Bungie has steadily been improving Destiny 2 over the years, with big changes coming with its games-as-a-service model and general direction. Lore and storytelling has improved so much since the days of vanilla Destiny 2 that they are one of the main reasons why players keep logging on for new Seasons. Gameplay has similarly started seeing a turnabout for the best. With recent releases, it is clear that Bungie also wants to make its space magic looter-shooter a game that rewards build diversity.
Today marks the return of Destiny 2's Iron Banner after changes for Season of the Haunted, with some helping with the state of the activity and its rewards, such as an overhaul of Lord Saladin's inventory. However, there is a new feature that increases the number of Iron Banner rank points gained at the end of a match, scaling based on how many Iron Banner armor pieces, ornaments, or weapons are being used. Because extra rank points are valuable in order to obtain rewards more often from Lord Saladin's rank-ups, players are forced to forego designing specialized builds and character customization while Iron Banner is active.
Why Destiny 2's New Iron Banner Rank System Needs a Rework
The main problem with the new Iron Banner rank system is that it requires players to forego whatever form of customization they have to obtain more points, considering Destiny 2's armor pieces all come with unique stat rolls. What this means is that if players want to use armor pieces from Iron Banner to increase their points, they also have to rebalance their entire build from scratch. In some cases, players might have to use different Exotic armor than intended either because of limited Iron Banner gear availability or because of stat combinations and mod requirements.
This can be frustrating to deal with because Iron Banner armor was a completely random drop in the past, meaning some players will likely have great pieces and others won't. Furthermore, the cost of Masterworking Destiny 2's armor hasn't changed for the duration of the event, and players who want to maximize their builds will still have to invest plenty of currency. More often than not, this will be needed to have comparable stats to one's build from before swapping most of the armor pieces out.
This problem also applies to weapons, as they can be used to fill in when players don't have Iron Banner armor or don't want to mess up their builds. Yet, this requires players to avoid using their preferred weapon options, or go the ornament route. Ornaments are not a perfect solution either because they are not being sold by Lord Saladin, and thus are only available based on what players managed to unlock prior to Season of the Haunted.
Destiny 2's Armor Synthesis system works based on a limited, time-gated resource that players can acquire when completing Ada-1's bounties, with the cap being 10 units per Season. In other words, players can only obtain 10 Synthweaves every three months. As such, having to spend two or three of those Synthweaves on Iron Banner ornaments is only worth it if players like their utility outside the event's duration. Otherwise, it can feel outrageous to spend hard-earned resources - which can also be unlocked with Silver, purchased using real money - on cosmetic items that only increase rank points for two weeks every Season.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
