The "Faction Rally 2.0" Thoughts + Salt (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Thursday, May 31, 2018, 22:33 (2149 days ago) @ CyberKN

Destiny Update 1.2.1 brought improvements to Faction Rallies for Season 3. Back in March, the Seasons team discussed their overall goals for the event. Today, we’ll revisit those goals and outline the changes that have been made to achieve them.

Those goals being...

Seasons Team: We have been reviewing player feedback on Faction Rallies and are planning to make some fundamental changes to the event. Here are a few of the overall goals we are trying to achieve:

• Pledging to a faction should be a meaningful choice.
  
• Rewards should not be time-gated.
  
• Faction Rallies should provide a unique gameplay experience and not simply be a reward layer on top of the existing game.
  
• The event should grant additional insight into faction lore and goals.
  
• It should build upon player interest in Lost Sectors and armor ornament objectives.

Keep this list in mind, and I now return you to this weeks THAB quotes with my thoughts in Bold Green.

Pledging to a faction should be a meaningful choice.

• Players may now only pledge to one faction per account during a Faction Rallies event
  No more juggling factions per event. Gives whatever choice you make have more weight.
  
• Reputation progress is retained through multiple events, and it will not be reset during the season, even if a player changes allegiance
  
• Each faction offers unique rewards, such as Exotic armor ornaments or Masterwork Catalysts for Exotic weapons
  Destiny is a loot based franchise, so this honestly is to be expected, but it also makes point number 4 irrelevant. "The event should grant additional insight into faction lore and goals." Why are people joining, for lore or loot? Apparently Guardians are some the worst sort of false friends. I'll come back to this point at the end.
  
• We are planning to host three Faction Rallies events over the course of Season 3
  .... O_o planning to host... only three? Uh oh. With this set up, I don't like where those words may possibly lead game play wise.
  
• 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
  Translation: We hate Future War Cult too, but it's ok because they already knew that.

Alright... so the next one looks to beeee... "Rewards should not be time-gated."

Seasonal Vendor Progression
Shit.

• Each faction now features ranks, which players can reach by earning faction tokens
  
• Faction rank-up rewards will continue to grant Legendary armor and weapons past Rank 30
  Past rank 30? Has... has that been an issue?

Faction Rallies should provide a unique gameplay experience and not simply be a reward layer on top of the existing game. Additionally, these events should build interest in Lost Sectors and armor ornament objectives.
In other words, they bundled the next two points into this one.

• Faction Rallies now features the “Renown” system
  
  • After pledging to a faction, players may earn Renown by completing a public event or patrol, or by defeating high-value targets on destinations
    
  • Players who loot a Lost Sector with Renown active will receive significantly more faction tokens than usual—the more stacks of Renown they have, the more faction tokens they earn
    
  • Renown is lost when players are defeated by enemies, so be careful when you're attempting to loot a Lost Sector with high Renown!
  
  
• Renown increases the level of challenge in gameplay
  • Health regeneration is vastly reduced (all stack levels)
    • Enemy kills have a chance to drop health orbs (all stack levels)
• Player damage decreased (scales with stack, up to 5)
  
• Incoming damage increased (scales with stack, up to 5)
  So... in other words, they put nightfall into Lost Sectors? Am I understanding that right? If so... UGH! Not only is that not a unique game play experience, that is... just unfortunate. Destiny 2 already has plenty of spaces to play in with bullet sponges. It's obvious that the environment artists really took care in creating some of these game play spaces (per the usual), and it's sad these spaces are just being relegated to more of the same shit. UGH! My goodness! These spaces beg to be a Raid Light. A one or two phase halfway point, but no... just... Lost Sectors deserve better.
  
  While Renown is active on a player, others around them can see which faction the player has pledged to:
  
  Here. Let me embed to you what I think about this...

... Life will go on, but for as long as I have that tramp stamp floating on my 3rd person, I'm going to be screaming internally.

...And that's it. That is updated faction rally. It's different, but the same, A.K.A Destiny 2. Anyone here notice what's missing? Hint hint...

• The event should grant additional insight into faction lore and goals.

I miss when Bungie cared about proper storytelling in games. Admittedly and as implied people are primarily joining for loot, but what choice do we have? THERE IS NO LORE unless you care enough to dig beyond the surface description, and frankly there are other games that care more that make it less difficult to find lore. To find story. Shoot! Freeking Overwatch does a better job with lore! Well... once again Activision/Bungie you've shown how much of a fool I apparently must be.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