This Week At Bungie – 9/5/2019

Sep 5, 2019 - A_dmg04

This week at Bungie, Mars is on the mind.

A few weeks ago, we forecast our first Community Challenge. Our destination of choice: Mars. With a unique emblem and additional Menagerie loot to earn, we knew you’d take this on… but we didn’t think you’d prosecute the Hive this quickly. To say we’re impressed with your progress is an understatement. Here’s a quick snapshot of how far you’ve come in so little time:

Remember, to qualify for the exclusive Community Event emblem, you'll need to complete one Nightfall before next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific. Luckily, it looks like there's some work to be done in the Nightfall department. Don't forget, we have the Find Fireteam feature on Bungie.net and the Destiny Companion App if you're in need of some team mates. We'll be sending out emblems to qualifying players next week, so be sure to stay tuned for updates.

We’ve got some exciting news on the docket this week. A Bungie Bounty, upcoming Crucible changes, Sandbox ability tuning, and a fashion show of upcoming armor. Let’s get to it.

Join the Strike Team

Next week, we’re assembling a special strike team for another Bungie Bounty—and, like we always do, we’re leaving a seat open. In keeping with our streaming tradition, this is your chance to find us in the wilds of matchmaking and engage in live combat with the hopes of winning an emblem as your reward. On this occasion, we’re putting a price on the heads of whichever strike bosses the fates choose.

Bungie Bounty—Strike Team Edition
Destiny 2 on Xbox Live
Heroic Strike Playlist
Tuesday, September 10
3–5 PM PDT
www.mixer.com/Bungie

If matchmaking chooses you to play on this fireteam, your fellow Guardians will be two titans of industry (even though one of them plays as a Hunter). These are two old friends who have recently been reunited by Cross Save. They’ll be live at Bungie to stream their session.

If you get matched up with these Guardians, and they decide that you held up your end of the fight, they’ll award you an emblem you can use to prove it—so be sure to back them up on the path to victory. Look alive and play your best game. This will be your first chance to win the Destiny 2 Year 3 Bungie Bounty emblem. Check it out!

They’ll launch as many strikes as time permits, with a different Guardian from the community as the third player. If you’re watching and participating in chat, there will also be some prizes for you to win as a spectator. We’ll have seven Destiny 2: Shadowkeep Collector’s Editions to award—and those are otherwise sold out.

Our friends at Xbox also have some special prizes up their sleeves, so tune in to watch or queue up to fight alongside two of the biggest Destiny fans we know.

Shake Shaxx

Many of you have been asking how the Crucible experience will change on October 1. While we outlined some changes in the Director’s Cut: Part III article, we wanted to put the magnifying glass on a few more upcoming changes.

Director Update
When Shadowkeep launches, your Crucible Director will look a bit different. Here’s a quick rundown from the Director’s Cut:

We’ve removed the Quickplay and Competitive nodes from the Director.
If you’re looking for an experience like Quickplay, we’ve added Classic Mix (a connection-based playlist [like Quickplay today]). Classic Mix includes Control, Clash, and Supremacy.
Competitive is replaced by 3v3 Survival (which now awards Glory).
We’ve also added a Survival Solo Queue playlist that also awards Glory.
We’ve added 6v6 Control as its own playlist.

With the potential influx of new players this fall, we want to have a playlist that signals to new players where to start.
We feel like 6v6 Control is the right starting place when introducing new friends to Destiny.

We’ve added a weekly 6v6 rotator and a weekly 4v4 rotator.

These rotator playlists are where modes like Clash, Supremacy, Mayhem, Lockdown, and Countdown will appear.

We want to create some variety in the PvP experience from Season to Season, and one way we’re doing that is to bench some maps for the Season. While they’re out of rotation, if time allows we also hope to improve how they play by tweaking spawn areas, ammo spawns, and overall structure so they return better than before. The first four to be removed from all playlists are:

Dead Cliffs
Legion’s Gulch
Retribution
Solitude

We also made a pass on all playlists, removing some maps from playlists where they don’t shine. Equinox is now only in Scorched, Mayhem, and Breakthrough, and Firebase Echo is only in Supremacy, Mayhem, and Breakthrough.

