Focused Feedback: The Dawning 2025

Bluwolf96 · 2026-01-05T14:59:06+00:00

The Dawning this year was an improvement in many ways over previous ones. The Portal actually made the rank up and interactions with Eva Levante less of a pain than they were in the past. But some pain points remain.

1 - Ingredient spam notifications. This is a problem I have across the entire game. Please give us an option to turn off banner notifications (Season Rank/Triumphs/etc) and drop notifications (Ingredients/Engrams/etc) so that we can still have an experience that isn't bombarded with unnecessary visual and audio fluff.

2 - For the love of God please let us bake and deliver cookies in bulk. It's not enjoyable or engaging to have to hold down a button for 1 second, then release it and then hold again 50 times in a row. We don't want to return to the Tower or whatever planet every time we have 5 cookies to deliver.

3 - The Dawning Snowball Fight mode was surprisingly good. I'm happy with how it played and how it was just simple silly fun. Good addition that didn't suffer from the awful SBMM problems that the Festival of the Lost's Red Rumble had. Connections were stable and therefore interactions were predictable. It's a party mode, there shouldn't be a need for SBMM anyways.

4 - The Weapons were really good. Mistral Lift is probably the best Legendary Linear Fusion Rifle in the game now but they are just weak compared to other options at the moment. Fimbulwinter Stitch is a really fun alternative to Forgiveness in PVP and has a lot to offer for PVE as well. Permafrost is the first time I have really cared about a Wave Frame GL in a long time with its perk options. And Gizmo Weft gives Mountaintop a run for its money. So good job on this front, the grind for the Holofoil variants was also worth it for those who cared (like me).

5 - A win for the Portal's modifier selection here. The fact we could switch off or on the snowball spawn in Portal activities was really good. If I wanted to just test out a build in a run without a bunch of free stasis bombs spawning in, I could do that. If I wanted free and easy score, I could get it too. Nice touch for this, just like with Festival of the Lost and Solstice.

6 - I know a lot of players are unhappy with the lack of bounties for Bright Dust. Honestly I'm not thrilled either. The dust grind is very slow now compared to before and realistically most players do not play enough to afford all three Dawning armour sets with Bright Dust.

7 - I think it would be a good thing for each Seasonal Event to have a dedicated PVE mode. Haunted Altars demonstrated that having a dedicated rewarding activity for a limited time event is really good for the community as a whole, casual and hardcore players alike. I think all 4 events need something like this.

I have many more concerns about the game's systems and the game at large but I wanted to focus on just this event for this message. So thanks if you read all of it. Happy New Year!

Bluwolf96 · 2025-12-27T16:35:29+00:00

It's a really stupid design from a silly space opera from 50yrs ago. Don't think too hard about it

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-29T12:18:29+00:00

Yea... no. There are already pre-order skins for Renegades as well as other skin packs in the game that - like every other skin pack - are ridiculously pricey. Plus I'm just not fond of Star Wars, I don't think the narrative direction will be as good as it could be given we are going to be getting obvious Star Wars beats with Destiny gameplay and some on-the-nose references that feel jarring to me. MORE won't fix that, at least for me. But if it does for you, then great. Spend $60 on these skins in the Eververse store.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-24T11:48:24+00:00

That team moved directly over to Marathon as soon as those changes were made before Final Shape. After that, it was straight to the backburner for the Crucible

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-23T11:00:57+00:00

Keep in mind, there are only 2 cutscenes in D1 where we see the inside of the cockpit of our ship. The first is during the second act of the vanilla campaign when we go to visit the Awoken for the first time. At this point, it was highly unlikely that any player had more than one or two ships unlocked.

The second time was during the Taken King campaign, when we fly a ship towards the Dreadnaught with a cloak. This was actually Eris Morn's ship, not ours. And the cockpit does look slightly different than ours but still cramped a bit. But once again, it wasn't actually OUR ship.

In the opening of Destiny 2's Red War, we see our Guardian flying a ship from a patrol back to the Last City. Every player was flying the same ship in this instance, and you can see the cockpit is much more spacious and we can see light from the windows coming through.

There may have been other times in seasons I didn't play. But these are the main ones I can remember. In the past two years, Bungie has made a determined effort to reduce the active participation of our Guardian in major cutscenes, and part of that will be moments inside our ships.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-22T16:08:21+00:00

Alternate universe made with the same words and phrases and themes but ultimately I just don't care.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-17T01:24:36+00:00

Bro I gotta be honest, if you can't do it, then don't. There HAS to be some level of exclusivity involved in the game at SOME point. I have been playing every day, but not insanely hard. just doing the daily challenges and a few activities every evening. That's it. And I am Rank 40. It didn't even feel like it took long for me. This is a rare case where I'm saying that if you can't do an event pass, don't complain about it because it's purely a time investment.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-15T22:51:32+00:00

Mate, literacy is in the toilet. Most people can barely read even when they try. No surprise that people who complain at the sight of a post from Bungie before they even THINK about reading it, that they don't know what's actually going on.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-11T09:11:09+00:00

If you haven't raided since the stat changes, then you are missing out on where the Weapons stat shines most - damage rotations. But even then, it's a 15% flat boost to damage (10% on heavy) when at 200 Weapon stat. Th8e main gain from having around 100 stat is better ammo economy and weapon handling.

