As Guardian Games came to a close, here is my review and feedback. Guardian Games pitted each class, Titan, Warlock, and Hunter against each other. Whoever banked enough medals, wins the current day, and the next day, everything resets. When you visit Eva Levante you would earn a package depending on where your class placed the previous day. If your class placed 1st, you would earn a gold package, second place earned a silver package, and third place earned a bronze package. Each package contained rewards but gold packages gave better rewards. I say “better” very generously as the gold reward was just 1 purple and rarely cores or prisms. Some parts of the event were great and other parts were not worth pursuing after you reached a certain point.
The design of the Guardian Games was fantastic. The tower was decorated in Olympic fashion. The Senior Concept Artist At Bungie tweeted inspiration for the event design. It truly felt like an event was taking place. When you spawned into the main point a large stage was front and center with Eva Levante at the foot of the stage for you to interact with her and grab items. I love events that change the Tower. It is a great change of pace instead of the same plain Tower.
The Eververse had some good items to grab. A couple of sparrows, ships, emotes, one finisher, and class armor. Almost every item during the event was sold for Brightdust after they gave it a chance to sell for Silver first. The only item that was sold for Silver only was the finisher Shuffle and Scat. The finisher is a homage to Muhammad Ali, who won the gold medal in light-heavyweight boxing in 1960. The Guardian Games armors were great. The design was sleek and influenced by the Olympics. I did not purchase the armor for one major flaw in the design. The armor did not take shaders well since the red, yellow, and blue lines did not change color when a shader was applied. The consistent color lines do not change and ruin shader options. The best thing to come out of Guardian Games is the Rivalry Stoic shader. It turns every weapon you apply the shader with to a Nerf toy gun.
The exotic Heir Apparent machine gun was the weapon you could have earned if you completed 7 triumphs. The triumphs were easily acquired if you just played the game at a good pace but you know Destiny players. A few players immediately called out the triumphs as grindy and took to long to complete even though the event lasted for 3 weeks. I had no issues because if you created a loadout to create laurels, the item you had to collect to complete certain bounties and triumphs through defeating enemies via abilities. They go by rather quickly if spec’d for the occasion. Monte Carlo was a great choice to gain your melee back and any weapon with demolitionist for grenades. A few exotic armors increased those abilities like Ophidia Spathe or Lucky Raspberry chest piece for the Hunter. Claws of Ahamkara or Nezarec’s Sin for the Warlock. Insurmountable Skullfort or Ashen Wake for the Titan. The only triumph I saw people giving feedback was the super defeats in rumble matches. I had a difficult time trying to complete that triumph because some times I had zero super kills and other matches I had two. Very rough triumph to complete.
Bounties galore! I wished the event had an activity that could have been matchmade or a special crucible mode that pitted each class against each other. Imagine a crucible mode of 4 Hunters vs 4 Titans vs 4 Warlocks or 3v3v3. The only issues I could see are long queue times. The event was to complete as many bounties/medals as possible and whichever class completed the most medals wins the event. I don’t mind completing bounties but it needs to have an event to go with it. The best bounties to complete are repeatable because they give you brightdust. The repeatable bounties are easy to complete if you go to Shuro Chi in the Last Wish raid. You can place a raid banner and get your super and abilities when activated.
If this event had an activity it would have been perfect. It was missing the main attraction since everything that came with Guardian Games felt like sides to a meal. They do have activities already built like Infinite Forrest and Aerial Zone. They could have easily customized those activities for the event. Bounties/Medals are not an activity for players and I am not sure why Bungie felt this was fine. Once I completed the triumphs I did not pick up more bounties other than the repeatable to earn brightdust. The medals are not rewarding enough for the amount of time it takes to complete. I may pick up the crucible medal if I am going to play the crucible. I did not pick up Forges or Strikes because it made you complete 4 or 5 of the activity so that’s a no for me. All in All, it was a great event missing the main attraction, an activity.