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How is the way bungie is doing with gear not the same as say WOW? I distinctly remember when new raids or expansions came out in WOW all your old gear was instantly out dated, I remember when I got the two best weapons for a warlock when WOTLK came out and they released ulduar not long after I did it. I understand people don't like the leveling up of guns but having your gear be useless is quite common for mmo's when expansions release.

Once a year at most ...not 3 months after the game launched.

I don't personally have a big issue with it though.

 

[border]

This is a really poor defense for adding more artifical layers of grinding and resetting progression on exotics.

It's not a defense. If you don't want to have to level up and go through new forms of character progression when new content arrives then this is not the game for you. If you want your currently acquired weapons to remain the best in the game for the entire life of the game, then Destiny is not for you. That's kinda just how it is.

If alternatively getting new gear and new weapons is an exciting prospect for you, then have fun playing.

If the level cap isn't static the content shouldn't be either.

The level content is raised precisely because the content is not static. They added a new raid, and therefore the cap has been raised.

 

[boofa]

Xur has had multiple helmets for sale, this is not a valid argument. Bungie deserve a lot, but you could be 30 if a helmet is all you need.

As for weapons, some of the vendor weapons are excellent.

I've been playing since launch. My first and main is a warlock. If Xur has sold Warlock helms, it was before I had time/gear capable of farming coins and I do not have one. All I have are sunbreakers and voidfang. I have raid boots and arms, no helm or chest. This is only on my Warlock. I only have boots on my Titan and only got them last night. I play way more than most of the people I know and have done the raid several times but RNGesus hates me and keeps giving me Found Verdict and shards/energy. I have 1 VoC which will be garbage next week and enough chatterwhite to fill my vault if I'd kept it all. You can't say "you could be 30 if you wanted" and be serious.

 

[njean777]

I'm just going to copy/paste a comment I saw on Reddit:

Oh I see, well shit. I still enjoy destiny, but yeah I can see why people are pissed. Bungie needs to learn how to communicate that is for sure. I am still puzzled why there isn't matchmaking for the raid at this point.

 

[Izuna]

They've shown off way more stuff than that. Currently there are at least 5 exotic weapons and 9 exotic armors that are known. Plus a full set of raid gear for every class. Plus this stuff....

WHAT

Raid gear != exotics

Also I forgot to post weapons, but you said 5 weapon exotics.

Not enough content for £20, so let's make all other exotics "new"

 

[benicillin]

Oh I see, well shit. I still enjoy destiny, but yeah I can see why people are pissed. Bungie needs to learn how to communicate that is for sure. I am still puzzled why there isn't matchmaking for the raid at this point.

Because matchmaking for the raid would be terrible. They don't plan on including it. That said, they are exploring an in-game LFG tool, which I think is a decent compromise.

 

[MastorofPuppetz]

It's not a defense. If you don't want to have to level up and go through new forms of character progression when new content arrives then this is not the game for you. If you want your currently acquired weapons to remain the best in the game for the entire life of the game, then Destiny is not for you. That's kinda just how it is.

If alternatively getting new gear and new weapons is an exciting prospect for you, then have fun playing.



The level content is raised precisely because the content is not static. They added a new raid, and therefore the cap has been raised.

That's Silly it needs more then 1 raid and a strike or too.... Come on.

 

[cilonen]

TBH who is really going to waste their Exotic slot on boots?

 

[Victrix]

TBH who is really going to waste their Exotic slot on boots?

People who ran the raid for two months and never got boots?

 

[squidhands]

Sounds like they should upgrade with the perks active, and just allow you to upgrade the damage further. Or give new perks perhaps, on top of the already active old ones?

If Bungie were able to update the final set of damage upgrade nodes so that Ascendant Energy wasn't needed, it seems that upgraded damage values could be applied as well. Perhaps that's not how it works but, from an outsider point of view, it certainly seems like the better option. I'd totally be okay with re-setting the final damage values as long as I got to keep the Exotic perks that it took me so long to get to.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Real MMOs have a gear reset every real expansion. For most games this is roughly every 1.5 to 2 years. WoW has been releasing an expansion roughly every 2 years.

The word expansion, when used correctly in the terms of an MMO, is an enormous amount of content. Most real MMOs release real expansions which have the equivalent amount of content to the whole base game.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable. Existing players will have new goals to achieve and a metric asston of new content to achieve it in. Returning or new players will have a smaller hurdle to clear to catch up with existing players. This paradigm is extremely well-understood and Blizzard in particular have turned the WoW expansion into a perpetual resub machine that regularly brings back millions of players every expansion release.

Destiny's glorified DLC content "The Dark Below" is not a real expansion. It barely has enough content to qualify as a Call of Duty map pack. Bungie calling it an expansion doesn't make it one by any reasonable measure of expansion content. The fact that they are doing a gear reset 3 months into the game's lifespan is fucking hilarious, stupid, and also quite sad. They literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and they are literally doing their best to run their new franchise straight into the ground as fast and as hard as they can. Destiny is going worse than Diablo III did at the launch period and that's saying a lot.

