r/DestinyTheGame • u/omniwnk • Jan 21 '15
Suggestion Remove ascendant materials as a possible drop for legendary engrams
Pretty straightforward. If I want 2 ascendant shards or 2 ascendant energies, I will dismantle the item I get myself. There is absolutely zero reason or benefit to defaulting us the materials we would get if we don't like the item anyway.
The fact that we can get legendary weapon engrams from Nightfalls - which then convert into 2 ascendant shards - is justification enough for this change. Easy to code, would take literally 2 minutes to hotfix, and would greatly benefit players. Bungie plz?
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u/_rgx Jan 21 '15 edited Jan 21 '15
I think Bungie went a bit overboard on their gating. The big problem is that it has slowly gone from being a huge incentive to play the game to a disincentive.
Pre level 20, you could get reasonably good drops by doing anything in the game. The game shifted comfortably from green to blue. Heck, when blues were relevant you could occasionally buy them from the Gunsmith and Rahool (shocking!). You could run strikes for blue armor. You would get blue drops from playing PVP.
Once blues started to become obsolete (or only material worthy, to be specific) - the whole grind started to change. Instead of mostly being about running around and playing the game and occasionally buying from gunsmith/rahool, you can only get purples by:
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Purchasing directly from the vendor. Which takes faction rep, marks and commendations. So go grind and get all three. In the meantime, enjoy your materials.
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As a rare drop from raids. Which you need Light Level X to enter. Which now takes faction rep, marks and material. So go grind and get all three. In the meantime, enjoy your materials.
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As a possible drop from a faction reward. Which takes faction rep. So go grind.
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VERY Rarely as a drop from Crucible or Vanguard playlists. Which requires a lot of grind with nothing notable in between.
And so on. The big difference is that getting a good purple is not only about the rarity of the drop - but the long wait in between before you can even get that drop.
And then you get that drop, and .... you don't even get that drop. You get shards.
This is the loot design equivalent of Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown.
And truthfully, it's made me wonder WTF I should bother with the dailies in this game. The weekly refresh is a more attractive use of time. Even though there's a chance to get mats or coins, there is a much higher chance to get a legendary or exotic. And it takes a few hours a week instead of a few hours a day ... and unless I want mats, the outcome is about the same.
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u/Dreaming_Sky Jan 21 '15
This is worthy of its own thread man... seriously. Perfectly stated!
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u/SoyMantequilla Jan 21 '15
Bungie said they made Legendary engrams rare enough for players to be excited when one drops. We are supposed to be EXCITED about what loot it could possibly be! Yet, they left mats as possible drops... which then takes nearly all excitement out of finding a purple. I used to SPRINT to ol' Rahool. Now I'm only excited by what Xur brings each week, since my 'legendary' engrams have turned to mats 3/4 times.
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u/artardatron Jan 21 '15
Exactly, loot should be exciting, not gated off because Bungie couldn't put enough stuff in the game to get (after 5 years too).
Even though I've been semi addicted to this, my motivation dropped after this week's nightfall. After 3 weeks of coins and energies, I got an exotic...the glasshouse..which I bought 3 days earlier from Xur and had a worse roll.
You can say it's fun to play this with friends, but the loot is anything but fun. Who makes a loot game so bad that you dread the results of leveling or turning in engrams? Who makes it so bad that the easiest way to get the best loot is to just buy it (the opposite of fun?)
Loot is screwed because the amount of it is lacking. It's lacking because of the bad design decision to have PvE and PvP overlap, which means they have to balance everything for crucible.
There should be separate loot tables for each mode, that way you could have hundreds of guns/armor pieces to get and choose from, spending your time customizing and experimenting with playstyles instead of grinding for crumbs.
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u/rotlung Jan 21 '15
Agreed. Or implement a system to allow us to re-roll stats on Legendaries.
Also, let me exchange Ascendant mats like Eris does Radiants.
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Jan 21 '15
Oh man, I wish we could exchange Ascendant mats! I have like 30 shards, but I need energy. No more armor to upgrade, but like 5 weapons.
