A better way to handle Additional Content (Destiny)
by Cody Miller 
, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 03, 2014, 18:48 (3883 days ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Wednesday, December 03, 2014, 18:54
I've always felt like raising the level cap was a bad idea. The issue with upgrading exotics (and who knows where legendaries will fall), is but one symptom. A better way would have been such:
Keep the level cap. Keep 300 as the max upgradable. So how do you then make the new gear valuable? Simple. Your new content, the raid, strikes, and story missions, should have challenges that fit in with the new weapons. So the new stuff is hard with current weapons, but the new ones have characteristics or abilities that make them more desirable for these activities.
There could be new perks that interact in beneficial ways on the new content (for instance, oracle Disruptor, although not something that narrow and specific). New enemies that are best taken down with a void hand canon or void scout rifle? You've just made a new item desirable.
The problem now, is that even for the old stuff, the new weapons will be better by virtue of more attack. This way, it better preserves a place for each and every weapon, and never invalidates anything you've spent the time upgrading.
Catch my drift? The challenges should diversify, but so should your tools for conquering them.
Or...
by rliebherr , St. Louis, Missouri, Thursday, December 04, 2014, 06:18 (3883 days ago) @ Cody Miller
I think there are a number of different ways to go about this. Here are a few I can think of:
- Everbody's favorite: add some upgrade nodes to existing exotics (perhaps make each of them require an exotic shard, or make the total XP required in the additional nodes equal to XP required for leveling a new exotic to max?)
- Purchase an "upgrade blueprint" from Xur (or find it in the wild) and turn it into the Gunsmith with an Exotic Shard. We lose the gun for 24 IRL hours, but it is returned to the Postmaster after the wait with current upgrades in tact and new nodes added. Perhaps increasing the number of Shards we give the Gunsmith can either a.) decrease the wait time or b.) fill up one of the upgrade nodes upon receipt from the Postmaster.
- Make Queen's Wrath relevant by being able to purchase an exotic weapon telemetry that fully upgrades an exotic to 300 instantly. Make this telemetry purchasable upon max rep and allow players to purchase as many as they like. (Of course, this only makes QW relevant for a few rounds and is not a long term solution to either problem).
I have to keep reminding myself that the weapons will still be viable because they'll reset to 300 ATK, just lose the perks. Losing the perks, admittedly, is frustrating. DLC is about progression, not regression. This is especially frustrating for armor. As a Hunter, I use all three exotic helmets - one for Gunslinger, one for Bladedancer, and one for PvP. I now have to re-level all of them again. Ugh.
A better way to handle Additional Content
by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, December 04, 2014, 07:58 (3882 days ago) @ Cody Miller
Great idea. I just made a similar suggestion in another thread. You beat me to it :)