The Menagerie was released with Season of Opulence and is a 6-player matchmade activity that takes players through a variety of mechanic lite encounters with the goal of filling up a progress bar to spawna boss, similar to Nephalem Rifts in Diablo 3.
Most of the encounters harken back to raids of old, from both Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 and get
progressively harder with each wave having a “flawless” condition that rewards the most progress toward the boss phase. There are no fail conditions in normal mode, so matchmade fireteams with little coordination can still complete the activity although it may take a little more time.
Once the boss phase is complete, players can open a chest and invoke the power of their chalice, an item which lets the player define the loot they would like using runes that dictate armor / weapon type, stat roll, and masterwork, which the perk rolls being randomly generated. Additionally, the discovery of a “bug” that allows players to use the 240 seconds remaining after the final encounter to loot the chest as many times as possible allowing players to essentially re-roll their drops.
While the activity itself has only been out for a little over a month, it has solved many fundamental problems with the loot and leveling system in Destiny 2. It has reinvigorated the player population and provided deterministic loot and leveling options, while still providing a longer-term chase for hardcore players.
The first issue it has solved is being able to determine the gear slot for powerful drops. The meme of “Forever 29” comes to mind, referring to players in D1 vanilla who were one drop (damn hunter boots) away from max level for several weeks, at the mercy of RNG. What the chalice allows players to do is pick the powerful rewards each week so they are able to fill slots they need.
Don’t need 9 grenade launchers from your weekly milestones? Me either.
The second issue Menagerie solved is providing a deterministic way for players to re-roll their items. Ever since random rolls returned in Forsaken, players have been on the hunt for “god rolls”, perfect perk combinations that make each gun / archetype the most optimal. Since there was no way to “re-roll” an item with a bad perk set, players were left to the mercy of RNG again to give them that weapon again, with a better set of perks. For items with low drop rates, this could be an issue and players could go hundreds of encounters (I’m looking at you Reckoning) without getting a weapon with a good roll.
Enter “bugged” Menagerie.
Now, if you complete the encounter AND played enough of the other world activities to build up an inventory of runes, you could roll hand cannons or snipers (I’m never getting a snapshot/quickdraw beloved, 100+ rolls in) until you get that perfect roll you want. Maybe you even want a PVE and a PVP version. This is long term chase that maybe not every “Johnny Wal-Mart” will partake in, but is something hardcore players have been asking for. Having a quick, rewarding (time investment vs loot reward) way to farm for loot engages players in a low stress environment where they can group with their friends (or matchmake with random players) to search for specific item they want.
Unfortunately, as of July 9th , this method of farming is being “fixed” and will allow players only one shot at their perfect roll. As someone who is well past the 200 slotted runes triumph and who has rolled more than 100 Beloveds without getting a roll I want, this is a severe detriment to my desire to play the activity. While the deterministic way to earn specific powerful rewards is still there, the hardcore players among us already have 3 characters at 750 and this doesn’t benefit us until September.
What’s the solution? The community has thrown many around, from giving players 3 chests on
completion, to lowering the timer from 240 seconds, to basing your drops on how many flawless” encounters your team completes. At least the weekly heroic mode clear will be a good source of enhancement cores when you don’t get your 1 in a million roll.
I don’t know what’s the right way to move forward, what I do know is this. Menagerie with only one (sometimes two if your chalice is upgraded) loot drop is an infinitely less desirable activity. And maybe one of my twelve snap shot / field prep Beloveds really are “good enough”.