The dream is dead. The Cave has been nerfed (Patch Notes)

@sterling:

one one hand thats great, but then reducing the drop rate of engrams then counteracts that and makes the whole thing terrible again.

really makes me wonder how much loot did they make for the game. im guessing not a ton at all.

@humanity: On the plus side, they're gonna buff scout rifles. I usually love scout rifles, but they're definitely too weak in Destiny.

@mrfluke: That's a normal occurance for the area though. It just happens that the loot cave is in the same location.

@themanwithnoplan: Exactly. I'd be fine with them taking away the cave if they doubled the drop rate, but they do the exact opposite and fucking reduce it. The fact that people were spending so much time at the loot cave should have shown them that there is a serious issue with drops, but nope.

Furthermore they need to rebalance drops in pvp. Every single player on the winning team should be getting a drop, even if it's a green, I don't care I'll break it down.

First, dismantling Queen's Wrath items for shards is out, they patched that too. Second with no matchmaking for the Vault of Glass, I can't play it. I only have 2 friends that play the game so it's not an option. And third, using the Loot Cave I was able to farm enough shards by getting a few as random drops and breaking down a few legendaries I didn't need.

The issue is not the cave, it is their terrible drop and upgrade systems. They should have fixed those before even addressing the cave. The fact that they also took out breaking the queen items into resources is obnoxious.

They are expecting people to play the same ~25 cookie cutter missions for nominal reward, at least the cave gave you the chance to get something. Not everyone has the time, or wants to grind garbage missions for hours with no reward.

Yes it was an exploit and should have been addressed at some point, but the game as of now is terribly unbalanced for time vs. reward, exploiting the cave made that reasonable.

I've been over this game for quite a while already, but now that I'm in the upper tiers of leveling and all that is left is to grind endlessly for upgrade materials, I think I may be done. There is zero fun in hoping to get 1 thing to drop that will give you a fraction of the upgrade materials you need, there is zero fun in grinding for currency with arbitrary weekly earning caps to buy legendary items, just to break them into upgrade materials.

The so called "economy" of this game is horrendously broken, and angled to keep you playing a game that doesn't actually have anything of interest or substance around it. I haven't had a game like this in a while where the more I play it the more I dislike it.

At this point, I think Destiny is a bad game.

@overnow: They didn't reduce the drop rate, they only reduced it immediately after a wipe. It would have no affect on normal drop rates. The reason the loot cave was nerfed is because they decreased enemy spawn rates.

I rarely if ever got loot I actually used from that cave but I have an amazing stockpile of Plasteel Plating and Weapon Parts.

I know it's out, but I already got what I need from it.

@lukeweizer: Yup. They had it pretty good at the beginning and then they kept cutting xp to shoehorn in their microtransactions. Then everyone started hacking the game and it's become a mess. The game is fun, the progression is abysmal.

@zeik: okay that makes more sense. But it doesn't change the fact that the drop rate should be higher overall.

@overnow: Honestly I think the engram decryption is a bigger issue than drop rates. I feel like people are expecting the drop rates to be akin to Diablo, where you're getting a billion loot drops a mission, which I don't think is necessary. However, when a purple engram finally does drop it shouldn't be a blue like 90% of the time.

@ll_exile_ll: I was hoarding the purple gear to pump it full of xp and get the maximum amount of shards. Now it's just a pile of fucking hot trash. What's the point of doing the queen missions and bounties anymore? Even if I get gear with the perfect stats for my playstyle I wouldn't wear it because that's what everyone and their mother will be wearing and it's goddamn purple.

I had heard that once they started selling GTA:O money cards in stores, things went to shit. That's a real shame. Guess I'll just have to get the most of the game as I can by doing stupid GTA stuff.

Setting up for $30 ULTRA HYPER RARE LOOT DLC I see.

Yeah, this update basically told me I don't need to bother the queen's stuff anymore.

@trafalgarlaw: It does seem like they are trying to set the game up for Micheal transactions, doesn't it. Like hey, look. We know grinding is a bitch, because we made it that way on purpose. So why not just pay us a $1.99 for the gun you want. And hey. If you pay us $2.99, we will throw in some vanguard marks. What do you say chump? CHUM! I meant chum.

Nerfing the ascendant shard thing is pretty bad. They really want you to grind for those upgrade materials.

@zeik: I'd be fine with either increasing drop rates all together personally but I also think that the colour of an engram should be the absolute minimum rarity of the item. I would have no problem with purple engrams dropping less frequently as long as they guaranteed at least a purple item, whereas blues should be more frequent and have a smallish chance for a purple.

