Sweet! Iron Banner has been announced for Destiny 2...and it starts next week! Oh wait...power level doesn't matter? I mean...other than the newer loot (which honestly...all the loot in Destiny 2 is bad) what is the point to this mode anymore? Since there are bounties in Destiny 2 they are just treating this like every other activity in the game: you get tokens even if you lose (different from IB 1 if I am not mistaken), there are milestones (like everything else), and there is "new armor" I mean...that's cool, I guess? If crucible were more fun (and more than the MIDA multi-hour) I could maybe find something to get excited about but with there being nothing special about loot or progress anymore I almost feel like I am close to being checked out of the game until the DLC. I think even Destiny 1 had me hooked for a little longer than this and I didn't get the platinum in 3 weeks last time either.

How about it duders...are you ready to meet Saladin's challenge and murder other chosen ones?

Just hoping the sets aren't mobility focused. Also hoping that we get surprised by Iron Banner having weapons because if its just armor than I'm gonna be pretty bummed. Not entirely sure why they seem to be doing away with your Power level mattering across the board. I thought that was intrinsic to both Iron Banner and Trials, part of what made those modes more unique than just the loot sets. Honestly I'm on the set just for the armors though, if for no other reason than because they're unique and I'd like to have a reason to keep playing the game.

The warlock set looks terrible. That titan set though.

Not really looking forward to grinding the crucible. I love the armor though.

So if damage doesn't matter what differentiates Iron Banner from regular Crucible? Simply the rewards?

So is this just PVP ? cause pvp is kinda bad in Destiny.

How about actually being able to reliably play a single game type?

What a novel idea! Perhaps they should extend that thought to every game type, and then people could play the game modes that they want to play when they want to play them. That sounds just crazy enough to work!

Sorry, I'm still a bit frustrated with that particular design decision.

Aside from the armor, I have to think that a weapon or two will be available. We've already seen Iron Banner themed weapon models in Destiny 2 preview images, and in D1, the Iron Banner weapons were some of the best PVP weapons in the game.

@spaceinsomniac: I haven't played Destiny 2 so I'm not sure what your frustration is. Are you saying right now there's no playlists for single game modes, like a Control playlist for example?

I don't know that I'll do it but I probably will do it because I like those Shoulder Wolves.

As a Titan main I find the horns aesthetic a bit heavy-handed, though. I'd prefer any of my three Mask of the Quiet One helmets with the face-chains and without the head-horns.

Knowing nothing about Destiny, this armour looks like they said what if Game of Thrones but samurai? Are elves still cool? lets add some elven tree designs from lord of the rings to this!
Sucks they changed the iron banner mode though thought people liked the power difference?

Correct. There are two playlists currently in Destiny 2. The "quick play" playlist features Clash, Control, and Supremacy. For those not familiar with Destiny, that's Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Kill Confirmed in COD. And the "competitive" playlist features Countdown and Survival, which can be compared to Search and Destroy from COD, and team deathmatch with a limited number of respawns for each team.

So yeah, there's no way to play the exact game modes you want to play. I remain hopeful that it's just Bungie's way of forcing players to try all game types before they allow players to play only the modes that they want, but so far I don't think they've said a thing.

Yeah, IB is a weird state in D2. Since armor stats are not varied enough to matter, and it has no perks, IB will only matters to me only if the weapons are exceptional.

I think down the line, Bungie need really to make Iron Banner a truly different Crucible Mode(e.g. Mayhem, or 1v1 arena), not just another Control/Supremacy/Clash that happened during a period of time.

And why does the IB Titan's armors looks like an evolved version of the Warlock's? I feel betrayed...

They should make it like the Prison of Elders except have two teams compete against each other to achieve the objectives. So it would be a mixed PvP\PvE mode.

Im kind of dissapointed that Iron Banner lost the "Gear Matters" theme. While I typically dont enjoy PvP based on RPG stats/RNG loot rolls etc. I loved that Iron Banner was its own thing, this little ruthless thing that popped up every now and then in which you could get stomped by people way higher but could also get the satisfaction of beating people who "should have beaten you". It was a mode that only gave its rewards to the winner, because it was ruthless and that made it more satisfying.

I dont want that old Iron Banner design as the entire PvP experience in Destiny but I want it as an optional part of it.

It seems very weak.

Specific armor does not matter in Destiny 2. I have my three sets, one for each element. That is cool. But now any new sets are pointless. There are no armor specific perks, which there really should be, so while I think all this Iron Banner gear looks great, I just have no reason at all to ever use it. It will cost a lot of grinding and modification to get it up to exactly the specs I already have.

I will play Iron Banner, but not much. There seems to be no reason to play it.

The armour looks really cool but the likelihood of the whole set being good is pretty small, so I'm never gonna end up wearing it like in the preview. I'm pretty much done with Destiny 2 for the moment anyway, and don't like Crucible enough to grind it out like this.

