Category: Bungie News

This week at Bungie, we know the score.

The banners that fly in the Tower tell a truth that we have all known for some time: Dead Orbit is the faction that rules the hearts of the most Guardians. Do they all think they look better in black? Or are they just a generally moody bunch? We may never know the true motivations that sent them into the wild to express their loyalty through action.

What we know for certain is that Arach Jalaal is the champion of this first Faction Rally. His victory was not undisputed. Each faction put some respectable points on the board. Once the 61 Million reward packages were counted, Dead Orbit emerged the most profitable faction by a margin of more than 2 Million. New Monarchy was a close second. Future War Cult was an even closer third.

As promised, Dead Orbit has a prize on offer. If you pledged to them, it will be a steal. If you did not, but you still gotta have it, they’re about to steal from you. That will be the price of your treachery.

Faction Rally will return. New Monarchy and Future War Cult, we’ll let you know when you’ll have your chance for revenge! Next week, however, we’re clearing space in the Tower for another special guest.

The Return of the Iron Lord

The Red War scattered the heroes of humanity across the solar system. One by one, they have been returning to the City. Now, Lord Saladin will hold court and reward the brave.

Begins:  October 10, 2AM Pacific

Ends:  October 17, 2AM Pacific

The game is Control.

As the first Faction Rally comes to an end, the Iron Lords are hosting the next ritual. Their special event has undergone some changes. The Iron Banner is still your chance to stand and be proven in the fires of friendly competition.

What’s different?

How can you compete?

What’s in it for you?

Decorate yourself as a master of your competitive spirit. Form up into a Fireteam or let the fates choose your teammates.

You’re the Best… Around!

Combat against other Guardians not your thing? The ultimate PVE challenge also arrives in your Director on Tuesday at 10AM Pacific. The morning after the weekly reset begins a new invitation from Calus to join him for the Prestige Raid.

We do not expect everyone to be successful in completing this activity. Mechanical changes to the encounters are minimal, but they are there. The Prestige Raid is about mastering a more punishing sandbox. Our goal is not to provide a boon to your character progression, but there are unique rewards to help you shine. Consider this your invitation to prove to the world that you are among the very best of the Raiders who overlook the City.

World First will be counted. We can tell you no more.

Good luck!

Their Stage – Our Story

*There is that word again: Season.

There is a mention of seasons when you inspect your Clan. Now, we’re talking about it on the blog. What does it all mean?

We’ll be answering that question, and more like it, at TwitchCon.

Friday, October 20, 4:30PM Pacific

What do Seasons mean in Destiny 2?

What will change from season to season?

How many seasons can we expect?

When does Season Two begin?

Servants to the Guardians

This is their report.

Destiny Hotfix 1.0.3.1

On Tuesday, maintenance was conducted to support the deployment of Hotfix 1.0.3.1 to Destiny 2. Upon conclusion, there was a minor issue where some players were prompted to create new characters in an alternate service environment. No characters or items were deleted due to this issue. For resolution, closing Destiny 2 and relaunching the application would return characters to their proper state.

Event Vendors: Availability Issue

On September 26, Faction Rally vendors were not available in some Tower instances immediately upon the weekly reset. We are investigating the cause of this issue, as well as potential ways to address it. Similarly, Lord Saladin is expected to be impacted when Iron Banner becomes available on October 10. If you are unable to locate Saladin within your Tower after the weekly reset, we advise returning to orbit and launching into a new Tower instance.

Destiny 2 Error Code Investigations

At this time, we continue to investigate reports of CABBAGE errors that are blocking some players from progressing through the Destiny 2 campaign or returning players to orbit from alternate activities.

Some players have been able to reduce the frequency of these errors by following recently updated troubleshooting steps listed in the help article linked above. Some steps listed may need to be taken by an internet service provider to adjust security restrictions on network hardware. We will provide updates on this investigation when available.

Additionally, we are investigating elevated levels Newt, Beaver, Guitar, and Permissions errors impacting Destiny 2 gameplay. If you encounter these issues during gameplay, please post a report to the #Help forum detailing the following:

• Were you in a Fireteam when this error occurred?
• What was the activity that you were engaged in when experiencing this error?
• Have you followed steps within the Network Troubleshooting guide to ensure proper network configuration for Destiny 2 gameplay?

