Category: Bungie News

This week at Bungie, Lord Saladin returned to host the final 4v4 Iron Banner. New weapons are directly available from Saladin’s stock, or can be earned through Iron Engrams. This isn’t your last chance to earn those Season 2 ornaments, as Iron Banner will return after Destiny Update 1.1.4 is released, featuring 6v6 gameplay.

Speaking of Update 1.1.4…

Gotta Go Fast

Last week, Cozmo asked you fine readers to set an agenda on what we’d talk about in this week’s article. The overwhelming response: Sandbox!

While we’re still in the process of finishing development on 1.1.4, Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes and Design Lead Josh Hamrick are here to get a bit more granular with what’s coming on March 27.

Kevin: Hey everyone, Kevin here from the Crucible team. I’m dropping by to share the details on the rest of our changes heading into Update 1.1.4. As Derek mentioned in last week’s TWAB, Iron Banner, Rumble, and Mayhem are making their triumphant returns to Destiny 2 with a few twists. Iron Banner has become 6v6, Mayhem features 90% fewer nova bombs (fixed this issue found during the Dawning), and Rumble has welcomed two additional players into the fray. There is a lot to get excited about in Update 1.1.4 but something the team really wanted to do was go back and refine the core experience. 

Looking at the feedback, it was clear that the community felt there were two key areas for improvement with the Crucible: “Time to Kill” and “Team Shotting”. So we set our sights on re-working systems, mechanics, and values to tackle those two areas.

“Does this mean you’re changing the Time to Kill?” 

When we looked at the core feedback on “Time to Kill” in the Crucible, we saw that it mostly stemmed from a lack of excitement or spikes of intensity you all came to expect from a Destiny experience. This came in the form of feedback that stated the game was too slow, or the core loop was too stale. We agree, and have worked with Sandbox to increase the pace of the Crucible as a whole. Josh is going to speak to all of the Sandbox changes here in a bit, and I won’t steal his thunder. So alongside all of the great changes the Sandbox team has made, we’re setting our sights on making the Crucible a faster, more dynamic, and more action-packed experience on the activity side.

Let’s get down to brass tacks on how we’re planning to change the Crucible and the delivery of the goal stated above. Here is an overview of the changes we’re bringing in 1.1.4: 

• Respawn and Revive were tuned in all game modes
• • Player respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced to 2s.
  • Player respawn timers for Survival have been reduced to 7s
  • Revive lockout time in Countdown has been reduced to 7s
  • Players no longer lose Revive Tokens on death
• Power Ammo respawn timers were adjusted across the board
• • Power Ammo respawn timers in Iron Banner have been reduced ~50%
  • Power Ammo respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced ~30%.
  • Power Ammo respawn timers in Survival have been reduced ~40%.
  • Power Ammo respawn timers in Countdown have been reduced ~25%
• Ammo counts have been adjusted in relation to these timers, and in relation to weapon type.
• • In almost all cases weapons either retained the same ammo count or received a buff. Swords and rockets were brought down to stay in line with the rest of the weapon offering.
• Enemy players now drop their Power Ammo on death.
• • This brick is now networked to all players regardless of faction. Secure the power ammo to keep it from your foes or steal off your enemy’s ghost, but be quick because these bricks don’t stay in the world forever.

All these changes coalesce to create an experience that relies less on clumping with your team and focuses more on rewarding quick reflexes, thinking, and movement. 

“But what about Competitive?”

During development of 1.1.4, we realized that while we’d reduced the “Team Shotting” in Quickplay and Iron Banner effectively, we hadn’t quite done the same to Competitive. Knowing this, we looked for a change that reinforced the following goals: reduce team clumping, reward individual plays, and incentivize flanks. With those goals in mind we looked to take a big step in shifting the gameplay in Competitive and Trials: starting in 1.1.4 we’ve opted to remove the Tracker from all Competitive and Trials game modes. 

This means more communication is required to secure victories in Competitive and Trials matches. It also means that a crispy flank with Power Ammo is all the more powerful. Subverting expectations and reading opponents is more potent in matches with no Tracker. In playtests we’ve already seen some clutch underdog comebacks and we can’t wait to see what you all do in Competitive and Trials starting with 1.1.4. That said, we’re always listening and reacting to feedback so please tell us what you think about this change and all of our 1.1.4 changes once they go live. 

Thank you so much for your time in reading and playing. We’re proud and excited of the work we’ve done on 1.1.4 and look forward to meeting you on the battlefield. Next up Hamslamrick with some Sandbox goodies. 

Hamrick: Hello friends! As I mentioned last time, our goal for this update is to provide individual players with more hero moments by increasing overall speed and mobility, increasing the number of supers you charge to demolish your enemies, and increasing the frequency and impact of our most montage worthy power weapons, especially in the Crucible. With Update 1.1.4 drawing ever closer, it feels like a good time to swing back by and provide some updates and additional clarity to what this patch will bring. 

The first thing you should know: we are VERY excited for this update to go live. After weeks of solid play-testing, some with external participants, we feel like this is really shaping up to be an update you will be happy with. Huge shout out to everyone involved that helped the list of possible changes grow instead of shrink. Also, to those who play-tested and gave us quality actionable feedback.

Now, here’s an updated version of the list of changes first detailed in the February 1 TWAB. New and/or updated entries are highlighted in bold:

• All three glides plus Catapult and Strafe Lift have been retuned and buffed to make them faster and more unique.
• The mobility stat range has been expanded and completely retuned as well. In short, everyone gets faster and the high end is higher.
• The players’ ground speed cap has been increased, allowing for faster total movement speed, regardless of how you may get there.
• Arcstrider, Sentinel, and Striker all move faster, and at the same speed as one another, while in their Supers.
• Arcstrider, as a whole, is performing well in PvP but mostly due to its neutral game perks. We’ve made the following changes in an effort to get the Super to be a more competitive option:
• • Faster Attack Animations.
  • Faster Dodge Animations.
  • Increased range of all attacks.
• The previous Shoulder Charge changes are being reverted, allowing Shoulder Charge to be used as a movement mode once again.
• Dawnblade has been improved:
  
• • Reduced cost for throwing swords, allowing for one additional throw
  • Increased super duration extension gained from “Everlasting Fire”
  • Removed all in-air accuracy penalties while “Swift Strike” is active
  • Reduced the Icarus Dash cooldown
  • Increased the Grenade and Melee energy “Heat Rises” gives you per kill
• Invisibility on Dodge / Smoke Updates:
  
• • Invisibility on Dodge no longer breaks Aim Assist or Projectile Tracking in PvP (unchanged in PvE)
  • Dodging still breaks both Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking, but only for the duration of the actual dodge
  • Increased the duration of Invisibility on Dodge by 1 second
  • Increased the duration of Smoke Bomb Invisibility by 1 second
• Supers recharge faster for everyone!
  
