‘Destiny’ Iron Banner: Is It Broken And Does It Encourage Quitters?

Bungie billed the Iron Banner event in Destiny as a chance for PlayStation and Xbox owners to enjoy the full benefit from the weapons and armor they earned in the game. After two full days, players are complaining that’s not the case. Additionally, they say limited time events encourage people to quit mid-match due to the way Iron Banner is setup.

In regular Destiny Crucible multiplayer, weapons and armor are balanced to even the playing the field between low level players just getting started and high-level players who have the best and most powerful loot. The exception is the perks that come with the loot, but the power of the weapons is generally evened out.

Here is how Bungie described Iron Banner in a recent post on the Destinywebsite and on Twitter.

The ratings on your gear will make all the difference! Unlike the other competitive playlists in Destiny, Iron Banner is not a level playing field.

In Iron Banner, powerful gear gives you a competitive edge. Show us the loot you’ll be using to vanquish the competition.

— Destiny The Game (@DestinyTheGame) October 9, 2014

In Iron Banner, only the most powerful Guardians will be victorious. Put your gear to full use and earn the respect of the Lords of Iron.

— Destiny The Game (@DestinyTheGame) October 6, 2014

It’s apparently not that much of a difference though. Destiny player OohaPieceaCandy posted the following video on the Destinyforums yesterday showing him playing with a level 4 Warlock equipped with the starting auto-rifle. He was able to get 15 kills to just 5 deaths facing off against another team full over players over level 20.

He followed that with a second video of his now level 6 Warlock. This time he managed 15 kills and only 3 deaths.

Both videos show Candy doing 28 points worth of damage with headshots using the starter auto-rifle. Yes, he’s clearly a skilled player, but should he be doing that amount of damage as a level 4 Guardian against a level 28?

In my Iron Banner games, I’ve noticed my level 26 Titan equipped with a rare quality auto-rifle do 43 points of headshot damage. There is apparently some level advantage, but nowhere near the same degree as PvE where a level 4 player wouldn’t even be able to damage a level 20+ enemy. Players have definitely noticed though and are complaining vehemently on Bungie forums, Reddit, and elsewhere.

Bungie Community Manager David “DeeJ” Dague responded directly to Candy’s post on the Destiny forums by stating that an the issue will be addressed the developer, just not until Friday.

I’ll be addressing this in the Weekly Update.

Preview: Power Matters, but so does skill.

The other major issue with Iron Banner that has players upset revolves around the reward system encouraging players to quit. Currently, players receive 25 Iron Banner reputation points for winning a match. Losers receive nothing. If a player quits, there is no penalty.

This has setup a situation where a noticeable amount of players start an Iron Banner match and then quit as soon as their team gets behind in the score. It’s all about saving time so that they can rank up their Iron Banner reputation as quickly as possible.

It’s something I’ve noticed as well. The history of some of my matches shows that the losing side had 10 players because some of the original players quit during the match. Granted, I haven’t been able to play a large number of matches, but the losing team in the majority of the dozen or so Iron Banner matches where I’ve been on the winning side shows players two or more players dropping.

Can this be solved by offering Iron Banner reputations for the losing side? Perhaps a penalty of some kind for quitting? It will likely be too late for this Iron Banner event since it ends next Tuesday and Bungie is not answering any questions until Friday. There’s no guarantee that the problem of quitters will even be addressed in Friday’s weekly update for Destiny.

What do you think about the way the Iron Banner event has been run for Destiny? Let us know in the comments below.

[Images via Bungie]