As we continue to investigate the rise in these error codes, we advise all players follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or visit Help.bungie.net for updates concerning server status, known outages, and active issue investigations.

You Oughta Be In Pictures

Movie of the Week: If you’re happy and you know it.

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Honorable Mention: Aesthetic: Destiny 2 – A New Frontier

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Honorable Mention: Destiny 2 Be Brave Metal Cover

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[Editor’s Note: I listened to the whole channel as I wrote all this. Thanks, man.]

Anyone miss Cozmo yet? I miss Cozmo. I’m so lonely here, with all of you, all by myself. He’ll be back next week, with his cats and his chill way of deploying the news. I’m always happy to grab the controls of the blog, but he has taken solid ownership of this community. I have his back, and he has yours.

As we continue to ride this wave, the game will tell its own continuing story. Your Milestones will reveal the mysteries of the weekly resets. We’ll plot some more distant milestones right here. There are a few mentioned above to fuel speculation. Destiny is a turbulent landscape that’s always changing, so our focus tends to be weekly. There is still a lot to talk about, and the game will serve up new challenges every time you visit that world. In the weeks to come, another wave of Guardians will join our community on the PC. We have more stories to tell and more destinations to explore before the end of this year.

On a personal note; just the other night, after we caught up in the Crucible, I had dinner with a dude I met as my teammate in a Bungie game eleven years ago. I am a product of the Bungie community. My challenge to every Guardian is to look to the human element in Destiny 2 to fuel your appetite for ultimate re-playability. The ultimate loot is the friendships that can grow out of a game like this. There will be more gear to add to your character (next week, even). The rewards that I’m talking about are the people in the community that thrives in this game. If you let them, they’ll make your hobby as a light-dealing hero on a starside campaign for glory even better.

Thanks to those of you who are helping us to drive that scene.

DeeJ, out.

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This week at Bungie, we’re rallying to our favorite faction.  

Anytime your favorite faction is brought up, some friendly smack talk follows. With Faction Rallies, we get to settle those old scores and declare a winner based on which garners the most Guardian support. Right now, millions of Guardians are seeking out and destroying enemy supplies, completing public events, competing in the Crucible, and tackling the endgame. They’re doing their part. Would you like to know more?

Faction Rallies is set to become a new ritual that visits the Tower periodically. Once the event is over, tokens can no longer be earned, but you can still redeem any that you’re still holding to receive packages. Any engrams that are waiting to be claimed from a faction vendor will be auto-decrypted and placed in your inventory at the reset. Make sure you turn in all of your tokens before the end of victory week. They will reset before the next Faction Rallies event returns… sometime in the near future. 

We are eagerly waiting, along with you, to see who prevails. You have until the weekly reset to make your mark on this event, and earn some loot to help define your identity. Get back out there and fight!

The Sands of War

Destiny 2 has a brand new sandbox full of weapons and abilities at your disposal. The community is already discussing what they believe to be the best tools of destruction to dispatch both alien combatants and other Guardians in the Crucible. Our team has been monitoring these conversations, along with the constant flow of data, to continue supporting the live game as we learn more from the millions of players playing it. We asked Senior Designer Jon Weisnewski to give us a brief update on their mission to keep your box full of sand fun. 

Jon Weisnewski: Hello, Guardians. Since the launch of Destiny 2, we have been reading your feedback, spectating streams, and watching YouTube videos. Very recently, we received our first real batch of player data from our analytics team. We’ve also been shoulder-to-shoulder with you in the trenches daily, playing the ever-loving crud out of this game. We’re not ready to go into detail about any weapon or ability tuning at this point, but there is an ongoing process in play, so we did want to drop a quick line and say…

We have heard your feedback. Thank you!

Destiny 2 will get updates that tune the sandbox experience. 

We are aware of MIDA Multi-Tool’s popularity and are looking at it very closely. It is popular, but according to our data, there are options out there that match or exceed its effectiveness in all activities. Have you found one?

