While Destiny 2: Shadowbringers might have gotten rave reviews at the start of its launch, the player base is starting to reel in some of that optimism as the expansion's second season, Season of Dawn hasn't exactly been met with lots of positivity. This time around, players are criticizing Bungie for recycling loot...again.
This week marks the return of Iron Banner, Destiny's hardcore PVP mode, where equipment scaling is turned off. This means that ill-equipped Guardians are at a sizeable disadvantage against fully armed ones. However, Iron Banner quests usually give more progress to weaker players who defeat stronger ones.
The issue here isn't Iron Banner itself. The mode has well existed since the start of Destiny, and players have always welcomed the event. Most importantly, players always looked forward to cooling new gear and armor, which are cosmetically different from other armor sets. Iron Banner armor sets espouse a gladiatorial feel to their aesthetic, perfectly complementing the theme of Iron Banner where the strongest survive.
No New Armor
Since the start of Destiny, Bungie always revealed a new armor set with every Iron Banner season. This allowed players to look forward to the event, as it allowed them to collect new and exciting loot which is the cornerstone of the looter-shooter genre.
However, for the past two seasons, Bungie has been criticized as "lazy." The two previous Iron Banner seasons did not introduce a new armor set, instead of recycling the same set thrice. While this could be understandable to an extent, it feels weird that Bungie did not choose to reuse another Iron Banner set. What's worse is that with the introduction of Armor 2.0 and allowing cosmetic skins to be applied on top of one's chosen armor, you'd think Bungie would use this opportunity to introduce Iron Banner skins that can be used as cosmetics.
Bow-be-gone
Another point of criticism is a missing weapon from Iron Banner. Players have been teased with a bow from Iron Banner dropping. However, that, too, isn't happening. Bungie has pushed the release of the bow to season 10. This means that players will have to wait another 2-3 months before they're even allowed to see what the bow's stats and perks are.
Tiring Quests
Lastly, this week's Iron Banner main quest is, in a word, challenging. Quests usually have steps associated with them, and the objectives of each step cannot be skipped. While the first two steps are relatively easy (Land Super Blows and Land Final Blows Using Scout Riffles), the third one will take a lot of time. The third step requires Final Blows Using Shotguns. And in a game mode with item scaling, lower light level Guardians will probably take two shotgun shots to kill an opposing player, which defeats the purpose of the gun. Not to mention that the fifth step is also similar, as it requires Rocket Launcher's final blows instead. This all adds to an Iron Banner mode where the majority of players are either running around with shotguns or are camping the Heavy Ammo box to get ammo for their Rocket Launchers.
With all the issues added up, veteran players have little to no reason to return to Iron Banner this season. Players have voiced their discontent over places such as Twitter, Reddit, and the official forums. It would be interesting to see how Bungie would react during their weekly announcements.