Watching Bungie trainwrecking in slow motion is quite fascinating when you realize there has to be SOMEBODY at Bungie who knows SOMEBODY at Blizzard that he could call and ask them how games like this are designed and operated. Because this is really not how you do it Bungie. It really, really isn't.

 

[dimasok]

I've been playing since launch. My first and main is a warlock. If Xur has sold Warlock helms, it was before I had time/gear capable of farming coins and I do not have one. All I have are sunbreakers and voidfang. I have raid boots and arms, no helm or chest. This is only on my Warlock. I only have boots on my Titan and only got them last night. I play way more than most of the people I know and have done the raid several times but RNGesus hates me and keeps giving me Found Verdict and shards/energy. I have 1 VoC which will be garbage next week and enough chatterwhite to fill my vault if I'd kept it all. You can't say "you could be 30 if you wanted" and be serious.

+1

Here's a semi-solution. If you insist on giving people who run raids garbage drops, then at least don't lock the raid for a week (both normal and hard) so that they could continue until they get something worthwhile. Giving garbage drops and then locking the content for a week (for more garbage drops) is not only disrespectful to players who take their time doing the raid but is the same as shitting on their heads and laughing from behind closed doors!

 

[cilonen]

People who ran the raid for two months and never got boots?

Good point, well made. It just feels like it's not worth it though given some of the awesome helmet and chest piece perks that are out there.

 

[MisterAnderson]

What the fuck? They didn't tell us this shit when they introduced Exotic Shards to begin with? I spent 3 Shards maxing out my "original" exotics since the new mechanic went live. Looks like they were completely wasted, since I could have just saved them to "reset/upgrade" the gun since there's zero return on investment on the original used shard.

What the fuck are they thinking?

 

[benicillin]

+1

Here's a semi-solution. If you insist on giving people who run raids garbage drops, then at least don't lock the raid for a week (both normal and hard) so that they could continue until they get something worthwhile. Giving garbage drops and then locking the content for a week (for more garbage drops) is not only disrespectful to players who take their time doing the raid but is the same as shitting on their heads and laughing from behind closed doors!

To be fair, they are addressing that problem in the new raid where it will see what dropped for you last and make sure you're more likely to get stuff that is "fun" or that you don't have, as opposed to radiant materials and crap.

 

[Shrennin]

This right here is a big glaring aspect of sloppy game design.

If they want us to work really hard to upgrade existing exotics, fine, whatever. It sucks. But making it so that a fully leveled exotic matters just as little as an unleveled exotic is totally ridiculous and garbage.

There's also the unsettling idea that every time higher level content is created and the current exotics need upgraded trees that we'll all just be in this situation again where it's a never-ending cycle of leveling the same exotics over and over again just to keep them current.

 

[border]

Once a year at most ...not 3 months after the game launched.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable.

The level of gear in World of Warcraft increases every time a new raid is released, not every expansion. At least through WotLK, each WoW expansion has contained at least 3-4 tiers of raid gear doled out over a two year period. What's going on now is, for the most part, a new raid tier of items and not a total "gear reset".

 

[cilonen]

Real MMOs have a gear reset every real expansion. For most games this is roughly every 1.5 to 2 years. WoW has been releasing an expansion roughly every 2 years.

The word expansion, when used correctly in the terms of an MMO, is an enormous amount of content. Most real MMOs release real expansions which have the equivalent amount of content to the whole base game.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable. Existing players will have new goals to achieve and a metric asston of new content to achieve it in. Returning or new players will have a smaller hurdle to clear to catch up with existing players. This paradigm is extremely well-understood and Blizzard in particular have turned the WoW expansion into a perpetual resub machine that regularly brings back millions of players every expansion release.

Destiny's glorified DLC content "The Dark Below" is not a real expansion. It barely has enough content to qualify as a Call of Duty map pack. Bungie calling it an expansion doesn't make it one by any reasonable measure of expansion content. The fact that they are doing a gear reset 3 months into the game's lifespan is fucking hilarious, stupid, and also quite sad. They literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and they are literally doing their best to run their new franchise straight into the ground as fast and as hard as they can. Destiny is going worse than Diablo III did at the launch period and that's saying a lot.

Watching Bungie trainwrecking in slow motion is quite fascinating when you realize there has to be SOMEBODY at Bungie who knows SOMEBODY at Blizzard that he could call and ask them how games like this are designed and operated. Because this is really not how you do it Bungie. It really, really isn't.

Agree.

I need to see at least one new planet before I consider anything an 'expansion' to Destiny.

 

[dimasok]

To be fair, they are addressing that problem in the new raid where it will see what dropped for you last and make sure you're more likely to get stuff that is "fun" or that you don't have, as opposed to radiant materials and crap.

