[u][b]What is this topic about?[/b][/u] The reasoning behind this post is to discuss what has worked and what has not worked for Iron Banner 2.0. At this point I think it is generally agreed upon that the new Iron Banner has been a bad experience for most guardians. But why was it so bad? What did Bungie do that actually worked? What do they need to change? Do they need to change anything? These are questions that I want to touch on in this post. And please, use the pole up top to vote what you currently think about the new Iron Banner. Hopefully if enough people look at this topic, vote, and discuss, Bungie will see what they need to change for next months event. [u][b]What I'm not going to discuss[/b][/u] The Shadow Shot Glitch. I know people were having a huge issue playing against people using this, even though I was only in one game where I saw it the whole week. The thing is, Bungie knows about this. It kind of sucks they were not made aware of this until Iron Banner was underway, cause if they were, I'm sure they would have pushed it back just like they did ToO. Considering they are aware, and considering this is a game wide issue, it is not something that needs to be discussed as a fix for the next Iron Banner event. [u][b]So... What went right?[/b][/u] Honestly, a few things. This may just be me, but I think lag has been a much smaller issue that it has been in the past. I think alot of network manipulators have finally started getting the message or they have been banned from PVP all together. I had maybe one laggy game out of every 15 or so. The last Iron Banner I played in I played in a laggy game about every 3-4 matches, so in my opinion it is much improved. I think Bungie coming out and saying they would be monitoring this over the week and banning people was also a very good deterrent. Now is it totally fixed. No. But I also don't think it will never be totally fixed. There are people, god bless them some day with better internet, who just have really shitty connections and they want to play PvP. And they have that right to play. But I think they are being recognized better and put into games with other people with questionable connection. Ya it sounds like the video game equivalent to a concentration camp, but we honestly don't want them infecting games, so good for you Bungie. Good items for sale. If the armor and weapons for sale are any indication, we can expect good PvP specific armor to be available every single event. For those that didn't know, the legs you can get give you more movement speed and weapon handling upon respawn, which is a fantastic perk. Weapons that were for sale had amazing rolls. Bungie did claim that the weapons that you could buy would be the premier weapons you would want. Both the side arm and pulse rifle had pretty much perfect roles for the weapons. It seems like that the day is gone where the weapon you finally needed would be for sale, with a random crappy roll that you didn't want. Along with all that, the weapons, at least from the first batch sold, appear to be very good PvP weapons, but I am sure time will tell if that is true. [u][b]So... What went wrong?[/b][/u] Sadly... alot went wrong. One of the biggest dick punches of this whole week was that Bungie claimed that drops would be increased, and those drops would include both items for sale, and items not for sale. It seems like, at least from my stand point and what I have seen other people say, the exact opposite is true. It seems that drops have in fact been decreased and the only items that drop are items that are currently for sale. I have yet to see anyone claim that they have gotten another item (HM, Auto Rifle, Shotgun, anything other than the ship) to drop for them while playing Iron Banner. Here is the problem with this. They have already said that the items you buy, while only 280, have the rolls that you are going to want for that item. So... then why would I want a weapon, regardless of what it attack/defense level is, if it is going to have a random roll on it? I'm not. Now would I be happy if I got another IB weapon that wasn't for sale if it didn't have a great roll... hell ya. Maybe I get lucky and I get a drop for an item with a good or god tier roll on it and if not I can at least use it can make a judgement on the item to see if I want to buy a better roll in another IB event. Right now the items that drop are basically just used to make the ones you buy stronger via infusion. Now about the decreased drops. This is just me, but I played from LVL 0-5 and I had ZERO IB drops of any kind. Zero! The last IB I played in. I had at least 4-5 and I always averaged at least 2 IB drops per event. Never have I played through without any drops. As soon as they "increase" the drops, I get nothing. Maybe I need to keep playing at LVL 5, but why would anyone want to do that? When you go from 0-5 you don't want to keep playing on the same character or keep playing IB in general. Bungie did say the higher the level, the more stuff that is unlocked for drops and drops increase even more. Maybe if you would unlock all the items to drop starting at LVL 0 and kept the drops % the same across all levels, I would feel more inclined to keep playing, but when you grind for days to get to lvl 5 and nothing happens, there isn't much incentive to keep going. Legendary Marks instead of glimmer? Look I understand that you want everyone to use Legendary Marks. But the "no cap" per week is honestly a load of horse crap. The way the current system is set up, it is nearly impossible to purchase both weapons and the armor piece for each separate character. Ya before I would have to glimmer farm a bit if I wanted to buy everything, but it was at least possible to do. Now I have to essentially rely on getting drops from playing, but we have already established that drops rarely happen and if they are a weapon the roll isn't likely going to be desirable. With this, Bungie simply needs to reduce the amount of Legendary Marks each item costs. Cause at this point it is nearly impossible to purchase everything, and it is impossible to purchase everything and infuse weapons and armor at the same time. Plus god forbid you were saving up to buy one of the good weapons from a faction. Now you are stuck waiting another week for that while you save up to buy the IB gear that Bungie has promised would drop. [u][b]So what changes need to be made?[/b][/u] As I pointed out, several changes need to be made to how gear is distributed. Gear is the #1 only reason people play IB. Bungie promised things were going to work one way with gear, and it ended up working the exact opposite as was promised. They need to increase the drops even more than what they claimed they did and they need to unlock all the weapons and armor like they promised. They need to have all these items unlocked to drop as soon as you get into IB and the drop rates need to be the same regardless of what level you are on. They also need to drop how much each item costs to purchase from IB or at least change it back to Glimmer. If you are going to tell people that the gear that is ready for purchase is at the rolls they are going to want, then you are going to have to make it so they can actually purchase that gear. If these changes are actually made, I think the next Iron Banner will be a success. I think it will finally be better than Iron Banner 1.0. If these changes are not made... then I don't see a good amount of people returning to play the game mode, a game mode that people were already avoiding because of how broken it has been in the past. So these are all my thoughts on the matter. What do you think? Am I right, am I wrong, did I miss anything? Comment. Pass this around. Bungie isn't ever going to change anything for the better unless we make them aware of what is broken. [u][b]EDIT:[/b][/u] We are over 1000 votes with about 18% saying IB 2.0 is better, about 18% saying it is about the same, and about 64% saying that IB 2.0 is worse than the original. [u][b]EDIT 2:[/b][/u] Some people are calling me out saying that Bungie never said there would be drops other than what was being sold that week. I got my information from this post about this very subject. [url]https://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny-Update---10132015/en/News/News?aid=13706[/url] The quote is, [b]"End-of-match rewards now include both weapons and armor (including items available on Lord Saladin)."[/b] This lead me to believe that other weapons and armor would drop during the event and I believe that if they in fact did not intend for items not being sold to drop then they worded this line POORLY to say the least. This was the post I read when I was going into Iron Banner. [b][u]EDIT 3:[/u][/b] I'm getting a lot of people saying, "I guess you had bad luck... RNG wasn't on your side, ect, ect." I just want to make this clear that I did not create this post because I personally didn't get loot to drop, I made it based on the vaste majority of players who didn't have loot drop and the confusion created by bungie because of conflicting statements on loot. This post isn't meant to be woe is me, but rather it is meant to gather input from the community on their experience in IB so see what has and has not worked and how Bungie can improve the experience. [b][u]EDIT 4:[/u][/b] So bungie just flat out admitted that the loot drops were broken. Fix should be in for the next Iron Banner.