The Destiny 2 community is going through a rough patch right now. While the game itself may not be in such bad shape, the disappointing "Lightfall" campaign coupled with general dissatisfaction with the seasonal model has kept the online discussion in a testy mood over the past few months. Destiny 2 game director Joe Black In today's "State of the Game" post by Byrne and the entire team, they attempt to address some of the complaints and concerns that have been repeatedly raised.

There are a few scraps regarding activity on Crucible, Vanguard, and Gambit, but first I want to focus on the Quality of Life update that is due in a few weeks with the launch of Season 22 on August 22.

I have listed these roughly from most exciting to least exciting. But up to 100 shaders are my favorite' that's a good thing. Currently, Destiny 2's shaders are displayed in a large multi-page grid view, in roughly chronological order. As someone who has been playing the game since its launch, finding my favorite shaders is a nightmare. I would also like to see a more detailed shader library with search and sorting capabilities, but I will gladly adopt anything that makes it easier to put Maribor Bronze on my gun.

This, of course, does not change the fact that the shaders include hidden colors not shown on the icons. Why is Erebos Glance orange, bungie" Where does the orange color come from?

The changes made to the Aspects and Fragments of Stasis are also good news. Previously, it took a frustratingly tough quest to apply certain Stasis conditions in Crucible, for example. It was also tedious to go to the trouble of unlocking the Behemoth subclass in Titan, which was very difficult to do a third time. You did the right thing by discarding everything in favor of buying from Elsie.

In addition, Bungie has also included some other frequently asked questions about the game, mostly about the status of ritualistic activities such as Vanguard Ops, Crucible, and Gambit. What is written here does not seem to quell the negativity at this point. In many cases, Bungie is merely explaining the update process and the reasons for its lack.

One of the changes Bungie mentions is that starting next season, players will be able to complete all weekly ritual challenges (those that drop exotic engrams) no matter which ritual playlist they choose. This means that they will no longer have to play Vanguard, Crucible, or Gambit to get all the challenge drops. This will be important later when we talk about Gambit.

Bungie also provides an update on the armor sets that can be acquired through the Ritual Playlist. After Lightfall, we saw many complaints about the lack of new ritual armor sets. With Beyond Light, Bungie switched to releasing a new set (a themed variation for each ritual activity) every year. But that did not happen with Lightfall, where Bungie wrote, "It has become increasingly difficult to provide ritual armor sets at the pace we have in the past." Especially given that these sets have historically had very low adoption rates by players, both as base armor and as costume adornments."

I don't think this explanation is really correct. I understand that these sets are not the kind of loot to chase after, but one of the reasons for the low adoption of these sets is that a) they are very plain looking, and b) they drop with terrible status. These are both things that Bungie can change. That said, the next expansion will get a new set of rituals: "We have changed our delivery plan for how often we refresh these sets and will no longer create a new set for every expansion. However, along with "The Final Shape," the studio is prioritizing the delivery of a new set of ceremonial armor, injecting new looks that can be showcased in the "Vanguard," "Crucible" and "Gambit" playlists.

Not much news on Strike and Nightfall, with Bungie claiming that these playlists are "in a solid place with a healthy population," but the studio does mention that season 22 will introduce the Vanguard medal. These are similar to the medals used in the Guardians game, which give a bonus to scores for completing certain actions, such as achieving a kill streak with a certain weapon type. Since medals contribute to scores, it should be easier to earn the reputation bonus that a high score brings. A nice bonus, to be sure, but not a game-changing one.

Bungie also noted that they are putting more team resources into seasonal activities like Battlegrounds, which will eventually be incorporated into the Strike and Nightfall playlists. The studio explained that "this could be the price to pay for adding strikes in certain years," which may explain why Lightfall was launched exclusively on HyperNet Current. The introduction of Battlegrounds into the Nightfall playlist is more controversial than Bungie admits here. Personally, I quite like Battlegrounds - even if it did lead to some pretty crazy grandmaster runs - but I've seen a lot of people question whether it's a suitable replacement for more traditional strikes.

Here's a statement that I expect will be unpopular with Destiny 2's beleaguered PvP community: "To set expectations, our studio structure is being built to support more comprehensive updates to PvP, rather than focusing on maps alone. When focusing resources on building new crucible maps, the bandwidth of multiple teams on work that contributes to a variety of experiences that players also value, such as new stories, exotic mission content, core activities that form the foundation of each season, or new destinations It involves a tradeoff of devoting bandwidth to a variety of experiences that players also value.

Nevertheless, Season 22 will see the release of a new map - this one set in the Vex network, via the Infinite Forest. The studio will also introduce two new modes to the Crucible Lab playlist: Checkmate is described as a mode where "primary weapon rich fights occur more frequently. Abilities will recharge more slowly, secondary ammunition will be harder to come by, and player health will increase. In this sense, it is like the sandbox of Destiny 2 Year 1, which was controversial at the time, but may be an interesting change in a game that is now based on reduced time to kill, and where even faster variations like Momentum already exist. Relic, on the other hand, is a "party mode" similar to Team Scorched, where players can play around with relics like Aegis shield from Vault of Glass or Scythe from Season of the Haunted.

More generally, Bungie seems to think that the key to Crucible's health lies in better matchmaking, quality-of-life updates, and sandbox tuning rather than new elements. They may be right, but that's probably not what the PvP hardcores want to hear.

Bungie's last game status update did not mention Gambit at all. There are at least a couple of paragraphs here, but the news is not very good. Gambit will get some updates in The Final Shape, including the return of the Dreaming City map and the addition of the Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive enemies, but otherwise the situation seems bleak Bungie "has no plans to devote resources to transform Gambit in any significant way. There are no plans."

Indeed, the main message here is, "Hey, you don't have to play Gambit at all. We're making gambit entirely optional to maximize the rewards, unless you're looking for gear specifically for that mode." The Gambit will continue to serve as a source of exotic engrams through Weekly Challenges, but as mentioned above, starting in Season 22, you will be able to complete all Weekly Challenges in your favorite rituals. If you want to focus on the Vanguard or Crucible challenges without touching the gambit, you can do that now."

Bungie has also reduced the number of Gambit-specific season challenges, meaning that players will not have to play Gambit as much to get the big bright dust rewards that come from completing most of the optional goals for the season. If you want to win guns from the Gambit-specific loot pool, you will need to play it, but given that next season will feature Void machine guns in a world where Commemoration exists, it is unlikely to be a big draw for end-game players.

The rest of this article is a tease about upcoming releases:

Not the most exciting announcement thread, partly because so much is being preserved for the Destiny 2 Showcase on August 22. What is most often said in this article is that Bungie will share more after that date, so much so that it is a little unclear why this article is being published now. Given the mood of the community, Bungie wants a slam dunk here. And while there are some good things here, what we've got is mainly some genuinely good quality-of-life changes, a few concessions to the aging ritual playlist, and the promise that good things are just around the corner.