The Top 5 Best Changes Made to Destiny

As a follow up to my previous post where I presented the worst changes to Destiny, this post discusses the best changes made to Destiny since its launch.

#5 - Pledging to Factions & Rewards
Before The Taken King launched, to pledge to a faction you had to wear one of that faction's class items. In Taken King class items became a real armor piece that contained stats to increase your guardian's level. As a result, you no longer have to wear the class item to represent a faction, instead you pledge to a faction by purchasing their badge and you can change badges or factions once per week.

New Monarchy Faction Badge

Rewards from factions prior to The Taken King were abysmal. Most of the time you simply came away with one or two strange coins/motes of light, paltry rewards considering it takes several days of playing consistently to rank up a faction, and even more now in The Taken King. Now factions have a smart loot system, where the game will not give you a duplicate emblem/shader/ship if you already unlocked it, each package has a guaranteed 4 strange coins, 4 motes of light, and can roll a legendary item, whether that be a weapon, armor piece, shader, ship etc.

#4 - Class-Specific Weapons

This is one of my personal favorite changes, and I would rank it higher if some of the weapons were not as weak as they are (looking at the Titan ones specifically). Each class has a specific legendary and exotic weapon, which are available from questlines given by the Gunsmith upon reaching Gunsmith Ranks 2 & 3 on that character. The best part about these weapons is that they enhance certain capabilities of the classes they work for, or were designed to fit the class thematically. For example, the Tlaloc exotic scout rifle for Warlocks, specifically the Sunsinger subclass. This subclass is often used in end-game PvE content for its ability to self-revive with its super. The Tlaloc gains increased stats such as rate of fire, handling, etc. while your super is charged, a perfect weapon for Sunsingers who hold onto their super until they die.

Warlock exclusive exotic Scout Rifle

#3 - Introducing Legendary Marks
The predecessors to Legendary marks were Vanguard and Crucible marks, which were removed in The Taken King and replaced by Legendary marks. They are used for two main purposes, infusing gear & purchasing gear from vendors. They are a reward for a variety of activities both PvP & PvE or can be obtained by dismantling legendary gear. Unlike Vanguard/Crucible marks, the amount of Legendary marks you can earn in a week is not capped, but you can only hold 200 at one time, compared to being able to hold 200 of each Vanguard/Crucible marks. The biggest advantages of Legendary marks was introducing a currency that was used at all gear vendors in the tower, that you were encouraged to spend, and had a variety of sources.

#2 - The Addition of Kiosks
Kiosks a great addition to the game for three major reasons. First, it made everyone get a collector's mentality. Seeing what emblems, shaders, ships etc. you have collected, what ones you were missing, and the method of getting those missing ones woke the collector's drive in many guardians. Second, it allowed multiple copies of these items without having to get more than one drop. Prior to this, if you had a really cool shader, you had to transfer it between each character if you wanted to use it. Now, once you unlock it for the first time, it is available at the kiosk for your other characters to pick up at no cost. Last, it simply freed up vault space which leads into the best change made to Destiny.

View of the Shaders Kiosk

#1 - More Vault Space
Was there any doubt this change would be number one on the list? Originally the vault could only store 20 armor, 20 weapons, and 20 general items (materials, consumables, shaders etc.) This was later expanded to 24/36/24, and again expanded in The Taken King to the space of 72/72/36. How Bungie ever thought that a shooter loot style game like Destiny would have enough space with just a 20/20/20 vault is beyond me, but you must thank them for listening to its players and expanding the vault when it needed to be. A bigger vault makes life on players much simpler. Not only is transferring gear between characters a much smoother experience, it also allows players to more easily keep gear for specific playstyles, so they are always running an optimal loadout for whatever activity they are playing.

Original Vault

Taken King Weapons Vault Tab

The Top 5 Worst Changes Made in Destiny

Destiny has seen a lot of changes since its launch just over a year ago. Many of the changes were quality of life ones that made the user experience more convenient and overall an improvement. Some changes were noticeable improvements on the game, and others were made with good intentions in mind, but have not necessarily made the game worse, but creates many headaches for the players.