• • Supers now recharge 1:40 faster, a cooldown reduction of 25%.
    
• Mods that reduce Grenade, Melee and Class Ability cooldowns have been buffed to allow for up to 2x faster cooldowns.
• • This is NOT replacing Mods 2.0, which was recently delayed. More information is available below.

We’ve buffed several weapon archetypes (including, but not limited to, Hand Cannons, Pulse Rifles, Sniper Rifles, and Shotguns) and a few specific perks, as well. A key goal here is to make Shotguns, Snipers, and Fusion rifles more prevalent in the game.

• Pulse Rifles
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all pulses
    
  • Increased rate of fire for adaptive and high-impact pulses
    
  • Increased base damage for adaptive, high-impact, and rapid-fire Pulses
    
  • Increased precision multiplier for lightweight pulses
    
  • Decreased precision multiplier for adaptive pulses
    
  • This keeps precision damage close to where it is now, putting most of the buff into body shots, though it is still an increase in precision damage overall.
• Scout Rifles
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all scouts
  • Increased base damage for High-Impact Scouts
• Hand Cannon
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all Hand Cannons
  • Increased precision multiplier for precision hand cannons
    
  • Increased hip fire accuracy on consoles
    
  • Increased ADS accuracy on consoles
• Sidearms
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all sidearms
    
  • Increased hip fire accuracy
    
  • Increased ADS accuracy
    
  • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
    
  • Increased minimum range
    
  • Added an ADS movement bonus
• SMG
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all SMG’s
    
  • Set Optics to 1.3x
    
  • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
• Linear Fusion Rifle
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all linear fusions
    
  • Increased precision multiplier
    
  • Increased aim assist
    
  • Reduced flinch multiplier
• Shotgun
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all shotguns
    
  • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
    
  • Increased aim assist for Suros precision shotguns
• Sniper Rifle
  
• • Increased PvE damage for all snipers
    
  • Increased precision multiplier
    
  • Increased aim assist
    
  • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
• Grenade Launcher
  
• • Increased blast radius
• Assault Rifles
  
• • Decreased range and aim assist stats for precision autos (Uriel’s Gift). Base damage is not changed.

A few weapon perks are also getting some updates:

• High Impact Reserves
  
• • Increased PvE damage
• Kill Clip
  
• • Increased PvE damage
• Rampage
  
• • Increased PvE damage
  • Increased duration
• Dragonfly
• • Increased damage
  • Increased radius
  • Stronger visual effects
• Grave Robber 
  
• • Reloads .5 magazine instead of .3
• Timed Payload
  
• • Splits damage 55 Explosive / 45 Direct instead of previous split which was more direct damage
• Explosive Rounds
• • Decreased PvE Explosive Rounds damage
  • This decrease has been compensated for with an increase in PvE damage for the base weapons – your weapons with explosive rounds will not do less damage after 1.1.4

Just like last time, we have a few additional notes to wrap things up.

Mods Rework

First, let’s talk about the changes to the potency of Ability Cooldown Mods. In our last update, we mentioned that we were going to wait and buff ability cooldowns at the same time we dropped the mods rework. Over the last few weeks it has become obvious that the mod rework was going to need more time to come together due to the scope of the changes. That decision, which has already been accounted for in the last Roadmap that you saw, is ultimately going to be a win for all of us. It gives us more time to deliver something we believe will add value to the game. However, we understood we should not delay the much-needed improvements to ability cooldowns. So, while there are many, many improvements to mods planned for the future, we are going to greatly increase the output for Ability Cooldown Mods in Update 1.1.4.

Invisibility

Nightstalkers, the day of reckoning is soon upon us. Our invisible exploits may have barely been seen, but they have most certainly been felt. In 1.1.4 our ability to ninja-smoke out to avoid any and all incoming fire (and/or lightning) is going to be reduced down to pure skill alone… not that we’d ever admit to it being anything but. As one of only two items deemed nerf-worthy on the entire list of incoming Sandbox changes, we as Hunters shall deal with this as we deal with everything: we’ll take it as a compliment and solid proof of our endless supply of talent, and we’ll never, ever let the ‘Locks and Titans hear the end of it.

• Currently:
• • Initiate Dodge or Throw Smoke
  • • Dodging temporarily kills Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking (allowing you to actually Dodge things)
    • Smoke just immediately jumps to…
  • Initiate Invisibility
  • • For the duration of Invisibility Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking remain disabled.
  • Dodge Finishes
  • Invisibility Expires
  • • Aim Assist and Tracking are re-enabled

• Coming Soon in 1.1.4 (PvP Only!):
• • Initiate Dodge or Throw Smoke
  • • Dodging temporarily kills Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking (allowing you to actually Dodge things)
    • Smoke just immediately jumps to…
  • Initiate Invisibility
  • Dodge Finishes
  • • Aim Assist and Tracking are re-enabled
  • Invisibility Expires

Note: Nothing changes for PvE except that they also get the one-second duration increase to Invisibility.

Snipers

In the last update I mentioned how a nasty bug has crept into our scopes and made it near-impossible for us to correctly tune Sniper Flinch. We have good news! That fix has been implemented and those changes will go live in the 1.2.0 update, planned for May. Sweet, sweet sniper action is on the way. 

This is not the end…

While we are very excited to get this update into your hands, and we believe you’re really going to enjoy the changes, we all know these aren’t the only changes we’ll need to make to address feedback. It’s just the first leg of a long journey. 

We hope this makes the game more fun for you all, that it begins to bring back hero moments, and makes you feel a bit more like tiny gods, but we also hope you know there is more to come and that this gets you excited to come along for the ride.

On that note, below you will find a video pulled from a 1.2.0 playtests that has all the 1.1.4 Sniper changes AND the new Sniper Flinch fixes in and working.

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See you all again soon,

<3 Hamrick

Companions to us all

As Destiny 2 continues to evolve, the Bungie.net team is also hard at work processing feedback and bringing updates to the Companion experience. Today, Associate UX Designer Joey Carpenter is here to walk us through some changes that were deployed to the Companion App earlier this week.

Joey: On Wednesday, we released a utility update to the Destiny Companion App. Now you can modify the shaders, effects, mods, perks, and Masterworks of the items in your inventory on the go. All you need to do is fire up your  companion app and open up the detail view of the item you want to modify.

