[quote][b]2) The Sub-Exotic Tiers and Standard Ascension[/b][/quote]I first started thinking about this topic back in December when I read about Destiny's equipment tiers in the latest issue of GameInformer:[quote]"Gear is loosely gathered into four tiers: basic (white), common (green), superior (purple), and the coveted exotic items (gold). Characters can only wield one exotic weapon and one exotic armor piece, but you can carry as many as you like, and switch between them at your leisure."[/quote]Miller, Matt. "Destiny." Game Informer Jan. 2014: 59. Print. Initially, I interpreted the paragraph to mean that all weapons and armor belonged to strict tiers with no means to advance them, but the more I thought about it, the less that perspective made sense. In Destiny, Bungie wants each player to develop a relationship with the equipment they use, but how could I develop a relationship with something like a basic hand cannon if I knew that it's going to become obsolete the moment I acquire a common, superior, or exotic version of that weapon? I think it makes much more sense to think of the sub-exotic equipment tiers as less about the final potential of a piece of equipment and more of a descriptor of its current power level. In my mind, all sub-exotic equipment in Destiny would be found by default at basic tier, allowing for maximum user-input into the customization process. To reach higher tiers, a player would need to ascend their equipment, a process that could work a number of ways depending on how formal Bungie wants to make the barrier between each tier and how much investment a piece of equipment requires to qualify for the ascension process. An example implementation of this feature would allow players to ascend any piece of equipment that has been fully upgraded. The player would need to bring the piece of equipment to one of The Last City's weapon-smiths or armor-smiths and provide them with money and a special item that gets consumed in ascension. The item required would depend on what you're ascending and what tier you're ascending it to, think of something like a "Common Shotgun Core" or a "Superior Armor Kit". Functionally, it would be cool if ascending a tier acted as a soft reset for that piece of equipment. The newly ascended armor or weapon would be initially weaker than it was when it was fully upgraded in the previous tier, but as a tradeoff, it would have better stat scaling and would offer better customization choices than before. This would discourage players from mindlessly ascending their gear, and makes the choice to take a piece of equipment to the next level more powerful. It also gives players a natural opportunity to redo some earlier decisions they've made with regards to upgrades without compromising the investment of that item. This is just a very rough and imperfect implementation and many of its details are certainly up for debate, but I hope it gives the reader a basic idea of how equipment ascension might work in Destiny. ...So how do Exotics fit into all of this? [b]Destiny Speculation: Exotic Ascension continues on the next post. [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605637&path=1]Please click this Hyperlink to continue reading.[/url][/b][spoiler][b]Table of Contents 1) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605619]Introduction / Original Post[/url] 2) >> The Sub-Exotic Tiers and Standard Ascension << 3) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605637&path=1]The Exotic Tier and the First Implementation[/url] 4) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605630&path=1]The Second Implementation[/url] 5) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605626&path=1]The Third Implementation[/url] 6) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=63605621&path=1]Conclusion[/url][/b][/spoiler]