Bungie has announced the different score thresholds for the collector’s points of Destiny 2‘s Call to Arms and urged the Guardians to round up their people and get their fireteams formed. The player’s response was nothing less than… chaotic. The official DestinyTheGame account was the one to announce it, and along with it, there was a picture that visualized the scores that were needed for the coveted competitive points. The communication was quite explicit: use your modifiers to the fullest and come out with a score that is next to impossible to beat. Nonetheless, what at first glance seems to be an easy task has proven to be a complete nightmare for the players involved.
The official explanation was that the Call to Arms event was nothing but a mess. The average score in this competitive PvE event was not fixed throughout the days and activities. The players were set different scoring limits, so more often than not, they ended up with hundreds of points less than what was expected. Still, everybody was supposed to get the same gifts, so who got the points first remained a mystery in the end. At the same time, things started getting worse up at the scoring.
Still, the outcry continues. AxelNono070202 shared that they kept on running activities in different spots and that besides, ‘I did it 5 times at the salt mines no change for the same, heliostat, another coil and proving ground.’ Moreover, Blaxtopolition called the event ‘a huge mistake—really bad, like I am not kidding.’ That is indeed a harsh criticism directed at Bungie especially when taking into account that the situation is competitive.
Though, that is not all, it is getting even trickier. There seems to be a whole argument going on about the real meaning of the word ‘competitive’ in the Destiny 2 universe. Lucifer_Doggo claimed that ‘the term competitive should really restricted for instances like: Raid firsts, PVP hard modes, etc.’ They do not consider events with RNG scoring as competitive and to be honest? That is a pretty strong argument. If your score relies on the presence (or absence) of particular mobs, you are not really talking about skill but luck.
And then, there is the power level issue. Zaffy2005 said they were ‘just at the verge of being 370 PL’ thus called the whole event a ‘total waste of time’ since they could not score high. This led to an intense discussion in the comments with TheSaltyKing47 suggesting that he ‘Others who also work are still able to hit the points needed while being around the same power as you without an issue.’ But zaffy2005 did not give up and shot back about people ‘living of your mommy’s credit card’ and not understanding that some players have jobs and cannot grind for 8-15 hours daily.
The situation has indeed polarized the Destiny community. There are players like DewdSaid, who, quite the opposite, found the event really interesting calling it their ‘favorite activity’ and praising the ‘chase of trying to get to the score threshold.’ So, they even suggested Bungie ‘lock in the scoring requirements ahead of time and stick to your guns’ for future events. But on the other hand… let it be known that the frustration of some players is expressed loud and clear.
What makes it even worse for Bungie is that the bugs issue that players have raised goes beyond just the score. MasterVegasss issued an ultimatum to Bungie regarding the ‘Lord Saladin quest bug’ that has not yet been resolved, wondering whether this is the ‘same multi-million dollar company that got bought by Sony for 3.6 Billion dollars.’ That’s going to leave a bruise for sure.
On top of that, there is the issue of the cosmetic rewards in particular—the flaming helmet that each player is grinding for. xRhundis demanded ‘That helmet better be shaderable…’ since if you are going through all this hassle for a cosmetic item, it better be customizable. Though they did confess to being ‘hoping the base helmet shades at least’ while being doubtful ‘the flames will.’
Nevertheless, it is quite interesting how this event has once again revealed the split between casual and hardcore players in Destiny 2. TheSaltyKing47 pointed out that ‘in a competitive event you don’t need to hit the top score except for an emblem and you can still get 100 points for the helmet easily.’ But for players who feel that they are putting in the time yet still getting the raw end of the deal because of RNG or other reasons, that may not be good news.
The whole situation has been hard on Bungie in terms of timing, especially considering their recent Xbox and PlayStation platform releases.
