Category: Bungie News

As noted in our most recent Roadmap, Crucible Labs shipped with Destiny Update 1.2.1. While the content has been downloaded and installed on your platform, the feature is not yet available. PvP Design Lead Derek Carroll has some information to set proper expectations for the feature, and what to expect when it becomes available:

Derek: The Crucible team has been working hard behind the scenes to improve Destiny 2’s PvP offering, and to get new content to players more quickly. With update 1.2.1, we shipped some bits that will let us turn on our experimental Crucible Labs playlist. To set your expectations somewhat, Crucible Labs isn’t a totally different game. It’s not a different version of Destiny 2 hiding out on the Crucible page of the Director. It is a playlist that will feature new game modes (soon) and some different tweaks to the modes you already enjoy (starting tomorrow!). Crucible Labs is a way for our team to try stuff out in the wild, before it’s “done”, and solicit feedback from the community. We’ve never done this before, and there will be bumps in the road, but I hope you’ll come along for the ride and help us make Destiny 2’s Crucible even better for all Guardians.

This week at Bungie, we lit the Iron Banner again.

Iron Banner 6v6 is back for Season 3. To celebrate its return, we added a reprised version of the Bannerfall map to the playlist. This was another fan favorite we brought forward by popular demand. It will be available in the Iron Banner playlist until the next reset, when it will become available in Quick Play, Competitive, and Private Matches for all players of Destiny 2. You also might see it in Trials this weekend, but we’ll know that for sure tomorrow!

Hive Annihilation 

Escalation Protocol has been live for two weeks now. Ever since the launch of Warmind, we’ve seen Guardians bravely battling hordes of Hive on Mars. The bravest among you have gone on to defeat seven levels of bosses. As always, combat leads to feedback. Today, we’re responding to a popular request for new matchmaking systems that would unite nine players in battle. Lead Designer Jacob Benton has some comments about this new activity in Destiny.

What were the design goals for Escalation Protocol?

Jacob: Escalation Protocol was designed to be a high-difficulty endgame activity for a max-level, three-player fireteam. Other players in the world can contribute to make it easier, but they shouldn’t be required as long as your team is highly skilled and coordinated. We have received a lot of feedback since the original launch of Destiny 2 that players felt like reaching max Power was not satisfying. There weren’t enough activities that required and rewarded that level of commitment. Escalation Protocol was designed to fill that gap.

So this activity was not specifically designed for nine players?

Other than Raid Activities, all PvE activities and private spaces are optimized for three players to allow for multiple types of activities in the space. So no, it wasn’t designed for it, but it’s not a surprise that it’s easier with nine players, given how under-leveled most of us are right now. We knew that players would use the same creative workarounds to get nine players into a space similar to Court of Oryx, but we did not specifically tune the difficulty around requiring that many players.

Any plans to enable larger fireteams in the future?

We’ve had a lot of conversations here about what to do to answer the community’s feedback. We’re going to continue to monitor as more players progress up to max Power and are able to attempt Escalation Protocol at the difficulty it was designed for and we’ll determine what, if any action, is necessary. We also hear players are really enjoying large groups of players fighting against enemies, so we’ll use that feedback to inform our future plans.

Armor Updates

Victor: We’ve received a lot of feedback on Exotic Armor in Destiny 2. With 1.2.0, we introduced changes to Exotic Weapons to make them punchier and more compelling, and with the 1.2.1 release, we’re taking steps to update some of the existing Exotic Armor.

It’s my hope that the changes to Exotic Armor will result in more interesting choices, whether you’re doing a strike or going for wins in the Crucible. When deciding to update the Exotic perks, our goal was to keep the identity of the Exotics the same, even if the way they influence your playstyle is slightly different.

With the release of 1.2.1, we’re updating six pieces of Exotic Armor, two for each class, and we will be updating more in the future. Please note that any mechanical changes are in addition to the already established effects unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Titan

• Synthoceps
• • Mechanical Changes—Previously, the perk adjusted your melee damage depending on the number of enemies surrounding you. Now it grants a flat bonus to melee and Super damage when you’re surrounded by three or more enemies. The buff is retained for a short duration after you are no longer surrounded.
  • Although Synthoceps has gotten a fair bit of love in the Crucible, players are often focused on the increased lunge rate. The outgoing damage bonus was hard to appreciate and plan around with it being so variable in nature. With this change, you will be able to feel the impact more often in all scenarios, particularly in PvE.