Find the slot for the mod, perk, shader, effect, or Masterwork on your item and tap what you want to replace it with. If a change you want to perform will cost you something, the cost of the action and how much you currently have to spend will be listed for you. 

This update in particular is exciting as the foundation for this work can eventually be leveraged for other advanced actions on your character and gear. Ever wanted to clear out the cruft that’s built up in your inventory a bit faster? Us, too. Vendor purchasing on the go? Or perhaps it’s time for clearing all of the rare items from your inventory that have accumulated throughout your play session? These are all possible scenarios that we’re considering for future, to make the most of the same system we built. This work also gives us the opportunity to enable third-party developers to take advantage of this functionality, while providing a secure environment where these actions require your explicit approval. We have a bit of work to do before that’s possible, but we’ll keep you informed as we solidify future updates for the API, Bungie.net, and companion app.

As a heads up, this update is currently available on Android. iOS is in the process of being released, but we’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.

Now is prime time to head over to our mobile feedback forums to sound off on what cool new write actions you’d like to see in the future.

In the Know

Recently, we added two new members to Destiny Player Support. You may have encountered them in the #Help forum, troubleshooting issues or sharing Help articles. If you’re having difficulties when attempting to play Destiny 2, they’re at the ready to lend a hand. 

This is their report.

EDZ Destination Emblem

Last week, we noted that players may accrue 38 Ghost scannables on the EDZ Destination Emblem. Through investigation, we have identified that Ghost scannables found at the Farm do not contribute to these emblem statistics. The issue has been escalated to the appropriate team for further investigation.

WiFi: Convenience vs. Stability

While Destiny can be played with a strong and stable WiFi connection, many players have found that using WiFi can increase the likelihood that they will lose their connection to Destiny Services.

Sources of interference for WiFi connections

WiFi is susceptible to a variety of different sources of interference.

• The process of sending data wirelessly takes time and increases latency. This may increase the total latency of a player’s network to the point where they encounter latency, packet loss, or error code disconnects from Destiny.
• WiFi connections use one of several frequencies called channels to transmit data. If more than one WiFi network is trying to use the same channel it can create congestion that slows down network traffic. It can even cause data to be lost or the connection to be interrupted.
• If multiple devices are connected to the same wireless network and attempting to reach the internet at the same time they can interfere with each other.
• The distance and layout of a player’s console from their WiFi source can also negatively impact signal strength and stability.
• Some home appliances and consumer electronics, such as microwave ovens, can directly interfere with a network’s WiFi signal.

If you only have WiFi available for online gameplay, visit this page of the Network Troubleshooting Guide for tips on how to strengthen your connection: Network Setup

Shiny and Chrome

Whether you run solo or with a fireteam, the Creations page is open to all who wish to submit moments of greatness. We’re constantly on the lookout for footage that inspires, and this week, we’ve witnessed some stellar gameplay in both PvE and PvP. Give ‘em a watch, maybe you’ll be inspired to take on a Raid boss solo.

Movie of the Week: Solo Argos (Phase 1)

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Honorable Mention: Afterlife

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Cheers to this week’s winners. If you’d like a chance to receive the Lens of Fate Emblem, make sure to tag your submission with #MOTW.

Since Tuesday, we’ve had quite a few players asking about the top Nightfall scores recorded for the Tree of Probabilities Strike. We’ll be highlighting top fireteams each week. As a note: we’re aware of an issue where Lost Sectors are currently contributing points to the Nightfall scorecard, which we are aiming to resolve by Update 1.2.0. Until resolved, you may find the top scores to be… huge!

While the Lost Sector strategy will live until May, we are actively collecting data on scores from percentiles of the player base. Score pars for emblem variants are still at 20, 40, 60, and 80k points, but expect these to be adjusted in the future. High scores achieved through creative use of Lost Sectors will not be factored in when setting these new score pars. We’ll keep you informed through @Bungie on Twitter for what to expect!

Thanks for stopping by, and we’ll see you online.

Cheers,

-dmg04

This week at Bungie, we witnessed New Monarchy continue their dynasty. 

New Monarchy is celebrating in the Tower this week. They won their third Faction Rallies event in a row—the three-peat is real. Future War Cult remains winless, but they did narrowly edge out Dead Orbit for the second place slot.

Future War Cult will get another shot at getting their first win when the factions return to the Tower to compete again. Will Dead Orbit return to glory? Or will New Monarchy continue their dominance with a fourth straight win? 

You will decide. 

Fe Banner

After the faction leaders pack up to leave the Tower, Saladin will be passing them in the Hanger as he makes his return. It’s time to relight the burning shield and prepare to battle your fellow Guardians.

Begins: Tuesday, March 6

Ends: Tuesday, March 13

The game is Clash!

Lord Saladin will have three featured weapons available for you to obtain directly from him. Here are his offerings: 

If you weren’t able to finish off the challenges required to unlock all of your ornaments during the last event, your progress will carry over. So start punching everyone you see to earn that chest ornament! 

Changes are coming to Iron Banner and the Crucible. We’ll give you more specifics very soon…

The Aforementioned Future Crucible Plans

…Very soon, as in this section. The Crucible team has been working hard on a few updates to Guardian vs. Guardian action that the team plans to deliver in Update 1.1.4. We invited PvP Design Lead Derek Carroll to drop some knowledge on what they have in store for us. 

Derek: The PvP team has been on fire these past few weeks, filling Update 1.1.4 with as much awesomeness as we can. Our beloved Test team is right there with us in the labs as we put the new content through its paces.

Some highlights:

Iron Banner will channel that old-school Crucible in the style of the Iron Lords. We’ve made a number of tweaks to the gameplay besides increasing team sizes to 6v6:

• Match time limit is 12 minutes 
• Score limit is 125 points
• Respawn time is 7 seconds
• All control zones start off neutral
• Control zones take slightly longer to capture by default
• Additional Guardians (max of 3) in a zone increases capture speed
• Guardians participating in a capture get more Super energy

Rumble will make its triumphant return, with no excuses, no complications, and absolutely no points for “assists”. You get a single point when you get a kill, just like in the golden age of video games. Oh, and this time, we increased the player count to eight.

Mayhem is still Mayhem.

These three modes will share a central location on the Crucible Director page, and rotate weekly to keep things fresh.  This Weekly Featured playlist will be home to gametypes that don’t necessarily fit into the existing Quickplay or Competitive playlists.

