Iron Banner Review

Games Destiny
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First Iron Banner has been run on Destiny 2 and what a frustrating event it was.

The game mode and changes to PvP is worse than Destiny 1. I’m not sure what they were thinking by dropping from 6v6 to 4v4. Are they trying to go “Halo” with the game? 4v4 isn’t enough to hold and defend cap points on Control. There was no reason to defend a point (other than Emperor’s Respite, the palace map). It’s more about ring around the rosey. Run with your team and cap point, move on, cap next point, move on. Kill people you run into and cap the next point.

The maps in Destiny 2 also suffer a bit as they’re so small. Auto Rifles were kings this go around. Sure there are a few maps where Scout rifles work but that was more of a secondary. Origin Story, Uriel’s Gift and the like were the main weapons in rotation. Most maps didn’t have long firing lanes to take advantage of scout rifles. The short ranges and tight quarters also killed the use of Sniper Rifles taking that power weapon completely out of use.

The other issue with the maps were the actual cap points. The only way to actually defend them was to be inside of the cap point (for most maps). A few maps you could stand a bit outside but at a very close distance. I’m just not a fan of D2’s map designs at all.

Bungie had “brilliant” plans with the reward system, sadly it just outright sucked. I got over 20 Iron Banner Packages and never got a full armor set. I got a ton of repeats. The weapons are just reskinned weapons that are in the game and really nothing anyone needed. I got most of the armor but could never score the cape for the hunter (what I wanted most). It was just very frustrating to walk away from all that time spent with so little to show for it.

Finally, wtf was up with the match making? I rarely saw close games. The majority were massive blowouts. I thought Bungie ran matchmaking by skill level. Either you got your ass kicked or you kicked ass. Nail biter games didn’t really happen.

As you can tell, I was really disappointed in the Iron Banner in D2. The Iron Banner was always my favorite Desitny game mode and it’s a shame they fucked it up so. I’m really not sure what they did with Desitny but I’m about done other than the raid. I’m not sure I’m worrying about the other 2 characters.

What did you all think of the Iron Banner?

3 Likes
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Total different experience here. I got destroyed by the Mita, and almost every match was close. Very few were unbalanced. I actually enjoyed Crucible for the most part. The armor drop rate was a joke though, 10 packages and only 2 pieces of IB armor.

Your just salty that your Hunter-master-race was carried by a Titan all night Saturday :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’ve determined I prefer the Nameless Midnight over the MIDA for Iron Banner (and in general).

I saw a lot of MIDAs but really those 2 were the only scouts seen. Most maps don’t have the long firing lanes to take advantage of them and you were out gunned by an AR. I played a ton of the IB and that’s how I saw it.

4

I played a whole lot of Banner over last week. So much that I didn’t even get my the Flashpoint done. Sheesh. I gotta say, from what I can tell, these sentiments are damn near universal. I don’t think I spoke to one player who had favorable things to say about the banner. The event seemed to be a huge success, as far as participation was concerned, but the after action reviews were horrible… pretty much universally.

People were constantly complaining about the RNG with Salad Man, and many people (including myself) felt the drops in the banner should have been limited to Iron Banner related items. (shaders, the odd weapon or armor piece) Truthfully, after spending all my week-nights, and the first half of the weekend trying to just get 2 specific pieces of armor for each of my characters I finally just gave up. Sunday I just decided to give up on Iron Banner for Season 1. I was frustrated, pissed, and tired of the RNG BS. That asshole gave me 5 copies of a fucking hand cannon I will never use. (balanced reward system my aching ass)

The major complaint I saw from a lot of people was the lack of any REAL reward for the event. Let’s be honest. Getting a legendary emblem for opening 10 fucking packages with Saladin is a fucking travesty. All that work and all anyone gets is a shitty fucking Emblem they might wear for one night… maybe.

Many GRG members rightly complained that this event was elevated to a whole new level of shitty in the fact that at no point were we presented with any powerful or luminous engrams (or items) from the event. There was no real possibility of character progression in playing the event.

In the end the whole damn thing was nothing more than an elaborate circle jerk.

LaLa has a point about the game mode and the player count. I think that issue contributed heavily to the imbalance we saw in matchmaking and team scores. He’s right, I hardly ever saw a “close game”, and that is just sad.

Like LaLa, this hits hard, because the Banner was my favorite aspect of D1. But this wasn’t the Banner I loved. This was just crucible zone control with some not-so-special weapons and armor sets.

I hope things get better in Season 2. Hell, at this point, I hope there are people around interested in participating for Season 2, at this point. Judging by the reviews from some of the more intense streamers out there, this could be the last nail in the coffin for this iteration of D2.

