You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. :) (Criticism)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 10:27 (2109 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

(Yes... anyone who says they can’t think of a single way that something can be good or bad is pretty much akin to lighting up the Raga Signal / Horn of Urgency.)

This is all totally personal, obviously, but IMO neither of your examples show an up-side to power levels. Similar effects could have been achieved through things like selectable difficulty levels, earning weapons that simply do more damage than the weapons that are available earlier, just as a couple examples.

So I don’t think I’m the one who needs to think bigger ;p. Ask yourself: “Do these things I like REALLY require power levels?”
Followed by: “Do the negative aspects of power levels justify their inclusion, when most (or possibly all) of their benefits could be achieved in other ways?”

My personal answer to both questions in the case of Destiny is “no”. But it’s obviously a very personal thing :)

Dream bigger. It’s an Inception reference. :p

While difficulty levels have their place, I think there’s a lot to be said for overcoming set challenges. Another, older, example is Skolas. He was a massive pain to beat, but over time he became quite manageable. I like that sort of thing a lot more than purposely selecting “Hard Mode” or “Easy Mode.”

Also, just handing out guns that do more damage can be very counterproductive to a multiplayer game. If my expansion 3 auto rifle kills expansion 1 bosses in two bullets, I can’t as easily play with my friends. The Power Level / Light Level system has been a huge success in terms of not too badly unbalancing the game between people who play a lot and people who don’t.

Plus... how do you get said more powerful guns in your system? If it isn’t strictly handed to you via a mission everyone gets very quickly then you’re right back to RNG and a solution that is the same as Power Levels just with a new name pasted on the front.

At the end of the day, I think it’s really the “welp, you’ve done all you can possibly do this week.... come back in 3 - 5 days to level up some more” that is the biggest problem with D2 and Power Level. And some of that seems to be getting diminished with the shortening of the D2 work week in Forsaken. (Reset will rotate back around much sooner as I understand it.)