Datto's Thoughts on Bungie Talking About Rewards/Loot in Destiny 2 (2023)

Introduction

Recently, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn put up a post on bungie.net discussing some recent events regarding rewards in Destiny, on top of some other information. I will read the information to you and then give you my reactions to said information. That's the whole thing. A lot of this will feel familiar if you watched my first impressions videos of Beyond Light and Season 12 since it's mainly feedback based on the first month of Beyond Light.

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Content

Hey guys.

Recently, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn, put out a post on Bungie.net discussing, rewards in Destiny and some things to come over the next year.

I wanna review those things and give some thoughts as we head into 2021.

We'll talk the content of the article first, then thoughts after for those of you who already read the article.

It's linked in the description.

If you haven't.

I'm gonna, be paraphrasing a lot of stuff to keep it brief.

"How.

Are we making every Season the best time jump back into Destiny?"? He asks.

Infusion caps are the first thing to be mentioned.

Infusion caps exists for a few reasons: to limit the amount of stuff.

You need to care about at once, to evolve seasonal metas and to keep things feeling fresh for players over time, from builds, to loadouts, to figuring out what Bungie should make next.

BUT, there were some misses on Beyond Light, launch: initial loot pool was too small and it's frustrating seeing other people use guns that aren't in the game.

Anymore.

The, big commitments, Bungie plans on making to resolve this are the following: Each season in Year.

4 will grow the overall Power ecosystem for weapons.

All weapons you can take to the Power cap should still be earnable in game with very few exceptions, and future annual releases will contain more new weapons to collect than Beyond Light or Shadowkeep.

With Beyond Light, Bungie rebuilt a lot of their tech from the ground up, which is what enabled such a quick change with that batch of legendary weapons being added back into the game.

How.

Do they plan on leveraging their new tech into the future? Well Season 13 is only 2 months, away, which in dev time is the equivalent of 46 minutes in real time.

But here are a couple of things that they've been able to add since receiving the feedback in Beyond Light.

They're, adding 6, new legendary weapons to strike, crucible and gambit.

2, each, and Nightfalls are getting The Palindrome, The, Swarm and Shadow Price, Destiny 1, favorites., Grandmaster Nightfalls will grant you adept versions of these weapons.

Next, Bungie wants to keep things accessible to new players, need new players to keep things: rolling.

In a recent patch, Bungie re-added, Season 10 and 11 weapons, while removing season 9 weapons.

Since season 9 weapons were set to ..

sunset next, season.

Bungie wants to make sure that players have a way to earn all Power-relevant weapons in the live game, while not clogging up, rewards with stuff.

That's going away.

Soon.

In, Season 13, you'll still be able to get Season 11 and 12 weapons in the world drop pool, while Season 10 weapons will be earnable in a different way, meaning they'll no longer be in the world.

Loot pool.

The Gunsmith will be a more central figure with regards to that.

Bungie wants to make sure that you can continue to get the things you need for more challenging activities, although with some exceptions and some updates to the game.

Holiday event, weapons like from Festival of the Lost or Dawning will stay where they are, BUT Felwinter's Lie, Whisper of the Worm and Outbreak Perfected will be added to the exotic kiosk in Season 13.

Next, Bungie introduced a chunk of new, pretty good perks into the game recently, on top of having some solid weapons, every season.

But.

While the quality was there, the quantity is not.

To keep things.

Brief, Bungie will be hiring more people for the rewards.

Team.

This isn't something we'll feel in the next month, but rather with next year's expansion., Next, armor sunsetting.

Not a lot of people like it.

Right now, the personality of armor comes from mods, so it feels bad having to re-grind armor with the same stats for no reason other than "go grind." Bungie doesn't have concrete plans on resolving this just yet, but they want to get to a spot where looting.

Armor has some potential benefit or change to the way you play.

Next.

Just some news: Transmog will be coming with Season 14.

Here are some work-in-progress screenshots.

These are not final.

Ddos protection for console players of Destiny 2 will be coming in Season 13.

Vault of Glass returns.

No time frame, given.

Crossplay is coming in 2021.

No other details, given.

Fallen, SABER and Devil's Lair are coming in Season 13, I think we knew that already? And, Legendary and Master Lost Sectors will be expanded to include Moon Lost Sectors, with 3 new exotic armor pieces to get, I, assume 1 per class.

That's it.

That was the post.

Let's talk about it.

Infusion, caps..

aka weapon sunsetting, at least in this first paragraph.

I am still a supporter of the system.

But, as we spoke about in my Beyond Light first impressions video, it was a massive shock to the system, as we had 2 years of stuff rotate out for a handful of guns, at least right at launch.

We definitely did not have enough stuff to make up for it, although I was not expecting Bungie to replace that much stuff in 1 expansion.

Of course, with the raid and season 12 weapons, that helped move things along, on top of the engram changes.

They did bring up a good point in the article and that's with regards to Warmind Cell mods.

Charged With, Light mods don't require hyper specific weapons in order to make them work, whereas Warmind Cell, mods, NEED, Seventh, Seraph and Ikelos weapons.

Regardless of how much longer they're going to be around.

Eventually they will be sunset.

Which means Bungie needs some form of a long term plan to keep Warmind Cell mods relevant.

Bungie says that Season 10, rewards, aka Seventh Seraph stuff, will be earnable through a more "prescriptive source." But, I think we need to know what the source is and how long they'll be earnable for before I feel like we have this situation under control.

Losing Warmind Cells would be devastating for the game, but I trust that Bungie realizes this and they're working on a plan., Felwinter's, Lie, Whisper and Outbreak.

Being added to the exotic kiosk is good news as Felwinter's is a beast in PvP and Whisper and Outbreak have significant PvE strength.

No word on Heir Apparent, just yet, but I am wondering what Bungie plans on doing about exotic catalysts.