While we are removing a few maps, we are also introducing Widow’s Court, Twilight Gap, and the new map, Fragment. Think Dreaming City meets Infinite Forest.

Elimination is also making its return to Destiny 2 via Crucible Labs. We’ll be testing out multiple variants of Elimination rulesets and settings to see how the mode plays with the new weapons and abilities of Destiny 2.

Heavy Ammo Sharing
Heavy ammo is shared only in all 6v6 modes, and those crates have a sparkling effect to denote this. Once a player picks up Heavy ammo, their teammates have a limited amount of time (currently 7 seconds—this is something we can tweak between Seasons based on community feedback) to interact with the same ammo crate to get Heavy ammo. If the other team picked up the crate, it will turn red to indicate you cannot pick it up during this period. When the time window expires, the crate despawns.

Each player gets less Heavy ammo from shared crates than they do from unshared crates in 4v4 and 3v3 modes. The amount of ammo you receive from a crate is static and does not change based on how many teammates share the crate.

Rank Systems Update: Streaks and Floors
Glory, Valor, and Infamy streaks have been made more resilient. Instead of resetting your streak, losses will now reduce your Valor and Infamy streaks by 1, and your Glory streak by 2. You can still lose Glory, but if your rank is at or below Fabled, you can’t lose Glory if doing so would drop you below that rank (each rank through Fabled acts as a floor for Glory).

Competitive Matchmaking Updates: Skill and Glory
Destiny has always tracked player skill behind the scenes, taking into account things like kills, damage dealt, and so forth. These factors all contribute to a player’s skill rating. In Season 8, we’ve mapped skill ratings to Glory ranks, with the lowest end of the scale mapping to Guardian I, and the high end mapping to Legend. Most players are somewhere between these extremes.

As you play in the Survival playlist, the Glory system will accelerate you to the rank that corresponds to your skill rating. If your current rank is below where your skill rating says you should be, you’ll earn extra Glory based on the criteria above so you can get to your expected rank faster and lose less Glory so you don’t fall farther away. Once you reach your “expected” rank, Glory gains and losses will normalize.

Meanwhile, your skill rating is continually adjusting based on your performance, shifting the system’s understanding of your “expected” rank, and causing the Glory system to respond by pulling you toward that rank. The result should be that over time, your Glory rank will become an accurate reflection of your skill. It also means that teammates of different skill will experience different Glory adjustments from the same Survival match.

When it comes to Crucible, matchmaking and hopper nodes are only half of the puzzle. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be detailing Sandbox changes, which directly impact the meta that you’d find in our PvP environment.

Shadowkeep Sandbox Update: Abilities

As Destiny 2 continues to evolve with the upcoming release of Shadowkeep, many of the tools in your space magic toolbox are receiving a tuning pass. This week, we’ll be focusing on subclass changes, as the list is fairly hefty. Below, we’ve paired developer commentary with upcoming patch notes to paint a picture of how your abilities are being updated—and, more importantly, why.

Buffs

Nightstalker Way of the Pathfinder (Bottom)
Goal: We want to lean into the fantasy of a speedy disruptor. Pathfinders need more tools to scout the battlefield and a skill based way to engage with that gameplay more often. We should reward this scouting and battlefield control gameplay, executed well, with more opportunities to do the same. At the same time shadow shot needed some quality of life improvements for long standing frustrations.

Vanish: Smoke bomb grants invisibility to allies
Gives 1 stack of Heart of the Pack (newly revamped) to all allies hit
Grants +34 to armor, recovery, and agility
Gives weapon reload speed and handling
Max 3 stacks
Increased invisibility duration from 7 > 8 seconds.

