Edit: Since writing this, more news has come out. Apparently Bungie have been holding back answers for a Game informer cover story. So far I've read: Dinklebot is no more. All ghost dialogue being redone by Nathan Drake actor. No new vault space. No Legendary gear ascension. No light levels. We actually level to 40 (curios how they'll start existing players) No announcement I've seen on matchmaking ---Original Post--- [quote]“I definitely feel like some of our players are ready to play with some new toys,” says creative director Luke Smith. “And we’ve built a whole bunch of new toys. There are definitely some weapons that you are going to find better versions of – there’s going to be something that replaces that sniper rifle that you love.” [/quote] Greetings fellow Guardians, It seems we finally have an answer on gear ascension and it is kind of confusing as to why we get this information from Gameinformer. We've been on the forums asking about this for the last month and it's kind of sad that Bungie can't communicate directly with us. This isn't anything we didn't really know was coming and it's always exciting to try new weapons... Until they turn out to be worse than the old weapons (like was the case with much of both expansions so far). Will TTK give us true upgrades? I guess we have no choice but to find out. As we play today, I use vanilla heavy weapons, TDB specials and HoW primaries (and I'd probably still be using Wizard 77 and my original snipers over the later gear if I hadn't dismantled them since they didn't initially ascend). There are a couple things about this decision that I think are worth questioning. 1) The article seems to imply that only Legendaries won't ascend. That is great for the people who use Exotic primaries, but for those that use Legendaries, we're going to have to re-find weapons capable of competing against the Thorns, TLWs, Red Deaths and soon to be rebuffed Suros. I spent a lot of time putting together my Scouts and getting them setup how I like to be able to counter the so called God guns. If I lose the perk combinations that I feel comfortable with, I'm not sure what higher damage numbers will do for me. To this end, I would like Bungie to explain in detail exactly what the new weapon perks entail, how upgrades will work going forward and whether or not we will still be able to reforge them. If I'm back to relying on rng to get 3rd eye or full auto, I'm going to be more than annoyed. 2) Unless there is something in the pipe for August like the Ether Chest hunts pre-HoW, Bungie just made playing this game until September pretty pointless. What am I supposed to do with the 4 Etheric Light I just got from Iron Banner? Is Etheric Light going to have any purpose going forward or is it the new Commendation? If it's going the way of the Dodo, it really makes me question who is steering this ship that they can't nail down a currency system a year past release. If Exotics are still going to ascend, I guess there are people who still need to find some. For the rest, Nightfalls, PoE, ToO and raids just became incredibly pointless. Which brings me to... 3) I've said this before and I'll say it again here. I would rather have lots of cool new sh*t to shoot with my old weapons I love, than shoot at the same old sh*t with new weapons. Up until now the actual depth of content in this game has been pretty lacking. The mechanics are fun as hell and I love my abilities and weapons, but I find myself sitting in orbit more than playing when it's not IB week because [b]WITHOUT MATCHMAKING[/b], there's not a whole lot to do. I'm very curious to see how TTK changes that. We've had the write up on the Dreadnaught and what I got out of it was that we won't really know what we're doing and will have to keep going back to figure it out. It actually sounds like the approach they took to the raids and that could be a very cool thing for actual gameplay if done right and if it's truly rewarding to unravel the mysteries. In the mean time HoW is pretty much dead and friends lists continue to decline at alarming rates. Without a pre-expansion event for August, I'd be seriously concerned how many people make it until September. 4) Which is why announcing this in GI is a shitty approach. An announcement like this should include reasons to keep logging in until the new weapons arrive. All this does is alienate people more. I would say the biggest disappointment for me since the release of HoW has been the decision to not include matchmaking for endgame content, but the second biggest disappointment has been seeing so many people just stop playing the game altogether. Through TDB it didn't matter what time of day or night I logged on, there were always people playing. Since about the second week of HoW, the numbers have dwindled more each passing week. I keep waiting for Bungie to get their shit together and put together an update, interview or anything that will make people say "oh shit, that's cool" and log back in. Instead we get the DeeJ and Luke show. [quote]Luke: Throw money at your screen! DeeJ: Old weapons are boooooring! DeeJ: We'll talk more next week! Luke: There are some weapons you'll find better versions of! DeeJ: We believe part of the challenge is finding groups![/quote] This shit is just insane. It's like they have never read a single (non-nerf) post on the forums before. [b]5) Will year 2 gear ascend to at least the end of year 2?[/b] Because if I'm just re-leveling all new gear until the next expansion drops 3 months later, f**k that. I'm already annoyed that after finally getting gear that I love on my Titan, I might be going back to hating how my characters look again. I can deal with gear resetting yearly, but any more often than that is just a bullshit ploy to grind hours leveling gear instead of giving us content to use it on. 6) This is all assuming exotics are ascending. If not, how sweet will it be that one week into year 2, new players will have the exact same gear as us? Epilogue: So basically at this point I think Bungie are in dire need of communication courses. TTK may be the most fun thing since mentos and diet coke, but they sure aren't doing a very good job in selling it. At what point do they stop telling us what we want Destiny to be and start actually implementing QoL improvements that we've been asking for since launch? Are you trying to give me a fun game to play and enjoy? If so, I want to be able to play with randoms and not have to browse an app or website to do it. I want to feel like my character is uniquely me and badass. There are many comparisons to WoW and other mmo's and one of the biggest complaints that WoW faced over the years was having to lose favorite looks for characters which led to Transmogrification. Are we going to get a similar technique at some point? I'd hate to dismantle gear since our vault space blows a** only to find later on that I could have this armor look again. (still pissed at dismantling Cryptic Dragon, Wizard 77 and Shadow Price). It's time to stop with all the "Oh, we'll tell you in the coming weeks" bs and start giving some real information on the in-depth plans for this game going forward. It's time to start giving us reasons that we care and are passionate about that will make this game fun to play in year 2 and beyond. Because at this point all I see coming from you is that you want us to grind gear just to grind more gear. That's not fun, that's a hamster wheel driving profits instead of quality of content driving profits. Edit: Cozmo replied on the subject https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/144200442/0/0