I read about that and I take it with a grain of salt. Similar to how they promised to improve Rahul (which they didn't as I didn't notice any changes).

What makes you think they won't just randomly consider this or that drop or ascendant crap as "good" and make you continue raiding while getting more turd and then making you wait for another week for the next drop of turd?

If they want to regain my faith even a little bit, they need to make this knowledge public: send a diagram so everyone knows the likelihood of getting item x or item y after continuing to get item z. We need to know how long we need to grind after getting garbage loot. We need to know what they consider to be good and what not and we need to know at what point we stand.

Blindly relying on Bungie has been nothing but disappointment.

 

[border]

Also I forgot to post weapons, but you said 5 weapon exotics.

There's 5 exotic weapons currently revealed. You stated it as though that's all there is. C'mon, they're going to make at least an exotic for every weapon type and one armor for each slot on every class.

 

[Omegasquash]

And how am I wrong? There will be two weapons that people can own. An exotic and an exotic 2.0. You could have both of them in your inventory if you wanted. They are two separate weapons. You are handing in a weapon that you were probably happy to finally get via RNG or a Exotic bounty for a guaranteed new exotic weapon with better stats.

Bungie doesn't really owe you anything. You looted a level 30 weapon and have used that level 30 weapon for your own enjoyment and benefit for months. I think what Bungie did is a decent compromise between keeping all exotics at 30 and releasing 2.0 versions that replace the 1.0 versions in the loot table. I'd much rather trade in my MIDI rather than waiting for the better version to drop.

Lol man that's not even the way Bungie described it. They can upgrade what they've got. Doesn't seem right that someone else can do the same quest and get something better than what I did when the goal is explicit (not rolled).

And who said Bungie owes me anything? All I'm saying is that it'll be a bitch for those of us that don't have the time to roll and get into a raid like others do, and it would've been pretty cool if they offered a pathway to bring it up that allowed me to put in some extra effort to get better results, without removing any progress that I've made. Since other players won't ever have to put in the extra work.

 

[Bizazedo]

I've been playing since launch. My first and main is a warlock. If Xur has sold Warlock helms, it was before I had time/gear capable of farming coins and I do not have one. All I have are sunbreakers and voidfang. I have raid boots and arms, no helm or chest. This is only on my Warlock. I only have boots on my Titan and only got them last night. I play way more than most of the people I know and have done the raid several times but RNGesus hates me and keeps giving me Found Verdict and shards/energy. I have 1 VoC which will be garbage next week and enough chatterwhite to fill my vault if I'd kept it all. You can't say "you could be 30 if you wanted" and be serious.

The post I was responding to said "Do you expect me to continue just grinding VoG for a helmet?"

I was, narrowly, responding to just that aspect of it. Xur WILL have a helmet eventually, just as he will have a chest eventually.

Your situation is different. Xur WILL be able to replace one bad instance of RNG (where you miss only one slot over..and over...and over). Two, like you, missing chest *and* head? That's an issue and sucks.

But it's not what I referring to.


****

As I said in the OT thread, the re-leveling of Exotics sucks, yes. Their communication should've told us everything before we started burning Exotic Shards or, hell, that they were even going to do this (I dismantled a fourth Last Word a day before the patch).

It doesn't bother me TOO much since they should add something requiring effort to advance current exotics to the future power level. I actually think the more insulting thing is adding commendation requirements to the rep vendors.

It's essentially, "Hey you guys were going to be pissed when we lowered Iron Banner back to zero? Here, we'll do it a DIFFERENT WAY....but essentially achieve the same goal of making sure overachievers achieve nothing!"

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The level of gear in World of Warcraft increases every time a new raid is released, not every expansion. At least through WotLK, each WoW expansion has contained at least 3-4 tiers of raid gear doled out over a two year period. What's going on now is, for the most part, a new raid tier of items and not a total "gear reset".

Making you restart your fully upgraded Exotics from the base non-upgraded state isn't considered a stealth gear reset?

Last I checked, when a new raid tier is released in WoW or any other similar type of MMO, you keep your existing raid gear as is and upgrade it by doing the new raid to get the new raid gear. Your old raid gear doesn't suddenly vanish and require you to re-grind it out before you can get the power of the new raid gear.

This is a gear reset and it's not even a very clever one. The only difference is they are apparently too lazy to create full sets of new gear every DLC pack, so they just make you re-grind your old gear to get the upgraded stats.

 

[KMS]

If you wanted a comparable wow like expansion to destiny in it's limited content sort of way you would need two things. A new planet and most importantly of all a true gear reset. They should've had 5 new light levels with the following.

Green armor that puts you at level 30 with slightly higher attributes than 30 raid gear. That when leveled would put you to 31.

Blues that start at 32 and take you to 33.

Purples that go from 33 to 34.

Raid gear needed to hit 35.

