From the Bungie blog:

"Each week, Xûr will possess a selection of upgrades for existing Exotics in his inventory"

From what I've been reading here on the site, a lot of the reaction seems to be "great, now I've got to rush out and upgrade all my exotics to keep them useful".

I've already said that I think this reaction ignores the fact that we'll be chasing new, better gear. That's somewhat understandable; we can't chase that gear yet, so its "out of sight, out of mind." Everyone is focused on what we already have.

That aside, it sounds to me like we wouldn't be able to sink all of our time in to re-upgrading our all our exotics, even if we wanted to. Xur is only going to be offering a selection of specific upgrades each week. Unless you have a huge selection of exotics, he might not even offer upgrades for the weapons you want to rank up for several weeks.

Here's why this is a good thing: Right now, I've already decided I want to upgrade my Icebreaker. I use it constantly, it's my favorite weapon in the game. So of course I want to bring it up to max level.

Here's the thing: by the time I have the option to upgrade the Icebreaker, I will already have sunk significant time into the new content. I'll probably have several of the new weapons. Who knows, maybe I'll like one of them more than Icebreaker, and decide it isn't worth the upgrade after all.

So for everyone who's feeling ripped off or stressed out about the "need to re-upgrade all our exotics all over again", I'd suggest that you might be looking at this from the wrong angle. Bungie never expected us to want to bring all our exotics up the ladder with us. That's not the point. Our current exotics got us this far. The new exotics are for the future of the game. The exotic upgrade purchase is just an option to keep a select few of our old favorites with us as we move along.

The problem isn't spending more time making our current exotics better. The problem is spending more time getting our current exotics back up to their current state again before we can make them better.

I love my Last Word, but it didn't really shine until I unlocked the stability upgrade and its signature upgrade. I'm happy that I get to upgrade it and keep using it on higher level activities. I'm not happy that I have to use it without the upgrades for a while before I can use it like I do now.

Plus I'm stuck at a point right now where I have some exotics that just need the exotic shard to upgrade, but I know it's a waste to do so, and I have no idea how long I will have to wait before I can start them all over again with Xur.

I've seen the new exotics and they're neat, but I have a few already that I'm very attached to. Like I said, I'm very happy I can bring them along. I'm not happy with the method they're using to do that. Rather than focusing on upgrading new weapons, I'm going to be focused on upgrading my old favorites again. And then I'll have to do it again with the next DLC.

I saw that too and I'm hoping it was just poor wording on their part and we can upgrade what we want, when we want.

If not, we'll probably get like, Invective, Bad Juju, MIDA, and P&T the first 4 weeks or something awful like that.

The problem isn't spending more time making our current exotics better. The problem is spending more time getting our current exotics back up to their current state again before we can make them better.

I love my Last Word, but it didn't really shine until I unlocked the stability upgrade and its signature upgrade. I'm happy that I get to upgrade it and keep using it on higher level activities. I'm not happy that I have to use it without the upgrades for a while before I can use it like I do now.

Plus I'm stuck at a point right now where I have some exotics that just need the exotic shard to upgrade, but I know it's a waste to do so, and I have no idea how long I will have to wait before I can start them all over again with Xur.

I've seen the new exotics and they're neat, but I have a few already that I'm very attached to. Like I said, I'm very happy I can bring them along. I'm not happy with the method they're using to do that. Rather than focusing on upgrading new weapons, I'm going to be focused on upgrading my old favorites again. And then I'll have to do it again with the next DLC.

Some rough math: I've heard it takes 212,500 XP to upgrade an Exotic. I'm not sure if that's accurate, and I'm not sure if that's accurate for current Exotics if it will be accurate for new Exotics, but it's the only number I have.

Let's say you're PvE exclusive and you do all 6 PvE bounties every day and that they're all worth 5,000 XP instead of the mix of 2,500/5,000 XP we normally see.

6 (bounties) x 5,000 XP (per bounty) x 7 days = 210,000 XP.

Like I said, rough math, but from my experience, it seems about right to take a full week to fully upgrade a single Exotic weapon. And that's focusing exclusively on it; none of that XP is being divided among other weapons or armor. I'm not sure how many Exotic weapons there are, but isn't it around 20? So, 20 weeks to upgrade all your Exotics?

And we're probably going to see another Exotic reset with the next DLC?

That $0.99 weapon pack is looking more and more attractive...

(to squash any rage-posting, I'm referencing a previous post of pete's; to my knowledge there is no plan for microtransactions in Destiny.)

This is one of the reasons we'll have to wait and see though. The notes also said exotic upgrading would take less time, but we don't know if that means 10% less time or 50% less time.

