Normally I try to be fairly objective and approaoch these threads with a certain degree of detachment. But... "This Week at Bungie, we took a MASSIVE SHIT on solo players, small tight-knit groups, and the entire player base in general." [b]Power Climb[/b] [quote]Players loved that they could reach the cap no matter what activity they enjoyed playing, so we threw that shit out and replaced it with "sweat with the obnoxious try-hards or get the -blam!- out," because we listen to our community.[/quote] Seriously, -blam!- you, Bungie. If there is one thing I have always HATED about Destiny it was the periods when Trials (or in D1, Iron Banner) and Raids were the ONLY ways to make any kind of real headway, and you know why? 1) -blam!- PvP!!! You FAILED. Halo was your magnum opus and somehow you all completely forgot how to make a workable PvP experience. [i]Stop betting everything on Destiny's PvP! It sucks ass.[/i] 2) Not everyone has the time to "grind" Raids, not everyone has 5 trustworthy friends/clanmates/acquaintances to even ATTEMPT a Raid with. Hell I haven't even completed it ONCE yet. And if your resposne to that is "well there's other clans, LFG, Guided Games, etc." I've got a newsflash for you: I don't know where all these heartwarming "success stories" are coming from (I'm seriously beginning to suspect paid actors) but most "random" people I've come across are self-focused ASSHOLES and if you don't have 4,927 successful Raid runs and gone Flawless in every -blam!-ing Trials run you've ever done (and you need to have done at least a thousand) the vast majority of these people will tell you to go -blam!- yourself because they want to just get this shit done and over with as quickly as possible, because you all just LOVE making players feel rushed to grab everything quickly before you decide to remove it or make it obsolete. [quote]Our goals with this change are to bring back meaning and accomplishment to achieving the Power cap[/quote] Here's a thought, how about us actually "becoming legend" and being -blam!-ing INVINCIBLE like the AI that are a certain level above us? You know what I loved about Final Fantasy and other RPGs? If I put in the time and effort to grind my level high enough prior to going into the next area I can go through laying waste and shrugging off even the heaviest hits from Boss-tier enemies. In Destiny: a level 2 Dreg will kill you in X number of shots whether you're level 1 or level 40. And yet, if you're level 2 and an AI was level 7 you couldn't even [i]touch[/i] them. THAT would give "power grinding" actual meaning. All you're doing is creating a piss-poor facsimile of "meaning and accomplishment" by limiting the paths to specific activities that shit on solo players, just like Destiny 1 did. It was a shit move then, it's a shit move now. [quote]and to reward players [b]who engage in a broader scope[/b] of the Destiny 2 endgame content[/quote] Yea, sure. Keep telling yourselves that while you limit rewards and progress to only TWO activities. Go home, Bungo, you're drunk. [quote]This means Destiny 2 launch quests cap at 260 (before mods), Curse of Osiris caps at 300, and Warmind caps at 340.[/quote] Yep, still drunk. Um, Bungie? Hi, hello, have you actually played your own game? At all? D2 Launch had a cap of 300, not 260. Osiris bumped the cap to 330, not 300. And that's not accounting for +5 mods. Why the -blam!- would the rewards for current activities be 30-40 levels LOWER than what they currently are? In what universe does that make sense? [quote]Farming Exotics to increase your Power has been removed[/quote] Again, -blam!- you, Bungie. Up to this point Exotics have been the ONLY reliable source of "progression" (if you can even call it that) beyond the very limited "milestone" rewards. If you got shit on (like I'm pretty sure every single one of us has) by the milestones and got 5 different sidearms (or, more likely, 5 Aeon gauntlets back to back), you just wasted your entire week and your only hope of breaking even would be Exotic engrams. And you just took that away. -blam!-. You. Bungie. It's hard enough getting your -blam!-ing bastard of an RNG system to even give me a Scout Rifle, much less one that's even on par with my current level, even less so anything that ever "progressed" my level. Hoping for one to drop from an exotic engram has been my one and only hope of ever bringing them up. I've got a vault full of 330s on absolutely everything EXCEPT Scout rifles because your -blam!