Destiny: leveling discussion

[wittyscorpion]

(This post is meant to eventually become a comprehensive and hopefully easy-to-read guide. It starts as a simple list of info and will be refined later)

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Road to reach level 20

This stage is fairly straightforward, to level up only XPs are needed. The most typical path is to

1) complete the story/strike missions around the recommended level (for an easy life, play the missions 1 level below your current level, for challenge, play the missions 1 or 2 level above your current level. 2+ above is not recommended for solo players);
2) If there are no new missions around your current level, you can either replay a mission at hard difficulty, or just jump into the explore/patrol mode;
3) Pick up appropriate "Vanguard" bounties from the Bounty Tracker and complete them when doing 1 & 2 above. These can speed up your XP earning rate tremendously; (BTW, make sure you know this great tip of how to maximize your bounty return before turning it in)

That's it. By simply doing these you can reach level 20 fairly quickly.

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Life after level 20: Part I - acquire armors with Light

Excellent reddit post that describes the thinking process: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2gg5p5/a_rambling_guidesome_advice_for_destiny_once_you/

Background info: how armor stats work. In a nutshell, to get to level 21-30 you need to equip armors with "Lights".
Background Info: what kind of armors you need to acquire. In a nutshell, only rare/legendary/exotic armors have lights, and your end goal is to acquire and equip 1 exotic and 3 legendary.

The following "derivations" might help you to streamline your thinking process for getting desired armors:

1) Loot path:

this path is simple but you are at mercy of random loot drops;

1. Loot armor pieces
2. Loot armor engrams -> armor pieces: through engram decryption at Cryptarch (you can also buy engrams from him, not sure whether that's a good idea though)

2) Purchase from "Xur, Agent of the Nine" (who appears weekly from Friday to Sunday)

1. "Strange Coins" (a type of currency you earn from time to time in game, uncommon) -> exotic items
2. "Mote of Light" (a type of currency, after reaching level 20, earned XP will be converted into Mote of Light) -> exotic Engrams

3) PvE path:

use "Vanguard Marks" (currency) to purchase armor pieces at vendors (more on vendors later). You may need to reach certain "Vanguard Ranks" as a prerequisite for the purchase.

To reach Vanguard Ranks:

1. Vanguard Reputations -> Vanguard Ranks: earn reputations (think of it as XP) to reach ranks (think of it as level) 
   
2. Complete Vanguard Bounties -> Vanguard Reputations

Also, each time upon reaching a new Rank after rank 3 (? need to confirm), you will be rewarded with a package of rare/legendary engrams.

To earn Vanguard Marks (weekly limit = 100): more info at denkirson.proboards.com/thread/7302/fastest-get-vanguard-marks

1. Self initiated Strike missions (? need to confirm)
2. Play Strike playlists;
3. Play daily/weekly Nightfall missions;
4. Sell items to Vanguard Quartermaster;
5. Complete public events;

4) PvP path:

use "Crucible Marks" (currency) to purchase armor pieces at vendors (more on vendors later). You may need to reach certain "Crucible Ranks" as a prerequisite for the purchase.

To reach Crucible Ranks:

1. Crucible Reputations -> Crucible Ranks
2. Complete Crucible Bounties -> Crucible Reputations

(To be confirmed) Also, each time upon reaching a new Rank after rank 3, you will be rewarded with a package of rare/legendary engrams.

To earn Crucible Marks (weekly limit = 100): play crucible playlists;

5) Faction path:

(this entire section needs to be confirmed)

There are 3 factions at the tower, 1) New Monarchy, 2) Dead Orbit, and 3) Future War Cult. Check out faction's background info if you want to know what they are about.

1. First, purchase a faction specific item from the agent, and equip it to affiliate yourself with the faction;
2. You'll start earning faction specific Reputations, which will work towards faction specific Ranks;
3. You can purchase items from the agent using Crucible Marks. You may need to reach certain Ranks as a prerequisite for the purchase;
4. You can sell items to the agent in exchange of Crucible Marks (?);

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Life after level 20: Part II - upgrade armors to max Light

After you get the 1 exotic and 3 legendary armor pieces, you'll need to fully upgrade them to produce the max amount of light possible. This is best described by Dumien's quote below:

You need two things.

