While Destiny 2 developer Bungie has been mostly focused on the various changes coming in the game’s Forsaken expansion (changes such as the return of daily heroic story missions and a revamp of the weapon slot system), the studio also took some time to address a more pertinent issue that’s been affecting the game’s playerbase: the inability to directly purchase seasonal event armor pieces. The good news is that Bungie has a set date for when the ability to directly buy seasonal armor will be re-enabled, the bad news is that said date is set *after* the next planned Faction Rally event, an event which has suffered the most from the lack of direct-buy seasonal armor.
Currently, the only way to acquire seasonal armor for events such as Iron Banner and Faction Rallies is via randomized reward drops, and that’s a problem since several of the unlockable Faction Rally rewards require wearing a full seasonal armor set in order to make progress. This has led to many situations where a player cannot make any progress towards the rewards they want since the armor pieces they need refuse to drop from the randomized system.
It would be one thing if only one or two armor pieces were needed to progress towards the Faction Rally rewards, but for now a player needs to be wearing a full five-piece seasonal armor set (helmet, gloves, chest, legs, and class item) before they can even begin to unlock certain rewards. Bungie community manager Chris “Cozmo” Shannon recently confirmed via Twitter that the ability to directly purchase seasonal armor pieces will be re-enabled when Destiny 2’s 1.2.3 update launches on July 17:
We removed direct purchase of armor from certain vendors due to constraints when adding seasonal progression rewards. The fix came too late to add direct purchase of armor in 1.2.1. This issue will be addressed in the 1.2.3 update for both Iron Banner and Faction Rallies.
— Cozmo (@Cozmo23) June 22, 2018
Unfortunately, this is a cold comfort for dedicated Faction Rally players since Destiny 2’s next Faction Rally event (the second of three that Bungie plans to host during Destiny 2’s third content season) is scheduled to begin tomorrow, June 26. This means that Faction Rally participants will only have one rally event in which they can directly buy seasonal armor and thus work towards the seasonal rewards that will only be available during Destiny 2’s third content season. It may not seem like a huge deal for players who were lucky enough to get a full seasonal armor set, but for those who weren’t as lucky, it’s a frustrating situation to be in.
Fans over on the official Destiny subreddit are already imploring Bungie to add more Faction Rally events into season three to make up for the events in which seasonal armor can’t be directly bought. As of this writing, Bungie hasn’t responded to those requests, but here’s hoping the studio has at least some plan for making it up to Faction Rally participants who got burned by the randomized armor drops.