The Mode Formerly Known as “Doubles” is in its chrysalis, making a slow transition from what you played during Crimson Days to become a beautiful butterfly.  We love the way it played in Crimson Days, but felt like we could take it further and give it more polish and flexibility.  Once we lock that down, we’ll release it into the Weekly Featured rotating playlist with the other fun stuff. For now, we are unsure of a release date, but we’ll add it the Road Map when we are more certain of when it will land.

There are, of course, other cool features coming in 1.1.4 that will make everyone’s lives better (unless they’re habitual quitters), and we’ll be sure to talk more about them as launch day approaches. 

Dev Team: Nightfall emblem variants have a chance to drop from Nightfall completions. It’s not related to challenges, and it’s not a guaranteed drop. For each variant, the chance increases from 0% to as high as 50% at specific score thresholds per variant. Currently, those thresholds are as follows:

Tier 1: 20k

Tier 2: 40k

Tier 3: 60k

Tier 4: 80k

Dev Team: We’re planning to adjust the score thresholds as we come to better understand what the community considers an impressive high score, and we don’t currently have a great way to display dynamic settings like that. Every week that a Nightfall returns, we may increase the Aura threshold based on community high scores from the previous week that Nightfall was active. We’ll do that based on some percentile of the community, potentially the top 10%. The current 60k threshold is based on internal playtests—we expect the community to be better than us, so it should be expected that threshold will increase the next time “Tree of Probabilities” comes around.

Dev Team: The removal of the base modifiers from Nightfall is because we want to emphasize core combat in this initial release and let the community define the meta for a high-scoring Nightfall run. We can certainly revisit the modifiers in the future—they’re not dead and buried. Open to player feedback.

Note: We are currently investigating an issue where Heroic Mercury Adventure modifiers are not appearing for some players. This was not intentional, and we’ll update you on the status of the issue when we have more information.

John: Hello, I’m the Raids Test Lead for Destiny 2. I understand how frustrating it can be when players frequently encounter an issue in our raids. Nobody takes it more to heart than the Test team. Creating complex encounters that function as expected is the pinnacle of what the Raid team strives for in every release. 

Our Raid team is made up of team members from all disciplines, and when an issue can be identified and fixed by scripting (what we call a content fix), we can make that fix without pulling too many resources from what we want to share with players next. When an issue needs to be fixed by an engineer (what we call a code fix), a solution becomes much more difficult to find, as it touches all systems within Destiny 2—not just a specific activity.

The issue where players do not respawn in the “Leviathan” raid is a memory issue due to the size and complexity of the activity, and it will require a code fix. It is caused when a fireteam splits up across large distances while others remain back and swap out their gear. This has seemed to be occurring more often in recent weeks because we have updated our loot tables in order to make the “Leviathan” raid a more rewarding experience, with more incentives to return to. We are still investigating a code fix for the problem. 

In the meantime, you can avoid this issue by sticking together as a team while trying out your sweet new loot. We realize that this is not an acceptable fix, but we wanted to give you info on how you can try to mitigate the issue while we work on it. If you do happen to hit this issue even following those steps, then reequipping the armor set you had when you spawned into the activity may return your Guardian to action.

Known Knowns

New updates sometimes introduce new issues. Destiny Player Support is currently tracking a few that popped up after this week’s update.

This is their report.

Update 1.1.3 Known Issues

The following issues have been identified since the release of Destiny Update 1.1.3:

• Mercury Heroic Adventures
• • Modifiers are currently not available for some players on Mercury Heroic adventures. We are currently investigating this issue and targeting resolution in Destiny Update 1.1.4.
• Destination Emblem Statistics
• • The EDZ destination emblem currently only displays 38 of the 41 total Ghost scannables after they have been found.
  • Ghost Scannables Found statistics do not update until a player returns to orbit, or until a player unequips and reequips the emblem.
• Prestige Challenge Card Score Multipliers
• • We have identified an issue where score multipliers present on Challenge Cards do not update properly when players are selecting Singe modifiers. As we investigate this issue, players may work around this issue by toggling the Power Handicap up or down.

If you encounter any issues when playing Destiny 2, please post a report to the #Help forum detailing your experience.

Movie Magic

Do you like it better when dmg04 oversees Movie of the Week? Do I look like I care? Get back in there!

Moving on. If you aren’t familiar with how MOTW works, here is the gist of it. Every week, you can submit videos to the Creations page. We pick a few of our favorites, and the winners get an emblem. If you want to be one of said winners, submit your video. Make sure you list everyone who works on it in the description of the video, so we know who to send emblems to.

Now, without further ado, here are this week’s winners:

Movie of the Week: The Farm Piano Cover

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Honorable mention: Fat Stacks

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I don’t know about you, but I still have some challenges to complete in Iron Banner. I’ve been looking forward to Saladin’s return to unlock some of those sweet, sweet ornaments.

Time flies. It’s already March, and 1.1.4 will be deployed before the end of the month. We’ll be talking more about it soon. We’ll also keep you up to date on the roadmap and other upcoming changes further down the line. 

Apparently, I’ve been summoned to court next week. No, I’m not in any trouble. I have to do my civic duty as a juror. Point is, dmg04 will be writing your TWAB next week. Feel free to fill up his mentions with what you think he should write about.

See you in the Iron Banner. 

<3 Cozmo

Destiny Update 1.1.3 – The one about Nightfall Strike Scoring.

Nightfall Strike Scoring

Nightfall Challenge Cards

Emblem Variants

General

Course Correction

Teams are hard at work ensuring these upcoming features not only meet a proper quality bar, but also don’t endanger other aspects of the game with potential bugs or issues. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way to make sure you know when to expect items to be released.

Say My Name

Tyson: Emblems in Destiny have been positioned as a vanity collectible, with a few exceptional (and popular) emblems that reflect noteworthy achievements. In D2, we started to pivot emblems more towards the latter example by adding stat displays to some of them. Now, we want to go further in the direction of emblems as a means of exposing achievement.

First, we’re exposing more stats on emblems and making those emblems more available to players who want to display those stats. For example, the Crucible emblems that advertise wins or KDA can now be obtained directly from Shaxx after 10 Crucible rep packages (if you don’t get one earlier). We’re also deploying a new emblem that advertises your Crucible kills, which are broken down by class so you can see who find themselves in your crosshairs most often. 

Second, we’re collapsing auras into emblems and removing them as standalone items. This means that existing Raid, Trials, and new Nightfall Emblems will provide the existing aura effects to players, and future emblems can also roll out new effects. These auras are conditional—for example, you still have to go Flawless or do a Prestige Clear to activate them. Some of these auras will also come with fireteam bonuses, so when they see that aura over you, they know who is giving them that benefit.

