Today, we fix Iron Banner. (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Monday, October 16, 2017, 08:16 (2396 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Rewards - This is where it really hurt. I really wanted some samurai armor! I turned in 10 packages and got a helmet and a cloak. The rest was duplicate weapons. Lame. It totally makes sense to have a challenge for 10 levels...and also offer 10 rewards. 1 per level. Why is this not the case! To me there is a difference between farming and grinding. Farming is fun, I'm playing and working the fields knowing that come harvest there will be great reward. Grinding is playing despite fun for the sole purpose of end reward. After rank 4, Iron Banner was a grind. It wasn't particularly fun. And since I had a better winning record going in solo vs with friends...it was lonely. Then after completing the 10 rank challenge, the prize was an emblem. whoopty doo.

Yeah, they sort of took D1 Iron Banner and inverted what worked/didn't work about it IMO. I loved the fact that the challenges were based on individual performance, rather than wins/losses. I also loved that you earned tokens after every game... giving more tokens to the winning team seams like a totally fair way to incentivize winning without making those who have fallen out of favor with the matchmaking gods feel stuck.
But, I did miss being able to work towards specific pieces of gear. I was hoping that after reaching Rank 10, Saladin would have a small selection of gear available to purchase.

Yeah, that's one thing that really bugs me about D2. They clearly iterated on the D1 thing where reaching certain milestones gave you the choice of three specific rewards/reward types. It happens several times in the campaign (it even caps off the campaign portion of the game... And yet, it's completely missing in every single other aspect of the game (except for the Lighthouse, but most don't get there).

The Token system should definitely supplement the loot drops and milestone rewards, not supplant them, and Bungie had already learned this lesson, otherwise Sloane, Asher, and Zavala wouldn't give you a choice to go along with the Tokens that you earn with them.

Season 1 - Is this the only Iron Banner in Season 1? Will I get another chance to earn Samurai armor? How long is a season?

Power Levels - Why no power levels all of sudden? Could this be related to the PC release?

If I had to guess, I'd say Bungie perhaps felt that making power levels apply to PvP didn't actually add anything interesting or fun to the game.

No, I think this is just a thing for the first Iron Banner. If I had to guess, the majority of players probably hadn't hit a high enough power level for Bungie to feel comfortable with hitting them with this twist (sure, you could point to Trials as proof against this, but I think IB is being treated as more of a special event to whet the appetite for the general, more casual crowd who wants more events and updates).

Great point. I actually had way more fun with Iron Banner this week than I ever had with IB in Destiny 1, but on the flip side, I think Trials has been quite thoroughly ruined. 4v4 Control just seems to be a nice fit for the IB event, IMO. But I do feel the lack of 3v3 game modes is a big omission. I always felt that 6v6 was way too chaotic and sloppy in D1, but I'd be interested to see how it plays in D2 now that ability cooldowns are more substantial and the overall time to kill is slightly longer.

I love that the Iron Banner weapons (timed well with Xur selling Vigilance wing) have hit all of the MIDA-using babies hard. I hardly saw it being used, and when I did, the beautiful pepper-grinder sound of the Vigilance Wing perfectly lead into the cries of people who saw their crutch finally failing them... It's been a great week (I don't even mind all of the Uriel's Gifts running around).
And yeah, I think Bungie's random push for 4v4 has hurt Trials almost as much as the decision to bring back (a re-buffed) MIDA did, and agree that the lack of distinct gametypes for the events really kills a lot about what made them special...