Destiny 2 seems to have immense staying power. Each year's major expansion has been a success at bringing in old and new fans alike. The game is ever changing and sustains an impressive lineup of platforms from Stadia to Xbox. This means players will join in from all corners of the gaming spectrum, so here are some newcomer friendly tips to know.
Bungie's restructuring of Destiny 2 started with Shadowkeep in 2019 as the game transitioned into a more MMO-like formula. Perhaps the two most influential changes happened in the form of the transition to a free-to-play model and the migration of the PC community to Steam. Players can now seamlessly transition between platforms thanks to cross-save and will be able to play with other platforms with cross-play later in the year.
1. How to Manage Glimmer
Glimmer is Destiny's main currency, the bread and butter of so many in-game transactions. It is acquired from pretty much any activity or pursuit and is meant to be spent as frequently as it is earned. Players will find little reason to hoard Glimmer, as there is a 250k cap anyway. Thus, it is healthy to hold onto perhaps 20k or so Glimmer in case players find something to buy, but consider spending the rest on relevant resources such as materials, bounties, or upgrading gear.
When in dire need, players can visit the Spider in the Tangled Shore for a quick boost in Glimmer or consume a Rainmaker buff which increases Glimmer gains for four hours. Alternatively, Guardians can equip a Glimmer Booster mod in their Ghost for a dramatic surge in Glimmer acquisition.
2. Don't Forget Armor Mods
Speaking of spending Glimmer, players shouldn't overlook armor mods and upgrading armor. They're easy to ignore but are quite a big part of Destiny at the moment. By upgrading armor with Glimmer and Legendary Shards, Guardians can increase their Energy and be able to equip different, more powerful armor mods.
It isn't recommended to upgrade every piece obtained or even max out the Energy of a single armor piece when starting out. But if players find pieces of armor that they think they like, they should upgrade them, at least a little bit, sooner than later. Sporting an empty shell of an armor piece is usually wasteful and will inhibit the player from making the most out of their playstyle, and in turn, having the most fun.
Upgrading an armor to 7 or 8 Energy is a good goal as it requires run-of-the-mill resources and will enable most mod configurations. If players really intend to keep a piece, they can choose to upgrade it to 10 Energy which requires some precious materials like Ascendant Shards and Enhancement Prisms. Before sinking in these coveted materials, players should think twice because dismantling a fully upgraded piece of armor doesn't give nearly the amount of resources put in.
3. Bye Plain Blues
While players should parse through legendary armor, they shouldn't place much value on blue rarity weapons and armor. Commonly called "blues," these come in droves from all sorts of activities and are best used for infusing older pieces of gear to a higher Power Level or should simply be dismantled. The reason being the inferior effectiveness of blue gear. Blue weapons come with fewer and less powerful perks, and blue armor has far fewer mod slots. Furthermore, these can be reacquired from Collections at any time for a small sum if players really want.
4. Collectors and Fashionistas
Speaking of the Collections, it is a vast album of every piece of loot the player has acquired. Almost everything can be reacquired from Collections should the player delete them, excluding randomly rolled legendary weapons and legendary armor pieces. But Shaders, Sparrows, Emblems, and everything in between is safely stored in Collections, making it possible for players to equip their favorite sparrow on all characters, for instance. If worried about deleting a certain loot item, players can always check it inside Collections and see if said item is re-obtainable.
Regarding fashion, if players are keeping around armor pieces solely for looks, they can safely delete them because Bungie will allow players to grab the look of any armor they want from Collections and apply said look to any legendary armor. In other words, transmogrification is coming to Destiny 2 in 2021. However, be warned, because this process will cost a currently undisclosed amount of resources.
5. Remote Access
Players can now acquire bounties from any vendor while in orbit using the Destiny Companion App. This is great as it saves time loading into the Tower and visiting vendors one by one. Inside the same app, players can also transfer weapons, armor, and other items between characters, saving a lot of back and forth travel to the Vault (which is shared between all player characters). The Destiny Companion App can also be used to check which bounties or quests the player's characters have completed that week or check on the timer on limited time quests without even logging into the game.
6. Seasonal is More Like Yearly
With the fall 2020 update, Bungie has made it so the majority of seasonal content sticks around for the entire year. Thus, players shouldn't feel the need to rush the core pursuits in a given season. While not everything stays, things like Wrathborn Hunts from the current season and exotic quests will. Logging in later in the year, players can kill two birds with one stone by simultaneously progressing in two seasons' worth of content.
7. Progress Via Your Favorite Activities
The endgame progression is done through what is called Powerful Gear. These are weekly rewards from vendors and challenges that award gear above the player's average Power Level. However, once a character's Power Level has reached the soft cap of Beyond Light, 1200, players can start dropping Powerful loot by simply playing the game's core activities. These are the ritual playlists, namely the Crucible, Gambit, and Strikes alongside some Seasonal activities. This has no limit, so if players like a certain activity a lot, they can play it however many times a week and receive incremental bumps in Power every now and then.
8. Consider Clans
Being in an active Clan gives each member more pieces of Powerful loot each week. Players don't have to participate at all to be eligible for these rewards. As long as some Clan members have fulfilled the weekly Clan milestones, all members receive loot. By simply checking in with Hawthorne at the Tower at the end of a week, players can collect upwards of 5 Powerful gear, some of which can randomly become exotics as well.
9. Sunset Loot Pools
This is an important factor to note regarding the game's previous expansions: Forsaken and Shadowkeep. These expansions can still be bought alongside Beyond Light but their contents don't drop relevant gear for the most part. Outside of their Raids and exotics, Forsaken and Shadowkeep loot have been "sunset," meaning that they can still be used but will not be infusible to current Power Levels. This limits the activities in which these weapons and armor can be used effectively. For instance, the casual Crucible playlists have Power advantages disabled, letting players use whatever they wish, while Nightfall Strikes have much harsher Power Level demands.
10. Campaigns Aren't Essential
After the removal of traditional leveling, Destiny has stopped gating players away from many pursuits. Players don't need to level up via the campaign to be eligible for different quests or the endgame. Regarding alts, campaigns aren't essential and players won't have to complete last year's story content to be able to start the current one. However, campaigns do sometimes open up different pursuits like exotic quests or new subclass trees, but that is up to the player to decide.
Moreover, fans don't need to have multiple characters to stay competitive. Almost every pursuit can be efficiently completed with one character and having alts just gives the player more options or more chances at obtaining certain pieces of loot.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.