Ascendant materials and planet materials. Planet materials also have innevitability. Look around for long enough and you will find what you need. There are even chese routes online to assist in speedy planet material farming.

The last bit is where the real grind takes place. Currently I am at level 28 and this is the part all my friends are stuck on with me. Ascendant shards. They can only be obtained luckily through crucible, community events, daily heroic missions (shards or energy), and the raid. Notice something those all have in common? There is no inevitability to them. There in guaruntee you are going to get shards.

A good example is during last night's nightfall my friends both got exotic weapons as rewards while I got 12 shards. They moaned and groaned about how lucky I was. They didn't want the weapons...they wanted the shards. They are THAT important. I've disenchanted exotics for shards before...shame I only got 2 shards each.

My recommendation for level is this...Get your exotic first. Exotic first, then legendaries. If you do it the other way around the weekend vendor might have an armor piece that you already purchased as a legendary. Just be careful.

---

Appendix: Related Vendors

Always at the Tower

• Vanguards of Warlock / Titan / Hunter
• Vanguard Quartermaster
• Crucible Quartermaster
• Crucible Handler
• Faction agents of New Monarchy / Dead Orbit / Future War Cult

Limited time only

• Xur, Agent of the Nine (weekly appearance)

[wittyscorpion]

After another late night gaming session, I finally reached level 20. Before this the leveling process has been pleasantly simple minded, as there is only 1 primary factor to worry about: XP. The life has just become a lot more complicated once level 20 is reached.

The purpose of this thread is two fold:

1) for advanced bros to share info/tips about leveling, as the game itself is offering very little hand holding;
2) collect such info/tips into a comprehensive and hopefully easy-to-read guide for new players;

I'll start by sharing the best guide I have seen so far: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2gg5p5/a_rambling_guidesome_advice_for_destiny_once_you/

[wittyscorpion]

I have a simple question: do I still care about XPs after reaching level 20?

There is no benefit for earning more XP as far as I can tell, but I want to confirm.

[rubthisway]

XP converts to motes of light, which you can use to buy exotic gear from the black market dealer as I understand.

[hebbnh]

Yes, you should still care about XP after level 20. XP is required to continue advancing your subclass abilities, unlocking weapon upgrades, armor upgrades, etc. Also, if you hover over the "Level 20" part of the character screen, you should see a message stating something to the effect of "you've reached level 20, XP no longer increases your level, find gear that contains light to level up, continue gaining XP to earn motes of light" and there will be a bar showing your progress to the next mote of light you earn. Fill the bar (takes quite a while) to get a mote of light, which can be used as currency to buy stuff from the Speaker and Xur, the weekend vendor who carries exotic items. From what I've read, and exotic engram from Xur costs 23 motes of light.

[hebbnh]

Sept 17, 2014 11:30:46 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

I'll start by sharing the best guide I have seen so far: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2gg5p5/a_rambling_guidesome_advice_for_destiny_once_you/

That's easily the best, most concise explanation for life after level 20 I've read so far.  That covers pretty much everything you need to know.

[wings]

How much XP for one Mote of Light?

[wittyscorpion]

Sept 17, 2014 12:30:08 GMT -5 rubthisway said:

XP converts to motes of light, which you can use to buy exotic gear from the black market dealer as I understand.

That makes a lot of sense. Where do you do the "conversion" exactly?

[wittyscorpion]

Sept 17, 2014 12:43:12 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Sept 17, 2014 11:30:46 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

I'll start by sharing the best guide I have seen so far: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2gg5p5/a_rambling_guidesome_advice_for_destiny_once_you/

That's easily the best, most concise explanation for life after level 20 I've read so far.  That covers pretty much everything you need to know.

Converted that into an (hopefully) easier to read format, see "Life after level 20" section in OP.

