Bonds? That sounds like a law firm.

Which is why a couple of sort of glaring design flaws still stand out as weird to me, and I've compiled them here, so it sounds like I have nothing but complaints (when, in fact, I'm loving this expansion and look forward to playing every night):

Understood :)

- The game holds 12 players on a PvP server, but the list of who is in your game caps at 11 with an extra page dedicated to the single player. Why not just make this 12? Seems simple and obvious.

Yeah, that's weird.

- Grimoire is still not in the game. I can think of no good reason at all that this should be so.

The good reason is that they spent time developing other things. I'm also not about to sit down at my TV and read a bunch. I'd be okay with the option, but not if it sacrifices something I actually would use.

- Legacy art issues (missing textures on ships) still not addressed.

I've not noticed this one. Is it a platform rendering issue?

- Shotguns as one-hit kill machines. Honestly, I think if shotguns did as much damage as a sniper body shot, they'd be completely fine, and you could make their range much longer without breaking them. It would also carve a niche for fusion rifles as more than just "shotguns that need to charge up first." Personal preference here, but the balance of shotties still feels off from the rest of the weapons. Skilled players would still be able to pull off the shotgun + melee combo for nearly instant kills, but you wouldn't feel quite so cheated by someone who could do that.

By "skilled" players do you mean warlocks? As a sunsinger I'd be okay with this, because I'd win every last shotgun duel. I'm actually okay with shotguns being one hit kills, because it encourages me to pick my engagement distance carefully, and it's what prevents me from running around all stupid like. If shotguns didn't one hit kill, there would be a lot less incentive to rush around everywhere. It's like how making snipers less deadly would cause people to run around in the open more often. Both of those weapons are what cause (or should cause) you to pause and think about where you intend on walking.

- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.

That'd be nice, but I don't know that it's a design flaw.

- Tracked quests and bounties should be displayed while in orbit without the need to scroll through menus (or displayable via a single button press).

- Preference for what to display at the ghost screen (scoreboard, modifiers, tracked quests or bounties) should persist through games.

- During the death screen in PvP, players should be able to see tracked quests and bounties, either by using the same preference as the ghost screen or by using a single button press. It's the most natural time, during a game, to check that sort of thing.

I disagree pretty strongly here, unless it were in a setting that I could turn off. I like how clean, simple, and inviting the load and orbit screens are. I like how there is little on the death screen to distract me. Throwing up a bunch of game data would only remind me that I'm playing a game.

- Load times in menus have been dramatically increased on PS4. I can only assume it's the same on Xbone, and some kind of horrible nightmare on 360 and PS3.

I've noticed no increase in load times on the XB1. Must be all that PS exclusive content you have to deal with ;-)

- I really want to be able to slightly steer my ship during loading screens, a'la Warframe. Maybe let me do some booster jets or fire a gun, too?

That'd be cool, but I think you veered away from naming design flaws :)

- Custom PvP games for private groups. Come *on* already.

That'd be nice.

- Why can't we apply shaders to weapons and ships?

Because how each shader effects each item is intentionally designed by an artist. The combination of color on model is an art, and I'm better the artists don't want their work combined to look like crap. It might be a little controlling, but I can completely respect it and enjoy how awesome almost every guardian walking around looks.

- A huge number of the new cloaks don't take shaders at all, which is very frustrating. Is this the same for Marks and Bonds? That sounds like a law firm.

I suspect this is either an intentional design decision, or that they ran out of time and will apply them in the future. That's what happened to some of the Warlock exotic cloaks.

- Shotguns as one-hit kill machines. Honestly, I think if shotguns did as much damage as a sniper body shot, they'd be completely fine, and you could make their range much longer without breaking them. It would also carve a niche for fusion rifles as more than just "shotguns that need to charge up first." Personal preference here, but the balance of shotties still feels off from the rest of the weapons. Skilled players would still be able to pull off the shotgun + melee combo for nearly instant kills, but you wouldn't feel quite so cheated by someone who could do that.

Like this idea a lot. Give you some kind of chance for running away. Melee's actually become more important in the game because now there's no one instakill at point blank range. Wish Bungie would have thought of Shotguns this way.

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Now that we have range bands, I'd like to see better tradeoffs between long range and short range shotguns. It seems you are still better off with the long range party crasher/fellwinter combo, and anything else is just substandard.

Instead we should see shorter range shotguns have other benefits, such as a noticeable rate of fire increase, bigger spread or larger mag. It feels like Fellwinter still has the range, rate of fire and clip size advantage all in one and that is why it is still good.

In contrast fusion rifles should have better grouping at range and the charge time is what makes them lose out in close range combat with shotguns.

As for things i would like to see improved:

6 man patrol/casual activities. I can PVP and raid with my friends, but there is nothing PVE to do other then raid, and not everyone can hit that end game content.

More dynamic public events: We can trigger events now, but why can't we get events more customized to the guardians present? Lets add some knight vengeance squads coming for crota sword bearers,fallen trying to get that queenbreaker bow back, or Cabal building an outpost and pushing back guardians trying to do patrols.

Ship/Sparrow customization. We were promised that we would be able to change the look and performance of our gear, but sparrows are pretty much just pallete swaps and ships, other then the two missions where they zip by, are a non factor.

Vehicles: the game has the potential for a full vehicle list. Les get some 3/6 man vehicles and some metal mayhem, even if their use is restricted to a few areas.

There are ways around having to wear a hood...

Now if only I could ditch the cape...

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- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.

I agree with you on this one. It always seems like an unnecessary hassle when looking for a fireteam.

- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.

I agree with you on this one. It always seems like an unnecessary hassle when looking for a fireteam.

Just having a way to let people know you'd like some help for an activity would be huge. It could be done from the director in the same place where you choose your difficulty level. Press A to continue. Press X to start over. Press Y to set beacon.

From the player roster, in the same place you can view someone's current location, you could also see something like "Requesting backup: King's Fall, Normal Difficult." To go one step better, where you can currently see the "## Players here" when hovering over an activity, you could instead see "## Guardians requesting backup."

-Disciple

- No LFG in the game. A designer should never cede power to a third party.

I agree with you on this one. It always seems like an unnecessary hassle when looking for a fireteam.

I can see a reason why this feature would be left out. To encourage people to try & get their friends to play. I know I certainly tried (and currently try) to persuade friends/coworkers to pickup the game. The social aspect of it is just better with people you know than people you don't. Not to say that I don't enjoy playing w/ DBO. You guys are a blast and are becoming real people, not just users on a site I've lurked on for 16 years.

HOLY CRAP! There are kids driving cars that were born after I started lurking *BO.