• Lion Rampant
• • Mechanical Changes—You can hipfire while Lift is active without interrupting it, and your aerial hipfire doesn’t have an aerial accuracy penalty.
  • The Lion Rampant was focused around Lift and how it impacts your playstyle and tactics, so we decided to push further in that direction, emphasizing fast moving aerial assault.

Hunter

• The Dragon’s Shadow
• • Mechanical Changes—Dodging reloads all weapons simultaneously. The effects of Wraithmetal Mail now also include a bonus to mobility.
  • Although the Dragon’s Shadow does have a small following, we wanted to make it more useful in a general sense under even neutral conditions, while keeping in the theme of a fast-moving ninja.

• Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves
• • Mechanical Changes—Swapping to a sidearm while critically wounded greatly increases its damage.
  • We went for the fantasy of a holdout weapon; the pistol tucked into your sleeve that you pull out in an emergency to save you. These changes should let you turn around a fight more easily.

Warlock

• Lunafaction Boots
• • Mechanical Changes—Rift reload is automatic instead of being activated on entry/exit. Empowering Rift makes weapons more effective at extended ranges.
  • Players having to dip in and out of the Rift to reload their weapons was not consistent with other Rift effects, particularly with the overshield effect on Healing Rift. It’s been made automatic to be easier to understand and use. As this is a more offensive choice in terms of Rift Exotics, we also wanted to further reward players who want to double down with Empowering Rift instead of playing it safe with Healing Rift. 

• Sunbracers
• • Mechanical Changes—Original effect replaced with: Increases the duration of Solar Grenades. Solar melee kills grant unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time.
  • While effective under some circumstances in terms of things like flat damage output with your Solar Grenade, Sunbracers didn’t feel flashy enough for gloves where your hands are perpetually on fire. So, while retaining the original flavor of “The Solar Grenade Exotic Armor,” we’ve scaled up the potential output significantly to give the player a strong taste of power on a more frequent basis.

Bungie Versus

A few weeks ago we kicked off a new type of stream where we have a friendly match against a predetermined team of worthy opponents. Our friends at Vicarious Visions have put their quarters down and called next.

If you are not familiar with VV, they have partnered with us to create awesome content for Destiny 2. They want to show off their Crucible skills and see whether they can defeat us in a friendly exhibition. Here are the details:

Bungie Versus Vicarious Visions

May 30 at 11 a.m. PDT

Team Vicarious Visions

1. Barry Morales, Production 

2. Chris Pietrocarli, Art 

3. Paddy Hennessy, Engineering 

4. Dave Keenan, Art 

Team Bungie

1. Dmg04, Community

2. Cozmo, Community

3. Kevin Yanes, Crucible

4. Victor Anderson, Sandbox

This will be a best-of-five match. Bungie will pick two game types, and VV will also pick two. The final game will be Mayhem on Bannerfall.

Good luck, have fun.

Fixing to Fix It  

We have another update inbound. Destiny Player Support is here to tell you when your bits are scheduled to arrive and what you need to know about the upcoming patch.

This is their report.

Update 1.2.1 Release

Destiny 2 services will undergo maintenance on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. No downtime is expected. During this time, Destiny 2 Update 1.2.1 will become available to players. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.

• 9 a.m. PDT (1600 UTC)
• • Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to begin
  • No downtime is expected
  • Destiny 2 Update 1.2.1 will be available to download and install
• 1 p.m. PDT (2000 UTC)
• • Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to conclude
  • Players who have not installed Update 1.2.1 will be removed from activities to begin the download and install process

Patch Note Preview

Here’s a quick overview of issues that should be resolved in Destiny Update 1.2.1:

• Fixed an issue where players would lose Glory Rank Points for leaving a match too soon after the match ends
• Fixed an issue where the Clan XP Milestone was not granting a powerful reward
• Fixed an issue where Vanguard Boons would block progression of strike-specific quest steps and milestones
• Fixed an issue where Shriekers would close too quickly during Warsat public events, thus blocking players’ ability to trigger a Heroic public event
• Fixed an issue where Calus’s shields required too much damage to break after Destiny Update 1.2.0
• Fixed an issue where players would experience long load times for Iron Banner matches on PC

The full patch notes will be made available on Tuesday, May 29. Stay tuned to @Bungie on Twitter for further announcements.