That is certainly a fairly complex investment system. Whoever designed it at Bungie sure don't want to make things easy for us

[wings]

Sept 17, 2014 13:25:50 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Sept 17, 2014 12:30:08 GMT -5 rubthisway said:

XP converts to motes of light, which you can use to buy exotic gear from the black market dealer as I understand.

That makes a lot of sense. Where do you do the "conversion" exactly?

Game does it automatically for you.

[mannon]

Well it's end game content. If it were easy the hardcore players would do it in a day and be done with the game. It has to be an epic grind and challenge to justify the time investment, because there are players who almost desperately want to make that time investment, but they expect to be rewarded for it. I think it's sort of backwards. Rather than the reward or goal being the actual goal it's almost more of an excuse. Of course it's all built into a long progression so earlier rewards build up to later content and it creates a feedback loop as long as there is yet more content, more rewards, and more challenges.

[Dumien]

Alright alright alrght. This leveling system is pretty neat, but causes many headaches.

Number one item you need is SHARDS. Ascendant shards. They are literally everything. Legendary armor is inevitable...meaning you will usually have a complete set in 2 weeks. In order to reach 30 (we did some fuzzy math here) you will have to have one exotic piece of armor and 3 legendary pieces fully upgraded with shards. Legendary armor is obtained simply by playing crucible and strikes. Exotic armor is simply purchased on the weekend through the vendor in exchange for strange coins. Strange coins are obtained by doing weekly heroic strikes.

What this means is you are guaranteed a full set of legendary armor with one exotic in two weeks of play time. I, for example, NEVER got lucky enough to pull the legendary titan armor I needed. Instead, I pulled 3 pieces of exotic hunter amor and one legendary hunter armor... it was frustrating, but I used the innevitability system that bungie provides.

So, once you have that armor you need two things.

Ascendant materials and planet materials. Planet materials also have innevitability. Look around for long enough and you will find what you need. There are even chese routes online to assist in speedy planet material farming.

The last bit is where the real grind takes place. Currently I am at level 28 and this is the part all my friends are stuck on with me. Ascendant shards. They can only be obtained luckily through crucible, community events, daily heroic missions (shards or energy), and the raid. Notice something those all have in common? There is no inevitability to them. There is no guarantee you are going to get shards.

A good example is during last night's nightfall my friends both got exotic weapons as rewards while I got 12 shards. They moaned and groaned about how lucky I was. They didn't want the weapons...they wanted the shards. They are THAT important. I've disenchanted exotics for shards before...shame I only got 2 shards each.

My recommendation for level is this...Get your exotic first. Exotic first, then legendaries. If you do it the other way around the weekend vendor might have an armor piece that you already purchased as a legendary. Just be careful.
.

[wittyscorpion]

Sept 17, 2014 17:09:52 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Alright alright alrght. This leveling system is pretty neat, but causes many headaches.

Number one item you need is SHARDS. Ascendant shards. They are literally everything. Legendary armor is inevitable...meaning you will usually have a complete set in 2 weeks. In order to reach 30 (we did some fuzzy math here) you will have to have one exotic piece of armor and 3 legendary pieces fully upgraded with shards. Legendary armor is obtained simply by playing crucible and strikes. Exotic armor is simply purchased on the weekend through the vendor in exchange for strange coins. Strange coins are obtained by doing weekly heroic strikes.

What this means is you are guaranteed a full set of legendary armor with one exotic in two weeks of play time. I, for example, NEVER got lucky enough to pull the legendary titan armor I needed. Instead, I pulled 3 pieces of exotic hunter amor and one legendary hunter armor... it was frustrating, but I used the innevitability system that bungie provides.

So, once you have that armor you need two things.

Ascendant materials and planet materials. Planet materials also have innevitability. Look around for long enough and you will find what you need. There are even chese routes online to assist in speedy planet material farming.

The last bit is where the real grind takes place. Currently I am at level 28 and this is the part all my friends are stuck on with me. Ascendant shards. They can only be obtained luckily through crucible, community events, daily heroic missions (shards or energy), and the raid. Notice something those all have in common? There is no inevitability to them. There in guaruntee you are going to get shards.

