Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion reshaped several existing mechanics and introduced new ones, leading to fans considering it one of the best releases in the franchise's history. Light subclasses are being reworked this year, with the Void 3.0 update kicking this off, and weapon crafting finally became a thing through the Relic on Mars unlocked by playing The Witch Queen's campaign. Bungie will still be monitoring many aspects of Destiny 2 moving forward with the intent to make the game the best it can be, which means now is a good time to highlight what needs changes.
PvE content is in a decent spot, with plenty of different activities available for players to choose from, whereas the PvP side is arguably in need of help after the Void 3.0 changes impacted the game's balance. Yet, while PvP is scheduled to get a few more updates over the course of Year 5, there is a PvE activity that desperately needs attention on Bungie's part: farming Lost Sectors. Destiny 2's Lost Sectors are areas that were always appealing because of their themes of exploration, and Bungie made farming them more enticing with the addition of Exotic drops in Legend and Master versions of the activity. However, the current experience needs another pass.
How Destiny 2's Lost Sectors Work
Lost Sectors immediately became a big staple of the game starting with Destiny 2's release, with the European Dead Zone accounting for sixteen Lost Sectors with others scattered across the various non-vaulted locations. One of the most fun aspects of Lost Sectors is finding their entrance the first time players want to access them, as they are often hidden in the wilds or in unassuming places, but this quickly dries out after the first completion.
Bungie tried to incentivize completing Lost Sectors repeatedly by adding both Legend and Master difficulty options, much like seasonal content or even the new Wellspring from The Witch Queen. This scales the challenge of playing through a given Lost Sector higher up, especially because players are required to find ways to deal with Champions based on the alien races occupying the regular version of each area.
Master Lost Sectors pack much more of a challenge by adding extra Champions and modifiers to the mix, meaning that players need an optimized loadout and strategy to finish the activity with a few lives to spare. Destiny 2 is all about loot when it comes to weapons, armor pieces, and collectible items, thus Exotics are often sought-after because of their game-changing, build-defining perks. As such, tying Exotic armor pieces with random stats to the final reward for beating Legend and Master Lost Sectors was a good idea on Bungie's part. Yet the actual implementation can feel lacking because of abysmal drop rates.
Why Destiny 2's Lost Sectors Should be More Rewarding
Completing Legend Lost Sectors reward players with Exotic items rarely, and beating a Master Lost Sector does not guarantee an Exotic drop either. Legend Lost Sectors are often more accessible early after the release of a big expansion such as The Witch Queen, and that's because the Power Level requirement is often not as bad as endgame content such as Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes.
Yet, only receiving an Exotic armor piece every five or 10 runs is not that rewarding, particularly because that's an optimistic estimate. Players can go with streaks over 20 with no Exotic drop. Because this is fully dependent on RNG, the same also applies to Master Lost Sectors, even though Destiny 2 players will need to use good builds to beat them in the first place. Every run often takes a few minutes depending on how difficult and how long the Lost Sector is.
The main issue with this logic is that players are not guaranteed to get an Exotic in the first place, let alone the one they want - or, even worse, with a roll that matches their build. There are several Exotics for each armor slot in each class, which can often lead to players not getting what they want even after many hours. To make things worse, Destiny 2's Lost Sectors only offer Exotics or Enhancement Cores, with the latter being more worthless to many players after the changes to Masterwork weapons and Orb generation.
A few hours of farming are likely to amount to less than 10 Exotics dropped, among which there may be duplicates or bad rolls, and anywhere between a couple of dozens Enhancement Cores to more than 50. This sort of loot is disappointing compared to every other activity in the game that requires commitment to complete, and it's often a source of frustration for those players who need a better roll on their favorite Exotics. This also goes against Bungie's own view of Destiny 2 as a game where players can craft their own builds and weapons.
Making Legend and Master Lost Sectors more rewarding doesn't mean just increasing the drop rates for Destiny 2's many Exotic armor pieces, as not having a guaranteed drop still does not protect players from a bad streak. Instead, with The Witch Queen's weapon crafting, this could be a great opportunity to add crafting resources or Deepsight Resonance weapons to the loot pool, improving the experience and encouraging players to run Lost Sectors for more reasons.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
