I wanted to comment on a situation I find myself in with Shadowkeep.
It seems that in Shadowkeep, BUNGIE made available all of the quests for
exotic weapons from previous seasons.
On the one hand, it's thrilling; it wasn't until recently I scored
The Rat King which is an exotic hand cannon with the ability to
fire in full auto. I've waited for years for that weapon because I couldn't
fulfill all of the requirements for it.
A couple of weeks ago, seemingly out of nowhere, I acquired the quests
for Lumina and for Thorn. Thorn was from three
seasons ago, I think; Lumina, two. These are also exotic hand cannons.
If you're one for following the lore, both are derived from the same weapon.
Anyway, part of the grinding (and there is a LOT of grinding) to score Thorn is
participation in Crucible competitions using hand cannons and/or void energy.
PVP is not really my
thing, but I do enjoy working in teams on games like Control and Supremacy. But
the task for Thorn notes that playing games like Survival will yield
faster progress. So, for the past couple of weeks, I've been playing Crucible
matches non-stop, armed with a hand cannon.
For the uninitiated, using a hand cannon in a Crucible match is... dumb. All
of your opponents are using automatic weapons like auto rifles and submachine
guns. Suffice it to say, my character gets killed a lot, and I usually score not
even a handful of kills per match, which inches my progress forward perhaps 2 or
3 percent per match.
Now for the weird part: Even though I'm usually dead last for my team each
round (again, contributing only a few kills), my overall score in Crucible is
the highest it's ever been — I have a Heroic valor rank, which is the highest —
because I'm in those matches so often. One might expect having a ridiculously
high valor rank might indicate that player is really good in the Crucible; I'm
here to tell you it doesn't. I play in the Crucible so I can get this dumb
weapon, and opponents wipe the walls with me every match.
I've no idea what having such a high valor rank can do for my character,
but here I am, lookin' like I'm killin' it in games I've avoided since I started
playing Destiny years ago. But that's not the reality.
These exotics had better be worth it.