Bungie has been under fire for constant lack of value, reoccurring issues, and now throttling XP gains. All these constant discontentment from various sources compelled Bungie to cancel their final stream to promote the “Curse of Osiris” DLC.  Instead they opted to do a lackluster blog post on upcoming changes and a poor public relations Podcast.

Destiny 2 – Podcast Breakdown

• Mostly PR talk.
• Skip to 6 mins as nothing significant is talked about during that time.
• Excuses should be points: Bungie states “excuses to play” when it should be points to play. Why should players want play your game. If Bungie can’t answer this then players leave.
• Bungie again overstates the importance of friendship/social connections. It’s overstated and unneeded, since playing with people you meet online doesn’t mean they must be your friends.
• Game development is hard is what Bungie said, but they been working on this game for a while  now with several bugs, glitches and issues since launch.
• Basically releasing the game on 2 different dates was a bad idea. Who could have guess?
• XP system was designed to adjust and moderate the gain of XP, but new state is still slower to level up than the old. This system still needs tweaking and honestly would have never been changed if players didn’t start providing proof to their claims. I’ve been saying for a while now “I’m not leveling like I should”  so much that my Fireteam, Tr0npl and Ancapaillmor, got tired of hearing it.
• Personal belief of this XP system was designed to be the system and as a buffer for the DLC to prevent power grinding since players would need to reach the new level cap.
• While Bungie believes having fun is ultimately the most important factor, I argue that point. I would take Efficiency > Fun, since who wants to spend dozens of hours when you can bang it out quicker. But, overall, the issue is the accessibility to levels in this game. It’s very easy  to hit max level and just as easy to hit max power level, but they insist on keeping the easy obtainable Max Cap, which ties into the lack of end-game content.

Open Letter

Hey everyone,

With Destiny 2’s  console and PC launches behind us, we want to take some time to talk with you about Destiny 2 – specifically where it’s at today, and where it’s going. Our team has been reading feedback and working on updates to improve the game. We’ve also been reading some tough criticism about our lack of communication, and we agree we need to be more open.

Going forward, Destiny 2’s post-launch game systems, features, and updates are being designed specifically to focus on and support players who want Destiny  to be their hobby – the game they return to, and a game where friendships are made. We want Destiny to be a game that fits into your life, providing you with reasons to log in and play with your friends, clans, and families. We want Destiny to be a world you want to be a part of.

A month ago, we published a list of improvements on the blog. Today, we’re going to revisit that list and update its status, and share some of the work the team is readying for December, January, and beyond.

We know it’s frustrating when there isn’t enough of a dialog with the development team. You have our commitment that we’re going to do a better job going forward.

– Luke Smith & Chris Barrett

As stated above, this list of changes is not new whatsoever as this was briefly touched upon a month ago. Lets look closely at everything that has been touched upon.

*Note: <Author’s Comment>

These will be available on December 5th.

•  Armor Ornaments will be added to some existing Armor sets for more visual customization without losing your Shaders or Mods
  • These ornaments will be unlocked by completing objectives specific to each set, and are permanently unlocked account-wide, just like Exotic Weapon ornaments
  • They will be applied to the base pieces that you may already have collected, and can now unlock on Vendors if not
  • In Season 2, the following sets have ornaments unlocked in their respective activities:
    • Vanguard Faction Armor
    • Crucible Faction Armor
    • Trials of the Nine Armor
    • Iron Banner Armor
    • Dead Orbit Armor
    • Future War Cult Armor
    • New Monarchy Armor
    • Eater of Worlds Raid Lair Armor
    • <Did they forget the Leviathan Raid Armor or omitted it?>

• Changes affecting Reputation Tokens:
  • Daily Challenges will have Reputation Token awards increased across the board <Finally!>
  • Cayde’s Treasure Chests still offer variable rewards, but now guarantee (at minimum) a payout of destination appropriate Reputation Tokens <Still no fix to the Cayde‘s empty chest bug which has been in the game since launch.>
  • Strikes will drop a larger number of Vanguard Reputation Tokens
  • Common quality Destination Resource Tokens will have their drop rates increased to 100%, and values per Token increased as well (by 50% for common quality Tokens and 250% for rare quality Tokens)
  • Reputation required per Reward Engram will increase for Destination Factions (+37%) and Gunsmith (+50%)
  • Leviathan Raid Tokens will be redeemed at Benedict immediately upon obtaining a Token, instead of requiring a full clear before unlocking

These will be available on December 12th.

• A new Weapon Tier: Masterworks, which will feature stat trackers, random, re-rollable stat bonuses, unique item tooltips, and item details screens.

• Legendary Weapons can be drop as or be upgraded to become “Masterworks” versions
  • Difference of Masterworks from Legendary weapon version:
    • Track and display the number of kills with that weapon (with choice between total count or Crucible-only count) <Completely useless and superfluous as we have the ghost tracker for that.>
    • Generate orbs for you and your allies on multi-kills
    • Add weapon stat bonuses that are selected randomly from a small pool and are re-rollable. <Unsure what are the pools that is available for players to acquire.>
  • Masterworks drop once players are above 250 Power from everyplace they can obtain legendary weapons.
    • Unwanted Masterworks can be dismantled into materials that can upgrade an existing Legendary Weapon into a Masterwork
    • Raid and Trials of the Nine Weapons will have a very high chance to be Masterworks. <Unspecified how “high” this chance will be and from what RNG rates Bungie has been giving players ill say 25%.>
  • We have future plans to extend Masterworks to other gear and expose your kill counts in more places (e.g. Crucible kill screen) <If they get rid of the kill counts and focus rather on rerolling stats like mobility, resilience, and recovery it will bode better overall.>

• Faction Armor and Weapons will be unlocked for purchase for Legendary Shards and Faction Tokens on most Faction Vendors
• All five Armor Slots will always be present, and Weapons will rotate weekly on Factions that have them
• Slots will be unlocked by claiming Reward Engrams from the respective Faction
• You will get credit for engrams you may have already claimed since launch
• <Based on above either Faction Rallies will be a weekly reoccurring thing or just the ability to purchase Faction items.>

• New Xur wares:
  • Every week, you’ll be able to acquire one of the new Fated Engrams using Legendary Shards that will decrypt as Exotics that aren’t already in your collection. <What if you own all exotics?>
  • A simpler Three of Coins that boosts Exotic drop rates from any source for 4 hours <Is there a throttle mechanic hidden also here?>
    • No obscure stacking mechanics or need to re-apply before every boss
    • These cost Legendary Shards and theres no limit

• Vendors will now beckon you to hand in your Reputation Tokens only when you’re carrying enough to earn a Reward Engram

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To recap, the route to 305 is absurdly easy for even the most casual player due to powerful engrams from weekly reset. There is no real way to tell which 305 players are actually good since there is so many of them out there.

Now there are more loot simply given out for merely existing. Players will hit the new cap fairly quickly and obtain all missing exotic engram using Xur’s new items. Then what is there to do afterwards since Bungie’s timetable looks something like this:

• Dec 5th:  Updates / DLC
• Dec 12th: More Updates / Faction Rally
• Dec 19th or 26th: Dawning

In the trend of making games easier, this choice by Bungie has buried them in conjunction with all their vague lackadaisical replies towards fundamental issues. Most if not all these updates SHOULD have been released at launch or they should have properly priced their game at $30.

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