Orthogonal
Member
When the progression system for the House of Wolves was announced, I was pretty ecstatic, along with most of the community. The idea of leveling up my favorite gear and weapons along with the new HoW toys was smart and exactly what Destiny needed to keep the sandbox relevent. Between new HoW gear and the etheric light/ascending system, I thought I'd have several paths forward for my characters.
In reality, for a PvE player such as myself, it's even more limiting than The Dark Below was. There, progression was tied to raid gear (again, just a PvE player), but a few runs on each character is what it took to get the gear. At the least, I felt somewhat in control of my own progression, even if the shard requirements were unreasonable.
Right now my only reliable path forward is to run the level 32 Prison of Elders for the armor cores, and buy what Variks has on rotation each week. Assuming I run it three times a week, I can get everyone to max level in three weeks. I've run it twice and accidentally wasted one of my cores. (Whoops.) This means I'll end up with the one set with the higher light levels, as with TDB, which is what I thought the etheric light system was designed to fix.
(After six Nightfalls, the sixth granted etheric light, which I use to bring Fatebringer up to 365. My Titan was feeling how underleveled it was in the Weekly/Nightfall. It's clear the NF won't be a reliable or predictable way to progress.)
I don't understand why we have to run a level 34 activity to get the upgrade materials needed to get us to level 34. I don't understand why treasure keys are so extraordinarily rare. (Outside of the story progression, I got one and my daughter has received zero after two weeks of bounties.) And I really don't understand why etheric light is just dropped into the Nightfalls as a possible reward, rather than added to the second drop slot so we can progress our own gear at a moderate pace (that would also get 3 characters to level 34 in three weeks, as with Variks...but using the gear of our choice.)
I have no plans to attempt the level 34 PoE again any time soon, unless it's substantially rebalanced. Up to the boss was fine, the boss himself....nope. This is making something hard in the wrong way; it wasn't fun, it wasn't interesting, and it wasn't something I ever want to do again. I don't like the level 32 boss either, but he's a more reasonable proposition. Faced with running level 34 PoE, or slowly leveling through Variks gear, I'll take the latter.
Right now I feel less in control of my progression than I have at any point since Destiny came out. It's a very frustrating development in what is otherwise a superb expansion.
I hear you and agree that the progression path is problematic. I was very fortunate to have an oddball weekend last week that gave me the time to do a lot of ToO with somw good pkayers and I got 6 Etheric Light from PvP yet only 1 from PvE.
PoE is fine for what it is, but progression through it is very slow. I don't have the time to run 3x 32, 3x 34 and 3x 35 for the rewards. Maye 3 or 4 runs in a week, tops.
I have 1 Etheric light this week and next week looks no better. Progression will be a slog.