For those who haven't been keeping up, Destiny has received a new free update for Taken King owners, and the game has gone through some nice changes.

- Firstly, there is a new "sterling treasure" system that guarantees new armor gear, and gives you a small chance to unlock some other new gear, such as a new sparrow. The armor either has a unique glow effect that can be lit using several different colors, or is "taken themed" armor that makes your character look like they are part of The Taken.

You can earn up to three treasure packs per week, and the first two are stupidly easy to get. Your postmaster gives you one, you get one for playing one round of the weekly crucible event (your team does not have to win), and you get one from playing the new level 41 Prison of Elders.

- The Prison of Elders has been reworked, and in addition to the level 41 standard version, Bungee has also added The Challenge of Elders. This is a three round version, each containing a boss, and each with a fun bonus ability. Last week, primary weapons did more damage. This week, grenades earn bonus points, and recharge very quickly. Seeing as you're fighting non-stop bosses, it can also be an excellent place to use three of coins to earn exotic drops. Be sure to stop by The Reef to get your scorecard and POE bounties before you start.

- It's easier than ever to raise your light level, and hitting the level cap no longer requires six player raids. Infusion also now directly transfers light level, instead of just transferring some of the light.

- For those who enjoy PVP, Crucible is arguably better than ever. Shotgun range has been reduced, fusion rifles aren't useless anymore, sniper rifles have a slightly slower zoom, and you start with limited special ammo. Hand canons got a bit more of their range back, pulse rifles and scout rifles are still in a good place, and auto rifles finally feel like they can compete again. Most importantly, the game now prioritizes location over skill, so the lag-filled mess that once was Destiny PVP is pretty much gone.

- Vendor weapons have new sets of perks, and many of them are very good. Save up your legendary marks, and you're only a quick weapon or two away from being able to compete in PVP, or do some serious damage in PVE. Watch some You Tube videos and do some research on what to buy, but there's pretty much something for everyone. The update also includes the random chance to earn a brand new exotic, and a bunch of returning legendary weapons.

- Iron Banner is coming back Tuesday, and features some nice changes that make it easier to earn more loot, and complete daily and weekly bounties. You'll be able to buy both armor items at level three, a weapon at level four, and another weapon at level five. You also won't have to wait until rank 2 to be eligible for random IB weapon drops.

- On PS4, playing together with the Giant Bomb community is easier than ever. You don't have to do the raids to reach the maximum light level anymore, but they're still a nice way to earn exclusive weapons and gear. Thanks to the PS4's new game scheduling features, players can setup times to play, and create an open invitation for others in the community to join them. It's pretty much perfect for finding players interested in raiding together.

- Finding players to join you in Iron Banner, Trials of Osiris, or standard multiplayer should also be much easier now, as you have the option to invite an entire community to join your party, or you can simply join anyone currently playing in an open party.

I think that's most of the good news for returning players. For anyone enjoying the new update, let me know if I missed anything.

I've been playing since the update hit and still haven't seen a piece of gear drop over 325. I'm assuming the gear that drops is based on your current Light Level so it'll always be a slow-ish progression, but its still annoying to barely get any gear worth keeping. I also feel like the only way to get good blues is to play the Challenge of the Elders, as even Heroic strikes drop stuff around 280 for me. For as much good as the update has done for the rest of the game I can't help but feel that doing Hard Mode King's Fall is still the only way to progress in terms of light level.

Here's the full list of gear and weapon drops, and their possible light levels, as taken from planetdestiny.com:

General

• Faction Reward packages include Chroma-enabled gear up to 330
• Exotic Engrams grant items up to 335
• Non-Exotic Engrams now grant items up to 310 Light
• Engrams guaranteed to grant an item with Light value higher than your total Light
• Infusion now grants 100% of the Light from the Infused item
• Reputation gains have been increased for Crucible matches, Strikes, and Patrols

Crucible

• Weekly Crucible Bounty now awards unique Crucible Weapons up to 335 Light
• Crucible drops now include gear up to Light 310
• Increased Legendary drop rate for all Crucible matches

Iron Banner

• Iron Banner now drops gear up to 335
• Rank 3 package Artifact now 320
• Rank 5 package Ghost now 320
• Lord Saladin offers both armor pieces at Rank 3, a weapon at Rank 4, and another weapon at Rank 5

