Nearly each week brings one thing new to Future 2, whether or not it is story beats, new actions, or attention-grabbing new mixtures of parts that permit gamers devastate one another within the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly take a look at what is going on on on this planet of Future and a rundown of what is drawing our consideration throughout the photo voltaic system.
Solstice might be my least favourite of Future 2’s annual occasions. {The summertime} celebration initially kicked off alongside the Moments of Triumph, marking the top of a Future yr and serving to gamers commemorate all of the cool stuff they’d executed with a pleasant set of glowing armor to boot–but it tended to be a closely grindy occasion that lacked the enjoyable character of Halloween’s Competition of the Misplaced or The Dawning of the vacation season. Solstice additionally tends to be an intense grind, and if there’s one factor I am not a fan of within the Future video games, it is grinding content material time and again.
For 2022, Bungie made some important adjustments to Solstice, nevertheless. It altered the best way its particular occasion armor works, adjusted the particular EAZ location and the occasions that happen there, and launched a brand new “Occasion Card” system, each for ticking off targets and for incomes premium rewards as a part of the occasion. Solstice appears to be like very completely different in 2022, and now that it is over, we will check out the three-week summertime celebration to run down what labored, what did not, and what we would anticipate from extra annual occasions as Future 2 goes ahead.
The enhancements
General, my impression of this yr’s Solstice was that Bungie recognized some important issues that maintain the occasion again and addressed them to make it higher. The most important and most essential of them: Solstice armor.
Armor earned through the Solstice occasion is at all times particular. It has its personal distinctive design and might tackle “glows” that give it a novel, incandescent look. The factor about Solstice armor, nevertheless, is that it takes a variety of work to make. The complete celebration occasion is often about placing within the work to improve your Solstice armor from low-level, frequent gear to high-level Legendary stuff. More often than not, that grind is in regards to the glow on the end–although usually, it’s important to pay additional to realize the good appears to be like. This yr, nevertheless, Solstice armor was made so much higher by means of Bungie’s continued enhancements to gear-targeting techniques.
With the Candescent armor you would earn on this yr’s Solstice, finally, you would tune every gear piece with the precise stats you wished. The system allowed you to choose one stat with a “spark” that assured it to have at the least 20 factors invested in it–a fairly important quantity, since a single stat for legendary-type armor tops out at 30. Along with that, with the Ghost mod system that means that you can usually goal armor towards a selected stat, you would additional tune your Solstice armor in a unique route, with the Ghost mod guaranteeing 10 factors in a unique stat out of your spark. That meant you would get a assure of 20 Resilience, together with a assure of 10 Self-discipline, as an illustration, with randomness contributing the remainder of your gear’s numbers to a attainable complete of 68. With a number of Solstice armor dropping all through the occasion, that meant gamers had fairly good probabilities of making fairly shut to precisely the sort of armor they wished throughout Solstice.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the armor system this yr was a serious enchancment for Solstice. It made the entire occasion really feel very worthwhile by offering what’s principally one of the best gear-tuning alternative within the recreation. Even when you weren’t significantly eager on Solstice’s actions, it was price it to have interaction with the occasion for the cool armor. Worthwhile rewards are at all times an enormous plus in Future 2, and Solstice dished them out.
It did so equally by including a brand new weapon to the sport, the hand cannon One thing New, which carried a brand new particular trait referred to as Dream Work that rewards you for working carefully with teammates. The trait was bugged for a bit, making it very particular, however even with out that add-on, One thing New feels particular (as does Compass Rose, a shotgun that was reworked for this Solstice). Bungie is making superb use of the brand new Origin Trait system, particularly as seen right here: One thing New is a gun that comes from precisely one supply, with a novel factor that makes it really feel particular. It is one other good cause to leap into Solstice.
Bungie did away with the previous EAZ occasion, which had gamers chasing down hidden treasure chests after preventing waves of enemies, in favor of a brand new exercise referred to as Bonfire Bash. Usually, I used to be a fan; it isn’t particularly completely different from the previous EAZ, nonetheless requiring killing waves of enemies, however at the least it freshened issues up a bit and did not require operating across the map to search out these treasure chests on the finish. General, the EAZ nonetheless will get stale in a rush (extra on that in a bit), however Bonfire appears like a greater model of what we have performed within the house earlier than, on the very least.
