Bungie can't catch the W: Instead of boosting the drop rate for Destiny 2's top exotic items, the patch nerfed them into dust

It turns out, if you fire a lot of your QA staff the game you are making will have quality issues. I'm not claiming that the problems with Destiny 2’s latest patch were a direct result from Bungie's drastic headcount cut last week, but it certainly can't help.

Update 8.0.5 was also released yesterday as part of the weekly reset. It included a number of fixes and balance adjustments. The most anticipated was a boost to the drop rate for Prismatic exotic items. According to the patch notes:

• Chances of obtaining Exotic items from chests have been adjusted to be more generous.
• The chest chances will increase as you progress.
• The world chest chance is no longer a part of the progression.
• World chests will still drop the item, but they won't increase the chances of future chests dropping it.

The above wording is a bit messy. The actual change was announced on July 25 in a This Week at Bungie blog post. It makes it clear that this buff only applies to chests found during the Overthrow activity. It read:

• You will have a higher chance of winning if you open chests that are tied to Overthrow activities.
• The chances of dropping a chest increase as it gets higher in the tiers.
• This should reduce the time (on average), it takes to get an Exotic Class item. We'll monitor the feedback and adjust further if needed.

Yesterday, the feedback began to come in quickly and it wasn't good. Multiple threads on r/DestinyTheGame complained that the drop rate had not been improved, but was actually worse. The author of the post with the most votes wrote, "Way-to-go Bungie." Players reported that it took five or more runs to find an exotic class item. In my pre-patch experiences, I've gleaned a bunch of Overthrow and it would normally take me two to three runs.

The volume of replies that agreed with the problem did not mean that variance and bad luck were the cause. Bungie Team confirmed today that there was a mistake with a post on X.

The quest to find the perfect combination of perks to suit your playstyle is one of the main rewards after completing The Final Shape.

I was so excited when I first heard about the exotic class items in April that I wrote, "Destiny 2 has returned!" Oh, sweet summer child! How little I knew. I was right, however, about their power and desirability. These items combine slightly diluted version of the unique perks that are found on two other exotic armor pieces, meaning the perfect pairing can supercharge your build.

The only way to obtain exotic class items at the moment is to run the Dual Destiny missions with a friend or to get a very low chance of acquiring them from chests in the Pale Heart location (now even lower due to this error). It is true that the mission guarantees a drop, but it has become tedious for many players. This is especially true with 64 perk combinations, and no dupe protection. What should have been a major highlight of this expansion is now a mess.

Bungie Team followed up with a promise that a solution wouldn't take long. They also teased us by saying we might be able reduce the RNG in the near future: "We are currently developing a hotfix, aiming for an immediate fix. In a future update, we are also considering giving players the option to chase specific perks. "More details as plans are solidified."

Fallout Plays, a PC Gamer reader and content creator, replied:

Bungie is its own worst enemy, when it comes to the way rewards are calculated. The economy team sometimes seems to have an almost pathological aversion towards making its own players happy. The most popular activities are those that reward players with loot. Think Menagerie, The Coil or Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Bungie's decision to boost the drop rates was a smart move, given how dreadful the music is in Destiny 2. It's true that this might affect player retention. But keeping players just enough unhappy to keep them around is not a long-term solution.

Overthrow is not worth playing for now. Dual Destiny is better run on each character. Yesterday's patch added a new challenge, which rewards two exotic items instead of one for the first completion. I'll be praying that I get Inmost Light+Star Eater, and cursing Pete Parsons’ entire lineage if I end up getting Filaments+Claw.