Bungie wants Guardian Ranks to address the ‘aimless’ feeling for new players in Destiny 2

polygon.com:

Bungie has fully revealed how its Guardian Ranks progression system will work in Destiny 2 when it arrives as part of the Lightfall expansion on Feb. 28.

The ethos behind Guardian Ranks is to help players better understand the game and its activities, both for those unfamiliar with Destiny 2 and existing players who are coming to new content each season.

“One of the problems if you’re starting or returning to Destiny is, outside of New Light, there’s no evergreen story for you to follow,” creative director Tyson Green explained during a recent press event attended by Polygon. “A lot of people feel aimless unless something catches their attention, or they wind up confused if things get introduced out of order, and we want to fix that. Guardian Ranks have been introduced to add that structure to the game.”

There are 11 ranks in total, each a “phase in your journey as a Guardian,” Green said, with the first five ranks designed to help players understand the basics of Destiny 2 and “build up knowledge and power base.”

Ranks 6 to 10 will be focused more on season-specific challenges, proving a player “knows how to handle themselves in current activities with confidence.” As a result, some of these ranks are temporary, and will partly reset each season when new content is cycled in.

“It’s actually much faster to regain a former rank than it would be the first time round, and you’ll keep all the credit for any completed evergreen objectives — so it’s more about checking out and mastering new content that’s come out,” Green explained. “We’ll memorialize past-ranks too, so you can always see what you’ve achieved for a previous season.”

Existing players who have completed the New Light campaign will automatically be skipped ahead