Bungie.net API Issue: Item Equip Currently Disabled

This week, we identified an issue where players could reach 385 Power within a short amount of time if characters had no items equipped in their weapon inventories. Characters could enter this state only by using the item equip functionality available through the Bungie.net API. As such, the ability to equip or unequip items through the API has been disabled until we can resolve the issue. While players may still transfer items from character to character, any item that is equipped will need to be unequipped within Destiny 2 before it can be transferred using the Destiny Companion App or any third-party application.

The ability to equip items is one of the most used features available through the API, and the decision to disable this functionality was not made without our weighing the impact it would have on the community. To preserve the meaning behind reaching max Power, we decided that this action needed to be taken.

Once a solution to this issue has been identified, we will provide updates on when to expect a hotfix that will allow us to enable these features once more. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp on Twitter for updates.

Please Recycle Your 3-D Glasses 

It’s time for our Movie of the Week. This is a recurring segment where we find cool videos that the community has made and award their creators with a special emblem, the Lens of Fate.

Movie of the Week: Magic Bullet

[embedded content]

Honorable Mention: No Guns No Problem (warning: language)

[embedded content]

<3 Cozmo

This week at Bungie, we watched Guardians become Legends.

This last week has been one to remember. It’s one of the best things about Destiny, really—when memories are forged in the fires of combat. It’s been an absolute pleasure to see these experiences unfold, and we’re excited to see more of these stories shared throughout the community.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dive into what’s changing about Faction Rallies and shed a bit more light on what Crucible Labs will bring to the table. This week, our focus is on feedback…

Powerful Progress

Feedback never stops. From the moment Warmind landed, we’ve had our eyes on the chatter surrounding all aspects of Destiny 2. One trending topic is how players reach appropriate Power levels for endgame content. Senior Investment Designer Daniel Auchenpaugh has some details on what to expect moving forward:

Daniel: Warmind is out! We’re super excited this is in your hands now, as we’re able to get a bunch of excellent input on what we did well and what we still need to work on. One of those areas I’d like to talk about a bit is progression. I spoke a little about this before the Warmind launch, but I think one thing I could have been more clear about was that the Warmind progression system is an improvement over Curse of Osiris, but still not where we ultimately want to end up. It’s a step down the road to make the game more in line with where we want it, but we need to make these iterations one step at a time so we can incorporate feedback and ensure we’re heading in the right direction.

Heroic strikes are a great example of something we definitely want to keep iterating on. In the May 29 update, you’ll see a small change to help make these better. 

• Escalation Protocol Key Fragments will become a 100 percent drop chance from each Heroic strike. The goal here is to make getting these fragments more accessible while also preserving the need to go play non-open-world content to get the fragments. 
• Heroic strikes will be able to drop better rewards. Every three to five Heroic strikes will drop a Legendary that can carry you up to 360 Power (before mods). This should better align the rewards of Heroic strikes with the difficulty of the activity and help solo players have a more reliable source of upgrades. 

We won’t have any time to make changes to what’s coming on the 29th, but please let us know how you feel about these rates; it is good information to inform future updates.

We’re tracking some additional issues that don’t have immediate solutions, but that I want to bring up as things we’re thinking and talking about. I don’t currently have any potential solutions to talk about, but I want to make sure we’re communicating the kinds of things we’re looking at and considering. In that spirit, here are some of the top progression-related issues we’re thinking about right now:

