Everyone Is Mad ‘Destiny 2’ Cancelled Craftable Seasonal Weapons

I am now absorbing a ton of criticism based on Bungie’s decision to not allow this episode of Destiny 2’s slate of seasonal weapons to be craftable. Bring it on.

I have long been a proponent of crafting hurting the loot chase in Destiny 2, and no matter what, you are not going to convince me that trying to find five red borders (or just logging in every week to get free ones) is more fun than actually landing a roll you want. It’s dull and has flattened the loot chase to be almost non-existent for those activities.

But I am willing to admit that what Bungie has done this season is not good enough on the other side of things.

My case has always been that there are many, many different things that you can do in order to reduce RNG, without needing to rely on crafting for an entire slate of weapons. This episode is essentially doing none of those, so RNG is back to feeling terrible again. What’s going on?

Not enough drops – I use Onslaught as the gold standard for how non-crafting loot chases should feel. That dumped a ton of focusable weapons on us during runs, in addition to currency we could then dump into a chest for even more drops. There are simply not enough overall drops of these episodic weapons.

Potions are bad – The potion focusing system is bad. It’s more convoluted than previous Onslaught focusing as you constantly have to keep reapplying them as their timers expire. It’s busywork for its own sake, and I’d be amazed if even a quarter of players are having them running at all times. So that system too means less drops by default. I’m not even sure this focusing works across all activities as you can pop one and run a 50 wave onslaught getting exactly one copy of the weapon you’re supposedly hunting.

MORE FOR YOU
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Hints And Answers For Thursday, November 14
Gaetz Resigns From House Before Ethics Report Can Be Released
Elon Musk Issues Surprise Crypto Endorsement Amid $3 Trillion Bitcoin And Dogecoin Price Boom

More double, triple perks – A huge part of my no-crafting argument relies on ways to upgrade your drops with double or even triple perks for better chances at the rolls you want. You can earn those upgrades in time, but all we have right now is the occasional “shiny” (though not visually shiny) drop where you get a masterworked gun with double perks. I think I’ve gotten exactly two of these all episode. There need to be pathways to get more of these like we see with the ritual playlists.

Time for a more general change – I know that people want to actively hunt “5/5” god rolls, and at this point, I think Bungie needs to acquiesce by adding one more barrel option and one more magazine option on every drop. That’s something we’ve almost never seen in the past outside of rare occasions, but if you are going to have a slate of non-crafted weapons, in any activity, I think that’s one thing that should now be standard at this point.

My opinion is that when a lack of crafting feels bad, it’s because the loot chase is not being done correctly. That crops up in situations like this potion-filled season, or especially something like dungeons where RNG is outrageously awful with crowded encounter loot pools, minimal drops and no multiple perk options. Horrible.

But crafting? You’ll never convince me, I’m sorry. Though I fully expect Bungie to go back to crafting next season, given this outcry. You win.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.