Destiny 2’s economy has undergone a plethora of major reworks over the past few years.
All manner of currencies, from destination materials to Finest Matterweave, have been discontinued in Bungie’s endless pursuit of making the game’s economy easier to understand for new players. But the plan to phase out Legendary Shards in season 23—a currency far more integral to Destiny 2’s systems—has been met with significant criticism.
“Why does Bungie think the game’s economy will only be healthy if we’re constantly scrounging for scraps like dogs?” asked one scathing Reddit post that gained significant traction last night. Despite the developer pointing to the Legendary Shard wealth disparity and currency farm loopholes as reasons for their removal, players argue that such stockpiles only exist due to how limiting Glimmer is by comparison.
“We stockpile explicitly because we don’t want to scrounge around like dogs anymore, and Legendary Shards were our way of not having to scrounge for Glimmer ever again,” wrote u/Rhett_Arty. “I don’t think there’s a single person here who enjoys the slow Glimmer grind. Why not remove Glimmer from the game instead?”
That Glimmer grind that gets brought up has long been a point of contention in the community. Unlike other currencies in Destiny 2, Glimmer has a hard cap that hasn’t seen any sort of increase despite years of requests for Bungie to do so from the player base. Right now, players can only ever hold 250,000 Glimmer at one time. For newer players, this is an amount that can stretch a long way. But for veteran players who are focusing Adept weapons—which cost a whopping 50,000 Glimmer each—it hardly lasts.
This creates something of a treadmill effect. The game’s best Glimmer sources, such as public events, aren’t content that veteran players often interact with, but they are forced to in order to rebuild their Glimmer wallet on a regular basis.
For many players, that seems to be part of Bungie’s plan. “If people constantly have to scrounge, then they constantly have to play,” reads one comment. “Don’t be fooled, this is nothing more than Bungie trying to figure out a way for us all to play 30+ hours a week. That is all,” reads another. While other players were less cynical about the motive, they did point out that the removal of Legendary Shards is the wrong solution to a real issue.
“Honestly, I don’t even see how its a problem at all,” wrote u/ReyneOfFire, in response to discussions of the wealth disparity. “The main issue is how the shard costs are punishing for new players. Veterans and people with time will always have the most anyways.”
This was backed up by u/Behemothhh, who argued that the core issue is a lack of distinction between the early, middle, and late-game economies. “Bungie should never have this problem of trying to balance shard costs between new players and veterans because those groups of players should not want to buy the same things,” they wrote.
The reality is far different, with the majority of purchasable items such as Upgrade Modules and Focused Engrams riddled with costs that try to strike a middle ground between what new players will realistically be able to afford and what veteran players will actually be affected by. But all this ultimately leads to is a “resources wall” for many newcomers.
What’s clear is that players are in agreement that a change was needed from what currently exists in Destiny 2. The issue is that the majority seems to have believed either the removal of Glimmer or the Glimmer cap or an increase to Legendary Shard drops was the solution Bungie should have gone with.
“They’ve re-worked the game’s economy in a way that makes Legendary Shards an arbitrary currency that is mostly used as a tacked on cost for various purchases,” said one player. “The problem is they’ve shown us their asinine plans for how the economy will carry forward, and it’s making the world where Legendary Shards remain an arbitrary currency look a lot more desirable for people who like having their time respected than one without.”
Legendary Shards won’t be gone entirely from Destiny 2 until The Final Shape releases at the start of next year, but they will be removed from the majority of costs in the game starting in season 23. Once they’ve been removed, Bungie also won’t be offering any kind of currency exchange programs for those with a large stockpile of Legendary Shards.
The developer has said Glimmer and other materials will have better drop rates to account for the sudden change, but thus far, that doesn’t seem to be enough to assuage player concerns around what this change means for the economy going forward.
