This concern is well reasoned, but with bad input (Destiny)

by Earendil, Thursday, April 23, 2015, 15:55 (3320 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It wouldn't be right if I were completely satisfied, would it? :-p

My concern is that too much of the House of Wolves experience will revolve around grinding to upgrade, with not a lot of new things to do, and the activities that are there mainly being there to service the grind.

So far almost the entirety of the information we have is on
1. Gear
2. How to upgrade gear

We have no big reveals on the content yet, so of course everything we know about HoW is upgrade centric!

I've always wondered what was the point of having great weapons drop from end game content. So you've just done the hardest content in the game. But then, what do you need the best guns for? If I'm running Prison of Elders every week, and doing Trials of Osiris already, why would I need the new guns? There's a reason you don't get the best stuff from the hardest optional bosses in JPRGs; the game makes them so hard that you have to use your best stuff to defeat them!

Okay, this is a good point, but is it all that uncommon? Perhaps it's not in JRPGs but in games like Diablo and Borderlands (my experience is limited) good weapons dropped on final bosses.

The other thing not to forget is that there is in fact two tiers to the Raids. You can get almost all the "best gear" from running the normal raid, which if you're an average player you'll need to do in order to acquire the final bragging right of beating it on Legendary.

I can't imagine Trials of Osiris being a single difficulty, or if it is, I can't imagine it being limited in a way that makes it "beatable". If there is a single starting difficulty than I wold expect enemies to become progressively higher level and more difficult, making the bragging right (and the desire for better guns) be that you can make it further through the Trials.

I'm just worried that the ability to upgrade old gear is going to replace content that could have been in the game to spend time on instead. I foresee the story missions being easy, and the poor storytelling continuing. This leaves Prison of Elders, which I cannot possibly imagine being as challenging as a raid that is expertly crafted by hand. I guess we'll know more when that's revealed. I'm hoping it's not like firefight.

My fear is that the grind will simply get worse, since so much gear has to be upgraded to 365. Everything you buy looks like it starts at 331 and needs to be ascended. I'm playing out this scenario in my head, and a lot of it just seems pointless… at least with raids I can run them because the activity is inherently challenging. But judging by the activities that drop upgrade materials, it would appear you'd need to do them often.

You assume that Trials and the Strike won't be challenging. I suspect they will be more challenging than VoG given the current level of the VoG. And after what I saw yesterday, I can't imagine the grind being worse. Prior to HoW this was the upgrade path

Legendaries: No upgrade on existing. You go buy a new 331 legendary, get all the exp, and then upgrade every last node.
Exotics: Only took shards, but then you still had to get all the exp again, and upgrade every node again!

With the new system

Legendaries: you can take an existing 300 or 331, and with a much smaller quantity of material upgrade it without the need for exp, and no need to pay for every single node again.
Exotics: Same as Legendaries.

Now think about the transition from level 1 to level 20 upgrade path.
You had a 100 dmg gun, and you wanted it to be 300? Tough luck, you had to toss it out, get a new one, and exp each node and pay for each node. Now this method is still in place, however I write it down as an example of the "norm".

And don't forget that materials can now be interchanged! So now the pay out for any grind is in a currency that CAN be used for almost any upgrade path. The barrier to 366 weapons via a unique material is expected, and prevents everyone from having end game weapons on day one. This is acceptable to me. It's also extremely simplified. The whole Ascendant energy/shards was hard to deal with because depending on the weapon it would take a different quantity of each. You also didn't earn them in a predictable way, so it was harder to plan the upgrade path for each weapon.

Conclusion: IMHO end game grinding is less than early game grinding, and better than pre-HoW end game grinding. And material exchange makes it all the better.

I wonder if I'm making sense at all. I'm just in general sick of the idea of grinding and upgrading, and would just rather play cool shit. Granted, the system they have is probably the best I could have imagined for what it is, and so they have my admiration. The only thing that would make it better is being able to use commendations to buy legacy gear (which could then be ascended!).

You make complete sense. I'd just hold off on the idea off on the grind feeling until we know more about the content, and perhaps have even played it. Though I doubt it, what if just playing through all the fun content once provides you with the material to upgrade 20 guns to max level? It's unlikely, but we just don't know yet. Conversely one play through may equate to a single gun upgrade, in which case the grind will be harsh. Grind has a lot less to do with cost and material than it does to do with the ratio of earned to cost. None of us grind for weapons parts or spirit blooms, because during the normal course of play we acquire all we need.