A good example is during last night's nightfall my friends both got exotic weapons as rewards while I got 12 shards. They moaned and groaned about how lucky I was. They didn't want the weapons...they wanted the shards. They are THAT important. I've disenchanted exotics for shards before...shame I only got 2 shards each.

My recommendation for level is this...Get your exotic first. Exotic first, then legendaries. If you do it the other way around the weekend vendor might have an armor piece that you already purchased as a legendary. Just be careful.
.

Excellent. So my guide in OP completely missed the aspects of upgrading the armor pieces, it is now updated.

Question:

Based on this thread in Reddit, 28 is the max level reachable (1 fully upgraded exotic at 30 lights and 3 fully upgraded legendary at 25 lights each -> 105 lights - > level 28). Is this correct?

[Dumien]

The buzz around my group is a player is going to need 3 legendary raid gear items in order to reach 20. Pretty sure they have a higher base light than "normal" legendary armor.

[-3055-]

I usually just go to farm spots and farm engrams for rare/legendary items. 25 right now and I play an avg of 3 hours a day. I can't work on the weekends but play a lot on the weekdays, so yeah. If you're a hunter though, I'd say stick to crucible and just faceroll everyone with the bladedancer subclass. Free wins, free reputation, free legendaries, free lvls.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

Sept 17, 2014 17:28:41 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Sept 17, 2014 17:09:52 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Alright alright alrght. This leveling system is pretty neat, but causes many headaches.

Number one item you need is SHARDS. Ascendant shards. They are literally everything. Legendary armor is inevitable...meaning you will usually have a complete set in 2 weeks. In order to reach 30 (we did some fuzzy math here) you will have to have one exotic piece of armor and 3 legendary pieces fully upgraded with shards. Legendary armor is obtained simply by playing crucible and strikes. Exotic armor is simply purchased on the weekend through the vendor in exchange for strange coins. Strange coins are obtained by doing weekly heroic strikes.

What this means is you are guaranteed a full set of legendary armor with one exotic in two weeks of play time. I, for example, NEVER got lucky enough to pull the legendary titan armor I needed. Instead, I pulled 3 pieces of exotic hunter amor and one legendary hunter armor... it was frustrating, but I used the innevitability system that bungie provides.

So, once you have that armor you need two things.

Ascendant materials and planet materials. Planet materials also have innevitability. Look around for long enough and you will find what you need. There are even chese routes online to assist in speedy planet material farming.

The last bit is where the real grind takes place. Currently I am at level 28 and this is the part all my friends are stuck on with me. Ascendant shards. They can only be obtained luckily through crucible, community events, daily heroic missions (shards or energy), and the raid. Notice something those all have in common? There is no inevitability to them. There in guaruntee you are going to get shards.

A good example is during last night's nightfall my friends both got exotic weapons as rewards while I got 12 shards. They moaned and groaned about how lucky I was. They didn't want the weapons...they wanted the shards. They are THAT important. I've disenchanted exotics for shards before...shame I only got 2 shards each.

My recommendation for level is this...Get your exotic first. Exotic first, then legendaries. If you do it the other way around the weekend vendor might have an armor piece that you already purchased as a legendary. Just be careful.
.

Excellent. So my guide in OP completely missed the aspects of upgrading the armor pieces, it is now updated.

Question:

Based on this thread in Reddit, 28 is the max level reachable (1 fully upgraded exotic at 30 lights and 3 fully upgraded legendary at 25 lights each -> 105 lights - > level 28). Is this correct?

Word of God is 30. So who knows? I just hit 15 last night so I have no clue about anything past 20.

[tooros]

I was pointed to this by dm


Warning: Excellent Info from NeoGAF (lvl 20-25)
Warning: NeoGAF part 2 (lvl 26-> )

It might be a little late for most of us but it's a good, concise read.

[hebbnh]

Sept 19, 2014 5:15:33 GMT -5 tooros said:

I was pointed to this by dm


Warning: Excellent Info from NeoGAF (lvl 20-25)
Warning: NeoGAF part 2 (lvl 26-> )

It might be a little late for most of us but it's a good, concise read.