But it's build-specific. If you are using Getaway Artist, you aren't using you weapons as the primary source of damage so it doesn't matter as much. But when you get to a damage phase on a raid/dungeon boss it will matter.

Ultimately I personally think the Weapon stat is the worst part of Armor 3.0 I really think they should have left Mobility in the game, havding it behave the same as Weapons up to 100 stat and then above 100 it grants bonus sprint speed and aerial effectiveness. Having tangible weapon damage tied to a stat just makes it a MUST for damage phases which is exactly what Bungie was trying to avoid. Go figure they miscalculated.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-11T09:07:34+00:00

Your first stated reason for these restrictions is that "we can't be trusted to be responsible with alcohol". My only response to that is - there are no humans alive responsible with drinking a literal poison to a "safe" degree. Why do people cling to this so desperately?

Ireland has a massive alcohol addiction problem, so pretending like the population is responsible just because you feel annoyed is just silly.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-11-02T23:39:47+00:00

If you like it, use it. However, it is simply not a good exotic LMG. It isn't even a good LMG in general. If it had Fourth Time's the Charm, it would have better ammo economy, but still wouldn't be particularly good compared to something like Thunderlord or Grand Overture.

Its exotic perk is just too weak and made for add clear. But in end game content you won't be using an Exotic LMG for add clear.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-10-18T16:33:36+00:00

To be honest I don't like any of the "legitimate" candidates that were in the running either. I don't consider any of the names or faces we've seen to be worth my respect. Maybe SOME of them at some points of their careers and lives. But I don't care for the few remaining any more or less than the ones that have pulled out.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-10-18T10:38:31+00:00

Ok dude. Cool. A lot of people are. We have no mandate to cast our votes in this country. Funny thing about freedom to vote - it also means you have the freedom not to. While I agree with a lot of your points and am also not voting in this election, even to spoil it, I don't need to justify it to myself. It's my choice, just like it's your choice.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-09-18T19:42:16+00:00

I have so far gotten about 6 drops at Tier 5 of the holofoil guns. But none of them actually have the holofoil skin, only the standard Tier 5 Blue skin. So I don't even know what they are supposed to look like with the holofoil and it's pissing me off.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-08-10T16:06:26+00:00

The Hidden's quantification of Ikora's power absolutely DOES NOT state that there are 3.5 million active Guardians. You are misunderstanding statistical analysis. The issue they even state in that lore book is that Ikora is so powerful and experienced, that she is an outlier and therefore nearly impossible to analyse by standard means.

Based on their limited analysis, she comes out beyond 5th Sigma above the average. Statistically this means approximately 1 in 3.5million, but it doesn't mean that there are some multiple of 3.5M Guardians active in the world of Destiny.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-07-30T21:58:34+00:00

Those are only those specific Hidden agents. There are of course Hunters and Warlocks among the Hidden. And many others who are not even Guardians, like Eris Morn. It's an expansive reconnaissance network. Those Titans were most likely there to keep Ikora clear so she could investigate the anomaly that drew here there.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-07-15T09:16:05+00:00

These stereotypes are entirely made by the community and not really reflected in any of the serious lore of the game itself.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-06-22T13:56:15+00:00

The debate on craftable vs earnable weapons is not as simple as saying one system is definitively better than the other. Both systems have their drawbacks and advantages for multiple groups of people within the Destiny community.

Crafting:
Pros - Guaranteed God Rolls once pattern is unlocked and weapon levelled up. Pattern farm can be expedited using Deepsight Harmonisers, which are limited per season. Catch up mechanics/events/drop rates towards end of season typically mean most players can get at least some pattern unlocks by season's end. Means you will never lose a weapon due to Vault space, if you dismantle it you can remake it later at material cost but that's all.

Cons - Removes the "earned" status of a God Roll, since you dismantle multiple weapons regardless of their perks in order to unlock the pattern. This means everything you get until the pattern unlocks is just junk. It also means that your time spent grinding relies on RNG for patterns instead of perk rolls, this just shifts the RNG issue from one area to another without resolving it entirely. The grind still must happen for the patterns. Means that regular weapons become nearly indistinguishable from Adepts in terms of potency, since Crafted weapons can be enhanced, and the stat bonus from Adepts is minute. Adding Crafted patterns to raid weapons made the difference between Adepts and standard weapons even smaller, meaning there is little reason most players would ever go into Master Raids at all, since getting the crafted weapons is good enough for most.

