I wish I had a reason to play it lol. I’m not in need of any armor and I noticed that all the armor I crafted last year is going unused. Maybe if we had a little more control over where stats get allocated I’d be grinding. Personally if “armor crafting” ever gets added I hope it doesn’t look anything like this.

Bonfire bash for me this year is a little more dynamic than last year. For those who don’t know last year was similar but basically each of the three people would just stand in a spot where the ships dropped enemies for 10 min and that was it. This iteration still gets boring after 1.5 runs though. It’s too mindless.

I kind of miss there being some sort of traversal aspect to the EAZ like hunting the chests from old solstice. Part of the fun of the EAZs verticality was being good at platforming but I know a lot of people hate jumping puzzles so I see why they moved away from it.

Loot wise I’m glad Something New seems to have better perks. Especially with an incoming HC buff. I guess the rocket has Envious Assassin so it could be good?

Personally, I think the actual gameplay loop for getting armor is more streamlined this year. The process of obtaining leaves and ashes doesn't feel as intrusive as some of the grinding that was needed in previous years.

Though I'm not sure I like the Bonfire Bash this time around. The whole back half and outer edges of the map go largely unused, which I could go either way on. On one hand, I kinda like having things condensed to a more manageable area, and I feel like it ends up making better use of the players' time, and allows you more opportunities to reach the max ignitions. Though it also makes each run of the activity feel a bit more monotonous.

The lack of really fun elemental effects is also a bit of a bummer. While the Stasis effect was pretty busted, it definitely made the event feel a lot more like a celebration of our guardians and their abilities, so I'm a bit sad to see that reduced to a weak AOE burst (which irritatingly destroys my tangles before I can grab them).

I just wish that the armor rolls were better. I don't think I've had anything roll above 65 just yet. Honestly, I'm probably going to be still using my Solstice armor from last year as my go-to gear for the next year again.