r/DestinyTheGame • u/MortarPanda • 2d ago
Discussion If Bungie wants Kepler to not be part of the Power Level grind, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t require PL to get max tier loot.
Largely, I think it’s probably fine if LL is just a Portal thing. I think the Raid mostly gets it right: its an isolated mini-grind where Power level is irrelevant and its all about difficulty modifiers. Obviously ignoring the fact that T5 is locked until Epic releases which kinda sucks.
Kepler COULD have also been a perfect isolated mini-grind, but instead they tied T4-5 to getting Power Level… that you can’t meaningfully progress on Kepler. I think the gameplay loop of “play on Kepler, get loot to be good enough for the next World Tier, repeat” would have been a great loop. But the reality is that the current loop is “play the campaign, then go play Portal activities until 450 so you aren’t wasting your time”.
And this issue will only become exasperated in Renegades if/when the power cap is reverted to 200. It won’t be so bad for people who hit 450 since I think the tier upgrades are permanent, but for people who have no interest in playing the Portal or don’t have much time? That’s rough.
If Expansion content going forward is going to be isolated from the Core Game, it needs to also be isolated from the Power Level system entirely.
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u/dothefanDango92 2d ago
Doing the weekly mythic missions that drop me T5s at power 300 is certainly a choice
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u/mayormcskeeze 1d ago
Youre almost disinsentivised from playing on kepler until you hit at least 400. Its weird.
The only thing I can think of is that theyre worried if they dont funnel everyone to portal, there won't be enough players?
I dunno. I cant think of any other reason they'd made 95% of the game irrelevant, and detach the new area from the main loop.
Its all baffling
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u/doom_stein Team Cat (Cozmo23) // Sepiks Purrrrfected 2d ago
Yeah, I think it's dumb that I can be getting tier 5s in the portal but if I want Kepler gear above tier 3 (which is reaching like 350LL) then I have to go beat the campaign in whatever the highest difficulty is, among other things.
Why make the Kepler gear have an entirely different method to raise the gear tier? This just means I'll either stick with the tier 3 stuff or ignore it all together.
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u/killer6088 1d ago
Its fucking wild man. We can go farm Tier 5 from Solo ops and Pinnacles and over level the activities and make them easy, but on Kepler you have to play on Mythic. Like I don't mind Tier 5 requiring hard content, but why the fuck is it different standards in different parts of the game. Why is the Kepler Tier 5 stupidly hard to farm but I can go farm a Mint pretty easily with little effort just because I got my light level high enough.
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u/Xandurpein 1d ago
I think the real problem isn’t that Bungie is lazy or rushed. If you know anything about software development, the current state of the game screams silo development. Different aspects of the game is developed in isolated silos that don’t communicate enough. This indicates that upper management probably is responsible, not the dev teams.
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u/BucktoothVoodoo 2d ago
I am only getting 300 level T3 from Kepler. I am 391 LL and Rank 8
Is there a way to set the Sieve for Legendary or harder?
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u/killer6088 1d ago
Nope. Kepler maxes out at 300 light. Once you are above 300 nothing and no difficulty on Kepler will give power increases.
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u/The_Curve_Death 1d ago
Did you buy the +1 tier upgrade at 350 power? That gives tier 4s from mythic Kepler and tier 5s from weekly Kepler missions.
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u/killer6088 1d ago
Kepler is just a weird decision on all parts. Its like, we have this cool new destination that can give power increases but only up to 300. After that you have to go back to the same shit you have been playing.
You also have Kepler Mythic that is probably some of the hardest content in the game, but don't bother doing it until you reach 450 or else your rewards won't be worth it.
So Bungie basically said, come back and play Kepler after you go play the Portal for hours on end.
Why was Kepler not a bigger part of leveling. What was the new activity not allowed to be farmed. Why could I not customize Kepler missions and activities and get Loot tied to my overall Tier. What does different parts of the game follow different standards for determining what Tier loot drops. Its a pain in the ass Bungie. Pick a lane.
I would much rather have just played things on Kepler and did random activities there to increase my power and level. But nope, only certain things give power increase and only up to a certain point.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/splatterfest233 2d ago
Hot the nail on the head here. T5 gear is a prestige symbol. Something really cool to show off how dedicated you are to the game. A true long-term reward for the most devoted players. If you find yourself unable to earn them, that's ok. Maybe you're just not a T5 player. Nothing in the game is locked behind High Tier or High Power, so you're not missing any actual content.
