Chris Barrett on state of loot, Eververse, vault space:

From his twitter:

Happy Holidays Guardians. I hope you are enjoying the The Dawning or at least a bit of chaos in Mayhem. There are a few things I want to mention before the year ends...

For the upcoming Iron Banner and Faction Rally events, in addition to brand new seasonal armor Ornaments, we’re adding new themed Sparrows, Ghosts, Ships, and Shaders to the reward pools.

Also, early next year, we’re refactoring Raid itemization across the game. The most difficult activities should be the most rewarding.

And finally, I know we say it a lot, but we hear your feedback on Eververse. We both want our players to feel respected, and to deliver great content regularly to our community. Expect lots of discussion with the dev team and an update on our path forward after the new year.

One more for good measure. We have short term and long term solutions for Vault space in the works, since I know that is another hot topic.

Despite the accepted narrative, I still do believe that Bungie really cares and wants to make the best game they can. He is certainly saying the right things, and I hope they truly follow up on these comments.

P.S. He says later in the comment chain that Iron Banner and Faction Rally are coming in January.

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Despite the accepted narrative, I still do believe that Bungie really cares and wants to make the best game they can.

This proves otherwise.

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Rejoice! An upcoming Vault Space solution

I've been meaning to ask around for a while, now that a few small events (nothing as big as The Dawning obviously) and Season 1 has passed has anyone seen an unofficial list of in game items that are Season Locked/Event Locked/Special or Unique?

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The most difficult activities should be the most rewarding.

I hope this doesn't mean a return to the D1 plan of "he who doesn't need better loot gets it anyway." By 'most rewarding' they should be saying "gets awesome ornaments, or the same guns but with sweeter artwork, or a sparrow that shoots rainbows out the back, or any other number of awesome things that do not simply make people who have no need for additional power even more powerful than those who aren't as good at the game or don't have as much time to play it.

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Buried in that twitter thread somewhere, he also says they're looking into raid perks for raid gear, so . . .

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The most difficult activities should be the most rewarding.

I hope this doesn't mean a return to the D1 plan of "he who doesn't need better loot gets it anyway." By 'most rewarding' they should be saying "gets awesome ornaments, or the same guns but with sweeter artwork, or a sparrow that shoots rainbows out the back, or any other number of awesome things that do not simply make people who have no need for additional power even more powerful than those who aren't as good at the game or don't have as much time to play it.

They're already doing that - and the community has said they don't care.

The Prestige Raid earns you armor variants/ornaments that you can't earn anywhere else (but aren't more powerful than what you can earn in the regular raid). Almost nobody earns them, and I can't tell you how many groups I've played in who've skipped the Prestige because 'you don't get anything for it'.

You might think it's the best way to reward players - but there are plenty of Destiny players who think you're dead wrong.

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The most difficult activities should be the most rewarding.

I hope this doesn't mean a return to the D1 plan of "he who doesn't need better loot gets it anyway." By 'most rewarding' they should be saying "gets awesome ornaments, or the same guns but with sweeter artwork, or a sparrow that shoots rainbows out the back, or any other number of awesome things that do not simply make people who have no need for additional power even more powerful than those who aren't as good at the game or don't have as much time to play it.

They're already doing that - and the community has said they don't care.

The Prestige Raid earns you armor variants/ornaments that you can't earn anywhere else (but aren't more powerful than what you can earn in the regular raid). Almost nobody earns them, and I can't tell you how many groups I've played in who've skipped the Prestige because 'you don't get anything for it'.

You might think it's the best way to reward players - but there are plenty of Destiny players who think you're dead wrong.

At issue is whether or not the prestige rewards are actually prestigious. I know plenty of people, myself included, who Did the Black Spindle quest repeatedly hoping for that ship, or did hard mode for the king's fall ship, or who prided themselves on their collections of Lighthouse ornaments from Trials of Osiris.

The fact of the matter is that the shaders from prestige mode are essentially the same as the normal raid shader, just with the colors rearranged. They look so similar that I couldn't tell you if someone was wearing normal mode or prestige mode shaders. Which means there is no associated prestige. And I've actually never seen the ornaments for the armor... not even once. In my case, prestige aside, I didn't care when the raid came out because that armor was garbage for hunters and I also didn't like looking like a WW1 gas mask guy. Now that I've switched to warlock, not enough of my raid crew even plays Destiny for me to be able to go back into the raid. We've run the raid lair exactly once, and didn't quite finish. Haven't been able to muster a team of 6 since.

