Bungie has responded to Destiny 2 player complaints about the Desert Perpetual raid’s contest mode, addressing issues with raid difficulty, bugs, and more.
If you’ve spent any time in Destiny 2 over the past weekend, you probably know just how much attention the newest raid, Desert Perpetual, has been getting. Released on Saturday, July 19th, this raid is the crown jewel of the Edge of Fate expansion and immediately became the talk of the community.
The world’s first clear came after an intense and exhausting race, with Team Nuts claiming the title after more than 15 hours of non-stop raiding. This is a raid that functions completely differently from the past releases, and that’s mainly because of it being a non-linear activity, meaning players can choose which boos to fight first.
The general consensus? While players were hyped for a new challenge, Contest Mode took “challenge” a bit too far. Reports poured in about how punishing the raid felt, with many saying this is the most difficult day-one raid Destiny 2 has ever seen.
Destiny 2 Desert Perpetual Raid Bugs and Player Concerns
It didn’t take long for complaints to pop up all over Reddit, Twitter, and Discord. The biggest pain point was the power delta, with enemies in Contest Mode hitting much harder than players expected. But on top of the high difficulty, the raid was also plagued by bugs, like Rally Flags failing to give supers, weapons, or abilities, and issues with sprinting just not working.
Some players also saw guns randomly disappearing, hand cannons turning into one-shots, anti-barrier perks not working, and ammo drops giving random amounts.
Other bugs included launch delays, getting stuck inside platforms, weapons doing half damage until you reloaded the activity, and even bosses killing players through cover. All these problems, combined with frequent crashes and forced loadout swaps, left many feeling like Contest Mode was only tuned for the top 1%, rather than the broader community.
Bungie Responds to Community Feedback
With frustration mounting, Bungie finally broke its silence and addressed some of these concerns. In a post on the official Destiny 2 Team account earlier today, the developers confirmed that they are paying close attention to player feedback and are actively investigating several of the most talked-about issues.
Bungie specifically said it is looking into reports that the enemy power delta in Contest Mode might be higher than it’s supposed to be. It also mentioned ongoing investigations into PC crash reports and problems with rally flags not working properly.
As for gameplay feedback, Bungie acknowledged the concerns around loadout swapping, long ad-clear phases, and the raid’s overall high difficulty, promising to use this feedback to inform future raid designs.
Here’s Bungie’s full statement:
“Hey all, We enjoyed watching the Desert Perpetual World First Race, and contest attempts/completions through the weekend, but also want to let everyone know we are tracking feedback items and issue reports that have been coming in from the community.
“A few higher priority Raid conversions we are looking into this week: 1. Power Deltas for the Contest Raid difficulty. We’re seeing reports of enemies being at a higher delta than what the activity advertises – ex: enemies have a skull icon next to them instead of a sword. We will investigate. 2. PC Crashes after 5+ hours with certain hardware configurations.
“3. Rally flags not fully refreshing ammo and abilities consistently. Feedback items we’re seeing: 1: Some players are concerned that clearing this content required loadout swapping, lengthy ad-clear phases to stockpile ammo, and near perfect execution.
“Related: Some players feel contest difficulty may have been tuned too high for this Raid, so that only an incredibly small portion of the community could have a shot at completing it. Initial note: While we absolutely wish for contest mode to challenge your loadouts, your teamwork, and your puzzle solving abilities, the highest end of damage has been reported to feel that is requires far more than expected. Each Raid we’ve shipped has been unique, especially at Contest difficulty.
“This will continue – and for our players who desire challenge, do not worry. We will continue to offer it. That said, we will use feedback from this weekend to inform our future as we continue to develop these experiences.
“2. We are looking into reward quality – what tiers rewards within the raid are dropping at within Contest difficulty, and their power in relation to yours. There are ways to increase your reward quality in Normal difficulty via Raid Feats, and we will be watching feedback around these systems as players get deeper into them.
“This is not an exhaustive list of all the feedback or issues we have seen come through, but we wanted to let you know we are monitoring the conversation. Please share what other thoughts you have below, and we will keep an eye on this thread as we start digging into these items.
“Expect some updates on alternate investigations we’ve been in. Sprint issues, Audio issues, etc.”
It’s worth noting that many other bugs have been reported by players that haven’t been directly tackled in this update, so expect more tweaks and fixes as Bungie gathers more data.
Have you run Desert Perpetual yet? What’s your experience been like so far? Share your thoughts below!
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