Not microtransactions but a whole new area to explore with with slighty better loot drops. Bungie's game philosophy is still stuck in 2008 and it shows. "You'll have to conform to our carefully curated pace."

I don't know about you guys but I'm going to keep shooting at that cave. Fuck that cave.

never used that stupid exploit anyway, got to lvl 25 just fine by finding stuff.

Some of the other changes are a little weird though, like they reduced engram rates? WTF? who the heck though it was high before??

also why not let the queen wrath stuff give ascendant materials? me and one mr gb user Dleo played a shit load of queen missions today and have a nice collection of masks and chest guards.. which we cant trade or anything, and now not even the ascendant shards will we get...

you want to make duplicate queen gear worthless thats fine but then fucking up the rates on the otger stuff so we donr have to keep grinding the missions trying to get them...

The problem is that they don't seem to understand why people ended up farming the cave, they just took it out because it was obviously an exploit. Instead of increasing drop rates or making regular missions/bounties/patrols more rewarding for the player and encouraging people to engage with their content, they just wagged their finger at the people who were most loyal to the game (because you can damn well guarantee average gamer #128672 wasn't wasting their time on the cave) and took away one of their only reliable sources of loot. It reeks of Blizzard's stance on their real-money auction house being "the way to play the game" and ignoring the flaws that came inherent with that system. Blizzard eventually smartened up and I can only damn well hope Bungie does, too, except Bungie doesn't have decades of experience with loot and RPG systems.

Oh, so they just made it harder to get loot in multiple ways? Greeeaaaaat. Come on, Bungie, get your crap together.

@the_nubster: In their upcoming changes notes they do imply that they are planning to increase loot gains through other means, but they didn't put any date on it, so who know when that will happen.

@onarum: Again, they did NOT reduce drop rates. The only adjustment they made as immediately after a wipe. ie, your whole team just died you get reduced drop rates for a brief period of time.

@zeik: yeah , that remark was just on the actual bungie post so i saw it later :) phew thats a relief.

i'm still bummed about the ascendant materials thing though...

Kind of with you. I was going to stick with this until around Halo time in a couple of months, but not sure why I should bother with changes like this. Get rid of the cave, fine. But reducing drops on something that's already this dry is reaaaaal stupid, like they're trying to make people have to stick with their game by dicking them over rather than providing compelling updates.

I've still got a hell of a backlog, jumping off Destiny this soon wouldn't really bother me.

as a person who loves this game and has defended it since day one on this site.i hate this patch,in fact im pissed off.i never had a problem with the grinding to get the legendarys,but ive always said that getting shards and materials in general is boring and takes way to long.i mean you might get 4 shards a day if you are lucky,which is ridiculous when there is 5 or 6 defense upgrades per legendary armor.so they give you a way to get a decent amount of shards a day if you put the time in to do the bountys and missions(which take awhile)and then THEY TAKE IT AWAY!now its going to take a long time to upgrade your crap again which is dumb.im sorry bungie but if you keep doing this type of crap,not even i can defend you anymore.i may get pissed off enough to quit playing and go play borderlands presequel,which looks like they are making all the right moves.TLDR this patch SUCKS MY BUTTHOLE.

So dumb to shut down the cave. If people want to do that, let them. I would go do maybe 30-45 minutes or so just before going to bed for the night. It's mindless, and I'm too tired to do a real mission. It also helps with upgrading weapons, class skills and the cryptarch.

They should have left the spawn timers in the other areas alone as well. Last night I was trying to get my 200 headshots from Fallen (for the Queen) and, given other players were constantly stealing my kills, it took forever. Longer timer means these tasks will be even more tedious.

I really like the game, but I hope Bungie finds a way to keep me interested. Shadow of Mordor is looking PRETTY good right now.

@kanerobot: Psst, the drop rates are no more nerfed than a few minutes ago when I said they weren't nerfed.

@onarum: I do agree that the ascendant material nerf is dumb. Even if not everyone is happy about, nerfing the cave makes sense if they want people to do other content, but getting rid of the ascendant materials has suddenly made the queen's bounties pointless. They basically negated the reason for people to actually do the content they just introduced.

Glad to know I can continue to feel okay about not getting this game.

@kishinfoulux said:

You gotta be kidding me.

I don't understand logic like this and I have seen it more then here. That borderlands exploit and the "treasure cave" are exploits. They are a loop hole in the game that wasn't originally meant to be there. If I was Bungie I would have patched it as well. People had fun while it lasted, but I wouldn't want to encourage the people playing my game to just shoot into a cave for loot instead of playing the actual content.

