I figure it's time to post my impressions of the game. I've got two characters to 300 and have everything except for prestige nightfall's, prestige raid, and hardcore pvp. I like this game a lot, but it does have some issues. The biggest thing that bugs me about the game is the way that it streamlines basically everything.... like it's okay to have a smooth user experience, but the philosophy neuters everything interesting in the game.
Here's what I mean:
Enemies auto scale to your light level, so everything always feels the samish difficulty.
You get skill points but can only sensibly invest them linearly... like it would be the same experience if they just unlocked a new perk every level automatically and just let you pick what subclass you want.
Along the same lines, it looks like there's a bunch of skills, but they come tied together so really you only get to choose subclass and class ability type.... there's 48 "skills" per class but you can't mix and match or build your own way... what's the point of the skill tree? It's a charade
Loot drops auto scales to your light level, so every upgrade always gives you about the same boost, there's never really a "oh shit I just got an epic drop" feeling.
It's weird that the strike playlist is random and there's multiple modifiers for nightfall difficulty but there's only one nightfall each week, and I guess the modifiers are hand picked and the same every time depending on the strike. Like why isn't there a nightfall play list where the strike and the modifiers you get are random? So that you can run nightfall's at 280 pl like you ran strikes 250 pl?
Everything drops planet/event specific tokens... but much of the loot table is shared and loot auto scales to your light level so it feels like you're always getting the same stuff anyway. Like what is the point of farming strike tokens if I get the same legendary leg armor I get from EDZ tokens or Nessus tokens or in random purple engrams?
Because all the gear is about the same power level and all the items are about the same power level and all the enemies feel the same no matter the power level, then it all just mushes together, feels very samey and gets boring fast.
There's not much point engaging in these systems because they all lead back to the same outcomes.
They should have tiered the endgame content and tokens into a logical progression. Run public events to get ready for strikes and memories, Run normal strikes and memories to gear you up for night fall strikes, which gets you ready for prestige nightfall's and the raid, which lets you get ready for the prestige raid... and then you can stand in the tower with a full set of prestige raid gear and everybody will be like damn!
Let me pick the item I want to buy with my tokens. 40 tokens for the 265 Helm, 100 tokens for the 285 version. Nightfall tokens for nightfall specific gear, prestige tokens for prestige gear. Tie specific legendary and exotic drops to specific strike bosses, you want an origin story? Or Orpheus rig? Well then you need to farm the inverted spire nightfall for a 23% chance for them to drop.... or whatever.
They should have made the challenges specific and the rewards unique... instead they made the challenges the same, and the rewards the same... it feels like they made it more boring so nobody would miss out, but the problem is every bodies bored.
Edit: it feels like they designed their progression with the same philosophy that bioware designed mass effects story. If that makes sense.
Here's what I mean:
Enemies auto scale to your light level, so everything always feels the samish difficulty.
You get skill points but can only sensibly invest them linearly... like it would be the same experience if they just unlocked a new perk every level automatically and just let you pick what subclass you want.
Along the same lines, it looks like there's a bunch of skills, but they come tied together so really you only get to choose subclass and class ability type.... there's 48 "skills" per class but you can't mix and match or build your own way... what's the point of the skill tree? It's a charade
Loot drops auto scales to your light level, so every upgrade always gives you about the same boost, there's never really a "oh shit I just got an epic drop" feeling.
It's weird that the strike playlist is random and there's multiple modifiers for nightfall difficulty but there's only one nightfall each week, and I guess the modifiers are hand picked and the same every time depending on the strike. Like why isn't there a nightfall play list where the strike and the modifiers you get are random? So that you can run nightfall's at 280 pl like you ran strikes 250 pl?
Everything drops planet/event specific tokens... but much of the loot table is shared and loot auto scales to your light level so it feels like you're always getting the same stuff anyway. Like what is the point of farming strike tokens if I get the same legendary leg armor I get from EDZ tokens or Nessus tokens or in random purple engrams?
Because all the gear is about the same power level and all the items are about the same power level and all the enemies feel the same no matter the power level, then it all just mushes together, feels very samey and gets boring fast.
There's not much point engaging in these systems because they all lead back to the same outcomes.
They should have tiered the endgame content and tokens into a logical progression. Run public events to get ready for strikes and memories, Run normal strikes and memories to gear you up for night fall strikes, which gets you ready for prestige nightfall's and the raid, which lets you get ready for the prestige raid... and then you can stand in the tower with a full set of prestige raid gear and everybody will be like damn!
Let me pick the item I want to buy with my tokens. 40 tokens for the 265 Helm, 100 tokens for the 285 version. Nightfall tokens for nightfall specific gear, prestige tokens for prestige gear. Tie specific legendary and exotic drops to specific strike bosses, you want an origin story? Or Orpheus rig? Well then you need to farm the inverted spire nightfall for a 23% chance for them to drop.... or whatever.
They should have made the challenges specific and the rewards unique... instead they made the challenges the same, and the rewards the same... it feels like they made it more boring so nobody would miss out, but the problem is every bodies bored.
Edit: it feels like they designed their progression with the same philosophy that bioware designed mass effects story. If that makes sense.