Your math looks about right to me, although it doesn't take in to account XP earned from completing missions, plus you can potentially double your daily bounties with the crucible. I'm pretty sure I maxed out my Mythoclast in 3 days.

Regardless, let's say for the sake of argument that it takes 20 weeks to upgrade all 20 exotics from scratch. My question is: why would anyone ever want to do that? The more I settled in to Destiny's end game, the more I settled on a short list of favorite weapons, most of which are Legendaries. Does anyone use all the different exotics frequently enough to want to upgrade them to the new cap?

The only possible appeal I can imagine to re-ranking all your exotics is if you're a completionist. If that's the case, you may as well wait until a year down the road when you need more stuff to do.

http://www.bungie.net/7_The-Dark-Below-Preview/en/News/News?aid=12442

Looks like all of your equipped exotics can be upgraded. Still reading the rest of the notes...

Edit: Looks like he just has a large list that changes, not a list of your currently equipped exotics. The list they show in the screenshot has 12 different exotics though, so I think you'll be able to upgrade yours quickly.

Your math looks about right to me, although it doesn't take in to account XP earned from completing missions, plus you can potentially double your daily bounties with the crucible. I'm pretty sure I maxed out my Mythoclast in 3 days.

Another thing I might point out, and a lot of the really hardcore players here are not noting, is that most of us did not max out our exotics in 3 days. It took me a couple weeks to max my pocket infinity. I just maxed my Xur purchased Icebreaker. If you can't play 3 hours a night, every night, you aren't maxing an exotic in 3 days.

I understand that we won't need the materials now, and I get that there will be a decrease in XP. But after the time it took to max those exotics that I have maxed, it would be nice to think that Bungie would at least recognize that effort in some way. It took more effort on their part to knock these exotics back down: they already switched up the mythoclast's attack rating with no penalty to the owner.

This is an effort to pad content, pure and simple. This is forcing a player to re-grind, to pad play time. If their purpose was to have exotics remain playable, they would have just extended the mythoclast's changes to all exotics. That's not what they did do.

This is an effort to pad content, pure and simple. This is forcing a player to re-grind, to pad play time. If their purpose was to have exotics remain playable, they would have just extended the mythoclast's changes to all exotics. That's not what they did do.

I just don't see it that way. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Nothing is being taken away from you. When you hit level 20, were you given the ability to upgrade all your Blue gear? No. You had to find new, better gear. That is exactly what is happening here.
If you have weapons maxed out to 300, you are ready for level 30 content, which is where this expansion starts. Over the course of the expansion, you will find new, better gear to carry you towards 32.

I just don't understand the mentality that everything we already have should suddenly be made better. What's the point of an expansion if everything we already have just gets boosted up to max level?

Now that I say that, perhaps people would be happier if the expansion didn't include a jump to 32? Would everyone be happier if we just got new gear and missions, all within the level 30 cap?

Yes to the last part. Is Crota more powerful than the Vex in the Vault of Glass? That's my way of looking at the levels...

I saw that too, but if you look closely the armor slots show armor from all classes. There's only 2 pieces shown per class.

I just don't understand the mentality that everything we already have should suddenly be made better. What's the point of an expansion if everything we already have just gets boosted up to max level?

I don't think this is my point. Is it better that things you already made better, are instead being made worse?

And we're not talking about every thing you own. There's a reason you can only carry one exotic. There's a reason that Bungie is bringing exotics up to a higher attack rating then legendaries. Exotics are one of the few things in this game that drastically change playstyle, and force you to think about what playstyle is important to you; really, they're the only variety in gameplay, which needs that variety. And they were, at least up to this point, the largest time investment. I don't really care about being 30, or about attack rating. I'm irritated that my favorite guns will need to be re-grinded to get their perks again. It took a lot of time and as much as I enjoy the guns, I didn't enjoy the grind. I don't think that Bungie is spoonfeeding me if they let me keep the perks.

Just add another tier of damage upgrades. Things aren't suddenly made better, and they aren't suddenly made worse, either.

*Edit: it occurs to me that most of my concerns seem to be stemming from the fact that most of my interest is on crucible. I may need to flush out the thought. I think crucible and PvE are not really synergizing like they should.

*Edit: it occurs to me that most of my concerns seem to be stemming from the fact that most of my interest is on crucible. I may need to flush out the thought. I think crucible and PvE are not really synergizing like they should.

Ahh, that's interesting.. To your point, I hadn't even considered how this would effect
crucible players :)

Back to the main topic though, I guess my suggestion to you would be: Don't upgrade your exotics. Especially if your main concern is Crucible, the extra damage ratings would be nullified anyway.

Back to the main topic though, I guess my suggestion to you would be: Don't upgrade your exotics. Especially if your main concern is Crucible, the extra damage ratings would be nullified anyway.

