Just yes.

Just a few random thoughts of my own. I think we want may of the same things though occasionally for different reasons

I think one of Destiny's biggest problems is it has very little follow through.

When we kill Sepiks Prime, a hugely important part of the House of Devils' leadership, we don't get to see the result. That's the end of the Fallen story thread which is a huge shame. Even just one mission showing the House of Devils in a panic (packing up, perhaps fighting among themselves) would have done wonders to drive home that we'd done something important. Similar things could have been done with the other three races' story threads. Just one or two missions that show we had shifted the tide and were winning or at least having an impact.

There needs to be closer connections between story missions.

In Halo, rescuing Captain Keyes lead directly to locating the Silent Cartographer which lead directly to the Assault on the Control Room... and so on. Destiny has that... a bit: An unnamed Guardian detected something strange going on at the Skywatch station before she was shot down (that's her ship crashed at the beginning of the Cosmodrome), which leads to us preventing the Fallen from cracking Rasputin's firewalls, which leads to a Guardian team we don't meet getting killed as they recover keys to Skywatch's communication array, which leads to us plugging Rasputin in and his (rampant?!) expansion throughout the solar system including the AI core at the Colvis Bray tower on Mars.

The pieces are there... but there are no strong connections making it clear that we were playing through a chronological series of events. The sentence or two our Ghost says to us about the upcoming mission doesn't compare to the awesome Cortana monologue as we land on the Silent Cartographer's island. Being able to play some of the missions out of order is fine second time through, but they should unlock one by one the first time which would give more certainty to the writers allowing them to know what the player does and doesn't know. That way they wouldn't have to hold back in fear of a player not understand what was going on because they played The Array before The Warmind, or whatever.

Destiny needs longer missions or at least more of them.

I think Destiny's Story missions were shorter by design, not by incompetence. I think Bungie wanted to provide smaller chunks of action so a fireteam of busy people could accomplish one or two things even with limited play time. But I long for hour long missions like Assault on the Control Room. If anything were possible I'd see the short story missions tripled in number. Not every one would be save the world important, but they'd come before and after an increased number of somewhat longer Strikes. Two or three or more story mission would connect and pave the way for a Strike which would lead to a few more story missions and then another Strike and so on. I feel a good number would be three Strikes with surrounding, supporting Story missions that would all lead to a Raid centered on each race. It would lead to more content, more rising and falling story movements, and then a big finale at the end of a story thread.

Destiny's missions need unexpected events.

When I think back to Halo there were tons of interesting, partly story driven moments in each mission. In Destiny we too often push our way through to an objective, kill some enemies, and then magically leave after the countdown ends. At the very least makes us fight our way back out! Sure, some missions do a bit extra here and there beyond the main objective, but even then it's mostly a target of opportunity we need to kill. In Halo there would often be events that would force us to reroute or change our plans. In Halo 2, for instance, Cortana leads the Chief to one of High Charity's brigs to rescue some marines we didn't even know about. In Destiny the only event I can think of that interrupts our path at all is the Cabal's little ambush on our way to charge the Gatelord's eye... and even then all we do is fight through in the direction we were going anyway.

Patrol missions should stay but should support the current story thread as needed.

Randomly generated missions in an open-ish world make sense to allow our Guardians to be doing things other than saving Humanity each and every time we go outside. I think they could be used a bit better though. There could still be a few general ones, kill enemies, collect resources, whatever. But, as you do story missions new patrol missions should open up. Perhaps while patrolling we could fend off a randomly generated Fallen counterattack on a location that we took from them in a proper story mission. Or track down fuel to keep a communication station online. Things like that.

What I'd want is each story mission to unlock one or two related repeatable patrol missions. A setback in the story might even disable a previous type of patrol mission. If a previously secure firebase is destroyed in the story then the patrol missions to reinforce it during an attack would also stop appearing. I generally like patrol missions now, but it would be some much neater if they were better integrated into the bigger story!

As for the grind... I think providing a true wealth of interesting, connected events would address a lot of complaints. Beyond that, care and thought should also be given to eliminating any dead zones in the game's leveling and upgrade paths. Big events like Raids should be accessible to everyone who has progressed far enough through the story. I'm fine with hard modes and heroic difficulties requiring some investment to unlock or survive, but even then players should have a defined way to get there with a clear indication of progress towards their goal in addition to the occasional good loot drop that propels them unexpectedly forward.

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While I may disagree with some of these points on this we can agree. RNG is terrible. Of all the things in Destiny, the RNG factor is the worst. There is nothing more rage inducing in this game then to suffer though hours of effort on the raids or nightfall only to get a shader and some shards or the same boots I have 5 of already.

I'm fine with Exotics weapons and equipment having specific mini quests to get. I actually think it is kind of cool. However we should not have to grind rep on the small chance something will drop with a combination of perks to be useful. Give us a means to change perks, and not just random re-rolls like the Iron Banner but a way to uniquely make a weapon our own.

Bungie's promise is that gear would reflect your activities in game. Lets see that implemented. I want to see max level PVP, PVE and Raid gear. Right now everyone uses pretty much the same stuff, because the end tier things are all the same mix of Raid, IB and Exotic.

