Reposted from http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/82324153/0/0/1 This is an attempt to summarize and give a clearer picture of the current situation. Feel free to bump and/or reply if you would like to add to it. Let's try to be constructive. The main goal here is to provide community insight to Bungie, with lots of ideas and hopefully one of them will be viable for them to implement short or long term. I think we can agree it is unreasonable to expect to just go to Xur, pay whatever and get our 100% exotic to become a 100% upgraded exotic. This is our [b]common ground[/b]. So some form of work should go into going from one to the other. However the current proposal is not very appealing. Among other things, it really makes me feel like not playing destiny until the DLC hits since any progression on my exotics will be wasted. Now, a big problem is redoing work that has already been done for various [b]reasons[/b]: 1) Losing game altering benefits, and having to get them back. This means the gun is "useless" until you get the required xp for it. Example: Thorn. 2) Not differentiating between levelled and non-levelled exotics: the irritation that comes with someone with a fresh icebreaker upgrading and being at the same place you are when you took the time to upgrade yours to 100%. The feeling of having wasted time and effort to level it for no gain. 3) Maybe other reasons? These are the ones I've come across. Will read more and add as I see them. [b]Solutions:[/b] [u]Bungie[/u]'s announced current state: 1) Exotics will level easier. Does not address 2 above. May or may not address 1 sufficiently. [b]Additional proposed solutions[/b] that seem reasonable to me: NOTE: To Bungie, note here the general theme. It mainly has to do with reason 2 above ie wanting at the very least something, a token recognizing work has been done on a gun. 1) Current progression gives upgraded exotic an xp buff proportional to said progression. Ex 100% = 2x xp buff, 50% = 1.5 xp buff. May be difficult to implement. 2) Same as 1, but instead of xp buff, could just be a flat xp bonus on conversion Ex 100% = 30% progression on upgraded version. Much easier to implement.... probably. Note: Can be justified as the guns "remembering" their former glory or something. Can make lore out of it I don't know haha. 3) Option of paying additional resources on upgrade to preserve some progression Ex: Pay 10 exotic shards instead of 1 = preserve half of current progression. Like 1 and 2, you could do this with a xp buff instead. These ideas from [u]Datto[/u] (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWkB_acoZ98&list=UUkmAjbIecTIjTQctolYeuDw) Credit for these go to forums: 4) No reset progression. Additional nodes for new progression. Problems with this include sustainability for future content and possibly difficult implementation. 5) Progression unaltered. Shifting an exotic's power towards the new cap (323?) requires more "new expansion" materials. Ex: 1 material = 305 MAX, + 3 materials = 310, + 10 = cap. 6) Earlier and clearer communication. This is a very big mechanic introduction that affects how people play the game in terms of planning progression. Choice of words is important here and "reset progression" isn't very delicate to say the least. Also, saying exotics will level easier is too vague to ease our worries. Some kind of metric would be useful. As it stands it can be anywhere from 10% to 100% and people's paranoia will make them think it's probably 10% ie not enough. 7) Interesting Idea :NPC (The Speaker? Could tie into lore since the Traveller got some of its Light back) gives out bounties to upgrade exotic to new tier. A lot of options here: exotic specific bounties, PvP or PvE invariant bounties, bounties tied to new content. A mix of all of these. If you go with generic bounties, simply limit them weekly = limited number of items that can be upgraded per week. A lot of possibilities and flexibility here. .(Credit to [u]DoreBuster[/u]) 8) Only maxed out exotics can be upgraded to new tier... where they need to be upgraded again. Seems tedious but does solve Reason #2 (recognize previous effort). Levels playing field a bit with reduced exotic xp requirement already proposed by Bungie. 9) Other ideas? Will try to add as I see them posted. Feel free to comment and or bump. Will try to update as I can. Apologies for ideas that are here that I haven't credited specifically. Will try to be diligent. [b]Legendary Issue[/b] EDIT # I don't know anymore: As a sidenote, legendaries are also an issue but I won't delve into them, and focus on just the exotic issue. However I'll reference posts that seem enlightening on the subject: - http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/82251810/0/0