Lastly, we’re introducing variants to some emblems. If an Emblem indicates high achievement and lots of players use it, we didn’t want that to mean that everyone looks the same. But we still want achievement emblems to be recognizable as such. Variants are being introduced to allow visible achievement without losing the recognizable identity of the emblem. Some variants are unlocked via conditions—the new Crucible Kills Emblem unlocks some fun “class foe” variations after you down a thousand Guardians of that class. Others are drops from sources like destination chests or Nightfalls, and some of these might be quite rare.

An example that ties this all together are the new Nightfall Emblems. Obtained by completing specific Nightfall Strikes, these emblems display your highest personal score in that Nightfall. In the future, we hope to display your clan’s highest score too. These emblems have several variants each, which drop from that specific Nightfall, but in some cases only above certain score thresholds (and we expect some to be quite rare.) And finally, these emblems enable the purple Nightfall Aura as well as a fireteam bonus to Vanguard Token drops, but only if your personal high score is above a par-score. That will start off at a value selected from internal playtests but we plan to adjust it based on your (the community’s) posted scores each time a Nightfall comes around.

This is the first round of this new direction; we hope to do more, and to learn from your response to it. Future releases may revisit or add new emblems for underserved achievements, or more variants for popular emblems.

Bug Stompers

This is their report.

Destiny Update 1.1.3 Maintenance and Downtime

Next week, Destiny 2 services will undergo maintenance in preparation for Destiny Update 1.1.3. Please see below for the timeline of maintenance windows.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Destiny services will undergo backend maintenance. No downtime is expected. Maintenance will begin at 10 AM PST (1800 UTC) and is expected to conclude at 12 PM PST (2000 UTC).

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Destiny services will be brought offline for maintenance. Destiny Update 1.1.3 will also become available upon maintenance completion. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.

Interlinked

Movie of the Week: First we dance, then we fight

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Honorable Mention: Crimson Days – Grenades and Fists Only

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Honorable Mention: Run from Acrius

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Cheers,

-dmg04

Game Director Christopher Barrett:

A few weeks ago, we shared a Destiny 2 Development Roadmap to preview some changes we’re working on for Destiny 2. As we’ve mentioned before, the roadmap is our current best estimate, and we’ll do our best to update you as our plans unfold.

With today’s update we’ve moved a few items out to later releases – this is because we are trying to ensure each feature we add hits a sufficiently high quality bar. So while we really wanted to get Nightfall Strike Unique Weapons into your hands next week to coincide with Nightfall Scoring, it’s more important that each of those rewards live up to the difficulty it will take to earn them. They have to be super cool, so we’re giving the artists extra time to make sure they are… super cool. Mod System Improvements are also still planned, but will not be available when 1.2.0 is released. We’ll give more details on when to expect these changes at a future date.

We also have a big addition we’re eager share – Rumble will be joining 6v6 Iron Banner and Mayhem in our new rotating weekly Crucible playlist in 1.1.4. We want to make sure players have a more diverse set of game modes available in both Crucible and Private Matches. Doubles is also planned to return, but we do not have an exact release date just yet. Keep an eye out for next week’s TWAB where we’ll go into more depth with our future Crucible plans.  

There’s lots more we’re eager to talk about in the coming weeks. We promise to be as transparent as possible and keep you updated as we go. We hope you’re along for the ride.

<3 Chris

If you follow the conversation about Bungie closely, you might have heard the one about the new Community Manager we were looking to hire. Whenever Bungie seeks a player to lead the community they call home, it sparks obvious curiosity. Conspiracy theories immediately pointed to my imminent departure, but the rumors of my pending death have been greatly exaggerated. This was a bid for reinforcement, not replacement.

After an extensive search and many conversations, we realized that what we were looking for was right under our noses the whole time – and he was already kicking ass. It is my pleasure to introduce Dylan Gafner as the newest addition to the community team. This may be confusing, since he has been doing the job for months. Today, we’re making it official. This is no longer a temporary title. He’s partners with Cozmo, now.

The idea of a “Community Manager” means many things to many people. They can be equal parts court jester, combat correspondent, best friend, first responder, security guard, detective, nation builder, case worker, and air traffic controller. Each person who accepts the mission weaves those strands together to create their own unique specialty. In Dylan, we see a problem solver who tackles player reports and works with his peers to drive toward solutions. He’s been a tireless translator on the border between players and developers.

Here are some words from the man himself about what this new gig means to him.

Dylan: Hey, all. This isn’t the first time I’ve introduced myself, but I’d like to say hello again.

Since joining Bungie.net in 2004, this has been a career that I’ve dreamed about. It’s fun to think that my path here began with a simple desire to earn a cool emblem in a Bungie game by creating an account on the website. From there, I joined my first Clan (The WorkPLace) and attended my first of many PAX events in 2011. Eventually, I threw all of my stuff into a ’97 Ford Explorer to drive from San Diego to Seattle to start a job on the Destiny Player Support team in 2015. Since then, I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone in communicating known issues, preparing support documentation for Destiny releases, and volunteering my thumbs for various Twitch reveals.

I’m extremely grateful that this new opportunity as Community Manager is a chance for me to give back to a community that I’ve known through fourteen years of gameplay, friendship, laughter, and ridiculous fun. We’ve recently promised an increase in communication surrounding Destiny 2, our future plans, and even issues that we’re tracking. My goal in joining the community team is to give a pulse to the status of development, investigations in process, or setting expectations for upcoming features. We have a roadmap to follow, and I’m excited to keep you informed along the way.

With that said, let’s get down to business. You can find me responding to threads on the Bungie.net forums, jumping into conversations as @a_dmg04 on Twitter, and providing content for the Bungie Blog. I will continue to work with the Destiny Player Support team in communicating about known issues or upcoming maintenance windows, which can be found on Help.bungie.net, and @BungieHelp on Twitter.

Thanks for playing, and thank you for your passion. It’s truly an inspiration each day.

Cheers,

-dmg04

This week at Bungie, we invited you to celebrate Crimson Days with us.

When one celebration ends, another begins.

Rally Caps

New Monarchy

Dead Orbit

Future War Cult

If this is your first Faction Rallies, here is what you need to know. First, visit the Tower and pledge your loyalty to one of the factions. Then, it’s time to set out into the wild to complete various activities. Once you’ve earned enough tokens to qualify for a reward, exchange them for packages full of loot. 

