Arguably one of the most polarizing expansions released in recent memory, Destiny 2: Beyond Light has made massive changes to the franchise by allowing Guardians to wield the Darkness through Stasis. The gameplay loop of slowing, freezing, then shattering foes is certainly a radical change for the franchise.
While many agree that Stasis is a great addition inside of PvE, it has wreaked havoc on the balance of PvP. There are far more issues with this expansion than PvP balance, though. From the plethora of new bugs to the issue of gear sunsetting, here are ten major issues in Destiny 2: Beyond Light that need to be fixed.
10 Bug Fixes
Destiny 2 has seen some issues with game stability ever since Beyond Light was released. A plethora of bugs have made their way into the game that range from small inconveniences to downright game-breaking.
Some issues include the collections screen always defaulting to Titan, Not Forgotten getting its pre-nerf range back once again, Gambit enemies sometimes drop 20 or 30 Motes when slain, and Stasis Crystal detonations will sometimes architect players to their death. By far the craziest bug seen thus far is Stasis detonation chaining can instantly-kill raid bosses such as Riven of a Thousand Voices from the Last Wish raid.
Bungie is fully aware of these issues considering how many things have been disabled during the first week of the expansion. These bugs need to be fixed ASAP before they compromise the world's first completion of the Deep Stone Crypt raid or worse.
9 Ascendant Shards Need More Drop Sources
Masterworking armor is a complete pain to accomplish due to the rarity of Masterwork materials. These items can be farmed in abundance on Master or Grandmaster-difficulty Nightfalls, but the issue is that said Nightfalls are one of the only means of being able to Masterwork armor.
If players don't enjoy Nightfalls, they either have to go flawless in Trials of Osiris to get a single Ascendant Shard, obtain one of four Ascendant Shards from the paid Season Pass track, or purchase them from Banshee-44 for an absurd cost. Enhancement Prisms don't fare much better, but at least these materials can now be earned through certain Ghost Shell Mods. Considering all non-Exotic armor is prone to sunsetting, the least Bungie could do is give players one or two additional ways of earning Ascendant Shards to help with Masterworking gear.
8 Snipers Need An Overhaul
The nerfs to Sniper Rifles in Beyond Light did nothing to harm their effectiveness in the Crucible. These weapons are still way too oppressive inside the top-end of Destiny 2's Crucible due to the way flinch works, how plentiful ammo is for Special weapons, and how easy it is to give a Sniper Rifle high handling.
Finding an easy fix for these weapons is rather difficult, but it is clear that these weapons will forever be the go-to Special weapon in PvP until Bungie either overhauls how flinch works or they disable aim assist on these weapons for mouse and keyboard players altogether.
7 Leveling Changes
Every season and expansion in Destiny 2 requires players to raise their Power Level by completing various activities on the Director while partaking in new seasonal or expansion content. This model worked well enough during Destiny's The Taken King and Destiny 2's Forsaken expansions, but the lack of a core playlist refresh has made leveling feel like a chore in Beyond Light.
Experiencing the same strikes, Gambit, and Crucible maps for the thousandth time is fatiguing, to say the least. While the seasonal Artifact was introduced in Shadowkeep to let players level by playing how they want, it has paradoxically encouraged players to farm bounties for activities they don't enjoy. The core leveling experience needs an overhaul before the next expansion releases.
6 Stasis Subclass Balance
All three Stasis Subclasses are extremely potent due to their ability to freeze targets in PvP and shatter opponents in PvE. These Subclasses are certainly powerful, but there is still a rather large gap between Revenants, Shadebinders, and Behemoths.
Behemoths are currently lacking in the customization front, only having access to one Aspect and one Fragment while Hunters get two Fragments and Warlocks get three. Shadebinders are also dominating in the Crucible due to their Ice Flare Aspect that proliferates freeze effects when someone is frozen. This gets even crazier when Warlocks use their instant-freeze melee ability and couple it with the Whisper of Hedrons Fragment that provides a damage buff after every freeze.
Behemoths desperately need a second Aspect with three Fragment slots while Shadebinders need their melee ability tuned to be more of a high-risk, high-reward ability.
5 Coldsnap Grenades Need A Nerf
Coldsnap Grenades are easily the most overpowered grenades ever seen in Destiny 2. These grenades release an ice fissure that aggressively tracks targets on any surface. Should it freeze a target, it will spawn a secondary seeker fissure that will search out for an additional target. This chains multiple times up to a cap of four frozen targets.
Considering freezing a target is a death sentence in PvE, being able to freeze an entire enemy team in a 3v3 game type with one grenade is hilariously overpowered. It gets even stronger on Shadebinders since their Aspect will make Coldsnaps capable of freezing additional targets. This grenade should only be able to freeze two enemies at once, not an entire squad of Guardians in Quickplay. To be fair, there are a lot of ways to counter this grenade, but it hardly makes up for how powerful Coldsnaps currently are.
4 Loot Refresh
Most players have talked about Beyond Light's lack of loot to death at this point, but it is still a point that is important to bring up. The lack of a wide pool of guns in Beyond Light has made core activities not tied to Europa feel barren and unrewarding. Such little loot was added this expansion that the campaign gives players a Long Shadow Sniper Rifle as a quest reward, a gun introduced in Forsaken over two years ago. Needless to say, receiving two-year-old guns in a $40 expansion doesn't feel great.
3 Unsunset DLC Guns
Unfortunately, the lack of new loot is further exasperated by the introduction of sunsetting. This system caps out the Power Level of certain weapons to make them unusable in pinnacle activities.
This wouldn't be so large of an issue if it wasn't for two things: every activity had its Power Level raised and DLC guns have also been sunset. Every non-raid gun in Forsaken and Shadowkeep has been sunset. That's right, loot that can be earned in paid expansions are only usable in Quickplay Crucible and patrols. Sunsetting needs to be reverted for expansion weapons as soon as possible.
2 Weapon Elements Shouldn't Be Static
As a result of weapon sunsetting and the lack of a major loot refresh, plenty of weapon vacancies are currently in Destiny 2. To give an idea of what the game is currently missing post-sunsetting:
- No Void SMGs are currently usable.
- All Rapid-Fire Frame Pulse Rifles have been sunset.
- Every Energy 120 RPM Hand Cannon has been sunset.
- No Legendary Arc Machine Guns are currently obtainable.
- Every Energy Rapid-Fire Sniper deals Solar damage.
How should Bungie fix this? The easiest solution would be to let Energy and Power weapons roll with random elements as they did back in Year 1. Let Banshee-44 reforge a gun's element for Enhancement Prisms or maybe even an Ascendant Shard. It would go a long way to solving most of the loot vacancies the game is suffering from currently.
1 Power Level Requirements Need An Adjustment
Bungie arguably lied about sunsetting. This system was described as a means of shaking up the meta of pinnacle activities as described in various TWABS. Following that description, Bungie must think that matchmade strikes and Lost Sectors are pinnacle content.
Every matchmade activity excluding Quickplay Crucible had its Power Level requirement raised to 1,100 or higher, which is 40 higher than every weapon that was just sunset. In other words, sunset guns deal so little damage they can't even be used in matchmade strikes. These activities need their Power Level dropped down to 1,000 to give sunset weapons a place to be used inside of PvE.