Trials of Osiris

• Trials of Osiris drops gear up to 335

Malok

• Work with Variks to investigate a new Taken threat
• Complete the “At the Gates” questline, and earn the Dreadfang Taken Sword (310 Light)
• Defeat Malok in the new “Blighted Chalice” strike, for a chance to earn a new Taken Shotgun (335 Light)

Prison of Elders

• Lvl 41 Prison of Elders drops gear up to 320 Light
• Claim a new Elders’ Sigil from Variks each week to track your Challenge Mode score
• Test your Fire team against three consecutive boss waves
• Bosses and gameplay modifiers change each week, for a total of 16 unique encounters

Challenge Tickets

• Challenge Tickets reward gear up to 335
• 10 reprised Prison of Elders Legendary Weapons available at 335
• 3 reprised Prison of Elders Legendary Armor sets available at 335
• 3 reprised Prison of Elders Exotics available at 335

PvE

• Unique gear from the Vanguard Heroic Stirke Playlist drop up to 335
• Tier 3 Court of Oryx will now drop gear up to 335
• King’s Fall Hard Mode will now drop gear up to 335
• Exotic Engrams will now drop gear up to 335
• Non-Exotic Engrams now grant items up to 310
• New “Blighted Chalice” strike added to Normal and Heroic playlists
• Taken variant of “Winter’s Run” strike added to Normal and Heroic playlists

Thankfully players now have other options to increase their light level, and the raid is now the optional activity that it always should have been, instead of the only way to hit the level cap.

Don't expect this to be a trend. The current state the game is in, they barely care about progression. There's basically no real reason you need to be 335. The highest level enemies are 330, and that's only the last room of challenge of the elders and it's not hard enough to really even demand you be 330. I've done it both weeks with my team barely 320 and it wasn't an issue at all. The highest level enemies anywhere else in the game are 320. Because being at the level cap doesn't really matter, it doesn't really matter that you can achieve it in a wide variety of ways.

They've done this before. When House of Wolves was released (right around this time last year), it became easier than ever to reach the level cap. You could reach level 34 in multiple ways, both PVE and PVP, and you didn't need 6 people to do it. There also wasn't a current raid at that time, just as there isn't a current raid now.

However, when The Taken King came out with a brand new raid, the only way to reach the highest level once again was to complete the raid. Of course, as has always been the case when the raid was the only means to reach level cap, the raid was the only content that actually demanded you be even near the level cap. I absolutely guarantee that the expansion this fall will come with a new raid that will once again become the only way to reach the highest level for a period of time, but it will also be the only content that you'll actually need to be that level.

Whilst I understand it, I still wish Bungie weren't so afraid to at least offer Matchmaking in at least the tougher Prison of Elders and such. There are barely any of the players I played with who still play Destiny so I basically miss out on some core aspects of the game. Now there's still more than enough for me to jump in and complete some Crucible and daily quests but still, the more time goes on the more it seems odd of Bungie. At least give us the option.

That said, I do think Bungie should stick to making expansions/updates as there's still some untapped potential in Destiny. Always felt like they were maybe jumping the gun in making Destiny 2 anyway.

Gear drops like strike exclusive gear, nightfall rewards and decoded Exotic Engrams drop up to 6 light higher then whatever your current light is. So if you're 320, whatever the gear you get will be between 321-327. But that doesn't mean that the individual piece will necessarily be higher light. For example you may be 320 light, but your leg armor is 325; if you get a new piece of leg armor it is guaranteed to be higher then your overall light of 320, not your individual leg armor.

While you may be right, and they could very well go back to forcing people to play through the a new raid, at least that's not currently the case. For me personally, just the adjustments made to infusing make this game so much more enjoyable again. I'm also really happy to be back to enjoying the PVP content.

No. I'm not going back. I can't. Not again. Please.

It's really, really not a good time. If you've played the taken king seriously before this "new" content will feel old and tired. This update is a summation of all that is wrong with Destiny.

Loot that doesn't matter or effect the gameplay in any novel way.

New level cap that is neither difficult to reach, nor meaningful in any way.

The "new" mission, strike and "end game content" involves zero new environments or geometry. It's super easy chores you perform in places you've seen before a hundred times.

PvP (especially trials and IB) is only populated by people who have been playing this damn game for 18 months straight. The lack of more casual players mean anyone, no matter if they use to crush PvP or not, will have a bad time against the hardcore savages who have been playing Destiny every day since September 2014.

