Of course Bungie found a way to mess up one of the most requested Destiny 2 features from its community. The looter shooter will soon be adding a transmog system, enabling Guardians to change the appearance of a piece of armour — you'll keep the perks and stats of the equipped piece but it'll look like whatever other item you choose. This system has been fairly common in MMOs for decades now and other titles have begun to adopt the feature, including Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The problem is that Bungie has made its own transmog system, dubbed Armor Synthesis, so needlessly convoluted that its hardcore community is already up in arms over the process.
In order to change the appearance of a single armour piece, players will first need to acquire three different currencies. Defeating enemies will drop Synthstrand, which is used to buy bounties. Completing those rewards Synthcord, which is then converted into Synthweave back at the Tower. You then use that final currency to turn an unlocked piece of armour into a Universal Armor Ornament which can then be applied to whatever you have equipped.
This sort of process is nothing new to Destiny 2 players, but it all feels so overly complicated for a feature that should have been a slam dunk for Bungie. However, the biggest kicker of the lot is how many Synthweaves you can earn. Guardians can gain 10 Synthweaves per season. Not daily, not weekly, and not monthly. This means that over a stretch of roughly three months, a single class can transmog 10 pieces of armour. Or you can buy them from the Eververse store for real money, because of course you can.
Twitter users have been crunching the numbers since this announcement, and if you wanted to transmog every piece of armour in the game, it would take you just under 34 years to have enough Synthweaves to do so. Or, if you wanted to take the Eververse route and buy templates, it would cost you anywhere in the region of $6,000 to $12,000 using this current system. And no, those aren't typos. Obviously nobody needs every single armour piece currently in the game, but it just goes to show how absurd these parameters currently are.
This is ridiculous, right? It's not just us, is it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source bungie.net, via twitter.com]
Comments 43
This sort of stuff is why I don’t play Destiny 2 anymore. Soooo many unnecessary processes.
Games as a service to who, exactly?
Was planning on returning to this but I'm not going to now. Instead I'll likely go back to playing Final Fantasy XIV Online.
I consider myself lucky that I don't like looters and mostly stick to single player games, cause when I see this kind of news I can just laugh it off, though I feel bad for the fans.
You'd think they'd catch as much flak for crap like this as the likes of Activision do for charging $2 for a red dot sight which was free in every previous game.
Still, no skin off my nose... was in the alpha for the first game, but never bothered buying either. If people want to waste time and/or money on this crap, that's their choice. It's just irritating because the more they're let off with this kind of rubbish, the more emboldened other devs are to pull the same crap.
I am so shocked by this...
I loved the transmog system in AC Odyssey. Simple and effortless.
Loving the choice of gif on the front page for this one, lol
Well they had to recoup the free-to-play model somehow huh?
Every single update this game gets is convoluted and monetized, and I understand it's a free to play game, but its starting to get old for players like me who genuinely enjoy the game and who feel it's gotten far greedier since they broke off from Activision.
The actual shooting and gunplay is excellent, but Destiny 2 is sooooo complicated by things like this that it just puts me right off.
I don't understand why these kind of games are so complicated. You'd think free-to-play titles aimed at the widest possible audience would be incredibly easy to pick up and play, but you need a degree to understand them!
Yes, this is incredibly stupid and convoluted for no reason at all. I'd be more annoyed by this if I had a bunch of armor I wanted to turn to ornaments, but there's only like 2 or 3 I'm looking forward to doing. It's still a dumb way to go about this, and I won't be surprised if the complaints from players will make Bungie change things up. They are usually good at responding to fan feedback, they just need to stop shooting themselves in the foot to begin with.
@get2sammyb That way you’ll give up and just buy it. Frustration mechanics.
@ShadowofSparta
Yepp. It began in mobile games and after AAA developers and publishers realized that those little games were making a bajillion dollars a year they cashed in.
Blizzard keeps transmogging so simple and here you have Bungie; taking a simple solution and making it complicated with monetization.
WoW still has the best setup for Tmogs. Its only gold. Nothing else.
perfectly reasonable
I think Live Services are just misunderstood.
Left this game a long time ago. Never going back
I guess even after Activision leaving as the publisger for the game, it's still not free from rather scummy practices.
@Jslade
This has been the way Bungie operates. They do something outrageous/stupid, the community throws a tantrum, they change it in 6-12 months time, the community praises them, repeat... Either they do it on purpose or they lack the ability to assess the impact of their decisions. The former case would be very sinister and calculated, the latter would mean they have low quality employees and decision making. Either way, I’m glad I’m out after 5 long years... 😞
@KippDynamite Liam should write an article about that subject.