***Except for Iron Banner Events. Then damage rating counts.

*Edit: it occurs to me that most of my concerns seem to be stemming from the fact that most of my interest is on crucible. I may need to flush out the thought. I think crucible and PvE are not really synergizing like they should.

Ahh, that's interesting.. To your point, I hadn't even considered how this would effect
crucible players :)

Back to the main topic though, I guess my suggestion to you would be: Don't upgrade your exotics. Especially if your main concern is Crucible, the extra damage ratings would be nullified anyway.

I was having this exact thought yesterday. I do enjoy the raid, and I enjoy nightfalls. But most of me is buying this expansion for additional crucible maps, and this exotic upgrades noise may simply be a bridge too far for me. For the guys who play 5 hours a week, and binge on the weekends, this exotic upgrades noise is going to be pretty rough. I feel for you dudes.

And yeah, I think the jump to 32 was too soon. I was hoping Crota's end would add some variety to player appearance for instance, but now I think instead of everyone looking like robots, everyone is going to look like skeletons, and still the same.

http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=46997

So each exotic you have will cost you 14 strange coins to upgrade. This severely eats into your ability to buy new items from Xur. It also eats into your glimmer. I mostly used glimmer for upgrades and heavy ammo synth. Under the best circumstances, you could get about 10,000 glimmer per hour farming, which is boring as hell, but faster than what you get through normal gameplay. But if xur has your upgrades on any particular weekend, you better get them, b/c you don't know when they'll come back around.

Now that I say that, perhaps people would be happier if the expansion didn't include a jump to 32? Would everyone be happier if we just got new gear and missions, all within the level 30 cap?

My thought was that all raid, iron banner, and exotics gear should be light level 30.

If they want to raise the light limit, make us use exotic shards or something to infuse gear to raise it beyond that light 30 limit.

This would create a lot more variety in armor at high levels. You could mix and match raid, iron banner, and exotic gear, infusing your favorite pieces to keep using them as light levels increase.

But if xur has your upgrades on any particular weekend, you better get them, b/c you don't know when they'll come back around.

This is the real kicker. Sure, you don't need to upgrade right away, but with upgrades relying on RNG you better do it when you have a chance.

How many raids did you need to complete to get that last piece of raid equipment? (For me the number is still counting because I haven't gotten all the pieces.) So why would I want to risk waiting? If Xur has it, to future proof gear, I had better upgrade it. It is better to have the gear sitting in the vault upgraded than waiting around for Xur to carry the piece you need.

The problem isn't spending more time making our current exotics better. The problem is spending more time getting our current exotics back up to their current state again before we can make them better.

Bad JuJu & Super Good Advice, for example, were both pretty awful until you'd unlocked the perks. I know they've buffed both of these weapons, but it still completely breaks the feel of the weapons and the playstyle you've got used to exploiting. Not every weapon is Icebreaker - which is amazing out of the box.

I just don't understand the mentality that everything we already have should suddenly be made better. What's the point of an expansion if everything we already have just gets boosted up to max level?

You can build sideways as well as towards the sky.

I just don't understand the mentality that everything we already have should suddenly be made better. What's the point of an expansion if everything we already have just gets boosted up to max level?

Now you see the problem with incremental DLC, rather than rolling all the content out at once with a set level cap, and everything integrated as such.

The optimal solution would have been for Bungie to keep the cap, but get creative with the new mission designs, such that you could do them with your old guns, but the new guns would be better suited.

The problem is that you end up choosing to wear the most useful armor. In turn, this means that everyone tends to end up with very similar armor except for the exotics. I wish armor was a bit more cosmetic like how reach was and you instead purchased upgrades that affect how the armor behaves instead of how it looks.

The problem is that you end up choosing to wear the most useful armor. In turn, this means that everyone tends to end up with very similar armor except for the exotics. I wish armor was a bit more cosmetic like how reach was and you instead purchased upgrades that affect how the armor behaves instead of how it looks.

Yep, this was my concern from the get go. It's one reason why I like the crucible, at least there's some variety and it doesn't hurt you too much if you choose to go that route.

Now that I say that, perhaps people would be happier if the expansion didn't include a jump to 32? Would everyone be happier if we just got new gear and missions, all within the level 30 cap?

My thought was that all raid, iron banner, and exotics gear should be light level 30.

If they want to raise the light limit, make us use exotic shards or something to infuse gear to raise it beyond that light 30 limit.

This would create a lot more variety in armor at high levels. You could mix and match raid, iron banner, and exotic gear, infusing your favorite pieces to keep using them as light levels increase.

I'm totally just pulling this out of my butt, but it wouldn't surprise me if we see a move like that later down the road, once most of the substantial content has been released.