Hi All! I’m back again. It seems some of the users to my last post did not understand my rationale, or analysis of Bungie/Activisons new system. This time I have prepared an updated and more detailed version of why I think Destiny’s first DLC is broken. tldr; First and foremost being forced to wait for Xur (aka Bungie/Activision dressed as Santa) to decide to carry rexurbished versions of weapons is capricious and insulting. We have worked hard to earn our weapons and standing in your game, which we payed for. We are being repaid with yet more unnecessary (and poorly disguised) lottery. One example of a simple and fair fix will be to have rexurbishment operate in the same fashion as reforge did (without the random effect roll.) In other words, a player must have the exotic of choice equipped for it to be rexurbished. They will then be charged 7 strange coins and 7000 glimmer to do so. (I disagree with the strange coin cost. My arguments why and two solutions are provided below.) If necessary limit these rerolls to 3 a week to prevent abuse, and imbalances, on the PS versions allow 4 the first two weeks and 3 every subsequent week thereafter to accommodate the two PS exclusives. Simply: it is too costly for anyone to maintain and accumulate exotics from release through the DLC. I will break down the cost by experience, glimmer, real time investment, and strange coins. I am specifically concerned by the increased strange coin expenditure Bungie/Activision has developed in this game without supplementing our strange coin income in other ways. The cost to rexurbish an owned exotic is 7k glimmer, and an Exotic Shard (7 strange coins to buy from xur). Then it costs an additional 7 strange coins to buy another Exotic Shard to max out that exotic. Thus, one needs 14 strange coins to upgrade each pre-dlc exotic item they plan to use to its full potential. There are currently 20 exotic weapons on the PS versions, and 18 on the Xbox versions of Destiny. There are 18 exotic armor pieces to upgrade for both versions. The PS versions have 38 exotics, and Xbox has 36. For the hardcore and ambitious players such as myself who would like to be as versatile as possible in this game (by having every armor and weapon maxed) I will analyze just how costly this new system will be for us. I myself am carrying 28 exotics into the DLC. 12 pieces of armor and 16 weapons. The dlc is adding 18 known armor pieces,, and 6 known weapons. (Destiny Planet) (I know, I’m disappointed by the number and quality of what we know about these weapons too.) Note: I am running my calculations using the number of exotics for the Xbox, where I play. Let us now consider the cost in strange coins. We know that it will cost 14 coins per-pre-dlc exotic. To upgrade all 36 pre-dlc exotics will cost 504 strange coins and 252,000 glimmer (not including individual weapon upgrade costs, which IIRC is roughly 6-7,000 glimmer per weapon, less for armor. Now what about those new dlc exotics? I’ll run these numbers again including those later on. (14*36=504)+(24*7=168)=672 strange coins. If Xur does not raise his prices we know new exotic armor pieces will cost 13 coin, and weapons will range between 17-23. Therefore to purchase every exotic from Xur you will need 234 coins for the armor, and approximately 120 coin for the weapons (range:102-138). These add up to 354 (range: 336-372) more coins needed. To upgrade the 24 new exotic items we will need another 168 coins. To add these costs together we have 504 from upgrading our pre-dlc exotics, 354 from purchasing our new exotics, and 168 from upgrading our new exotics. Which brings us to a total of 1026 strange coins! I doubt any single player has even seen 400! Only a small handful of players are carrying ~100+ strange coins to the new dlc. In other words, we as players can earn only ~35% of the strange coins needed to take full advantage of the content we're purchasing, and that we have already have purchased. Suggestion: implement a way for players to consistently earn strange coins (beyond the weekly activities) so that should we need strange coins for Xur we have the ability to earn them. We can earn 27/wk by running the nightfalls 27x12=324. Hmmm…. That’s quite a few less then we’ll need (~700 less strange coins actually). I find it rather hard to believe that anyone is going to earn enough strange coins in 90 days to take full advantage of the content included in the dlc. I earn a few coins in a good week (40+ hours). My suggestion to fix this is to double the amount of strange coins awarded from completing the highest level nightfall ( level 30, or 32) to 18 strange coins. As matters stand now there will not be enough strange coins, or randomly awarded exotics/strange coins on the market to satisfy player demand. By doubling the level 30/32 (new!) nightfall award you (Bungie/Activision) will significantly