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Destiny 2 players estimate 6 plus days of grind to reach transmog seasonal cap

Quite a bit of math on Reddit has put the actual number at 150 to 160 hours of nonstop gameplay due to an apparent timegate on Destiny 2 transmog Synthstrand.

TJ Denzer

May 14, 2021 1:11 PM

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Destiny 2’s transmog (or “armor synthesis” as recently called) system that allows players to have a sort of layered cosmetic armor set of their favorite pieces has been the subject of some concern by players for a bit. It’s a cosmetic system where you can either grind in-game materials to use it or you can skip the grind by buying premium materials with real-world money. With such a deviation in paths to using the transmog system, players started to working how much effort the free route takes.

It wasn’t pretty. Turns out the system’s material grind may be on a timegate and it takes roughly more than six days of non-stop active play to earn the materials you need to reach the seasonal cap. Destiny 2 redditors like alonie-homie and I3igB worked out the time gate and rough estimate of time involved. To transmog an item in your collection, you need a Synthweave, converted from a Synthcord, which must be gotten through a bounty by trading in 150 Synthstrands, and Synthstrands can only be collected one at a time every two minutes. So 300 minutes to collect a bounty.

Add to that the fact that you’d then have to complete the bounty, which consists of around four activities that can be anywhere from a walk in the park to killing 50 Champions in Nightfall Strikes and you’re adding on even more time. This has players breaking it down that you’d need atleast 50 to 60 hours of optimal play to reach the 10 Synthweave seasonal cap on a character, so 150 to 180 hours if you’re talking about hitting the cap on each of the three character classes.

There is, of course, another answer. You could simply skip that grind by going to Bungie’s store and buying a pack of 5 Synthweave templates for 1000 Silver ($10 in real money). As should be expected, this isn’t sitting right with many players. Bungie has never been pushy or highly overpriced with its content or Season Passes, but many would probably just prefer the dev was more up front about cost of cosmetics and didn’t use atrocious grinds to incentivize players towards spending money.

Transmog is a cool system and, as a purely cosmetic system, it’s not out of the ordinary for these things to be charged for a premium, unless you’re a game like Dauntless or Monster Hunter where a system like armor transmog has been a free part of the game for a while outside of premium packages of special cosmetics. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen if Destiny 2 will shift to be less shady or wasteful of our time when it comes to what Bungie wants for the use of transmog. Stay tuned for further updates on Destiny 2 and follow our coverage of Season of the Splicer for all the latest walkthroughs and guides.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.