This current RNG system in Destiny is horrible. It's punishing, and abusive to players. It's solely designed to keep players grinding and grinding, repeating the same activity over and over and over. It requires you to go out and manually rope 2-5 of your friends into the game to complete an event to get a chance at your reward. It's pushing players into longer periods of play, and slowly removing exit points. Think about it.... Raid rewards are lack luster (that's why i didn't bother), the infusion system only adds 80% of the difference in light (.8(B-A)+A=C if B>A), which in turn may require multiple 320 drops, which are extremely rare. During the HoW era, Xur sold Max level gear, nightfall dropped max gear, PoE provided currency to get max level gear, and provided an item to make any item max level. Back then only 7 pieces of gear counted towards your light. And the best gear dropped at 300-331-365 and that's it. All of them, via Etheric light could be 365. Now 10 pieces of gear count, and drop between 300-320... which means that there are 200 pieces of gear that can drop in the raid, 100 on hard mode. There is also a chance that you get 0 drops on an encounter.... This is just insane. When you factor in that you may need more than one 320 drop.... It gets even crazier. When you have people searching out a teammate, then spawning into a match against another team, and then both teams are racing to see who can commit suicide the fastest for some loot, you know your system is broken. Then to hopefully get a few good matches out of everyone... you offer one of your highest light level items (320 ghost), just to get people to play right..... you have a serious problem. I've been playing other games lately checking out some other RNG systems.. An RNG based loot system itself is not abusive or punishing. Let's look at some games that get it right. [b]Battlefield 4/Battlefield Hardline[/b] You probably didn't even think about this, battle-packs are RNG based. No one has said a peep, because...... you don't get duplicate items when it comes to thins you need (scopes, attachments etc) you usually only get duplicate XP boosts. That's because you want more than one of those i would imagine. Hard line does a few things different, but still the same jist. [b]Borderlands/ all entries[/b] Who can forget borderlands. This was the first FPS I played that really had an RPG feel to it, you build a character, complete with a diablo style loot system. Do you get crapped on? Sometimes... but the game is rewarding. I've never had to spend hours and hours and hours and hours looking for a set of gear to take me to the next level. The items in the environment scaled with me. If i wanted something really powerful, gain a few levels, kill a boss. I was usually likely to find a few replacements to my equipment. Plus this game specializes in "just in time RNG" So if your low on health, 'nades, and shotty ammo, the next few boxes you open up will likely have the things you need in it. [b]Diablo 3[/b] Want better loot? Turn the difficulty up a level. Did you get a pretty good weapon, but it's not quite good enough to replace the one you have? Stick a jewel in that thing, or enchant it to add a stat that you can use. Hell, see if the black smith can offer you something appropriate for your character level. I think of Diablo, Champions, Baulders Gate, and games in this category as the RNG loot god standard. It's rewarding in it's own right, consistent enough to not be frustrating or punishing, but the great rewards are just far enough apart to make getting that legendary weapon really feel like a victory. [b]Final Fantasy XIV[/b] This is a full blown MMO people. So it's structure is designed to make you [u]WANT[/u] to play. Where this game really gets it's RNG right is that there are very clear paths to the best items in the game. I mean... very clear. If you want the best armor possible, you do the high level activity you have access to. That's it. It doesn't grantee that the item your looking for will appear, but, it is in there, and when you get it it will be at it's highest level. What FFXIV does that's interesting is they don't limit how many runs you can make at an activity, just how much loot you can take from it. For instance.... if your a Tank, and your waiting on the raid boots, just pass on all of the drops until you get them. They didn't drop on that run? Queue up and do it again. There are 2 loot rolls that characters can make. Need or Greed. If it's for your character class you can roll Need, and it automatically beats any Greed roll. This is really nice if you're the only tank in your party. Just roll Need on a tank item, and no one can take it. Greed rolls are for items outside of your class, or just items you don't need. Or you can pass. There are a lot of checks and balances to make sure characters don't roll Need on items they don't actually need. (EDIT:Though i would elaborate on these balances, There is a class of gear you can get from dungeons called Atheral Gear, you can greed it if you want, but you can't sell Atheral gear in the market, so you may not want it cluttering up your inventory, that's just one example) Here is what I propose for the future of Destiny. We are too far into this mess in Destiny 1 to correct it, so lets look towards Destiny 2. Regular set up Common, uncommon, rare, intruducing (light infused), legendary, exotic, and introducing Epic (class specific) Most things will stay the same, but.. Light Infused (something) gear drops from strikes. These provide a significant benefit to players in PvE activities, and also makes the strikes re-playable. This gear should be appropriate to the level of the activity, [u]but[/u] should be powerful enough to carry you through a few levels, in most MMOs an item like this would almost be powerful enough to get you though the story quests till next strike. I would say a few hours short. So there is an incentive to grind that strike out 5-6 times before moving to the next part of the story. That should also net you the gear you need. (EDIT HERE: Light infused gear should be the only gear that drops in a strike, period) Raids should not be end game only. Slap a good 6 man activity in the middle of the game. This is where your first Legendary drops should happen, and they should be powerful, very powerful. If you can get the entire armor set from this activity, it should carry you for a while, and the legendary weapons should last quite a while as well, but not as long as the armor. more story stuff strike story strike stirke again (here is a good spot for optional strikes, but make sure they are above the players current ability, this will drive them to become more powerful to tackle this stuff) story story Now go do higher level optional strikes Raid Optional very high level raid (you'll want your maxed out epic armor weapon set here) (insert DLC1 here) Exotic weapons will remain unique, and will always almost be the most powerful weapons in the game. Epic weapons/armor will be class specific. (though many may not agree with this) Primary weapons ( You can choose 1, every type of primary will be offered, I don't want players forced into a play style when it comes to primaries) Secondary (there are no choices, this is where the design of your chosen class comes into play) Heavy (same here) Same with armor. You'll have to complete many many tasks to bring the weapons to their full potential, it will take a long time. It's supposed to, but these activities should be fun to complete, shouldn't always require teammates, and can be done mostly solo. With the armor, you'll receive it at the highest level available at the time. Automatically, no BS. Perhaps once you have everything done..... there may be a way to get the other primaries.... (it'll be a secret) With each DLC there will be an extension of the Epic weapon/armor quest. These weapons will be more powerful than exotics, always, and forever. These primaries will be elemental, the only ones in the game. Period. The best loot in the game, needs a clear path. Currently best loot is available in a few events, and you never know which one is going to give you that elusive 320. Plus all of these events don't offer matchmaking, which nearly requires you to spend as much time out of the game looking to people, as you'll spend in the game being disappointed by the abusive loot system. I know what you're thinking. Why are you here, just leave, blah blah blah.... I just want this game to be fun again. I'm not playing because I'm not having fun. None of my friends play anymore, because they aren't having fun. Here's a few videos..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GArkyxP8-n0 Watch them and think....