Somewhere Cozmo and/or Bungie silently confirmed that all Exotics will eventually be made ascendable beyond Year 1. This hasn't exactly been made publicly aware or in a declarative way, which to me indicates they'd rather brush the possibility of all Exotics continuing to live in future high-end content under a rug with a trap door beneath. Even with the possibility of them saying "yes, all Exotics will come forth on *insert date*," it still isn't good enough. There's still a baby elephant in the room known as Year 1 Legendaries. In many ways, our reforged and ascended Legendary weapons and armor have shaped us more than our Exotics. We do, after all, see more Legendary drops than Exotics. If we head back to January of this year, nearly 2 months after The Dark Below, it would seem Bungie agreed that stagnating our gear would be counter-intuitive, saying that [quote]the mistakes we made with the DLC1 reward economy will not be repeated[/quote] Oh, and just to put things into perspective, these were the words of our good ol' pal Luke Smith. One can backtrack a bit further to before The Dark Below even released, where Deej said [quote]In the months to come, your quest to become more powerful will have more avenues that lead to satisfaction. The last thing we wanted was for you to look at your favorite gun or helmet and decide that it had become obsolete. Since the reveal, we’ve read a lot of ideas for how this could have been done better. Your feedback is clear: The time you have invested in your stuff should be respected.[/quote] Pretty ironic, considering how The Dark Below changed things. Both of these sound wonderful going forward, which only makes the reality we're facing with The Taken King all the more infuriating. If the same mistakes won't be repeated and the time we invest should be respected, then why is all our gear being rendered obsolete, or otherwise second-rate? I thought the mishandling of Prison of Elders weapons was bad enough, but THIS, what we're seeing with our gear turning into digital mulch when confronting new enemies, including Oryx? Oh and I thought Crota was turning in his grave already. We also start to see inconsistencies not just from Bungie's words and actions, but from the stuff they say. Something else Deej had the audacity to proclaim was that having a 10 year marriage to the same gun sounds "boring" to him. Is that right, Deej? So by that logic, the 3+ years we spent with each gun in each Halo game was boring; the chainsaw gun in Gears of War is a snooze at this point, despite the series' ongoing success; and it's not like people still play Counter-Strike, Half Life, Doom and Quake to this day, right? I'll even take it a step further: If Deej thinks a 10-year "marriage" to a digital weapon would be "boring," then you got to wonder how he views and feels about human relationships. Am I to infer that attachment is a foreign concept to him (and to Bungie)? Deej and the rest of the team at Bungie must be wonderful when it comes to relationships, because if what we're still facing in Destiny is any indication, then they'd rather keep things short-lived and play a hit-and-run game every year, as opposed to finding and focusing on things to improve and develop altogether. They'd rather knowingly let previous issues, which they said WOULD NOT BE REPEATED, return in full force. There's a reason I use this relationship analogy. I regard what exists between Destiny and its community as a relationship. Destiny is like that romantic partner who catches your eye and draws you in with its pretty looks, but as you get to know it more, you find out that that outer beauty masks the hollowness within. Yet you can't help but come back because Destiny is so pretty, and there's a certain sense that makes you feel it wants to be better, and you want to invest the time and effort to see Destiny's potential realized. Destiny is stubborn and slow to learn, you and Destiny fight and always seem to be at ends, but you don't want to give up. Not to mention it still just looks (and feels) so good and, when at its best, Destiny is like a wonderful romantic partner, giving you rare but pleasant surprises (in bed). Moments like these remind you why you continue to place faith in Destiny. And Destiny vows to continue making changes for the better, promising to not make the same mistakes it did before, yet like a bumbling and compulsive alcoholic, Destiny is giving ill regard for those who've put time, effort and money into it. And now it expects more money and wants you to stick around, even though it seems Destiny just can't find its own footing for its own good, much less for yours. Destiny is troublesome baggage. Yet Destiny isn't simply one person struggling to figure things out, Destiny is a product, the result of SEVERAL people working together who SHOULD, by all counts and measures, have this figured out. With that, Destiny feels less like a flawed individual and more like a manipulative succubus. Destiny should be sparking a healthy relationship between itself and its players, but Destiny is about as healthy as a pot of expired Halloween candy. And if you don't continue forking out money (forgo DLC), you're left with those repulsive chocolate and black licorice Twizzlers. The change starts from within. Destiny needs to remember that there was good that came out of its first year, and those good things should be celebrated, enjoyed and embraced going forward. Legendary and Exotic weapons are like those pastimes that make Destiny and its players click. Now those pastimes are being slapped aside by Destiny, as if they don't matter, even though it said that before and wanted to return to them all along. This indecision is maddening, and the more we see of it, the less we'll want to stick around. So I pose the question to YOU, Bungie. Are you ready for a healthy relationship, to be Mr./Mrs. Right, long-term and all? Or is this just a constant case of Mr./Ms. Right Now, repeating every year (or worse, every few months)?