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

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Thursday, November 05, 2015, 10:10 (3402 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

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.

I think they play loop Bungie had in mind was you scrapping weapons that you might think are cool in order to save only the ones you KNOW are cool. I think Bungie wants variety.

But isn't that a direct contradiction? I'm scrapping interesting looking weapons (variety) in favor of pumping resources into my Hung Jury (Fatebringer 2.0?). If the desire was to encourage greater weapon variety, wouldn't that involve a system where I order arms day weapons and actually keep/use them instead of scrapping them instantly?

I think what Bungie is struggling with is a social problem rather than a technical one. They are looking for a technical solution, but there may not be one.

The question is-- why are you upgrading the Hung Jury if these other guns are interesting?

I think what Bungie wants is enough weapon parity, or the appearance of it, so that everyone is not just keeping and upgrading the same weapons.

The problem is that social network effects are getting in the way. Even if, say, Hung Jury isn't the new Fatebringer, or Sleeper Simulant isn't the new Gjallarhorn, all that needs to happen is for enough people to think this is true (even if they also believe the new versions are worse!) and the same behavior repeats itself.

I think Bungie is against weapons that are so OP that everyone has to have them (like Gjallarhorn became) not because they make the game too easy but because they make it monotonous when everyone has the same weapons.

I agree with this completely, but I'm not sure how minimizing our ability to upgrade gear to endgame levels accomplishes that.

I think they are hoping that the weapon pool is diverse enough, and there is enough parity, that when people are pushed to choose one weapon over another, not everyone will make the same choice, leading to greater variety in the field and amongst fireteam members.