So much this, especially the stuff in regards to engram farming.  All the people bitching about the RNG not giving them legendaries and now they're stuck at level 22 or whatever over on Bungie's forums are so fucking stupid.  IT"S NOT FUCKING NECESSARY YOU MORONS!!!  Just play the game normally (vanguard strikes, daily stories, weekly heroic strikes) and you'll be able to buy all the gear you need to hit 26+ in a week or two!  Literally anyone who took 10 minutes to try to actually understand the system could have figured this out, but no, they blame Bungie instead for not holding everyone's hand and telling them exactly how everything works like they're totally incapable of figuring it out on their own.


The only thing Bungie did wrong in my opinion was giving legendary engrams such a high chance of not decrypting into legendary gear, which is probably the biggest reason for all the bitching.  Still, the item description clearly shows that it could turn into something other than a legendary, so I don't get why people seem so shocked when it occurs.

[wings]

Yep. I just did the daily heroic strike and it was easy. Once you unlock them and the Vanguard playlist it should be a fast way. If you want to out that aside for a while then exchanging some consumables at the Vanguard Quartermaster will help. I usually pick them up during bounty runs or traveling from a public event, which are also a source of Vanguard Marks.

[hebbnh]

Sept 19, 2014 8:52:18 GMT -5 wings said:

Yep. I just did the daily heroic strike and it was easy. Once you unlock them and the Vanguard playlist it should be a fast way. If you want to out that aside for a while then exchanging some consumables at the Vanguard Quartermaster will help. I usually pick them up during bounty runs or traveling from a public event, which are also a source of Vanguard Marks.

Public events on Earth are a really easy way to get a bunch of marks in a couple hours.  Mothyards at X:00 - X:05, Divide at X:10 - X:15, Steppes at X:15 - X:25, where X is any hour.  Then they all spawn again 30 minutes after, so you can do 6 per hour assuming they all spawn in (they always have for me, but I've read that the Steppes one may not always show up), which will net you 24 Vanguard marks if you complete them all on gold tier (which I've never seen not happen), plus you can get strange coins or ascendant shards randomly as rewards.

[wings]

Sept 19, 2014 9:27:46 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Sept 19, 2014 8:52:18 GMT -5 wings said:

Yep. I just did the daily heroic strike and it was easy. Once you unlock them and the Vanguard playlist it should be a fast way. If you want to out that aside for a while then exchanging some consumables at the Vanguard Quartermaster will help. I usually pick them up during bounty runs or traveling from a public event, which are also a source of Vanguard Marks.

Public events on Earth are a really easy way to get a bunch of marks in a couple hours.  Mothyards at X:00 - X:05, Divide at X:10 - X:15, Steppes at X:15 - X:25, where X is any hour.  Then they all spawn again 30 minutes after, so you can do 6 per hour assuming they all spawn in (they always have for me, but I've read that the Steppes one may not always show up), which will net you 24 Vanguard marks if you complete them all on gold tier (which I've never seen not happen), plus you can get strange coins or ascendant shards randomly as rewards.

I did not know about the time intervals so I will note this down as it is preferable some times when I am expecting a knock at the door so I don't go AFK during a Strike mission instead. I noticed my Ascendant Shards go up and I only notice being given one by the Cryptarch. He gave me three for a legendary engram and that might be a good return of investment since I can farm the Temple of Crota for them even if it is a bit monotonous.

[hebbnh]

It's probably good to get in the habit of running at least one public event every day, as upon your first event completion each day you get a package at the postmaster that usually has some good stuff. I've seen shards, ascendant energy, and legendary engrams so far, maybe a strange coin or mote of light but can't remember for sure, so that's an easy source for rare materials/currency. 3 shards for a legendary engram is definitely good, I was pumped when I got the same thing yesterday. I'd much rather have that than legendary stuff that I can buy from the vendors anyway, as shards are somewhat difficult to come by and you need a bunch of them to fully level your armor.

