Bungie addresses Destiny 2’s biggest problem but it’s not what anyone wants to hear

Joe Pring

  ❘   Published: 2024-12-14T14:24:55

Bungie addressed feedback regarding Destiny 2’s removal of weapon crafting for seasonal weapons in Episode Revenant and the studio’s comments did little to assuage frustrations.

Introduced with 2022’s The Witch Queen expansion, weapon crafting allows Guardians to bypass the unreliable nature of farming weapons with randomly-rolled perks, offering a deterministic alternative once a weapon Pattern has been unlocked.

Until Episode Revenant, where the ability to craft all associated weapons was removed, players were able to unlock Patterns for all seasonal weapons, eliminating the reliance on RNG entirely.

Changing the rules

Explaining the reasoning for its decision before Revenant’s launch, Bungie expressed its desire to have crafting “support the weapon chase, and not replace it,” repurposing its role into a “catch-up mechanism for rolls you weren’t able to nab from the original sources.”

With Revenant not due to end until February 2025, where it’ll be replaced with Heretic, it’s still not clear how Bungie intends to have crafting serve as a “catch-up” feature, but the general expectation for now is that Revenant’s weapons will be made craftable only after the Episode concludes.

Either way, the change in direction was immediately met with frustration and only compounded further when Tonics – craftable drop rate boosters introduced in Revenant – failed, by Bungie’s admittance, to prove themselves an adequate replacement.

“Revenant Tonics were meant to provide loot agency in-lieu of crafting and give you a fresh way to chase gear,” Destiny 2 assistant game director Robbie Stevens stated in the studio’s end-of-year update.

“We know we missed the mark with the Tonic timers and not guaranteeing a weapon from the active Tonic,” he continued before outlining improvements intended to address criticisms coming in a December 17 patch.

Random isn’t fun

Taking away an option wholesale or proposing alternative terms, especially for something viewed favorably by the majority, is never an easy sell.

Disquiet among the community regarding Bungie’s decision had already been loud and clear before Stevens’ statement, but his insistence that “Weapon crafting removed the joy of earning a random weapon, that feeling that any drop could matter,” has only further incited players to accuse the studio of ignoring prevailing community sentiment.

Particularly on Destiny 2’s millions-strong subreddit, reaction to the statement was overwhelmingly negative.

“Such a tone-deaf statement given how much feedback they’ve gotten on crafting being shoved in a closet,” came one reply, adding “It’s never been fun to grind an activity to the point of resenting it, but having made no progress towards earning what you wanted.

Similar opinions were echoed throughout the thread. “My eyes glazed over while reading this, it just feels so out of touch. Doubling down on a weapon chase is just baffling.”

“Their inability to ever read the room is stunning,” came another, followed by “Bungie, the joy for normal players comes from using their weapons, not gambling on whether the next one will matter.”

While Stevens’ comments suggest Bungie has no plans to roll back its new vision for crafting, fierce criticism from the player base has resulted in the former relenting in the past, most notably with the complete scrapping of sunsetting.

There’s no guarantee a similar course correction will happen here, of course, and there’s still a chance the proposed improvements to Tonics coming before the end of 2024 will be the sought-after remedy they were intended to be.

We’ll have all the patch notes as and when they drop on December 17 but in the meantime, check out our guide breaking down all the best craftable weapons available in Destiny 2.