but that seems to be the way of things now - recurring charges for cosmetic things fund "free-to-play" games?

The idea of "don't put up barriers to fun" in your game is now the opposite of what is common and expected.

What the fuck is wrong with the people making decisions over there? Has anyone checked their building for a gas leak? Body replacing aliens? Anything to make this make any sense?

The main experience of Destiny remains incredible. The bullshit surrounding it continues to get worse, however, and in a way that isn’t easily overlooked or ignored. I’d love to do some Grandmaster Nightfalls for instance, because I love difficult content. I can’t though, because the power level system still blows, and Bungie doesn’t think well over a hundred hours since Beyond Light is enough to be allowed to participate in that activity. Fuck me for wanting to play fun activities with my friends instead of just focusing on the next Pinnacle I need, right?

I've stopped caring about armor and cosmetics because that's a futile effort anymore. Been using a hand cannon/scout rifle combo that is fun. Definitely not the best options out there, but they are fun to use.

Be let’s be real. If anyone really thinks it will be anything approaching reasonable, I have a bridge to sell them.

Me too.

Every other game I’ve ever played that has Transmog let’s you do it for free or cheap in game resources. I’ve been playing The Division 2 for the past week, and that game lets you do it immediately for zero cost at all—you just have to have found the item you want to display before. That’s it. Leave it to Bungie to try and extract as much money as possible.

If they really want to let you buy it with silver, fine. But if the alternative is thousands of bright dust, it might actually be the thing that breaks me. I bet it will cost bright dust though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same price as buying the ornament sets from Eververse.

Wow. A Free-to-play game which requires a cool thing everyone wants to be either earned through frictions or bought for real money. WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS

Every other game I’ve ever played that has Transmog let’s you do it for free or cheap in game resources. I’ve been playing The Division 2 for the past week, and that game lets you do it immediately for zero cost at all—you just have to have found the item you want to display before. That’s it. Leave it to Bungie to try and extract as much money as possible.

If they really want to let you buy it with silver, fine. But if the alternative is thousands of bright dust, it might actually be the thing that breaks me. I bet it will cost bright dust though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same price as buying the ornament sets from Eververse.

So, in short, it seems it may be more of an investment then we realize, should it pan out as is implied here. And yes, there are folks who are wondering why this wouldn't just be free/part of the game?

Getting real close to dropping this game for good.

To answer your question, I got somewhat lucky—I only have 4k of each. I have 17,264 gunsmith parts, though. Too many weapons for me to clear out first, ironically. lol

Glad I don't need to do much with gunsmith parts (yet?)... as I'm currently sitting on a war chest of a little under 30k.

Transmog might make this more tenable.

I've seen a lot of this sentiment lately. My understanding of transmog is that it would allow us to reskin armor to appear as others. If that is correct, how does this address the investment/obsolete grind identified in this thread?

For me, it's the idea that I no longer have to choose armor based on its appearance. Having to deal with both style and stats means I'm always changing armor. Being able to transmog reduces how frequently I feel I need to change armor and makes the investment into a piece of armor more valuable.

As it just so happens, folks on the Subreddit have been talking about Transmog, and the current top comment notes the below;

We will be adding a Transmogrification feature to Destiny 2.

• This will allow players to turn their Armor into Universal Ornaments.
  
• We plan to allow players to do this with in-game effort OR Silver.
  
• This feature is in early development and is expected sometime during Year 4.

That is quoted from a TWAB dated last year, in the 7th of May. (Here is the DBO vers.)

So, in short, it seems it may be more of an investment then we realize, should it pan out as is implied here. And yes, there are folks who are wondering why this wouldn't just be free/part of the game?

Transmog might make this more tenable.

I've seen a lot of this sentiment lately. My understanding of transmog is that it would allow us to reskin armor to appear as others. If that is correct, how does this address the investment/obsolete grind identified in this thread?

For me, it's the idea that I no longer have to choose armor based on its appearance. Having to deal with both style and stats means I'm always changing armor. Being able to transmog reduces how frequently I feel I need to change armor and makes the investment into a piece of armor more valuable.