So purely cosmetic and purely optional and has no effect on your game? But people still moan....
Clearly these people have never played an mmo or a mobile game before
Great GIF
It is a mess but to be honest I don't need the extra cosmetics so won't affect me.
@UltimateOtaku91 "purely cosmetic and optional" was debunked years ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5CDrq4dGg
I play Guild Wars 2 which has a great way to change armour looks.
To transmog your gear you go to the ‘Wardrobe’ click the gear you want to change, it shows you all the skins you have acquired in game and you simply choose the one you want and it charges you one ‘transmutation charge’ which you acquire hundreds of for free (or you can buy on the gem store for a small fee) and you can instantly change any armour or weapon to look like another.
Simple.
@get2sammyb "Money money money money. Mooooooney!"
This is the same process as free to play mobile games and gacha games have. People eventually get tired and throw money at them. The funny part here is that, Destiny isn't free. Those expantions are quite expensive, and they still pull this crap.
I remember when people said the problem was Activision, lol.
@nessisonett same here. I left after Warmind and never went back. I'm always tempted to hop back in. But it's such a convoluted mess of currencies and blocked activities.
After a period away I tried to get back into this recently. Then I remembered about all of the different currencies (already) in the game. Needless to say I gave up shortly after.
It really should have been a slam dunk. Let people grind for maybe an hour or two (on average) to transmog something, or pay, say, a buck. Up to them.
Why overly complicate it and make it aggressively expensive? Just give fans what they want and make it cheap enough that loads more people would casually throw a few bucks at it.
Lol, I stopped playing D2 because it's overly complicated (and a grindfest) so this comes as no surprise. A game with huge potential vs the mindset of it's devs. Such a shame.
@get2sammyb Dont you love free to play games.
I didn't know "transmog" was even a thing until watching my son play Immortals Fenxy Rising the other night and he kept quickly going through his items and I asked him what he was doing and he said something to the effect of "changing the armor/weapon I'm using but keeping the stats" or some such. He doesn't like wearing the helmets.
So this sounds like that. Only he was doing it second nature in seconds. Me, I was so excited when JRPG actually showed your character equipped w/ the new items. IF you want the stats, WEAR that armor. That's what us old folks say.
Transmog for 3 currencies. 🤣
The shooting mechanics of destiny are probably the best around still. Its the rest of the game is a convoluted mess. I am not sure it can be called a f2p game anymore as nearly all the story has been vaulted from the f2p version so there is not a lot you can do. Played Destiny 1 for over 1000 hours but bounced hard off 2 came back for a couple of weeks to do Forsaken and not touched the game since. Coming back to Forsaken I had no idea what a lot of currencies were for if I came back now sounds like the problem is 10 times worse.
@LordSteev shareholders?
@UltimateOtaku91 Why do you think these things are in games. Expression is something that people like.
Even with the first Guildwars i did not start farming for nothing i loved the cool looking Elite Druid Ranger armor with in white which i could all farm for free. The only thing that would cost was time God i miss those times.
Thats why i will always prefer full priced games over free to play games. This monetization garbage really took over this industry such a pity.
@bindiana Thats why i hate free to play games its not a realistic way to make games. And it always preys in people in some ways or it has to cut corners.
@get2sammyb it's actually the polar opposite from needing to be clever.
it's like gambling machines in pubs. idiots from the bottom classes in school throw all their dole money in as they know how to beat the system (yeah right). Sensible people don't pay them any attention.
It's designed for the idiots in school. We can all see it stupid from the get go. We don't want to learn this mundane process. They will.
@themcnoisy Preying on the weak is never ever ever a good thing. Its the same as selling alcohol in front of a AA meeting.
I dont know if you are calling people with a addiction stupid if so youre quite a nasty person. Companies go quite far in targeting people i saw a great piece on the Jimquisition about that.
Dont know if i can post a link about that but this guy at the 5 minute mark is almost as bad as a drugsdealer.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14
There are no free to play games someone always has to pay the price.
@Flaming_Kaiser No I'm saying the systems are designed for idiots who can't see this blag for what it is.
@themcnoisy I dont think calling people idiots is a good thing there are quite some studies behind these things. They are quite unethical its boderline criminal just like with smoking they know its terrible and still they sell these things. And still in the Netherlands they have issues with weed but cancer in a packet is totally fine.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...