• How to smooth out the transition into the endgame grind once the campaign is over. Currently, there is a brick wall players seem to be running into at 345, where progression goes from fast to super frictioned. This is one of those areas we definitely don’t believe is perfect, so we’re looking at how to smooth this transition out.
• Once milestones are complete, there aren’t rewards to chase. Exotic Masterworks and seasonal ranks help this problem a little bit (giving some amount of non-Power chase to work on once milestones are done) but these definitely aren’t enough. As highlighted in the roadmap, Weapon Randomization and Records should also help give players more to do once their milestones are done. That doesn’t mean we believe this is a fully solved problem, and we’re talking about other ways to help mitigate this.
• Endgame progression needs more tiers. Right now, everything gives similar-sized upgrades without discrete tiers in the progression system for players to climb to (so they can tackle new activities and, in turn, climb to a new tier with new activities). This is something I definitely wouldn’t expect a solution for prior to September, but it is on our radar.
• The quality of the rewards don’t always match the difficulty of the activity. We’re seeing a lot of this feedback around raid lair rewards in particular, so talking about how to better align with the quality of reward and the difficulty of activity is something we’re going to be thinking about more going forward.

Huge thanks to everyone who has spent time to type up their thoughts, what they love, and what they don’t love with the progression and reward systems in Warmind. We’re keeping our ear to the ground. 

P.S.: Send me images of your favorite shader + Escalation Protocol gear combos. This is unrelated to progression—I just wanna see ’em!

Going for Glory

Progression isn’t just achieving new levels of Power, we also look at how players are rising through ranks of Valor and Glory. We’ve gotten some questions on the hows and whys of the ranking system. PvP Design Lead Derek Carroll has some answers.

Derek: Now that we’ve added a serious ranking system to the Competitive playlist, we’re seeing many more Guardians attempt to climb the ladder to become Legend. On their way to the top, some players have raised questions that we can address here.

Q: Why would I match against a player with a higher Glory rank than me?

A: For a variety of reasons, we don’t match directly on your Glory number, instead using our per-playlist “Skill” value. It’s quite likely that your opponent is a good match against you, but they’ve been grinding Glory more consistently, so have moved up the ranks faster. Take this as a sign that you’ll likely reach that rank with continued play.

Q: Why can I match against pre-formed fireteams when I’m searching as a solo player?

A: After a bit of server-side tuning and investigation, we re-enabled the Crucible Fireteam Matchmaking feature yesterday. This does not directly reduce the chances of matching against pre-made fireteams, but does tweak the “Skill” values of those fireteams to make it more likely that they find evenly-matched opponents.

Q: Why won’t you make a solo-queue-only playlist?

A: We don’t want to do that because it would split the population in an unhealthy way, making it less likely for everyone to find good matches. Furthermore, that would probably mean splitting the Glory rank into “Solo Glory” and “Team Glory” numbers, and we’d much rather there be one single number to represent your prowess in the Crucible.

Q: Why would you place me in a game in progress that you know I’m going to lose, ending my streak?

A: There’s no join-in-progress in Competitive, so this can’t happen for Glory. However, we are working on a fix for Valor in the other playlists, so you won’t lose your Valor streak that way.

As always, thanks for the feedback. We are always working to make the Crucible a great place to compete with and against your fellow Guardians. Good hunting!

Ironclad

 

Lord Saladin returns—with updated rewards!

BEGINS: Tuesday, May 22

ENDS: Tuesday, May 29

The game is Control!

The ways in which players earn rewards have also been updated for Season 3. Saladin will feature a similar reputation system to Vanguard, where players can climb the ranks by turning in Iron Banner Tokens. Each reputation rank up will lend progress to unlocking desired rewards.

New Ornaments have also been added, each with specific objectives for players to complete in the Iron Banner playlist when available.

At Your Fingertips

Destiny 2 isn’t the only thing that’s evolving over the course of the Roadmap. The Bungie.net team is also making plans to improve the experience on the website and Destiny Companion App. Senior UX Designer John Stvan and UX Designer Stosh Steward are here to give a report of what’s to come:

John: Two weeks ago, we started a discussion on Bungie.net and Reddit to get feedback on the Destiny Companion App and Bungie.net. We’ve combed the feedback and created a prioritized list of themes and sentiment that have been trending throughout the community. Priority was based on the volume of specific feedback items, how a feature or change could impact the user base, and if current feature usage data matched up with some of our inferences. We then proceeded to sort them into groups of Features/Experiences and UX/UI Improvements.