Don't go back to Destiny now. This update is trash. Just wait to see if the fall expansion will be worthwhile.

yeah, but I'm not quite thrilled about the sterling treasure as a random drop and then a paid box.... and then on top of that..... it's not really worth paying for because the armor looks meh. Also those armors are like 3 defense and you have to infuse them like crazy to get them decent...... It's an interesting way they got around micro-transaction without being so terrible at it.

Also, I always did enjoy Prison of the Elders. And I'm happy to see that back with more players..... even if there are some scumbags too eager to get the treasure at the end not to help out the new guy who got killed on the way down the drop.

I've never understood the argument against the current raid being the only way to reach the level cap. At every point in the game's history where that has been the case, the hard mode version of the raid has literally been the only piece of content where being at the level cap mattered at all. With the way level scaling works in this game, there's no point to being a higher level than the enemies you're facing because you do maximum damage as long as you match the enemy level.

The hardest non-raid content has always been scaled to a level you can easily attain from gear sources outside of the raids. If you don't do the raids, there is absolutely zero functional need for you to be at the maximum level. Even with the PVP content that takes level scaling into effect, the curve is such that it doesn't make any difference if you're within a certain threshold. You have to be woefully underleveled in Trials and Iron Banner to reach the point of seeing any changes in time to kill.

They actually changed the way infusion works so that now there are no diminishing returns when you infuse something. If you put a 335 piece of gear into one of those level 3 sterling gear drops it goes straight to 335. That minor correction aside, I fully agree sterling treasure is terrible and probably represents Bungie's first steps across that fine line everyone was afraid they would eventually cross when the microtransactions were first announced.

I scoffed at the "slippery slope" rhetoric from a lot Bungie critics when the microtransaction initiative was first unveiled, but all those doom and gloom proclamations seem to be in the process of coming true. It's also a real shame that the "new content" that these microtransactions were supposed to fund over the course of this year has turned out to be a bunch of repackaged old content. I mean, the joke among my friends and I was that the April Update would just be year 2 versions of the old raids spun as new content, but instead they chose everyone's least favorite year 1 end game content to re-release. Like, they have somehow managed to do a worse job supporting this game in year 2 than they did in year 1, despite the seemingly logical idea that the revenue from the microtransactions would allow them to put out new content at a faster pace than their pathetic rate of doing anything in the first year.

At this point, Destiny is a lost cause and we have to just hope that everyone at that studio is putting all their effort into making Destiny 2 the game the first one should have been, and that's why Destiny is getting such lackluster support this year.

"Now is the best time ever to come back to Destiny!" - Said an increasingly nervous Bungie employee for the seventh time since the game launched.

Destiny's been down that road before with a much better example of scummy microtransaction behavior. That was the game giving you ONE opportunity to get a certain DLC item for free, and the rest of your chances needing to be purchased with real money during a timed event. This event gives you three opportunities a week to get any of the new cosmetic items, and the requirements of two of those opportunities are so easy that anyone could do them.

For me personally, it's just wanting to reach the level cap. It matters to me, because it's something left unfinished. It also matters because it's really stupid game design to lock paying customers out of a leveling system, based on solely on their desire to either play alone, or their distaste for the idea of playing a co-op multiplayer game with total strangers that requires a good deal of cooperation.

And the new light levels certainly matter in the Prison of Elders, which is also one of the best current ways to level up. 330 light players do about twice as much damage per shot as a 300 light player, and that's not even including the last 5 points of light.

Probably, but I don't care about that. I just care that PVP isn't a lag-filled mess anymore, and some other free improvements have been made to the game as well.

Nothing is "new"--aside from one exotic weapon--but I didn't expect it to be.

I haven't played IB since the April update--I don't believe anyone has--but I did pretty well in PVP this last week, and I hadn't touched the game for several months. I had games where I did horribly, and I also had games where I was at the top of the leaderboard on the winning team. Doesn't seem much different to me. I'd say it seems better now that skilled matchmaking isn't as much of a thing, and connection is emphasized instead.

Also, if you're arguing that this free update is "trash," I'd be interested to hear what you think they should have done differently. Considering the next large paid DLC and a sequel is likely in development, I don't think I could have expected more. Are there any easy to make changes being ignored that you feel could significantly improve the game?

thanks, I actually noticed the new infusion system a while ago. I still kept thinking it was same as before so I was just expecting the worst when it came to infusing a weapon, take out 3 guns from the vault that I don't mind dismantling to get this new gun up.