[mannon]

I honestly don't see the point in colored engrams translating into gear of a color other than the color of the engram. It's an extra level of obfuscation that just seems unnecessary. It would be better to simply adjust the drop rates of each colored engram and let it be guaranteed to be that color gear. The only reason I see for doing it the current way is to force farmers to fill up their inventory and have to run back to the tower. Yay, more load screens... Honestly, I don't think load screens are a good antifarming measure. Hell just let people farm for all I care. If they want to trash everything but purple loot and spend hours farming it, then meh. What do I care? It's a bad antifarming measure because it affects nonfarmers more than farmers. If you're not farming then you get some purple engrams and get excited... and then disappointed... and then purple engrams aren't really exciting anymore, just frustrating. That's pretty lame.

I mean, yes it makes it more rare for it to be rare to drop and rare to craft to purple, but that's irrelevant. You could always just adjust the base drop rates to reflect the overall odds.


Now... a possible exception might be if there are additional variables that affect the chances on crafting that engram into gear. So, for example, if being higher level gives you a higher chance of getting a purple item, that might... might be significant. But in general I think it's still irrelevant because clearly your chances of dropping purple engrams in the first place IS tied to your level. I'm only level 12 and clearly I've never even seen a blue, much less purple.

I think the current system is just very disingenuous. It needlessly get's people's hopes up. Because drop rates and craft rates can all be tweaked to achieve any desired item rarity the colors really just boil down to communication between the game and the player, and as it stands the game is not communicating very well. Even if they didn't scrap it completely I think it would be good to adjust things so that purple engrams drop purple items more often. It actually wouldn't be that difficult to adjust. Basically you make purple engrams drop less often in favor of blues, then adjust the crafting rates to reflect the desired overall rarity.

[wings]

I just got one ascendant shard and one ascendant energy from the Steppes having taken a wrong turning missing out on the Divide, which I know is the Fallen Walker. Mothyards and Steppes both gave me Vanguard Marks. The extraction crew mission and defending the Warsat are very easy that I don't hammer though my heavy ammo packs either so they can be saved for the Strike missions when I want something more intense and then go for Strange Coins.

Speaking of them, dude on Bungir forum moaning that Xur is sellibg the same stuff for his class as last week. Take it as a hint from Bungie to use all three classes as I will. Got a legendary today and yesterday both for Titan (helmet and keg armour) so that saves 185 VM. It is the same reason why Xur is not showing for me, because I have not seen Shaxx for the Crucible, yet. Also, preventing the Vex from sacrificing themselves on Venus can be quite fun.

[wittyscorpion]

All of these "bitching" will soon pass. After all, the game is only out for 1 week.

I personally don't see why in such a hurry to reach the max level on a single character. The game is designed to be played at whatever pace a gamer feels comfortable about, so just play it naturally.

Take me for an example, I don't have big chunks of time to play the game (unless I sacrifice sleep in late night) until mid October, so I have been just playing story missions and get my characters to level 20. By simply adding variety of using different weapons, subclasses and working on different bounties, I am having fun no matter what level I am at (Warlock at level 20, hunter at level 8, Titan barely started). Hopefully by the time I can play with friends, I have at least 2 characters at 20+ so I am not too much of a drag.

[mannon]

Personally I kind of feel like leveling is too fast. It seems like anybody with just a little time on their hands is getting up to level 25 in a week without too much difficulty.

How is the game going to hold people's interest for months and years if they can just about max level in less than a month without even having to be the hardest of the tryhards? MMO's do it by having something like 50 levels and it takes weeks of hardcore play or months of more average play to get anywhere close to max level, and then years to get all the best gear.

I'm starting to get worried that Destiny could have a turnover problem with high level players dropping out either for lack of content or due to further progression becoming too much of a grind to hold their interest. I hope not, though.

[wittyscorpion]

Sept 19, 2014 12:45:32 GMT -5 mannon said:

Personally I kind of feel like leveling is too fast. It seems like anybody with just a little time on their hands is getting up to level 25 in a week without too much difficulty.

How is the game going to hold people's interest for months and years if they can just about max level in less than a month without even having to be the hardest of the smart players? MMO's do it by having something like 50 levels and it takes weeks of Touch Football play or months of more average play to get anywhere close to max level, and then years to get all the best gear.

