not much gear wise if you are used to the gear avalanche in mmo expansions. borderline pathetic. however, the devil is in the detail. there quite some new perks i believe. makes legendaries so much more interesting than all those crappy exotics. like you i was kind of upset but then i realized that i only really use one exotic when it matters: ice breaker, my usual loadouts are all legendaries when it matters. i do use a lot of diffrent guns and switch around and experiment a lot. exotics, i realize that now, are mostly meaningless toys. very fun to use to spice up the daily grind. love em for that, really. but that's all i use them for. why? because they limit your options and because ice breaker is way too good.

I agree they should be lucky they can upgrade considering the light levels will just go up with each expansion. We know of 2 expansion witch will take the level to 34 im guessing, im guessing the game will get up to 50 over the years there planning to run it so I figured the gear I have now is just a starter kit. There is a lot better gear still ahead guys don't worry about ur stuff cause one day you'll find a peace of gear that is better and ur going to put it on.

Choice ? That is such a powerfull word these days, yet is often used to say nothing. If something is of little benefit to your cause, is it a valid choice ? Yes. Is it a meaningfull choice ? No. I would have preferred it if they made all gear obsolete in the process of leveling up and while getting new and better gear. Instead, we get stuff we know and use for months. Only that we need to lvl it again. They could have just raised the attack value on existing items. That would not have been a problem AT ALL and would have lowered the cost of producing the expansion by a good bit. But they did not. Instead they picked a path that slows down the entire process significantly. (yes it slows everything down, even tho they claim it is all so much faster now ...... except that doing it all over again is artificially induced) Just like all other recent changes to the game. All the limits, removing of the material exchange for marks, all the caps and restrictions that existed or have been introduced more recently. It all points towards one, maybe 2 goals ....... slowing down the pace at which players can progress through content and at the same time pushing them towards the (much cheaper to produce) pvp content (not everyone likes to pvp, true fact!). Exotics are for show. Patience and Time is for show (and maybe pvp if you like that). You'll find that, unless you need arc dmg, you'll be using something else in that slot more often than not IF you ever bothered to look at legendaries with a more open mind. If you are in doubt about how good legendaries can be, just buy a New Monarchy Vanquisher (not a random drop, the one from the vendor if it is still available post launch) and lvl it up. I am going to challenge a lot of ppl with this but dare I say it's the best gun in the game. It beats the crap out of Suros or anything else I have ever used. Put the right combination of perks on a legendary and it will be so much better than any exotic could ever be. ALL my machine guns have at least high base stability and 1 of the 2 stability perks and/or smart drift control. They are glued to their target and do not move an inch away while unloading a full clip. THAT is power. I have a scout with explosive rounds + firefly. Do you have the slightest idea how insanely powerfull that is when fully upgraded ? It's basically a long range sniper rocket launcher thing. It kills entire groups with a single shot to the head of one enemy. THAT is powerfull. I admit, it takes time and dedication to experiment and of course it takes luck. Not everything can be bought from vendors but even many of the vendor guns are much better than all the exotics. Only reason to use exotics is special perks like ice breaker, string of curses for certain scenarios (i.e. juggler mod, large amounts of enemies or when doing that stupid kill 3 things with 1 super bounty) or pocket infinity for the fusion bounty (pi is completely broken btw, does like zero dmg. kills nothing anymore unless you land a headshot). With that in mind the new upgrade system, while still being a slap in the face of loyal fans, is nothing but a minor annoyance. What hurts is that all the legendaries become obsolete and can not be upgraded. Getting those took A LOT of time and effort. But I can kind of accept that since we get new legendaries with new perks. MMO standard. It'll be alright, it will be a fun journey all over again. But in terms of exotics there is nothing new, nothing exciting to look forward to. There are what ? 3 or 4 new exotic weapons. Sniper, rocket launcher, pulse and auto and scout (ok, so 5). And the psn exclusive shotgun. Well, woohoo ......5 new guns! money well spent I say :) Exotics are toys, no more no less. If they had real value there would be more of them I suppose. Just wish legendaries would sound as cool as Exotics :D

I do agree. Twisting words is part of the job description. Use words that mean one thing but say something totally diffrent using them. Deej is good at what he does, very good. And he's been doing it for the same company long enough to be "in the loop" and to be able to prepare his posts the way he does. It is all very carefully planned and thought out. Masterfull, as I said. He does not make design decisions of course. But he knows about them as soon as they are discussed because he needs to :) He gives advice to designers for sure. He knows how the community will react to certain things. He knows how to sell them, how to do stuff so it appears less harmfull in public opinion. He knows how to "rally" the fanboys to do his work. He is good at what he does, very very very good. I admire that quality and his writing equally. He has a lot of style. Unfortunately, we are on diffrent sides of the fence and thus his posts often feel almost insulting to me, being a grown man of 48 years, passionate about gaming and used to carefully observe, analyze and solve problems in logical ways. That is just how it is, really. With that in mind, I look at many of the recent changes and I read his messages and I wonder what bungie really thinks about their players, their loyal fans and ....... *gasp* ..... customers! Because to me it has recently felt, more often than not, as if am being taken for giant fool over and over again. And I must not be the only one to feel that way.