A pair of vids with a lot of good points (Destiny)
by Claude Errera 
, Tuesday, May 26, 2020, 16:08 (1646 days ago)
Slayerage (The Legend Himself) put together a pair of vids on the subject of weapon sunsetting (well, he made a tongue-in-cheek one that didn't go over very well, and rather than write a book on reddit in reply to the criticism, he made a second one answering a lot of the points his critics made). They made me reexamine my own arguments against weapon sunsetting; I'm coming around to his position that what I'm unhappy about isn't really the sunsetting, but other things that probably wouldn't be fixed by NOT sunsetting weapons. Anyway, I thought they were worth watching.
A pair of vids with a lot of good points
by Simpsons Rule , Thursday, May 28, 2020, 09:28 (1644 days ago) @ Claude Errera
Episode III - Revenge of the Reddit
A pair of vids with a lot of good points
by Claude Errera , Thursday, May 28, 2020, 10:24 (1644 days ago) @ Simpsons Rule
I agree with him more in this one than in the first two!
I'm coming around to the idea that sunsetting isn't really going to affect my enjoyment of the game much at all. I STILL hate the idea that something I worked hard for isn't going to be usable in endgame activities (in the abstract)... but when I look at my actual PLAY in endgame activities... it's probably not going to be super-affected at all.
We did the Garden of Salvation last night. I used the following weapons:
Spare Rations (sunsetting in September 2020, but finding another useable primary will NOT be hard)
Jotunn (not sunsetting)
Wendigo (sunsetting in September 2020, this one makes me sad)
Recluse (Sunsetting in September 2020, finding a replacement is semi-important)
Threat Level (not really worried about finding a decent primary shotgun)
Whisper of the Worm (not sunsetting)
I've got some decent rolls on Interference IV, which should be good for a while, they might take Wendigo's place. We'll see about Recluse.
Also, let's remember: GoS light level is 940, which is currently 100 levels below my max. Using a weapon that's 50 light below current max drops my overall light level by 7 levels... so using Recluse going forward should work in the newest Artifact-enabled endgame content for months after the gun is sunset (at least one season, maybe 2), as long as I stick with newer stuff in other slots. I probably don't want to do that in modes like Iron Banner or Trials... but I haven't used Recluse in either of those modes for quite some time anyway.
My general Trials loadout:
Breachlght (sunsets in a year, I think)
Summoner (sunsets in more than a year)
Sins of the Past (sunsetting in September 2020, but I'm sure i can find a RL with cluster bombs after that)
So: (my experience in) Trials is pretty much unaffected by sunsetting, in the short term
GM Nightfalls: I haven't done any. :(
My knee-jerk reaction to the entire concept had been negative; it seemed pretty disrespectful to tell me, with pretty much minimal notice, that stuff I'd worked on for months (years, in a couple of cases) wasn't going to be viable in the most demanding activities, going forward. It still does, to be honest.
HOWEVER: I'm not actually USING most of that stuff in those activities, anyway. Losing the POTENTIAL to do so is less painful than losing something I ACTUALLY use.
I understand that this is 100% personal; some people DO use that stuff regularly in endgame content, and they WILL have problems finding replacements. But watching Slayerage's vids has made me realize that I'm more disturbed by the IDEA than the actual ACT. I don't want to be told "yes, you like this... but we're going to make it less useful for you, so that we can move on more efficiently."
The counter-argument made by CammyCakes (and others), that they spend months honing their skills using a particular weapon set, and see no value in keeping other weapons around, because any activities they do (endgame or not) will need to be subject to that need for perfection... it doesn't apply to me. It will never apply to me; that's not how I play Destiny, and it's not how I'll EVER play Destiny. (Or any game, really.)
Sunsetting, as a general concept, is offensive to me because it tells me Bungie cares less about MY desires than they do about the health of the game. I don't want to hear that. But Slayerage's arguments let me look at the situation from a slightly more dispassionate place, and if I can get past my feeling of offense, I can understand that my actual enjoyment, going forward, isn't really going to be strongly affected (if at all).
I can live with that.
A pair of vids with a lot of good points
The condescending smugness of the narrator's voice made it difficult to get through the videos, but ok:
I think I got some of his points. "Trust Bungie to make exciting new content, as a studio their reputation is on the line, this isn't the first time weapons have been sunset, this isn't the end of the world."
Valid, and definitely not the end of the world.
I'm coming around to the idea that sunsetting isn't really going to affect my enjoyment of the game much at all. I STILL hate the idea that something I worked hard for isn't going to be usable in endgame activities (in the abstract)... but when I look at my actual PLAY in endgame activities... it's probably not going to be super-affected at all.
Well first off, I'm glad it's not going to change your enjoyment of the game, that's awesome!
I'm a bit of a different mind -- in a game that's already made gear more complicated than I'd like (seasons? mods? slots? elements?) the last thing I need is a "applicable to end game activities y/n" flag.
It's bad enough that there's a "did I remember to bring an ARC set of LEGS to this encounter, and will it take a Season 8 mod?" That doesn't bring a whole lot of joy.
I enjoy complexity, but I want to play next gen Halo, not feel like I'm doing my fucking taxes.
Lightwise, either a piece of gear is useful everywhere, or it's not, and if it's the latter, I have no space for it in my head, my vault, or my character inventory.
I enjoy learning and mastering the characteristics of items -- the Titan exotic armor that let you dodge in D1, or the aim assist from Tarantula. My play style evolves around those characteristics, and my enjoyment comes from trying to master them.
When Fatebringer was no longer upgradeable, it went into the vault, and that was that. There was no "oh I think I'll bring it to my daughter's picnic and to the restaurant, but it's not high light enough to bring to Thanksgiving dinner."
My main beef with Bungie's announced plan is the number of hours that were REQUIRED doing painful, stupid, punishing shit to obtain so-called "pinnacle" or "grand Poobah" weapons that have now been given a lifespan counted in months, not years.
It's not that it was hard to get them, it was time-consuming and, by design, really, really not fun -- the epitome of "the catch is better than the chase."
Every time I've been killed by Fighting Lion in the crucible, I feel nothing but sympathy for my poor opponent, because he gets murdered over and over between kills: he is gimping himself. The grind is DESIGNED to be punishing.
No one forced me to get Mountaintop, Recluse, Wendigo, etc, but had I known their ephemerality then, there is 0% chance I would have put myself through that painful waste of time.
As the narrator of those videos suggested, Bungie loves to milk nostalgia, so let me do the same here, a "good old days" sort of thing:
Remember when you had vendors that sold pretty solid weapons here and there (Hawksaw -- Fitted Stock / CB / SmallBore -- looking at you.) Remember looking forward to Wednesdays, and towards the end there, visiting DO / FWC / NM, checking out what they were selling every week? Some real little gems to be had.
I'd be ok with that stuff lasting months, but they lasted longer than that, and the sun still rose, and it wasn't the end of the world.
There also weren't as many "influencers" or whatever they're called... people who play the game "3-13 hours a day" saying how the game should be.
Sunsetting, as a general concept, is offensive to me because it tells me Bungie cares less about MY desires than they do about the health of the game. I don't want to hear that. But Slayerage's arguments let me look at the situation from a slightly more dispassionate place, and if I can get past my feeling of offense, I can understand that my actual enjoyment, going forward, isn't really going to be strongly affected (if at all).
I can live with that.
I can live with it too, I just expected better comms from Bungie, and it's a bummer to think of the company as an unreliable narrator at this point.
Also, bring back SRL.