Hard mode should be cosmetic only, IMO (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Monday, June 19, 2017, 03:39 (2804 days ago) @ DEEP_NNN

I believe rewarding successful hard mode raiders with superior weapons/armour they obviously don't need seems silly.

I don't mind a longer road to finishing a raid. Superior weapons/armour should be reasonably achievable by almost any skill level. If I have to wait until I earned the game-over gun, then at least I have a better chance at completing a Raid.

I've been advocating this for a while. It was a major problem in WoW and it's a major problem in Destiny as well. Players who are capable of completing the hardest challenge in the game do not need that challenge to be made any easier. Doing so creates a situation where you get a bunch of players who, after clearing once, are then more likely to clear a 2nd time, and 3rd, by large degrees, until they have it on farm and everyone is geared in that stuff. Whereas a team that is struggling to clear the hard mode, and is even just one week behind the curve, ends up exponentially behind the other players in terms of gear.

The result is an underclass of players who, even though they can clear the hardest content in the game, are behind the curve in terms of gear, and are stuck in a grind they may not want just to stay competitive in "light level matters" pvp modes. I *hate* that I have to clear the hard mode raid umpteen times to get max light level just so I can be on even footing in pvp. I also hate that some raiders have to pvp endlessly to get certain weapons they "need" for raiding.

The real hard mode isn't "can you clear hard mode?" It's "can you stomach clearing hard mode every flippin' week for the next three months because we don't actually have enough content to keep you involved so we're using rare and challenging gear drops tied to a weekly lockout in order to increase our player engagement?"