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Destiny 2 Event: An Underwhelming Return for Lord Saladin and The Iron Banner

Over the last week Destiny 2 held The Iron Banner, an event that occurs every month. Lord Saladin visits the tower with neat looking armor and weapons that will be rewarded to the guardians that are participating. This new iteration of The Iron Banner is great for new players, it gives them a reason to come back every day and the token system is simple, unlike the bounty system in Destiny 1.
Though this iteration of Iron Banner caters to the new and casual audience, it leaves us mid to hardcore players with not much to care about. There’s nothing that progresses our power level, no difficulty with Light advantage off, and on top of that, players not committing to an Iron Banner match.




Eastern-Inspired Iron Banner Gear 

I’ve dabbled in Iron Banner in Destiny 1, it wasn’t my kind of game mode. I liked the PvP in both Destiny and Destiny 2, but once someone talks about hardcore PvP my interest was gone, my only incentives were getting the gear and getting my Light level up. Now in Destiny 2 the only reason I’d participated in Iron Banner was the sweet looking armor, I didn’t care about the guns or anything else Lord Saladin had to offer.

A lot of my games consisted of players leaving before the match ended

A major problem in Iron Banner and PvP in general are that there are no penalties for leaving in the middle of a match. This made my time playing Iron Banner miserable. Every third or so matches this would occur and why wouldn’t they? It’s faster to go back to orbit and start a new match. There needs to be a penalty if you leave in a middle of a match, whether that be timing them out, or less rewards for a curtain amount of time. If Bungie doesn’t address this problem player’s perception of PvP are going to be sour, you can believe it left me feeling unmotivated to play.

Iron Banner isn’t just a mode Bungie slapped in the game, it also plays a very big part in the lore of Destiny and why we are called guardians. Lord Saladin was one of the first guardians known as the “Iron Lords”. Although Lord Saladin wasn’t the first leader of the Iron Banner he was a worthy successor to Lord Radegast, the first ever guardian. Iron Banner is born because of Lord Radegast and his ideology of the best guardians wielding the strongest Light.

Lord Saladin came to visit the Tower

A lot of players, including me, were disappointed that lore within The Iron Banner was non-existent. Coming off “The Rise of Iron” expansion in Destiny 1 which was all about the Iron Lords it seems like Bungie missed the mark on the lore side. Of course, Iron Banner will be back and hopefully they can add something for us lore enthusiast.
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Right before Iron Banner started there was an image of the full set of Iron Banner armor, it looked amazing and I was fully on board and excited. As the week progressed I felt like there was no reason to play. The armor looked great, but collecting them was a chore with the token system.

With only two tokens a loss and five with a win, it can take 4-10 matches before you can open an engram. 4-10 matches might not seem much, but the fact that many players leave before the match is over makes the matches feel longer and makes less enjoyable.

This is just the first of many Iron Banner events, just like Destiny 1, Bungie will improve systems, events, and lore in the future.

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