It’s only the first month of a long adventure. Many players are still gathering weapons for their arsenal and we have a handful of guns that haven’t even hit the game yet. We’re excited to see how things evolve. As always, thanks for playing, and keep the feedback rolling in.

Patch Notes Preview

Hotter Fixes

Speaking of known issues, our Player Support Team is in charge of monitoring our help forum for any player reports and making sure our team has the info they need to diagnose and treat any ailments in the game. 

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.0.3.1

Destiny 2 Services will be taken offline on Tuesday, October 3, in preparation for Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.0.3.1.

Maintenance begins at 8AM PDT (3 PM UTC)

• Players will no longer be able to sign in to Destiny 2

Players will be removed from all activities at 9 AM PDT (4 PM UTC)

• We advise players complete raid and Nightfall activities well before this time to avoid a Cabal victory

Maintenance expected to complete at 12 PM PDT (7 PM UTC)

• Players may encounter the Destiny Server Queue when attempting to sign in after maintenance

For vital information concerning Destiny 2 Server and Update Status, please see this Help Article. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp or monitor our support feed on Help.Bungie.net for status updates throughout the maintenance window.

PlayStation 4 Crashes

We are continuing to work with our platform partners at Sony to address an issue where players encounter PlayStation Error CE-34878-0 when attempting to visit the Tower, or during general gameplay. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp and @AskPlayStation for updates.

Cayde’s Stash, Lost Sector, and Planetary Chest Reward Issues

We are investigating reports of players opening rewards chests and not receiving loot. If you are encountering this issue, please post a report to the #Help forum detailing the following:

• Which type of chest did not grant rewards?
• Had you interacted with alternate chests or planetary materials prior to this issue occurring?

It is expected that if too many planetary chests are opened within a short amount of time, players may not receive items. Cayde’s Stash and Lost Sector chests should not follow this functionality. We will provide updates on our investigation when available.

Leviathan Raid Keys

Through our investigations with internal teams, we have identified two instances where Leviathan raid keys are erroneously removed from character inventory.

• Signing in with alternate characters will remove raid keys if the character had not been signed in since the weekly reset.
• If a player earns Raid keys and creates a new character, raid keys are removed from inventory.

To prevent this issue, we advise players sign in with all characters or inspect all characters on the Destiny Companion App prior to completing checkpoints within the Leviathan raid after the weekly reset.

Please note: Leviathan raid progress, including key rewards, are reset each week. We are looking to address issues where keys are removed erroneously with a future update. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp for future announcements. 

Lens Flair

You may have noticed the new MOTW Gif above. That’s because the new MOTW emblem arrived with Update 1.0.3.0 earlier this week. All MOTW winners since the launch of Destiny 2, including honorable mentions, will be rewarded with the Lens of Fate emblem.

Honorable Mention: Lower the Shoulder

Honorable Mention: Balancing Act

At Bungie, we’re all having a great time playing Destiny 2 with you. We’re also enjoying reading everyone’s ideas on how to keep making the game better. Keep the chatter coming.

Keep being excellent to each other. 

<3 Cozmo

Bungie Bounty: Gigz

When:  September 27, 2017

8:00–10:00 p.m. (Pacific)

Playlist: Competitive

Console: PS4

We are changing up the format a bit. Instead of Gigz going in solo, this will be a true Bungie Bounty. He will have the following fireteam of Bungie folk backing him up: 

Tocom – Kevin Yanes, Senior Designer

We won’t be revealing anything on stream – our mission will be to play some games with the community and to give out emblems to anyone who can best us at our own game. All you need to do to claim your emblem is match against us and win.

What is this about an emblem?

We have a brand new one to give out for Bungie Bounties in Destiny 2. Feast your eyes on the Sign of Mutual Combat:

All winners will receive their emblem in the Collections section of their vault within a week. I’ll make the announcement on my Twitter. You can see the emblems in your vault at any of the social spaces.

We will have more Bounties for you in the future, so if this time or console doesn’t work for you, stay tuned for the next Bungie Bounty on Xbox One. 

This week at Bungie, we are welcoming back some old friends. 

First off, if you still haven’t finished the Destiny 2 campaign, there will be some SPOILERS in this blog post. If you haven’t learned the fate of the City, yet, you should definitely go play through it right now. We’ll still be here waiting for you. Seriously, go do it now!