The problem is there is no gear reset. This is more like a new season in wow with higher item level gear than an expansion let alone a gear reset.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Real MMOs have a gear reset every real expansion. For most games this is roughly every 1.5 to 2 years. WoW has been releasing an expansion roughly every 2 years.

The word expansion, when used correctly in the terms of an MMO, is an enormous amount of content. Most real MMOs release real expansions which have the equivalent amount of content to the whole base game.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable. Existing players will have new goals to achieve and a metric asston of new content to achieve it in. Returning or new players will have a smaller hurdle to clear to catch up with existing players. This paradigm is extremely well-understood and Blizzard in particular have turned the WoW expansion into a perpetual resub machine that regularly brings back millions of players every expansion release.

Destiny's glorified DLC content "The Dark Below" is not a real expansion. It barely has enough content to qualify as a Call of Duty map pack. Bungie calling it an expansion doesn't make it one by any reasonable measure of expansion content. The fact that they are doing a gear reset 3 months into the game's lifespan is fucking hilarious, stupid, and also quite sad. They literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and they are literally doing their best to run their new franchise straight into the ground as fast and as hard as they can. Destiny is going worse than Diablo III did at the launch period and that's saying a lot.

Watching Bungie trainwrecking in slow motion is quite fascinating when you realize there has to be SOMEBODY at Bungie who knows SOMEBODY at Blizzard that he could call and ask them how games like this are designed and operated. Because this is really not how you do it Bungie. It really, really isn't.

I agree but Destiny is so fucking small that you can't even fault Bungie. Well ofcourse they're the ones who created the game, but at its current state you can't bring a more merciful progression and RNG because those 20 exotics would've been eaten up after a mere week of playing. The Gear reset is a trick to ensure a few month grind. If it were just a few nodes, those 20 weapons would be maxed in no time yet again. Leaving players without a goal for a huge fucking time which is the one bullet they try to dodge from launch onward. Thats why they quickly addressed everything that sped up progression, yet other things such as fixing obvious bugs seemed to be on the back burner for months. They know what they have, and they know they're fucking around to halt quick progression (just now care packages from PE's have been omitted, another sneaky one). WoW is a huge persistent game world, with a far bigger loot table and customization. There are many, many drops which ensures Blizzard doesn't need to resort to such retarded moves.

But just... where is the Destiny that was promised? Where is 'you can go anywhere' and then a myriad of planets showing up in the early footage?

What has been released seems to be just the groundwork, which still had to be filled up with life and real settings but the publisher didn't give them the time for. The story probably didn't go anywhere either since it needs a living world, so it was chopped out and put into cards.

The only thing thats finished about this game is the gameplay. That was thrown in and they went with it. And the gameplay + weapons are actually very good. Thats what keeps the game relevant. I still play Destiny (after a few weeks of inactivity), but I do think its one of the biggest frauds in gaming also. Its just so obvious this is a shell of its original vision.

Dark Below uses the same planet, same textures and same enemies. Its a pathetic expansion in every sense of the word. I am not going to buy it. I plan on maxing the current exotics to 300. Besides, that Necrochasm looks like a piece of shit anyway.

 

[KingV]

There's 5 exotic weapons currently revealed. You stated it as though that's all there is. C'mon, they're going to make at least an exotic for every weapon type and one armor for each slot on every class.

I actually kind of doubt that. They need to triple the amount of exotics and legendaries, but I don't see it happening this DLC.

 

[Snicky]

When discussing Destiny's issues, we can talk about all the issues of content, re-upgrading weapons, bugs etc.. For me, I think what this really boils down to is that the loot treadmill reset is far too short for the comfort of most people. I am not bothered so much by the grind, but that the value I derive from it evaporates so quickly.

This comes from someone who has played WoW and other MMOs, Diablos, etc for 10+ years. I love loot games, but want a longer period of payoff from my work.

 

[dimasok]

When discussing Destiny's issues, we can talk about all the issues of content, re-upgrading weapons, bugs etc.. For me, I think what this really boils down to is that the loot treadmill reset is far too short for the comfort of most people. I am not bothered so much by the grind, but that the value I derive from it evaporates so quickly.

This comes from someone who has played WoW and other MMOs, Diablos, etc for 10+ years. I love loot games, but want a longer period of payoff from my work.

I think that's one of the main reasons why they lock the raids every week and give you crap drops - they need to pad it out but that ends up backfiring of course because not only do I get to do the same raid endlessly because there is nothing else to do but I also get crap drops because if they kept giving good drops, people would stop raiding entirely.

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. It shipped too early and too raw and I don't think they'll ever catch up.

 

[border]

Making you restart your fully upgraded Exotics from the base non-upgraded state isn't considered a stealth gear reset?

Last I checked, when a new raid tier is released in WoW or any other similar type of MMO, you keep your existing raid gear as is and upgrade it by doing the new raid to get the new raid gear. Your old raid gear doesn't suddenly vanish and require you to re-grind it out before you can get the power of the new raid gear.