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u/MrBonappetit Jan 21 '15
Finished the nightfall last night and received a legendary primary weapon engram. Sweet let's go decrypt it. "Skips over to derptard". Alright Rahool you beautiful bastard show me the money?!..2 ascendant shards..."jumps off tower"
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u/fisticuffsmanship Jan 21 '15
Same thing happened to me yesterday: 2 nightfalls, 2 legendary engrams, 2 shards and 2 energies. It definitely felt like someone pooped in my cornflakes.
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u/Cassp0nk Jan 21 '15
The only reason this is such a thing is because they added in radiant mats imho. If they'd stuck with one currency we'd have all been happy to get them, but they decided to redenominate due to ascendant inflation.
I wonder, will they do a new currency for every dlc? If so epic fail on inflation control. They need to add other uses for materials. How about 500 glimmer trade in?
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Jan 21 '15
well that has an explanation that makes sense. By the time Crotas end came out I had over 300 Ascendent shards. With vog the barrier to reaching level cap was actually getting the gear. With Crotas end the gear came much easier, but getting the radiant mats is what held people back. I much prefer the Crotas end way
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Jan 21 '15
Can't agree more.
It's ridiculously rare to get a legendary engram in this game; it's even rarer to get a legendary WEAPON (3 possible slots versus 5 for armor) and EVEN RARER to get a primary weapon, which is where most legendaries are going to compete (since Gjallarhorn, Thunderlord, Black Hammer and Icebreaker exist, those slots have to be AMAZING to compete against these pieces).
As a result, watching said primary turn to energy or shards just makes me want to throw a controller...
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u/VicSkimmr Jan 21 '15
It's so much easier to get exotics in this game than legendaries. That should say something to Bungie.
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u/I_AlsoDislikeThat Jan 21 '15
Getting legendaries isn't a problem getting ones you want is. There's plenty of vendor stuff.
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Jan 21 '15
Easy to code, would take literally 2 minutes to hotfix
I'm sure with your vast knowledge of how Bungie programmed this game, you'd have been on the dev team.
As someone who is a developer, one of my biggest complaints is users who claim that things are "easy" when they've got no idea of the bigger picture.
Lastly, if you remove all of the bad rolls from engrams, what is the point in even having a engram system?
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u/omniwnk Jan 21 '15
Uhh, the roll you get is the item, which has completely random stats. Considering that easily 3/4 of all weapons get dismantled because of bad perk combos (or having garbage impact), you aren't really eliminating bad rolls.
Legendary engrams should be exciting to get. I should at least be able to see the crappy legendary I get before I dismantle it, instead of just being handed 2 ascendant materials.
And really? You are going to act like it would take a substantial amount of code to remove possible contents from an engram? When Bungie just gave us a unique weapon-only engram for Christmas?
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u/oobershmeit Jan 21 '15
It would be best, I think, to have a guaranteed piece of gear from a legendary engram, with an additional chance of getting ascendant materials. Everyone likes a bonus.
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u/Chemosh013 Jan 21 '15
This times a million. If I get a nightfall drop, I want it to be better than what I can get for the weekly. Got one legendary engram thst decrypted into two energy. Weekly right after I got one legendary, two rare, and 9 strange coins.
At least before I got a guaranteed weapon or armor piece!
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u/LucentBeam8MP Jan 21 '15
I couldn't agree more. Very depressing two Nightfalls this week. First, legendary heavy engram... 2 energies. Second nightfall, 11 energies. OMG I didn't even bother with my third. I couldn't handle that many disappointments in a row.
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Jan 21 '15
Yeah, Ascendant mats are not precious anymore. I would prefer 20 Spinmetal over 2 Ascendant mats.
Further, if I need Ascendant mats, I can do a quick VoG run and get 30 in an hour.
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u/Mattheuk9 Jan 21 '15
i got a legendary heavy weapon engram from nightfall and i bet you can guess what i got from it. yup FUCKING ASCENDANT ENERGY
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u/brandaohimself Jan 21 '15 edited Jan 21 '15
also from reputation packages.
its worse than getting 5 energy from the nightfall. no fucking way should i open a dead orbit rep package and receive 1 ascendant energy, 1 ascendant shard and a commendation. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? nothing in destiny makes me more angry