At this point the struggle for raid loot is simply getting enough people who actually want to play this game online at the same time.

But that's really beside the point. Bungie knows how to make cool looking loot, but instead of rewarding players with it for in-game achievements, it's all put into the eververse store. Glowhoo was great. Calus' other shader with the same colors as the not prestige mode shader is not.

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On my 3 characters, only one of them has a piece of armor from eververse. Most of it is not my thing. Tastes vary.

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The fact of the matter is that the shaders from prestige mode are essentially the same as the normal raid shader, just with the colors rearranged. They look so similar that I couldn't tell you if someone was wearing normal mode or prestige mode shaders. Which means there is no associated prestige. And I've actually never seen the ornaments for the armor... not even once.

Um... Okay. I guess I was under the impression (from places like light.gg) that there's an entirely different set of Prestige armor, not just shaders. I mean, I guess the Mask of Rull LOOKS LIKE the Helm of the Emperor's Champion... but it's not the same helmet.

But hey, if you wanna say that since one is just a reskin of the other, that it's just a shader difference... okay. I'm not really sure, though, that if you go that route, that you can really argue that 'most rewarding' should mean 'same but with sweeter artwork', because that's exactly what the Prestige armor looks like, at least to me.

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The fact of the matter is that the shaders from prestige mode are essentially the same as the normal raid shader, just with the colors rearranged. They look so similar that I couldn't tell you if someone was wearing normal mode or prestige mode shaders. Which means there is no associated prestige. And I've actually never seen the ornaments for the armor... not even once.

Um... Okay. I guess I was under the impression (from places like light.gg) that there's an entirely different set of Prestige armor, not just shaders. I mean, I guess the Mask of Rull LOOKS LIKE the Helm of the Emperor's Champion... but it's not the same helmet.

That's what I meant. If I look at you (without inspecting you), right now you don't look special at all (so why would I bother inspecting you?). In D1, at least you had a sweet shader that grabbed the eye, but the current prestige shader is only marginally different, in that the colors are in a different order from the non-prestige shader.

But hey, if you wanna say that since one is just a reskin of the other, that it's just a shader difference... okay. I'm not really sure, though, that if you go that route, that you can really argue that 'most rewarding' should mean 'same but with sweeter artwork', because that's exactly what the Prestige armor looks like, at least to me.

I am arguing that "most rewarding" should mean "same but with sweeter artwork." Hell, it could even mean "totally shitty gear that is only good for memes and trolling, but that looks AMAZING and everyone will know you are a bamf simply by virtue of you having it. Maybe give people a permanent aura for completing the prestige mode raid. For example. If you think the prestige armor really looks that significantly sweeter than the normal armor right now, well, I guess they did it right then. I happen to think it looks far too similar.

This problem is that right now I can't tell if someone has a prestige thing or not because there are fifty billion shaders and everything from the raid is both the same model and the same color palette.

When I say "same but with sweeter artwork" I mean like how the trials gear got all glowy holograms around it when you added the ornaments. That's prestigious! Literally the same model with a built in shader that is literally the same colors just in a different order, and which is also a shader that you can get from just doing the first chest in the prestige mode and then apply to the old raid armor to make it look *exactly* like the default prestige armor is not prestigious.

This is all just my opinion. At the end of the day, prestige mode should be about challenging yourself and having fun, and should not be about getting better (or even just different) loot. I also firmly believe that the hardest things in the game should not give people who complete them better gear. D1 vanilla pvp suffered greatly from the best pvp weapons by and large coming only from the raid. It sucked that if you wanted to compete at the highest tier of pvp, you had to raid endlessly to try to get the right weapons.

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That's what I meant. If I look at you (without inspecting you), right now you don't look special at all (so why would I bother inspecting you?).

The glowing purple holograms don't give it away????

I don't really have any other comment. But the Prestige Raid gear is markedly flashier.

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That's what I meant. If I look at you (without inspecting you), right now you don't look special at all (so why would I bother inspecting you?).

The glowing purple holograms don't give it away????

I don't really have any other comment. But the Prestige Raid gear is markedly flashier.

