Destiny 2's Power Grind Is Now Just Two 3-Minute Missions
Now, the ultimate goal of Destiny 2 is to power up through 450 levels, with milestones of 200, 300, 400 and 450 giving you access to Tiers 2-5 loot respectively. So, how do you power up? This is a looter shooter, and you can guess what's happened: players have figured out the most efficient way to do this, and it's playing essentially two missions hundreds and hundreds of times.
The missions are both Solo Ops, solo-only Portal missions that run you through various old zones with new objectives and a boss. Some are faster than others, and the two fastest are K1 Logistics on the Moon and Caldera on new planet Kepler.
The idea here is you pick your favorite on one day or another when enemies rotate, and fly through these missions as fast as possible, hitting mini objectives along the way to land a top score and a +3 power upgrade in one slot.
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The problem is nothing is even close to this efficient. Depending on how much you've gotten this down to a science these are 2-5 minute runs. Get your drop, infuse it, do it again. You can check your roll to see if you want it as a replacement, but that's going to be rare. That's the process. Plus, on top of that, every 10 to a max of 20 runs you will get a drop that's one Tier above your current one, the big prize. After 400 that pinnacle drop is the only thing to level you up, and after six months, everyone is getting knocked back down to 200 to do it all over again.
There is a debate in the community about whether this is stupid or not, and if so, if that's just players' fault for choosing to do this to themselves. I am in the 'well, what's the alternative then?' camp.
This is a looter shooter. You give me five tiers of loot, I am not going to be satisfied with Tier 2 with less perks and worse stats. I want to climb. I also do not want to waste time climbing. It is a tough sell to be asked to run a 30 minute Pinnacle mission for two powerful drops when that would have just been 5-7 easy Solo Ops runs for double or triple the upgrades. Did I have more fun? I mean, did I really? Hell, if anything Solo Ops are technically new content while everything else isn't.
Farming now feels like whatever you get is just going to be replaced at higher tiers if you get there. Only in select circumstances, say when Pinnacle Ops lets you target farm the best gun of the expansion (the rocket pulse) does it feel worth mixing things up (I'm still using my Tier 2 one as I cannot take it off).
This is the split now. Do you go for 'diversity' in playing whatever random mission you feel like at any given time, which will slow your power gains to a crawl, or do you run the same two missions dozens if not hundreds of times to race toward better loot, while also feeling like you're losing your mind? As you can see, some things need to change.
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