Someone explain how we are not moving backwards.

Bungie tried to move forward, and the entire internet bitched about it. This is what people want.

It’s the same with bounties. People bitched and bitched about having to go to the Tower in D1 and pick up bounties, or bitched that it was annoying to forget to pick up bounties and then go do whatever activities. So Bungie was smart and gave us D2’s challenges, but people bitched about that too, so now we’re back to going to the Tower to pick up bounties.

It’s no wonder Bungie is “bad” at communicating. Their fan base is fucking bipolar and doesn’t have a clue what the fuck it wants. It hates grind, no, it wants grind back, no not THAT kind of grind.

Someone explain how we are not moving backwards.

If that's true, then that will be infinitely worse. I don't recognize the other weapons, but I see at least one Sniper and two shotguns. If they're moved to the Kinetic weapons slot, then that means people will spawn and respawn in Crucible with them as their main weapon, with infinite ammo to boot.

No. Shotguns use green ammo, even in the Kinetic slot. You only spawn with a single shot in the shotgun (and I assume probably the same for snipers). Players will drop green ammo on death, if they have it, though. This is all in the combat reveal stream they just did on Tuesday.

EDIT: I just went back and checked. You get one per gun if you run a loadout with two weapons that require Special Ammo. You get two shots if you only have a single gun that needs green, and one that needs white. So it's still very limited, and you'll have to rely on actually getting kills on folks that also currently have green ammo to drop.

The rest of it mostly sounds ok, with the exception of needing planetary materials for infusion. I mean, honestly, Bungie. What the hell? Does no one remember running around looking for fucking helium coils in D1? Why are we going back to that? That one thing alone is, and I am not just saying this, seriously making me reconsider participating.

The most reasonable and logical way to implement this system would be to integrate planetary materials into the game's systems.
Por ejemplo, let's use Dusklight crystals:

• EDZ Enemies should all have a chance to drop one or two (they're out here grinding too!).
  
• Roaming Yellow bar enemies are guaranteed sources.
  
• Public Events always drop a couple, Heroic can drop up to five.
  
• Planetary challenges are guaranteed drops (Destiny 1 bounties had this).
  
• Strikes can drop up to seven. Higher difficulty has higher drop chance (higher chance if you don't quit strikes).
  
• Earth-based Crucible maps can drop a handful, with more dropping if you win (higher chance if you don't quit games).
  
• Completing a Guided Game Nightfall drops up to 20 resources for everyone, with a guaranteed bonus 10 for the hosts if they get a recommendation.

Bam, now you're rewarding players just for playing the game with existing resources, while also helping them focus on a variety of specific activities (while also rewarding them in Crucible). You're also encouraging use of the Guided Games feature, and removing the tedium of running laps around a map looking for mats (but having that option available for those running Patrols).

Yes. Tokens are going away—everything that previously gave you tokens will now give you planetary materials instead.

And seeing as I have a fat stack of tokens just sitting in my inventory or all planets... I'm okay with this.

I don’t think those Tokens are going to do you any good. It’s explicitly planetary materials needed for infusion. The only thing you can do with those Tokens is turn them into the vendor for rewards packages.

They aren't, they are just a testament as to how little I'm going to have to work for the new currency.

Each Bright Engram grants one bounty note in Season 4
These Notes can be exchanged for a three different tiers of weekly Eververse bounties
Tier 3:Costs 6 Eververse Bounty Notes, Rewards 150 Bright Dust

Everything that isn't an Emote or a Ghost Shell is thousands of Bright Dust.

If we are going based on current breakdown rates and relative Bright Dust costs:
- Breaking down a Shader or Transmat Effect will be: 10BD
- Breaking down a L!Ghost/L!Vehicle/L!Armor will be: 100BD
- Breaking down an E!Ghost or E!Vehicle will be: 500BD

So, in a week you need to get 6 Bounty Notes to do the 150BD Bounty you need 6 Bright Engrams. That means you're looking at a minimum of about 240BD (1 Transmat, 3 Shaders x 6 drops) if you aren't trying to use any of those for other things. In addition to that, you could obviously only pull Emotes and Ornaments and not get any BD. You could also pull 50, 250, or 500 Bright Dust assuming those "gifts" are still part of the pool.

So you can pull, more-or-less, 390-1890BD/wk if you are breaking everything down (now going into your collection - so if you aren't going to actively use those items). Some exotic ornaments are as low as 800BD and I think the highest BD cost (someone correct me if I'm wrong) item I've seen was ~2500BD.

You're also getting a bounty for 250 Glimmer to get a weekly "free pull" on the Prismatic Matrix outside of having to earn Brightgrams. And while I don't think my experience is necessarily common (I get a lot of duplicate Exotic Sparrows out of EV) even with only breaking down duplicates I have more Bright Dust in Season 3 than I know what to do with.

So, it definitely does feel kind of weak that you only get 150BD for the bounty, but it's just another booster not intended to replace the core Brightgram mechanic.

Yes. Tokens are going away—everything that previously gave you tokens will now give you planetary materials instead.

And seeing as I have a fat stack of tokens just sitting in my inventory or all planets... I'm okay with this.

I don’t think those Tokens are going to do you any good. It’s explicitly planetary materials needed for infusion. The only thing you can do with those Tokens is turn them into the vendor for rewards packages.

Yes. Tokens are going away—everything that previously gave you tokens will now give you planetary materials instead.

And seeing as I have a fat stack of tokens just sitting in my inventory or all planets... I'm okay with this.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine they'd just take the whole raid out. It's in there somewhere.

When you click on Nessus apparently it's now on the map (like the farm on earth).

There's also this paragraph, which I don't actually understand:

When players earn powerful rewards, these items should never scale down to where they do not give an increase in Power. Even if your Power is 100 over an activity’s recommended level, it should still grant a reward at least one Power level above your current average. This means that players should still benefit when grouping with teammates who haven’t accomplished as much as they have.

So, no more soft cap?

More or less I think that's what they're saying. Although I believe the actual climb will be slower overall.

There's also this paragraph, which I don't actually understand:

When players earn powerful rewards, these items should never scale down to where they do not give an increase in Power. Even if your Power is 100 over an activity’s recommended level, it should still grant a reward at least one Power level above your current average. This means that players should still benefit when grouping with teammates who haven’t accomplished as much as they have.

So, no more soft cap?