I'm just curious why they went so generic on all the weapons and ammo. At least with D1's armor they made doing the raid you got the loot from easier with raid specific perks.

I think it's really dumb that power doesn't matter. Iron Banner is supposed the be the mode where light/power matters, it's supposed to be the get good or get out mode. I'll still try it as I lobed IB in Destiny 1 but I really hope we get more than armor, I really dislike the warlock set.

Iron Banner has always been boring and half baked. Power never really mattered because everyone was very close to max level and damage differences were minimal between power levels anyway. You would think they would take this opportunity to make this nothing game mode into something interesting. Looks like they didn't. Lame.

Hopefully the hard mode raid had more thought put into it.

@nux said:

Maybe I'm not understanding something here but aren't those two ideas opposed? If the stats are uneven and based on your gear (which is more the result of time spent than your own ability) isn't that tipping the scales in favor of the best loot NOT the highest skill?

I'm by no means implying that standard Crucible matches are a true test of skill (lets face it, most of the time it's just endlessly trading kills) I'm just confused as to how having gear matter is a higher test of skill.

All the hardcore folk are 300-305 and use the same loadouts anyways soooooo....

The armor is the only reason I'll play this. Destiny 2's PVP is absolutely dreadful otherwise.

The end game stuff stinks in this. Unless you are the small percentage who wants to gather friends and do the Raid over and over then there isn't much there. Why a level cap? Why a power level cap? Why not just take a page from Diablo and make Paragon levels and let people keep playing and level up. Offer random events, bounties, whatever on the maps and offer loot and other bonuses from them. Let the drops keep scaling up. That's what Diablo does. Then in essence there would be no cap and they could add endless things to the current maps. It's not that hard.

@evilcalvin: Destiny is a shared world grouping with fellow players significantly above their light level would trivialize alot of activites nightfall and raiding etc the challenge is Destiny end game as much as the gear.

@thepanzini: That's fine for a while but it does cater to the die-hard fanbase (and alienates a big chunk as well). Something does need to change as even the most die hard players quit as there is nothing more to do. That's a problem. Same issue happened with The Division. There is nothing wrong with still having those activities with ongoing level progression and loot. At least you would be making progress and getting useful stuff rather than get the same gear or maybe a bump in power level by 1 for grinding out a raid for 10 hours. That's not good game design. Games need progression, rewards and a sense of accomplishment. Sure you get that feeling for finishing a raid but no real payoff.

The way I look at it is because the majority of people who participate in IB are already max level and have a high power level, usually 300-305 and maybe 290s you have to work harder to get kills then you normally would in normal Crucible where a level 3 with 10 power can easily kill a level 20 with 305 power. Also in Destiny 1 IB you didn't get any rewards for losing, unlike Destine 2 where you only get more rep coins for winning, so if you wanted stuff you needed to have at least some skill.

No PVP is not like the first game. There are two Playlists this time, Quickplay and Competitive. They each offer different game modes. And its always random. You can't just say hey I want to play Supremacy today and just play that. You have to sit through a random match until that one comes up. Competitive also only offers two modes that I am aware of, but I don't really play it because I don't like those two modes. Quickplay has all the old modes from the first, but its always random. And after every match you get dumped out of the lobby. No more having a lobby roll game after game trying to one up each other for a while with different mixups. Now its one and done, start over. So calling them play lists is also dumb.

As someone who played Destiny 1's Iron Banner and literally never won a match, this new version sounds great. I get that opinions vary though.

@sammo21: You should perhaps rename this thread to mention something about Iron Banner, since it's starting soon, and it seems to be what the thread is mostly about.

I don't see how that could even be a thing, unless you barely played. With 6 vs 6 in the original Destiny, you could never fire your gun and still win games fairly often. I won plenty of games where the worst player of the game was on the winning team, and occasionally that player was me. It's a shame you didn't play more, because Iron Banner was never hard to rank up with enough play, and some of the the best PVP weapons could only be found there.

Iron Banner in Destiny 1 awarded a token every time you lost a game. You would turn in up to five tokens automatically when you did win, and they were worth bonus reputation. I can't see this new "you get tokens no matter what, but get more for a win" system being all that different, when before you had to lose six games in a row before you weren't making any sort of progress. You could also easily get teamed with or against some really good players, so there was usually a 50/50 chance you'd win.

Either way, I hope you enjoy the new version of Iron Banner, and I hope I do too.

I quite like the static rolls on weapons, but I don't like the Armor being pointless. I can see why they did it though. If they made Armor with static perks, then everyone would be 'forced' to wear a specific set of armor if they want to be optimal. They want armor to be a fashion choice and they do not want Transmog for a variety of reasons. I get it, they don't want everyone to look the same (which was actually one of the highest criticisms of D1 in its first year) but I still don't like it. At least give the Raid armor some utility in the Raid.