I'm pretty much on board with the decision to sunset guns because there appears to be a solid player-friendly end goal at the end: an evolving sandbox that has fun perks/combos that won't create power creep. In some ways it's an elegant solution. Armor Sunsetting feels like BS.

I'm actually with you on that, I don't understand armor sunsetting at all.

I think Whirlwind blade can stack like 5x but they might have changed that.

For Falling Guillotine this is an insane roll, just spam quick attack and do a power attack whenever there are three or more enemies around. I routinely kill Savek (Fallen crypto hunt boss) before he teleports, for instance.

4123 crucible tokens ->
+832 legendary shards (20.18 per 100 crucible tokens)
+624 weapon parts (15.13 per 100 crucible tokens)
+49 enhancement cores (1.19 cores per 100 crucible tokens)

Transmog might make this more tenable.

I've seen a lot of this sentiment lately. My understanding of transmog is that it would allow us to reskin armor to appear as others. If that is correct, how does this address the investment/obsolete grind identified in this thread?

Am I wrong and has there been some other way transmog has been talked about by Bungie? If so, I would love to read about it. That being said, I would not put my hope in it until it is explicitly defined.

I think I've seen one thing talking about it, which is where I found the data I'm about to reiterate, but I have absolutely no idea where I found it or how official what I am recalling is. So THAT'S helpful... I guess. Real... real confidence booster, lol.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The keyword is "Stat Package". Armor as it is in Destiny 2 right now comes in two parts; Appearance and Stats. If you got some armor you liked the look of, you could grind for it and see if you could get better stats for it. Or you could not care, and just be a clashing hodgepodge of solid game play. Once we get the chance to change our appearance at will, (sans what we have with exotics for fairly obvious reasons) what is armor? What makes one set better than another? You might as well farm in raids or trails for the best stat package then, right? Everything else becomes obsolete in the purpose of the armor side of things. That on top of the mod system... which they are changing too right? Well... things are more in the air then we may suspect.

...and I'm going to stop there cause I think I see smoke coming out the ears.

So even though cashing in all these tokens will take a while, I'll probably end up with some masterworked exotic armors.

Transmog might make this more tenable.

I've seen a lot of this sentiment lately. My understanding of transmog is that it would allow us to reskin armor to appear as others. If that is correct, how does this address the investment/obsolete grind identified in this thread?

Am I wrong and has there been some other way transmog has been talked about by Bungie? If so, I would love to read about it. That being said, I would not put my hope in it until it is explicitly defined.

-------

Regarding Masterworks and Sunsetting, I thought that the goal was to control the sandbox over time so that previous dev decisions didn't haunt them for eternity. If that is the assumption, it really should only apply to guns and mods.

The only way I can see them justifying the sunsetting of armor is to keep people grinding. Honestly, I would play new activities just for the aesthetics/perks (such as that of raid gear). I don't need some sort of deprecation system in place to get me to play. In fact, like Cheaply, sunsetting armor actively makes me not want to play. It adds a subtle pressure to every investment decision (did I choose the wrong one?) that just doesn't work in a constant loot-stream game.

I'm pretty much on board with the decision to sunset guns because there appears to be a solid player-friendly end goal at the end: an evolving sandbox that has fun perks/combos that won't create power creep. In some ways it's an elegant solution. Armor Sunsetting feels like BS.

Not everyone plays this game with such a concentration. As a result, for many masterworking is very very expensive at base. On top of that, now we will lose that investment with in a number of time not to exceed 12 months? That makes it even more expensive! I don't recall Bungie changing those metrics when sunsetting was introduced.

Yup. I had one piece of masterworked armor for a bit. When I masterwork, it is always weapons because once I've rolled a weapon I'm happy with I can stick with it. Armor configuration is much more mutable so it is never worth putting resources into.

It still may be worth it, but I imagine its a real bear of a loop for a someone to try and slowly upgrade something, only for it to become obsolete shortly after. I would also like to reiterate that we don't yet know what kind of changes we may see to armors once Transmog comes to fruition.

Transmog might make this more tenable.