I guess I've never seen anyone wearing prestige raid gear, because glowing purple holograms would be exactly what I expect from prestige gear!

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Some shaders hide it more than others. But you really don't see it that often because most folk don't care to chase it because it barely resembles a reward to them. Also some shaders hide it more than others.

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Some shaders hide it more than others. But you really don't see it that often because most folk don't care to chase it because it barely resembles a reward to them. Also some shaders hide it more than others.

See, that looks pretty sweet to me. I've literally never seen that gear. I don't think its because people don't want cool looking gear, I think it's because the endgame is pretty lame right now and not many people bother raiding whatsoever.

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See, that looks pretty sweet to me. I've literally never seen that gear. I don't think its because people don't want cool looking gear, I think it's because the endgame is pretty lame right now and not many people bother raiding whatsoever.

What do you want?

You said you want cool, unique looking gear for the raid and Prestige mode. That's literally exactly what we're getting, but you're still not raiding. The end game is giving you exactly what you say you want, so what's the deal?

I'm legitimately not trying to be snarky, I just feel like we're talking in circles.

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See, that looks pretty sweet to me. I've literally never seen that gear. I don't think its because people don't want cool looking gear, I think it's because the endgame is pretty lame right now and not many people bother raiding whatsoever.

What do you want?

You said you want cool, unique looking gear for the raid and Prestige mode. That's literally exactly what we're getting, but you're still not raiding. The end game is giving you exactly what you say you want, so what's the deal?

I'm legitimately not trying to be snarky, I just feel like we're talking in circles.

I'd raid if my friends would log on.

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Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

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Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

Yeah, if only the regular raid had dropped weapons and armor with specific perks designed to help in completing the raid . . .

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Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

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My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

Dude, invite me! I'll log on if there's a prestige raid.

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My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

Dude, invite me! I'll log on if there's a prestige raid.

Will do!

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Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

Not to be snarky or anything, but how much of all of this has to do with your general attitude about the game? You and your friends'? Meaning, you guys already sound like you're done with Destiny for the most part. More than just done, even. Just done is "played it, moved on to something else." in the way that I'm done with Hellblade. It sounds like you guys have moved to "actively hostile yet still playing a bit" at this point.

Do you think that might affect the numbers of people you play with, or even the numbers of people that will go out of their way to play with you. Certainly you and your friends' willingness to jump to a different game more quickly will play into that, I'd think.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being hostile towards a game and its gameplay. A while back I asked some friends a question about The Witness. I said: "Knowing I hate puzzle games, should I buy The Witness." And they, correctly, said no.

Well, knowing that you find Crucible simply not fun and the rest of the endgame to be garbage, maybe you should forget about trying to beat the hardest version of the hardest activity and play the games you actually enjoy instead? There are only so many hours to play, after all!

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Or, the Prestige Raid is pretty dang hard. The DBO’s World’s First team has struck out either twice or three times now trying to beat it. So, at least in my own little happy circle, its not that we haven’t tried or that the endgame is lame. It’s just a question of difficulty and time.

My own raid team hasn't finished prestige mode either (or even the raid lair), largely due to attrition... Our typical raid team no longer logs on, and we have a friend we bring who is a great guy but not what one might describe as a competent raider (he games to get high and have zero responsibility, not exactly ideal for most raid roles).

But no one stopped playing Destiny because of the raid. We all loved the raid. We love the raid lair. We stopped playing Destiny because the rest of the endgame is garbage. PvP is simply not fun right now. The guns are all very same-ey. You can't really make interesting choices with regards to player spec, loadout, etc.. The strike playlist sucks and keeps throwing us into the same strike 3 times in a row (which immediately causes us to just give up and play fortnite). The solo endgame is almost non-existent. CoO is better in that regard, but two of my friends have now gotten all of the forge weapons, and they're back to not enjoying the endgame at all. When you log on and only one or two buddies are on, you have no incentive to hang out and hope three more guys show so you can raid. Instead, it's like "well, I guess we'll play something else" and then you're into that game.