#5 - Elemental Primaries
Elemental primaries were around at the games launch, however there were very few elemental primaries and an even fewer amount were strong weapons. Originally obtained only through a hard mode raid, Vault of Glass, for vanilla Destiny, new elemental primaries were introduced with each expansion. In The Dark Below there was Crota's End hard mode and in The House of Wolves there was either going flawless in Trials of Osiris or doing Lvl 35 version of Prison of Elders. However with The Taken King expansion, Bungie did not add any elemental primaries into the game and all old ones were left behind and not brought forward to Year 2. In this Game Informer article, Luke Smith, a leading game designer at Bungie, states that this was to create more diversity in which primary weapons are used. This strategy definitely succeeded but they made an exception to their rule which is why I put this on the list. The exotic auto rifle Zhalo Supercell has arc damage, the only primary weapon in The Taken King which has an elemental damage type. This creates an irregularity with the arc element in Taken King, much like how Solar burn was rarely used in Year 1 activities because of the potency of Gjallahorn, Black Hammer and Vision of Confluence, arc burn will most likely take a back seat because of how strong this one weapon will become in those activities. If arc burn is used, any player without this weapon will find the activity much more difficult than those who do. The idea of getting rid of them was sound, but there was no reason for this exception.

#4 - The Loss of Old Content
Destiny was a game criticized for a lack of content on release. Each expansion has added more content so this criticism is no longer entirely true, but is still relevant because with each new expansion, some of the old content seems to be pushed away. The previous end-game activities are no longer of use to players, except to play them for nostalgia or if they missed out on the opportunity in Year 1. The rewards are no longer end-game, and are not even from Year 2. The daily story mission before any expansion had been released, used to go in order through the story missions, and then start the cycle over after it had been completed. When the first DLC was released, this pattern has stopped and never resumed. Instead, it focuses on the few missions added in the DLC and a couple from the base game. In Taken King, the hope of breaking this pattern has all but vanished, as two missions introduced are directly related in receiving two of the new exotic weapons. If the cycle would return to pre-DLC, these exotics would only be available once a month. The loss of content is not limited to PvE, but also PvP, as many older multiplayer maps fail to make an appearance in newer playlists. This trend has been noticed by many players of the community and to read those thoughts you can click here.

Old maps are available in separate playlists

#3 - The Seasons of Weapons
This trend in Destiny is mainly referring to the Crucible. When Destiny first launched, Auto Rifles were the undisputed number one choice for weapons, due to their range and accuracy that matched the precision weapons of scout/pulse rifles. Auto rifles were quickly nerfed into the ground in accuracy, range, and base damage. Around this same time, the Thorn and other handcannons received small buffs, and became the new powerhouse of the Crucible. However, handcannons reign was different from that of the auto rifles. Auto rifles across the entire weapon type were superior, but handcannons it was only the exotics that were extremely overpowered. After almost 9 long months of these weapons being at the top, Update 2.0 nerfed the whole handcannon class, and pulse rifles rose into power. Certain pulse rifles were already making their way into Crucible before the demise of the handcannons and when they were nerfed, it just opened the floodgates. Pulse rifles may be the strongest out of the three weapon types to hold their grip over the crucible in their primes. Like auto rifles, almost any pulse rifle can be used, they have superior range and a significant amount of flinch or stagger on opponents due to the burst nature of pulses. The reign of auto rifles lasted for around 3 months, handcannons close to 9 months, it will be curious to see how long pulse rifles will be left in the limelight.

#2 - The Double RNG Issue
The double RNG issue is a change introduced in The Taken King's raid King's Fall. Not only do players only have a chance at acquiring the best gear in the game, but the stats of that gear is also randomly picked from a range of values. Now with the reworking of leveling in Taken King, the small difference in the range of values is not really noticeable when playing, but dedicated players have already begun to feel the frustration and recognize the long grind ahead of them if they want to reach the max obtainable level. The other end-game activity, Trials of Osiris, also includes this range of values for its drops, but these drops are only given for going flawless on a ticket (going 9-0 or going 7-1 with the boons purchased) in brutal crucible matches against other top tier players. In this week Bungie Weekly Update, the statistic was published that only 16% of players who participated in Trials were able to make it to the Lighthouse. This small percentage is a fine number in my opinion as Trials is supposed to put the best against the best, but it also shows how many number players will be reliant on the double RNG of the raid for the best gear in the game.

