'Light' screws things up (Destiny)

by RC , UK, Monday, September 22, 2014, 14:32 (3758 days ago)

I think the 'Light' stat on armour screws everything up. I think they should get rid of it.

It's not optional, it's not 'sideways advancement', it's not optimisation, it's not cool situational perks. More light increases your level, and being a higher level makes you strictly more powerful in PvE and Iron Banner. I like PvE a lot, and I enjoyed Iron Banner in the Beta, so Light is the absolutely number 1 priority stat for an Armour piece above all else.

My fully-upgraded Level 20 Rare armour pieces? Absolutely useless to me within a week: not enough Light. Only Legendaries or Exotics will do now. I've broken them all down for Sapphire Wire to feed the voracious appetite of my Legendary Armour pieces. But, I'm still hurting for Sapphire Wire and all I have left are my 4 Legendaries and 1 Exotic armour piece!

To level-up now - which is what you're really doing - you can no longer simply play whatever you want and just pick up XP along the way. You have to go out of your way to get the resources required: Helium Filaments, Spirit Bloom, Relic Iron, Spinmetal and, the big one, Ascendant Shards.

To get the first four, you'll have to run around in circles for hours on each of the four planets, finding and opening chests and holding Square on pseudo-randomly placed resource nodes. You have to go all gatherer on it. There is absolutely no other way to get them and that sucks because I'm more of a hunter. Even my class is called that! Exploring off the beaten path and finding cool stuff is fine in itself, but it's become a requirement to even stand a chance at the I'm-told-it's-really-cool Vault of Glass. I feel cock-blocked by this system.

Ascendant Shards? You might occasionally get a few from RNGesus, but the main way seems to be 24+ on the Daily Heroic Story Mission and First-Gold-Tier-Public-Events-Per-Day. Daily Heroic rewards are split between the Shards and the Energy (for Legendary+ weapons) and Public Event rewards include several other things. So reliability isn't great, and you're very held back from how much you can earn.

Oh, you might earn 11 from the Weekly Nightfall Strike? Sorry, grind the other stuff first so you can get to 28 to even stand a chance.

It's messed up, man. I don't think it really makes the game any better. Rather than being 'unoptimised' in your progression if you just do what you like, you're actually, actively prevented from progressing. I've got to 27 now with my Hunter, so you might think it's OK. But I want more than 1 set of armour focused on Intellect and Discipline. Maybe I want a set on Strength and Intellect for a close-range Bladedancing Ninja? I want a Warlock and Titan too. So, I'll have to do it all over again... and again, and again...

TL/DR: Cody was right, the grind sucks.

At least shooting aliens in the face is still fun.