This is a gear reset and it's not even a very clever one. The only difference is they are apparently too lazy to create full sets of new gear every DLC pack, so they just make you re-grind your old gear to get the upgraded stats.

You seem to not understand how this works at all.

Old exotics do not "disappear". No one is forcing you re-level your upgraded weapon. You can keep it at previous maximum level (300) if you want. If you trade in your old weapon for a new version, that new version starts Level 300 and then you upgrade it all the way to Level 331. World of Warcraft never gave players this option at all. You dumped your old gear for new gear and that was it......or you used your old gear until you got new stuff, which is EXACTLY what you can do in Destiny.

If you want to keep your old Exotics and not go through a new upgrade cycle, they will continue to be useful and relevant until January when Crota's End Hardmode is released.

Bungie has also specifically said that the upgrade weapons will be more powerful out of the gate. You are not "resetting" the gear's progression, you are continuing from where you maxed out the last time.

It's patently better gear! DeeJ will address this, but I don't think people are going to get an Ice Breaker drop and struggle with whether or not they want to upgrade, or feel like the time needed to bring it up to full power is exhausting or un-fun. Fact is, without any upgrades, it should be more powerful straight out of the gate.

But I'm sure you'll sound off it it doesn't feel awesome, and you should!

 

[KingV]

If you wanted a comparable wow like expansion to destiny in it's limited content sort of way you would need two things. A new planet and most importantly of all a true gear reset. They should've had 5 new light levels with the following.

Green armor that puts you at level 30 with slightly higher attributes than 30 raid gear. That when leveled would put you to 31.

Blues that start at 32 and take you to 33.

Purples that go from 33 to 34.

Raid gear needed to hit 35.

The problem is there is no gear reset. This is more like a new season in wow with higher item level gear than an expansion let alone a gear reset.

This actually would've been ok. Even if it was just Greens to 26, Blues to 28/29, new legedaries/exotics/etc to get you past that.


Bungie doesn't seem to understand that this game would actually be a better game if the grind was less punishing. Even if it means you can get to 30 in 40 hours with 5 different exotics.

People might not play for 400 hours, and they might blast through the expansion content in 6-10, but they would have a better impression of the game, and be more excited to come back as more content comes in. I would rather have a blast at a breakthrough pace for a week or two every 3-4 months than be expected to put in 100 hours just to get to the next choke point.

 

[Omegasquash]

I've been playing since launch. My first and main is a warlock. If Xur has sold Warlock helms, it was before I had time/gear capable of farming coins and I do not have one. All I have are sunbreakers and voidfang. I have raid boots and arms, no helm or chest. This is only on my Warlock. I only have boots on my Titan and only got them last night. I play way more than most of the people I know and have done the raid several times but RNGesus hates me and keeps giving me Found Verdict and shards/energy. I have 1 VoC which will be garbage next week and enough chatterwhite to fill my vault if I'd kept it all. You can't say "you could be 30 if you wanted" and be serious.

Fucking Chatterwhite. Jesus.

 

[Snicky]

I think that's one of the main reasons why they lock the raids every week and give you crap drops - they need to pad it out but that ends up backfiring of course because not only do I get to do the same raid endlessly because there is nothing else to do but I also get crap drops because if they kept giving good drops, people would stop raiding entirely.

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. It shipped too early and too raw and I don't think they'll ever catch up.

I agree, I think the exorbitant number of currencies also fall in line with this notion. I look forward to Destiny 2, will probably check out the Crota's End but I do not think I will want to go through this again with House of Wolves. Who knows though, there is a chance that Bungie will turn things around, however I feel less certain about that with each update.

Based on these updates, I am glad I did not sink more time into the game after getting a couple characters to 29/30 and getting the weapons I wanted expecting to get further ahead for the expansion. It's a strange scenario where I feel they want me to play regularly and for a good number of hours, but not too much.

 

[Hispanic! At the Disco]

People who ran the raid for two months and never got boots?

Ah, sounds like me. Thankfully i grinded Iron Banner. Sadly, i dont like playing crucible :/

 

[Lalalandia]

You seem to not understand how this works at all.

No one is making you re-level your upgraded weapon. You can keep it at previous maximum level (300) if you want. If you trade in your old weapon for a new version, you start at Level 300 and then upgrade it all the way to Level 331. World of Warcraft never gave players this option at all. You dumped your old gear for new gear and that was it.

If you want to keep your old Exotics and not go through a new upgrade cycle, they will continue to be useful and relevant until January when Crota's End Hardmode is released.

Bungie has also specifically said that the upgrade weapons will be more powerful out of the gate. You are not "resetting" the gear's progression, you are continuing from where you maxed out the last time.