Now that you’ve defeated Ghaul, we are ready for a special event called Faction Rallies. Starting on September 26 at 2 AM Pacific, you will be able to volunteer your services in support of your favorite faction, or the one that holds the loot you most desire. 

We spoke with Senior Designer Tim Williams to find out what Faction Rallies is and how players can join in on the fun.

Tim Williams: Each of the factions of the Tower is having a rally to collect resources for its cause. They’re recruiting Guardians to gather supplies for their faction and destroy enemy resources. They’ll offer a suite of rewards to help the Guardians rise up against any enemy threats. As an incentive, each faction has set aside a powerful weapon to entice players to choose their side. The faction whose Guardians collect the most faction packages will be declared the winner. The winning faction will offer the weapon to everyone, but all who pledged loyalty will receive it with a huge discount as repayment for their contributions to their faction’s cause.

Arach Jalaal from Dead Orbit, Lakshmi-2 from Future War Cult, and Executor Hideo of New Monarchy will return to the Tower to ask you to pledge your loyalty. Before you can make this choice, you must first reach Level 20 and gain access to the Tower. You will only be able to pledge to one faction per character.

Once you have chosen your side, your mission will be to return to the wild and complete activities in support of your faction. You can do public events, explore Lost Sectors, complete strikes, clear the raid, or compete in the Crucible. As you complete these activities, you will be rewarded with faction tokens that you can turn in for packages full of loot.

Dead Orbit

Future War Cult 

New Monarchy

In addition to all of the gear on display above, each faction will be offering a special weapon as a reward to be sold if they emerge victorious. Everyone who pledged to the winning faction will be able to purchase it for 1,000 glimmer. Anyone who did not pledge can still get it, but will have to pay a higher price of 50,000 glimmer.

Here’s what is up for grabs during this event.

Dead Orbit Scout Rifle

Future War Cult Pulse Rifle

New Monarchy Sidearm 

You can earn faction Tokens to turn into your faction of choice all the way up until 2 AM Pacific on October 3. We will declare a winner later that day at 10 AM Pacific. Good luck Guardians, and may the best faction win!

Destiny 2 Art Parade

Bungie houses a roster of incredible artists. All of the gorgeous armor, weapons, characters, environments, and everything else your eyes get to admire in Destiny 2 is created by many, many talented people. Now that you’ve had a fair chance to experience their work (we did warn you to finish that campaign), we’ve invited them to pick some of their favorite pieces to share with you. If you click any of their names, you will be able to browse even more of their beautiful creations in their personal portfolios. This is just a small sample of artists from our Art team. Hopefully we can encourage more of them to share their work with you in the future.

Guided Raids

Guided Games will become available for seekers seeking clans to show them the mysteries of the Leviathan on Tuesday, September 26, at 10 AM Pacific. It’s just over a week into the Guided Games Beta, and we want to update you on how things are going before we open it up for those brave enough to take on the Raid. Senior Designer Steve Dolan is on hand to give us a better idea of how Guided Games work. 

How have Guided Games been going?

Steve: So far, over 100 ,000 seekers have been guided through the Nightfall strike. Throughout those games, over 90% of Nightfall attempts have resulted in completion.  Even when the activity is hard, Guardians fight it out to the end.  You’re an amazing community and we love hearing stories about players meeting their new clan through Guided Games. 

Some players don’t have mics, or have trouble speaking. Do they have to be in a voice chat?

Steve: Even if you’re unable to speak over a mic, being able to listen in on chat can make a huge difference in your team’s success. Nightfalls and raids are pinnacle content, designed and tuned so that communication between players is essential to success. Guides and seekers are not forced to join the same chat channel after they land in the pre-game lobby, but are strongly encouraged to do so before the fireteam leader starts the guided game. If you use in-game chat you should already all be in a chat channel together. Guides, if you’re in a PSN or Xbox party, be sure to invite your seeker to chat. 

Does finishing a Guided Game version of an activity advance milestones?

Steve: Yes, even though the UI tooltip doesn’t mention the milestone, it will advance when you finish the Guided Game version of the activity. 

