Paul TassiSenior ContributorOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
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May src7, 2023,08:src4am EDT|
Destiny 2
Bungie
Destiny 2 is about to launch Season of the Deep a week from today, and I am really struggling to comprehend how I’m going to balance that with an ongoing src00 hour Tears of the Kingdom playthrough and my review copy of Diablo 4, with live launch two weeks from now.
Well, turns out it may not be as hard as I imagine, because when you add it all up, it’s become very, very clear that Bungie has heard players tired of the seasonal grind and have….greatly lessened the seasonal grind. While we don’t know the activity specifics of Season of the Deep, we do know a lot of new and returning concepts that should make the season the least grindy in…years? It sure sounds like it.
No Seasonal Vendor Grind – I will admit this entire post was sparked by something I saw Destiny Bulletin reiterate this morning, going all the way back to Joe Blackburn’s State of the Game post. In it, he says that Season of the Deep and Season 22 after that will not have a seasonal vendor grind, so no timelocked little boxes to unlock to make playing content more rewarding. The “boxes” have been a consistent point raised when players say every season feels the same. Blackburn said that seasonal vendors may return, but they’re taking a break from them for now. Though honestly, Season of Defiances vendor upgrades were so breezy, it was like they barely existed at all.
Destiny 2
Bungie
No Power Cap Increase – This one has been made plain plenty of times before launch here, the soft and hard pinnacle power caps are not being raised this season. You will remain at whatever base power you’re at now, and if you’re at the pinnacle cap, there is effectively zero gear power grinding you will need to do. The only caveat here is that artifact power will be reset, so you’ll need to get those src0-20 levels back through XP alone, but no gear grind is great news, and I believe this is happening because a larger power system rework is coming in the next few seasons.
Crafting Grind Solutions – This is a mix of things that already happened, and something that’s about to happen. Bungie has definitely reduced the seasonal crafting grind by a lot the past few seasons. In Defiance, they positively dumped seasonal engrams on you, which meant the core weapons were extremely easy to get crafted very quickly (except for those damn swords). But for harder to get weapons, Bungie is now introducing a Deepsight activation, where six times a season, you can just make a weapon a red frame pattern with a new currency, filling in those final gaps.
So uh, what is there to grind, exactly? It’s not nothing, it’s just mostly going to be the higher end stuff. We will get new Dungeon weapons, and those have generally not been craftable, so you’ll have to go for god rolls manually. Same for Nightfall weapons and Trials weapons. And logic dictates we may see another raid get updated perk pools and craftable weapons, and getting all those can be a fairly intense, long-term grind (though even DSC weapons had their red frame chances upped eventually).
I don’t know how this will feel. A lot of this is stuff we’ve been asking for, but if we blow through all the content or there’s no real reason to play other than a story beat a week, people will complain about that too. But for me, this is the perfect time for a lighter season between Zelda and Diablo, so I’m admittedly a bit thankful for that.
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I’ve been writing about video games, television and movies for Forbes for over src0 years, and you may have seen my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I cover all manner of console and PC games, but if it’s about looting or shooting, I’m definitely there. If I’m watching something, it’s usually science fiction, horror or superheroic. I’m also a regular on IGN’s Fireteam Chat podcast and have published five sci-fi novels.
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