With Warmind out the door and a few Destiny updates between now and September, we want to be sure to set the right expectations on what’s coming. Each content release comes with a host of changes, updates, and fixes that we as a small team have to make sure don’t break our experiences. We don’t expect there to ever be issues, but sometimes the game makes a simple tweak to some investment, and by the time that gets to Bungie.net or the companion, the effect is magnified. As a recent example, players were unable to interact with characters after Destiny Update 1.2.0 due to issues between the companion and the new emote wheel. With that said, here are our initial goals for what will be coming soon to the Destiny Companion App and Bungie.net:

Timeframe—Early Summer

Stats (Medals): We are actively looking into how we can add medals and other stats incrementally to PGCR’s (post-game carnage reports) and player profiles. We knew ahead of the feedback collection that this would be a widely requested feature, but we were surprised by how many throughout the community wanted more stats surrounding medals acquired in the Crucible.

LFG: We have recently added the Clans Fireteam feature to the Destiny Companion, but we are looking to give players more ways to form fireteams through the companion and website.

Vendor Accessibility and Primary User Experience: Vendors are currently available to interact with through the companion app, but a recurring piece of feedback was that players are unable to locate the feature. We think this is due to vendors being in Progress which may be an unexpected location. The numbers also don’t lie—Progress isn’t getting the views we expected. We suspect that’s due to other sections in the app either having similar features or it being hidden.

Moving forward, we’ll be working to merge the Explore and Progress tabs to fulfill some of our initial goals. Explore was intended to be, “What’s going on? What don’t I want to miss out on?” However, it’s barely been more than a news feed. Progress was intended for users to know what their progress is towards their goals in Destiny 2. 

By combining these two sections, we feel we can create an experience that gives you the “What don’t I want to miss out on?” and the “What things do I need to go do?” sentiments. 

Timeframe—Summer

Gear User Experience and Sorting: When it comes to gear, third-party apps have provided amazing user experiences paired with Destiny and Destiny 2, and we couldn’t be prouder of them. We can’t tell you how excited we are that third-party apps have found solutions and satisfied that itch for the full screen, multi-character, nobs-and-switches experience. We are actively investigating ways to up our own game and provide better experiences within the Destiny Companion App when it comes to things like transferring, sorting, and equipping gear.

Timeframe—…and beyond

The future is bright and hopeful for Destiny 2 and the Companion. We want to ensure that we have targets to aim at—some big, daunting targets—and you’ve definitely helped provide us with those. We are grateful for the discussion we had, and can’t wait to have more ongoing conversations and feedback about the Companion and Bungie.net.

This conversation is far from over. In fact, it should never end. We want to always be listening and responding either with dialogue or action. Post feedback on Bungie.net. Stosh and I will be monitoring closely for your thoughts. It doesn’t go without saying how valuable your contribution to Destiny 2 is, and we want to ensure we’re providing the right tools and features to support your gaming experience.

Would You Like to Know More?

Destiny Hotfix 1.2.0.2 has shipped, but we still have some issues to address. As they say, the only good bug is a dead one. Destiny Player Support has the information you need to take on the threat.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.2.0.2

This week we deployed Hotfix 1.2.0.2 to players. Among the fixes to game issues, we resolved an issue blocking characters from appearing in the official Destiny Companion App, Bungie.net, and third-party applications that rely on the Destiny API.

Warmind Known Issues

With the launch of Destiny 2: Warmind, Destiny Player Support has continued to monitor player chatter regarding issues players are encountering in the wild. Those who do run into issues in Destiny 2: Warmind should make our Warmind: Vital Information and Known Issues thread their first stop for information on potential workarounds. As always, players who experience issues should report them to the #Help forum.

Listed below are a couple of items that we believe require further explanation to assist in mitigating their impact:

Heroic Strike Progress and Boons of the Vanguard

Progress toward the weekly Heroic strikes milestone, as well as toward some endgame quests, will be blocked when players activate a Boon of the Vanguard. Characters who enter this state will be unable to make progress on any pursuit that requires Heroic strike completions until the Boon expires.

As we continue to investigate this issue, we recommend that players save their Boons until after they have completed the pursuits mentioned above.