302 ATK is 'more powerful out of the gate', until they clarify what they mean by reset it is entirely reasonable to assume that you are getting a Vanilla 2.0 version of the fully upgraded weapon you had before. The 'You don't have to upgrade' argument is ultimately hollow because who wants underpowered weapons, there is this weird train of thought I keep encountering that claims max ATK weapons are only for HM and I have no idea why.

 

[dimasok]

This actually would've been ok. Even if it was just Greens to 26, Blues to 28/29, new legedaries/exotics/etc to get you past that.


Bungie doesn't seem to understand that this game would actually be a better game if the grind was less punishing. Even if it means you can get to 30 in 40 hours with 5 different exotics.

People might not play for 400 hours, and they might blast through the expansion content in 6-10, but they would have a better impression of the game, and be more excited to come back as more content comes in. I would rather have a blast at a breakthrough pace for a week or two every 3-4 months than be expected to put in 100 hours just to get to the next choke point.

+1

Even if I got all the weapons in one raid (or two or whatever), I would continue levelling them up and raiding because I would be interested to see how the different upgrades and weapons functioned against different enemies and as you said, I would be more excited to play any new content.

The way it is, I did two normal VOG and two hard the last few weeks and got only shards. My level of interest in continuing to do VOG?

ZERO

 

[w00zey]

If you wanted a comparable wow like expansion to destiny in it's limited content sort of way you would need two things. A new planet and most importantly of all a true gear reset. They should've had 5 new light levels with the following.

Green armor that puts you at level 30 with slightly higher attributes than 30 raid gear. That when leveled would put you to 31.

Blues that start at 32 and take you to 33.

Purples that go from 33 to 34.

Raid gear needed to hit 35.

The problem is there is no gear reset. This is more like a new season in wow with higher item level gear than an expansion let alone a gear reset.

That would have been awesome. They shouldn't have called it an expasion and just dlc pack 1 or something.

 

[Omegasquash]

People who ran the raid for two months and never got boots?

Reporting for duty.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Another post from Reddit for the people saying the only need to upgrade is for Hard Mode Crota Raid:

Introduction

In the discussion about exotics and the new DLC, I see a lot of confusion about what the new, higher tier exotics and legendaries are bringing to the table.

To be clear, the attack stat on your weapon (300 maxed for most current exotics) does influence the damage dealt in general. This stat was rumored to only influence damage against mobs of a higher level than you but this is proven false. See destinygundamage.info or below.

False Claims

Despite this, I see many claims that the old exotics "deal max damage at lvl 30 content anyway". It is claimed that there is no use for the upgraded weapons besides the lvl 32 hard mode Crota raid.

This is false, the attack stat impacts damage dealt overall! Meaning that if you have a 331 atk stat weapon compared to a 300 atk stat weapon, all other variables constant, you will actually deal more than 10% additional damage overall. See this image for the upgraded necrochasm at 331 atk stat.

Murmur and Dragon's Breath from DrCrispy93's profile indicate that the new ATK stat limit will be 320 for regular weapons. Vex mythoclast is 323 for being the VoG HM weapon and the Necrochasm will be 331 for being the CE HM weapon. (http://www.destinydb.com/guardians/playstation/2014120915133761381-drcrispy93) (Thanks /u/Bartins)

More to read:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheG...e_and_attack_and_why_you_should_upgrade_your/

To clarify for those interested:

There are four things that come into play here and confuse the whole debate:

Weapon impact and attack stat
Weapon type and mob type reductions
Guardian lvl reductions
Mob lvl reductions
First of all, the weapon damage is determined by it's impact stat and attack stat. From Destiny Gun Damage:

Damage per bullet for a given weapon is a linear function of that weapon's attack stat. Impact affects this linear function's coefficient and intercept. Other known damage modifiers are percentage manipulations on the damage resulting from the linear function.

The first reduction comes from fighting majors and ultras. From Destiny Gun Damage:

Scout rifles, sniper rifles, and handcannons suffer additional penalties to both body damage and precision damage when fighting majors and ultras. This penalty can be quite significant (25% penalty to handcannons against Ultras). Auto rifles and pulse rifles do not have any penalty to body damage against majors or ultras and only suffer the 2x headshot multiplier loss for precision damage.

(http://www.destinygundamage.info/#/info)

Then, there is a damage penalty if your guardian is a lower level than the mob.

1 lvl > 33%
2 lvl > 42%
3 lvl > 52%
4 lvl > 100% (no damage)
(http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheG...is_how_light_levels_affect_your_gameplay_and/)

Finally, a reduction is applied based on the mob lvl and weapon attack stat. A maximum damage cap is determined for mob lvls lower or equal to ATK/15. Every mob lvl below this cap lowers the damage by roughly 7%.

(http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheG...e_and_attack_and_why_you_should_upgrade_your/)

Please upmote for visibility so that no false information is used in the current discussion.

TLDR: Attack stat on weapons influences overall damage and is not connected to damage on mobs with a higher level than you. A 300+ attack weapon will do more damage to current lvl21+ enemies than a 300 attack weapon.

