Destiny's Iron Banner, Queen's Wrath Events Will Get Huge Changes

Destiny's special Iron Banner Event will be very different when it returns. Bungie said that they're implementing some important changes thanks to players' opinions on Iron Banner's first run earlier this month.

Iron Banner is a playlist for Crucible in which players' stats actually matter. A player's ability to deal or withstand damage will depend on how good their equipment is. However, some players were disappointed with how little their gear seemed to affect their performance in Iron Banner. That's going to change.

"The goal for Level Advantages in PVP had been to create relatively small advantages that would suffice only to tilt the balance between players of equal skill towards the player of greater achievement, expressed in terms of his gear," Bungie designer Tyson Green said in the Weekly Update. "But we now believe we have been too conservative, and that small tilts failed to meet anyone’s expectations."

"In the next Iron Banner, we will debut a much more dramatic difference between players of wide variation in Level. We will detail the changes in an article of its own to come as soon as we settle on some of the numbers."

During the next Iron Banner, your Fireteam leader will have to be level 20 to enter. Lower-level players will still be able to play it if they're grouped with a level 20+ player. However, they'll be at a serious disadvantage in these matches.

Another big issue with Iron Banner was that players would leave matches early. Iron Lords reputation was only given to the team who won so the losing side felt no reason to stick around until the bitter end. Bungie's solution to this problem is give a Medallion of Iron to every losing player that stays until the end of their match. When they finally win a match, every Medallion of Iron they've collected will be cashed in for reputation with Iron Lords. This gain will be "almost equal" to what they would've earned for winning.

Bungie wants Destiny players to feel that all of the Bounties during Iron Banner are worth pursuing as well. As a result, they're revising a few.

"Some of the Bounties required too much, and were mutually exclusive in a way that made this worse. In the next Iron Banner, several of these Bounties have been tuned down quite a bit, and overall the value of Bounties has been bumped up. Also, they have been moved onto Lord Saladin, who was getting a little lonely back there with only his gong and dinosaur drawings."

Earning Reputation and reaching new Ranks will be easier in the revised Iron Banner. Lord Saladin will give Destiny players a 12-hour buff called Tempered that speeds up this progression. This buff will increase in power later in the event.

Bungie won't reset Iron Banner reputation when the event returns. However, they're going to increase the available ranks from 3 to 5 so veterans still have something to strive for. Ranks will eventually be reset with each new incarnation of Iron Banner but not until the developers are happy with the rate of progress.

One of the incentives for participating in Iron Banner is the exclusive loot. The armor currently isn't good enough to be useful to advanced players, though. Bungie plans to bump up the Iron Banner pieces to level 30 so they'll be comparable to Exotic or Raid gear. They're happy with the power level of Iron Banner weapons but will be adding two more types so that players have more choices.

Destiny will also receive a new loot customization feature called Reforging. Lord Saladin will allow players to Reforge their Iron Banner weapons, which re-rolls their random upgrades. This may result in a weapon with better potential, but you'll have to pay some Motes of Light to do this. Furthermore, your current progress with the weapon will be reset.

It may take awhile to see these changes. Bungie says that they're working to bring it back "before the end of the year." However, they're not completely sure whether they'll hit that deadline yet.

If you're hoping for the PvE-oriented Queen's Wrath event to return, you may be in for an even longer wait. Green says that Queen's Wrath will be "will be going back into the oven for a while." No word yet on what changes that event will undergo before it's brought back into the rotation.

Pete Haas

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.