Clan XP Milestones and Powerful Gear

Currently players are not receiving powerful gear from Hawthorne when completing and turning in the weekly Clan XP milestone.

Players can work around this issue by completing the Clan XP milestone, then waiting for the next weekly reset to pass. After the new week starts, the previous week’s milestone will autodecrypt and correctly award powerful gear.

Additionally, we’d like to take this opportunity to remind players that Power progression from weekly clan engrams has changed with Destiny 2 Update 1.2.0. For details, players should revisit This Week at Bungie – 4/18/2018 for more information. 

Try This at Home

Grab your popcorn. Don’t forget the butter. We’ve got a few Community Creations well worth a watch, especially if you’re looking for a good strategy to take on the “Spire of Stars” raid lair.

Movie of the Week: World First

[embedded content]

Honorable Mention: Pure Power

[embedded content]

Honorable Mention: Sleeper Strikes Again

[embedded content]

1v1:

4v4:

See you on Mars? Maybe we’ll bump into each other. I have a bit of data to collect.

Cheers,

Dmg04

Game Director Christopher Barrett:

Now that Warmind has officially launched, we’re ready to add some additional details to the upcoming roadmap. There are a lot of eagerly awaited updates that are scheduled to arrive in September, and we’ll tell you more about those in the coming months, including our plans for year two of Destiny 2. But this summer won’t just be spent playing the waiting game. We’ll be delivering the Prestige modes you’ve been waiting for, bringing back Bounties, providing quality of life fixes, and more. In addition, we’re launching a new seasonal event called ‘Solstice of Heroes’ where Guardians will celebrate their accomplishments and, of course, earn sweet new rewards.

Design Lead Derek Carroll:

Keep the Bungie Blog in your cross-hairs for more insights on all these developing features.

This week at Bungie, we launched Warmind.

Guardians are breaking new ground on Mars, meeting up with Ana Bray to investigate the mysteries of Rasputin. If you haven’t had a chance to dive in yet, we have a trailer to serve as your mission briefing.

[embedded content]

We’re not done yet. Another activity is going live tomorrow…

Spire of Stars

Your next raiding adventure goes live on May 11 at 10 a.m. PDT. If you think you’re ready, line up at the starting line to make an attempt at becoming World First to complete the new raid lair, “Spire of Stars.” We’ll be watching and cheering you on as you travel back to the Leviathan to face a new challenge.

[embedded content]

We’ll be standing by to congratulate the first fireteam to complete the activity. Good luck out there, Guardians!

Trials 

The raid lair is not the only activity going live tomorrow. Trials of the Nine will return at 10 a.m. PDT with new Season 3 rewards. Here is what you can expect to earn as you battle other players for access to the Spire.

Bungie Versus

Next week, we are firing up the streaming studio again. This won’t be a reveal stream or a Bungie Bounty—we’ve been challenged in the ways of old by a player who claims he can defeat a Bungie Community Manager in the fires of the Crucible. PopeBear, one of the hosts of the popular Destiny Community Podcast, has bravely stepped up to go against Dmg04 in a friendly 1v1 match in Destiny 2. The stream kicks off at 6 p.m. PDT on May 16.

That won’t be the only bout. Immediately following the 1v1, Dmg04 and Pope will each be reinforced by three of their peers for a best-of-three challenge: Bungie Versus Destiny Community Podcast. Here are the lineups: 

1. PopeBear 

2. Ms 5ooo Watts

3. TeftyTeft

4. TheBriarRabbit

Team Bungie

1. Dmg04

2. Cozmo

3. Josh Hamrick

4. ???

All matches will take place in Private Matches. Game types will be chosen on the stream. May the best team win!

In the Know

As new updates go live, Destiny Player Support is actively responding to issues and giving you the information you need. 

This is their report.

Known Issues

Since the release of Warmind, Destiny Player Support has been all hands on deck troubleshooting issues reported to the #Help forum. The following issues have been confirmed, and teams are actively investigating solutions.

Perfectly Balanced

Let’s check in on our weekly visit to the Creations page to see what cool movies the community has put together.

