I’ve been playing a lot of Destiny. Really, too much Destiny. But I’ve become left out of end-game content, because of (presumably) unintended consequences of choices made by Bungie’s designers. They’ve had to deal with unintended consequences before: they made a couple of neat hand cannons, The Last Word and Thorn. They were so good that they were all that people used in the Crucible. Heck, even I was able to get kills with Thorn sometimes. So they nerfed them in particular and hand cannons in general, and now hand cannons just aren’t much fun.
The problem now is the light level system and the new hard mode King’s Fall raid. In order to be successful at the raid, we need to have light level 311 or better, but there isn’t a way to get gear higher than Light 310 except in the hard mode raid. So the die hard raiders that struggled through the hard mode raid and are now 315 or more don’t want to deal with us 303 light players. 303 isn’t enough to be effective the hard mode raid, so there’s no point in trying.
The way to get closer to 310, so we can be effective in the hard mode raid, is to do the normal mode raid. But since the hard raid gives all the loot from the normal raid, the group I hang out with has no need or desire to go through the normal raid with lowbies like me so I can get better gear. So I’m in a Catch-22: I can’t do the hard mode raid because my gear is too lousy, and I can’t get better gear because everyone only does the hard mode raid.
This problem is different from the last two raids. In the Vault of Glass and Crota’s End, even in normal mode, we still got top-level raid gear, so we could equip ourselves with good stuff that would be capable in the hard mode. Sure, a few special items were only available in hard mode, but at least we could prepare for hard mode. This new way has essentially put up a road block between light 300 and 310 that will be very challenging to overcome. I doubt that’s what the designers intended, so that’s why I think it is an unintended consequence.
So what would I do to fix it? I’d suggest the following:
- Make an incentive for people to run the normal raid in addition to the hard raid. Perhaps make some gear only drop in normal, or add legendary marks or some other reason for people to play normal mode so we lowbies can join them and get better gear.
- Speaking of gear, the normal raid should drop light 315 or 320 gear, just as the normal raids in the past dropped full-strength gear. That way we have a hope of being able to participate in the hard raid.
- Make PvE loot drops have higher light limits. Now, rare and legendary engrams are limited to 299 (I think), so let them roll to 310 so we can get gear that could be helpful in hard mode even from normal PvE activities.
I’m disappointed, yet not particularly upset about not being able to participate in the raid. I did the raid in normal mode on my Titan, so he can be 303 light, and I got my Touch of Malice to use in future raids, yet the likelihood that it will get used is low.
So what will I do? Probably get bored with Destiny soon and get back to Elder Scrolls Online. I also have Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V ready to be played. And there’s always LOTRO and Star Trek Online. I will keep myself amused even if it isn’t with Destiny.