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Everything Wrong with Iron Banner and How to fix it
Iron Banner, it used to be the monthly event that I am always looking forward to. Over the years the Iron Banner armor set and weapons always have been astonishing, and to date are still one of my favorite armor sets in the whole game.
The guns were not always great but there were always some gems, from the famous efrideet's spear and felwinter's lie in year 1 to finnala's peril in year 2 and The Clever Dragon and Silvered Dread in Year 3.
But in Destiny 2 a lot has changed, crucible in general saw some significant changes, and the whole reward system of Iron Banner has been reworked.
As a result the Iron Banner event is not as rewarding and fun as it is used to be.
In order get the full picture of why there is so much fuss about Iron Banner we will need to go back to Iron Banner in Destiny 1. And I will break it down in 3 sections, before we address the problem and find a fix for it.
Competitiveness
The Lore of Iron Banner was that this event was created to truly test out who the best guardians are in the crucible. And in order to be the best and get to the top, you will need to attain the highest power level as possible. Because power level was enabled during the iron banner event, which means that the higher power level you are the more damage you will do to others that were at a lower level. So power level matters and as a result your rewards matters because those were dropped at a higher power level , and as a result Iron Banner was always a good way to level up your character even if you are a low level player as long as you play the event you will eventually get powerful gear dropped which can level you up.
And with Destiny 2, the whole lore of Iron Banner is thrown away, there is no competitive element in this event anymore because Power level does not matter, and the gear that you get dropped are at your power level so you are not even increasing your power level at all. Your weekly luminous engrams from your weekly activities and exotics are still the best way to level up.
And also the great thing about Iron Banner back in Destiny 1 was that if you are a great player you can carry the team from a loss and ultimately win the game. And when that happens it feels great, you really feel like an Iron Lord when you manage to turn a loss into a win
But with teams being so dominant in the crucible it is really hard to do that in Destiny 2, where team shotting is very effective and as a solo player it is very frustrating to play against well coordinated teams, even if you are a great player it is almost impossible to carry a group to a win in Destiny 2.
Rewards
Rewards in Destiny 1 was simple , at every iron banner event there are 2 weapons and 2 armour pieces that you can buy or earn and on top of that you can earn additional stuff when you rank up to level 3 or 5.
And the grind was , I am not going to sugar coat it was pretty rough, it would take me around 6 hours of non-stop playing to reach max rank with Iron Banner in order to get the stuff I want for my character, and if you have 2 additional character like I do then in total it is a significant time investment to reach rank 5 on all of your characters even if you have the character buff. Well that is fine if you have a lot of time, but a lot of guardians out there have family and work responsibilities which might not allow them to play the game that often.
In Destiny 2 you are able to get all the weapons and armor as long as you have enough Iron Banner tokens to turn them in for gear. And that is the problem with Iron Banner in Destiny 2 the Loot pool is so big that it is very hard to get whatever you are grinding for , you are just left praying for RNG to give you what you want.
Lets say you want a specific gun or armor, well there are 8 weapons and 5 armor items in the game, so your chance on getting that specific gun or armor is 1 in 13 or 8%, but what if you are only interested in armor well your chances on that is 5 out of 13 that is 38% and your chance on getting a weapon is 62%, to make the calculations simple I have left out the emblems and shaders, but in the end the numbers should be very similar. Your chance on getting weapons is much higher than armor.
And that's it, there is no control on what you get, you will either get weapons, armor or emblems and shaders. It would be great if there is some way to get a higher chance on getting a specific weapon or armor, heck I would be even happy if I can just choose a random armor or weapon drop, but please not both. The loot pool is just so big that every Iron Banner reward which suppose to be the highlight turns into a disappointment because the chance on getting what you want is so low.
Life enhancements
Over the years of Iron Banner in Destiny, there has seen some great life enhancements made in the game, they removed the increased in xp by the end of the week, the weekly and daily bounties are much easier to complete then back in year 1.