...which is what I expected to get, due to the ambiguity of the marketing.

In Skyrim, there are so many side quests (and even main quests) that you never run out of things to do unless you play all day, every day. I never had to grind, I never had to play the same thing over again, and the world felt very, very open.Just by doing things, I got good gear (without RNG!) and all the super awesome weapons had specific tasks associated with them or could be crafted.

Crafting! Why am I sitting on nearly 1000 Sapphire Wire right now? Because I can't make the gear I want! One of the rewards I should be able to get in Destiny is profiting from the fruits of all my romps across the star system--namely, crafting with the unused junk I found! Argh!!!

I thought each planet in Destiny was going to be like a slightly downsized Skyrim overworld. Bungie needs to get rid of kill barriers and leave the climbing of mountains and such as a risky feat the player can attempt, if he or she so desires. If you get stuck on weird geometry while climbing somewhere way off the beaten track, well, that's you catching your ankle in a gap. Too bad. But at least it feels more REAL than "Turn back" flashing in your face.

Conversation would be nice too. I feel like they could have pulled a page from Mass Effect (or even the shittiest, most basic JRPG you can think of) and had a way for you to learn more about the universe by talking to NPCs. Hell, it could've been voiceless text and I would've been happy. Even if all the civilians in the FWC hangout had to say was, "Get out of my face," it would've been something. Maybe they could put the Grimoire in-game too! Ugh.

Pretty much everything you said, Cody, I agree with. I love Destiny, but I would love it MORE if it had avoided mistakes in game design that have been known to the community for, in some cases, several YEARS already. I feel like someone allowed their "vision" to trample common sense in some of the design choices we were left with.

But I digress, it's late and I still have shit to do before bed.

Obviously what needs to happen is for Bungie to shed the MMO genre and ideas completely, or at least innovate like they used to and gut the genre of its failings, which are numerous. I am doubtful that is going to happen, so realistically(some maybe not so much) here is what Destiny 2 needs to do:

Before this even gets going, what definition of "need" are you using here?

1. The multiplayer mode needs to be expanded. At a MINIMUM we need CTF, Oddball, KotH, significantly more maps, custom games, and film support. There should be at least twice as many maps as there are currently with Destiny. Forge would be great, but it's completely understandable to be absent.

I still disagree with this assumption that there's some philosophical or structural reason a map editor would not work or not fit in a game like Destiny.

2. Destiny 2 should be released as one package with no DLC,

There's zero chance of this and you know it.

or the DLC should be designed such that it could have been included in the initial release.

I seriously don't know what that means.

3. The focus should be on content rather than the grind. This means there needs to be a shift from requiring and wanting players to play the same shit over and over, but instead provide more missions, side quests, and other unique things to do.

I agree content should be prioritized, but I don't know that there's level of grind that you and some others could be happy with that's greater than zero.

4. Bounties and Patrol missions need a revamp. Patrol missions should be cut entirely, and bounties should be a merging of the two. Bounties should be more plentiful and diverse, integrated into the story, and not shitty tasks but rather mini missions. Think any sidequest you might have undertook in a game like Deus Ex. Bounties should be given and unlocked not by appearing daily, but by your actions in the game.

I very strongly disagree. Patrol missions are one of the best parts of the game for me.

5. No RNG for gear. RNG for things like polyphages and random unimportant things is fine, but all gear should have specific tasks required in order to get. Either complete a sidequest, a main quest, do something in a certain way, etc. In short, guns and armor should be treated like tools and not rewards, integrated into the progression of the game. Who the fuck cares if everybody has exotics. Exotics should be exotic not because of their rarity, but because of their function.

This would be nice, at least in theory, but it doesn't seem doable for the type of game they're aiming for.

6. The story needs to not suck.

I agree

I feel like 3-5 should help take care of that in terms of the foundational game design, but they still have to write and present something. I hope they are still capable: just tell your current guys to study Halo, or better yet the original Deus Ex.

I'd rather they try to be original than copy things that came before. I know you'll probably say they should copy the quality rather than the content or the themes or the tone, but that's only one step above "make it more awesome".

7. More raids. Raids are the best part, and there should be more. How about 3?

seems reasonable enough

8. The single player missions need to be better. The raid had you doing cool things. Why not get Luke to bring some of that creativity into single player? On playing the new Wolfenstien, I realized how dull the design of Bungie's missions are.

same with this, some shaking up of the game mechanics could be nice

9. Let us go to Saturn. You promised.

No they didn't. They mentioned it once in a presentation of concept art, which doesn't count, and once in a vidoc, which does count as something to base expectations on but I would argue doesn't count as a promise. That said, I want to go to Saturn too.

10. Cut all filler, and don't make me wait for anything.

I'm not even going to read the rest of this item because everyone knows this has no chance of happening.

11. Many alternate paths to max level. Only one way to get to max level, playing the raid, is ridiculous. Yes, even with Iron Banner gear, you still have to play the raid to get the last piece.

That would be nice, yeah.