I tried making this short and [i]failed[/i]. Anyway, I've apparently played 1200+ hours of Destiny so my opinion may be relevant. Care to hear it? [url=http://destinytracker.com/destiny/overview/ps/Darches4]Legacy stats.[/url] In [u]Vanilla Destiny[/u], the game was unfinished, grindy, and kinda sucked. But... You didn't have to grind if you got the raid guns and exotics, because you already had the best guns. They all had [b]set perks[/b] and they were all reasonably obtainable from the raid. Most people who complained about never getting Ghorn had 2 normal and 1 hard completion, which means they played for about 3 hours. Not 10 months. Considering that you could raid 3 times a week it wasn't hard to get anything (except P. Foil). In [u]The Dark Below[/u], Bungie basically repeated Vanilla Destiny in the same good and bad ways. There was some new bullshit (exotic upgrades anyone?) but that's irrelevant. In [u]House Of Wolves[/u], [b]legendaries dropped all the time[/b] and you could [b]reforge [/b]them to your hearts content (if you had the resources). It was hard to get god rolls, but you could effectively circumvent RNG yet again. The Prison of Elders didn't work out too well but the Trials of Osiris AGAIN provided more loot with [b]set perks[/b]. [u]The Taken King[/u] balanced some exotics to be less game breaking, and overnerfed others to be useless, made the raid guns the worst in their class, and removed all set perks and reforging (even from Iron Banner guns!). The Taken King also removed Trials, Iron Banner, Nightfall, and strike rewards for all players who didn't upgrade, nerfed all Year 1 armor into the ground making all old content harder, and nerfed almost all the perks and guns to make everything suck. All the guns became less competitive in all modes to further incentivize you to upgrade. We KNOW Bungie was not doing balance work because Thorn was still OP, Strikers were still UP, and all the new subclasses were blatantly stronger (and crazy OP)! Think what you want but the fact is that The Taken King was a TERRIBLE "expansion" by any measure (content, balance, business tactics, etc.). [b]The Taken King is where the grind really began[/b], because your AR CAN'T compete unless it's a Doctrine with counterbalance, and there are no longer OP exotics like SUROS/Vex/Thorn to supplement it. [b]My experience:[/b] I wasn't here for Vanilla, but I heard all about it and know what it felt like. TDB wasn't much different, was it? TDB was "meh" for me, but was probably disgusting for Vanilla players. HoW was actually fun and rewarding!... But Crucible was still completely broken, overrun by Thorn + Felwinter Bladedancers. I had to make a hunter after just 2 weeks of playing in January because Striker was SO bad at the time. In year 1 Trials of Osiris I only went flawless 7 times, but in less than 4 months Bungie removed it and the rewards! I never got the Arc AR I wanted, and was pretty pissed. In year 2 Trials of Osiris I've been flawless ~48 times (PS3 stats gone, Bungie's fault) but never got the Black CB Doctrine I was looking for. In the last couple of months I've improved with 75%+ win rate and ~1.6-2.2 K/D, but my efforts have been fruitless. Also, lag and cheaters stopped more than a few runs. We almost lost (5-4) to scrubs (their stats were HORRIBLE) even recently because they lagged so hard they were almost invincible, and at least 3 or 4 times (in the last year) I fought actual lagswitchers, who were STILL CHEATING in Iron Banner months later, after being reported). Real lag switchers have green bars but are nearly invincible and will kill you with teleport + 4th Horseman. They may have terrible aim but they can stand still and ignore 95% of your bullets. Bungie is now removing Trials AGAIN, removing Iron Banner AGAIN, refusing to RETURN OLD CONTENT WE PAID FOR, and deactivating the companion app to ruin our experience and FORCE us to upgrade to next gen. I will NEVER upgrade to next gen if [i]this is what developers have become like[/i]. NO ONE brute forces my wallet. You should consider what [b]bad business[/b] you're supporting. All Bungie does is lie to it's players and steal money while cutting/removing content to incentivize more purchases. I'm not against DLC or microtransactions but clearly Bungie is not interested in letting you keep anything you buy. I heard they lied about the exclusives too! [b]... Where are you putting your dollars?[/b] Rant over. [spoiler]I'm always ready for the hail of [b]salt![/b][/spoiler] [quote]What are you going to play now?[/quote]Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, Kingdom Hearts HD I.5/II.5 ReMIX, Sm4sh, etc. [quote]What do you think of the current IB weapons?[/quote]Shotty is god-roll, an upgraded Found Verdict! In this case Full Auto provides a niche shotgun with high power AND RoF balanced for all PvP occasions and perfect for PvE. C. Theory isn't always the best! HC is great roll, especially for PvE. Not the best but worth picking up due to its very strong perk synergy.