Provision: Killing tethered enemies creates super orbs and increases agility, armor, and recovery for allies
New Perk (old perk benefits moved to be part of Mobius Quiver)
Damaging enemies with your grenades reduces the cooldown of your smoke bomb (6% per damage tick)
Making allies invis gives you grenade energy (17.5% per ally)

Moebius Quiver: Fire super multiple times and deals massive damage to tethered targets
Added the old Provision perk to naturally be part of Mobius Quiver
Killing tethered enemies creates super orbs and grants stacks of Heart of the Pack for allies
Expanded the range of Heart of the Pack from 20 > 30 meters.

Shadowshot Super (Top and Bottom path)
Damage increased from 150 > 250
One shot kill in PvP
Improved tether accuracy near obstacles
Suppress on hit is more consistent

Sentinel Code of the Protector (Top)
Goal: This path is the main support role for Titans and focuses heavily on melee kills while staying near allies. We want to focus more heavily on buffing allies so that players care about the timing of their buff usage. With a loop which allows players to get their melee energy back more quickly this will be a more engaging path to play. Additionally, Ward of Dawn is currently not up to snuff, and needs a buff that ties in to the fantasy of buffing allies.

Defensive Strike: Melee ability that creates an overshield for nearby allies
All kills while the overshield is active grant melee energy for the player with the shield (works for all allies you grant a shield to)
This is based upon enemy threat level from 5% (minors) to 25% (players and bosses)

Rallying Force: Melee kills heal nearby allies
Heal buffed from 10 health and 10 shields to 10 health and 20 shields (50% increase)

Ward of Dawn: Alternate super that creates a shield bubble
Increase ward health versus supers
Most supers will require the whole thing to be dumped on the ward to destroy it but will (usually) not kill the players inside.
Ward grants weapons of light buff when passing through it (35% weapon damage for 15 seconds)
Grants an additional super orb (3)
Auto-generated orbs now grant the same amount of super energy as regular super orbs (previously the orbs gave less super energy on par with masterwork orbs)

Sentinel Code of the Aggressor (Bottom)
Shield Bash: Shoulder charge that disorients nearby enemies
Now suppresses the target hit and any enemy within 2 meters (have to be basically right next to them)

Voidwalker Attunement of Hunger (Bottom)
Vortex: Nova Bomb leaves behind a damaging AoE pool
Initial explosion damage increased 15%
Lingering damage increased 15%
Dawnblade Attunement of Grace
Well of Radiance: Alternate super that creates a healing/buffing field for allies
Grants an additional super orb (3)
Auto-generated orbs now grant the same amount of super energy as regular super orbs (previously the orbs gave less super energy on par with masterwork orbs)

Nerfs

Nightstalker Way of the Trapper (Top)
Shadowshot: Fires an arrow that damages enemies and debuffs enemies nearby
Damage sharing for the Nightstalker player specifically reduced from 100% to 50%
Now all allied players have 50% damage sharing on tether

Nightstalker Way of the Wraith (Middle)
Flawless Execution: Headshot kills while crouched grant invisibility and truesight
Truesight now lasts 3 seconds (down from 9)

Shattering Strike: After performing a Flawless Execution, your melee attacks have a longer lunge range and weaken enemies
Advanced warning: When we made the change to Flawless Execution this also unintentionally nerfed this ability to only last 3 seconds (it was directly tied to the truesight). We have prepared a fix for the 4.6.1 patch to restore the weaken and lunge range increase to last the entire 9 seconds regardless of truesight and invisibility status.

Instant Reloading
Goal: In the beginning, Lunafactions and Rally Barricade did exist, but they were clunky to use. They still had dramatic impact on gameplay even in that state, but eventually we decided to make their effects easier to handle. The problems they introduced always existed in the game, but over time these have become magnified due to new abilities, perks, and weapons introduced into the Destiny 2 sandbox. The impact of something that takes all reloading out of the equation means that other perks or effects like the Hunter’s Marksman Dodge or the Sealed Ahamkara’s Grasps can simply fall to the wayside – Even swords take a hit in comparison, being one of the few weapons that naturally never needs to reload.