D1 we would just pvp until we had 6 players. It was great. As someone showed up, they could just join our pvp group. No one was stuck solo queueing or excluded. D2 ruined that. It's a fundamental flaw that Bungie has not publicly acknowledged. Even with D2's boring as hell pvp, it would be tolerable if I could play with my friends while building a raid team. :'(

Not to be snarky or anything, but how much of all of this has to do with your general attitude about the game? You and your friends'? Meaning, you guys already sound like you're done with Destiny for the most part. More than just done, even. Just done is "played it, moved on to something else." in the way that I'm done with Hellblade. It sounds like you guys have moved to "actively hostile yet still playing a bit" at this point.

lol. Some of my friends are clearly in that boat. I think I'm in a place where I really WANT to like Destiny 2, but I feel that it's actively fighting the things that made D1 my daily hobby. D2 seems to be the actively hostile element, from my perspective.

Do you think that might affect the numbers of people you play with, or even the numbers of people that will go out of their way to play with you. Certainly you and your friends' willingness to jump to a different game more quickly will play into that, I'd think.

Not sure what you mean. My friends and I like playing together, and on any given night there are between 1 and 8 of us online in chat. When there are 6 or more, we're almost always in Destiny or waiting to join the raid should someone leave. When there's less than that, we tend to play other games or just log off, which has had a depressing effect on the numbers of people online day to day. I'd say that during D1, we averaged 6 people online concurrently every single night. During D2, we're averaging closer to 3.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being hostile towards a game and its gameplay. A while back I asked some friends a question about The Witness. I said: "Knowing I hate puzzle games, should I buy The Witness." And they, correctly, said no.

This is the thing: Knowing I loved D1, should I buy D2, should be a resounding yes.

Well, knowing that you find Crucible simply not fun and the rest of the endgame to be garbage, maybe you should forget about trying to beat the hardest version of the hardest activity and play the games you actually enjoy instead? There are only so many hours to play, after all!

I like the raid. I enjoy the raid. The problem for me is the rest of the game, and the way in which the game seems to work against you when you're trying to get enough people online in order to do the raid.

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I guess I've never seen anyone wearing prestige raid gear, because glowing purple holograms would be exactly what I expect from prestige gear!

That’s the point. Most people don’t do it, because most people don’t feel like that’s worth the reward, whereas actual useful items would be.

I’m not saying either side is right or wrong. I can see this one from both angles, but I honestly think raid weapons with raid perks are cool.

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I guess I've never seen anyone wearing prestige raid gear, because glowing purple holograms would be exactly what I expect from prestige gear!

That’s the point. Most people don’t do it, because most people don’t feel like that’s worth the reward, whereas actual useful items would be.

I’m not saying either side is right or wrong. I can see this one from both angles, but I honestly think raid weapons with raid perks are cool.

I mean, if people are only in it for the loot, it begs the question of why do they want more powerful loot? Usually it's so they can smash other people in pvp, and that sucks for the pvpers who don't raid. The only other reason to get loot is if it looks cool. Looking cool is fun for everyone. Just my opinion.

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Usually it's so they can smash other people in pvp, a

That's making a pretty huge assumption.

As has been pointed out, raid loot has mostly not been PvP dominating. That shouldn't be that hard to design around.

Going into a raid fully kitted with raid gear that has cool perks that work for raid mechanics is fun. It totally changes the experience, and also works as a difficult selector. Folks that can't beat the raid can earn gear that helps make the raid easier, so long as they can complete a few encounters to get drops.

Raid perks are just fun.

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Yeah, I like Raid Perks. It was kinda neat with the updated version of Vault of Glass came out and we had to do that crazy “everyone has to kill an Oracle... oh and do them in the right order or we’re screwed” challenge and a few of us still had something like Vision of Confluence with the Oracle Killer perk. That’s the only Perk I remember making a big difference, but it was pretty cool, especially since it had been a while since we’d done VoG.

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Usually it's so they can smash other people in pvp, a

That's making a pretty huge assumption.

As has been pointed out, raid loot has mostly not been PvP dominating. That shouldn't be that hard to design around.

Going into a raid fully kitted with raid gear that has cool perks that work for raid mechanics is fun. It totally changes the experience, and also works as a difficult selector. Folks that can't beat the raid can earn gear that helps make the raid easier, so long as they can complete a few encounters to get drops.

Raid perks are just fun.

I agree! Raid perks were great! And the only raid where they made any lick of difference was VoG (maaaybe CE but they were sooo situational and the boost was too minor). The KF "raid perk" cocoon was actually hugely powerful in PvP and didn't do anything specifically advantageous in the raid outside of normal operation.

