Bungie’s latest This Week in Destiny blog revealed that Legendary Shards will be leaving the game in The Final Shape expansion, but removal begins in Season 23. Going forward, Glimmer and engrams will become prominent currencies, especially for focusing gear and buying loot from vendors like Xur and Banshee-44. Hearing this decision, Destiny 2 players are sharing their concerns about the game's economy on social media sites like Twitter and Reddit.
Shortly after the announcement, players brought up several issues with future costs for focusing loot, the stagnant Glimmer capacity, and Bungie not giving players a way to exchange Legendary Shards for other materials. A Destiny 2 steamer “Ninjy,” pointed out that without raising the Glimmer capacity, players could have a rough time farming. Additionally, players wouldn’t be able to use Legendary Shards to buy Glimmer from Master Rahool.
Another issue with Legendary Shards going away is that Bungie is offering nothing in exchange for them, leaving it up to players to figure out what to do with their stash. While players are upset at their thousands of Legendary Shards becoming worthless, some are finding comical ways of spending — like stocking up on raid banners, which cost 30 Legendary Shards per bundle.
Players are upset at the focusing costs when it comes to the engrams, too. While focusing new ritual weapons would cost a single engram, focusing weapons from core playlists like Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit would cost three engrams. Also, weapons from playlists like Nightfalls, Trials of Osiris, and Iron Banner would cost five engrams to focus, Bungie stated in the TWID. “You only earn 15 engrams total for a vendor rep reset, which means a measly 3 weapon pulls for hours of play time,” one streamer pointed out the downside of the upcoming engram changes. As things stand right now, engrams usually come from ranking up at vendors, with occasional engrams that drop from wins in Crucible, Gambit, or completing a Vanguard strike.
After the TWID news, the community feedback was loud enough to elicit a response from the Destiny 2 Team Twitter account where the team revealed that it would increase the drop rate for engrams, Glimmer, and upgrade materials. Despite the reassurance, the community isn’t short of players who are not convinced. Some players calculated what the grind will be like for Iron Banner with the new game economy, increased XP, and engram drops in mind. Another person in the Destiny The Game subreddit did similar math for acquiring desired weapons in ritual playlists — which have unique weapons for each playlist and large perk pools — resenting the engram grind that lies ahead.
The Destiny 2 community reveals faults in the game's economy, and although players may not be fully on board with this change, whether it's a change for better or for worse remains to be seen.