Lastly, the Occasion Card system is a fairly first rate one. It places all of your targets for the occasion in a single place, and if you wish to spend a couple of bucks to improve it, it dishes out some premium beauty rewards as well–without adjusting how Solstice performs in principally any approach. The Occasion Card system is an efficient one for protecting issues organized, though it would be good to see some higher rewards, as I am unsure anybody actually cares about Ghost projections or transmat results, however possibly that is simply me. It is a minor addition, however a helpful one, in any case.
The drawbacks
Solstice noticed a variety of enhancements this yr, however its main downside remained: it is a grind, and never an particularly enjoyable one. As traditional, it takes so much of labor to enhance your Solstice armor to its absolute best ranges. Not solely did it’s important to play numerous aggressive matches and a complete lot of Bonfire Bash, however you needed to fiddle with a variety of public occasions and playlist actions. It wasn’t as grindy as in previous years, but it surely was nonetheless a important grind, when Future 2 has, in a common sense, moved away from prolonged necessities for making numbers go as much as usually extra significant engagement (though the infernal grind persists, for positive).
I will say that the work to get your armor as much as its greatest ranges wasn’t almost as annoying as in final years, which included necessities like raid or dungeon completions–which aren’t a excessive bar for some gamers, however which might be extraordinarily irritating for others. The worst of it this yr was most likely the 25 aggressive matches performed requirement for both Crucible or Gambit. It did not assist that boosted progress for alternate characters was damaged for many of the occasion. Nonetheless, although, 25 matches is so much to ask of anybody, interval. I might prefer to see Bungie discover methods of creating these necessities really feel extra significant, possibly by tying some gentle story parts to them so it feels such as you’re looking for out items of armor from across the Photo voltaic System, or doing one thing to pay homage to the triumphs Solstice is supposed to have a good time. Regardless, the armor grind is an annoying one, and as soon as I might completed on my Titan character, which took me about half the occasion to finish, I gave up for the remainder of Solstice and deserted my alts to their non-glowy fates.
Bonfire Bash, too, suffers the identical destiny as earlier EAZ occasions. It is advantageous for a bit, however not terribly difficult or attention-grabbing. After all, we now have to consider that annual occasions like these are designed for extensive engagement among the many participant base, and are due to this fact saved informal, and I feel the changes this yr made Bonfire Bash much less of an irritation than it had been in previous iterations. However you continue to find yourself taking part in it a ton, and it is principally the identical each time.
There’s potential within the EAZ as a space–it’s extra vertical than possibly anyplace else in Future 2, and navigating in three dimensions to finish the occasion is a cool concept. New environmental gadgets to launch you round are additionally actually helpful. However the occasion itself does not use the house in a approach that provides a lot to it. Largely, the tall buildings and distant floating islands are simply annoyances in your approach as you attempt to race to the subsequent factor to kill, so you’ll be able to end the occasion as shortly as attainable. That is additionally a perform of the grind, actually, as a result of everybody needs to knock out Bonfire Bash as quick as they will, since they’ve to finish so lots of them. It makes the occasion really feel like a chore, however even when you weren’t sprinting by means of it, as soon as you have executed 4 or 5 runs, they’re all just about the identical. And that makes it robust to remain engaged with Solstice for all the three weeks.
The decision
I am pro-Solstice 2022, at the least within the body of the opposite Solstice occasions. Usually, it was a serious enchancment. The problems that make Solstice one of many weaker annual occasions persist, nevertheless. Although Bungie added some actually nice premium beauty gadgets to the occasion this yr, of which I purchased a number of, it nonetheless appears like Solstice lacks character in comparison with the opposite occasions.
The worst factor, nevertheless, stays the grind. I am glad Solstice armor was improved to the purpose that it felt prefer it was price chasing, but it surely nonetheless required a excessive diploma of effort to earn–and not the enjoyable sort of effort, like taking over a problem and defeating it, however the annoying sort of effort, like operating 25 Gambit matches simply to get them executed. For me, I feel the reply is both to lower the grind, which appears like a common mandate for Future 2 total lately, or to reinforce Solstice armor much more, in order that the reward feels commensurate to the work concerned in incomes it. Solstice 2022 positively acquired nearer to that stability, but it surely’s nonetheless not sufficient to raise Solstice amongst Future’s different annual occasions.
What’d you consider Solstice this yr? Did you just like the adjustments? What would you prefer to see Bungie do with it sooner or later? Am I fully unsuitable about it? Let me know what you assume within the feedback under.
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