@ssully: Right, and I think most people agree with you that exploits should get patched. But as a lot of people in this thread have mentioned, and I absolutely agree, Bungie should be looking at why people are sitting there shooting at the same 7 enemies over and over instead of enjoying the content they've crafted. From there they could make their content something that people want to do, and then think about nerfing the cave.

In my opinion it's an exploit, it should go away, but not before you figure out what is wrong with your game.

They didn't actually say that... They only said they were comunicating poorly that engram could turn into garbage and that they were going to fix that. The comunicating part, not the garbage part. That's it.

While I'm upset for other people that they're actively reducing the quality of life for new players and the whole Ascendant materials, I can't say I'll be too affected... Only because last night when I hit rank 3 with the Future War Cult I got my free legendary from the post man, only to find out I got an Ascendant Shard and Energy instead. Yeah the thing that specifically says "Legendary (Random)" gave me rare materials. So you know, kinda pissed off even the "guaranteed" way of getting legendaries isn't even working anymore.

Ah yes, that amazing cave I shot at for 5 hours and got only 1 exotic machine gun, zero legendaries and a whole bunch of useless rare gear. Fucking increase the drop rate before dealing with dumb shit like the cave.

I'm sitting here at level 25, not wanting to replay yet another one of the same 6 strikes due to no drops, unable to play higher level strikes because of no matchmaking, not wanting to play the boring missions due to the pointlessness of them, and not wanting to play any multiplayer because it's boring....what the hell am I supposed to do? Even the Queen's missions give me the same helmet every time.

I fucking give up bungie, I played your game a lot and it's no good, especially after level 20. I don't know how I'm ever supposed to reach Vanguard rank 2 at this rate and finally buy some purple gloves and boots. I bet the afterthought of a Borderlands game that's coming out soon will be better than Destiny....

I'm so glad Forza Horizon 2 is finally coming out soon.

But they do. One of the first points on their list is the cryptarch being unpredictable/unfair. Maybe I am in the minority, but my complaints with Destiny boil down to this:

• Cryptarch giving me shit not related to my class/lower tier(ex: getting a blue for a purple engram) gear then the engram.
• Story being paper thin. I was bummed about the missions at first, but on higher difficulty the missions are actually incredibly fun. I just wish the story was better.
• Weird discrepancy of match making. I wish I could choose to match make for any mission. Sometimes I don't have friends on but want to do a higher difficulty queen/story mission but have no one to play with. They should give me an option to play with rando's.

Outside of that I am loving the game.

Judging by the whiners in this thread, Bungie needs to get that devnote stuff out asap.

Expect changes soon which decrease the efficiency of cave farming and correspondingly increase engram drops from completing activities.

Oh, and people have found a new treasure cave already.

Ouch, that burn.

People are probably mad that Bungie is treating a symptom while ignoring the cause, making the game more tedious.

lol, i don't care about the troll cave, but wtf @ no ascended material from legendary gear???????? I've the same helmet 5 times, the only good thing about it was the shit i got from breaking down, now i have no reason to do the missions anymore.

I may be done with this game, i have all legendary armor, and the legendary assault rifles seem like shit compared to my rare (besides the obvious high attack). wtf is wrong with bungie?

More people are mad that they have removed the ability to get loot from the queens missions and break it down into upgrade material. Fuck the loot cave.

Where that is? There that new treasure cave is?

As someone who doesn't have the game, what are the implications of this?

I'm reading it as Bungie being super stingy with drop rates on the new content causing the new content that is already so badly craved to be less appealing.

Like i said i haven't played the game but everything i hear makes it sound like they are being stingy as hell with the loot to fit some long term plan. If blizzard has taught us anything, it's be free-er with the loot and then just make better loot later. I mean hire a fucking team or something with your moneypile.

Russia

Well, the upgrade materials you need to level up legendary and exotic armors is super rare. And you get them from either doing one, yes only one, public event per day. And from engrams on a random decrypt. Or from breaking down other legendary or exotic gear. But they now removed the ability to get this upgrade item from the armor you get from the queens quests. Which is a guaranteed piece of legendary armor. Best way in the game to get one. And it only gives you one of three each time. And you do it up to 6 times a day. And there is no point now. Because breaking it down doesn't give you that upgrade material. Its not even a drop rate issue. They just straight up said, you can't farm. We don't want you to be able to upgrade your armor. We don't want you to be level 26 or higher. We want you to struggle. Upgrading this armor increases your light level, which is what levels you up past level 20. And its super hard to level that stuff up as the upgrade materials are super, super rare. It wasn't even an exploit. Which is why so many people are pissed it was removed.

One of the things I like about this game is that there were always enemies to shoot. The enemies pop back up often. Does anyone think that changing these respawn rates could make the game feel barren? How many more magical caves are there do you think?