There will be some new weapons added to the packages for this event. Here is what we are adding to the reward pool:

That’s not all that is at stake. At the end of the event, the faction with the most packages redeemed will offer their prized weapon as a reward. Those who were loyal to the winner get a big discount and can pick it up for 1,000 Glimmer. Everyone else can still get it at 50,000 Glimmer. Here is what the factions have to offer in the event they are victorious:

New Monarchy Pulse Rifle

Dead Orbit Pulse Rifle

Future War Cult Scout rifle

Fine Tuning

Senior Designer Jon Weisnewski is visiting us from the kitchen with an update on the Exotic Tuning Pass our team is working on diligently to make Exotics more “Exotic-er.”

Jon: Hello players! I’m here to talk to you about the work going into the Exotic Tuning Pass on the D2 road map.

When Destiny first launched, we built, play-tested, and shipped a batch of Exotic weapons that we hoped would be worthy of your time and hype. Shortly after release, we were happily inundated with a mountain of player feedback. This allowed us to check our assumptions, do some tuning, and push out one of the first Destiny sandbox updates which were solely focused on Exotic weapons. We’re doing this again with Destiny 2 and this time we’re including Exotic weapons and armor. 

Gameplay goals for this pass:

• Tuning pass on Exotic gear focused on adding and/or increasing player Power spikes. 
• Focus on low-usage items, but all items are being considered. 
• Lean into an item’s established gameplay and push it harder. Avoid catch-all improvements that dilute item identity. 

So how does this play out? We can look at Graviton Lance as an example. The functional concept is a weapon that fires two Cosmic Void rounds that create a zero-air-resistance tunnel for a high-caliber precision shot to fire through. The first two rounds have almost no recoil and prime the air, and the third round does high damage with no falloff. A kill knocks the body back with considerable force, it tumbles, and then explodes.

Resounding player feedback has been along the lines of “looks great, sounds great, neat explosion! I can’t get kills in PVP because all the damage is at the end of the burst, kicks too hard for the follow up, and I can’t reliably damage targets with the death explosion in any activity because the body goes flying too far backwards.” 

All spectacle, not enough utility. 

To target the first pain point we reduced the recoil of the burst, added some aim assist, and changed it from three rounds to two. This still plays into the fantasy of a low-damage gravity-neutralizing round forming a projectile tunnel for the last bullet. It also allows us to ensure the damage per burst is at a competitive level for PVP engagements. In fact, it gives Graviton a slight mathematical edge against other pulse rifles.

On the second feedback item, we did some tuning to the ragdoll body. We made it so that rather than violently flying backwards and likely out of range of a potential splash damage opportunity, the defeated opponent floats back and up. Then we made the explosion bigger, increased the damage, and added some void field projectiles that seek out any remaining targets.

This is one of the more exaggerated examples to help describe how we’re looking at our goals and applying them to the gear. At the time of this writing, the weapons that ARE NOT getting an update are Merciless , Telesto, Wardcliff Coil, MIDA Multi Tool, Colony, Legend of Acrius, and Vigilance Wing. Some of the above perform well without needing changes, while others, like the Vigilance Wing Pulse Rifle, are already benefitting from the tuning changes planned for Update 1.1.4. Everything else has had some degree of power or utility increase, whether it’s simply bumping a stat or some deeper plumbing as described above.

We’ll be touching a lot of powerful gear with this update and to truly understand the impact for players requires a lot of design iteration and test time. It isn’t enough to crank up the damage and run one strike or Crucible match with a gun and helmet and move on. Dialing in the right amount of power, testing in all activities with all types of load outs, finding the bugs, fixing the bugs, updating the perk description text to reflect new behavior, and then handing that off to localization for translation—it’s a ton of work, but we’re up to it. We sincerely appreciate your patience. I believe it will be worth the wait.

We’ll be back soon to talk about Exotic Masterworks as well! Until then, continue being excellent to each other.

Crimson Clarity

This is their report.

Crimson Days Clarifications

Crimson Days is live in Destiny 2, and lasts until the weekly reset on February 20. Upon monitoring chatter from players, we’d like to take the opportunity to clarify the following:

• The Burnout Crucible map, introduced to Destiny 2 for Crimson Days, is exclusive to the Crimson Days Crucible playlist only until Crimson Days ends on February 20. From then on, it will be joining existing maps in the Crucible rotation.
• The Undeterred Exotic Sparrow, earned by participating in the Crimson Days Crucible playlist, does not come from the Crimson Engram and does not contribute to the Crimson Engram knock-out mechanic. The Undefeated Exotic Sparrow does contribute to the Crimson Engram knock-out list when obtained, and is only available through Crimson Engrams or Eververse Trading Co.

Hotfix 1.1.2.1

Earlier this week we deployed Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.2.1. This hotfix removed timers on Lost Sector rewards, and adjusted Lost Sector chest behavior to only open once per boss defeated. 

Cells

Straight from the Creations page to your device of choice. The movies are here.

Movie of the Week: Drop the Mic

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Honorable Mention: Monster

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I think I might pledge to Future War Cult next week. Starting to feel sorry for them. Who’s with me?

<3 Cozmo

This week at Bungie, we’re decorating the world for the big dance. 

Yesterday, we revealed that Crimson Days is coming to Destiny 2. If you haven’t had a chance to read the details about the new 2v2 playlist and the rewards you can earn in any activity, please check it out now. We’d be honored to have you join us for the celebration.

Earlier this week, Lord Saladin packed up his wares and left the Tower. We heard some good things about Iron Banner in Season 2. If you are still holding tokens, you can use them the next time the ritual returns. If you still need to punch some Guardians to get that chest ornament, you can also continue your progress when Lord Saladin returns.

Settle the Score

“Do you see the stars flutter? Now listen. They scream from the lacerations of our enemies. The balance has been threatened. Nightfall is upon us. This burden of Light has never been heavier. We can sleep no more.” — Ulan-Tan

Before we get to the details, Game Director Christopher Barrett has some context to frame up the essential fantasy that we’d like for the Nightfall to serve.

Barrett: Nightfall should be a challenging test that only the bravest Guardians dare face. Fireteams of any size should be able to participate, from organized clan groups to skilled solo players. Players should be able to determine their own challenge level, by going slow and steady or fast and wild, with elective modifiers to test the most hardcore veterans. Your final score will separate the best from the rest, and with high risk comes high reward. Each terrible villain that players face should have a very rare and powerful unique item, themed to them, that tumbles to the ground as they collapse into a pile of bones. Conquering Nightfall should be a badge of honor, with the best players able to show off their achievements with new dynamic emblems and exclusive auras.

That’s the vision of where we want to take Nightfall, you’ll be seeing the first of this direction in the next patch, with more being added over time.

