Since the launch of Destiny 2 we have seen progression take some weird turns. Mostly due to the fact that Bungie seem to be ignorant of issues they have had to deal with in the past. What I am getting at is inconsistencies in progression that is outside the players control. In Destiny 1 Bungie changed the function of Exotic engrams to always drop above your light level. This was a change made to make exotic engrams a meaningful part of progression that consequently created incentives to play the game. Unfortunately this lesson seemed to have been forgotten with the release of Destiny 2. Well to some extent. Up until now Exotic engrams have been a meaningful part of progression to a point. Because Exotic Engrams drop at your current maximum base power, it has a good chance of being an upgrade as long as you are between the soft cap and the hard cap. That is until you reach an equilibrium within your slots. Which is why the progression is so inconsistent for the last 2 power levels. I. e. if all your slots are power level 320 there is a 0% chance that an exotic engram will be an upgrade for you. In an effort to slow down progression Bungie is now changing Exotics again. This time they are tying exotic engrams to the soft cap, just as legendary engrams and blue drops are now. What this means is that as long as you are above the soft cap, exotic engrams will no longer serve any purpose for your progression. This is, in my opinion, a very bad way to control the speed at which we progress through power levels. Not because it will have any meaningful impact at the rate we gain power, but because it removes the little control we have as players over the process. Let's say you do all your weekly milestones and end up not getting a single upgrade. Let's say you stil have time to spare and would be willing to spend more time in the game for the chance of getting an upgrade through other means. That will no longer be possible. It effectively means that the weekly milestones will be your only means of progression. Effectively removing any incentive to play the game outside your milestones. I also want to touch on another lesson that is closely tied to this issue and that is Class Items. In Destiny 1, because class items were not part of the exotic drop table, Bungie had to repeatedly add in alternative avenues for getting high light class items. For some reason Bungie seem to have entirely forgotten why they did this for Destiny 2. This is becoming less of an issue with these new exotic engram changes, but I still think it is a worthwhile point, because it exemplifies how Bungie was aware of this issue before and seem to have forgotten it now. Because exotic engrams where so tightly tied to progression in Destiny and Class items could not drop from them most players would have some issues progressing once the class item was holding them back. Bungie's response to this was to always add some activity that could drop class items above your light level. In Destiny 2 progression is tied more to the weekly milestones than they are engrams, but this has more to do with the availability of weekly rewards vs. the availability of alternative avenues and engrams. If Bungie wanted to slow down progress they should have limited the potential upgrades of powerful engrams. To be fair, they are also doing this for season 3. However the change to exotic engram seems like an extremely counter-intuitive change to a game that is sorely lacking incentives to play. The more consistent way of dealing with the problem would be to make exotic engrams always drop 1 above your power level. Add 1 exotic class item for each class and further limit the potential power increase from powerful engrams. Effectively making progression slower, while giving players more advocacy over their progression and consequently creating more incentives to play the game.