I have been enjoying this episode of Destiny 2 in terms of the loot it offers, the activities that have launched, and its overall vibe. I have not liked what the game introduced as its central mechanic, dozens and dozens of potions that do everything from enhance artifact skills to target farm loot. I use the phrase “target farm” there very loosely.
The main issue is complexity. Rather, over-complexity as this seems like a convoluted system designed for its own sake rather than being something that is fun for players to use. The game has you farm a dozen different currencies for use in dozens of different potions, where only two can be active at a time, and are on timers that it’s annoying to juggle.
There are a number of combat potions that allow for enhanced abilities of perks in the artifact. Rather than managing those for every play session, this seems like something that could have been solved with a simple toggle, given players one or two “bonus” points to double up on a perk to unlock its special skill. Instead you farm these currencies and activate them on timers that you will often forget to reset, and are not active when you switch characters (this is true of all potions).
The focusing potions on the other side are even worse. It’s bizarre to see a contrast of what you can do with old Onslaught, which his simply walk up to Zavala and check a box for which weapon you want to focus and find more often.
Here, you are given two dozen potions for weapons and armor and materials, and the timer makes it annoying to continually activate, not to mentioning brewing more when you need them (my Warlock also has a bug where I have not been able to actually make a potion on that character in close to two months now).
The potions also barely seem to work. You can play an entire 70 minute Onslaught run and get maybe one copy of the weapon you’re focusing, and 3-4 copies of a weapon you’re not. This has led to conspiracy theories that maybe the potions are bugged and are giving the wrong focused weapon. I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say that’s true, but given the recent perk-matching bug, the community is not wrong to be suspicious, at least.
Again, this entire thing could be solved with a tick box that says you want to focus say, one weapon or piece of armor, and one type of material. No timer, no farming random ingredients. Yes, I get that this reduces the central mechanic significantly, but it’s…not a good central mechanic. I know that Bungie wanted to get away from the four rows of six boxes thing for past seasons, but this is not replacing it with something better (and we do still have rows of boxes elsewhere too).
This is complicated for its own sake and annoying to manage these potions that make focusing worse than it’s been previously, and it’s no wonder why the children cry out for crafting once more, as this is barely working at all.
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