This was addressed in a patch and Deepsight weapons became much more accessible, especially considering that some of them took just a few red border drops to fully unlock the corresponding patterns, which could require anywhere between two and five Deepsight drops. However, Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted was released with twelve new craftable weapons in a mix of six seasonal guns and six returning Opulent weapons, and all of their patterns require five Deepsight weapons to access crafting options. There are some issues, that Bungie should try to avoid going into Season 18 when it comes to crafting, and Season of the Haunted should be where the lessons come from.
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What Destiny 2’s Season 18 Needs to Improve For Crafting
Because unlocking patterns for craftable weapons is the only way to deterministically obtain the rolls Destiny 2 players truly want and also get access to Enhanced Traits, it’s important not to make every single pattern available after getting five Deepsight drops. Season of the Risen showed that a more diverse approach to unlocking patterns was beneficial and even more forgiving when Deepsight guns would only drop every once in a while. Season of the Haunted is much more RNG-dependent on this, and the level of grinding required to get every single craftable weapon is a bit extreme.
Furthermore, things are complicated by the excessive Opulent Energy requirements to focus Umbral Engrams at the H.E.L.M.; the process only cost 9 Risen Energy last Season versus 27 Opulent Energy now. To make matters worse, Opulent Energy is also much harder to come by than Risen Energy was, with the main source now being the Nightmare Containment public event on the derelict Leviathan alongside some additional Opulent Energy drops from Avaricious Treasurers or Sever missions when Bound Presence is consumed. As such, Destiny 2’s Haunted weapons and Opulent weapons require even more time to be farmed with the probability of Deepsight drops remaining the same.
Another thing that Destiny 2’s Season 18 should avoid is to gate craftable weapons in harder activities with limited loot pools, which Season of the Haunted did with the Duality Dungeon Opulent guns – Fixed Odds and The Epicurean. These two weapons complete the set of six Opulent guns alongside the four that can be found aboard the Leviathan, but the difference is that Fixed Odds and The Epicurean cannot be focused at the H.E.L.M., which means that they can only drop from the Dungeon itself. Duality is not very weapon-friendly because its drops are heavily weighted towards armor pieces, and Deepsight weapons are already rare as is, meaning that getting these two guns can be quite a challenge.
Overall, Season of the Haunted does many things right, but crafting is not one of them. Season 18, however, can pick up from where Bungie left with Season of the Risen by making the experience less frustrating and more accessible to all players, which should still be an important point in the current state of Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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