I am going to steal your quote for a bit... [b][u]"So Sunseting VENTS power from a loot game, so that the developers can keep giving you power to chase after."[/u][/b] This statement you said is true. It is very true. I used to run Ark Survival Evolved Cluster for a year. (If you dont know about the game, its a survival game with taming dinosaurs, and killing bosses). When I first started, I let the people on my server keep all their dinos, and use them forever in any new map I added. The problem was is that the new maps had no power to chase because people already had the op dinos they bred over the course of months. They complained that there was nothing worthwhile, and nothing to give them a challenge. So I did a hard reset, gave them a new map, and told them they could keep their leveled character and their old dinos, but they had to regrind out the tames and rebuild their bases and loot because I increased the tames levels, and the bosses max level. This allowed me to hard cap old stuff, while keeping the power growth there. I did this reset on an interval since many of the players on my cluster were excited with dino "sunsetting". Many of them started, but after awhile they gave up since a lot of the new creatures were just reskins with no noticeable differences. They stated they only felt like with each map nothing mattered, and they were just trying to get back to where they were. Bungie is doing the same thing I did with the dinos, but with weapons. Releasing a Long shadow, with a new cap of 1360, and while my old one that has nothing different about it (same perk pool, same stats, same archtype) is capped at 1060 is not about giving me new power to chase. It about knocking me down in order to get me to play longer to get back what I already have. That does not make a good loot treadmill. It becomes exhausting. If bungie wants to rerelease stuff with a higher power cap [b]without making any changes to the weapon[/b], the old loot needs to be brought up so it does not invalidate time since you are not acquiring new power. Rereleasing with a weapon with new perks would be different since it would allow for weapons to shine in different ways. However new, unique weapons need to be added in order to get the best outcome in my opinion. Thats just my opinion on the matter. What are your thoughts? I like keeping a dialogue going : )

I’m going let you have one of my other quotes. Your experience with Ark shows that: [i]Sunsetting is necessary but NOT SUFFICIENT to the health of a loot game.[/i] If you don’t continue to give players new carrots to chase and new forms of power to chase, they will lose interest. Sunsetting is necessary so that you can give them those new things to chase without breaking the game. But it is not a means to make giving them those new-bright-and-shinies to chase. As for the Destiny. It has a loot problem...but it always has. The design of Destiny 2 doesn’t allow the game to generate lots of loot. The perk pools ate to shallow, and pvp limits creativity to just those things that pvp players will accept (see stasis and the current meltdown going on over it). But I think the bigger issue isn’t loot....IT CHANGE. Destiny players make unreasonable demands. The want the game to evolve and get better...but the resent it every time the game changes in any way. People want to still play this game like it’s Destiny 1...and you can’t do it....and Bungie doesn’t want you to. They want to use the core playlists——Crucible, Gambit, Strikes—-as the FTP parts of the game, and where the funnel the reissued loot back into the game. While the paid activities are NEW activities and where you get most of the good loot. The problem is that you have a community that is too busy looking [i]backwards [/i] all the time to see that the game is evolving, and that hanging out in the strike playlist all day, or in Crucble all day is no longer the most rewarding way to play the game. So instead of adapting to the change and enjoying the new activities and new loot, people just bitterly complain.

While evolving is good. People come to the game for different reasons. That's why people like this MMO action, shooter hybrid for different reasons. People do like the new activities. I for one am enjoying the new raid, and the solo lost sectors to farm for roles on exotics. However, if the core activities are neglected, and provided with only re-issued gear, then the players who do like those activities best will not enjoy the game. People are not asking for top tier loot, they are just asking for new stuff to go for. Let them have unique loot for each playlist so that way people have reason to jump into everything or show off rewards from the modes they like. You can evolve everything else, but if your core gameplay loop is neglected people will get displeased since the main section of the game where stuff is replayable, and easily farmable is not getting any love. You cannot support a skyscraper on a foundation of sand basically. In regards to the community, yes they need to look forwards some more. However, if you do not look back see what works well, and didn't work well, you might not make some of the greatest design decisions. Thats the one thing I had to keep telling myself. What new stuff would be awesome to add to my servers, but what things did people like that I could build on. It would hurt nobody if there was more new unique loot in the playlists.