increase each players satisfaction with the game by allowing us (players) to more consistently purchase what we need from Xur. This increase will boost weekly strange coin earnings from 27 to 54, monthly from 108, to 216, and trimonthly (per dlc cycle) to 632 which effectively narrows the gap between strange coins needed and strange coins available. Another suggestion if the one above is not in line your plans. Add level 35 (yes, I know, I'm suicidal) story missions that award 1 strange coin upon completion. This does not unfairly imbalance the game as someone would have to play the entire story to even be able to rexurbish a single gun. BTW it takes between 6 and 20 hours to complete the story. I would happily run through the story over and over like a mouse on a wheel if it gave me 1 strange coin per level 35 mission. These methods still leave a gap which will force players to appropriately prioritize their desires and time for the most coveted items in the game, while allowing players to maintain diversity of appearance and play-style across every playable area. From this [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2oembc/so_heres_how_much_faster_new_exotics_will_be/]Reddit thread[/url] I have discovered the new experience requirements for rexurbished armor and weapons. Armor is “1.5%” faster to upgrade at “160,000 exp”, while weapons are “17%” faster to upgrade at “237,500” exp. While these changes are statistically significant, they are hardly significant when in action, and considered globally. The 18 pre-dlc armor will take 2,880,000 exp. The 18 pre-dlc weapons will take 4,275,000 exp. The 18 dlc exotic armor will take 2,880,000 exp. The 6 dlc exotic weapons will take 1,425,000 exp. Adding our two sets together brings us to a total of 36 armor pieces and 24 weapons. Respectively, the armor (dlc inclusive) will require 5,760,000 exp. The weapons (dlc inclusive), will require 5,700,000 exp. Combined this is 11,460,000 exp. Let us consider this grind with respect to Radiant Light (Nightfall buff) Grimoire cards, and telemetry exp buffs. From [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2mhup5/psa_exp_from_tiger_strikes_grimoire_bonus/]this thread[/url] we learn: “Grimoire Card bonus is 5%. Telemetry bonus is 25%. Grimoire and Radiant Light active give an extra 31.24% exp. Telemetry and Radiant Light active give an extra 56.24% exp. Grimoire, Telemetry and Radiant Light active give an extra 64.04% exp.” From these figures we can deduce that Radiant Light gives 26.24% boost to exp gains across the board. If we can expect the next 3 months to follow bungies model so far. Then Eris will have 5 bounties daily of varying exp rewards. IB will appear twice, and QW once. So, there will be 15 bounties available daily for 9/12 weeks. 3/12 weeks there will be 20 bounties available daily. This brings us to to a total number of bounties available for the next 3 months to: 1365 bounties per character. With 3 characters there are 4,410 bounties. Rounded experience totals are provided below: By running bounties on just one character (5,000 exp used as bounty baseline reward, 6312 exp w/RL, 7,812 exp w/RL&T) it will take a long time to get every armor piece and weapon up to par. 1 character \ 2 \ 3 1,365 bounties = 6,825,000 \ 1,3650,000 \ 20,475,000 1,365 bounties w/ RL = 8,615,880 \ 17,231,760 \ 25,847,640 1,365 bounties w/ RL & T = 10,663,380 \ 21,326,760 \ 31,990,140 As we can see more then enough experience is available from completing bounties to max out each and every exotic, without using a single telemetry. However, as these numbers were found using 5,000 exp per bounty I strongly advise to not rely exactly on the estimates given herein. Instead front load your rexurbishing grind to allow the most slack before the next dlc release. This will also help to mitigate any chance of finding yourself a week before the next dlc launch with a ton of weapons still to be upgraded. I also strongly recommend reading through the link above to the Reddit post regarding experience as the OP there came up with some averages that can be helpful for anyone looking to map out their rexurbishing grind. As a quick rule of thumb I would calculate 75% of the times given herein to accommodate the rounded numbers. I am personally expecting it to take about 60 days of doing the bounties every day with Radiant Light to get all of my exotics maxed out once again, not that I'll have the strange coins to rexurbish them all, making this almost useless, unless you raid the Fort Knoxx of Destiny and make off with all their strange. In conclusion for anyone who wants to collect every weapon and maximize its potential you must: Do the nightfall on 3 characters Do every single bounty on 3 characters (w/ RL) for 45-84 days. Pray to RNJesus that you get a metric ton of extra strange coins, we are all going to need them.