I think it's another example of Bungie's flawed "fixes". (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Thursday, May 31, 2018, 20:06 (2156 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by Korny, Thursday, May 31, 2018, 20:45

Big changes, that I think are great.

Pledging to a faction should be a meaningful choice.

Yes, they should have an impact on players, and on the effect that it has from a social perspective, and from a lore/gameplay standpoint.
When people demanded this, they meant that it shouldn't just be focused on grinding for tokens.

So what is Bungie's solution? Limitation... and Tokens. All focused around our favorite activity: Grinding Lost Sectors (or rather, the single easiest and fastest Lost Sector).

• Players may now only pledge to one faction per account during a Faction Rallies event

This is terrible. I want Dead Orbit armor and ornaments for my Titan. I want New Monarchy shaders and weapons for my Warlock/Hunter. But now I'll have to lock into a single stream of rewards. What this means is that If I want to hit max rank with any faction, I'll more than likely have to forego any of the other two for the entire Season. And no matter which faction you want to support, the non-faction-related rewards are the only effective motivator now.

[*] Reputation progress is retained through multiple events, and it will not be reset during the season, even if a player changes allegiance

Which would be great if Faction Rally wasn't a once-a-month deal, which is made worse by the points above.

[*] Each faction offers unique rewards, such as Exotic armor ornaments or Masterwork Catalysts for Exotic weapons

Right, but these rewards have nothing to do with the factions themselves, and railroad you towards joining a faction you might not otherwise like. If there were faction-themed exclusive rewards, it would be a whole 'nother thing, but it's Stabbim's MIDA problem on a grander scale instead. I don't want to have to fully commit to Dead Orbit just because I want a Catalyst for my Lance. You know why other games can get a pass for a similar system? Because there is always a trade/market system where we can pay a premium to get things from factions that we aren't a part of. There are alternatives.

We are planning to host three Faction Rallies events over the course of Season 3

So you have one shot at loot from all three factions. That will just put more pressure on the grind, and people will have more incentive to finding the cheapest, fastest way to get the rewards. That doesn't lead to engaging interactions with the factions. That doesn't make them more interesting or "meaningful" in the sense that players have been asking for. It's not player-friendly.

• Dead Orbit will offer the Eye of Another World ornament and the Graviton Lance Catalyst
  
• New Monarchy will offer the Crest of Alpha Lupi ornament and the Sweet Business Catalyst
  
• Future War Cult will offer the Knucklehead Radar ornament and the Sunshot Catalyst

I'm glad that pledging a Faction will actually mean something now, rather than just running three characters through on different factions. Really going to be a tough choice between Dead Orbit and Future War Cult for me.

I'm calling it right now:

Dead Orbit wins the faction Rally, solely because of the Graviton Lance catalyst. It won't even be close.
New Monarchy ends up in second place. Some folks out there want the Sweet Business catalyst more than the Lance's. That's cool.
And Future War Cult will, as always, be dead last. If Benedict was a faction, he'd be above FWC.

GG Bungie, you "fixed" Faction rallies alright.

And a new Renown system, that acts a sort of modifier. Get Renown by killing High Value Targets or doing Public Events. It stacks (no mention of what the cap is). The higher the Renown, the more tokens you'll get in Lost Sectors. It also lowers damage resistance, increases enemy damage output, and lowers health regen. Renown is lost upon death. With Renown active, you can see what Faction other players have pledged.

Other than the stupid (IMO) armor effects (Can I please have an option to disable those, Bungie?), the Renown system is pretty great. That's good challenge design, though it sounds like building stacks can be a bit time consuming. Still, it's a good change that I'd love to see built upon moving forward.

But yeah. Factions should be more meaningful in the sense that we should be able to build our characters through interacting with them, and it should give us a better understanding of the faction's lore, characters, mission, and impact.

Saying "They're more meaningful, because you're locked into a single faction account-wide, content is locked to each one, and you can only interact with them on three specific weeks until our September DLC drops" is not what we've been asking for.