TLDR: User account control slider set to never prevents the game from asking for permission to establish effective windows defender firewall rules resulting in 1 minute or longer to access the character selection from the main entry screen, plus slow or tempremental matchmaking. Modifying or creating unrestricted Windows Defender Firewall rules for destiny2.exe & destiny2launcher.exe enables the same process to now only take 5-10 seconds. I finally found the culprit. I have a higher spec PC with NVME m.2 storage and gigabit fibre connection over ethernet so I was pretty sure that hardware wasn't the issue. I opened all the ports on my gateway router for the PC etc. as per bungie's network troubleshooting guide, which I exhaustively followed to no avail. [How-to: For those interested] For context, Windows User Account Control (UAC) notifications are meant to be a safeguard so that programs can't modify your files and settings without user awareness & permission. They can be found through Start>Search>Change User Account Control Settings. I normally disable windows UAC pop-ups because I find them annoying, but from what I can deduce, that prevented the game from getting the permission it needed to create the Windows Defender Firewall rules that it requires to allow smooth access. I confirmed that the windows defender firewall rules weren't adequate so then modified & added some. (It can be accessed via Start>Search>Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security) I select "Inbound rules" on the left then scroll down the page and find Destiny 2.. there should be two of them.. one for TCP and UDP protocols. If they're there right click on each to go into properties, then select the advanced tab to confirm that "Edge traversal" is set to allow. If it's set to block change it to allow and click apply before closing that window. If they aren't there, go over to the actions tab to the right, select the "New Rule..." link, select program & click next. Click browse then go to where your game files are installed and select Destiny2.exe. (Typically it's installed to: %ProgramFiles% (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Destiny 2\destiny2.exe) Select it once you've found it, then click open. On the following screen, make sure "Allow the connection" option is checked then click next. The following screen asks when this rule applies.. I check all 3 options then click next. Give the rule a name such as "Destiny 2 Inbound" and select finish. Find your rule in the centre, then double check under properties>advanced that edge traversal is set to allow. This single rule covers all protocols so you'll only need to make one rule instead of the original 2. Repeat the process for Destiny2launcher.exe which will be in the same directory as Destiny2.exe. Then it should be done. I hope this is able to help others. Best of luck