7 Tower Thoughts: Send Maps

Greetings, Guardians, and welcome to another edition of 7 Tower Thoughts. This is my weekly column to talk about all the things going on in Destiny 2. This week has some interesting topics, so let’s dive right in.

PvP maps

In the most recent TWAB, Bungie addressed PvP maps by saying, “For the coming year, we are going to be bringing back two more maps from earlier in Destiny 2, and we’ve just started production on a brand-new map which we expect to be released in the year of Lightfall.”

People in the community are salty about how many new PvP maps they get, and it makes sense. I don’t think Bungie has fully found its rhythm when it comes to keeping all the moving parts of Destiny 2 fresh. Yes, we get seasonal content and weekly story missions, but this often comes at the expense of core playlist modes like Gambit, Strikes, and Crucible.

Not that it should be a concern for players, but PvP maps (and anything, really) take a very long time to make. A DLC that you might think takes a couple of months probably took a couple of years from concept to delivery to the player. If Bungie is going to focus on producing more Crucible maps, what gets left behind instead? Unless players want Bungie to expand the team and charge more for content to cover those salaries, this is the reality of developing a live service game the size of Destiny 2.

Circling back, this is not something players should have to understand. They want new Crucible maps at a pace that exceeds one throughout all of 2023. Bungie needs to find a way to balance all of this, and I suspect they will. It just might not happen as quickly as we might hope.

Eliksni Quarter community event

Okay, I’m kind of excited about this community event to upgrade the Eliksni Quarter. Not just because I care about the Eliksni, but because this kind of event opens some very cool doors to other possibilities. I have long wanted us to improve the Tower, and my pie in the sky dream is for Guardians to have their own social spaces that they can invite other players to view. This space would feature armor racks to display your gear, weapon racks for your favorite guns, and walls decorated with all the Seals you have. Somewhere, a busted off piece of Oryx’s butt would be sitting preserved in a jar.

Now, upgrading the Eliksni Quarter is a long way away from getting your own apartment, but the fact Bungie is at least thinking about social spaces in this way is encouraging. One of the best features in Monster Hunter: World was having your own room and customizing it. If Bungie thinks people like Seals and emblems, wait until they see how crazy people get over upgrading and decorating their own social space. Seriously, Bungie, this one needs to happen.

Destiny 2 burnout

I saw Paul Tassi link to a very cool tool that shows your playtime throughout each season of Destiny 2. It’s a neat visual that will show you when you tend to fall off the Destiny 2 wagon. Predictably, it’s the back half of the seasons. I am currently stuck in the middle of a Destiny 2 funk, and my play time demonstrates why this one feels worse than others. From Season of the Haunted to Season of Plunder I put in about four straight months of heavy Destiny 2 play time. That’s my most intense run yet, and I’m paying the price for it right now.

Iron Banner fashion

If you want me to play Iron Banner, give me cool armor. Bungie is bringing back this set from the original Destiny. Even if this isn’t new armor, it’s worth grinding for in my mind. Well played, Bungie.

Competitive Division

Bungie is about to introduce a Competitive Division to Destiny 2 to replace the current Glory system. This new system contains seven divisions ranging from Copper to Ascendant, and each division has three subdivisions. While I’m not a huge PvP guy, this feels like a major step in the right direction. The PvP sweats need something more than Trials to really dig into so they’ll leave me and my love of SBMM in casual modes alone. 

Secret missions

Aztecross (you’ll see his content here often) had a good video about secret missions that you should check out. Not only did he cover why secret missions were so cool and why we need them back, but Aztecross also theorizes about why we don’t see these more often. He covers the backlash Bungie received at various times when releasing secret missions, but there’s another point I think Aztecross left out.

Secret missions are tough to keep a secret these days. Go back to my blurb on how long it takes to make a PvP map and then consider how long it takes to create a secret mission. Yeah, it’s probably more than a year, if not considerably longer when you factor in the conception to delivery timeline. Now imagine that you put all this time and effort into creating these missions and someone finds it in the code for your game or your website or whatever. Now, that thing you were very excited to watch the community discover organically is a post on a subreddit. Don’t believe me? Look at the leaks for Lightfall and Season of Plunder. Leakers suck. You hear me? People that leak content absolutely suck.

Now, I do think we’ll get secret missions again in the future. The community loves them too much, and they undeniably create goodwill towards Bungie and Destiny 2. I agree with Aztecross’ reasons why they might not be happening as often as we like, but I do think that the prospect of their organic discovery being ruined weighs on the developers that make this content at least a bit.

ZkMushroom dominates

This isn’t new, but ZkMushroom is ridiculously good in PvP. I often pop his videos on as I’m working on my main screen just to enjoy the skill on display. It dawned on me watching this video that I actually enjoy watching ZkMushroom play PvP more than I enjoy playing it myself. It’s weird to see someone play at a level that you know you can’t get to, but still find entertainment in their journey.

Okay, Guardians, it’s been a crazy week, so I’m going to get out of here and charge headfirst into the weekend.

Bill Lavoy

Managing Editor

Bill, who is also known as Rumpo, is a lifelong gamer and Toronto Maple Leafs fan. He made his mark early in his career through guide writing and a deep understanding of editorial SEO. He enjoys putting in the work to create a great content, be it a wild feature or grinding out an in-depth collectible guide. Tweet him @RumpoPlays if you have a question or comment about one of his articles.