Yeah, I do fallow what you are saying. And it comes off a lot like a loop sided production by dragging their audience in hopes they could balance everything out. My opinion it isn't a good encourage for their most devoted player base to spend money compared to how Valve handles Keys for their Free to Play games. Valve probably has a smaller Live Team on CS Go and TF2 then Destiny has. And I've probably only spent 99 cents on TF2 since that game was released. And that was for a hat that was donation for the first wave of player made maps in 2010.

It is never a good time to go back to Destiny. Once you free yourself from daily missions and constant grinding for items and revel in games that have progression with an actual beginning, middle and end it's an incredibly freeing and invigorating feeling.

Of course all that said, if you really like this sort of stuff those are decent changes. The lack of a serious matchmaking tool built into the game is still laughable.

I mean sure, I totally get wanting to chase progression just to feel like you've completed something. I've certainly felt that compulsion in many games. I spent hours clearing every stupid "?" in The Witcher 3, even though I knew the only ones left were all those dumb smuggler's caches out in the Skellige sea that were going to have nothing I needed. But, I was compelled to clear every single one in much the same way I'm sure many people are compelled to reach the level cap in Destiny. But at some point you're just chasing meaningless numbers. Destiny already has a huge problem with making numbers the end goal rather than having higher numbers be a means to achieving other goals.

There is absolutely no reason to chase 335. The highest level content in the game is leveled to 330, and that's only the last room of challenge of the elders. There is no difference between 330 and 335, and even then challenge of the elders hasn't proven itself hard enough to make chasing 330 even worth it. I was 316 the first week and the highest in my team was 320 and we breezed through with no issue whatsoever.

It matters to a point, but it's also the current end game content. King's Fall is no longer the current end game content, so it would make no sense for that to be the only means to gear up. Prison of Elders is the highest level PVE content in the game at the moment, so obviously it's a good way to gear up. When the next raid comes out and is the highest level PVE content in the game and presents an actual challenge (unlike PoE), it will only make sense for that to be the primary or (likely) only way to reach the highest level.

If you look at this April update in a vacuum, you're right that it seems like a fine free update. Improved version of old end game content, a new strike, some new and updated gear, new max level to chase, and some balance changes. That all sounds great for something that will cost you nothing at all.

However, while this content is fine for a free content patch, the overall state of Destiny is very concerning.

It has been seven months since The Taken King was released and this is the first release of new content since then and they've already said there won't be anything else until the fall expansion. That will end up being an entire year with no new raids, no new multiplayer maps, barely any new gear, and one new strike that takes place entirely in vanilla environments. Sure, you can look at this specific update and think it's fine for a free content drop, but Bungie's support of the game as a whole has been absolutely dismal.

The microtransactions were pitched as something that would provide an ongoing revenue stream to support frequent and meaningful updates to the game. That has not even remotely been the case. There were 3 "events" over the past six months and only one was even really gameplay content (SRL). Instead of the microtransactions serving to fund new and interesting events, the events have proven to be nothing more than thinly veiled delivery mechanisms for more microtransactions. I mean really, Crimson Days? All the money they're making from these microtransactions was used to make that amazing content that was basically 2v2 trials?

Say what you will about the year 1 expansions and their price, but at least year 1 had new content. We got a raid, we got new exotics, we got new story missions, we got new strikes that didn't take place entirely in environments we've run through a million times already, we got new PVP maps and we got new modes of play like PoE and trials. It's really sad that year 2 support has been so bad I'm actually talking positively about the year 1 expansions, and those things were overpriced, short on content, and filled with questionable design decisions.

So yeah, the April update itself is fine for a free thing, but the fact that it's the only "new" content this game will have over the course of an entire year is terrible for a game that is supposed to be a persistent world that changes and evolves over time. The fact that a majority of the only actual new assets added to the game since Taken King are being sold for real money only makes things worse.

As someone who's a casual player of Destiny, this update has been great. I normally don't have the time to fit in a raid run in my gaming sessions (I've only done King's Fall once), but I love running strike playlists and stuff like PoE. Being able to keep progressing with options like that works really well for me. There still isn't another shooter that just feels a tight and satisfying as the gameplay in Destiny so I'll gladly keep playing on this slow treadmill until I get sick of it.

