Reasoning for Radiant Materials. A Mistake? (Destiny)

by dogcow , Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Monday, January 26, 2015, 09:22 (3381 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I was under the impression that Raid Armor/Weapons were given a different upgrade material to encourage people to use their Ascendant Shards/Energy on their current, non-raid, gear. At least that's what I recall reading/hearing from Bungie and I believe that was typed/spoken in truth, especially since I experienced that specific problem.

Back with the VoG I held off of going to level 29 with my gear because I was waiting for RNG to grant me the final pieces I needed and I didn't want to 'waste' my current shards on gear I was going to junk when I got the right drop. That held me back as I was unable to run Hard Mode & get more drops. This new way I was able to upgrade all my non-Crota-Raid gear without fear of using up all of my Ascendant Shards. The flip side is that it is now harder to upgrade your Raid gear.

Bungie fixed two problems & I fear created another (which *I* believe was the mistake). 1- removed reasons to not upgrade non-raid gear. 2- improved chances at getting the drops you need in the raid. The unfortunate result (mistake) of these two fixes is that you now have the gear you need, but not the mats to upgrade it which drives people to grind for the mats (there are outliers like Slycrel, who have the opposite problem, mats but not all the gear you need).

I don't think Bungie is the devil coming up with devious new ways to make people grind. Perhaps I'm cutting them too much slack and being too much of a fanboi, but I think they're just making legitimate mistakes and are learning painful lessons (for both them and us) as they level up in this new little genre.