In fact, I think bringing back raid perks would be an awesome way to make raid weapons more powerful for raiding without breaking them for pvp. "Deals more damage to Cabal forces" or "Chains to nearby Cabal" would be cool. "Move more quickly when affected by whatever that debuff is in the pools" or "regenerate health after meleeing psions" etc... Anything restrictive enough that it wouldn't apply in pvp is fine by me.

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If running the dumb prestige raid gave me a shotgun that was actually a secondary (or whatever they call the second primary), I’d level up a character and grind that shit out.

I could not care less what my character or his subpar weapons look like.

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Why not both?

Fashion is the ultimate goal for tons of folks, and it ranks pretty highly on the list of things I seek out to collect. It's how I make a lot of my decisions. I play with subpar builds (Mobility armor!) because it looks cool. I'm often glimmer poor because I constantly switch shaders.

I also loved rolling into VoG with a full set of Vault weapons and destroying Oracles like no one's business (and Fatebringer and Found Verdict were awesome, regardless of which activity you were doing).

I can see why they divorced power and perks from endgame activities (Why reward stuff that makes the raid easier after you've already shown you can do the raid? Why exclude folks from the fun gear if they can't manage to get a team together and dedicate hours upon hours to finishing the raid? Etc, etc.). I'm not sure it worked, though. Like it or not, Destiny is a loot game. And while I think the raid and raid lair are fun, many people do not seem to want to run the raids for their own sake, and want neat gear as an incentive to do it. I know I would probably do it more than I do now if I knew there was better unique gear waiting at the end of it.

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This is just my dumb logic, so it probably doesn’t even make sense.

You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

While I agree that it sucks for people who can’t run the raid for various reasons, they’ve already changed that slightly in this game by introducing clan engrams. Once a week you get a chance at a cool raid weapon just because Chappy had already killed the guy 6x before you logged in on Thursday.

I’m just wanting a reason for me specifically to run endgame content and I only care about weapons. I’m sure shaders/armor matter a lot to lots of other people but I’m extremely selfish.

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This is just my dumb logic, so it probably doesn’t even make sense.

You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

While I agree that it sucks for people who can’t run the raid for various reasons, they’ve already changed that slightly in this game by introducing clan engrams. Once a week you get a chance at a cool raid weapon just because Chappy had already killed the guy 6x before you logged in on Thursday.

I’m just wanting a reason for me specifically to run endgame content and I only care about weapons. I’m sure shaders/armor matter a lot to lots of other people but I’m extremely selfish.

In a strictly pve game, that would be fine, but since you take your gear into pvp in this game as well, the result of locking the best weapons behind the hardest content effectively locks top tier pvp behind the prestige raid. That sucks balls.

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That’s fair. I play Destiny as a strictly PvE game so I don’t really look at how weapons do in crucible.

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I understand giving ramped up rewards for more capable and successful players. The short-game players are well looked after in most games. D1 in particular.

All players should have an path to all content. Be it the long-game, like World of Tanks or availability of much easier difficulty settings at a later date.

It's beyond stupid that I keep buying Destiny only to be deprived of a sizeable percentage of the content.

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I understand giving ramped up rewards for more capable and successful players. The short-game players are well looked after in most games. D1 in particular.

All players should have an path to all content. Be it the long-game, like World of Tanks or availability of much easier difficulty settings at a later date.

It's beyond stupid that I keep buying Destiny only to be deprived of a sizeable percentage of the content.

How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

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How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

No… you have a little thing called DIFFICULTY LEVELS so that no matter what your skill, you can always be challenged and feel a sense of accomplishment after completing an activity. You can do everything you want to and still have a challenge.

Oh wait…

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I understand giving ramped up rewards for more capable and successful players. The short-game players are well looked after in most games. D1 in particular.

All players should have an path to all content. Be it the long-game, like World of Tanks or availability of much easier difficulty settings at a later date.

It's beyond stupid that I keep buying Destiny only to be deprived of a sizeable percentage of the content.

How is this true? And if everything were easily obtainable what would be the point? So all games should be like kindergarten--everyone gets a gold star?

It's a stupid game not a life requirement. It's supposed to be enjoyable. It should be accessible.

If a game doesn't offer more ways for more customers to achieve fair use of the content then it wasn't planned well enough.