The Lighthouse chest on Mercury

#1 The Economy in Destiny
Simply put, the economy in Destiny is a mess. With each expansion new currency is introduced into the game in an effort to help delay players in reaching max level or completing all the content too quickly, and once another expansion is released all that currency becomes useless. Some currency has been used since the games inception, but what it can be used for has changed dramatically. The two best examples of this are Motes of Light and Weapon Parts. In vanilla destiny up to the House of Wolves expansion Motes were not a piece of sought after currency. They could be spent on special class items from the Speaker in the Tower, or used to buy exotic engrams from Xur. In House of Wolves they were introduced as the currency to upgrade armor and weapons. In The Taken King, they are no longer used at Xur, but can now be traded in at Factions for reputation, are used in infusing weapons and armor to higher levels, and can be consumed to add experience to weapons and armor. Weapon Parts are, like their name, used in upgrading of weapons. In vanilla destiny dedicated players had stacks of a couple thousand of this currency. In House of Wolves those stacks took a hit as Bungie introduced reforging for weapons, and although they removed reforging in Taken King, Weapon Parts are used in purchasing items at the Gunsmith, infusing weapons, ranking up weapons and have had their drop rate reduced leaving those stacks of thousand a thing of the past. A recent reddit thread was created discussing the issues with the economy as a whole and particularly for new players who never had the chance to build of vast quantities of certain materials.

A view of several currencies of Destiny

Swords in Destiny: Is there a place for them?

Before The Taken King expansion, rockets, particularly the Gjallarhorn, was the indisputable choice for a heavy weapon. However, the Gjallarhorn like many other exotic weapons, was not brought forward into Year 2 of Destiny in an attempt to add more diversity into players choices for weapons and to have them give new weapons a try. Among those new weapons, was the new heavy weapon class swords, which contains three legendary swords, one for each element, and three exotic swords also of each element but with their own special attack. Many people have taken a liking to using a sword, myself included, but it is a weapon class that is lacking in end game content.

The Attacks of a Sword
Swords come with the risk of getting up close to do massive damage to the enemy. This of course puts you in an extremely vulnerable spot where you can be gunned down. Legendary swords have a guard mechanic which slowly drains your ammo charge from your sword to gain some damage resistance and help you reach those kills. Exotic swords, who also have the guard mechanic, also have a special attack to make up for this weakness. For two of the swords, solar and void elements, the attacks are capable of one-shotting many higher health enemies. The exotic arc sword is different from the others, its special attack is ranged and involves throwing arc bolts across rooms at your enemies. The attacks from the arc sword are just as powerful as those from the solar and void swords, provided that your aim is accurate.

Swords in End Game Content
This is the shortcoming of swords and I doubt there is a scenario where this will change. They have no place in end-game content. For Iron Banner & Trials of Osiris, which are PvP end-game content, they are obviously at a clear disadvantage to rockets and machine guns. In end-game PvE content, i.e. the raids or high-level strikes, using a sword works well when clearing the weak enemies. Bosses in strikes, with the exception of Dust Palace, all have a ground-attack which will automatically be used when a guardian is within a certain radius of them. These attacks are extremely powerful and will take more than half your health requiring you to immediately retreat and look for cover if you are hit by one. In raids, it is often times that the mechanics of the boss fight simply do not allow for you to realistically use swords. The exotic arc sword is the only one that can be used in several fights, because of its ranged special attack, but the projectiles are relatively slow, and the rate at which you use ammo when using the special attacks, makes it un-ideal for multiple rounds of damage to bosses.

Possible Sword Changes
Unfortunately for swords, I cannot see any changes that will change their major shortcoming. Sword mechanics in Destiny had been around since the base game released over a year ago through the Sword of Crota mission, and also in the Crota's End raid that was released with The Dark Below. It would be rather diffcult for them to change the way swords work in Destiny so sword enthusiasts will have to wait until Destiny 2 to see any drastic changes. The only change they can make for legendary swords is have a new set of three that either vary in attack speed/damage from the original three or come up with new special attacks for a few new exotic swords.  These changes will not address the underlying problem with swords, as those problems stem from the game's mechanics, but could bring a nice change of pace for sword users.