Reloading is one of those mechanics that are simple, but have wide ranging consequences. Because the effect on gameplay of removing reloading is inversely proportional to the size of your weapon’s magazine and how slow your general reload animations are, weapons like Rocket Launchers and Shotguns can benefit greatly compared to other weapons. This, alongside the increase in general access to damage bonus effects like Well of Radiance left us with the decision to remove this effect from these two sources, as they were causing things to quickly snowball out of control.

Titan Rally Barricade
This ability now provides a large increase to reload speed for the duration of the effect
This ability no longer automatically reloads your weapons from reserves

Warlock Rift/Well of Radiance
Lunafaction Boots now provides a large increase to reload speed for the duration of Well of Radiance
This exotic no longer automatically reloads your weapons from reserves

Super Energy Regeneration
Goal: These changes will reduce the speed with which players are able to earn their super which supports difficulty and reduces the current ability to trivialize certain content through excessively chaining supers. Systemically, we want to reduce base sources of supers on a large macro scale without diminishing the feeling that your actions are gaining you a worthwhile energy boost. By reducing the speed at which you gain super we can make mods and perks feel more worthwhile. We still want it to feel like you can make meaningful progress not only through normal play but by augmenting super energy through teamwork, class choices, gear, and skillful play.

New Energy Granted by Super Orbs:
Super Orb: 7.143% (50% reduction)
Masterwork Orb: 2.5% (50% reduction)
Kills: (25% reduction)
Minor: 0.6%
Elite: 0.96%
Mini-boss: 1.8%
Boss: 3%
Player: 3%
Assists: (25% reduction)
Minor: 0.3%
Elite: 0.48%
Mini-boss: 0.9%
Boss: 1.5%
Player: 1.5%

Damage Multipliers
Goal: At Destiny 2 launch, damage buffs were fairly sparse – There was Empowering Rift for a small increase, and you could combine it with a weakening effect such as Hammer Strike, but very little else. As time has gone on, we introduced Well of Radiance, Weapons of Light, Guiding Flame, Frontal Assault, etc, and combining these effects has resulted in player damage output far beyond what was previously available. Even with just a small amount of them, a player can go from 1x damage to 3x and beyond, causing there to be an extremely large gap between standard player output and theoretical output.

By preventing the larger effects from stacking, we are able to keep each of them around without having to do something in response like raise boss health to compensate for these tactics, as well as create more of them. As an example, Lumina would not have been created in world where the damage bonus effect of Noble Rounds stacked with other damage effects, and these changes are simply an extension along those same lines.

While the weakening effects never stacked, we also took a look at them and adjusted their values as many of our more powerful units would simply evaporate when touched by one of them, but we compensated for that in other ways, such as either extending the duration of the effect or in the case of Shadowshot, making it affect power weapons.

Player Damage Buffs
Player Bonuses
Bonus damage effects that apply to all of a player's weapons simultaneously no longer stack multiplicatively. The highest applicable bonus will be used instead.
This does not affect single weapon buffs such as Rampage, Kill Clip, or exotic weapons that increase their own damage. These will still stack multiplicatively.
Buffs that provide bonus damage will still exist simultaneously on the player, so in the event that the one with the highest multiplier wears off the next highest will be used instead.
This change affects the following weapons/abilities (Empowering Rift, Frontal Assault, Guiding Flame, Sun Warrior, Inertia Override, Well of Radiance, Lumina/Noble Rounds, Weapons of Light)
Notable exceptions: Vengeance (One Eyed Mask)
Frontal Assault
Bonus damage is now +20% (Previously +25%)
Sun Warrior
Bonus damage is now +20% (Previously +25%)
Well of Radiance
Bonus damage is now +25% (Previously +35%)
Weapons of Light
Bonus damage is now +35% (Previously +25%)

Enemy Debuffs (Weakened)
Shadowshot
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +35%)
Incoming PvP damage is now +50% (Previously +55%)
This effect no longer excludes power weapons
Tractor Cannon (Repulsor Force)
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% for all elements (Previously +33%/50% for Non-Void/Void damage respectively)
Incoming PvP damage is now +50% for all elements (Previously +33%/50% for Non-Void/Void damage respectively)
Hammer Strike
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +50%)
Duration increased from 6 to 10 seconds in PvE
Shattering Strike
Incoming PvE damage is now +30% (Previously +50%)
Duration increased from 6 to 10 seconds in PvE

