Yeah, if I've learned anything from this little kerfuffle, it's to not do anything with my exotics for about a month.

I'll be storing all my exotics, unless they are an expansion one that already starts at 300.

Of course, will we have to do this all over again when House of Wolves comes out? Maybe I should just stick to the new legendaries.

I am in the process of thinking about whether I will have to completely stop playing Destiny, or else find a way to optimize my playtime so that I have to grind as little as possible.

It is sad that a game with so much fun buried in it has me come to that.

I don't think that's true. The Iron Banner changes were communicated well. "Here's why were changing it" - "Here's what we're thinking of doing" - "What do you think?" Reaction was good. Test. Deploy month afterward to standing ovation.

The second round of Iron Banner was great. They did pass that information on in a good enough manner. However, besides offering level 30 boots and arm pieces there wasn't any major changes that affect the game system wide.

But it sometimes seems like DeeJ doesn't get enough information, far enough advance and isn't allowed to release it until some BS exclusivity deal with said 3rd party sources.

It seems like there are severe communication issues internally. How the heck can they think it's alright to upgrade exotic leveling on a friday(?) and a then completely change that again a few days later? If they would have released the new leveling details (both exotic shards and resetting current exotics) at the same time then I wouldn't be as mad about this.

As it stands now, I'm down two extra exotic weapons I sharded to upgrade an Icebreaker and a Suros to level 300. If the new leveling systems would have been communicated all at once I could have made an informed decision to hold off dismantling weapons for future upgrades.

I mean, how the hell does Datto seem to know more about it (that upgraded exotics start at 300, which lessens the sting only a little) than what was presented to us directly from Bungie?

Again, If Datto knows about this then why did Bungie not release this information at the same time as they released information about resetting your weapons?

My reaction to the reset was that I would have to downgrade my icebreaker to a lower level than it currently is. I was guessing somewhere in the 270-280's base damage which would essentially make it harder to raid with.

The lack of communication here is just baffling. They want us to invest our time and money into this game so why can't they just tell us the relevant information we need to make informed decisions.

Iron Banner #1 was a complete waste of time since they hyped everything up and then dropped the ball. The Queen's Wrath was worthless also (even though I still enjoy the shader). Now, the whole exotic leveling system and it's piecemeal information. Deej's comment about player reactions being wrong was just icing on the cake. I realize that was a poor choice of wording and he posted the correction, but it was too little, too late for ticking people off.

I would hate to be in Deej's shoes right now. Cryptic communication can be a blast (ARGs for example), but on major game changing features they need to keep people informed so they can make decisions on how to spend their extremely valuable free time.

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exotic weapon bounties should not be random.

they should be hard, but you should be able to pick up 1 at a time after X number of completed bounties, or XX level, or something.

they should take a while to do, but should be a fun and rewarding process. completing it should be a rite of passage so to speak, and not a luck of the draw. flesh out the story of the bounty in-game.

Have perks on the weapon that might not make any sense at first, then have a specific use for that weapon in the raid.

Make the gun level up with the player. If i'm a 22, then the gun is a 22. As i level up, the gun levels up. If i swap armor and drop a level, the gun drops. They already do this in essence, as you deal less damage to enemies that are at a higher level than you, the reduction would just be based on the weapon, and not on the player; essentially giving the weapon an infinite ceiling (as long as Bungie keeps increasing the light level). In relation to yourself, and all enemies at or below your level, the gun is maxed out. All guns could be balanced in relation to each other, b/c against players of the same level, the gun does the same relative damage.

Doing this would get rid of the upgrade tree for the weapons, or they could be there for show only to visually represent to the player what their light level is doing to the weapon. All leveling would be through armor, which is done through XP.

I personally think they should do away with upgrade materials entirely, but an interesting way to incorporate them would be to have them affect the final stats of the armor. Instead of having assigned stats on your armor, make the armor have a light level only and requires X number of upgrade materials. Want your armor to have more strength? Upgrade it with spinmetal. Want to have more discipline? upgrade it with spirit bloom. Want to have more intellect? Upgrade it with helium. want it to have more defense? upgrade it with iron.

Then, you could build your armor the way you want, i could go all in on intellect, or split it up. Also, use Motes of light to up the light level of any legendary armor. Got a set that you like b/c it looks badass, dump a lot of Motes into it. To force people to go after new armor later, maybe give each set an "overpower" limit. Say, armor can only be overpowered 5 levels from its original max light. that gives folks incentive to get new DLC armor. It'll extend the life of the armor part way through 1 expansion, but they will eventually have to catch up. the good thing is that someone will not have to part with an armor setup they just got, they can hang on to it for a while.

Doing what you suggest could lead to a very cool game, but it would certainly sacrifice some of the RPG nature of Destiny; some of the personal choice and freedom. I LIKE the fact that we go in to the raid with 6 people, all of whom are able to select the weapons that work best for them in the rolls they have decided to play. If the raid required weapons X,Y & Z, it would become a far more predictable experience, would it not? As it stands right now, every time I play the raid with a different group we need to adjust our strategy because nobody has the same tool set.

This is one of several reasons that I don't find Exotic weapons to be such a big deal overall. There are a select few that truly earn their exotic slot (Icebreaker, Gjallarhorn, perhaps Invective and Suros Regime for Crucible). Other than that, I prefer to focus on a good selection of maxed out legendary weapons, since I can mix and match them in whatever combination I want.

Some of them are an absolute chore to use until you get those perks.

I'm looking at you, Pocket Infinity.

Ugh, don't make me thing about it.