Movie of the Week: Answering the Protocol

[embedded content]

Honorable Mention: Funnies

[embedded content]

This was a short one. We know you have new things to do and items to earn, so we won’t keep you away from the game with a lot of words. We’re monitoring your feedback on anything and everything you’re playing in the update and keeping track of the changes you’re enjoying and what you think could be better in the future.

Have fun in the raid lair tomorrow. We’ll be watching.

<3 Cozmo

Warmind Launch

Player Character

General

Emotes

Sandbox

Exotic Weapons – General

Exotic Kinetic Weapons

Exotic Energy Weapons

Exotic Power Weapons

Weapon Perks

Activities

PvE

Strikes

Raid

Tower

Items and Economy

General

Character Inventory

Eververse

Clans

Progression

Clan Engrams 

Guided Games

Crucible

General

Maps

Game Modes

Audio

Settings

UI

General

This week at Bungie, we’re counting down the minutes till Warmind.

In recent months, a series of updates for Destiny 2 has added some quality-of-life improvements to the game. On May 8, we’ll deliver even more. Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

Cheers to Vicarious Visions for their passion and dedication to the craft of creating amazing experiences for players. They’ve been wonderful partners with us on this journey. With Destiny 2 PC and Warmind under our collective belts, we’re excited about the future of this collaboration. Before you see their contribution to the world of Destiny, Creative Director Brent Gibson has a message from his team:

Brent: The team at Vicarious Visions have been fans of Destiny long before we started working with Bungie on this amazing franchise. While working alongside our counterparts at Bungie, we’ve met the challenge of expanding the Destiny universe and we are beyond thrilled that the day is nearly here! We are honored to have added to this rich world with passionate fans numbering in the millions. This is the kind of thing that game developers dream about. We are fortunate enough to not only add to the gameplay experience, but the franchise as a whole by bringing the legendary Hunter, Ana Bray, to life! She has carried our banner through this entire journey and we can’t wait for you to meet her on this adventure. See you on Mars on May 8!

On Approach

We’ve had a lot of fun hosting “Warmind Week” on the blog. There’s a lot we want you to know before you plot a course for Mars. If you missed a beat, here’s a recap.

We’ve also released two new Developer Insights to give more details on what to expect when Warmind launches. Creative Director Brent Gibson from Vicarious Visions and Design Lead Evan Nikolich from Bungie shed light on the state of Mars, Rasputin, and the enemies you’ll be introduced to. Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes walk us through the Exotic Masterwork weapon process, with additional information about Crucible Ranks, which will be available to all players when Season 3 begins on May 8.

Season 3: Exotics and Crucible

[embedded content]

Warmind

[embedded content]

Patch Note Preview

In previous articles, we’ve been diving deep into the details of design goals for some of the larger changes coming in Season 3. There’s quite a bit more to Destiny Update 1.2.0, so here’s a quick overview of feature changes and bug fixes that will also be deployed next week:

The full suite of patch notes will be published on May 8 shortly before Warmind becomes available. We’re currently targeting a 10 AM release, but stay tuned to @Bungie for announcements.

Details on Design

The Exotic Sandbox that you’re familiar with is about to change. We’ve had Senior Sandbox Designer Jon Weisnewski on the hot seat to talk us through the upcoming changes on stream and on the blog. You may have seen some demonstrations of new and improved Exotic weaponry this week. Some of the changes have some nuance to them, so here he is again with the exact details on how your arsenal is evolving:

Jon: Due to a lengthy update this week, I’m going to keep my section short. This’ll be the last Exotic tease from me. After this week, you’ll be playing with all of the new changes!

Risk Runner: We gave Arc Conductor increased resistance to incoming Arc damage (50%) and enabled it in the Crucible. Arc Conductor will now activate when the weapon is stowed, but damage resistance will only work when the weapon is in your hands. This was already a strong gun for PvE. We’re hoping these changes give it a place in some interesting Crucible load outs, strategies, and counters.

[embedded content]

Sweet Business: If you run this gun, you probably just want to shoot forever. We gave it a capped ammo inventory of 999. It’s not forever, but it’s a lot.

