Destiny | Bungie Details Iron Banner Improvements

Bungie has, as helpful as ever, gone through the improvements coming to Iron Banner when it returns to Destiny next year.

As you Destiny buffs undoubtedly know, the Iron Banner is a competitive multiplayer mode made available which is only around for certain periods. Tyson Green, the lead designer, made a post on the Bungie website detailing all the improvements that will be made, thanks to feedback from the community.

The changes include –

Power differences

Destiny fans had been complaining that high-level players didn’t have enough of an advantage in Iron Banner, making levelling up seem barely worth it.

“The goal for Level Advantages in PVP had been to create relatively small advantages that would suffice only to tilt the balance between players of equal skill towards the player of greater achievement, expressed in terms of his gear,” Green explains. “But we now believe we have been too conservative, and that small tilts failed to meet anyone’s expectations.

“In the next Iron Banner, we will debut a much more dramatic difference between players of wide variation in Level. We will detail the changes in an article of its own to come as soon as we settle on some of the numbers.

“Because of this, the next Iron Banner will also require a Fireteam leader to be Level 20 to enter. While lower Level players may join in with their Level 20+ chaperone, they will find it very challenging.”

Incentives to stop quitting

Players would regularly quit out of Iron Banner events because losing a battle would result in no reputation being award, and there was no penalty for just dropping out when defeat seemed likely.

“The Iron Lords respect perseverance and tenacity,” says Green. “In the next Iron Banner, players will receive a Medallion of Iron on a loss. Upon their next win, each Medallion they carry will convert into a reputation gain almost equal to a win.”

Armour and Weapons

Players felt that the armour and weapons awarded to them in Iron Banner wasn’t powerful enough for those who already had exotic items and raid gear equipped.

“In the next Iron Banner, new exclusive reward Armor will be bumped to Level 30, but will still only be available in two slots,” Green confirms. “For advanced players, this will make them viable functional or visual sidegrades.

“Iron Banner Weapons were already viable sidegrades for all but the most advanced players, but we would like to expand the options available. In the next Iron Banner, the weapon types available will go from two to four, divided between drops on match victory, and purchase from Lord Saladin in the Tower.”

Bounties

Some complained that Bounties in Iron Banner required too much effort for not enough reward.

“In the next Iron Banner, several of these Bounties have been tuned down quite a bit, and overall the value of Bounties has been bumped up,” says Green. “Also, they have been moved onto Lord Saladin, who was getting a little lonely back there with only his gong and dinosaur drawings.”

New Feature: Reforging

“In the next Iron Banner, Lord Saladin will offer players the option of Reforging any Iron Banner weapon (including those from the last event). This will re-roll all of the upgrades, but will also reset any progression. The cost for each Reforge will be a small number of Motes of Light, so set some aside next time Xur arrives in the Tower.”

New Feature: Tempered

“With Iron Banner lasting one week, some players with working schedules found themselves unable to even consider reaching a higher rank. In the next Iron Banner, Lord Saladin will offer a 12-hour buff called Tempered, which will boost Iron Banner reputation gains.

“As the week goes forward, this boost will be increasingly potent, to help players starting later in the week to catch up. In Iron Banners after the next, we expect that we will further tune these bonuses by increasing their potency, but limiting their effect to lower Ranks.”

Iron Banner Reputation Reset

Bungie reassures players that Iron Banner reputation isn’t resetting. “In the next Iron Banner, you will still have the Rank achieved in the last,” Green stresses.

“But we still want players to come together for at least a few nights of team PVP, including veterans of the last event, so the Iron Banner ranks have been increased to 5. Some of the adjustments above will help players ascend more quickly through these and existing ranks.

“In future Iron Banners, we will change over from Reputation to an Event Standing model where ranks are reset, but only after we better tune the effort required to reach the higher ranks.”

The Iron Banner mode is set to return some time before the end of 2014, but Queen’s Wrath (another timed Destiny event) seems unlikely to do the same, with Bungie stating it “will be going back into the oven for a while”.

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