If Bungie doesn’t do something to address some of these end-game issues quick, people could continue to move on, and just not have any interest in looking back. That’s just the way I see it.

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The other thing I noticed was the drop off of people playing D2. I have over 500 some people on my Friends List (yes, I add everyone in GRG and then some). First few weeks I’d go 8 pages deep on the in game friends list. The majority of people were playing the IB the first few nights. By Friday that dropped. I was lucky to see 2 pages of people playing and only a handful in the IB. Saturday and Sunday only saw a page and a half and really no one in the IB.

1 Like
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Yep yep… I noticed a huge fall-off too. Whereas I normally saw 50 or 60 people in Destiny on my friends list, when I looked around last night at what people were playing, I think there were maybe 6-10 people online playing… and only about 4 were in Banner… and I think those 4 were on the same fireteam… lol.

It’s kinda saddening. And with highly anticipated games like The Fractured but Whole coming out… things could get seriously bad.

But then again, I kinda remember a similar lul in D1 leading up to the first DLC… but it took longer to hit. D1 grew and maintained for a good long while… of course mainly because of loot caves and other exploits… and D2 has some, but none that are THAT interesting.

I’m gonna be honest. The honeymoon’s over…

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Well, I think there was more to do in D1 since people worked on leveling up characters. It was much harder to then, you couldn’t infuse gear like you can now. I got my Warlock up to 290ish 2 days after finishing the campaign and hitting 20. That’s crazy.

We used to run the Nightfall 3 times per week (more if we were helping people out). Now? Fuck the Nightfall. That timer just sucks the fun right out of it.

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It was Quickplay mode, which works on connection-based matchmaking.
You see more stomping in Quickplay over Competitive.

Yup. Had loads of on the first night, enough for 2 teams.
Every night after that we barely scraped four of us and I personally stopped playing IB by about the third night.

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To Me, IB could’ve been fixed in a lot of ways but, I think the two major reasons it sucked are

  1. RNG + Non-IB armor/weapons pissed off alot of people, myself included.

  2. No aftermatch drops like in D1 IB

Before I go any further, I only grinded on my hunter and it still took me 20+ packages to get most of the weapons I wanted along with a complete hunter set. I didn’t feel the joy of completing the armor set, it was more, “I went through hell and back for just one armor set? No way I’m doing this on 3 characters.”

I did IB all 3 years, most of them on my Warlock and Hunter. Even if I lost an IB match, at least I knew that rng could bless me with an armor piece or weapon. This IB was just not plain fun at all and if I had to rate, I’d give it a 4/10 because the fun factor was gone.

If Bungie were to take ideas into consideration, best thing they could do is go back to the old way of doing IB gear, no token BS, no rng with tokens hoping to get that weapon you are seeking out or that last piece of armor to complete the set.

If they are hellbent on using the tokens, then take out all Non-IB legendary items and lower the chances of getting a duplicate while grinding for the weapon/armor you want. Also, at least give it a low chance of dropping IB gear/weapons in future events.

10

The token / rng thing sucks giant balls. Let me buy the shit I want with the tokens. Getting duplicates over and over again sucked. I got 3 masks, 3 boots and 3 chest but got the gloves the VERY LAST package and never got a cape.

1 Like
11

Exactly, it could be something like 20 for armor and 40 for weapons

I couldn’t tell you how many times I got that damned Grenade Launcher and Fusion while in pursuit of the pulse rifle.

12

they turned iron banner into space COD.

spawn spray die…spawn spray die

it was terrible.

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I completely agree with this. I saw no real benefit to do it and it was way to run and gun for me.

This pretty much summs it up.

14

Iron Banner was my favorite thing in D1, but two things broke it this time: 4 players/team and shitty drop rates. I didn’t enjoy it.
I only managed 6 packages but I did get the helmet and the awesome Hunter Master Race cape (suck it @Lala_Calamari) :slight_smile:
Zone control sucks ass and having light level not matter is a bad decision, but I think it’s the 4 player thing that broke it.

Overall I think the issue with D2 drop off rates is that 1) the grind is not there and 2) D2 is more like an expansion of D1 than a whole new game and 3) shitty 4 player max crucible

Still love Destiny overall and hoping for some fixes…

1 Like
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I’m not so sure on the Light Level. You basically trip into the 280s. Everyone would be close regardless.

I agree with the 4 player game mode. I much rather preferred the 6 player Iron Banners of D1. It actually allowed you to have some defense and hold points.

4 Players would be ok, if it was just another game mode added in. Another option. But I liked D1’s Crucible better.