The simplest way for Destiny to let less capable players experience more content is by allowing the original power levels to stand throughout the life of the game. As the players' power levels rise along with new DLC the older content becomes more accessible. This happened for Vault of Glass I believe. Our older group were finally able to finish it without young hot shots to help us. It didn't diminish the value of our success for us. Whether someone else thinks we were given a gold star is of no concern to us.

D2 immediately raised the power level for normal mode raid just as we were becoming somewhat capable of completing individual sections. It set us back to the point we have temporarily given up.

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This is just my dumb logic, so it probably doesn’t even make sense.

You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

While I agree that it sucks for people who can’t run the raid for various reasons, they’ve already changed that slightly in this game by introducing clan engrams. Once a week you get a chance at a cool raid weapon just because Chappy had already killed the guy 6x before you logged in on Thursday.

I’m just wanting a reason for me specifically to run endgame content and I only care about weapons. I’m sure shaders/armor matter a lot to lots of other people but I’m extremely selfish.

In a strictly pve game, that would be fine, but since you take your gear into pvp in this game as well, the result of locking the best weapons behind the hardest content effectively locks top tier pvp behind the prestige raid. That sucks balls.

How often is the best PVE weaponry good, let alone best, for PVP as well?

Stuff like the raid-specific perks would seem to eliminate this. Almost as if Bungie knew that and designed vanilla Destiny with that in mind. Not counting the original Mythoclast, of course...

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This is just my dumb logic, so it probably doesn’t even make sense.

You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

While I agree that it sucks for people who can’t run the raid for various reasons, they’ve already changed that slightly in this game by introducing clan engrams. Once a week you get a chance at a cool raid weapon just because Chappy had already killed the guy 6x before you logged in on Thursday.

I’m just wanting a reason for me specifically to run endgame content and I only care about weapons. I’m sure shaders/armor matter a lot to lots of other people but I’m extremely selfish.

In a strictly pve game, that would be fine, but since you take your gear into pvp in this game as well, the result of locking the best weapons behind the hardest content effectively locks top tier pvp behind the prestige raid. That sucks balls.

How often is the best PVE weaponry good, let alone best, for PVP as well?

Stuff like the raid-specific perks would seem to eliminate this. Almost as if Bungie knew that and designed vanilla Destiny with that in mind. Not counting the original Mythoclast, of course...

Vanilla Destiny was the worst. The shotgun (Found Verdict, I think?) had the highest range in the game until the super broken IB shotgun more than 6 months later. The sniper was the best sniper rifle in the game for pvp for a very long time as well, due to high stability, a 6 round mag, and perfect scope selection. Mythoclast was broken, period.

As for how often, throughout all of Destiny, the best gear has been raid loot is debatable. It certainly was at the start of the game, as I mentioned above. It tempered as the meta became all about hand cannons, and Thorn and Hawkmoon took over. Then the shotgun and snipers meta rose again, and while the best shotguns were clearly pvp RNG guns (PC+1, for example), the KF sniper was exceedingly common as a top tier roll that, while not as good as the vanguard sniper (longbow) potentially was, KF was far easier to get than a perfect roll Longbow. As for heavies, Qullim's Terminus was one of the best heavy weapons in the game, and the only reason to not use it was if you wanted to use that exotic rocket with tracking and grenades and horseshoes (I forget the name, but you all know the one I mean). At the end of the D1 lifecycle, pvp vendor rolls became nearly perfect, which put the game in a much better place as far as I'm concerned.

As for D2, the guns are all marginally blah, so it's hard to say. The best primary is either MIDA or Nameless Midnight, the best secondary is Uriel's gift bar none, and the best heavy is the raid rocket launcher. But those being "best" is only by very thin margins or other, similar guns, and you can have success with many different loadouts because, frankly, nothing stands out as particularly effective. The current meta is more about teamshooting than it is about having the right gear.

Anyway, I don't really think the current setup is awful, but the statement that prestige mode should reward "better gear" is concerning to me that the plan for the future is to gate away pvp best in slot gear behind very hard raids. It's hard for a dedicated 4v4 pvp team to find 2 others to do a 6 player raid at a high level.

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Honestly, I’m not a PvP player very often, so I couldn’t care less. I still think that’s part of the problem. I still wish they’d separate the two modes. I’m tired of PvE suffering in the name of PvP balance.

