Let's have an honest discussion about exotics, and how they can be acquired. Please understand I played when you just had to get lucky in the wild, and it was a huge thing to just see any new exotic. ___________________________________________________________ Now that that is out of the way, the lost sector drop rates, especially on master. The exotic is listed as common (Same as the adept weapon in a GM nightfall) and yet common has vastly different meanings. Firstly, some actual transparency on percentage chance would be appreciated by the community; if [i]nothing[/i] else. Don't say "common" when it is actually 25%, 30%, etc. Just give us the percentages so it doesn't have to be crowd sourced. Secondly, ideally, make common mean common, and make deaths matter. The best way to implement this would be two drop rates both requiring finishing platinum. - If you finish a Legend Lost Sector (LLS) Platinum and you took any deaths (eg. not flawless), base drop rate. If you finish flawless & platinum, 50% chance of an exotic dropping. - Master Lost Sector (MLS) platinum with deaths, base rate. Flawless Platinum? [b]100% Drop Rate[/b] ___________________________________________________________ The issue that is starting to plague the community is the sheer number of exotics, paired with a poor drop rate, paired with 6 different stats that a spike in the wrong place will make the piece worse than a 48 stat total one from collections. As you start to compound these percentage chances, the issue should start to become clearer. If your class has 8 options for the particular day (currently only warlock boots, everything else is 9+), that is a 12.5% chance that [i]when[/i] an exotic drops, it is the one the player wants. Now you need to multiply that by the drop rate. Let us be generous and assume a 30% rate on MLS. So 3 out of every 10 completions yields an exotic drop. When we take a look at the two percentages, we have approximately a 3.75% chance of getting the exotic armor we want after we already have it in collections, every time a lost sector is completed. And that is the [i]best[/i] rate available. Titans have 13 different arms they can get. Compound this further by the inability to reliably control stat distributions. The ghost mod fails to guarantee that the chosen stat is "spikey" (20+ in a single stat). So when you hit that 3.75% chance at the re-rolled [b][armory]Swarmers[/armory][/b] you have been targeting for how many runs, if the stats are all over the place, [i][u]you wish you didn't get it to drop in the first place[/u][/i]. That should [i]never[/i] be the case for an exotic drop. It should be exciting. I remember when drops were an exciting event! That thrill is gone as players move towards more difficult content. ___________________________________________________________ I was raised to never point out a problem without being prepared to be a part of the solution though; so here are 3 options to address this issue (which will never get better and will only become exacerbated as more exotics are released): 1. Guaranteed Exotic on every Solo Platinum Flawless Master Lost Sector completions, provided that the chest is opened before darkness encroaches. Essentially if you run it perfectly, kill everything, and finish before you lose your revives, you [i]will[/i] get one of the exotics for the day. 2. Nightfalls Exotic drops follow the Lost Sector rotation. If it is legs day in the LS, you will only get exotic legs from nightfall completions when an exotic does drop for you. (This might be the easiest to implement, and would incentivize more people to make attempts at the more difficult end game content, as it has a higher drop rate than even MLS.) 3. Ada-1 Crafted/Custom Exotic Armor Quest | This would likely be the hardest to implement, but could yield incredible rewards for players looking for an ongoing challenge. 1/week per [i]account[/i], you can acquire a quest step from Ada-1 for 50k glimmer, and it has extremely difficult & costly steps to complete. Examples: [b]Step 1:[/b] Complete a Solo Platinum Flawless LLS & turn in an Ascendant Shard to Ada-1. [b]Step 2:[/b] Win 15 Gambit or 15 Crucible matches & turn in an Ascendant Alloy & to Ada-1. [b]Step 3:[/b] Complete a Solo Platinum Flawless MLS & turn in an Exotic Cipher to Ada-1 [b]Step 4:[/b] Speak to Ada-1 This quest then has Ada-1, (who seems to be the armor gal now thanks to the synthweave) give you a screen to select one of the pieces of exotic armor you have already acquired (collections), and then give you a slider for all 6 stats, and allow a maximum of 68 total points spent [i]as desired[/i] following the existing rules on distribution. The guardian has complete control of the stat distribution for this custom piece of exotic armor, following the existing rules for how the armor can possibly roll. (34 total points to spend across the class ability 3 with a minimum of 2 each, and 34 total points to spend across the neutral ability 3, also a minimum of 2 each). The guardian gets [i]exactly[/i] the stat distribution they want, for the amount of effort they needed to put forth. The reward is sweet. The quest should be hard. But for people who want to put in the work, it should be a worthy payoff in the end. I intentionally set up the steps to be fireteam-agnostic, so solo players aren't barred from completing it without access to a raid or nightfall group, but those could also be requirements if you want to drive more traffic for people to make fireteams.