Bungie can't catch a W: Rather than buffing the drop rate of Destiny 2's most-wanted exotic items, the latest patch nerfed it into dust

After the latest patch, the Overthrow activity was intended to see more frequent drops of exotic class items. Now it’s much worse. (Image credit: Bungie)

It turns out that if you fire a bunch of your QA staff, the game you're making will tend to run into quality issues. I'm not saying the problems with Destiny 2's latest patch are a direct result of last week's drastic headcount reduction at Bungie, but it can hardly help.

Yesterday's weekly reset also saw the rollout of update 8.0.5, which included a swath of fixes and balance changes. The most anticipated of these was a buff to the drop rate of Prismatic exotic class items. Per the patch notes:

Adjusted chances for acquiring Exotic class items from chests to be more generous.Increased progression on escalation chest chances.Removed progression on world chest chances.World chests can still drop the item but won’t increase drop chances from future chests.

The wording above is quite messy. The actual change, which was announced in a This Week at Bungie post on July 25, makes it clear that the buff applies to chests found in the Overthrow activity. It read:

As you open chests tied [to] Overthrow activities, your chances will increase.Higher tiered chests give bigger increases to drop chances.This should decrease the amount of time it takes (on average) to get an Exotic Class Item, but we’ll be watching the feedback and tuning further if necessary.

The feedback started rolling in fast yesterday, and it was not good. On r/DestinyTheGame there were multiple threads complaining that, far from being buffed, the drop rate was now worse. “Way to go Bungie,” wrote the author of the most upvoted post. Players reported it taking five or more full runs before they found an exotic class item, whereas in my pre-patch experience—and I've grinded a lot of Overthrow—it would normally take two to three runs before one popped.

Obviously, variance and bad luck could have been a factor behind those threads, even if the volume of replies agreeing with the problem suggested not. But any doubt was removed today with a post from the Bungie Team account on X confirming that, yup, there's been a goof.

We’ve identified an issue impacting Exotic Class Item drop rates.At this time, Tier 4 Overthrow Chests are not contributing to increased drop chances, nor can Exotic Class Items be awarded through them.August 7, 2024

So, not only are the final Overthrow chests not contributing to the 'pity timer' before you receive an exotic class item, the exotic class items can in fact no longer drop from those chests at all. It's quite a boo-boo, given how desirable these are, with the chase to acquire the perfect combo of perks for your playstyle being one of the main carrots after finishing The Final Shape.

I was very excited about exotic class items when they were revealed back in April, so much so that I wrote “Destiny 2 is so back!” (Oh sweet summer child, how little did I know.) I was right about their power level and desirability, though. These items combine slightly diluted versions of the unique perks found on two other pieces of exotic armor, meaning that the perfect pairing can really supercharge your build.

Sooner of later we’re also going to need to have a conversation about how exotic class items aren’t transmoggable because they are a nightmare to create looks around. (Image credit: Bungie)

However, currently the only way to acquire exotic class items is either via a very small chance from chests on the Pale Heart destination (now even smaller thanks to this error), or by running the Dual Destiny mission with a friend. The mission does at least ensure a guaranteed drop, but despite its excellence, replaying it ad nauseam has already gotten old for a lot of players, particularly with 64 different perk combinations and zero dupe protection. Result: something that should have been one of the main points of excitement in this excellent expansion has become a bit of a mess.