With the Shadowkeep expansion for Destiny 2, new Strikes entered the game, but new exclusive Nightfall loot is nowhere to be found in their Nightfall version, much to the dismay of many fans. Bungie has now explained why.
What is the deal with the Nightfall-exclusive loot? Nightfall-specific rewards or Nightfall-exclusive loot are special rewards that can be obtained with a bit of luck in the more challenging Nightfall versions of Strikes.
These exclusive rewards are supposed to provide players with an added incentive to tackle Nightfall Strikes. Most bosses have a rare item in their loot pool that can only drop in that specific Nightfall Strike. These include weapons or cosmetic items like Ghosts, ships, or Sparrows.
However, players are still waiting for armor pieces as they had in Destiny 1 – these are unfortunately not available in Destiny 2.
This is precisely what many Guardians are demanding: With Shadowkeep, new Strikes have been introduced, which can also be played as Nightfall. But special rewards are lacking there. Many find this disappointing, and some fans are even annoyed about it.
In a popular thread on Reddit with over 7,400 upvotes and more than 1,100 comments, fans are now demanding that Bungie introduce these special rewards for the new Strikes as well.
Now just stopping this in Shadowkeep without saying a word about whether or when they might come to the game is a big mistake. The new Strikes are good and fun, but as a regular Nightfall, there is hardly any reason to run them.
Why no new Nightfall-exclusive loot came with Shadowkeep
Bungie has now commented on the matter – specifically, Community Manager dmg04. He started another discussion on this topic in the popular Reddit post.
Destiny 2 apparently wanted to reward Guardians differently in Shadowkeep – not with an exclusive weapon or cosmetics.
This is how Destiny 2 rewards you instead: To explain the current situation, dmg04 elaborated and recounted how the rewards have evolved since the launch of Destiny 2.
In Year 1, the general feedback was that Nightfall Strikes did not feel rewarding enough. Subsequently, exclusive rewards, emblems, and points were introduced. Players then stated that the weapons were cool, but the cosmetic rewards like Ghosts or ships were less appealing. With Forsaken, some weapons with random rolls were added to address this criticism.
In Shadowkeep, Bungie chose a different approach. The Nightfalls (with the new ordeal format) now allow for a repeatable grind for masterwork materials and Exotics with random rolls. These materials are important if you want to upgrade armor pieces with Armor 2.0 to a masterwork level, and essentially form part of the endgame. Additionally, there is an increased chance for Exotics at higher difficulty levels.
At the end of his statement, the Community Manager asked: “Do you feel that it (the new approach) isn’t as rewarding as a single weapon?” The developers are therefore open to further feedback.
Guardians stated that while this grind is great, they would still wish for, for example, a themed armor piece from a boss – something cool that you can’t get anywhere else. Furthermore, the criticism points more towards the regular Nightfall Strikes, where there are no special rewards, and not towards Nightfall: the Ordeal.
Why not both? One fan then wanted to know what prevents Bungie from simply offering both: The farming opportunity from the Ordeal and an exclusive item.
Dmg04 also commented on this. It was stated: “Time, resources, etc.” One would then be faced with the decision – do you make a weapon for the Nightfall, which is already becoming a masterwork-/Exotic grind, or do you design a unique weapon for the raid instead?
This is not always a direct one-to-one comparison, but the example helps illustrate the situation.
Bungie would not have the option to design unique weapons for every single activity with every release. The studio must therefore prioritize when it comes to creating available rewards for an activity.
Have the Nightfall rewards ended up in the Eververse? In this context, the discussion expanded to the Eververse. The community is not pleased with this argument. It creates the impression that Bungie has indeed designed exclusive rewards. However, they then put them into the Eververse, the in-game shop of Destiny 2, instead of incorporating them into the game. And as long as players feel that the Eververse is pulling such content out of the game into the shop, they won’t really be happy.
This refers, for example, to the exotic Sparrow Bloodrunner in the Crimson Fortress design or the Harpy shell for the Ghost in Vex style. Both items would thematically fit perfectly as exclusive loot for the new Strikes, but are only available through the Eververse.
Dmg04 has also addressed this. He emphasized that he has already heard this feedback. But he wants to clarify that he did not remove these rewards from activities to then put them in the Eververse.
The goal was to design the entire season and Shadowkeep so that they feel cohesive – even with Vex and Crimson Fortress-inspired items in the Eververse. However, they have reviewed the feedback and now understand how it led to the impression that they removed items from activities and didn’t design them specifically for sale.
There will always be a factor in development that Eververse items feel connected to the Destiny universe. However, Bungie could improve on ensuring that these items don’t feel too much like in-game rewards associated with certain activities or gameplay.
What do you think? Are the new Ordeal Nightfalls with their farming opportunities for materials (and Exotics) enough of a reward? Or would you also prefer/additionally an exclusive Strike weapon or armor piece?
