With all the news about Rise of Iron, I got excited thinking about a new expansion again. Then I started to think about just how much I disliked going from Y1 to TTK.
- The infusion system replaced etheric light and was really bad. It's fixed now, but I'm sure it will just change again. I think it would be best for infusion to stay and for any armor to continue to be upgradeable so that there's plenty of unique options out there. If Rise of Iron comes out and you want to rock TTK gear, you should be able to with the system in place how it is currently.
- Exotics are worse in most aspects. Very few actually feel exotic now and most just have something to do with reloading or getting more ammo. I personally hate three of coins and think it ruined the feeling of getting an exotic. I liked the old bounty system and prefer they all be RNG in general. I want them to be worth using again as well. I want the feeling back of using Gjallarhorn and Icebreaker. (I will admit swords are the exception here, but it took shotguns being nerfed back into obscurity for us to get them.) Upgrading your exotics to Y2 is almost as bad as it was in TDB. It's not as RNG based anymore, but you still have to either get it as an RNG drop or pay with marks which are limited before being able to use it again, and re-level it up again with both XP and light.
- Nightfalls used to be one of the things I looked forward to in Y1. Now, the modifiers are all worse and they're not fun to do at all. Burns do less damage. Armor is in the loot pool. You don't get the cool blue flames or the experience buff anymore. (The one they lied about and said XP would be increased in other areas to make up for it but never was.) The NF rotation in general has been awful and why they haven't added every strike back to the current light levels is baffling. Nobody cares about the Taken being added to the strike, Bungie. The weekly strike used to also be fun in Y1, usually having a burn and being easy to run through. Now they just throw you into a heroic playlist.
- Bounties used to be more fun in Y1 and were a great way to quickly level up weapons and armor. Now they all give shit XP and aren't even worth doing. You're better off playing a strike or even patrol.
- Weapons in general feel bad compared to Y1. The amount of shitty useless perks was increased exponentially diluting the pool and made getting a good roll painful to get. A lot of the weapons inventories are bugged too so "carry more ammo" perks don't even work on them.
- Armor in general is in a worse state. It now takes forever to level up a new piece of armor and they split up some good blanket perks into a bunch of single ones. You now have to be lucky enough to obtain like 8 different weapon reload speed gauntlets and switch between them every time you change weapons. They also threw light onto your ghost and cosmetic item as an arbitrary way of limiting the speed at which you level up. Now everyone looks the same.
- PVP is a fucking mess. Sniper AA. SBMM. I won't even say any more.
- Trials is infinitely worse in almost every way. The loot is worse. The matchmaking is worse. Why am I trying harder than ever to get to the lighthouse to get some shitty weapon with shitty perks and no element on it? The armor was just all reskins from last year.
- Raid drops. Let's ignore the fact that they weapons suck and don't have elements, I'll get to that in a minute. They may be fixed now, but when the raid was at its most played, they were terrible. Moldering shards were a great idea, but implemented poorly. Why can I get a moldering shard drop with 20 moldering shards taken from me? That's insane.
- Elemental primaries being gone make the game feel like a chore to me. They were a great endgame reward and made the game more enjoyable to play. Luke Smith gave some bullshit reason about making secondaries/heavy more important but you can't switch weapons without losing ammo. If I did see a differently shielded enemy and wanted to switch to a different secondary or heavy, I wouldn't even be able to.
- Endgame loot in general took such a step down. Nobody uses the raid/trials weapons. They don't drop at max attack/light anymore. They don't have elements. Bleh.
I still enjoy Destiny because of the gameplay itself, and they did make some positive changes with TTK, but ultimately I miss Y1. Here's to hoping that Rise of Iron fixes some stuff.