[quote][quote]Then imagine year 3; how are you going to introduce a successor to Ass Kicker[/quote] Destiny 2 is slated to release next year. There is no "Year 3," so that's an easy answer. This ecosystem is going to end at that point, presumably, so extrapolating that far is needless. And Look up "Imago Loop," they already brought Fatebringer back, anyway; as long as new gear is equal to old gear, people will use it. It doesn't need to be better. [quote]Again, the only way to make the new content relevant is to make the old content irrelevant[/quote] 100% false, sorry.[/quote] And yet you just proved my point with your opening comment; Destiny 2 will apparently have an entirely new ecosystem, leaving this one behind, compounding my point: for new content to be relevant, the old content has to become somewhat irrelevant, at least. I was wondering how Bungie would approach this; I was wondering how they would keep players interested with new loot, given the game is heavily loot driven, and given so many players already have most of the loot: would they make new loot better than the old, or make new loot of relative quality to the old, and leave the old behind? It seems they went with the latter, and it makes some sense, as it keeps a lot of weapons still relevant in PVP, but you can't just blaze through PVE like a God with maxed out Exotic's like you could in HoW. It's actually going to take time and effort for many players to reach max level, unlike HoW where everyone pretty much reached 34 in a week, if not in a day. [quote]Let me direct you to HoW. Players could chose whatever the hell they wanted to use, and guess what? People still used tons of new gear, because EVERYTHING was relevant. Player attachment to gear isn't binary, and your point is demonstrably untrue.[/quote] I don't think you're being honest with yourself. Everyone that I knew, and every video I saw of Skolas completion, was using Gjallarhorn to burn him in 30 seconds or less to avoid the difficulty of the mechanics in that match. It was such a thing that Bungie changed the match to include more formidable ads, as well as alternate his burn ever week. There was no shortage of "first Skolas kill" videos where everyone was using Gjallarhorn. Most PoE matches I was seeing Gjallarhorn and Fatebringers coming out at one point or another. Ghorn was easily still the best rocket launcher, and it was undoubtedly one of the first things anyone would of buffed up with an exotic shard. I could include a crap-load of YouTube links to prove the point but I don’t think that’s necessary. Hardly anyone was using new gear from HoW, apart from some new Exotic armour, most of which everyone managed to get in the first few weeks through Exotic engrams. [quote]If you read my post, you'd know that every one of these points has already been re-tooled in Year 1 gear, specifically to match their power levels with Year 2. Like you point out, everything is still viable in the Crucible, which is more balanced than it's ever been; 2.0 very clearly balanced both Y1 and Y2 to be equally effective at the competative level, so the fact that you still cling to the belief that Year 1 is "OP" is pretty strange, considering how glaringly untrue it is.[/quote] That actually wasn’t my point. I wasn’t arguing that Y1 was OP. My point was that Year 1 included a lot of stuff that was pretty great as it is, that would have to become irrelevant one way or another, whether by being nerfed and or prohibited from reaching max level, or whatever, because otherwise, you’d have to make new weapons that are even better than Year 1’s, and it would get ridiculous. [quote]Ghorn was nerfed. Have you even been paying attention? The 2.0 PATCH was what balanced it, not the level cap! In Year 1 environments, Ghorn is no longer the destroyer-of-faces that it once was. And, if it were Infusible, it would still preform at that weaker level in Year 2, as well. You're acting like bringing it to 310 would magically bring back it's godliness, which is totally not the case. The same goes for ALL Year 1 gear; it's been leveled out to Year 2 effectiveness, with no noticeable leg-up on Year 2 gear, as the new, more balanced Meta shows. Allowing Year 1 to be brought to Year 2 levels would in no way change that Meta, because it's the result of the patching, not the capping.[/quote] Then what difference does it really make? Either way, the point remains that in order for new stuff to be relevant, the old stuff has to be left behind. Furthermore, [i]obviously[/i], bungie didn't want people blazing through the new content with stuff equally as good as all the new top tier gear. Obviously. When HoW dropped, people were getting to max level in a day. With TTK, there's hardly anyone max level even after a month. They've made it harder this time. That's a good thing. I got bored of HoW very quickly. There was zero motivation for me to complete Skolas because I had everything already, and none of his loot table had anything better than I already had. It wasn’t worth completing every week. Whereas with TTK, I can already see myself looking forward to raiding again on reset every week. There’s still so much new loot to get. TTK has way more playability than HoW, not just because King's Fall is more interesting than PoE (at least in my opinion), but because they have rendered a lot of our old gear irrelevant, and so for the first time in a while, there's actually a motive to bother with it, there's actually a new goal and it's not easy to reach it. HoW was too easy.

[quote]And yet you just proved my point with your opening comment; Destiny 2 will apparently have an entirely new ecosystem, leaving this one behind, compounding my point: for new content to be relevant, the old content has to become somewhat irrelevant, at least.[/quote] Not that you don't have a point, but I hardly think I proved anything that you were arguing. Destiny 2 is a [i]new game[/i], so of course Bungie will, and [i]should[/i] move on. But [i]this[/i] is still the SAME GAME, regardless of how long it's been out. [quote]Everyone that I knew, and every video I saw of Skolas completion, was using Gjallarhorn to burn him in 30 seconds or less to avoid the difficulty of the mechanics in that match.[/quote] As far a Skolas (and many of the other PoE bosses) are concerned, I totally agree with you. Gjally was immensely overused, and definitely took away from the purity of a lot of the HoW endgame. However, [i]in general[/i], I still stand by my statement that gear diversity in HoW was at an all-time high, across [i]all[/i] gamemodes, in not in the PoE. [quote]When HoW dropped, people were getting to max level in a day. With TTK, there's hardly anyone max level even after a month. They've made it harder this time. That's a good thing.[/quote] Dude, despite what you might think, I [b]110%[/b] agree with you on this, holy crap. Despite my general love for most of what HoW brought to the table, the effort to get to 34 was abysmally minimal. If [i]anything[/i], I think the one thing I can fully get behind in TTK is the effort it takes to get to max level; it doesn't seem quite as brutal as Vanilla was, but it still makes max levels feel like an [i]achievement.[/i]

Definitely agree with you that weapon diversity was higher in HoW. And man, I miss my weapons too. Fatebringer was my go to primary for PVE and I was uber accustomed to it. But at the same time, I'm enjoying TTK a lot more than HoW. I like that I need to update all my gear; I can see the logic in this direction.

Don't people use Imago Loop because Fatebringer is capped and Imago Loop is at year 2 levels? If Fatebringer were still as strong as it was, I suspect the vast majority would go with it, rather than Imago Loop as you'd have to wait for a good roll anyway

You might be right, but I still think a lot of people (myself included) would still be really interested in it just for a change of pace. It could very easily be the better PvP choice (FB's perks aren't exectly fantastic for Crucible), and any roll with Firefly would be pretty much Fatbringer 2.0 for the PvE fans.