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u/MortarPanda 2d ago
I think if somebody can actually do Mythic level content they are a T5 player. There is no reason they only get to be a T3 player because of an arbitrary lockout at a vendor.
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u/sandwhich_sensei 2d ago
Except they aren't symbols of how dedicated you are. They were giving them out during Solstice and you didn't even need to be 400+ to get them. There is zero aspirational loot or content in this game currently
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u/Melbuf Gambit is not fun 1d ago
TBH i have not set foot on kepler (outside caldera solo ops) since sometime during solstice when i hit 350. and that was only cause i remembered something unlocked. but that was pointless as its a t3 unlock when solstice was dropping T5s on you like candy. i nearly forgot it was there as there is no point to it until you hit 450 for the final unlock
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u/frogsinmyhouse 9h ago
Gear tier and Power Level should never have been tied to one another. If I complete an activity with difficult modifiers, I should be rewarded with gear that has high tier. Or going to the Lighthouse, for the PvP players. But having to spend so much time grinding power first, is ridiculous. With EoF they have proven even more than ever before, that Power Level is completely irrelevant. We have all those modifiers now, to actually make an activity interesting and difficult (instead of "you need 2 mags of auto rifle to kill a red bar" which is the most garbage design you could come up with). And Power Level right now serves ZERO purpose except "you need to be high power for tier 4+". Which just brings us back to "how should high tier gear be acquired?" Bungie, please listen to player feedback, I beg you
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u/throwntosaturn 1d ago
“play on Kepler, get loot to be good enough for the next World Tier, repeat”
OK, sincere question - how do you think they could do this? You realize tier 2 guns aren't actually significantly better than tier 1, right?
If you gave me a full set of tier 1 gear and asked me to complete mythic, I could. Because gear in Destiny 2 isn't actually that big a power multiplier. Having the correct guns and perks is for sure - I'm not saying some random shotgun is just as good as Mint Retrograde or whatever. But like, if you have a tier 1 Mint with god roll perks and I have a tier 5 Mint with god roll perks, the difference is only like 15-16% in total.
You don't have to "play on Kepler" to get loot good enough to do the next world tier. If you walk into Kepler with tier 1 gear, you could do all of Kepler like that. The only thing forcing you to stop and farm is the light gates.
So all you're proposing is that everyone should just be able to do all of Kepler in a long weekend and then never go there ever again.
The entire point of the light gates is that when you hit 450 you have a reason to go back to Kepler again.
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u/salty-pretzels You lightbearers never killed me 1d ago
Someone at the company said "player engagement number go up" as the only reason why. And clearly nobody could countermand them.
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u/Tell_Specialist 1d ago
Honestly? The more I read about how D2 has gone, the more glad I am, I jumped ship before Edge of Fate.
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u/AnimaLEquinoX 1d ago
You can get Tier 4 gear from the weekly mythic missions on Kepler if you don't care about increasing your power over 200.
It would be nice if it were possible to get high-tier gear by pushing the power delta of enemies way up, but I like that you have to get your power up if you want the absolute best stuff in the game.
Tiers 1 through 3 are equivalent to what we had in the game up until now, so that should be fine for the majority of players who don't care to grind.
Tiers 4 and 5 are for the people who want the little extra and are willing to put in the time for it.
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u/Mttsen 2d ago edited 2d ago
Honestly, it's baffling how the only paid content (not to mention, the only brand new content) in this expansion isn't even a part of the same progress system, aside from having the tiered weapons. I don't even feel any need to engage with Kepler at all after finishing the initial campaign playthrough, and related quests. Sure, the Graviton Spike and some of the Kepler legendaries are nice, but there is no really any point in engaging with this content once you grab some of these (sure, you can try farming the higher tier iterations, but that's it.) Paid content should be much more impactful experience to be worth its price. Honestly, I think the seasons in the past (which were much cheaper) felt more engaging and meaningful for the whole general gameplay loop than what Kepler has to offer. Gating the only additional activity beyond the campaign missions - Sieve, beyond a stupid long timer doesn't help either.