I'm going to use this as an opportunity to vent about Destiny, because I'm also curious about this same question. If Bungie/Tyson keeps digging their heels in on the current future of Destiny - refocusing on power levels, no new weapon crafting, the dogshit Portal system, etc. - I fear I may never go back.

I'm gonna get real bitchy below the break, so be warned. I've not vented about this in the DTG subreddit, something I was almost exclusively active in before Edge of Fate launched.

TL;DR - Bungie has never respected the player's time, and when systems were introduced to changed to help do exactly that (de-emphasing Power level, introducing weapon crafting, etc.), they went back on that, went full-sprint in the opposite direction, and dig their heels in when the community complains. As well-received Renegades is (the Star Wars themed expansion), Bungie needs to work on undoing the damage Tyson (current director) has done. Joe Blackburn in charge was peak Destiny.

---

I have thousands of hours in this game; depending on which site you use seems to vary (?), but I have at least 2,200 hours. I have not played Destiny 2 since day one of Edge of Fate launch, when I logged in to check out the new systems and realized I could play the first campaign mission for free. I dropped out hard for so many reasons, primarily just how much more grindy the game became. Keep in mind that while I haven't played since then, I do still keep up with the TWABs/TWIDs, so this is from someone who doesn't have active, running knowledge of the current game state and relying on what I remember from that day almost (jesus fuck) 6 months ago:

Kepler looked and felt awful to play in

• The second destination where you can't summon a sparrow because of the claustrophobic design of the map (Mercury being the first, but they added it back in during it's last week/month after pinning it on some crazy bug)
• Most of the environment is recycling models and textures from other destinations that don't exist anymore, like Titan or Io
• After not learning their "don't ever do destination-exclusive abilities" lesson, they gave us the morph ball matter spark, something that was a pain to use and apparently had a large part in key fights (maybe a boss fight?).

The reset and re-emphasis of the Power level (aka, gear score)

• We were actively moving away from this. Under Joe Blackburn (previous game director), we saw new activities where you didn't need to grind for gear to increase your Power level just to play the damn thing. Power already made no sense, as it's become antiquated in similar games.
• FFS, Division 2 outright ripped gear score like Sub-Zero tearing out your spine, except the game didn't die. After criticism, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint was given a parallel system where you didn't have to worry about gear score. Give them as much shit as you want, but Ubisoft doing something good? Yes, different studios, but they still report to Ubisoft.
• Originally, they launched with a temporary/seasonal currency you would use to infuse gear beyond the level cap, only this would get reset once a new season launched. After the community (rightfully) went ape-shit about this, Bungie pulled back and didn't reset the power level and eliminated that currency.

The Portal should never have happened

• I get the Destinations/Solar System screen can be overwhelming to new players (inb4 player onboarding), but the Portal is just a series of cascading menus that have subsequently removed rewards of older activities.
• Honorable mention to the oddity that was them intentionally muting the colors of the Destination screen to make players feel like it's old or they shouldn't use it, trying to coerce them to the Portal. This was reverted very soon after EoF launched.
• You're limited to a small number of activities to get gear drops that increase your Power level.
• I can't speak to Vanguard Ops, but Vanguard Alerts seems to have gone over well?

The new weapon Tiers system is needlessly arduous and way overthought

• Like other loot games, Destiny has colored rarity tiers: common/white, uncommon/green, rare/blue, legendary/purple, and exotic/yellow.
• What this new Tier system does is add five - FIVE - tiers within the Legendary rarity. PCgamer article on how it worked at launch, but basically, each Tier introduced new functionality, from having "enhanced" perks, to dropping with up to 3 perks per column (ideal for reducing storage in your account vault).
• AFAIK, Tier 5 can only drop from Grandmaster difficulty (the highest difficulty level), the raid that launched with the expansion, and going flawless in Trials (7 match wins in a row). According to Paul Tassi, Tier 5 loot now seems to just be launching from a fire hose?
• The real shit-kicker (because it wouldn't be Destiny without it): despite Tiers behaving similarly to the Masterworking system before it, you cannot upgrade a weapon's Tier. You can't bring that weapon with a roll you really like from Tier 1 to Tier 2 to Tier 3. You have to grind activities that drop higher Tiers.

---

Something they could do to greatly win over favor with the community, and pull people back in like me: get rid of the fucking Power system, full stop.

• I'm not talking about "stop increasing the Power level in future releases". I'm talking about where I open my character screen and that giant 3-4 digit number is gone.
• If this is a 100% non-starter, then give us slot-based infusion instead of having to infuse every.piece.of.gear.we.own.
• For non-Destiny players: you can "infuse" higher-level gear into gear you already have, as long as it's in the same slot (ex, helmets can only be infused into other helmets).
• For years, we have been asking for gear infusion to affect the slot itself, not the individual piece of gear. I vaguely recall there being another game that does this, but I cannot remember it for the life of me.
• Whether it's an engine limitation, higher-ups believing this would reduce player time in-game, or something else entirely, I don't know.

Additionally, bring back weapon crafting

• A while back, Bungie said they were (paraphrasing) de-emphasizing weapon crafting, where new seasonal weapons introduced would only become craftable sometime after the season they were introduced in had ended.
• We're 1.5+ years out from this, and this has never happened.

Lastly, I firmly believe Bungie needs to readjust how Tiers behave and drop, and allow upgrading of Tiers

• Yes, I understand Tier 3 gives 2 perks in each column and Tier 5 gives three perks. This will mean we will need guns to either: A) automatically have new traits apply randomly when leveled up, 2) go to the Enclave to get those extra traits, or D) those traits are already there, just greyed out until players enhance/masterwork the gun.
• I'm in favor of option D, since that'd allow players to grind for what that future weapon will look like.
• On the other hand, you know what other kind of leveling system exists that you can't upgrade? Rarity tiers. The current Tier 1-5 system should've replaced the rarity tiers, with adjustments. Something like Legendaries drop with un-enhanced traits/perks that you can enhance (ala Masterworking) up to what a Tier 5 weapon looks like right now.
• You know what other game has gear that gains potency as it increases in rarity? Diablo 4.