@spaceinsomniac: After hitting 335 on all 3 characters in a week with only about 15 hours of gameplay (before you ask, I had zero Exotic Engrams but did use about 500 motes of Light on Vendor gear, I just did 3 character through all content and finished on Raids and used that gear to infuse into the next character before running all of his content, and it didn't hurt that I started at 319) I'd have to agree with Pyro and Exile. This April update is a bit on the weak side. It is a great update for casual players who haven't played Destiny in months, and hopefully those players missed the absolute turd fest that was the Post December patch until now. I have to disagree about this game being in the best place it's been, as that is true of only one thing, one very important thing, but only the new improved infusion system. This new content can be gone through in roughly 2 hours start to finish, which for free content is fine, granted, but like Exile said, for it to be the only meaningful content in the entire year is kind of inexcusable and to be honest a bit nonsensical. You have a fan base that is still in the millions, salivating for new Destiny content, and no other real competitor now that The Division has kind of wet the bed so to speak with their absolute mess of a game right now. Why Activision hasn't just stepped in and said "Hey Bungie, obviously you guys need help making content, we hired these 200 guys for $20,000,000 annually to just put out DLC's for Destiny quarterly outside of your yearly major content. They will work under your Live Team's direction and make two smaller $10 DLC's and one larger $20 DLC. Go put them to work." That's an easy $20,000,000 in extra annual profit because I guarantee you those DLC's are sold at least 1 million times each if not more. Add to that the microtransactions that drop day and date, and you have a winner in both a happy Destiny fanbase and money, because at the end of the day they are a company motivated by such things. The fact that Bungie can only put out this much content is killing this game and driving away droves of people that may never come back to the franchise.

As far as Crucible, outside of Sunbreaker Titan, it was in an entirely better place before the December update and throughout The Taken King. There are still many broken things in the crucible right now that were completely ignored in this patch that infuriates me especially since they only introduced them in December like Unregistering Melee's which includes all melee abilities, shoulder charge, bladedancing, etc. Titan Sunbreaking Hammers still proc Horshoes and Handgrenades 5ft from enemies often which prevents them from doing damage (only 45 or tickle damage). And as someone who has access to a friends newish account and has played crucible on it for him recently, Skill Based Matchmaking is still very much the number 1 parameter in Matchmaking (I consistently get 5.0 K/D games with great connections on his account and green bar laggy games with normal K/D on mine using my PS4). People with Netduma's still show matchmaking happening outside their regions regularly. As far as weapon balance goes I am firmly of the opinion that the constant nerfs have been a huge detriment to Crucible. If it was up to me all Pulse Rifles would go back to where they were Pre-December and all other weapons would be balanced around them since Pulse Rifles have the most unique firing mechanic. A .75-.8 optimal TTK is the best place for Primary weapons in Destiny, and right now only a few weapons like Doctrine of Passing can come close to consistently hitting that mark. The only class that needs a direct buff is hand cannons at this point though to their Range/Bloom stats. Currently too often HC's run into Ghost Bullets if you aren't running max range and guns like Hawkmoon just aren't viable in competitive play due to these Ghost Bullets. There is absolutely no excuse for a shot that is aimed directly at a head to not do damage, even if that damage has severe falloff due to the gun being used out of it's effective range. Ghost Bullets should never be a thing just like melee's that don't proc should never be a thing, so I think the entire Bloom effect should be entirely removed from Destiny's gun balance as player inputs should NEVER be invalidated because of stupid developer gimmicks about balance. Then for special weapons increase the effective range of both sidearms and fusions and keep them exactly as they are, move shotguns back to before the last range nerf, and remove the changes they made to sniper rifle instability. Then add slowed handling to both Shotguns and Sniper Rifles by 25% in every movement, slide, jump, shadestep, blink, etc. Do the same thing to Heavy weapons only at 40%. If your carry a rocket launcher, you should feel like your running around with a rocket launcher. Do that and there is no more need to keep hitting Heavy and Special weapons (sniper capacity went from 24 to 16, most others hit roughly the same at around 1/3) which has near killed activities like Raiding (only having 16 sniper rounds in a Raid is absurd and ammo scarcity shouldn't be the biggest concern in a Raid boss fight for every player). The only other change I'd want for balance reasons would be an improved Nightstalker tether that attaches quicker and does more direct impact damage (in PvP it should outright kill anyone on direct hit, super or not, but more often than not they don't even get tethered). If they made those changes to crucible and fixed the broken parts of the game I mentioned earlier, I would gladly get back on the Destiny is a great PvP bandwagon. But until then, I think they still have a lot of work to do.

Off the top of my head:

1. Releasing the 6 or 8 new exotics that have been sitting on their servers for more than 6 months.
2. Have real end game content instead of the brainless chore that is prison of elders. Hell, just have a 335 or 345 version of prison of elders challenge mode with exclusive gear and exotics or retool the old raids at 345. Have something to work toward. Something to add a feeling of accomplishment back into the game instead of a boring treadmill built to chase useless numbers.

The fact that a bunch of people in the community are satisfied with what is basically a cow clicker update is really bumming me out. Why put some effort and craft into new content when the whales come back as long as you put a pointless treadmill in front of them? The numbers just keep going up...

@liquidprince: Ah okay, that makes sense. I didn't know we (the players) knew the range for Light gear. I should probably do the Nightfall at some point but I'm at 321 and the enemies in the 3rd round of the Challenge aren't even red-named anymore so I guess I don't really need to be any higher. I feel like I'll keep logging back in for my 3 treasures a week, hope I complete both sets for my main and then stop playing until whatever the next Destiny thing is.

I would love to hop back on if I could find somebody who might be willing to show me the ropes. I have not really played much since VoG so I am really far behind.

Hopped on for the first time in months because of this update, played a couple hours, and decided I would wait to come back until the fall expansion. Chroma is cool but not cool enough to grind the same content over and over again. Year 1 was way better, but if the lack of content is necessary to make Destiny 2 happen so be it.

If the fall expansion has less content then Taken King I'll be disappointed. That only hooked me for about two months.

@tds418: Yeah, I hope it really hits home at some point that even major content drops start to lose their interest after about two months. Taken King was great for the first two months, and dwindling in November, only held together by Trials and Challenge Mode Raids. Since then the only thing keeping people coming back are 1-2 week events every couple months and it can't be more than 25% of the playerbase returning based on my around 200 Destiny player friends list. Only about 5% of those guys keep playing the game regularly and most of those guys are only on for Trials every weekend. They need to realize they absolutely have to release some form of small DLC content, we will even pay for it, at least quarterly. Otherwise this franchise will start dying.

Speaking of Trials, has anyone had any luck getting to the Lighthouse since the update. It has been absolutely brutal for me at least. Mostly due to I think the smaller returning playerbase of only the most hard core of Destiny players. Not to toot my own horn but I have a 1.5 Trials K/D and over 50 Flawless Runs, most in Year 2, and play with players as good or better than myself, and we haven't been able to rack up more than 7 wins on a card yet in like 5 attempts. Every time I get to 5 wins every single team after all 3 enemies have 2.0 K/D's in Trials with 50+ Flawless runs. Either they added skill based matchmaking into Trials more heavily or there is nobody but the top 1000 players playing it now.

I've been really happy with the changes. I was stuck at around 304 light (I don't do raids, don't have the time or inclination) but I was always maxing IB and trying to get gear that way. Now I am already 312 after just doing my daily bounties, use of 3 of coins, doing the daily Story mission and crucible match and leveling my faction. Faction leveling seems to be the best bet, for me at least. It seems quicker than it was before, and I have been getting package items that are well above my light level by at least 5-6 levels. The only thing keeping me so low is that I haven't gotten a good heavy weapon drop. Everything else has been replaced with my drops from just doing normal activities, maybe 1 hour total of grinding a day, although I do more if I am close to a vanguard, crucible or FWC level.

The best thing is the 1 to 1 infusion. Now I don't have to be afraid to infuse my favorite gun and see the light level be well below what I thought it would be. It's made leveling so much better.

The sterling treasure is pretty underwhelming, though. I have opened four treasures, all free from logging in/activities, and gotten 4 spektar gauntlets. So..... The RNG seems a bit messed up on that.

The Taken King is worth a purchase if you enjoy the loot grind, don't mind the repetition, and have people to play with. It's not worth a purchase if you only want to play through the story once, and then call it a day. Enjoying the PVP also helps a whole lot, and makes a huge difference when considering the value.

Speaking of which, I should be playing quite a bit of Iron Banner today. For anyone playing, feel free to join if you see me through the PS4 Giant Bomb Destiny Community.

Things go beyond skill-based matchmaking with Trials. They changed the system to make it really hard to reach the lighthouse, but made it much easier to get Trials rewards by doing the bounties. I'm surprised you didn't hear about that. The way it works is that if you're a team who has won a single game, you'll be matched up with a team that has won a single game. If you've won five games, you'll only be matched with a team that has won five games. This means by the time you're ready for your seventh game in the series, you're only going to be going up against the best of the best.

