Quote:DeeJ: We’d like to invite you to catch a glimpse of what we have planned for the second year of Destiny 2. We have some big ideas for how we’re going to transform your Guardian lifestyle and reinforce your hobby as an interplanetary hero. We’ll tell you all about it, and we’ll do it live!

You’ll hear from many members of our development team, who will set some big goals for September in their own words. We’ll explore deeper into new territory with Game Director Steve Cotton and Project Lead Scott Taylor—two faces that you might recognize from previous reveals. We’ll respond to a bunch of community feedback and unveil some other things you haven’t even been looking forward to… yet. We’ll top it all off with a look at a new Roadmap with exciting new promises for everyone.

• Players may now only pledge to one faction per account during a Faction Rallies event
  
  
• Reputation progress is retained through multiple events, and it will not be reset during the season, even if a player changes allegiance
  
  
• Each faction offers unique rewards, such as Exotic armor ornaments or Masterwork Catalysts for Exotic weapons
  
  
• We are planning to host three Faction Rallies events over the course of Season 3
  

• Dead Orbit will offer the Eye of Another World ornament and the Graviton Lance Catalyst
  
  
• New Monarchy will offer the Crest of Alpha Lupi ornament and the Sweet Business Catalyst
  
  
• Future War Cult will offer the Knucklehead Radar ornament and the Sunshot Catalyst
  

• Each faction now features ranks, which players can reach by earning faction tokens
  
  
• Faction rank-up rewards will continue to grant Legendary armor and weapons past Rank 30
  

• Faction Rallies now features the “Renown” system
  
  
• • After pledging to a faction, players may earn Renown by completing a public event or patrol, or by defeating high-value targets on destinations
    
    
  • Players who loot a Lost Sector with Renown active will receive significantly more faction tokens than usual—the more stacks of Renown they have, the more faction tokens they earn
    
    
  • Renown is lost when players are defeated by enemies, so be careful when you’re attempting to loot a Lost Sector with high Renown!
    

• Renown increases the level of challenge in gameplay
  
  
• • Health regeneration is vastly reduced (all stack levels)
    
    
  • • Enemy kills have a chance to drop health orbs (all stack levels)
      
    
    
  • Player damage decreased (scales with stack, up to 5)
    
    
  • Incoming damage increased (scales with stack, up to 5)
    

Quote:Derek: The game type we’re testing in this Crucible Lab is Showdown, a 4v4 team game that might feel a bit familiar to those of you who played Doubles. Double Doubles? Anyway, the rules are simple: Take out the enemy as many times as you can within the time limit to win each round, best 3 out of 5. If the game is tied 2–2 after four rounds, you will play a FINAL SHOWDOWN that’s pure elimination, to crown the victor.

Crucible Labs is a work in progress, and we’re learning as we go!  We expect this Lab to be available until the next weekly reset on June 5, but if something goes truly sideways, we might have to end the test earlier. We’re deliberately starting Labs off simple, not just to test Showdown, but the Labs process itself.

This time around, we’re going to ask you to sound off in the feedback forums on Bungie.net, though we’ll be watching Reddit, Twitter, and all your usual haunts. In the future, we’d like to get more scientific about the whole process, but for now, your gut reactions will be great.

We’re interested in any and all feedback you may have to offer, but the most obvious things we’d like to hear are:

• What did you think about this mode?
  
  
• Was anything confusing?
  
  
• Did anything seem missing?
  
  
• Was there a map it played better/worse on?
  
  
• Were there spawning issues?
  
  
• Were the rounds too short/too long?
  
  
• Was there a weapon or other sandbox combination that affected the game in a negative way?
  

Quote:Thanks in advance for checking this out, and I hope you have fun as you help us make the Crucible a better place for everyone!

Quote:Jacob/Ben: The moment this weekly update goes live, the Power levels for Escalation Protocol enemies will be lowered in waves 4–7. Waves 1–3 are unchanged and will remain at 370 Power (so still watch out for that level 2 Wizard boss).

Players who have stayed on Mars since before this update will need to return to Orbit and land on Mars again to see the following change:

Old values

• Wave 1: 370
  
  
• Wave 2: 370
  
  
• Wave 3: 370
  
  
• Wave 4: 385
  
  
• Wave 5: 385
  
  
• Wave 6: 400
  
  
• Wave 7: 400
  

Quote:New values

• Wave 1: 370 
  
  
• Wave 2: 370
  
  
• Wave 3: 370
  
  
• Wave 4: 380
  
  
• Wave 5: 380
  
  
• Wave 6: 385
  
  
• Wave 7: 385
  

Quote:NOTE: To avoid matching into an area that has been running since before the change, wait a short time after this update before landing on Mars again to attempt Escalation Protocol.

How We’re Making This Change

Normally changing enemy Power levels requires a patch, but during development, we created unique server flags which can flip between two sets of Power levels for all Escalation Protocol enemies. These were created in the wake of the community summit, when we decided to make the activity even more difficult. The flags don’t require any download from you to flip, which is how we can enact this change so quickly.

Reasons for This Change

We’ve been looking at our internal data while listening to all of your feedback about Escalation Protocol since the launch of Warmind. Reading these stats, not as many players are attempting Escalation Protocol with a fireteam of three as our designs intended, mostly because of how difficult waves 6 and 7 are. Tweaking the difficulty of waves 6 and 7 very quickly through Power level changes is something we can do right away because of the server flags mentioned above, rather than waiting a number of weeks to deliver a patch.

By reducing the Power levels of the latter waves, we are intending to make Escalation Protocol more approachable for players who want to try the activity at 385 as a fireteam of three with potential help from others in the world. Getting nine players into the same space will still be possible, but for those at or close to max level, it shouldn’t feel as necessary as before. If anyone is worried that we’re nerfing this activity into the ground, rest assured that it will still be a highly difficult end-game experience. All the mechanics, timers, and enemy behaviors will remain unchanged, so you should still plan to bring your best team, gear, and strategies to succeed. 

Quote:Update 1.2.1 Known Issues

Since the release of Destiny Update 1.2.1, the following issues have been identified and confirmed:

• Nightfall Unique Rewards: We have identified an issue where Nightfall unique rewards from base Destiny 2 and Curse of Osiris strikes are not dropping for players. Teams are actively investigating the issue, and we will provide updates when possible.
  
  
• Xbox One Login: We are investigating reports regarding an issue impacting some players’ ability to log into or launch Destiny 2 on Xbox One. Players who can provide video footage of this issue as they are encountering it should report to the #Help forum.
  
  
• Prototype Engrams and Powerful Rewards: We are investigating an issue where players who level up and earn a prototype engram when turning in a milestone for a Powerful Engram will not actually receive the Powerful Engram. In the meantime, players can work around this issue by making sure they are not near the level-up threshold when turning in milestones.
  
  
• Finite Impactor Masterwork Enemies Defeated: Players may observe that the Finite Impactor Iron Banner Hand Cannon does not correctly track enemies defeated in its tooltip.
  
  
• BrayTech RWP Mk. II Masterwork Enemies Defeated: Players may observe that the Masterwork BrayTech RWP Mk. II does not correctly track enemies defeated in its tooltip.
  
  
• Victorious Veteran Kill Tracking: We are investigating an issue where the Victorious Veteran Crucible emblem may not be accurately tracking Crucible kills for some players.
  
  
• Mars Adventures Unavailable: We are investigating an issue where Mars non-Heroic adventures are not available for some players.