My issue with sunsetting armor is the fact armor 2.0 was introduced. Wouldn't it make more sense to sunset the mods which actually effect the game? With transmog coming we're just chasing numbers with the best expiration date on them. Even if the numbers may be very similar from season to season. Then masterworking the armor is very expensive and I have a hard time doing a set let alone every season. So I'm having to ignore this seasons armor and hope the season 13 armor is any better. [spoiler]---------------------[/spoiler] As for weapons it's very painful. Bungie does a great job making each gun feel unique. I think those new perks they introduced and the fact they nerfed the damage perks back in shadowkeep would be enough. I would use some of those new perks over the damage ones imo. I find it werid they have power creep as a concern. They released the most powerful heavy weapons ever in beyond light, lament and eyes of tommrow. They blow ghorn out of the water. The raid machine gun is by far the best machine gun made in d2 and arguably d1 for pve. Warmind cells are still very good. Riven can still be one phased. Something bungie probably doesn't like to think about. My point is that bungie shouldn't use power creep as an excuse for sunsetting given this recent expansion. This also applies to pvp, they sunset mindbenders and dust rock only to bring back the felwinters lie which is better than both. They also can use balance patches as a better option. That's how they took care of broken weapons like erentil, lord of wolves, lunas and last word on pc. Ultimately bungie needs to get it's act together. These next months will be critical. I truly believe we are approaching a breaking point in the community. Stasis angering the pvp crowd, destination vaulting angering the pve crowd and sunsetting making everyone mad.

1. Mods aren’t the only source of armor power. Stats and their distribution are also important. 2. If you only sunset the mods, the you recreate the loot problems Bungie is trying to fix with weapons: [i]Once you get that perfectly rolled piece of armor all the other armor becomes irrelevant. So you either cause power creep problems....or we’re back in vanilla D2 land and armor loses its loot value.[/i] This is why EVERY loot game sunsets, and why Bungie’s original promise 5 years ago was so STUPID from a game design perspective: [i]It was doomed to fail.[/i] Especially the moment Bungie stopped having the escape valve of blowing up the game and running away to a sequel every few years. (Which is get another form of sunsetting) 3. THIS IS BUNGIE GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER AND FIXING THE GAME. The -blam!- up was making the player base a promise that was impossible to keep from a game design standpoint....and was a time bomb planted at the foundation of the game. Bungie just kept coming up with creative ways to reset the countdown. Now they are finally defusing it and dismantling it. And after 5 years of misleading people, it’s going to hurt and people are going to get mad.

[quote]1. All loot games sunset their gear.[/quote] Destiny is not a loot game. Destiny is a game where rewards are RNG stat values for your character. No game "sunsets" a character's stats. Games that sunset loot only work because the loot is an add-on to the basic character, not the actual character itself.

My guy thats all good and everything but we went from 500 usable weapons to 132. And my favorite pulse archetype is not in the 132. Bungie has failed monumentally in providing loot to farm for. They left us with no 540 pulses, only 1 260 scout. This feels reminiscent of d2y1 when there were only 1 or 2 weapons worth getting for each weapon type. Except now I cant even get 1 for my favorite.

[quote]My guy thats all good and everything but we went from 500 usable weapons to 132.[/quote] How many of those 368 weapons did people actually use, versus just having them sit in their vault? How many of those 368 weapons were basically identical to one another? What else did we lose from the game because Bungie had to quality test all those weapons....or at least a significant portion of them EVERY time they make any change to the game (No Free Lunches)? [quote]Bungie has failed monumentally in providing loot to farm for. They left us with no 540 pulses, only 1 260 scout. [/quote] Agreed. But then the lack of sunsetting allowed Bungie to WALL PAPER OVER this lack of capacity, rather than forcing them to fix the problem. Sunseting didn't cause this problem. It just camouflaged a problem that has always plagued this game. Sunsetting has actually---if Blackburn is to be believed----forced Bungie to stop kicking the can down the road and actually increase the game's ability to produce loot. So while the present is painful, the game may actually wind up having MORE loot, and a wider, MEANINGFUL variety (not endless clones of a small number of weapons) than the game has had before.

You make a fair point. I used way less than the total 368 lost weapons. But in the seasons past I had a disproportionately higher group of weapons I rotated to. Based on what I was doing. Around 25 for kinetic 20 for energy and 15 for heavy. Now I have pretty much 5 for each slot. I have finished grinding for all the roles on weapon types I actually plan on using. I dont grind for weapon types I dislike. You are also right, sunsetting isnt the cause of lack of loot. Bungie’s gross incompetence is the cause. Luke Smith’s time at the top has shown with clear evidence in the last 9 seasons that the bungie that exist now only cares about the minimum viable product. 30 weapons have been produced. We are missing multiple archetypes. 11 of the 30 “new” weapons are just reskins. The future isn’t bright if this expansion has anything to say about it.

