This week, a new mission appeared in Destiny 2's expansion "The Final Shape," Dual Destiny is an exotic quest hidden in The Pale Heart, a new destination in this expansion. It takes a bit of work to unlock, but the reward for completing it is a new exotic class item, which randomly drops a combination of the effects of two existing exotic armors.

The class item's perk pool has powerful effects, replicating build crafting staples such as Heart of Inmost Light, Synthocepts, and Star-Eater Scales The ability to combine two powerful exotic effects is is obviously powerful and should make for incredibly powerful prismatic builds. And the desirability of this new type of exotic is exactly why drama is breaking out again in the Destiny community after a brief window in which almost everyone seemed benevolently happy.

Dual Destiny, as the name implies, is a two-player activity. All of its puzzles and challenges are done by two Guardians working together, so much so that you can't even start the activity unless you are already on a two-player fireteam. There is also no matchmaking, which is a common feature for activities that require communication like this one. The only options are to bring a friend or jump into the LFG.

DestinyTheGame Many commenters are outraged by this decision through posts on the subreddit announcing the discovery of Dual Destiny." Isn't this what solo players get?" Some ask. If so, it's beyond frustrating." Another says more bluntly: "Why does Bungie do this crap." For those who do not like to use the game's LFG tools, or who simply want to play without the need for communication, this mission is a high barrier to getting one of the expansion's big new features.

But these complaints are hardly universal; in the first few days of Dual Destiny's release, there were many who scoffed at the idea that this was a problem." It seems odd to me that people would rather miss out on an exotic class item and demand that Bungie remove and retool the feature than interact minimally with a stranger for 10 minutes."

Some of the reasons for the backlash against the backlash are simply that Dual Destiny is the best exotic mission Bungie has released in years. Most of the recent exotic missions (the ones currently on the Director's Legends section rotator) have been fairly simple. Some have time limits, but most are relatively simple combat challenges with some jumping puzzles along the way; Dual Destiny is more complex, and the puzzles require the player to pass on information. Time is also long: there are three major encounters, and the first blind run took about 50 minutes to finish. Thanks to the new dreaded unit, the enemy pressure is there, making it a big game.

But more than being a good game, it is a version of Destiny that some players sincerely wish was normal. Many in the community wanted more challenging and complex activities, and Bungie delivered. The activities also offer desirable rewards, making them worth more than the basic experience of first-time play.

At the risk of sounding elitist, I am fine with not all loot being available to all players. As it stands, almost all of Destiny 2's best items, other than raid weapons, are relatively easy to obtain. The more coveted "skilled" versions of weapons may be hampered by skill barriers, but they are only minor upgrades to the basic versions and are hardly worth the extra effort. One could argue that there should be low access barriers to the core features of the new expansion, but honestly, it's nice to have a valuable and desirable item locked behind an activity that falls somewhere between trivial and requiring a full raid team. And Bungie has come up with an appropriate compromise for Dual Destiny as well. You need to run the mission once to unlock the class item the first time, but after that it may drop from any chest in the Pale Heart destination. You can keep running missions to ensure rewards, or you can leave it to the RNG to acquire new roles.

I also think the complexity of Dual Destiny is overstated to justify the initial outrage. Yes, it needs two people. Yes, communication is necessary. But this is not a raid-level activity; you need to be in constant contact. You don't need a microphone, just a text chat to exchange all the symbols and location information needed to complete each puzzle. There are no major DPS checks or mandatory loadouts, and once you learn how to complete a mission, execution is relatively simple.

However, the fears surrounding LFG are real and keenly felt by some, and for Bungie, threading this needle is tricky - putting a major feature behind multiplayer cooperation gives it prestige, but the majority of new subclasses Putting major features behind multiplayer cooperation gives it prestige, but risks alienating players who were hoping for a more streamlined and easier way to access most of the new subclasses. It will be interesting to see if the studios will make concessions, i.e., risk part of their mission status in order to provide a more frictionless option for those who just can't step up to the plate.

In general, it seems that the views of the broader community are in favor of missions. However, there is an interesting drama unfolding where the more casual player base is at odds with the more experienced players who are happy with this new direction.