Everyone agrees, ‘Destiny 2’ must go down at sunset

Yesterday we had our first Destiny 2 TWAB from Bungie of the new year, and a major focus of it was the return of a number of weapons from non-vaulted destinations in the game, Dreaming City and the Moon.

But these are not all weapons. It’s just four of each place, with new benefits, and apparently being rewarded as a dungeon as motivation to re-run the old content. And no, you can not inflict the god scrolls you have already saved from those eight weapons. You have to earn everything again.

Although there has been grumbling about the downfall for some time, it felt like it was a turning point. Virtually everyone from ordinary players to community leaders banded together to express their annoyance at the ongoing sunset and reissue of weapons.

Here is Gladd:

In Gothalion:

And Mtashed, who was already on the fence with PvP neglect, but the reissue caused him to stop altogether:

And then there’s me, where I turned my back strongly on sunset after thinking it would work initially, which yes, I will admit, before anyone linked me to my old “Luke Smith is right” article. I maintain that sunset could have been beneficial to the game if handled correctly, old loot cycle, new loot cycles in to replace it equally. But that is not what happened, and its implementation was everywhere on the map.

What Destiny 2 does with re-release in particular simply does not work from the perspective of an outside-based game like this. This is one thing if you bring back old weapons from Destiny 1 that have never appeared or been used in Destiny 2 or its modified sandbox. And even that is somewhat debatable. But it’s a whole different level if you manually take away people’s weapons by going out at sunset and then releasing them again from six months to two years later and telling them to sharpen them again for identical benefits or slightly different. (which is not even guaranteed) better than the original).

But it’s not just the reissue of old weapons, it’s if you’ve saved it exactly old weapons in your safe, hoping for their return, it does not matter. You cannot apply your old weapons with the current power cap, even if it has been reissued. And even if you were to make it possible, it would create a separate problem, as players would be effectively forced to rescue every sunset weapon they would like to save in a jammed full safe, “just in case” it was reissued.

It does not really matter whether the reissued weapons may be strong or good in the current meta. Something has broken on a psychological level with the reward loop here through sunset and reissue. I don’t think it would feel good to run old dungeons or Blind Well or Altars of Sorrow again to earn weapons that were issued slightly differently that were perfectly usable until last November when they were all sunset. And after that it just does not feel good to get any piece of loot in Destiny 2 now, knowing it has an expiration date as soon as you get it. Gone are the days when 10-100 hours of farming for a single religion felt worthwhile.

Doom feels like burning down the house to kill cockroaches in the kitchen. It’s easy to see how weapons like Revoker, Recluse and Mountaintop could have been separate to avoid an outdated meta in PvP and PvE, and yet they took tens, hundreds of other weapons with them. When I look at the next weapon, all in Season of Dawn, I just have to ask why? Why is this happening? Why are any of these weapons a problem? The answer is that it is not so, and Bungie simply wants us to chase new things, and then, perhaps, they will issue them again later so we can recharge again.

So yes, it’s time for sunset. It does not work for anyone, not even for Bungie, because the excitement for new weapons is overshadowed by what players are constantly losing and the fact that every drop now expires. I would be surprised if we hit The Witch Queen and the sunset was still at this pace, but it’s still a long way off, and it’s going to take a few seasons as more equipment drives out and more old equipment will start to get back. It must end.

update: A few extra video thoughts on why I think going under is going so wrong and why I changed my mind:

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