How Excellent Moves by Bungie May Also Create Contempt

Ladies and gentlemen,

The word contempt may be too strong. As you may know, Guardians are ramping up for the delayed Release of The Final Shape on June 4, 2024. As a Veteran player having jumped into Destiny during The Dark Below (2014), I am eager to find out how the Dark V Light Story Arc will end. However, we've had a bumpy ride along the way with several mistakes being made by the Developer.

Yet, the most recent TWID (This Week in Destiny) from Bungie released on April 25, 2024 announced some of the best major changes to the game I have ever seen. ...And it aggravates me.

Why?

Because many of these changes should have been available probably from the beginning of Destiny 2, if not Destiny 1. I'll do my best to give a simply explanation for each point. ...and yes, Destiny is still became my favorite game to play while missing these key components.

If you'd like to follow along through the source material, here is the LINK. Let's start from the beginning...

NEW ENEMIES

Yes, the new enemies we were expecting several years ago have finally made it into the last Chapter of this Story. The entire Arc is about to end and we are just getting a few enemies that are not a Taken or altered version of enemies we've been fighting for ten years.

Obviously, when the new story arc begins, I'm assuming new enemies will have to be introduced. Fighting various iterations of Hive, Vex, Cabal, and Fallen grew stale around five years ago. Yet, players like me continued to play the game because the FPS gunplay in Destiny is still the best I can find.

POWERFUL FRIENDS

Inviting people to play Destiny 2 with me has always been a challenge because historically, new players coming into the game are not strong enough to run the activities a Veteran player wants to run. New players needed to play easier Content in the game first to raise their Power Level much closer to the soft Power Cap.

Well, that's about to change in the June 2024 major expansion ...thank goodness.

Players with a higher Power Level will be able to boost the Power Level of those several points below them. As shown in the example above, if your Power Level is 2000, but the other Fireteam Members have a Power Level of 1950, you become the Team's Power Leader and their Level is adjusted to reach 5 points below 2000. (i.e. Adjusted Power: 1995).

Yes, the Power Level of your teammates was increased by 45 points in this scenario. Which means they can take nearly as much damage as you can in this Nightfall activity.

However, their Gear/Weapon drops from the activity will not have the Adjusted Power Level. All Drops will be based on your actual Power Level of 1950. Still, this is an excellent approach to increase the amount of people who can tag along with D2 veterans.

UN-SUNSET THE SUNSET

The absolute best (and most aggravating) news from the TWID is the removal of Power Limits on Sunset Weapons. Correct. The weapons sitting in your Collections Menu that are stuck at 1600 Power Level because they are no longer game viable will have this limit removed in The Final Shape.

Bungie gave their reasoning for this, but essentially it means players deleted several of the best Sunset god-roll weapons crowding up our Vault Space because they were near useless only for the Developer to completely reverse course and tell us there will be ways to get these weapons back ideally with better weapon perks available.

Collectively, we spent countless hours grinding for these coveted weapons only for them to be taken away. Now, we have to re-grind for items that never should have been Sunset in the first place.

The obvious concern: Vault Space. I believe we are receiving an additional 100 Spaces in the Vault bringing our total item count to 700. Not nearly enough Space to hold all the newly un-Sunset weapons, current weapons and gear, along with the new weapons and gear being introduced in The Final Shape.

At this point, I want Destiny 2 to end and Destiny 3 to begin. Especially if we're only able to hold 700 items in our Vault. I have 3 Characters: Warlock, Titan, and Hunter. Their Gear alone takes up more than half of the 600 item total we have now in the Vault.

Where am I putting all of these un-Sunset weapons? The Devs really needed to make up their minds what they wanted to do and stick with that. Otherwise, the Vault capacity should be increased to around 1,000 items. Agreed?

TO THE PINNACLE ...CAP

One of the more annoying aspects of beginning a new Major Expansion is trying to raise the Power Level of your Character(s) to the new Power Cap quickly. Currently, the Pinnacle Cap is 1810. Of course, the Seasonal Artifact will add to this number, but essentially, that's the Cap.

The Pinnacle Cap will rise to 2000 in The Final Shape, but don't panic too much. Everyone's Gear and Weapons will automatically rise to 1900 on Day 1. This will be the new floor. Any engram drops in the game will help you get to the Soft Cap: 1940.

After that, you will rely on Prime Engram (or Powerful Gear) drops to reach the Powerful Cap: 1990.

To receive the final 10 points to 2000 Power Level, you'll need Pinnacle Gear/Weapon drops only attained through specific activities throughout the game.

3 CHARACTERS... ONE POWER.

I am a Warlock Main (even though I began as a Titan Main in D1). To this day, I manage three Characters: Warlock, Titan, and Hunter. Historically, I have had to increase the Power Level of each Character individually.

For several months, my Warlock was 10-15 points above Hunter and Titan simply because I didn't have enough Pinnacle gear drops for the alternate Classes. Warlock's increased Power Level had no effect on Hunter and Titan at all.

This is also going to change in The Final Shape. Characters on the same Account will be linked by Power Level. Meaning if your Hunter is at 1950 Power Level and you run your 1910 Titan in Activites that drop Powerful Gear, your Titan will get drops around 1950 because the game will reward you according to the Character with the highest Power Level on your Account.

This... This makes our lives so much easier and it makes so much sense. This is why I can't help but ask: Why wasn't this feature in the game years ago? I assume a lot of players swap between two or three Classes all the time. It's fantastic news, but it's also aggravating to find out this could have been implemented long before The Final Shape.

SPREAD THE WEALTH

Finally, Powerful Gear will drop in several more activities throughout Destiny 2 instead of being confined to ritual activities like Strikes, Gambit, and Crucible. This will help players reach the Powerful Cap of 1990 by giving us more options to play.

Again, fantastic news. Why the path to the Powerful Cap has been so narrow all these years... I don't know.

CONCLUSION

Bungie covers more welcomed improvements in the TWID than what I have covered here. Moving forward, the future looks even brighter, but I can't help remaining hesitant. Can we ask:

Who was managing the game over the years without implementing these common sense improvements?

Despite what you may think at this point, I love Destiny 2. The game looks great (especially since I recently upgraded the TV to 4K UHD). I'm completely invested in the Story, which has improved significantly over the years. The World has so much potential. Near endless.

It simply feels like Bungie created a Lamborghini. We love the Lamborghini. We bought it. Yet, we have been confined to driving the Lamborghini at a local park on the grass going around the playground equipment in circles.

Once we buy the Lamborghini, let us look for an open road with our Apple Music playlists and a 72-hour Saturday. We'll take it from there.

I'm probably exaggerating about the playground.

Point being: Loosen your grip. Let the game breath. As players, let us be great. If the player base is using a weapon type like Auto Rifles more than you'd like, you don't have to nerf the Auto Rifles to entice us to use something else. "Enhance your Calm."

The apparent need to control what we do, when we do it, and how we do it only annoys the player base. We're already Sold. We've been buying expansions and Seasons for years.

I know. This is your baby that you've put blood, sweat, and tears into. ...but as you've probably noticed Bungie: People are quite wilely. Lord knows what we'll do with all the new gear combined with new abilities while comparing them to previous Builds.

Control is largely out the window. I sorry. ecj