I'm starting to get worried that Destiny could have a turnover problem with high level players dropping out either for lack of content or due to further progression becoming too much of a grind to hold their interest. I hope not, though.

Only time will tell but I am not worried, yet

The fast speed of reaching max level is intentional, because Bungie feels that people should not play the game for playing the game sake, just to grind to the higher levels. I really like their decision. Borderlands 2 stopped being fun for me after I get to around level 55, as I had to do things that I don't enjoy doing just for leveling sake.

Destiny on the other hand, is planning to keep high level players engaged through the following means:

1) For players who want fresh game play: dynamic periodic content to offer fresh experiences out of the existing mission structure (e.g.: daily/weekly missions with different modifiers);
2) For "achievers", bounties & cool cosmetic items to offer unlimited number of things to achieve;
3) The level design beyond 20 is brilliant. Players have huge number of paths to reach higher level by using different armor combinations. At current stage, people just pick whatever gears they can get their hands on, but as times goes on they will have many sets of armors they can use to reach level 30, each provides a different load out specialty (e.g.: weapon focused with armors offering more ammo / fast reload etc, grenade focused with max Discipline, super focused with max Intelligence, melee focused with max Strengths, etc).

[wings]

Sept 19, 2014 12:45:32 GMT -5 mannon said:

Personally I kind of feel like leveling is too fast. It seems like anybody with just a little time on their hands is getting up to level 25 in a week without too much difficulty.

How is the game going to hold people's interest for months and years if they can just about max level in less than a month without even having to be the hardest of the smart players? MMO's do it by having something like 50 levels and it takes weeks of Touch Football play or months of more average play to get anywhere close to max level, and then years to get all the best gear.

I'm starting to get worried that Destiny could have a turnover problem with high level players dropping out either for lack of content or due to further progression becoming too much of a grind to hold their interest. I hope not, though.

Gear I am guessing, especially exotics.

[mannon]

Yeah I'm going to wait and see. I'm just a bit worried since everything past 20 is loot based and once you have a set that gives you enough light to max out your level all that's really left for you to gain is acquiring some other sets so you have some options and how many sets could you possibly want?

If loot is the endgame eventually people will max out their loot as well. Hopefully the first expansion comes out soon enough and offers enough loot to keep players interested. I mention this specifically because in this type of game you don't really do things just to do them all that much. It's not Minecraft. Everything you do is tied to a reward which creates that essential feedback loop that keeps you earning better stuff so you can do more stuff to earn better stuff. But you gotta have both. If you run out of interesting stuff to do to get more stuff you want the game gets stale. If you run out of stuff you want to get as rewards for doing stuff you enjoy, the game also gets kind of stale.

It does seem like the system is designed for to give more longevity than a strait XP progression from 20 to 30, and hell, why NOT have the loot determine your level at that point. In most MMO's loot determines your power level in the end game anyway, so why not put an explicit number on it.

I just wonder how sustainable it is, at least for the more hardcore players. Someone like me... I'll be playing this for years. I'll be lucky if I get to level 20 in a month so I'm sure any trouble there might be will be ironed out by the time I get there. Hell I doub't I'll be able to max out even one character before the expansion, much less all three.

[iw5000]

Sept 19, 2014 12:26:50 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

All of these "bitching" will soon pass. After all, the game is only out for 1 week.

I personally don't see why in such a hurry to reach the max level on a single character. The game is designed to be played at whatever pace a gamer feels comfortable about, so just play it naturally.
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I'm pretty sure it has been brought up on here, the 'why'. Because the makers of Destiny have openly stated a number of things that make a player feel like his/her time spent in the first 24 hours of playing is just wasted. One, Bungie has openly said (paraphrasing here) the game is better later. They have also said it's all about the end game. Even like dumien said as much, "The endgame is where it's at".....I put up a post earlier today, where I talked about how I felt rushed playing last night. I feel a need to get to that point. I need to catch up, to get to high levels, so I can do the crazy fun stuff.