In the MMO shooter Destiny the rumor mill is once again going wild. This time the topic: The Light Level system in Destiny. It was said that the level would rise to 50, but recently it has completely disappeared. What does our editor Schuhmann have to say about this?
Most of you are as eager for Destiny news as fat cats are for lasagna. So you will know that this week the expansion “King of the Taken” was presented in Los Angeles at E3.
Well, “presented” is better put in quotes. Because that’s exactly Bungie’s problem. While they want to get people hyped for the expansion, it won’t come until September. So they have neither the “finished” game nor do they want to reveal all the information. Hence, there are many “No comment”, many “We’ll tell you later”, videos and screenshots.
Eureka! I found it
Even these first images and trailers were dissected by YouTubers and checked for the last hidden information until something was found that could be shouted into the world: Eureka! I found it!
And yes, something was found: In the Crucible scenes of the developer documentation for “The Taken King” light levels could be recognized for nanoseconds: Thanks to the pause button, they were noticeable. Lvl42, it suddenly said or even Level-49. Oh – My – God! Destiny fan sites and Destiny YouTube were already buzzing on Tuesday.
“New Light Level 50!” “Light Level 50 discovered!”
Cheerfully tweeted the incredibly popular ProfessorBroman under Destiny fans since his appearance at the Prison of Elders stream “Light Level 50 confirmed!” Hooray. Until the community manager put a stop to it: No, not at all! This is a pre-built. Don’t take that seriously.
@Professorbroman @Bungie Absolutely 100% not confirmed! You’ll see some light level aberrations in our E3 build. Please pardon our dust.
— Eric Osborne (@UrkMcGurk) June 16, 2015
The excitement faded. The blazing rumor mill was silenced hissing by Bungie’s fire extinguisher. This was all still on Tuesday.
And then the journalists got to play Destiny
On Wednesday, two reporters from the US gaming/pop culture site Kotaku – like many others – finally got their hands on Destiny and noticed: “Oh God! No light level anymore!
But the developers nearby said: Guys, don’t take this seriously, this is an early version, we’re still working on it, we only finished it for presentation purposes for E3. We shouldn’t even show you this.
And so it was also stated in the Kotaku article: We noticed something. There is no light level anymore, but there are also some really weird new perks, the weapons only deal 34 damage and the developers say: “Guys, this is still in development.” So well – let’s not hang this up too high.
The video shows the build that the Kotaku people presumably played:
Few other US sites and hardly anyone from the Destiny community jumped on the “No Light Level” bandwagon. The focus was on the new subclasses and the stuff that Bungie really presented. That was quite a lot.
And then the Germans came
A German console gaming site discovered the Kotaku article, smelled something and brought it up on Thursday as a headline: At Kotaku they played it and there was no light level. Maybe they’re getting rid of it. The developers who originally waved it off in the article, all the warning signs “Well, it’s a test build” have suddenly disappeared from the article.
The article was now seen by a German MMO site from the large competing company. And nobody wants to miss anything. So on Friday we read a second article about it, mentioning Kotaku as well, also saying that the light level might disappear soon and philosophizing about how good it would be if the light levels in Destiny ceased to exist.
Another German MMO site then referred to this article, and since Saturday you can read: “Are the light levels disappearing in Destiny?”
From light level 50, which we had briefly on Tuesday, it went back down to zero on Wednesday, and by Saturday we had already read it three times in Germany. Quite a drastic diet, huh? A Destiny fan might get a bit dizzy.
And what does the build really say?
Let’s take a look at two images from the early version of the Destiny expansion, which were likely available for playtesting at E3. We cut the images from the video of YouTuber Dychronic who was at E3. The video is embedded above as well.
Fair is fair: The 3 German gaming sites that wrote about the E3 build probably do not know these images, but only had the Kotaku article (without images) as a template.
Here we see one of the new weapons, which inflicts 34 Solar damage …
Now to the meat of the matter: Here we see the character and an armor piece. The armor piece indeed has no “light” anymore, but the equipment itself has “+34” something, the values in Strength and Intellect have been decreased to 23 and 24, and in the top right corner it also says “+34” light. The only thing suggesting that “the light level” is being removed is that “light” is missing under “Intellect” and “Strength” … otherwise everything speaks against it.
Instead of 0 or 50 … the answer is more likely 30
By the way, what’s much more interesting about the screenshot is a little lock in the bottom right. Behind it, visible for a short moment in the video, is the message that “from level 30” the “Artifact” slot is unlocked. And that is then “actually” new and probably not an oversight, but a design decision that is in there.
Whether this is definite or not, we don’t know of course. Just as little as we know if the “class items” really have values – as seen in the build – or if this will change again before September.
If you want to extract any information about the light level from this “early build” at E3, then certainly not that the “light level” is being removed. It is much more likely that the base level is rising from 20 to 30 – as predicted in a leak from October 2014 that became known in early 2015.
But: Again, this is an early build. Here, things are to be taken with utmost caution.
We also do not know what will really happen in September. We can only look at the information available and to conclude from the current info that Bungie will turn off the “light level” is … adventurous.