[embedded content]

D.A.R.C.I.: This Sniper Rifle now grants 4x damage once locked on a target (exact scaling depends on activity, difficulty, light level delta, etc). It shouldn’t take a master strategist to figure out how this will benefit you in PvE. Any Crucible combat snipers will also want to give this gun a try; it’s got a: 7 round magazine, reduced zoom for closer engagements, and an aim assist stat retuned to be more generous when you haven’t locked a target yet for better results while drag sniping.

[embedded content]

Lastly, I want to quickly acknowledge the whole team, which has been working really hard to get Exotic weapons in Update 1.2.0 ready for you over the past few months. I’ve been the one doing the talking, but it has been far from a solo effort. In particular, there’s a group of testers who has come to the table daily to both ensure these changes are bug-free, and also provide us with bone-breaking player feedback. The team has done a tremendous job at helping dial in a sweet spot for many of the guns. A billion thanks to them!

Mixing Things Up a Little

Destiny Updates 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 1.1.4 have brought quality-of-life changes to Destiny 2. Update 1.2.0 is almost here to bring more community-requested features to the table. Senior Investment Designer Daniel Auchenpaugh has details on the upcoming Heroic strike modifiers and the new Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card.

Dan: In Season 3, we’ve increased the baseline difficulty of Heroic strikes to make combatants more aggressive and make the experience feel more, well, Heroic. Additionally, at any given time the Heroic strike playlist will have three modifiers on it: one Burn (rotates weekly), one Advantage (rotates daily), and one Disadvantage (rotates daily). 

Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect in those categories:

We’re excited to see players reaching new top scores through a variety of modifiers on the Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card. Here are the top scoring fireteams from last week’s Nightfall, “A Garden World”: 

Prismatic Matrix

At release, the Prismatic Matrix will feature 10 Eververse items from Season 3 each week it is active. Each item within the Prismatic Matrix is on a knockout list, which means every player is guaranteed to receive all featured items for a given week by the tenth activation. Earning items via Bright Engrams, Bright Dust, or previous Matrix activations will also knock rewards off the list. In turn, each activation guarantees players an item that they have never previously acquired.

With your first well-rested level-up each week, you’ll earn a Prismatic Facet, allowing one free use of the Prismatic Matrix. Prismatic Facets stack up to 3, so make sure to have proper inventory space before earning a rank-up on a given week. Players can also purchase more activations for 200 Silver each.

Outside of the Prismatic Matrix, players may continue to earn Bright Engrams each time they level up, and they can still purchase these engrams if they want a chance to get everything from the Season 3 catalog. Additionally, we’re increasing the number of items available from Tess each week with Bright Dust, from 14 to 18 items.

We want to continue experimenting and evolving Eververse to improve player experience, and give more paths to earn Eververse rewards. Please give us your feedback once Season 3 begins, as we’re dedicated to improving these systems moving forward.

Run of Show

  

With each update, Destiny Player Support is on standby to ensure the package has been delivered to your platform without issue. The following information will guide you to your first steps in Hellas Basin:

Destiny 2 Server Maintenance

Services will be brought offline for maintenance on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. During this time, Destiny 2: Warmind, Update 1.2.0, and Hotfix 1.2.0.1 will become available to players. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.

If you encounter any issues when playing Season 3 or Warmind content, please post a report to the #Help forum.

Moving Pictures

The title of “Movie of the Week” is frequently earned by those who showcase skill in the Crucible, or moments of success against overwhelming odds in endgame activities. This week, we’re looking at the word “creation” in a more literal sense…

Movie of the Week: Ana Bray SpeedArt

[embedded content]

Honorable Mention: Herald

[embedded content]

I think we’re at five more sleeps until Warmind? Depends on your caffeine intake.

Tuesday, Warmind goes live at 11  AM. Friday, May 11, the Spire of Stars raid lair goes live at 10 AM. Who among you will take the challenge head on? We’ll be watching and calling a World’s First. Good luck!

As a reminder, Season 2 ends with the launch of Warmind. This is your final weekend to earn Season 2 rewards from activities and Bright Engrams. Make sure to check with the Vanguard, Crucible, Iron Banner, and Trials of the Nine for your last chance to earn Season 2 ornaments before they’re gone.

It’s almost time to head to Mars. See you next week.

Cheers,

Dmg04