More stats coming to Destiny 2's revamped Emblem Tracker system, but have Bungie got it right?

A hefty amount of tracked stats will be returning to the emblem tracker 2.0 system that was released with Season of the Worthy, according to the most recent This Week at Bungie blog post for 04/02.

For those of you out of the loop, before the release of Season of the Worthy, many emblems came with a tracker that displayed a certain statistic of the player that was relevant to the emblem.

This included statistics like a player’s KDA for Crucible emblems and the amount of Shattered Throne completions for a Dreaming City emblem. Many players worked at these stats for years in order to be proud to display their commitment to a certain area within the game. 

Emblem stat trackers saw a significant rework with the release of Season of the Worthy. Now, players are able to choose from a large selection of stats to display on any emblem they currently have instead of being forced into displaying a predetermined stat with each emblem.

Unfortunately, the selection of stats that can be displayed is significantly smaller than what the previous emblem system had and many of the stats that can be displayed have been reset to 0.

This left many players extremely disappointed as the evidence for their years of hard work had disappeared overnight. These players made sure to let Bungie know of their displeasure with Reddit and Twitter being consumed by angry posts and tweets aimed at the developers.

Bungie soon realized they had seriously screwed up and promised that this tracker release was only the first iteration and that they would continue to refine and add to this feature that is an obvious step backward. “One step forward, two steps back” seems to be Bungie’s modus operandi.

Here is the second set of stats will be added to the emblem tracker system in Update 2.8.1 planned for later this month:

Seasons

Career

• Forge Completions
• All of the Trackers below are hidden if their value is zero:
  • Season 8 Season Pass Rank Earned
  • Season 9 Season Pass Rank Earned
  • Number of Tier III encounters completed in the Reckoning
  • Fractaline Donated
  • Menagerie Completions
  • Heroic Menagerie Completions
  • Kills of Haunted Forest Terrors
  • Deepest Branch of Haunted Forest Cleared
  • Completed Branches of the Verdant Forest
  • Revelric Light triggers during the Revelry
  • Candy Collected
  • Recipes Baked

Account

Career

• Heroic Missions Completed
• All of the Trackers below are visible on their class:
  • Kills as a Sentinel Titan
  • Kills as a Striker Titan
  • Kills as a Sunbreaker Titan
  • Kills as a Arcstrider Hunter
  • Kills as a Nightstalker Hunter
  • Kills as a Gunslinger Hunter
  • Kills as a Stormcaller Warlock
  • Kills as a Dawnblade Warlock
  • Kills as a Voidwalker Warlock

Crucible

Career

• Gold Medals Earned.
• Longest Glory Win Streak.
• Total Valor Resets.
• Iron Banner Rank.
• Gold Medals Earned in Iron Banner.
• Iron Banner Bounties Completed.
• All of the Trackers below are hidden if their value is zero:
  • Wins in Trials of the Nine.
  • Flawless tickets in Trials of Nine.
  • 7th column Medals Earned.
  • Annihilation Medals Earned.
  • Undefeated Medals Earned.
  • We Ran Out of Medals Medals Earned.
  • Ghost in the Night Medals Earned.
  • This Crown is Mine Medals Earned.
  • I Made This for You Medals Earned.
  • Kills in Crimson Doubles.
  • Kills while under the effects of Iron Burden.

Destination

Career

• Kills of Final Bosses in Escalation Protocol.
• Available on Mars and Escalation Protocol Emblems.
• All of the Trackers below are available on Luna Emblems:
  • Completed Nightmare Hunts on Master Difficulty.
  • Pit of Heresy Solo Flawless Completions.

Gambit

Career

• Infamy Rank Resets.

Raids

Career

• Prestige Leviathan Completions.
• Available on Leviathan and Guided Games Emblems.
• Prestige Eater of Worlds Completions.
• Available on Eater of Worlds and Guided Games Emblems.
• Prestige Spire of Stars Completions.
• Available on Spire of Stars and Guided Games Emblems.

Strikes

Career

• Nightfall Challenge Completions.

This is obviously a step in the right direction but there are still loads of stats that are missing from this emblem tracker rework and it doesn't excuse Bungie from this blunder in the first place. 

Unfortunately, Bungie has run into another problem. There is going to be a hard cap on how many stats can be added to this new system. Here’s what Bungie Community Manager Dylan “Dmg04” Gafner had to say on the topic:

“We understand that there may be a few stats that are still not present that you’re interested in returning. To be clear, we have a hard cap on how many stats can be listed on emblems, so we want to make sure we have room to grow in the future. Please continue to give feedback on what you’d like to see, and we’ll keep you in the know of what our plans are.”

Guardians are less than pleased with Tracker Redesign

This Bungie update seems to have reopened old wounds for a lot of players as many flocked to the Reddit thread to express their displeasure over this tracker redesign and the new information that was revealed in the update:

“Why did you reinvent the wheel when we didn't ask for this and have this kind of limitation. You, /u/dmg04, said this was so Emblems could "have a bright future," Reddit user ‘Crusader3456’ said.

"This doesn't seem bright. This seems worse than what we had. Way worse. Why impose this limit? This seems like a horrible design. I just don't understand. I know less at a glance now than I did before about what the player has done. The only change people wanted was to turn off the number."

Crusader3456 wasn't the only one that opened fire either; Reddit user BallMeBlazer22 also joined in the online onslaught:

"So we went from a system where we could display any stat that existed on one emblem, to some stats on all emblems?" they said.

"Honestly, if this is how it just goes back to the old system because at least that one let us have the ability to show any stats that we wanted. It's cool that we are getting some back, but I cannot believe our feedback of "It would be nice to turn the trackers off on emblems' ' has been monkeys pawed so badly."

These comments are just a select few of hundreds of comments from players who feel they have been wronged by this tracker rework and that their investment into the game series isn't being respected by Bungie. 

Could Bungie roll back the Emblem Tracker system?

It has become very clear that players aren't happy with this rework of the emblem trackers but it’s impossible to tell if Bungie is even capable of doing anything about it.

It seems extremely unlikely Bungie would commit to a roll-back on this rework and simply add an ‘on-off’ toggle of the tracking to the previous system, which is all players were asking for in the first place. 

The new information that there is a hard cap to the amount of stats that can be tracked means that this new system will never be as diverse as the previous one as there will always be stats missing that certain players spent hard-earned time on.

Bungie will simply never be able to please everyone with this redesign. Only time will tell which direction Bungie chooses to take this.