EDGE

RELICS OF THE PAST

-

While Noseworthy’s right that we’ll never forget the day we got our Gjallarhor­n (it was a drop from Valus Ta’aurc in a Weekly Nightfall Strike on Mars, since you’re asking), we point out that there are slightly less pleasant

Destiny memories we’ll also take with us to our deathbed. In the launch game, the most efficient way of sourcing the planetary materials needed to upgrade weapons and gear was by learning farming runs – laps of a small area full of caves and little rooms where treasure chests randomly spawned every few minutes. With 16 pieces of a single material needed for a single upgrade, and just one or two locked away in each chest, farming was a repetitive and unavoidabl­e, though admittedly relaxing, activity.

Things have improved greatly since. There are fewer upgrade nodes on weapons and gear, for a start; each upgrade requires fewer materials; and those resources can be bought or acquired by completing missions and bounties. Still, we will never forget the Relic Iron farming run on Mars.

“The material requiremen­ts used to be so high that you felt like you had to do that,” Smith admits. “If they had been low enough, or optional – for things that weren’t as important as mainline power – then that activity would have been acceptable. We swung the pendulum too hard, right at the player. I know that farming loop, and I enjoyed going round and doing it, but as a player I didn’t enjoy how much the game was asking me to do it. To me, it’s a really good metaphor for how the game is evolving year over year.”

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia