Summary
As the anticipated end of the Light and Darkness saga, there’s already a lot riding onDestiny 2’s upcoming The Final Shape expansion to be a meaningful transition into a new era for the game. However, there are a few troubling areas ofDestiny 2that still deserve a rework ahead of this expansion.
Specifically, the activity economy and vendor reputation systems inDestiny 2are arguably outdated. At the moment, it’s much easier and faster to earn Exotic Engrams than it is to earn a worthwhile amount of vendor-specific Engrams to focus into Legendary gear, which doesn’t feel appropriate. Since Exotic armor and weapons are, by nature, expected to be the best of the best gear inDestiny 2, the game’s current activity economy can be quite frustrating, hence why it needs to be changed before this problem carries on into The Final Shape expansion.
The Problem With Destiny 2’s Activity Economy Explained
The reason whyDestiny 2’s activity economy is so problematic mostly comes down to how expensive it is to focus Legendary Engrams for rewards at the different NPC vendors in the game. As an extreme example, focusing Adept Nightfall weapons is one of the longest grinds at the moment inDestiny 2. A single Adept Nightfall weapon can take players around 10 Grandmaster Nightfall completions to obtain the required amount of Nightfall Ciphers, or only five completions on the weeks whenDestiny 2offers double Nightfall rewards. Not to mention, aside fromcollecting Nightfall Ciphers inDestiny 2, players will also need to have enough Vanguard Engrams to use for this transaction, which each requires a full rank-up to earn.
The first nine or so rank-ups at any of the vendors inDestiny 2are generally quite manageable to achieve in a short timeframe, but it becomes a much longer grind to reach ranks 10 through 16 to get any additional vendor-specific Engrams. While Nightfall Ciphers make obtaining Adept Nightfall weapons one of the longest grinds to achieve, the grind for any of the other faction vendors inDestiny 2unfortunately isn’t much shorter. This long grind is especially troublesome for players attempting to earn all of thenew rewards fromDestiny 2’s Iron Banner event.
In order to get all of the rewards from Iron Banner, players often have to fully reset their Iron Banner rank twice, which means getting through 32 Iron Banner Ranks within a Season inDestiny 2. Ultimately, this is a massive commitment that casual players can’t often make due to limited playtime, or just a lack of interest in such a long grind. Hopefully,Destiny 2’s transition from Seasons to Episodeswill address this kind of FOMO and limited availability of certain content in Destiny 2, but an overall activity economy change arguably should be just as much of a priority.
How Destiny 2 Could Fix Its Activity Economy Problem
Given that it’s currently easier to earn Exotic Engrams at a faster rate than it is to earn vendor rank-up rewards,Destiny 2’s current activity economy is relatively outdated. The one exception to this though is the latest changes that were made to the Gunsmith vendor inDestiny 2. Sinceearning Gunsmith Engrams inDestiny 2isn’t exclusive to ranking up the Gunsmith’s reputation, players who know where to look can obtain a generous amount of Gunsmith Engrams to use for focusing weapons at this vendor.
With the upcomingremoval of Legendary Shards fromDestiny 2, Bungie should consider giving other vendors the ‘Gunsmith treatment.’ While there are ultimately many ways that Bungie could potentially fixDestiny 2’s current activity economy, adding more ways for players to earn vendor reputation, vendor-specific Engrams, and/or reducing the cost of focusing Engrams seem like the easiest ways to go about it.