With those goals in mind, we asked Designer John Favaro and Senior Design Lead Tyson Green to share some facts on how they plan to enhance Nightfall strikes. 

Tyson: As we are working on new sandbox improvements, we recognized the need for a venue in which those improvements matter more. The weekly Nightfall, especially on the Prestige difficulty, was intended to be such a venue, but the controversial time limit mechanic is a simple pass-fail mechanism. It only acknowledges success as being a clear, with no degrees of success past that, so no competition exists in that space. It turns a lot of people off of Nightfall too, since it is both difficult and indexes performance solely on speed.

Nightfall Scoring

We are repositioning strike scoring in Destiny 2 to enable you to achieve something prestigious in the weekly Nightfall and as a way to amplify difficulty. The new scoring rules are intended to be better at a few specific things:

• Reward you for engaging and defeating enemies instead of running past them.
• Avoid over-emphasizing specific mechanics like precision kills that highlight certain areas of the sandbox (and/or punish other areas), so that players are the ones who determine the most effective Meta.
• Reward you for taking on greater challenges up to the limits of your own capabilities.
• Reward you for doing the above quickly and over the course of a short run versus long slogs over several hours.

The updated mechanics look like this:

• Scoring is team-based and the sum of individual performances. A team should be able to focus on what works best, not feeling put out by who stole whose kill.
• Scoring is primarily driven by kills and secondarily by orb generation. We want you to find what works best for clearing strikes instead of telling you which weapons to use, but we want coordinated use of Supers and other team support mechanics to contribute to high scores. We’re interested in restoring special point awards based on medals, but we want your input to understand the basic meta first.
• Score bleeds over time. We are watching this closely — score decay can feel bad, but all else being equal, a team that clears faster than another team should score higher. Score decay achieves this in the most transparent fashion.
• Scoring cuts off after time thresholds. At 15 minutes, new points earned are reduced by 50%. At 18 minutes, you stop earning new points and it’s a race to finish the run and post your score. We want time to matter (see above), but we also want to avoid some of the problems we saw with Prison of Elders, where a “high score” might involve punishing respawning combatants (and yourself) for a few hours until the novelty wore off. A good Nightfall clear shouldn’t feel like a slog.

Challenge

On top of the above mechanics are Challenge Cards, items that offer ways to boost the challenge in exchange for score multipliers. In 1.1.3 there will be a challenge card that drops from completing a Nightfall run. It has some customization options to help tune the challenge level to what you and your fireteam are capable of. 

Rewards

Players will be able to see their (and your) scores on new Nightfall Emblems available as drops in each Nightfall strike. These emblems (and others like them) are now the source of auras, which are automatically enabled if your personal score is above a global threshold. At first the thresholds will be set based on what we think might be tough for players to reach, but we look forward to you showing us how much we underestimated you. Then we can raise the bar based on community scores.

Along with the aura, a personal score over the threshold will also unlock a fireteam-wide buff that boosts Vanguard Token drops in that strike by 25%. When your fireteam sees the Nightfall Aura on your head, they know who’s hooking them up. 

Lastly, some rarer variants of these Nightfall Emblems will be available as drops at higher score thresholds. Obtaining these rewards is meant to be challenging, so we don’t expect everyone to reach these scores or collect these items. 

Version 0.9

Update 1.1.3 will have a first pass on this feature. Before we can call it a competitive activity, we need your help pushing the limits and finding where it breaks. Future updates will react to your input, as well as add more rewards and recognition to posting competitive scores. We also hope to extend the Challenge Cards to support more difficulty customization and deepen the scoring options. All of the feedback you give us in this release will go into making our upcoming releases better. Thank you in advance!

Designer John Favaro has some additional info about what you can expect from the new Nightfall modifiers in the Prestige mode.

John: The current Nightfall climate encourages play that pushes players through the encounters as fast as possible, focusing on extending bonus timers, and skipping encounters unless they are required, which was more stressful than fun. With Nightfall strike scoring, we were looking to give players a little more control, allowing them to modify their experiences to provide them the challenge they want and incentivize more methodical progression through the activities. People like big numbers, and the best way to get big numbers is to kill everything. We’ve been listening to the community’s feedback, and this is our first step in making a few improvements. We’re hoping you’ll put some time in and let us know how you feel.

The modifiers will apply a multiplier to your score in the Prestige Nightfall. It isn’t all more, more, more though; there are plenty of ways to lose points. There is an ever-present score bleed to apply pressure to keep you moving, and a timer that will reduce your multiplier if you take too long. Here are the current modifiers we’re going to ship in this first iteration:

Void/Solar/Arc Singe – currently provides a +25% increase to player and enemy damage of the corresponding element.
Extinguish – fireteam wipes return the team to orbit 
Power modifier – voluntarily decrease your power to gain a score bonus.

These are just our initial modifier offerings. This release is focusing more on how the system as a whole feels, so we can get feedback on the core experience to fine-tune it before we dive in head first to creating additional modifiers.

There you have it. If you still enjoy the thrill of racing through quickly, you will be rewarded with a higher score. If you prefer to go in solo and take your time, you might lose some points, but will still finish the activity and collect a reward. You can complete the normal Nightfall and get a score, or you can take on the Prestige Nightfall and ratchet up your score with some modifiers. We’re eager to see you jump into the new Nightfall and give us feedback on these changes. 

Raid Plans

It’s a fair question. The answer is that we didn’t want to release it in its current form. Before rolling it out, we thought we could add some more flavor to this special activity that will make it worth the wait. Here to tell you more about our plans for raid activities is Senior Designer Joe Blackburn. 

Joe: Hey, Guardians. For Destiny 2, we wanted to release raid content on a more regular cadence than we did during the first years of Destiny. In our original estimation of this work, we knew we would have to focus on normal modes, forgoing Lair challenge modes, and having their Prestige Modes rely on enemies that are more lethal and harder to kill.

As we got closer to releasing Prestige Eater of Worlds, we knew we wanted to do something more. Over the past few months, we have been prototyping a new way of adding difficulty and replayability to raid activities. Today, I’m happy to announce that we have decided to push this feature forward and release it for all the Leviathan Raid Content with the release of Expansion 2.

Going forward, all raids will all have a normal mode active at all times, and each week one raid or Raid Lair will have a curated loadout mode. 

This new version of Prestige requires players to complete raids filled with deadly enemies using a curated loadout of weapons and a special modifier that enhances the way you play. The Raid Team never likes to let you know exactly what to expect, but let’s look at some hypothetical examples. These are not the plan of record, but they give you a basic idea of what you might find.