But not for the reasons you state. Sunsetting is not the "problem". [/quote] Yes it is [quote]The problem is that Bungie FAILED to do something the right way from the start of the game. Failed to educated the player base as to WHY it was necessary.. Promised something that it could NEVER deliver on. Kept that CHARADE going for 5 years.....before finally having to walk it back when they were forced to admit that they were destroying their own game[/quote] It isnt necessary, the fact that the games been as good as it was from ttk-beyond light proves this. [quote]As for the player base.....You have a right to be mad. You have a right to be frustrated. But if you want to still be playing this game three years from now, you need to accept that sunsetting is **necessary** for the health of the game.[/quote] No it isn't. Weve been fine for 5 years. [quote]1. All loot games sunset their gear. They are just better at HIDING the fact that they do it, and don't have to call ATTENTION to it. Because they dont' STUPIDLY promise their players that they'll get to keep stuff forever...and endlessly level it up for the life of the game.[/quote]1. Other looters shower players in loot so they have replacement guns within the week - in destiny that can take months. 2. Other mmos focus on CHARACTER and ABILITY progress. The weapons arent the main focus - the opposite it true for destiny. 3. Even IF this claim you made were true and every looter on the planet sunset thier players gesr why the hell should anyone in this community care what other games do again? [quote]2. Sunsetting is necessary to avoid having power problems either destroy the game play.....or destroy the loot system. Its why your second point is a problem. If you keep making things more and more powerful. The player eventually becomes so powerful that they make a joke of the game. That is fun for about 10 minutes. Then its gets boring and people stop playing.[/quote] Not at all, a lack of sunsetting hasnt led to power creep in 5 years, take any Y3 gun and compare it to any Y2 gun and you'll find they're the same - not better not worse. Sacred providence - blast furnace Dire promise - spare rations Summoner - gnawing hunger Astral horizon - mindbenders The reality is power creep never existed in 5 years of no retiring weapons and it still wouldnt have. [quote]If you try to withhold power to keep that from happening....people get frustrated because there is no reason to chase loot. The game gets boring (last year) and people stop playing.[/quote] What? Wrong again, bungie had been releasing new gear with the same power as previous guns and it was STILL being massively grinded for, players in this community ALWAYS chase new gear, regardless of if they have older options or not. [quote]If you try to retun the game to the excess level of power, you force players with the overpowered gear to have to use it all the time (and destroy any build variety)....and you make the game either tediously difficult or unplayable for those WITHOUT that overpowered gear. People get frustrated...and they stop playing.[/quote]Huh? Again newer versions of similar guns were being released, so there was diversity, FAR more diversity then today where every build is one of the same few [quote]3. Sunsetting allows developers to manage power in these kinds of games in a way that doesn't destroy the game. (Its like an exhaust system in a gas-powered car. You have to VENT the products of combustion, so that they don't poison it....and stop it from continuing. [b]So Sunseting VENTS power from a loot game, so that the developers can keep giving you power to chase after. [/b][/quote] No, they removed the gear then tossed it back with a new symbol in the corner with the exact same power level, let's not pretend weve been super overpowered the past 2 years and even bungie know it seeing as they're rereleasing gear with the exact same perks. [quote]Every successful loot game is a "loot treadmill". That is the NATURE of this kind of game.[/quote] Not only don't they - the fact is destiny has been successful for years doing the EXACT opposite. Find me a single post complaining about our weapons pre-luke smiths post about this upcoming change. [quote]4. Armor has to be sunset just like weapons. EVERY form of player power that is PROGRESSIVE (e.g static forms of power, like character abilities, is exempt) has to be sunset or you will BREAK the game over time. You will either get power creep....or a soul-sucking power drain that leaves the game devoid of power to chase.[/quote] Completely ridiculous, owning armor with high stat rolls does absolutely nothing to the game but give players a final goal, they collect the sets with the stat values they need for the builds they want and then can move onto the next character, grinding for thier perfect rolls + mods + enhancing it × however many builds they're after × 3 characters is MORE then enough grind and players should never have to repeat that more then once. The only thing soul sucking is our current status. [quote]At worst the game will self-destruct. At best you'll get these wild pendulum swings of power (sound familiar?) from one extreme to another. Until the devs either blow up the game (Destiny 1) or they paint themselves in to a corner....and there is nowhere else to go. The game becomes unsustainable. Unmanageable....and dies with a whimper instead of a "bang"[/quote] No it wouldnt self destruct, 5 years of destiny show its actually a big success. Wild pendulum swings of power dont sound familiar at all, weve been at the same power levels since forsaken lol. D1 blew up? Nope, it was populated and popular until its end, you have no idea what you're talking about as usual and it shows. Just keep pretending to ignore posts that actually examine and counter the absurdity you write.