So, my light count has been at 20 ever since I got my first piece of light gear (which was a +7). I'm now 17 total and it hasn't changed. What gives? Do I need to level up the gear or is there something I'm missing?

Well I'm an idiot. Just got to 21. Guess the light count just means your current 'actual' level and not the total amount of light you have. That's the progress bar underneath.

Ya, you'll see a new experience bar under your profile. It isn't your XP 'till your next Mote of Light; it's actually your Light progress toward your next level--only increasing when higher ranks of Light-infused gear are equipped.

Well, I'm level 21, and matchmaking just made me play through the same two strikes 3 times each. I might be done grinding until the raids are out or they release new content. My Warlock armour is awesome, all black and silver, and no decent weapons are dropping past the endgame rifle. The loot lust is minimal.

I'm bored. The endgame is just replaying the stories/strikes with harder enemies.. So repetitive. Sure, I probably put in 20 hours since Tuesday but, man, I'm burnt out.

@vitor: I'm pretty sure you won't be able to do the raid successfully if you don't grind for 100+ hours. That's good design right there.

Yeah it's Level 28+

Well, now I'm confused. I'm sure I originally read somewhere that the first raid would be level 22, then over the weekend it surfaced that it would be level 26, now you're saying it's level 28? At this rate, it'll be at level 34 by the time it comes out and I'll never get to play the ghost damned thing.

The raid has 3 phases which you can do individually (though sequentially). The first is level 26 (but you can attempt it when you're lvl 25).

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess I wont't be participating in that for a good long while then, at the rate I'm getting gear with light points or whatever.

@a_e_martin: Yeah, it takes a while. I got my first 'wtf' moment like 10 minutes ago when I got a rare Titan helm on my Warlock after a Strike... previously, I had never received gear that wasn't for my class. At the same point in time, I got a new piece of armour that put my Light count over so I hit 23.

The doling out of loot is definitely quite a bit tamer than other loot-driven games like Diablo, but I'm still enjoying it. The only part of the game I don't really care much for right now is the re-spawning mobs during the boss fight; I know they do it to give you ammo drops during the encounter, but far too often they'll spawn right behind me or when I'm scoped and don't have access to my radar, which leads to me getting blindsided and murdered more often than not. This happened SOO much during a level 22 Phogoth fight that I just ended up ragequitting; it was a level 23, me as 21 and a 19/20 dude, and we kept dying at the same part of the encounter (yeah, spawn Knights AND Wizards while Phogoth is shooting his eye beam around, REAL BALANCED!!!).

According to the people who've played the game a lot it doesn't pay to do quests underleveled. If you're 1 level lower you do 20% less damage, if you're two levels lower, 40%. You're better off coming back when all of you are around the suggested level.

Oh, well fuck that then. I have no patience to go up 4 light levels. Also, I do worry that a significant portion of the raid will be reused content. Although there are a few areas in the game world that are weirdly barren so they could add stuff there, evenif I doubt there will be new enemies outside of some minibosses.

And yeah, the endgame is incredibly poor if they really expect you to repeat the (already minimal amount of) content that the game has just to maybe get a new piece of gear with one different stat. While I'm not a huge fan of borderlands, at least the loot was neat. Every piece of gear had like several different attributes that might be different.

@vitor: The Vault of Glass is not reused content. It's basically an underground dungeon, you may have seen the door in venus which can't be opened unless you're actually doing the raid.

@mikey87144: I've done missions and such a level down or so with little issue, but I'd definitely agree on the Strikes due to the bosses. Even though I'm now 23 I've still been doing the level 20 Strike playlist, I might move on to the level 22 one soon.