- system can't figure out that I don't like SMGs and Sidearms. [quote]they'll come out of the engram at the same Power as a Legendary would after you've gotten to the soft cap[/quote] And if experience is any indication, that means they'll be completely -blam!-ing worthless. "Engram power levels will be determined by your best gear" my ass. [quote]We believe the changes to quest rewards and Exotic farming will ensure the most effective way to reach the Power cap is to play the most challenges and social weekly activities.[/quote] No, you've merely GUARANTEED that after those TWO activities have been completed your player base disappears completely for the rest of the week because [b]there's no -blam!-ing reason to keep playing.[/b] That has already been a major problem with Destiny 2 because of the limited number of "progress" rewards and the utter lack of worthwhile grinding opportunities. And you're proposing to cut that number down even lower, yet you imagine that will somehow encourage players to spend more time playing....Bungie, are you on crack? [quote]Thanks for hanging in there through this long explanation. Please let us know any feedback you have about this new way forward for Destiny 2 rewards[/quote] The short version? You done shit the -blam!-ing bed. Don't get me wrong. Upcoming Extotic weapon changes? Spectacular. Looking forward to Graviton Lance and Skyburner's Oath not only actually being useful for the first time ever, but actually looking pretty damn bad-ass. That entire section on the "Power Climb?" Quite possibly the absolute worst ideas y'all have ever had, and you once thought it would be a good idea to make the ENTIRETY of your launch content completely obsolete with Dark Below. All the flash and pizzazz of exotic weapon changes can't save that train wreck. When will you get it through your thick skulls that LIMITING options has never been and never will be a "good change?!" You know why your player base was at its peak at the END of Destiny 1's tenure? Because you made EVERY path viable. Obsessed with PvP? You didn't have to wait for Trials or Iron Banner, you could get top-tier loot from playing literally ANY Crucible mode. Even SRL if you put on your best gear. Like strikes? Here's a skeleton key that GUARANTEES you a top-tier reward from EVERY strike you use it on. Raids? Sure. Trials? Go for it. Iron Banner? Help yourself. But you never NEEDED to do nor wait for a specific activity. Hell we could stock up on Three of Coins and grind STORY MISSIONS if we wanted to. And you know what happened? People played. All. Week. Long. You know what you have in D2? Wednesday afternoon: "Nah, bro, I've already done all my milestones and Trials isn't for another two days so I'm gonna go play PUBG/Fortnite/literally ANYTHING but Destiny." You want to know the real reason hitting the cap is so unsatisfying? It's not because it was "too easy to do," it's because there's nothing left to chase. Static weapon rolls, an endless deluge of unimaginative and flat-out lazy reskins of the same old weapon models, armor with no perks whatsoever, there's nothing to grind for. THAT is the problem. Players WANT to hit the cap quickly, get that tedious bullshit out of the way so they can focus on grinding in the most efficient manner (and attempting to grind at below-cap levels is not efficient). The problem is not getting to the cap too early. The problem is D2 has NOTHING to offer once we get there. No "god rolls." No rare, hard to get or unique gear (making [i]slight[/i] progress on that with Nightfall-exclusive rewards but that will only last until the end of cycle when everything "new" instantly becomes "old" because it's exactly the same as it was before). In a nutshell, D2 is too vanilla. Too boring. What happened to that "we will make getting that 2nd, 3rd, 10th Better Devils meaningful" bullshit we were promised BEFORE the game even launched? Because right now, aside from Nightfall loot, I don't think there's anyone left playing Destiny 2 that finishes any given activity, looks at their loot, and says "Wow, I haven't seen that yet." It's stale. I get why things were made so blah, fewer moving parts means it's easier to make necessary tweaks (yet somehow they seem to take three times as long to implement as D1 patches) but, once again, LIMITING options is never a good change. You have to at least try to break even with something absolutely groundbreaking and innovative paired along with it. That is something you still have yet to do in D2. And any time you HAVE proposed some major change...it's something horrible. Like this.