The first year of Destiny has been a rather bumpy road. There have been some good moments, like the content in the "House of Wolves" expansion, and bad, like having to level up all your gear again. Developer Bungie has been saying they've been listening to all the feedback, and it looks like they were telling the truth.
Last month, the quest/HUD and weapon changes were revealed. Game Informer then sat down with the game and put up a big story about all the other changes coming to the game. Here's the condensed version:
- Level cap will be raised from 20 to 40; it seems your existing light level/gear will feed directly into determining your level when the expansion hits
- There's a larger focus on the overall narrative/story of this expansion, with some of the story taking place in the endgame (i.e., raid/strike) content
- The Ghost can now scan things in the environment to give information and will be voiced by Nolan North (R.I.P. Dinklebot); the voice change will be retroactive so all of the old voice acting will be removed and replaced with North's dialogue
- Those stats you get from gear, i.e., Intellect, Discipline, and Strength, will now show information in a kind of tiered system and will more directly reflect how many seconds of cool down you get
- Gunsmith will be getting his own rep and will offer new "prototype weapons" at higher levels
- Shaders and Emblems will go into a kiosk that allows you to access and change rather than taking up all those inventory slots (it will also show you how to obtain shaders you don't have)
- Vanguard and Crucible marks will be replaced by "Legendary Marks" that can be used at any of the vendors
- Class-specific armor upgrade items (those hadronic essences, sapphire wire, and plasteel plating from disassembling class armor) will be replaced by a general armor item usable by all classes
- New item from Xur called "Three of Coins" that appears to act as a kind of boost for an exotic to drop from the next boss you fight
In summary, there are a lot of changes in store, and they all seem to be pretty good! There's enough here that it actually makes me excited to play the game again when The Taken King expansion arrives next month.
Source: Gameinformer.com
