The level cap for the existing version of Destiny was 34. The level cap for The Taken King, the just-released expansion, is 40. I've been playing The Taken King for under an hour, and I've already hit level 40. In fact, the leveling portion of my day only took about three minutes. How did I pull it off?
Well, it took a bit of planning.
You have to think ahead
I've been spending my time getting my character ready for The Taken King, and I found myself at level 34 a few days before I had planned. I wasn't that interested in grinding for gear and more experience, knowing that the loot from The Taken King would likely be a huge improvement over anything I could gain in Destiny 2.0. So why bother?
Instead I took advantage of the new bounty system that allowed you to keep 16 bounties in your inventory. I only took bounties that I knew I could finish easily, while favoring bounties that granted 3,000 experience. I finished them all and didn't turn them in. It didn't take long; I spent around 90 minutes on the entire process.
So by the end of the day yesterday, the night before The Taken King, I found myself sitting on 16 finished bounties that I could turn in with the press of a button. That already would have been helpful for leveling, but why stop there?
So I ran to the store for some Red Bull.
You see, Red Bull has a promotion where certain cans with the Destiny logo have a code that gives you 50 percent more experience points on anything you do for 30 minutes. It's a nice buff, worth the $2.99 and 160 calories of a sugary energy drink. So I grabbed a few of those, turned in the codes, and grabbed the Focused Light item that would give me the bonus experience.
This morning when I woke up I logged into my game, used the Focused Light item for the experience buff, and turned in every single bounty. It took about a minute to go from level 34 to level 39, and the 50 percent bonus experience was enough to push me the rest of the way just by killing enemies in the standard missions.
So there you have it. With a bit of planning I was able to hit the level cap in about three minutes of play this morning. Not bad at all.
It doesn't really matter
Hitting the level cap doesn't really do much for you, other than the fact it's nice to have that number by your name. I also doubt I'm the only person who took advantage of this little trick to gain a bunch of levels quickly. Now the real game begins.
You will still need to spend significant time finding the best gear and leveling it to increase your light level in order to take on the more advanced Taken King content, but the revamped light and loot system will likely mean that's going to be less of a chore in the expansion.
I hope so, but the nice thing is by using this little plan I don't have to worry about leveling my character at all, and can focus on my gear and the surprisingly interesting story of the expansion. If you're on the fence about picking up The Taken King, this is what we thought of the first 15 hours of play.
See you in the Tower!