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Honestly, I’m not a PvP player very often, so I couldn’t care less. I still think that’s part of the problem. I still wish they’d separate the two modes. I’m tired of PvE suffering in the name of PvP balance.

That would be a fine solution. They should just fix pvp loadouts for competitive game mode and iron banner, imo.

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This is just my dumb logic, so it probably doesn’t even make sense.

You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

While I agree that it sucks for people who can’t run the raid for various reasons, they’ve already changed that slightly in this game by introducing clan engrams. Once a week you get a chance at a cool raid weapon just because Chappy had already killed the guy 6x before you logged in on Thursday.

I’m just wanting a reason for me specifically to run endgame content and I only care about weapons. I’m sure shaders/armor matter a lot to lots of other people but I’m extremely selfish.

In a strictly pve game, that would be fine, but since you take your gear into pvp in this game as well, the result of locking the best weapons behind the hardest content effectively locks top tier pvp behind the prestige raid. That sucks balls.

Historically speaking, have any of the best PvP Weapons been Raid guns? I don’t think that’s ever been an issue.

In fact, a big part of what made Raid primary weapons great in D1 were the elemental burns, and that had no effect on PvP at all.

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which is why it was the best.

Praedith's Revenge was also the best sniper and Mythoclast was beyond OP for pvp.

Once that absurd range pump shotty came out from Iron Banner, FV was no longer a "good" pvp gun (by comparison).

I broke down the history of OP raid pvp weapons in an above post if you're curious.

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I only played PvP after Matador rose to power, still preferred FV but assumed I was wrong.

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Neither was as reliable as just about anything with shot package, ime.

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Neither was as reliable as just about anything with shot package, ime.

Fact. Party Crasher +1 was the best Shotgun at the end there.

Oh how I miss my Chaperone. There was a sweet spot around the start of year 2 where the Chappy was the greatest gun that ever gunned. Required high skill but allowed you to 1v3 if you were in the zone, as it were.

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You give weapons that make the raid easier to people who’ve beaten the raid in order to make them feel more powerful. Since we don’t actually get stronger (lol light levels), the only way to make it seem that way is with better weapons. Using a Black Hammer to melt Sexy Prime during a heroic strike made it feel like my guardian was strong enough to watch Zero kill Crota.

I was drinking coffee when I read this.

You owe me a monitor.

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I can see why they divorced power and perks from endgame activities (Why reward stuff that makes the raid easier after you've already shown you can do the raid?

Because that's the downhill side of the difficulty curve. It gives everyone the experience that Cody talks about mastery giving them-- that after playing a thing a lot, it becomes easier.

In the mastery version, the activity becomes easier because you actively participate in making yourself better at it.

In the progression model, the activity becomes easier because completing it grants you an item that makes the tasks required to get it easier (weapons with oracle perks like VoC).

Sheesh I miss VoC. :(

Of course both models work together, but I'd argue that regardless of how or why the activity becomes easier, and starts out as a thing that takes hours and ends up as something you speedrun, there's a limit to how many times people are willing to do a thing and be able to enjoy it.

For some it's mastering it. For some it's the power fantasy of running through it with a superweapon that makes what was once hard easy-- a fantasy in which it's not the player that achieves mastery, but the character. For others it's collecting all the bling.

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The solution is pretty clear.

Powerful gear that requires mastery to use, then challenges that require you to use the gear masterfully.

Think mega man X. You get all these moves and special weapons, which make the game easier. But then the game gets harder to compensate, and the secrets require you to use that stuff at an absolute master level.

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What an awful game. I'm glad nobody listens to your ideas.

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The solution is pretty clear.

Powerful gear that requires mastery to use, then challenges that require you to use the gear masterfully.

Think mega man X. You get all these moves and special weapons, which make the game easier. But then the game gets harder to compensate, and the secrets require you to use that stuff at an absolute master level.

Sure!

How about a rocket launcher that has cluster bombs but requires a QTE to trigger them?

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Sure!

How about a rocket launcher that has cluster bombs but requires a QTE to trigger them?

How about more something along the lines of the shock rifle in Unreal Tournament? Secondary fire would shoot an energy ball, and primary fire a hitscan laser. If you could hit an energy ball with the laser, it would make a huge explosion. Good players could use the secondary fire, then explode it at the best possible moment.

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