‘Destiny’: Bungie Responds To Iron Banner Complaints
It’s safe to say that the Iron Banner event for Bungie’s Destiny did not turn into the unbalanced war of Guardians that PlayStation and Xbox owners expected. As I reported for The Inquisitr earlier this week, Iron Banner players became incensed when a video was posted showing a level 4 player dominating against players over level 20. Bungie finally responded to the complaints on Friday, but fans of the sci-fi shooter didn’t particularly buy into the reasoning.
Bungie explained the power level difference in the weekly update posted to the site. In effect, the developer’s claims that the gear and weapon levels matter for Iron Banner are true.. to a point. The studio put a limit on how much level differences matter, and it’s not as big as Destiny players were expecting.
Relive the past week (and the past month) of Destiny in the Bungie Weekly Update. http://t.co/GaIgKi4qEz pic.twitter.com/maOS8MLrqo
— Bungie (@Bungie) October 11, 2014
After a lengthy opening from Community Manager David “Deej” Dague, Senior Designer Derek Carroll explained the logic behind this first Iron Banner Event.
If you were expecting to vaporize a crowd of noobs with a single burst from your SUROS Regime, I can see how you’d be disappointed. Imagine going into the Iron Banner as a mid-20s player totally unable to participate in the fun. We didn’t want players to have to complete the Vault of Glass in order to compete.
In the next statement, Carroll pretty much admits that Bungie sold Iron Banner as one thing but ended up delivering something else.
The way we pitched Iron Banner did make it sound like a “no-holds-barred” playlist. In reality, we delivered what we felt would be a competitive experience for everyone, not just players at the level cap. The reaction from players seems to be: “No, we want it to be bad for lower-level players. That’s the point!”
We’re listening to that feedback, but this first Iron Banner is fairly conservative.
Carroll then explained that Bungie decided to scale damage versus putting no limits. Higher-level players will take the same amount of time to kill a lower-level player as in Crucible. However, players with lower-level gear will require a larger amount of time to take out players with high-end gear.
To keep competition close and avoid unwinnable fights, the largest advantage you can have is around 7 levels. So, if you attacked a target 20 levels above you, you’d have a fair shot at winning that fight.
Bungie’s intention appears to be to let a player’s skill determine the victor in Iron Banner. Carroll says that it will take Destiny players “80% of the way to victory.” However, that makes another instance where Bungie didn’t properly communicate their intentions or anticipate the reaction from the community.
Carroll also said that Bungie would “come up with a plan to address” players that quit Iron Banner matches in future events. The current reward system does not provide a reason for players who are trying to rank up their Iron Banner rank a reason to stay if they are losing.
The Destiny forums and the Destiny sub-Reddit are but two places where the Iron Banner answers provided by Bungie were not satisfactory. The general theme of the complaints is that the current Crucible matches already provide the opportunity for balanced multiplayer. The idea of Iron Banner was to provide something different. Instead, it appears to be more of the same.
What do you think of Bungie’s response to the Destiny Iron Banner complaints? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Bungie]
