Is anyone else experiencing "New Gear Bottleneck"? (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, November 04, 2015, 17:41 (3402 days ago)
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Wednesday, November 04, 2015, 17:44

I'll say up front: I play way more than the average Destiny player. My experience with the game is probably a bit different than most other guardians out there. I'm writing this because I'm curious if others are running in to the same issue I am, or if it is just a result of the amount I play. I also spend 99% of my time with Destiny doing high-level activities; raids, trials, Iron Banner, heroic strikes... activities where having a high light level is crucial, so keep that in mind as well.

One of the things that I love about TTK on paper is the vast selection of fun, diverse weaponry and armor that is now in the game. Unfortunately, I've hit a point where I feel like I can't take advantage of most of it.

As it stands now, most new legendary gear drops at roughly 280. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but most of what I see comes in around there. As someone who is focusing on gearing up for Trials and hard-mode Oryx, level 280 gear is a long way from usable for me.

Let's say I get a new weapon, either through a drop or arms day. Here's my thought process due to the current system:

1) Does it have base-stats I like?

if yes...

2) Awesome! Does it have perks that I like to use?

if yes...

3) No way! Is it worth spending weeks or even months dumping weapon parts and materials into upgrading it, and then even more parts and materials into infusing its light level upwards, assuming I happen to get multiple other weapons from the raid and/or trials that are high enough level to get this beauty up to the 310 neighbourhood?

So you see where my problem is. At this point, the primary way to get gear above level 300 is the raid (and now Trials). I've run the raid every week since it launched, often on multiple characters, and I can count on 1 hand the number of weapons I've got that dropped higher than 300. To this day, I still only have 1 legendary heavy weapon higher than 300 (a 302 raid rocket launcher). So if I want my character to reach level 310 or higher (which is generally considered critical when it comes to defeating hard-mode Oryx), the rest of my gear needs to be even higher to make up for the gear slots where I can barely crack the 300 mark. Making things even worse is the fact that infusing gear only gives you an 80% bump. If I'm lucky enough to get a 308 heavy weapon from the raid, It will only get my current highest heavy up to 305 or 306... which doesn't even raise my overall light level a single notch. I'm better off using the raid weapon that drops (rather than infusing it) and living with the fact that aside from light level, it's nowhere near as good as the other weapons in my collection.

What this means is that I find myself getting some really cool looking weapons and armor through drops or arms day packages, but I scrap them because infusing them up to usable level is just too massive an investment in time and materials. I've reached the point where I buy arms day packages purely as a way to farm legendary marks and weapon parts, since I'm always short on both.

I can't imagine that this is the play-loop Bungie had in mind when they designed the end game. Again, this is only an issue for players who focus on the absolute top-level activities (280 gear is fine for 95% of the content in the game). But I can't help thinking there has got to be a better way for end-game players to raise their light level AND continue using gear they enjoy that doesn't involve weeks or months of waiting for tiny incremental increases. After all, isn't that exactly what Bungie has said they wanted to avoid this time around?

Anyone else finding themselves in a similar loop? Just me?