Then I stand corrected on your MMO experience. I'm not sure how crafting, fishing, and an AH make the core gameplay goals different. And I'm still at a loss as to how you feel the gameplay goals in Destiny are more similar to Diablo. I thought that misconception was laid to rest when Bungie fixed the loot cave and stated that wasn't the intended way to gear up.
And Questing. Exploring. You can fish to help out your crafting. You can play the Auction house. You can craft to help out your guild. In Destiny? You shoot things so you can shoot other things. There is no other aspects. You play Destiny to shoot, loot, and PVP here and there(Which leads to more loot), you don't necessarily play WoW to Raid. If Destiny wasn't a loot game, then the Crucible wouldn't provide loot, just the fun of shooting other people.
Which is a big difference than being blasted by the playerbase for it constantly. For over a year.
People weren't constantly blasting the story. However when TDB came out, people criticized it. It got a bit better in HoW. TKK it's alot better.
I'm not sure how a grouping varied across weapon types and weapon tiers equates to "edge cases." At this point it feels like you're disagreeing simply to disagree. VoC and Fatebringer's strengths were due to multiple factors, including being Elemental Primaries. Suros itself wasn't changed, the entire weapon class was. Ice Breaker was still extremely strong and useful throughout the entire first year.
They're edge cases. And again, you're failing to realize what happened in that year. The TDB primary weapons, for the most part weren't worth writing home about. But when HoW came up and you could strengthen old weapons, the edge cases, VoC, Fatebringer came back not because those 'multiple factors', but because they were hands down the strongest weapons of their class. Suros was considered a joke after the assault rifle change. Ice Breaker is an exotic(Which you could level up) so it's not really comparable to Fatebringer or VoC. (Again, Exotics you could 'level up' thanks to the Shard system and eventually the Ascension system, so they didn't get phased out).
Weapons being made entirely useless by the next expansion has only happened once in Destiny and that's with the release of TTK. However that also involved an entire reworking of a lot of the core systems in the game. Weapons balance and Light Levels were redone entirely. But the basic tenant of gearing up for the next section remains. You can still gear up by running Vanguard Strikes then Heroic Vanguard Strikes or CoO and then the Raid. And people who are 310 light will be better prepared for the Heroic King's Fall Raid. That gear will leave them better prepared for the next content, etc.. etc..
And exotics will likely still continue to be usable until the next major release. I dunno what you're arguing anymore. But Destiny is primarily a loot game. If you want to get back to the original argument.