Week 1

Raid Activity: Eater of Worlds

Modifier: Marksman. Precision damage is increased. Landing a precision shot grants one ammo directly to the magazine.

Required Loadout:

Kinetic: Hand Cannon

Energy: Scout Rifle

Power: Linear Fusion

Week 2

Raid Activity: Expansion 2 Raid Lair

Modifier: Gladiator. Your melee damage is increased and melee kills grant bonus Super.

Required Loadout:

Kinetic: Sidearm

Energy: Submachine gun

Power: Shotgun

Week 3

Raid Activity: Eater of Worlds

Modifier: Conduit. Each kill you get before reloading or swapping weapons gives you increasingly more ability energy.

Required Loadout:

Kinetic: Auto Rifle 

Energy: Riskrunner

Power: Grenade Launcher

We should also note that, while Eater of Worlds is not getting any specific encounter changes, all the previous Prestige changes in Leviathan will be active when players engage in its new loadout difficulty.

The goal of the new Prestige mode is simple: provide new ways to engage with raid content each week, new ways to engage with different weapons in your vault, and new rewards to chase. 

This is currently slotted on the roadmap for May, but this is a major overhaul and could be pushed out further. We’ll keep you updated.

We can’t wait for you to play it, talk about it, and help us make it better for years to come.

Thanks,

Joe

Get it Off Your Chest

Alex: In the 1.1.2.1 Hot Fix, we’ve fixed the underlying issue that caused the Lost Sector chest exploit. Players can now only open the boss chest once after killing a Lost Sector boss, as was originally intended. The chest may still respawn if you leave and return rapidly (due to a larger issue with our activity tech that would require significant changes to fix) but you won’t be able to open it again. You’ll get the ‘code required’ prompt unless the boss also respawns and you defeat them again. We’ve also completely removed the reward throttle from Lost Sectors as it is no longer necessary and we agree it was a poor player experience.

We want to acknowledge all of the interest we’ve seen from players in us expanding the Lost Sectors system. We agree and are currently looking into ways to do that. We’re not yet sure what form it will take and we don’t have anything specific to talk about yet, but it’s something we’re working towards. Look out for someone to talk about that in a future TWAB when we have more solid plans to share.

The next download arrives on Tuesday. Destiny Player Support will be on station to monitor your progress in installing the bits. Which is the perfect segue into…

Check Your Vitals

Destiny Player Support is dedicated to keeping you in the game. The best place to find them is the Help forum. Once a week, they make an appearance here to keep you informed. 

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Maintenance and Downtime

On Tuesday February 13, Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.2.1 will be deployed to address timeouts on Lost Sector chests. There will be a period of maintenance before this hotfix becomes available. For times, please see below:

• 8 AM Pacific – 1600 UTC
• • Destiny server maintenance is scheduled to begin
  • Players may no longer sign in to Destiny services
• 9 AM Pacific – 1700 UTC
• • Players still in Destiny 2 activities will be returned to the title screen
• 12 PM Pacific – 2000 UTC
• • Destiny server maintenance is scheduled to conclude
  • Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.2.1 will be available to download and install
  • Crimson Days will begin as soon as maintenance concludes

Crimson Days Vital Information

Immediately after maintenance completion, Crimson Days will become available to all Destiny 2 players. The following items are potential points of confusion that players may experience during this event, and we’d like to give a heads up.

Welcome to Crimson Days Waypoint: Under some circumstances, players may not receive a waypoint leading them to Tower vendors for the “Welcome to Crimson Days” Milestone. Players may still complete these steps by simply speaking with the Tower vendor listed in the milestone.

Crucible Tokens in Loot Stream: Upon completion of a Crimson Days Crucible match, post-game rewards may push Crucible Tokens out of view in the player’s loot stream. Players should always receive Crucible Tokens upon Crimson Days match completion and may find them in their Consumables inventory.

Romantic Comedies About Time Travel

Grab your popcorn and pour some of the gooey butter simulation sauce on it. It’s movie time!

Movie of the Week: Pleasure Gardens with two Guardians (Warning: Language)

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Honorable Mention: Happy Crimson Days

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We shared more of our plans with you this week. As always, we‘ll be reading your thoughts and feedback on what we laid out. Tell us what you think. We’ll continue to keep you updated.  

Crimson Days is only 5 sleeps away. I plan on teaming up with dmg04. Hopefully, he can keep up so we can stick together. Keep an eye out; maybe you can best us. 

<3 Cozmo

Crimson Days begins in Destiny 2 on Tuesday, February 13. At the heart of the weeklong event is a 2v2 Crucible playlist intended to get your blood pumping as you and a friend test your bonds to the breaking point. This celebration of teamwork will last one week!

The combat scenario is 2v2 Clash with a round-based twist. We will also be debuting The Burnout, a new take on The Burning Shrine set in a future timeline where the Vex have succeeded in altering our reality. 

The sun is darkened and the only Light to be found comes from you and your partner fighting as one. Stay in close proximity to your partner and your abilities recharge at a faster rate. Stray too far, and your enemies will be given a waypoint leading to your location. If you can’t find a partner, don’t worry. We’ll play matchmaker and find one for you.

The Rewards

The best way to earn rewards during Crimson Days is to compete in the Crimson Days Crucible playlist, and we’ve tuned the experience to focus on rewarding single-character play. Most rewards are found within a new Crimson Engram, with all contents on a “knock-out” list, preventing you from receiving duplicate items until you’ve earned all of the new gear.

No matter which activity you play in Destiny 2 during Crimson Days, every player will receive both an Illuminated Engram and a Crimson Engram when they level up. Crimson Engrams are only earnable through gameplay, and are not capped or limited during the event. To qualify, you need only to reach the level cap for your Guardian (that’s 25 if you’ve acquired Expansion 1; 20 if you haven’t).

There are also five new rewards found exclusively for players who complete the following:

Tirastrella Ghost Shell

Undeterred Exotic Sparrow

Dieselpunk Exotic Ornament

Flaunting Dance Emote

Crimson Engrams will only be earnable through gameplay, but if you’re looking to directly purchase a specific item, Tess will also offer a selection of the Crimson Engram contents in exchange for the Bright Dust you are holding. Gear purchased with Bright Dust will also count towards the “knock-out” list mechanic described above, preventing duplicate items unless you have already earned all the rewards. 

Every reward item obtained from a Crimson Engram can also be dismantled for Bright Dust, including event-specific shaders.

Crimson Days will begin next Tuesday, February 13, and conclude on the weekly reset at 9 AM PST on Tuesday, February 20. If you’ve yet to find a dance partner, now is the time. We’ll see you in the arena.