I'm sorry to say I think you've just been unlucky. I have three out of the four Taken themed items, several spektar itmes, and I just unlocked the sparrow last night. Didn't spend a dime, of course. Glad to see someone else enjoying the new changes, though. Hope your RNG luck improves.

Until they stop their "the game is too challenging for matchmaking" bullshit I wont be going anywhere near this.

Does anyone know what the actual reason for no matchmaking is?

I have a really hard time believing they would make such a stupid decision without some kind of business or development reason driving it.

Random matchmaking in the raids would be a miserable experience. It's not necessarily that the raids are too hard, it's more that you need to specifically know how to complete an encounter. That means you either have to have already completed the raid and know how to do it, look it up, or be willing to bang your head against it with your group for a long time to figure it out. Even with half the group knowing what they're doing, it would still entail a sit down before each encounter for them to explain things to the inexperienced people and instruct them on their role and what they need to be doing.

Traditional random matchmaking would result in a bad experience for everyone involved, bad for the people that know what they're doing and have to endlessly explain and instruct the other players and bad for the inexperienced players who are doing nothing more than following orders and feeling like they are more a burden than a teammate. Helping new players through a raid isn't inherently bad, I've done it a bunch, but being forced to do it when you want a casual 60 minute clean run would be awful.

With that said, there should be some form of grouping functionality. Something where you can select some parameters before you group to dictate what type of experience you're looking for. Whether that means an experienced player choosing to help inexperienced players, an inexperienced player looking for similar players to do a blind run, or someone just looking to bang out a quick and easy run with similarly experienced players, all those options should be available. Also, every level of Prison of Elders should have matchmaking, there is no justification for its absence there and it's indefensible that it's missing from that content.

So yes, there is a good design reason why the raids don't matchmaking as it exists in the other parts of the game. I understand thinking it's stubbornness on Bungie's part if you haven't actually done any of the raids, but it's definitely a case where the only people who want matchmaking are the ones that don't know any better. Anyone that has played a raid understands why it isn't there.

Still, it's completely inexcusable that there isn't any in-game grouping functionality for raids at all, but not too surprising considering Bungie's complete ineptitude at adding new features and addressing community concerns.

We already know about that. Trials has been working like that since taken king came out but at the time we didn't have any trouble going flawless in one or two attemps. But as we get further and further from the taken king release, the pool of people playing Destiny and trials gets smaller and more hardcore. We use to steamroll trials around the release of taken king and in the following 2-3 months. Now it's a mode populated by savages who play destiny PvP every day.

You would think with a decent content update the pool of trials players would expand back to include more casual players but it seems like this update was so slight and inconsequential the more casual players just didn't come back or only for a few hours/couple of days.

I am fighting the temptation to get back into it, but the thought of basically having to buy the game all over again is still bullshit.

They won't ever be doing this, they have their core followers and most don't want it (even if it'd just be an option to turn on or off)

Yup same here, and now they seem to have thrown in F2p nonsense as well so you won't have access to everything(whether cosmetics, dances or whatever else) even if you've paid over 120$

For anyone wondering, and for what it's worth, Iron Banner really doesn't seem that bad. I only played for a couple hours or so, and I already have the boots and both legendary weapons, all from standard post-match rewards. They dropped with higher light than my current gear, as well. All I need now is the class item. I might also pickup the auto rifle, due to it having better accuracy perks than my drop.

I've also already completed the "have the highest score of anyone on either team" weekly Iron Banner goal, and I'm not that great of a player, so I'd say it's far from just the hardcore playing Iron Banner right now.

Oh yeah, and I was around light level 305 when playing. I'd say as long as you're at least 300, you should be fine. You might be able to get away with less than that, but I didn't test it.

Forgot to say so before, but that was a nicely detailed list of suggested improvements. I don't agree with everything you said, but I do agree with a lot of it. And yes, after using them a bit more, hand cannons really need more improvement. They're the worst performing weapons in the crucible right now by a considerable margin.

@ll_exile_ll: I can totally see an argument for not having it in raids. Having said that my brother plays destiny and he used that app to find randomers to play it with and finished raids with them. That app is essentially 3rd party matchmaking and given the number of people that use it (according to my brother) even the argument against using it in raids doesn't hold up.

Traditional random matchmaking works fine in the division. Nothing I have seen of destiny makes it look like it is so many orders of magnitude more complicated that matchmaking wouldn't be perfectly fine.

