Destiny 2's Three of Coins consumable is bugged, and Fated Engrams might be too

The Destiny 2 update that rolled out last week added, among quite a number of other things, a Three of Coins consumable sold by Xur that the patch notes said "increases the drop chance of Exotics." But following a weekend of play, an awful lot of people came away feeling like it wasn't working like it was supposed to, and maybe wasn't working at all.   

Nobody could say for certain, because Bungie, as is Bungie wont, revealed nothing about what it's specifically supposed to do—whether it provides a ten percent boost, or 50 percent, or doubles the chance, or something else entirely. But the feeling that something was off-base was enough that Bungie said on Sunday that it would look into the matter further.   

The results of that investigation were posted today, beginning with a breakdown of how the Three of Coins actually works—something it should have done right from the start. "When players use a Three of Coins consumable, this provides a 50% increase to the base chance of being rewarded an Exotic Engram upon activity completion. Using this consumable does not guarantee an Exotic reward upon completing a set number of activities—but rather increased chances upon each activity completion." 

Apparently it was working as intended, then—except for one little hitch. "We have found that Heroic Strikes do not currently grant higher chances for Exotics when using Three of Coins consumables, compared to Vanguard Strikes," Bungie wrote. "We’re looking to address this with a future Hotfix, expected in early 2018." 

So if you were grinding Heroic Strikes over the weekend, popping Three of Coins all the way through to maximize the payoff for your efforts, you now have official confirmation that you weren't being bitten in the ass by a particularly vicious RNG snake, the thing just wasn't working. My own research wasn't nearly as in-depth as that of some redditors—I bought one, got nothing, and that was enough for me—I can't honestly claim to be super-surprised by this outcome.

I like Destiny 2 well enough—I'm still playing, although not grinding nearly as ferociously as truly dedicated players—but Bungie's ongoing string of self-inflicted injuries is kind of astounding to watch. Destiny 2 is all about numbers, so why withhold them? And why—why?— when something goes wrong, would you toss off a vague promise of maybe fixing it up next year? Bugs happen, I get that, especially in a game with the breadth of Destiny 2, but studios can go a long way toward ameliorating their impact by simply communicating with thei fans. Players will put up with a lot as long as they don't feel like you're dicking them around. Persistent opacity? Not so much.

Bungie also said on Twitter that it is also looking into reports that Xur's Fated Engrams are dropping items already owned by players, which is not supposed to happen. Up to you, but my feeling is that you'll probably want to hang on to your Legendary Shards until this is all straightened out.