The Destiny 2 Apology Tour Continues

Bungie seems to be caught in a vicious cycle these days, addressing missteps made in Destiny 2 only to have those measures create fresh problems along the way. Most recently the developer has addressed both Faction Rallies and weapons granted as season two rewards, both of which have upset players all over again.

We'll take a stroll down memory lane for Destiny 2's issues in just a moment but, for now, it's time to dive into what is becoming a regular occurrence for the game: The weekly kerfuffle. Over on the Destiny 2 blog, Bungie has spoken up concerning player feedback as it pertains to the ongoing Faction Rallies and weapon rewards.

For starters, it was discovered recently that Faction token rewards have been altered since the previous events. For those unfamiliar with the game, Faction Rallies are timed events wherein players align themselves with one of three in-game factions. Completing in-game objectives will reward you with Tokens which can both be spent on Engrams to earn loot while simultaneously earning favor for your faction of choice.

In previous iterations of Faction Rallies, players had figured out a way to game the system using areas known as Lost Sectors. By blazing through those areas, claiming loot and then fast-traveling to the next Lost Sector, players had figured out a way to earn literally hundreds of tokens in about an hour. The way Bungie saw it, that was a bit on the unfair side. To remedy this, they made it so that players who loot more than two Sectors in 10 minutes will stop receiving Tokens. The problem is that they never bothered to tell anyone about the change. Instead, players noticed they were no longer receiving rewards and let Bungie know about their frustration in ways only the internet is capable of.

Bungie has now apologized.

Next up are the weapons received from Faction Engrams. Once the second season kicked off, players noticed that they weren't receiving new weaponry all that regularly. It turns out that this was intentional, as those weapons are designed to roll out gradually over the course of the season. Once again, this was not explained from the onset, leaving players confused and angry. Bungie's own admission on this count is "this was on us, no excuses."

Bungie has now apologized.

Which is, of course, the whole problem here. Since the launch of Destiny 2, players have discovered several in-game issues that were either perceived as underhanded design choices (fudging experience gains, for instance), poorly communicated, or both. These scenarios have played out the same way: Players figure out something is up and call out Bungie, Bungie makes legitimate changes to fix the problem and apologizes, promising they'll communicate these things better in the future. Then they make another boneheaded move and the process repeats.

When I say they've made legitimate changes, I mean it. They are clearly listening to fans on many counts and making appropriate adjustments along the way to improve the game. The issue is that, after each apology for dropping the ball, they pick a completely different area of the game to make the exact same mistakes in, don't communicate to the community what has changed, then apologize when everyone gets upset.

Here's one piece of advice I can offer Bungie: If you are going to change something that affects the game in any significant way, let folks know before it actually gets introduced into the game. Do that, and 90 percent of the flak you're receiving will disappear.