Neither. Basically what Luke mentioned in the post about feeling like it's a checklist/chore. It's more beneficial to my progression to play content I don't enjoy which doesn't really encourage me to play at all.
And also what you mentioned about some powerful gear drops being better than others. That's really dumb. They need a better way to highlight that. I haven't played since Season of the Drifter so ignore me if this has been resolved since.
To me Destiny 2 is really unrewarding to play. The eververse/bright engrams etc isn't a fun way to get cosmetic gear. I liked running raids to get a rare speeder in D1, but in D2 the coolest speeders just drop for you randomly. That's not a rewarding loop.
And then the best path for gear progression is playing all the different activities. A lot of which are bad. It's not as bad now but doing Dreaming city quests for Powerful gear was the low point in Destiny 2 for me. None of that was fun. That's where I fell off hard and I haven't been able to get hooked since.
Much of that is fair, IMO.
Though I will say:
- The best looking gear isn't in Eververse at all; most of it is in the Raids, Menagerie, and The Reckoning. Give those sets a look if you haven't lately. Eververse gear is pretty trash in comparison. Also, Y1 Trials gear >>> *
- Eververse shaders are just a couple of simple (5-10 minute?) Eververse bounties away from being able to buy them. Even then you probably won't use many of them because most available in the open world, from factions, and from raids are easily better. There are plenty of shaders and vehicles locked behind open world grinding and RNG. Dreaming City's ghost, ship, and sparrow are among the best looking in the game and will certainly provide you the sense of accomplishment you're looking for if that's all this is about. Same is true of Gambit, Crucible, and Vanguard-exclusive shaders, ghosts, sparrows, ships, emotes, and so on. Further, next season you'll be able to earn Eververse currency while playing just like any other currency, allowing you to actually choose your rewards after working hard grinding for the mats needed to buy them. I've never felt like I didn't earn something if I played the game enough to unlock it. YMMV.
- It sounds like they plan to remove some of the more unfun activities from power level progression (hi, Heroic Story Missions). At the end of the day, though, if Strikes, Nightfalls, PvP, raids, Gambit, and weekly planetary activities aren't enjoyable to you, D2 isn't the game for you now or in the future. That's just the truth of the matter. Those activities combine for probably 25 powerful engrams per week. I have no expectation that they will be radically changing the approach to light leveling. Personally I like it as it is, because it gives me a bit of purpose within the game. Some clear goals and things I can check off that demonstrably offer me progress. But I can understand wanting something more fluid that you can use to level up while doing the one or two things you enjoy. Just don't expect them to embrace that idea. They want people engaging all of their content.
If none of that makes you feel better, you can safely move onto other games. Because the above is probably as good as it's going to get. More unnecessary cosmetics will be for sale in Eververse and they will look cool. They'll have to, as they will be helping keep Bungie afloat. But there's certainly no reason to believe all the cool stuff will be locked behind the store. That wasn't true in Y1 (Trials, Escalation Protocol, and Raid Armor > Eververse), Y2 (Gambit Prime, Black Armory, Menagerie, Crown of Sorrows armor > Eververse), and there's no reason to assume that pattern won't hold in Y3. But if you demand to look different -- to peacock more -- well, Eververse is there for you to do so. Power progression won't be getting any sort of massive overhaul that you seem to need to find motivation to play.
It's okay if it's not for you now or anymore. Happens.