And yeah a refinable version of matchmaking where you can set what kind of people you are grouped with would be better that pure random.

@oursin_360: I doubt that has much to do with it. Full matchmaking would make the game appeal to more people which means more people would but it, thats all that Bungie or any company cares about it the end.

I still think that there must be some kind of business of technical reason for not having it in the game. Because it is costing them money and no company would willingly leave money on the table if they didn't have to.

@spaceinsomniac: Haha, I think your comment gave me good luck or something. I ended up getting some boots I didn't have and a ship (Space Age Mariner) from a sterling box yesterday. So apparently venting on GB is a good thing? :)

Also, Iron Banner is pretty great. I played maybe 6-7 matches yesterday and got armor drops really quickly. I got a new cape and boots that I immediately infused. No weapons yet, but I don't think they drop until a later rank. I am almost rank 2. It's so funny, I normally hate competitive multiplayer, but I love Iron Banner (when it's control or clash, I hated rift but I just don't dig that game type all that much).

I just want to do the raid a few more times before the next big expansion/sequel.

I hope this comment gives you more good luck, because any IB weapon or gear can drop at any rank now. It used to require rank two or three before drops could happen, but they changed it.

Day two of Iron Banner, and I already have my weekly bounties done (IB and crucible), got the boots twice, rocket launcher twice, cape once, and auto rifle once. Got a year two spare change from the weekly crucible bounty, but it has awful perks.

@spaceinsomniac:Yeah, I was more talking about since the April update, I know about the card matching system and actually like that (36 Y2 Lighthouse visits). It makes Trials progressively more challenging and intense but I think we are starting to see the flaw in that system as the Trials playerbase is starting to dwindle and only the extremely lucky and top 1000 Destiny Crucible players are able to even get to the Lighthouse. Those people that are left, like Pyro mentioned, are savages, not to say unbeatable, but when you have to have a game of your life every game it makes Trials more a chore than enjoyable. When your ultimate PvP reward is only obtainable by the top 0.2% of the playerbase that starts to become an issue. The last time I played on Monday the two teams we lost to, at 6 and 7 wins on our card (won a game in between) both Claimed The Ultimate Victory at the end, in other words we were actually matched against an 8 win team both times, and in both games they had at least one 2.0 K/D Trials player and none of the players had below a 1.75 K/D and fewer than 50 Flawless Runs. I was just wondering more or less if everyone seemed to be running into this issue, because it's seemingly gotten worse and worse since the December update and now it's just ballbustingly hard.

@lostoddity: I've always felt the exact same as Exile about Raid matchmaking, and completely agree that it should be included for all medium difficulty tasks like CoE and Nightfalls. I absolutely don't think it has any place in Raids or Trials of Osiris. After running many LFG events such as Trials and Raids, even after pretty carefully choosing players both can quickly turn into a disastrous firestorm. The biggest reason though, which I think it won't happen until at least Destiny 2 is because it would cost them money to implement when the community already has created free sites that do a halfway decent job for them of grouping people for those activities. Now would the ideal answer be in game tools for both their Clan system and LFG, absolutely, but that takes Dev time and money they obviously don't have since they barely paper mache'd this April update together after 7 months. I really hope they pull the heads from their hindparts and finally add both in game Clan and LFG features for Destiny 2, but in all honesty I'll be happily surprised if it happens.

@jasonmasters: If anyone wants to do a Hard Raid this weekend to early next week, I'd probably be up for it. About to have surgery tomorrow so I'll be home hanging out after Friday not doing a whole lot. I really want another 335 Heavy so I'd gladly knock out a Challenge Mode run with any of you guys. If we do Hard though I'd want you to have done King's Fall before and be at least 311. But I wouldn't be opposed to doing a Normal run of any of the 3 Raids sometime this week purely for the fun of it with some of you guys as well. Let me know if anyone is interested in either. PSN is the same as here, hestilllives19.

@spaceinsomniac: IB has skill based matchmaking and has been the laziest, most grindy, least interesting part of PvP since its release in 2014

@lostoddity: Let's not turn this thread into destiny matchmaking debate #193528. I'll just get some usual points in there:

LFG and similar solutions aren't at all like regular matchmaking. You have a group leader who can kick bad players or people who aren't cooperating and it's populated by a self selecting group of semi serious players.

Matchmaking in The Division doesn't work at all for its very light raid like activities (incursions).