And in Destiny 2 these weekly and daily bounties has been changed to daily milestones which can be easily completed within a couple of matches, and you can turn them in for extra Iron Banner Tokens. Also Iron Banner matches counts towards your Call to Arms Crucible milestone, essentially killing two birds with one stone.
So the way to get gear now is to collect Iron Banner tokens which you can get from your daily milestones or by completing a match, you will get 2 tokens for a loss and 5 tokens for a win. And you need 20 tokens to get a Iron Banner reward.
So all the fun of Iron Banner is gone, there is no point in being max power level as this does not matter, and the crucible experience as a solo player is very frustrating. Most of the time I will join half finished game where I am on the losing side, or I am playing against a team that are much better coordinated than a bunch of solo players and unlike in Destiny 1 it is almost impossible to carry a team to victory.
And the rewards were always the highlight of Destiny 1, because they were selling specific gear, you know what you are grinding for. And in destiny 2 you are just grinding for Iron Banner Tokens in order to have a small chance on getting that specific weapon or armor that you want. And that chance is small it is like i said 1 in 13 or 8%.
While the life enhancement of the daily milestones is great, because they are easy to complete. But again it is so hard to get what you want from Lord Saladin.
So how can we make the Iron Banner a better experience?
First of all lets bring back Purpose in the game, at the moment Iron Banner is just a normal quick play control match with an Iron Banner logo on it and instead of Crucible tokens you get Iron Banner tokens. Bring back the Power level in the game so it matters, and so that there is a purpose in the game which is to be as strong as possible which is having high power gear. In PVE you can get powerful gear from the Raid and in PvP you can get powerful gear from Trials, whereas both activities are team based let Iron Banner be the place where solo players can get powerful gear as well. Not everyone can manage to find time for all four players to meet up and dedicate a huge chunk of time in the week to complete a Raid or a Trials card.
Let Iron Banner be that place where you can get powerful gear as well.
And that comes to my second point the rewards are not satisfying, first of all the rewards do not drop significantly higher than your base power level, and secondly it is so hard to get that specific gun or armor. Lets fix that that by introducing a Weapon or Armor engram when you turn in the tokens at Lord Saladin, so you can focus on grinding for a particular weapon or armor and still have room for RNG in the game. This is not a new thing, back in Destiny 1 when you level up a faction you are also able to choose from a weapon, armor or shader package, so brings this back to Iron Banner. This will make the rewards feel so much more satisfying, because you can at least have some control over RNG and choose what you want whether that is a weapon or armor.
Also let the weapons and armor be part of an reward for completing a match. At the moment Iron Banner just feels like `regular Crucible, because the rewards are the same when you complete a match like a normal crucible match, you dont get any iron banner rewards at all . The only way to get Iron Banner loot is to hand in the tokens. Let the loot be part of the end game reward so people feel like you are playing iron banner and not regular crucible.
And lastly the tokens that you get for completing a match differ too much from a win and a loss.
A win grants you 5 tokens whereas a loss only 2 , I feel 2 tokens is really not enough bumping that up slightly to 3 is much more fair in my opinion. So that bad players are not totally left out of the loot.
So to sum it up, bring purpose back to Iron Banner:
- Make it so that Power level matters
- Have rewards that can increase your power level
- Introduce Weapon and Armor engrams
- Have Iron Banner loot drop as an end of match reward
- Increase the tokens for a loss from 2 to 3
I think these are very reasonable asks for Bungie to implement. If you agree with me please share this video so it reaches other players and Bungie. And lets hope for the best.
Thank you so much for watching this review, this is one of the rare videos where I criticize the game. But dont get me wrong, I love destiny and I just want it to be a better experience for everyone. And as a content creator I feel I need to share this criticism because this is how the community is feeling about it and they don't have a voice like we do as YouTubers. But I do so with concrete actionable feedback so that Bungie can address these problems and make it a better game for everyone.
So these are the concerns I have with Iron Banner and my proposed fixes, let me know your concerns and how you think iron banner should be fixed in the comments below.
Thanks for watching and sticking with me until the end of the video. A like is appreciated if you enjoyed this, subscribe for more and As always I will see you in the next video guardians.
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