The Design of Rewards for Iron Banner - Gripes and Fixes (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, January 16, 2015, 12:12 (3401 days ago)

Let me start by saying that I like the Iron Banner. It's PvP that feels like the effort and time I've invested in my gear has been worthwhile. I love playing IB PvP!

What I don't like doing is boring ass glimmer farming. A PvP event should not require mindless, endless, PvE farming in order to enjoy the rewards of play. Let me buy the IB stuff with crucible marks, PLEASE. Even Commendations as an option. But 11,500 Glimmer?? That's horseshit. At 231 glimmer per game, that would take me... 50 goddamn games per reward item to earn through only PvP. And then if I later disenchant the item, I get... 40 glimmer? I should get back my 11,500 at the minimum, and much more if I've invested in the weapon.

You know what else is garbage? The actual rewards. I'm playing a PvP mode where - hands down - the best weapons and gear for it come from PvE raids. I'm all for raid loot being decent for PvP, but there's honestly no comparison. I would rather take Praedith's Revenge, at strength 300, into Iron Banner than literally any possible roll for Efreet's Spear. With absolutely *perfect* rolls, an iron banner weapon should out class every other possible PvP option for that weapon class. It's a reward to show you're the best of the best at PvP, and you invested countless strange coins (again, very hard to gather through pure PvP, though not as hard as goddamn glimmer) into getting a perfect reforge. That weapon should dominate.

Instead:
IB Auto-Rife: Basically worthless in PvP. Kicks like a mule, almost zero impact. Even with perfect balance, it climbs like crazy. Everyone knows a high impact, more stable weapon does better in PvP. Why would the Iron Lords ever make a gun this bad?

IB Fusion Rifle: With a perfect roll this is a good gun, but it suffers from limited clip size. Other fusion rifles are capable of maxing the charge time with higher range and stability. It's a good gun, but not a great one.

IB Sniper Rifle: With a perfect roll, this gun can be very, very good, but not as good as Praedith's Revenge. A level 32 PvP reward sniper rifle should outclass a level 30 raid weapon across the board for PvP use. Outside of the raid, I'd rather have a LDR from Vanguard rep than any of the "PvP" weapons.

IB Pistol: This is the only IB weapon worth a damn, but it still gets outclassed by The Last Word for time to kill in PvP. I'm okay with that, as TLW is an exotic. You'll need to re-roll for great stability and either faster reload or field scout or kills return rounds back to the magazine, but I think that's totally reasonable.

IB Scout Rifle: This was a great gun, but is not available during the current IB so only the strength 300 version is floating around for old timers like me who have it. And it has worse stats across the board than the old VoG one.

IB Rocket Launcher: If you reroll for 3 round tube and detonate early based on proximity, this could be okay, but it's definitely not better than Truth or Gjallerhorn for PvP.

IB Heavy Machinegun: Good MG if you get a good roll, but not as stable as The Swarm (even at strength 300), and not nearly as effective as Corrective Measure from VoG. Song of Ir'Urt is *disgustingly* good compared to this, and - again - that simply should not be the case.

As far as I know there are no other IB weapons that we've seen, but I'll mention shotguns anyway: Found Verdict from VoG is hands down the best shotgun for PvP in the game. It makes me sad, sad, sad.

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Then let's talk armor. If the best players in PvE can get full sets of level 32 gear, and level affects PvP, then the best PvP players should be able to get equally strong armor across the board. I'm never going to be wearing a full set of IB armor because (a) the armor bonuses are uniformly uninspired, boring, and worse than PvE raid armor AND (b) if you only offer 2 pieces every time, the odds are that many of my old pieces will be lower level than the new ones, so I won't be able to hit max level with them at all AND (c) you're not even offering both armor pieces at the current level max. Again, all the best PvP gear is actually earned in raids, and not in PvP, which is poor design.

I mean, I look at Lord Saladin and I know he's wearing light level 30 boots. It makes me sad.

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Now let's discuss how to fix these issues. First, make the IB weapons amazeballs for PvP. High impact, high stability, large magazines, fast reloads, clear sights, and quick target acquisition. Then, to nerf them for PvE, make them all do kinetic damage across the board. No more Solar, Void, or Arc weapons as PvP rewards from IB. Now then can be godly in PvP without being effective in PvE. It is totally okay to make the weapons require good rolls to be the best possible PvP options since reforging is a thing.

Second, let people who earned a weapon in an old IB use reforging to make the weapon the current level (ie: Strength 300 max would reforge to 331 max). Let people who did the work reap the rewards.

Third, give the IB weapons some sort of PvP oriented bonuses. Quick ideas that took me zero time to think of: Weapon of the Iron Lords: This weapon is much more stable when taking fire. Or Forged in Fire: This weapon does increased damage for a short time after you respawn. Or Vengeful: The last player who killed you remains visible after respawn until they die (that outline from the death screen persists through your next life, basically). You could even add "capture control points faster" or "Deals bonus damage while capturing a control point" or "reloads instantly when you capture or defend a control point". Etc..

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And the armor: Again, if you put PvP inspired bonuses on the armor, that would make it actually good instead of just filler until you get raid gear. Things like "jump higher" or "take reduced damage from headshots" or "move faster for a short time after capturing a control point" or "increased reload speed after capturing or defending a control point" or "heavy ammo is not lost on death" or "spawn more orbs when killing guardians" or "chance to spawn an orb whenever you kill a guardian" and of course one of the armor pieces must have "faster melee attack speed" for the love of god.

Also, make the full set of armor available all the time, and let us reforge armor to both increase light level and try for different mods on it.

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So how to pay for these things without spending craptons of glimmer? Easy. Iron Banner commendations. You get 1 commendation for every rank over 3 that you earn. IB now has unlimited ranks, just like all other factions. Totally fine that IB rep resets each time the event comes around. Ranks 1 through 3 unlock the emblem, shader, and class item. Rank 4 unlocks armor, Rank 5 unlocks weapons.

Reforging should cost crucible marks rather than motes of light, or cost crucible marks for armor and motes for weapons.

Everything should disenchant into light level appropriate shards or energy.

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TL;DR: I've solved Iron Banner.