How does a clan get punished for being a jerk?

Steve: We review all reports on clan identity information and take action on objectionable clans.  If you come across a clan with an offensive name, mission statement, or motto, file a report and we’ll take a look. If you’re at the front of the queue for Guided Games, we’ll hold your spot in line until you’re done with your report. 

If a clan doesn’t lead a good Guided Game, their Oathkeeper score will go down. To get credit for a good Guided Game it must either finish successfully, last as long as the activity or Guardian Oath, or end with an agreement to disband. When you get to the front of the guided game seeker queue, make sure to check out a clans Oathkeeper score before selecting them for the activity you’re about to start.

What if the Oathkeeper score is blank?

Steve: We don’t give a Clan an Oathkeeper score until they’ve run at least four Guided Games of an activity. You can skip them or choose to trust a clan who has just begun to host Guided Games. 

When players match with a clan, do they have to wait again if they reject that clan? What happens after they reject a clan?

Steve: We want you to be able to select a clan you want to play with. When a seeker gets to the front of the line, we show you a clan with which you have a good internet connection. If you say no to that clan, you’ll go right back to the front of the line where you will match with a new clan soon. Find one that looks good to you before clicking “accept”.

Sometimes life happens and players need to leave before they finish. How do they leave without getting an oath breaker penalty?

In the know

Community Management is about more than telling jokes on Twitter. Responding to issues we diagnose, troubleshoot, and resolve is a team effort. The tip of that spear is Destiny Player Support.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Update 1.0 .3: Server Maintenance and Downtime

Destiny 2 will be taken offline on Monday September 25 for server maintenance. Players will be required to download and install Destiny 2 Update 1.0.3 upon maintenance completion.

6 AM PDT (2 PM UTC): Players will no longer be able to sign in to Destiny 2.

7 AM PDT (3 PM UTC): All online players will be removed from Destiny

12 PM PDT (10 PM UTC): Expected maintenance conclusion, Destiny 2 Update 1.0.3 available.

Destiny 2 Known Issues:

The following issues have been confirmed, and are actively being investigated by appropriate teams:

• Trials of the Nine was not disabled properly at this week’s ritual reset. Moving forward, players should expect this activity to be available each Friday at 10 AM PDT through Tuesday at 2 AM PDT.
• The quest step “His Highness’s Seal” is not properly incrementing when players acquire Emperor Seals.
• Occasionally, objects aren’t properly spawning within the Exodus Crash Nightfall strike. Players may need to relaunch the activity for objectives to properly spawn. 
• Public event completions are not properly granting Clan XP upon completion.
• Clan Engrams are not being rewarded to some qualifying players. NOTE: If a player leaves a clan and joins a new clan mid-week, they will not be able to earn further Clan Engrams until the following weekly reset.
• If a player creates a new character after an alternate character has earned a raid key on a given week, the key will be erroneously removed from character Inventory. NOTE: Raid keys are removed, by design, with each weekly ritual reset.

Eververse: Query Failed

We have recently identified and are working with our partners to address issues that are causing some players to encounter delays in receiving their purchased Silver due to “Silver Sync Pending” or “Query Failed” errors.

If a Silver purchase has been made but has not yet appeared in-game, players may need to follow the below troubleshooting steps. 

• Fully close the Destiny game application
• Clear the console cache 
• Relaunch Destiny
• Select any character
• Silver should be credited directly to your inventory.

Players may also need to review the platform purchase to ensure that the Silver bundle purchased was for the correct Destiny release and Destiny account. If issues receiving or purchasing silver continue, please submit an Eververse Contact Form through help.bungie.net.

Send us your movies. We’ll make you famous! Well, at least Internet famous, for a week. If you are unfamiliar with this weekly ritual, it’s pretty simple. We pick a few of our favorite movies every week, and the winners get featured here. The creators also get sent a nice looking Emblem as a reward. We are still putting the finishing touches on the Destiny 2 version, but as soon as we get it the game, all of the winners who have won since launch will have it sent to their collection. 

Speaking of winners.

Movie of the Week: Destiny 2 The Journey Metal Cover

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Honorable Mention: Most Titan Moment Ever

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<3 Cozmo