[GameSpot] - Destiny 2 Will Flood You With Fewer Trash Loot Drops And Gunsmith Materials In Witch Queen

[343iBot]

Destiny 2 is a game that's all about loot, and as in similar titles, that means for any guns and armor you find and want to keep, there are tens of others that you don't. With the upcoming Witch Queen expansion, players should see fewer useless "Rare" gear drops that are usually immediately trashed for upgrade components, which means you should spend a little less time looking at menus and managing inventory come February 22.

Bungie announced the change to how Rare gear drops will work in a This Week At Bungie blog post. Those drops, which are colored blue, will no longer come as rewards from playlist activities such as Strikes and Gambit and Crucible matches once you've reached the game's Soft Power level cap. Instead, drops will either be Legendary (purple) gear--which players actually keep--or a batch of Legendary Shards, which are used with the weapon infusion system in order to raise the power stats on pieces of gear you want to use long-term.

In the TWAB, Bungie wrote that this should help keep players from having to quit out of playlist activities in order to make trips back to the Tower to clear their mailboxes, where gear players can't hold in their character inventories is sent (and eventually, when the mailbox is full, automatically deleted). Blue drops will still be part of the game, however--they'll come from enemies you kill in activities out in the world. But playlist activities should be blessedly free of blue rewards dropping from end-of-mission chests or cropping up from a completed Crucible match.

Blue drops are still an essential part of leveling in Destiny 2, but the problem is that once players hit the Power level Soft cap, only "Powerful" Legendary gear can advance their level higher. At that point, blue drops become useless, and players always immediately delete them. So this change will eliminate the number of blue weapons and armor players will have to immediately delete.

Master Rahool will soon take over the role filled by The Spider on the Tangled Shore.

Along with the change to blue drops, Bungie is also removing Gunsmith Materials, Telemetry Data, and Mod Components, three inventory items that aren't really much use to most players. Gunsmith Materials are currently rewarded every time you dismantle a weapon, while Telemetry Data can be earned by using certain mods or consumable items. Mod Components come from completing certain bounties, but also don't add much to the in-game economy thanks to mod changes enacted in the last year. All can be turned in with Banshee-44, the Gunsmith vendor in the Tower (and Mod Components can also be turned in with transmogrification vendor Ada-1), in exchange for random Legendary weapons--but they're given out at such a rate, many players have thousands of materials and little interest in turning them in with Banshee for more guns to dismantle.

Instead, starting with The Witch Queen, the Gunsmith vendor is changing to give it a similar "reputation" system to the Vanguard vendor, Crucible vendor, and Gambit vendor. Dismantling guns and doing other things in-game will earn you Gunsmith reputation, and once you earn enough points to level up your rep with Banshee, you'll earn a reward--just like with other vendors in the game. Banshee will still be pretty useful, selling random weapons that give players an opportunity at particular stat rolls on guns and mods.

Finally, some other vendor duties are being transferred to the Tower. The Witch Queen is seeing the removal of the Tangled Shore location that first entered the game with the Forsaken expansion, and with it goes Spider, that location's vendor. Spider was useful to players because he offered a materials exchange, where you could trade currencies gained from certain planets and activities for other things, such as upgrade materials. Those duties are being transferred to Rahool, the Cryptarch vendor in the Tower. For the time being, at least, the exchange rates will be comparable to what players have seen from the Spider, but that might change in the future.

There are a few more things in the TWAB worth checking out, as well--including details about The Witch Queen's Power cap changes and the launch timing for its new raid.

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