"Flaw" Explained (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, October 03, 2016, 17:39 (3065 days ago) @ Korny
edited by Cody Miller, Monday, October 03, 2016, 17:58

If we lived in a perfect world where a small country was developing Destiny, we'd have enough content to where you'd never have to replay anything ever to level up. But since we live in the real world, we have to meter our content out between releases.

Bungie did it in Taken King. It's not impossible. You are acting like I am asking for the moon.

That's subjective. I have fun playing Crucible, Archon's Forge, Heroic strikes (as long at it's not SABRE), Challenge of the Elders boss burns, and doing Patrol. The issue is if you grind and grind the same thing simply because you want to level up (which is made even worse when you do dumb things, like deleting the tons of Blue engrams that the game pours at you).

First of all, I do not actually enjoy most of the things on your list. I just don't. Second of all, I am not even sure how much those blue engrams would help me, given the frequency with which they give out coins and legendaries. Coins do not even help: the items you buy from Xur are 350. Too low to use to level up. You gain very little faction rep for material feeding, and converting strange coins to motes of light is a terrible way to increase faction rep, as is buying heavy ammo synth. The crucible does it faster, with much more fun.

Doing things simply to level up has the effect of making everything feel like a chore, regardless of what it is (it just becomes an obstacle between you and the level cap) and it's even worse when you don't mix it up simply because you're optimizing things. You didn't have to grind to your light level in order to do the raid as soon as possible, you chose to, and all of your excuses proved false.

It's not going to feel like anything other than a chore when it needs to be done, and doing it requires playing parts of the game I don't like. That's what you don't seem to understand. Mixing it up won't help. Every way of leveling up sucks. So yes, I'm going to optimize the shit out of it to get through it as soon as possible so I can get to the good stuff. There are no roses to stop and smell. That portion of the game is rotten.

There were a handful of quests after the main storyline that sent you out to different areas and helped you level up (Bad Blood, Khvostov and Gjallarhorn missions, Sepiks perfected). If you ignored these by hopping right into the SIVA Heroic playlist, then you have only yourself to blame (and you missed out on some 350 Light gear and a Skeleton key).

I did all of those right away, before the strike playlist. I ended up at 339. And yes at this point I was still decoding blues.

P.S. My last 3 faction packages have given me items lower than my current light level.

That's unpossible. They may have been lower light than the piece that you had equipped, but not your overall Light Level. Don't tweak the facts to fit your narrative.

It's not impossible. It happened. Three times.

If skill matters most, why have light level at all? Get rid of it if it doesn't actually matter.

Because it's an incentive. It's a reward for time, if a few points make a difference to you. It can also be a help if you're a less-skilled player. If someone is a middle-skill player (such as you, Cody), but they put in way more time than a higher-skill player (such as me), then they've earned themselves a slight advantage (I may be a slightly unfair example, since RNG seems to favor me for whatever reason).

I do not want an advantage just because I put in time. I want an advantage because I have improved my skill, learned, and discovered things about the game.

If someone is both higher skilled, and has put in a lot of time, then they are at the top of the mountain, and pretty much deserve to crush those around them, but that pool of people is very small.

Getting more powerful by simply putting in time is the worst most awful thing a game can do. Getting better because you push yourself and improve is great, and often takes time. But a simple time = power system is horrible.