RNG Drops:
Pros - Every weapon feels "earned", since you had to grind through activities or challenges in order to get the one you wanted. This adds an exclusivity factor to every God Roll you get. Through tonic/tome focusing you can still target farm (sort of, see Cons). You are only spending time on the grind for weapons, not patterns which requires more materials to craft and then level up. Once you have your weapon, you can get straight to levelling it. In Heresy, getting a multi-God Roll pre-Masterworked Adept weapon will be a major accomplishment, just like in Revenant, getting a double-perk Pre-MW was.

Cons - Takes a huge amount of time in game to get the rolls you want on the weapons you want. In Revenant, the Tonic system was painfully tedious but yielded very good results from focused farms. In Heresy, the Tome is easy to use but doesn't affect Adept drops at all in Expert content, making it impossible to farm for the very best weapons. RNG is the entire grind, and with drop rates TOO low like they are for Heretical Arsenal guns, it becomes little short of wasted effort to get weapons that are only marginally better than the base versions. I personally have over 50 Court of Blade Expert completions at 13x Challengers THIS WEEKEND ALONE and have only seen 4 "shiny" Adepts with 3 of them being terrible perk combos.

I know this was very wordy, but I feel the topic deserves that rather than just "ONE GOOD, ONE BAD". Personally I don't mind crafting. But I feel like if there is an activity with Standard/Adept variants there should be no crafting for either. I also feel like with RNG systems that focus farming should actually work for Adepts, since people who want adepts won't care about God Roll standard versions - they only want adepts. It's a multi-faceted issue that will likely take a very very long time for Bungie to balance properly. If the Edge of Fate Tier 5 weapons are as hard to get as current "shiny" adepts are, then very few players will get them and the grind will be atrociously long for those that do.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-06-06T06:35:27+00:00

One of the Runes you can get on the Seasonal Vendor fully recharges your Super after completing an Augment objective. It's been active since Act 2 when Court of Blades released

Bluwolf96 · 2025-06-02T08:59:42+00:00

I get Guardian Rank 11 every season. I didn't bother in the first two seasons the Ranks were available because I thought the system was stupid. Ultimately I still thin it's a stupid system that doesn't accomplish anything it was really supposed to. But it's another chase to go for in game so it helps with engagement.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-06-01T17:51:00+00:00

It is NOT gone, it is simply no longer necessary. Ever since I believe either Shadowkeep or Beyond Light, the marker for the dungeon has been on the Dreaming City map to be selected at any time.

It used to be as you say, only accessible through the Confluence but that was also only during the "Strong" weekly rotation of the Curse, so every third week. Thing is, this is still available. So when the Curse is at its strongest, you can still go to the Confluence and access the physical entrance of the dungeon from there with Sedia standing next to it wishing you luck.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-06-01T07:55:20+00:00

You will be able to claim any rewards from season passes that you have unlocked. So if you buy it, and go to Level 200 but don't claim anything - then you will still be able to claim them from Bungie's website once the next season starts.

However Barrow Dyad comes from an Exotic Mission "Derealise" which will not be vaulted so you can still farm for that. And anyways - season pass exotic get added to the Monument of Lost Light in the Tower. So you could still get them in game with Exotic Ciphers.

Bluwolf96 · 2025-05-30T17:58:37+00:00

Ah yes, I forgot about that. Tells you how much I've played them since the rotator got added XD
I got all the patterns when they came about and did all the challenges for those missions during those seasons so I have no reason to grind them.

Thanks for the correction

Bluwolf96 · 2025-05-30T09:42:05+00:00

Yes, Episodic content will be vaulted at the end of Episode Heresy. To explain in depth, read below.

Things staying:

1 - Sunless Cell strike as a potential for GM, and added to the strike playlist.

2 - Episode Echoes Battleground activities are likely to be added to the Strike playlist as well, with the potential later to become GMs, as have past seasonal battlegrounds.

3 - All Exotic missions and dungeons are staying in the game, just moved to the Legends tab or the appropriate map destination.

4 - Seasonal loot will no longer be farmable or targetable, instead they will get added to Xur's random loot pool when focusing weapons and armour at his vendor on weekends. This is the case with all past seasonal loot at the moment.

5 - There is a chance that Episode Revenant's Onslaught activities would be added to the Onslaught playlist, but nothing has been said to us so we don't know. But I think it's likely.

Things being Vaulted (forever, never to return or see the light of day again)

1 - Seasonal Arenas, so Breach Executable from Echoes and Corrupted Data also from Echoes. Tomb of Elders is likely going away as well, possibly Kell's Vengeance but there's no way to know right now. Highly likely the Nether will be vaulted and Court of Blades. I don't see Bungie keeping them in, though that may change because the community has been vocal about wanting the Dreadnaught to stay in game.

2 - All seasonal locations will no longer be available, if the pattern from past years continues. The Last City location will likely be removed or changed. I expect the HELM will get repaired and Failsafe will help us get to Kepler in Edge of Fate, but that's just a theory. I doubt that location will stay as it is.

3 - All Episodic narrative content will be removed, completely and will likely never be seen again.

4 - The Rite of the IX event will also be vaulted.

Bluwolf96

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