/!\ LONG-ASS POST /!\
Seems to me that Trickster and EventHorizon are the main people sticking around as opposed to doing drive-by posts. To all those others dropping in to imply this is somehow a DLC scam,
please read this post.
This one is especially aimed at EventHorizon.
You are making baseless assumptions on how the final game will work, play and flow based on limited playtime with limited gear, a levelcap, blocked off areas and overall limited content. You are taking a small piece of the game and extrapolate it over the entire experience.
Fucking stop it.
Playing through the Story missions once, doing the Strike and getting to level 8 are the only things available in the Beta that were representative of how the game will flow. You repeating that content over and over again is the result of there not being much else to do in the Beta ( due to limited / deliberately blocked content ), not the result of that being what you'll do in the final game.
In the final game, you'll play through the story and get to level 20 by playing through the strikes. Difficulty isn't there because you are intended to do a mission multiple times, difficulty is there because some people like a challenge or might be slightly ahead in level compared to what the normal difficulty is intended for.
You know how the game will flow? You'll play the story and some Strike Missions in between and get leveling towards level 20. Along the way, you get this awesome Legendary weapon, but wait, it needs Relic Iron to be upgraded to its full potential. Relic Iron can be found on Mars, so you take a little break and go to Mars to hunt for some Relic Iron. You might as well pick up that Kill mission, as you'll likely be killing stuff on the way. It nets you some xp for your weapon and some of the Target Assassination missions even get you some Relic Iron. Along the way, the sky turns dark, and suddenly, there's a Cabal Tank incoming! You and some random people take it down and you get more rewards for partaking. You decide to join up with one of the randoms and explore on Mars some more. Eventually, you get to an area with lv. ?? enemies wrecking the shit out of you, and you stay the fuck away from them. You know you'll be able to come back later and take them on when you're fully leveled. You find some more Relic Iron, upgrade your weapon and continue your story with this awesome death machine you created. Later, you get a pop-up from Bungie that there will be a limited-time variant of a Strike available, so you get working on getting a fireteam together. You get together and attempt the tougher Strike, but fail. You'll get it next time. Eventually, you get to lv. 20 and you go preparing for the Raid, but at the same time, you might want to check out the Iron Banner or get involved in the Crucible to get into Mercury and the Trials of Osiris, or maybe you want to go back to that place on Mars with the ?? enemies to see if you can take them on, maybe you want to try out another subclass and level it, maybe you want to try out a different class altogether, etc. etc.
You know what won't happen? You play some story missions, hit the cap and then either redo all the Story missions and Strikes or go into Explore to just do the beacons or waiting for public events because there's nothing else to do.
In the Beta, that's what happened because of the limited content, not because it is inherent to the full game's design. We didn't have a use for Materials and Marks, so that element of exploration wasn't a factor. The full game does not stop you at level 8 with only Common and Uncommon gear, it does not force you onto Earth, it does not want you to go into Explore to do all of the beacons for no reason. You are taking the Lv. 8 'endgame' ( which is not at all intended to even exist in the full game, as you don't stop at level 8 and get stuck on Old Russia ) and applying this to the entire game as if it is the only thing there is. That 'logic' is inherently flawed.
And I'll just add this bit as some drive-by posts heavily imply that people arguing against the madness and assumptions are overly defensive fan-boys that don't allow criticism;
You're allowed to have any criticism as long as it stems in reason. Accusing Bungie of being filthy liars with malicious intent is not reason, it's paranoia. Extrapolating a limited experience over the full game is not reason, it's
unreasonable.
If you want to tell me how you think they should change the loot system or how you think the beacons in Explore need work, or how the shooting mechanics aren't working properly, by all means, go ahead. But if you base your complaints in assumptions that the limited Beta content is fully representative of everything in the full game, I will point it out to you.
/!\ LONG-ASS POST END /!\