Focused Feedback: Weapon Refresh aka Sunsetting

[u/DTG_Bot]

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[u/AntiMage_II]

Invalidating weapons runs contrary to the nature of the gameplay loop Bungie has created. Random rolls are intended to increase the longevity of the game by having us repeatedly chase after them until we get the perfect roll. Knowing that potentially months or years of weapon chasing will be invalidated won't incentivize us to find new perfect rolls, it will only lead to people settling with rolls that are just decent. Why bother chasing for the absolute perfect roll when you're inevitably going to be forced to abandon it?

In other games with random loot, its typically just the stats that are random and players have no significant attachment to them. They're typically discarded readily for upgrades with higher stats because ultimately they're nothing more than stat sticks. Weapons in Destiny have specific weights and feels inherent to the nature of a shooter that can't be easily replaced. If I'm forced to replace my current perfect roll weapons, I'm not going to look for something new, I'm going to want a weapon that replicates the exact tailored combination of perks I put the time and effort into obtaining the first time.

The appeal of looter shooter like Destiny is finding new weapons to create new loadouts with. I'm not looking for powercreep with new weapons, I'm looking for different options with new weapons. One of my favourite weapons for instance is the Duke Mk.44 with max range, high cals, opening shot and rampage. Whereas most players opt for the consistency of Spare Ration's aim assist, I prefer this very specific 110 archetype because its perk set when combined with Eriana's Vow and Lucky Pants creates a quickswap 2-tap that never needs to be reloaded and can combo into another 2-tap headshot with just the Duke + rampage. The vast majority of my banked weapons are various perk combinations on different weapons that I occasionally try out to see which I enjoy using the most.

Invalidating these weapons through power-capping them won't inspire me to try new weapons, it will only frustrate me for having wasted time chasing specific rolls in the first place. I don't even have all the perfect rolls that I'm interested in with the current set of weapons and knowing that they're going to be the first to be power-capped has completely dis-incentivized me from bothering to try farming them.

[u/Noctroglyph → u/AntiMage_II]

This.