To clarify even further:

the way damage scales is that the maximum damage that a particular gun can do to a particular enemy (excluding range considerations) is a function of the gun's impact and both the level of the player and level of the enemy. Attack on the gun then determines how close to the maximum you will get. When your damage is maxed out in a particular situation (against the cap), the damage will be displayed in GREY numbers. When it is not, it will be WHITE numbers.

Go try a 300 attack weapon on a series of enemies of same type but different level. Against low level enemies (enemy level ~< attack/15) you will be have GREY damage numbers. Against anything above level 20 you will have white colored damage numbers, and it doesn't matter if you are shooting a level 22 or a level 26, the damage will be IDENTICAL (provided you are 26 or higher, it gets complicated when you are under the enemy level, the cap is scaled down)

TLR; In any situation where your gun is generating damage numbers in GREY, upgrading the attack value will NOT increase damage. In any situation where your gun is generating WHITE damage numbers, increasing the attack damage WOULD(if possible) increase damage dealt.

The takeaway? Weapons with attack values above 300 WILL do more damage to all enemies levels 21 and up than a weapon with 300 attack.

 

[SkylineRKR]

302 ATK is 'more powerful out of the gate', until they clarify what they mean by reset it is entirely reasonable to assume that you are getting a Vanilla 2.0 version of the fully upgraded weapon you had before. The 'You don't have to upgrade' argument is ultimately hollow because who wants underpowered weapons, there is this weird train of thought I keep encountering that claims max ATK weapons are only for HM and I have no idea why.

Yeah, well, Ballerhorn at 302 is not more powerful out of the gate until you get Wolfpack back. I think TLW at 302 is fucking useless also. Until you get those needed stability perks. Basically every exotic straight sucks without their perks, nearly every one of them anyway.

And yeah, I'd gladly throw them away for new ones if there were just as many new ones. But why throw them away for another Atheon's Epilogue crap job which is one of just 5? I figure some are locked behind HM Raid, which will be difficult to conquer without maxed out weapons. At least VoG was.

 

[border]

I've been playing since launch. My first and main is a warlock. If Xur has sold Warlock helms, it was before I had time/gear capable of farming coins and I do not have one. All I have are sunbreakers and voidfang. I have raid boots and arms, no helm or chest. This is only on my Warlock. I only have boots on my Titan and only got them last night. I play way more than most of the people I know and have done the raid several times but RNGesus hates me and keeps giving me Found Verdict and shards/energy. I have 1 VoC which will be garbage next week and enough chatterwhite to fill my vault if I'd kept it all. You can't say "you could be 30 if you wanted" and be serious.

Xur sold Apotheosis Veil on September 26.

Though it is utterly bizarre to think he's only sold Warlock helms once in all these weeks and weeks.

 

[Waylon Drums]

I am so confused about how damage works in this game. I genuinely have no idea even after reading that great explanation.

On the bright side, all of this scandal and drama has slightly sparked my interest in Destiny again. So there's that.

 

[geordiemp]

Real MMOs have a gear reset every real expansion. For most games this is roughly every 1.5 to 2 years. WoW has been releasing an expansion roughly every 2 years.

The word expansion, when used correctly in the terms of an MMO, is an enormous amount of content. Most real MMOs release real expansions which have the equivalent amount of content to the whole base game.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable. Existing players will have new goals to achieve and a metric asston of new content to achieve it in. Returning or new players will have a smaller hurdle to clear to catch up with existing players. This paradigm is extremely well-understood and Blizzard in particular have turned the WoW expansion into a perpetual resub machine that regularly brings back millions of players every expansion release.

Destiny's glorified DLC content "The Dark Below" is not a real expansion. It barely has enough content to qualify as a Call of Duty map pack. Bungie calling it an expansion doesn't make it one by any reasonable measure of expansion content. The fact that they are doing a gear reset 3 months into the game's lifespan is fucking hilarious, stupid, and also quite sad. They literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and they are literally doing their best to run their new franchise straight into the ground as fast and as hard as they can. Destiny is going worse than Diablo III did at the launch period and that's saying a lot.

Watching Bungie trainwrecking in slow motion is quite fascinating when you realize there has to be SOMEBODY at Bungie who knows SOMEBODY at Blizzard that he could call and ask them how games like this are designed and operated. Because this is really not how you do it Bungie. It really, really isn't.

Agree, They should of released the 2 DLC together after 6 months and then done this, add 2 new raids and maybe 5 ot 6 strikes and it would of been fresh.

I don't think starting loot again after 3 months for 1 strike extra, playing it and the 5 or so others to death is a good build up to a new raid.

Yes, the raid sounds great, the build up does not.

