Fluff snipped to protect the innocent. [quote]This afternoon, the message was about the future. Destiny is a thing that we wanted to be meaningful to people. Given how much it’s been played, we think we just might be on to something. We just need to bring on the next meal for you to devour with startling urgency.[/quote] Yeah, we burn through content pretty fast, and we like new stuff. Please don't forget that a lot of the old stuff was perceived to be sub-par; The players aren't likely to. Tacking new (exciting and awesome) content onto a world that feels haphazard and frequently incoherent is certainly going to keep some people playing, but...you've heard this already. When you write these updates, please remember that your audience has heard it too. [quote]There will be new ways for you to build upon your legend. Some of them will be revealed very soon. Others will appear when you least expect them. When you see what I’ve seen, I hope you’ll be as excited as I am.[/quote] We'd really like to be excited [b]with[/b] you, Deej. This in-depth update on the Iron Banner is a welcome move in the right direction. Give us more of this, on your other plans. We obsess over the details, because they are so few and far between in this setting, and many of us truly appreciate the effort you've collectively put into un-blam!-ing this PvP event for us. If we can't touch those mysterious upcoming features that have you so excited, at least give us a tease (like this one) with some serious skin showing, and let us imagine the naughty bits while we grind through the current iteration of Destiny. [quote]Power Matters (More!)...In the next Iron Banner, we will debut a much more dramatic difference between players of wide variation in Level. We will detail the changes in an article of its own to come as soon as we settle on some of the numbers. Because of this, the next Iron Banner will also require a Fireteam leader to be Level 20 to enter. While lower Level players may join in with their Level 20+ chaperone, they will find it very challenging.[/quote] I enjoyed the previous IB. I know many people wanted to light Lord Saladin on fire just so they could refuse to piss on him, but it was just enough imbalance, at just the right point in my PvP skill development, to provide me with a welcome change to the dynamics of Control. I look forward to killing baby toons by the bakers dozen. I do hope you explain the logic behind your decision to require a level 20+ fireteam captain. Not because I disagree with it, simply because it's hard to figure out why you took it, since we're hearing about it with no context. Maybe it's just to get more people to play in teams. Maybe it's supposed to raise the opportunity cost for people who could potentially abuse the Medallion mechanic by going AFK. Whatever the reason for it, I hope you lay it out for us. Preferably in crayon, with lots of little smiley stickers. Inquiring minds, and all that. That choice does appear to telegraph your intention to keep IB firmly based in team play. I know many folks were pretty bent about the fact that they couldn't play an FFA match with level advantages enabled. I hope you've got a bone to throw their way. [quote]Quitting - In the next Iron Banner, players will receive a Medallion of Iron on a loss. Upon their next win, each Medallion they carry will convert into a reputation gain almost equal to a win.[/quote] Interesting fix. This seems to be aimed at preventing AFK and quitting at the same time, because adding straight rep-for-loss rewards would probably have meant people could just set down their controllers, wander off to play candy crush, and rank up. This way, you can't form a fireteam and go out for lunch expecting to see a payoff. Or can you? Does every Medallion I'm carrying turn into rep after a single win? What happens if I AFK a dozen matches, then join a fireteam and mop the floor? Does that single win turn 12 medallions into rep? Because...that would be bad. We'd just trade quitters for AFK'ers. Clarity on this mechanic will be essential when you go in depth on this topic. The medallion system only solves both problems if a single win transmutes a single medallion. [quote]Armor and Weapons - The goal for Iron Banner gear was to provide Armor powerful enough to interest most players after a few weeks of gearing up, and aesthetically appealing to all players. But for very advanced characters, wearing Exotics and Raid gear, the equipment was not powerful enough to consider. In the next Iron Banner, new exclusive reward Armor will be bumped to Level 30, but will still only be available in two slots. For advanced players, this will make them viable functional or visual sidegrades.[/quote] Good! People with raid gear need an incentive to chase IB ranks. The whole point of IB is to wreck face with our sick gear. If we can't at least match the stuff we bring in with a potential reward, the activity makes very little sense from a metagame perspective. Keeping it pared back to only two slots is a halfway step (patience, my fellows) to providing a path to 30 for players who would rather gargle razor blades than set foot in the current raid scene, but it's not enough to get anybody to level 30 based solely on PvP activity, which should keep all but the most rabid PvE "earners" from foaming at the mouth. [quote]Bounties - The goal of Bounties in the Iron Banner is to push players to prove themselves in new ways, while also ensuring that straight-up combat was always valuable to move you towards a higher rank. But some of the Bounties required too much, and were mutually exclusive in a way that made this worse. In the next Iron Banner, several of these Bounties have been tuned down quite a bit, and overall the value of Bounties has been bumped up. Also, they have been moved onto Lord Saladin, who was getting a little lonely back there with only his gong and dinosaur drawings.[/quote] Thank you, not only for adjusting the numbers, but for considering bounty synergy. Frankly, I just laughed a little and got a burning sensation in my throat last time Iron Banner was around and I looked at the bounty board, although the dinosaurs are cute. The fact that you moved the bounties onto Lord Saladin is also hugely promising for a variety of subtle reasons. Knowing that your back end code is modular enough to handle that sort of shift gives me some hope for the future...knowing that the mechanistic end of the interface can be paired in logical ways with the narrative of the world is comforting. Knowing that you actually care enough about those subtleties to bother doing that sort of pairing is a massive relief, because there's been far too little of that sort of thing up to this point. [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/74919967/0/0/0]Continued Below...[/url]