In Destiny 2, a news has caused a stir and has the community buzzing: No more random rolls on weapons and armor.
Ouch, that hit hard. No presentation, no official news from Bungie about Destiny has echoed as much as this statement in an interview with Game Director Luke Smith. This has the greatest explosive impact of all news about Destiny 2 so far, as it goes to the core of what Destiny is about: the loot system.
Luke Smith explained in an interview with mashable: In Destiny 2, there are no more random rolls on items. What is on the weapons is on the weapons. Every piece of armor and every weapon in Destiny 2 will be “handcrafted” with fixed attributes.
Why is the news such a shock?
The news led to 80 comments on our site, despite the news coming out on Friday afternoon when many Guardians were already off for the weekend. Normally, Guardians at this time do not care about news, but lovingly devote themselves to their PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
In the Reddit forum, the thread on the subject has swollen to over 1000 comments.
The news is such a hammer because the “search for weapons with the perfect roll, the God roll” is the activity that keeps hardcore players engaged in PvE and PvP of Destiny: The search for the “Holy Grail”, the ideal version of a weapon, kept Guardians busy long after every boss had been defeated.
Finding a weapon exactly as it fits your playstyle is what makes the allure of Destiny’s previous loot system. Some have spent hours farming for a perfectly rolled “Grip of Malok” or a “The Clever Dragon”.
The search for the “last few percentage points of performance” has so far been the real endgame of Destiny.
Once a Guardian found this God-roll weapon, they felt special. Even though the weapon only increased their performance by a few percentage points compared to other Guardians, it provided a lot of motivation.
But if this changes: What are Guardians supposed to engage with in Destiny 2 long-term?
What reasons might Bungie have for the move?
Luke Smith says, it is primarily about balancing. In Destiny 1, weapons like “The Clever Dragon” were too strong with certain roll combinations. If there is only one version of Clever Dragon with fixed, handcrafted perks, balancing is easier and weapons can be “tuned” individually.
So much for the official version.
Players believe Bungie wants to push Destiny further into the “casual direction”, reduce complicated theory crafting, and align the game with “equal equipment for everyone” more towards esports.
What do players say on Mein-MMO.de about the change?
On our site Mein-MMO.de, you can see many Guardians’ growing doubts about Destiny 2 in the comments.
- For example, “Der Ralle” says: And again a change that kicks hardcore players in the ass and makes the whole game more accessible to casuals.
- Simon Hartmann says: “I find that mega boring. Honestly, I can’t imagine what the long-term motivation will be?”
- User dh thinks: “I have a really bad feeling about this. First, the drastic simplification of the focuses, now this.”
Some see the change less critically.
- For instance, BigFlash88 says: “If there are enough weapons, I see no problem. But there must also be at least 30-40 weapons per class.”
- vvV AmNesiA Vvv says: “Now that all perk combinations are gone, I’m not really bothered. With raid weapons, the Osiris weapons, and exotic weapons, it’s the same.”
Opinions are also divided in the subreddit for Destiny:
- In the Reddit forum, one Guardian says: “It looks like they’re openly admitting that they’re taking away player rolls on weapons to make their job easier.”
- Another says: “So they are leading us away from God rolls towards hunting for specific drops. But aren’t we then all running around with the same stuff?”
Guardians want a crafting or modding system instead
Interestingly, Luke Smith announces that Bungie has some “interesting ideas” on how to make “double and triple” drops of items interesting.
However, Smith does not provide further information. He does not yet know if these ideas will make it into the launch version of Destiny 2 in early September or if players will have to wait longer.
The Guardians have three main ideas about what this could be:
- a “mod system” that allows for targeted changes to weapons
- a “crafting system” that allows items to be created by players
- or a traditional “upgrade system” like those found in Asian MMORPGs, where players can merge duplicate items into stronger items of the same type
It will be interesting to see what idea Bungie comes up with to make the “loot system” of Destiny 2 exciting.
What system would you look forward to?
Everything about the beta of Destiny 2 can be found in this article:
Destiny 2 Beta – Everything about start, registration, access, and codes
