Bungie says it "missed the mark" with some aspects of Destiny 2's Lightfall expansion

Destiny 2 may have seen its latest expansion, Lightfall, bring its "highest concurrent players in years", but developer Bungie has publicly acknowledged that it "missed the mark on some of [its] goals".

In a candid update on the official website, the studio said that whilst the expansion "surpassed [Bungie's] sale expectations", "it's clear the initial experience we delivered on day one didn't provide the full clarity we originally planned for when we set out creating Lightfall".

"We’ve taken a broad look at community feedback across the game since launch and have been working to address several areas in the coming weeks, while also forging ahead on content for our upcoming seasons," said game director, Joe Blackburn. "Let’s get into the things we’re building and improving in response to your input on Lightfall so far."

The post then detailed changes the team plans to make to ranking up, commendations, and adjustments to difficult, including an admission that "the largest set of difficulty re-tuning the Destiny franchise has seen since The Taken King" was causing "unintended behaviours" in some areas of the game.

"For example, the modifiers for Legendary Campaign feel great in single-player Campaign missions scaled up to three players, but they become oppressive in a ritual-focused three-player activity like Avalon," the update explains. "Even Nightfalls, which have far less aggressive enemy HP tuning than the Legendary Campaign, can feel overwhelming when played multiple times in a row."

Exotic-tier armour drops will also be more generous when you play higher-difficulty Lost Sectors and the Vex Strike Force event in the Vex Incursion Zone, which will now drop a new piece of Exotic armour if you have any left to collect; if you don't, it'll drop a random Exotic roll.

As for what's still to come? There are "several more updates" coming in Season 21, including upgrading more than 15 of the lower-performing Exoic armours and rolling out balance changes to others. There's also some "exciting news" for players who "enjoy improving their raid and dungeon Exotic drop chances through Triumphs".

"Lightfall isn't Destiny 2's best expansion,"contributor Kalie said in their feature, For all its flaws, Destiny 2's Lightfall expansion pulled me back from service game burnout. "I don't know what caused its story problems, and I don't know what it is that burns people out so hard in Destiny 2.

"But as of now, I'm willing to take Bungie at its word that the expansion was meant to be an entryway to a full year of interesting seasonal stories leading up to The Final Shape. This time, I feel up for the journey - and if nothing else, grappling onto rockets with Strand's new grappling hook is a lot of fun. Maybe that's what I was missing before."