What Now? Light level and the Cap Increase.

What Now?

So here I am as a level 31 Titan.  I’ve played Destiny on Xbox One since September after first seeing my son play it on launch day.  I missed the hype, the craze, and the beta of this game, so some of the gripes about this game are lost on me.  Here I am 7 months later playing the game and enjoying it as much as I did when I first installed in on my Xbox One.  My only gripes so far are getting my RNG’d legendary engrams RNG’d by the Cryptarch and getting nothing but a single mote of light for leveling a faction.  Other than that, not too much upsets me.  The lack of a rich storyline doesn’t bug me too much.  Hell, I’ve played the game for several hundred hours and the story line only really matters in those few 10-12 hours you spend playing the story missions the first time.  I don’t give a hoot about the story line when I’m ripping through Nightfalls after the weekly reset.  I see people whining about the lack of story mode, then I see them whining that they can’t skip cut scenes.  Pick one.

Typical Nightfall Rewards.  RT if u cri ery tyme.

However, despite really enjoying the game, I find myself in an unusual situation after 7 months of playing Destiny - What now?.  In the six months I’ve been playing I have gotten three Titans up to level 20 and I pass my combination of weapons and armor between them to complete the weekly strikes.  When I post on the forums, regardless of whether my post is serious or in jest, people will point out “You’ve only got 4 raid completions.”  This is true - I've only mustered the fortitude to hook up with randos to complete a raid four times.  I’m in a weird spot.  I don’t like raiding a ton.  I have a small group of 3 buddies I’ve played online with since Halo 3.   That makes the four of us who have enough time to raid one night a week for 2-3 hours.  Finding two other guardians willing to do a Raid with us is EXHAUSTING.  We’ve done random tower hook ups that are ALWAYS either squealing tweens who can’t function as a team or beatnicks so toked up on hooch that they drop from our group if we don’t challenge the world record time for raid completion.  LFG websites are great if you’re one dude looking for a group.  They are less than ideal if you’re four 30-something dads looking for an experienced raider willing to teach us the specifics of the raid on a Friday night.  We’re decent FPSers, we just don’t raid often enough.  Granted, there are lots of people on the Bungie forums willing to help the four of us, albeit at 11:30 am on a Tuesday afternoon – a time the four of us are busy chugging away at our careers.  We only have limited amount of time to raid, which is why we are behind on the raids.

Get Gud Skrub

The four of us have been able to complete the VoG glass 4 times, once on hard, with a couple other people we’ve met on Forums or friends of friends.  In those 4 runs, I was the only person who got a piece of raid armor.  I got some decent drops -  a Mida, two VoC’s, a Praedyth’s Revenge, the hard mode ship, and a Helm of Saint-14 – the rest were shards.  But in all of the loot chests and loot drops in VoG, in 24-ish opportunities times four players for a chance to get Raid gear, RNG smiled on us four ONLY once, and it was me who got Kabr’s chest piece.  We enjoy the VoG raid.  It’s more about strategy and planning than surviving a horde mode bullet sponge.  It feels different enough from the main gameplay of Destiny, but familiar enough to get comfortable with after a few runs.  Well, we still need a little help with the Gorgon's Maze though.

The Dark Below is out now with the Crota’s End raid.  Right now getting raid gear from the Crota’s End raid is the only way to reach level 32.  Bungie promised kinder, gentler Raid gear drops in Crota’s End.  I’m not entirely sure how that is working out.  Yes, I cheesed the hell out of that first chest in the CE raid until Bungie patched it.  The very first time I opened that chest I got a Hard Light, Titan Mark, and Shards.  Every other time I opened it – ENERGIES/SHARDS.  We’ve tried to complete the Crota’s End raid a couple times.  We got past the bridge twice, good for two loot drops, and out of those 4 chances times four players, Raid gear dropped for only one person one time – gauntlets for me.  Ugh, the grind is real. 

For guys like us who are decent gamers, but short on time, we lack the desire to grind out Crota’s end once a week to reach level 32.  The diminished desire to reach level 32 has little, if anyting, to do with Crota’s End raid itself and more to do with what will happen to my supposed precious raid armor after the next level cap increase.  The game must force progression for all players - that is the way of the FPSRPG and MMO world.  But it must not immediately take the time investment you’ve made in the game ( fully upgraded raid gear) and make it obsolete immediately upon cap increase – ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR LEVEL PROGRESSION IS LARGELY BASED ON RNG.  I can’t go farm a specific character to get my Bee Shield can I?  Nope.  All I can do is rely on RNG for anything better than current light gear.  There’s a whole ‘nother blog post about how Bungie gets in its own way all too often in the ongoing development of Destiny. “Play your way” is in constant contrast to the statement “the way we intended.” But I digress.

 

Bungie peeps have admitted that one of the biggest mistakes they made with The Dark Below was your VoG gear was essentially worthless next to Level 31 tower gear the moment that The Dark Below dropped.  And the world's first completion of the Crota raid needed a newly minted tower gear 31 to beat it.  That brings us to my Clan’s predicament now.  Why am I going to waste hours of my time running through Crota’s End to get level 32 gear AND LEVEL IT when it will be worthless, WORTHLESS the moment the level cap is raised?  This Bungie dude implied that scenario won’thappen with House of Wolves level cap increase whenever it’s released.  If true, this statement logically means only one of two things will happen:

1.      Tower gear will be no higher than light 36 (meaning a full set of tower gear will only get you to level 32) when House of Wolves is released

Or

2.      Raid Armor will be EASILY upgradeable to a level above tower gear.

Lets consider these two logical possibilities, however unlikely they may be.  For this discussion, let’s say Bungie raises the level cap another measly two levels to 34. 

