Dear Bungie.
I'm an avid Destiny player, I have a Lv29 titan an a Lv28 warlock. I have 2 active raid teams who i raid with every week on the reset and i have put a lot of hours into this game which i have come to love.
I'm making this post to address a few issues i have noticed regarding exotic items and some other issues which steam from those primary issues, please keep in mind i am trying to be constructive as possible.
Issue:
1: Item exclusivity, the feeling of uniqueness.
One of the great features of exotics are the fact that they are unique weapons, they have a unique name with a unique look and unique abilities and that makes them incredibly desirable. And this desire driven by the "illusion" of rarity makes actually finding one an extremely rewarding experience which i'm definitely a fan of. However you may have noticed i said "illusion" and that's because a lot of these items are not rare anymore, in fact some people, my self included have more exotics then we do legendary gear.
I was driven to this conclusion, funnily enough by a lowly noobie in the tower. he sent me a message asking how i got so many exotics and after thinking about it for a while i realized i had only acquired 2 out of my entire collection from an actual drop "nightfall strike reward" and the rest you ask?? well i was lucky enough to be given them from the NPC... all 10 of them, whether it be from Xur or from bounties, i got most of them from an NPC.
Now i have 2 issues with this. 1 is to do with the rush of excitement you have when you get an exotic, when you see that yellow effect in the corner of your screen and you loose your shit. My first nightfall strike i got an exotic helm for my titan as a reward... now usually i would be ecstatic about such a reward however as i quickly came to realize i already owned this helm, which i had purchased from Xur, no less then 3 days ago. i wouldn't go as far to say as i had a negative game experience from this but it was definitely a feeling of disappointment, knowing the only thing this exotic would amount to was 3 ascendant shards. Much like the disappointment experienced from getting a blue item from a legendary engram "cough"
The other issue i've run into is the unique feeling you get and the chip you carry on your shoulder as you strut around the tower wearing a piece of exotic armor which barely anyone one else owns. I got an exotic chest piece for my titan from an exotic engram "which i got from Xur" and no one else had it. It was a great feeling of exclusivity and i had a lot of pride during that time... till Squid face rocked up next week with the same armor piece in his shop for 13 strange coins... now every second titan has the same chest piece and its not even rare anymore. the same issue with those warlock gloves... have you seen a warlock without those exotic sun singer gloves? yeah me either. their more common then Sparrows these days. Exotics are supposed to be super rare, your supposed to have a great feeling of satisfaction from finding some and knowing no one else "at least in your friend circle" has that item and having all your mates envy you/ envying your friends for having a piece that you don't have thus increasing your desire for an exotic piece even more.
The 3rd and final issue has been throw around the forums a bit now, and i'm going to address it from a different angle.
People have been complaining and ranting that they cant wear more then one piece of exotic armor.
Ask yourself this question, if exotic armor is supposed to rare and unique, how do people, only 3 weeks into launch have enough exotic pieces to even start complaining about this? and the fact its not just one person but a hole bunch of people.
Probably because exotic items are way to easy acquire.. and i say acquire because i;m sure as hell that they didn't find those armor pieces from drops.
In conclusion, if you guys managed to make it this far you probably guessed what im going to suggest. Xur needs to either be reworked to sell legendary items or be removed completely from the game. Its way to easy to farm coins, 3 characters = 27 coins a week and anyone who puts enough time into the game will have 23 motes of light by the week end to get an engram as well. Thats minimum 2 exotics a week, just for playing the game, like a consolation price for participating.
Removing xur would bring back the satisfaction of actually achieving an exotic through a raid drop, or a nightfall strike, or that awesome moment when you get one from a legendary engram, it would bring back that exclusive feeling of owning something rare, and knowing people want what you have AND it would stop people whinging on the forums about wanting to equip more then one exotic since they would actually be hard to find and the chance they would actually have 2 for the same class would be astronomically low.
I know a lot of people wont agree with me, but destiny has a really solid thing going here and i thing Xur detracts a lot from those experiences.
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I do wish it was exclusive like you talk about buying them seems a little cheap. I've been playing since release 1 1/2 days and haven't even sniffed an exotic and I'm ok with that. I got a legendary from ranking up dead orbit and just got my first legendary gun last night and it was very exciting to see that purple crystal drop. I just think if everyone has an exotic by definition it isn't exotic it's common.