I haven't spoken much about armor sunsetting.

On the other hand- and this is something Bungie is acknowledging as well.

Initially, PERSONALLY, I didn't really care that much, I would eventually grind new armor.

It's not a big deal to me.

But for others.

It is much more frustrating and I definitely have formed a much stronger viewpoint than I did a couple of months.

Ago.

Your armor is essentially a stat stick., With, more and more options to change the way you look.

This is even more so the case and with transmog coming in Season 14.

You can look.

However, you want.

This removes a lot of the appeal of hunting for armor.

Unless you're going for a very specific looking set of armor.

Otherwise, your armor is just a bunch of stats and the mods are what really dictate your playstyle.

What Bungie is trying to do.

Here, at least in my mind, is essentually, justify the reason for armor sunsetting, because at the moment, after more conversations with the community, I'm with you, armor sunsetting does not really have a point right.

Now.

Armor is to be collected to be turned into ornaments for Transmog right, now., Set bonuses, maybe going into the future? I dunno.

But.

The justification for armor sunsetting, right now does not exist and with transmog, will exist even less than non-existance until armor itself is more impactful on gameplay.

Moving to new and more weapons.

Bungie is focused on introducing more weapons into the game.

People want more weapons, they're gonna.

Try to get you more weapons., They're, hiring more people to get players more weapons., Great., No problems, there, I'm, glad they've, acknowledged a problem and they've said they're trying to fix it.

Great.

It'll take a while, which is something people are very tired of hearing at this point, but it's something.

Perks introduced this season, great.

Keep them coming.

I personally haven't seen this comment too much, but I.

Had this question asked to me: "do, you think old loot is better than no loot?" and I would say.

The answer is definitely yes.

I think it is better to have some random legendary Destiny 1 weapons return to the game to grind out than it is to have nothing at all, this being in response to Bungie bringing back old, favorites, Palindrome, Swarm and Shadow Price into the Nightfall loot tables, on top of adept versions.

PvE adept weapons just seemed like a given at some point and I did wonder why something like Trials got the adept weapon system, but it was never ported over to PvE.

On the topic of more loot.

The issue for me hasn't necessarily been,: "I need more guns to grind," I'm good on guns.

I got a vault full of them, and I don't touch half of them.

For, me, and I.

Imagine at least some others.

The issue is the method in which you grind said: weapons.

The, core playlists need some sort of a facelift.

They need renovation.

They need innovation, evolution, insert whatever thersaurus word.

You want.

I really want to see Bungie start to evolve this game over the next year or two.

It needs it., Adding more stuff is fine, but things have felt very samey for a while.

If.

We're going to continue playing core playlists for content, for powerfuls, for seasonal activities.

They need to be bolstered.

Adding strikes is fine, even if they're old, ones.

But, adding stuff is not evolution.

It is just more stuff.

More stuff is fine up to a point, but eventually the shine wears off.

I wanna see more unique.

Crucible modes.

Where is RIFT, I wanna, see the strike.

Playlist get some new features or new ways to grind it.

I wanna see Gambit..., you know, do whatever Gambit should do, but I wanna see some changes.

Man.

Finally, some info bombs, transmog, is in season 14, nice to have a date.

We already know that it'll pull from collections, which is exactly what needed to happen, great.

Looking forward to it.

DDOS protection for console, players, great, more safety, there, can't be mad at that., Vault of Glass is coming.

We knew that already.

No timeframe was given, but my guess would be Season, 14 or 15, I feel like.

If it was Season 13, they would have said here.

No, I do not think there will be a world first for this, people know how Vault of Glass works.

Already.

I do not anticipate Bungie to make major mechanical changes to Vault of Glass at all.

I.

Don't think that's what people really want.

While I would love it.

If that were the case, I, just don't think they plan on really doing a whole.

Lot.

It is a ton of work to make a raid and if they were completely changing how VoG works, I feel like they'd just put that effort into a new raid.

Add, some champions, sure, maybe different enemies spawn, but the core mechanics are probably going to stay.

The same.

Crossplay coming in 2021 is a pretty huge.

We knew that Bungie wanted it to happen next year, but to come out and declare that it will is a big deal., How it'll work and what groups can play together, obviously no intel on that just yet, but this is great stuff.

Old D1 strikes coming back, again.

We knew that was happening, but it's still cool.

Finally, Moon lost sectors getting put into the rotation is cool.

The Moon is accessible to everyone, regardless of whether or not you own Shadowkeep.

Although there is a conversation going on there as well, which I will completely derail this conversation, with.

I've seen some feedback about Shadowkeep and Forsaken, and their value proposition.

Since loot was sunset from those expansions.

The value in purchasing them is now for:.

The campaign, access to the exotics, access to the raids and access to Pit of Heresy.

Pit of Heresy doesn't give relevant loot, but the drop at the end is a great way to farm for materials.

For non-raiders, for the more casual players, I'd say these expansions at full price is a very tough sell.

Even for raiders, I can see them being a tough sell.

Right now, Steam is having a sale where you can get Forsaken, Shadowkeep, Beyond, Light and Season 12 for 52 bucks, aka.

If you're a new player, you get the expansions for free.

Call me a sellout, I think that's a solid deal.

Outside of this deal.

Though, I can see it being a tough sell.

The feeling of not leveling up whatsoever.

While playing can be a bummer.

It just feels bad to play the expansion campaigns, maybe some of the other stuff and walk away with basically nothing besides exotics.

As you move into Beyond Light.

If you're, paying 8 bucks per expansion though.

Maybe you started with BL and you wanna just experience the other stuff.

There are things in the Eververse store that cost more.

If.

It's full price, wait for a sale.

That's.

All I got on the Bungie Rewards Update post thing.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.