As a live-service looter-shooter, Destiny 2 lets players earn tons of loot with differing rarities. While the game has received praise for its gameplay, graphics, and endgame content, it has also faced criticism for its blues or Rare quality gear. These blues are one of the more significant issues plaguing players and have been a source of frustration for many because of how quickly they become useless early on in Destiny 2.
What makes blues such an issue is that they are too common and frequently drop from activities. This flood of blue gear in Destiny 2 dilutes the game's loot pool and makes it feel less rewarding to get new weapons and armor. Players often end up with inventories full of blues they have no use for with how Legendary gear acts as a waypoint of natural vertical progression. While that isn't alone a huge issue, the only thing players do with blue gear is dismantle them for a paltry amount of glimmer and vendor reputation.
Why Destiny 2's Rare Items Are Problematic And How Bungie Could Fix Them
The problem is compounded by the fact that blues often have poor stats and perks compared to Legendary or Exotic gear in Destiny 2. Even when players do get a blue with good stats, it is often replaced by a purple (Legendary) or gold (Exotic) item shortly thereafter even while leveling up. In addition to the issue of blues dropping too frequently overall, the fact they also drop in high-power endgame content is even worse because they can quickly stack up in the Postmaster's inventory and replace valuable items like Ascendant Shards. Many players feel that the time and effort required to complete Raids and other endgame activities should be rewarded with better gear than blue items from enemies.
While blues should be much rarer in late-game content, there are still ways Bungie could make blues useful to all but the newest of players in Destiny 2. One solution could be to turn dismantled blues into a new resource to increase players' chances of finding Deepsight red-border weapons with unlockable patterns for Destiny 2's crafting system. An additional use for blue gear could be a fusion system where players could take a certain amount of blue weapons and combine them to make a new Legendary item of their choice whose perks are dictated by the majority of perks of said fused blue.
A similar approach could be taken for blue armor drops as well. Players could combine them to create a customized piece of armor that considers each part of each blue armor's individual stats to make a new, boosted average for the customized Legendary armor. This fusion system could give players another way to optimally build their character, potentially saving them hundreds of hours of repetitiveDestiny 2 endgame grinding. Now, some grind would still obviously be needed to acquire enough blues to fuse into better gear. However, the different use cases and customization centered around rare drops are something players would likely appreciate.
Ultimately, the problems around the rare blue drops in Destiny 2 have been a source of frustration for many players. While the game has made some progress in addressing the issue, more work must be done to make the loot system feel more rewarding and enjoyable for players. For now, players will have to wait and see what Bungie does with blue drops going forward. However, by reducing the drop rate of blues, changing how blues can be used, and giving players more control over what gear they receive, Destiny 2 could succeed in further respecting players' time and efforts.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
