Fate 2
We’re still a few weeks away from the debut of Destiny 2’s season 18, and since we have no idea if Bungie has everything in mind for the August 23rd reveal, I’d like to think. this past season instead today.
Season of Haunted ended up being one of the least well-regarded of all Destiny seasons so far, I’d say. Definitely in the bottom half, if not, maybe a bottom five or lower depending on who you ask. It’s weird considering Bungie seems like it indeed hyping it up ahead of time and the secrecy that surrounded it made it seem like something that would blow us away. But it didn’t quite work out that way.
One issue is that the good stuff that was part of this season wasn’t technically part of this season. While it fits thematically with the season (and practically shares the loot pool via the two Opulence weapons), it would be something like Duality, where it’s part of a separately sold dungeon pack. While I like Solar 3.0, it’s not something exclusive to Haunted, it’s a permanent sandbox change.
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That leaves the actual content of the season, and I’m comfortable explaining what I think is the root of the problem with Season of the Haunted: Nightmare Containment.
There are a lot of problems with Nightmare Containment, it’s not necessarily a bad action in a vacuum, but it relies on the season. voice it severely overturned everything on every aspect.
Leviathan is back as a patrol location, which was cool, but the ghost hold only takes place in one area, Castellum, and even when it “rotates” from week to week, the only thing that really changes is the end boss and what not. even place your last boss. Compare this to Battlegrounds or Override missions, which have 3-4 versions that take place in different locations. Here it is, just Castellum, Castellum, Castellum, with minor differences.
In theory, you could at least run certain levels of gear that take you through Sever missions that take you to different parts of Leviathan, but in order to do that you have to…run for value. And it was a very, very rare drop.
Before that, there were frustrations with the loot itself, in that Opulence weapons didn’t drop directly from Nightmare Containment or Sever, or from enemies in Leviathan. Although the main way to get the keys to find them in chests was still to beat the Container for three easy chests. These were some of the most sought after weapons of the season, but the process of getting them was a huge pain.
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Pattern grinding here in the second season of crafting was also boring because in Containment you had to grind endlessly for the red frames and five patterns per weapon was too much. It also revealed that something went very, very wrong with this season’s economic planning, where HELM upgrades were an entire row dedicated to a currency you never needed, but the actual focus currency for drop and red frame hunting is again required. , an absurd amount of farming in Nightmare Containment.
Everything kept dragging players into Nightmare Containment, and the action itself wasn’t varied enough, with a fixed location and an almost entirely different boss rotation. I think most of the seasonal activities will probably end up feeling a bit repetitive, but Nightmare Containment felt like a new level of that, making the whole Leviathan return pointless.
There are definitely things I like about the season itself. I like most of the new weapons, including anything with glow sticks. All the lore and story through the Sever missions and even the Guard dialogue was pretty good, some of Destiny’s best. But gameplay-wise, Containment was a problem, and I hope we don’t have a similar action-based problem in season 18, no matter what.
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Take my science fiction novels Herokiller series and Born from Earth trilogy.