Let’s dissect option 1:  If raid gear will be the same light level as tower gear after the next level increase, I still have zero desire to grind Crota’s end to get level 32 gear.  Why?  I can save my shards, commendations, marks, and 5k exp bounties across three characters to have level 32 tower gear in short order.  Sure Bungie can create all kinds of currency road block to stall progression, but nothing slows progression quite like RNG.  Capping tower gear to level 32 makes very little sense to me and would not protect the time investment made in Raid gear. 

Option 2:  So, tower gear is released with 36 light getting you to level 32 with a full set.  Then, Bungie introduces as smoking hot, visually appealing permanent vendor in the tower that allows you to ADD light to your existing raid gear (of all kinds) without resetting its progress to get you to level 33.  All you would need to do to purchase this upgrade would be to have a single nightfall completion and vanguard marks.  Once purchased, you would still need to have the appropriate experience gain and materials to further upgrade your light level.  Then you can raid your happy little butts off to get the new level 34 gear.  And for those wondering, there would be no progression reset on the raid armor.   Does all this makes sense?  Sounds Good.  Almost, but not quite.  There’s something fishy with the level progression.

See, if you release tower gear at the level ‘floor’ then the only way to get to level 33 is to upgrade the light rating on existing raid gear via a scantily clad vendor.  And still, the only way to get to level 34 is to play the new raid.  See the cycle we’re getting into?  The raid grind would be unbearable.  So what’s the solution?  Raise the level cap to 35. 

This is all very simple.  Nightfall/Weekly strikes are now level 32.  Tower Gear gets you to level 33.  Upgraded raid gear (in the scenario presented above) gets you to level 34.  A combo of new raid gear, upgraded raid gear, and/or exotics also gets you to level 34.  New raid gear gets you to level 35.  We assume in this scenario that an exotic has the same light rating as a new piece of House of Wolves raid gear.  Make the HoW normal mode raid at 33 and the Hard mode raid at 35.  People without the DLCs can still get to level 33 with the beautiful tower vender upgrading their VoG stuff and can still participate in Nightfalls/Weeklies that aren’t DLC strikes.  (Why you have a $350-$400 game system, $60 game, a monthly internet subscription fee yet whine that you can’t afford a $20 DLC is a little odd to me, but I’m not here to judge people based on what they can afford).  The silver lining in having a devastatingly attractive tower vendor upgrade your raid gear is that they can also upgrade your exotics without resetting their progress!  Hold the RNG please!  

Closing the gap between level 20 and the Nightfalls will still be a little daunting – but that’s always been this game’s most tedious part of level progression for the non-hardcore crowd.  But, max light level Rare gear can currently get you to level 26.   The most frustrating part is getting from fully upgraded tower gear to the level cap via raid gear.  But this final part of level progress, from fully leveled tower gear to reaching the level cap wearing raid gear, will be less feudalistic as your new raid gear will serve a purpose and give you an advantage over tower gear once the cap level is raised again.  This is an idea that every Destiny player can appreciate.  It gives your current raid gear value after a level cap increase, and keeps you motivated to work towards the new gear now as you struggle to answer the question "What now?"   Bungie gives its customers (notice I didn’t say *stroking motion* “COMMUNITY”) a reasonable ‘carry forward’ reward for being blessed by RNGesus with Raid gear.

While this idea may be radical (or not) and not the way Bungie intended, it gives those dedicated players who have less time to spend playing the game a carrot to chase.  It also give those with more time on their hands a reward when the level cap increases.  Here are also a couple of other ideas Bungie could consider to keep the game fresh.

- Unlimited Exotics Vanguard Strikes!  That's right folks.  Those level 18 strikes, for one weekend a quarter, remove the "One exotic" rule from the playlist and let guardians equip all the exotics they want.  It's a level 18 playlist, who cares?  The accidental benefit is that guardians with lots of exotics can help some level 16-18 guardians get to level 26 a little faster.

- Private PvP matches.  I'm actually kind of baffled this doesn't already exist.  Disable acheivements, bounties, and stats for these playlists when you just want to whoop on your buddies. Choppers Only.  No Radar.  One-hit kills. Oh, and *cough* FORGE *cough*

- Bomberman-type drops in a Crucible playlist.  "Oooo, a heavy weapon drop!"  *Picks up drop* "Oh no, I got grenade diarehha, look out!!!"  Or, "yeah, I got an drop that maxes my range for the next 60 seconds with whatever primary I have equipped."  "I have a 50% damage reduction for 30 seconds!" Or "I'm super proof for 60 seconds!" Could you imagine?  The fun and game clips would be limitless.

-  Take your Destiny character and gear into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and play Headquarters on Container.  COULD YOU IMAGE.  COULD YOU IMAGE?

Headquarters on Container is beautiful man, it's beautiful!!