I’ve been taking a break due to its dangerous combination of comfort and addictiveness, but this post echoes a lot of my experience with Destiny. Some quests are grindfests without a doubt, like the sword missions (or just the metagame of leveling your Light), but the base gameplay is sufficiently enjoyable that even most of the grinding can be fun for a short while. Especially if that “grinding” just means playing a bunch of Crucible.

I feel you on the story; the story of the Taken King is legitimately decent, but I wish they had limited my contact with the Taken before giving them a proper introduction.

One of my biggest frustrations, though, is the absurdness around some of the “hidden” Exotic weapon challenges —only making them available when something is a Daily is fine, but when it’s more or less a required weapon for high-level raids, it’s kind of a pain. (To be fair, finally getting Black Spindle was a great and rewarding experience, as annoying as the wait may have been.) The same goes for stuff like Sleeper Simulant, where it’s just a matter of luck and grinding. I much prefer the Dark Souls approach, of making something somewhat grindy but mostly just difficult. The Lighthouse rewards for Trials of Osiris, for instance, require more skill than grinding.

As both secrets and design go, though, I absolutely love the Dreadnaught and its environment. I hope that, going forward, Bungie puts the same attention to detail and hidden secrets in their new environments; despite the planets being larger, I found myself spending far more time on the Dreadnaught, nosing around every nook and cranny trying to ferret out its secrets. I just wish they’d decided not to scrap the moth/butterfly aliens from the early concept art, because those were gorgeous.