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#Destiny
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So, the news is out: next week, we’ll have to upgrade our Exotic weapons and armor and reset their progress if we want to keep them top-tier. On the whole, I think this system is fair, and more than one sees in other MMOs where old gear becomes obsolete when newer, shinier things become available. I’m glad that the weapons I like and am comfortable with will still be viable. Despite that, I’m not thrilled that I’ll need to start from scratch. To use one of the more popular Exotic weapons as an example, the SUROS Regime is a great auto rifle out of the box, but it doesn’t truly shine until you’ve unlocked Focused Fire and its namesake ability, and being without that–even temporarily–isn’t terribly appealing. (This is the only strictly negative thing I’ll say: Bungie, the upgrade system should have been introduced on Monday with the Exotic patch. I have to assume a lot of your player base dismantled some extra Exotics and used the Exotic Shards to upgrade gear they’d been holding off of. This could–and more importantly, SHOULD–have been communicated a lot more clearly.) That scenario is frustrating enough in and of itself, but let’s take it a step further: suppose I take that SUROS Regime to Xûr, spend the Exotic Shard and whatever else to upgrade it, and then hit a strike playlist to start leveling it again. I get to the end of the strike, kill the boss, and let’s see what my rewards are…welp. A second SUROS Regime. With a better Attack value than my old one had twenty minutes ago. I can get the Exotic Shard I just spent back by breaking down one of them, but I’ll absolutely feel like all the work I put into upgrading the old one is worth less than it was. And lastly, unless Bungie scraps this system entirely (which I can’t see), we get to do this whole song and dance again next year when House of Wolves is released. I think I have a solution that will make this process less painful for those of us who have Exotic gear we’ve invested in: fully upgraded weapons or armor (300/300 Attack weapons and 30/30 Light armor only; anything that’s partially leveled and upgraded is excluded) gain a stacking experience buff for every Exotic Shard used to upgrade them, up to a cap. I’m using the numbers below for the sake of making the math easier, but something like this is what I have in mind: First Exotic Shard: +5% experience buff Second Exotic Shard: +10% experience buff (+15% total) Third Exotic Shard: +15% experience buff (+30% total; cap it here) So now, two Fridays from now when Xûr rolls around with gear to upgrade, I can spend an Exotic Shard on my SUROS and know that the grind to a 323 attack rating won’t be as lengthy as the original climb to 300 was. Now when that second SUROS drops as a strike reward, I won’t be as annoyed, because the one I’ve had for a month is objectively better than the new one. Next year when House of Wolves comes out and the top attack rating is 340 or whatever, I can upgrade my 323 attack SUROS and get a 10% buff on top of the 5% from The Dark Below. (If I have a Dark Below exotic I like, I can upgrade it and get the initial 5% buff.) When the third expansion rolls around later in 2015 or in 2016, I can upgrade my SUROS to the hypothetical top attack rating of 358 and will be earning 30% more experience towards maxing it out. Going forward, I’ll still be able to upgrade to whatever the new limit is, but the buff, will never be greater than 30%. It’ll be there until I dismantle the gun, if I so choose, it just won’t increase any further. Here’s why I think this works: it’s a reward for the players who have been playing Destiny longest. If I’m playing Destiny or one of its sequels in five years and I still prefer SUROS to any other exotic, I’ll get more out of it than a new player who finds one. You could even create some new Trophies/Achievements based on upgrading gear this way (“Upgrade a piece of Exotic Gear with an Exotic Shard three times”, or something along those lines), and you could let other players see how many times you’ve upgraded your gear when they inspect you. Make it like a badge of honor. I didn’t follow Destiny’s development too closely, but one concept I do remember very clearly was the idea that we’d create a character and that character would make his or her own story. I think increasing the value of gear we’ve had for a long time and making it more valuable fits that concept rather well. We’re less than a week away from The Dark Below, and I’m not so naive as to expect any of what I said to make it into the final product, but I hope you’ll consider some of this moving forward.