 

[benicillin]

Another post from Reddit for the people saying the only need to upgrade is for Hard Mode Crota Raid:

This is a good resource. Thanks for posting, it helped clear up a few things for myself.
I also just saw a tweet from Deej saying that any exotic bounty turned in after the 9th will not need to be reforged to get the higher attack values. I don't even know what's going on here anymore, so I'm just going to wait until the update comes out and play Dragon Age in the meantime.

 

[Lalalandia]

Yeah, well, Ballerhorn at 302 is not more powerful out of the gate until you get Wolfpack back. I think TLW at 302 is fucking useless also. Until you get those needed stability perks. Basically every exotic straight sucks without their perks, nearly every one of them anyway.

And yeah, I'd gladly throw them away for new ones if there were just as many new ones. But why throw them away for another Atheon's Epilogue crap job which is one of just 5? I figure some are locked behind HM Raid, which will be difficult to conquer without maxed out weapons. At least VoG was.

Completely agree, levelling PI was painful until the full-auto perk

 

[Omegasquash]

This is a good resource. Thanks for posting, it helped clear up a few things for myself.
I also just saw a tweet from Deej saying that any exotic bounty turned in after the 9th will not need to be reforged to get the higher attack values. I don't even know what's going on here anymore, so I'm just going to wait until the update comes out and play Dragon Age in the meantime.

Well then, I'm holding off on turning in Invective, and wish that I hadn't got Thorn like 2 days before this announcement.

 

[KMS]

That would have been awesome. They shouldn't have called it an expasion and just dlc pack 1 or something.

They should've called it a season 1 pack or something similar as when wow adds a new raid and higher tier gear. Would have been a much better way to communicate it. Since as you said it's not an expansion.

 

[boofa]

Xur sold Apotheosis Veil on September 26.

Though it is utterly bizarre to think he's only sold Warlock helms once in all these weeks and weeks.

I thought he had sold one at some point, but that was before I could afford/knew it was going to matter so much. I was more worried about Queen's Bounty around then, lol.

 

[wsoxfan1214]

Real MMOs have a gear reset every real expansion. For most games this is roughly every 1.5 to 2 years. WoW has been releasing an expansion roughly every 2 years.

The word expansion, when used correctly in the terms of an MMO, is an enormous amount of content. Most real MMOs release real expansions which have the equivalent amount of content to the whole base game.

Players of real MMOs expect a gear reset every 1.5 to 2 years, which is plenty reasonable. Existing players will have new goals to achieve and a metric asston of new content to achieve it in. Returning or new players will have a smaller hurdle to clear to catch up with existing players. This paradigm is extremely well-understood and Blizzard in particular have turned the WoW expansion into a perpetual resub machine that regularly brings back millions of players every expansion release.

Destiny's glorified DLC content "The Dark Below" is not a real expansion. It barely has enough content to qualify as a Call of Duty map pack. Bungie calling it an expansion doesn't make it one by any reasonable measure of expansion content. The fact that they are doing a gear reset 3 months into the game's lifespan is fucking hilarious, stupid, and also quite sad. They literally have no fucking idea what they are doing and they are literally doing their best to run their new franchise straight into the ground as fast and as hard as they can. Destiny is going worse than Diablo III did at the launch period and that's saying a lot.

Watching Bungie trainwrecking in slow motion is quite fascinating when you realize there has to be SOMEBODY at Bungie who knows SOMEBODY at Blizzard that he could call and ask them how games like this are designed and operated. Because this is really not how you do it Bungie. It really, really isn't.

I hate this update, but a few things:

1) destiny is not meant to be out as long as WoW has. The 1.5-2 years timeframe is being shortened as such,

2) Let's calm down with the CoD map pack equivalency. Just shows me you haven't looked into the DLC too deeply.

 

[border]

The 'You don't have to upgrade' argument is ultimately hollow because who wants underpowered weapons, there is this weird train of thought I keep encountering that claims max ATK weapons are only for HM and I have no idea why.

Except it's relevant because the person I was talking to made the claim that your old weapons "suddenly vanish and require you to re-grind it out". That is not the case at all. It is exactly like WoW, where you can keep your old max'ed out stuff to complete new content, then trade it out when you get better drops. There is the alternative to upgrade as well, if you do not mind losing perks until you get the upgrade version leveled up.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Except it's relevant because the person I was talking to made the claim that your old weapons "suddenly vanish and require you to re-grind it out". That is not the case at all. It is exactly like WoW, where you can keep your old max'ed out stuff to complete new content, then trade it out when you get better drops. There is the alternative to upgrade as well, if you do not mind losing perks until you get the upgrade version leveled up.

Yes but then you're actually investing time in new items. The bulk of Destiny's loadout will still be its existing items. I don't think anyone has a problem with grinding for their dragon rocket launcher if they get it.

It just shows that Destiny isn't going to offer much. 75% of grinding will be for stuff they already maxed before. Unless you keep everything at a weaker 300, and only shoot for the handful of new weapons, which RNG is probably going to love.