Polygon: The Taken King still hasn't gotten raid loot right (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, October 01, 2015, 20:45 (3437 days ago) @ Avateur

http://www.polygon.com/2015/10/1/9433965/destiny-loot-exotics

I can't say I disagree with a lot of this. I've been heavily relying on duplicates and year one exotics to get the shards I need to boost up my current exotic weapons and armor. Beyond that, I have nothing but rare armor. Every legendary piece I get is garbage in comparison, and the infusion rate isn't worth losing the current high light level that I need to continue rocking the Raid (or potentially Trials). I'm pretty much strictly relying upon Raid drops at this point to get me any kind of decent armor that can be infused (that's non-exotic).

I think the author's point about the upgrade process is spot on, but I also think it's waaaaay too early in the life of the game to think you'll be "forever 299" or whatever. He's presently saying "OMG my guns aren't 310" while admitting 300 is all you need for everything in the game. Then he complains that because hard mode isn't in the game yet, we should be able to get guns good enough to trump hard mode, but that's a false claim afaic. Year 3 isn't out yet, should we be able to make our guns year 3 strong? Of course not, that would be silly. When hard mode comes out, you will experience the same incremental power creep you did when you finally hit 290 and went into the raid, and rightly so.

Also, he missed the most egregious mistake of raid loot, namely 20 mouldering shards often granting you 2 mouldering shards as your "bonus loot." DUMB.

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All that being said, in response to having only rare armor, I think you're doing it wrong. I've got a nearly full set of legendary gear (still rocking my 297 rare helmet, in all honesty), and it wasn't hard to do. I spend marks to buy a legendary with a roll I like in a slot I need to fill, and then I upgrade it with my blue drops. There's little "opportunity cost" when doing this, even with only an 80% translation.

I will say that I think the imbue process should transfer 100% of the value of like-rarity items (a 310 exotic should infuse another exotic to 310, and a 295 legendary should infuse another legendary up to 295), but because getting those drops is so common, I'm not really worried.

Lastly, remember that lots of the best items come from quests now rather than as random drops. Relying on drops as your sole upgrade path is not a good idea or an ideal use of your time. Finish some missions and get some sweet loots. Several missions reward you with light 300 legendaries.

TL;DR: There are problems, but they aren't remotely close to the scale of the problems from 1.0 and CE/HoW.