Warning: long post It baffles me that there are people out there that are okay with this proposed way of handling the exotics. Seriously, I don't understand how anyone could think this was an okay thing to do. So, with the greatest possible respect, allow me to explain why you are wrong. First off, let me just say that I am not one of the whiners that cries for a nerf every time I get killed by a gun, or bitches at Bungie for every little thing, expecting it to be fixed right away. I love this game, and despite a lot of the complaints about it (some valid, some less so), I still enjoy playing it immensely. Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't care about this ridiculous reset at all. I actually think that many of the changes and patches Bungie have done have been for the best (with the exception of a few, and of course the bugs they introduced). For the most part, the nerfs and buffs to exotics have been good, especially in this last patch. The ability to buy materials for marks is also great addition. I don't agree with removing the old exchange of materials for marks (why not have both), but I definitely prefer the new option to the old one. I also approved of the new way of levelling exotics. It allows you to get them powered up quicker than legendries, which is fitting as they are meant to be more powerful, but it still forces you to work if you want to max them out. The fact that it will now cost strange coins to fully level them up also creates more interesting decisions and means that people may stop just buying everything Xur sells every week as they need to save their coins for upgrades. My point with saying all this is to prove that I actually think about my opinions and what I'm saying, and this is not just a knee-jerk reaction to what Bungie has said. I have read all the notes, and now want to make an informed argument as to why Bungie's plan to reset all exotic progress is extremely stupid. Now, the argument I see most proponents use is that it is optional. Your exotics are not hard-reset, you need to voluntarily go to Xur and but the upgrade to reset them. This is true, but these people seriously need to reconsider their definition of the word "optional". It's also an "option" to just keep on using green gear all game. It's an "option" not to level anything at all. It's an "option" to stay at lvl 20 by not equipping armour with light. The point is that just because these things are an "option" (as in, they are possible to do), no one in their right mind would ever do any of them. The whole point of this game is to make progress, and that means getting better gear and levelling it up so you can do harder challenges and remain competitive, in order to get better rewards. Rinse and repeat. The other thing is that people want to finish their collection. There is a set amount of the 'best' (exotic) gear in the game, and each piece can be upgraded a fixed amount. Therefore, of course people are going to want to collect all of them and max them out as much as they can. It's called being a completionist, and it's the main driving force for most people to keep playing a game after they have already experienced all the content. Let's face it, In Destiny, once you are high-levelled, that is all there is to do; get all the upper legendries and exotics and upgrade them. So, the "option" of leaving your existing exotics sub-par and watching them all become obsolete is not really an "option" at all. Want to do the new raid? You'd better have re-upgraded all your exotics. Want to have any chance in the next Iron Banner? I hope you re-grinded to max all of them out because otherwise you will be taken apart by people that did. Calling it an "option" is a total fallacy and if you think about it for even half a second, you will realise that it is a flawed and irrelevant argument. So, what should Bungie do? The second argument I see is people saying something like "you just want to be handed powerful stuff for no effort?", or "you want good gear, you have to work" or any number of things along those lines. That's another dumb response. I don't think anyone is saying Bungie should just upgrade all your exotics to DLC level for free. Of course not. Like I said already, the fun in this game comes from working to improve your gear. So handing out free upgrades would be almost as self-defeating as resetting. I think it's obvious that the best solution is to add one or more upgrades beyond those that are there already, WITHOUT ALTERING WHAT PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY UNLOCKED. I actually cannot believe I am having to say this when it's so, so obvious. Why would anyone even consider an alternative solution, like resetting all your progress? You want a weapon to power up beyond its exiting level? Add some more upgrades to unlock. Now, make these upgrades hard to acquire, for sure. People shouldn't just be handed things for no effort, so make these last one or two nodes a real investment of time and resources. Make them cost more XP, more resources, more exotic shards. Heck, make them take 10 exotic shards if that's what you want. People don't mind grinding, as long as they are actually progressing. What Bungie seems to fail to understand is that people will NOT want to grind just to get back to the same level they were at before. Taking everything away and forcing people to re-earn it is not adding new content or improving the game in any way. All it will do is frustrate and infuriate people who worked hard to get to where they are now. This brings me onto another point, which is the unforgiveable, slimy, insidious way that Bungie announced these changes. So a few days ago, with the new patch, they changed the way exotic upgrading works, making you now need exotic shards but no ascendant mats. I, along with I expect many others, went "oh wow, great, I can finally max out a bunch of my exotics". I had a load of spare ones lying in my vault already. I didn't want to just break them down for a small number of ascendant mats, when legendries do that just fine, and I was thinking I might give them to one of my other characters when they are levelled up. This update comes out though, and I immediately pull them out, break them down for shards, and max out three of my exotics in one go. Who wouldn't in this situation? Bungie has given us a new tool, so of course we use it. Then, a few days later, once they are sure that everyone has done that, they announce that actually all the pre-DLC upgrading we do is meaningless, and will be lost with NO COMPENSATION if we want to get our guns to the actual max level. So all those exotics we just broke down are essentially gone forever, and if we want to go through the nightmare of resetting and levelling up everything again, guess what, we have to grind even more to get more exotics or strange coins for exotic shards. It's just another way of artificially inflating the time people play, and it is done not by adding more incentive, but by deleting progress. Bungie may as well have just wiped every spare exotic from everyone's vault; it would have had the same effect. So, that's my rant. Long, I know, but I think it had to be said. I really wish people who are defending this decision would open their eyes and realise we don't just have to settle for whatever Bungie feeds us. They HAVE shown that they are willing to listen to feedback, and I am positive that if we as a community are united in our opposition to this laughably bad idea, Bungie will alter course and give us a proper solution. I will say it again here for clarity: JUST ADD SOME EXTRA, HARD TO OBTAIN UPGRADE NODES TO EVERY EXISTING EXOTIC WITHOUT WIPING OUR PROGRESS. To anyone who is still in favour of the reset, I want to hear a good, well-reasoned argument for why you think a reset is PREFERABLE to simply adding on more upgrade nodes. tl;dr: Bungie are screwing us over, not just with their planned exotic reset, but with the way they announced it after the change to the way exotics are levelled. We don't have to just accept it when there are infinitely better solutions out there.