Reduced Super Damage Resistance
Goal: Since the launch of Destiny 2 we have slowly introduced buffs to supers, especially roaming supers. While we believe supers should be powerful they should not be mindless. We want supers to be more risky in both PvE and PvP. We want players to think about positioning and timing more. Not so long ago we experimented with Spectral Blades by lowering the damage resistance substantially. These changes were generally well received and improved the experience of the super for both the person running it and the person who was running from it. In PvE players shouldn’t feel like their super makes them invulnerable and casting one should call for situational strategic thinking. In PvP players need to feel like they can challenge a super and that with skillful play there’s a chance they can beat it.

Super Damage Resistance removed from masterwork armor
Inherent Super Damage Resistance lowered by category (see below)

Low- 54% → 49%
Nova Warp
Thunder Crash
Blade Barrage
Nova Bomb
Well of Radiance

Medium - 56% → 51%
Hammer of Sol
Daybreak

High - 60% → 53%
Fist of Havok
Burning Maul
Sentinel Shield
Arc Staff
Arc Lightning
Shadowshot

Other (unchanged)
Spectral Blades - 52% / 54.4%
Golden Gun - 0%
Chaos Reach - 40%

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at how your arsenal of weaponry will be changing.

Add to Your Collection

Over the weekend, we were boots on the ground at PAX West. A few attendees helped themselves to a preview of some upcoming armor coming in Shadowkeep. This week, we’d like to showcase more upcoming sets, giving you a fashion show of sorts. Here are the fall collections, arranged by their sources.

Dreambane Armor Set

Acquired from activities on the Moon.

Garden of Salvation Raid Armor Set

Acquired from the Garden of Salvation raid.

Substitutional Armor Set

Acquired from Seasonal activities, free Season Rank rewards, and premium Season Rank rewards.

Phenotype Plasticity Universal Ornament Set

Acquired from premium Season Rank rewards.

Iron Will Armor Set

Acquired from participating in Iron Banner.

Empyrean Cartographer Universal Ornament Set

Acquired from the Eververse store.

In addition to all this, the currently available armor sets will drop as Armor 2.0 versions when Shadowkeep launches.

Armor 2.0: Reprisals

Crucible: Year 1

Includes Year 1 ornaments

Vanguard: Year 1

Includes Year 1 ornaments

Black Armory

Forge

Gambit

Gambit: Forsaken
Gambit Prime: Season of the Drifter

Menagerie

All Menagerie armor

Raids

Leviathan
Eater of Worlds
Spire of Stars
Last Wish
Scourge of the Past
Crown of Sorrow

Destinations

European Dead Zone
Titan
Nessus
Io
Mercury
Mars (Vendor and Escalation Protocol)
Tangled Shore
Dreaming City

There will also be additional world drops that can be found in Legendary engrams which have been updated to Armor 2.0.

Deployment Complete

Destiny 2 Update 2.5.2.2 is live, and players have flooded Reckoning for increased chances on their desired weaponry. Destiny Player Support has kept a finger on the pulse of this update, looking for any missing pieces that may have fallen off the ship during its journey.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.5.2.2
This week, we deployed Hotfix 2.5.2.2 to Destiny 2. This hotfix made several targeted quality-of-life improvements to the Destiny 2 experience, including changes to the quests for the Wendigo GL3 and The Mountaintop pinnacle Grenade Launchers.

For the full list of changes made in 2.5.2.2, please see our Destiny 2 Update 2.5.2.2 page. Players who have observed issues after the deployment of this hotfix should report them to the #Help forum.

REMINDER: Moments of Triumph End Date is September 17
With Shadowkeep fast approaching, we’d like to take this opportunity to remind players that Moments of Triumph ends at the weekly reset on Tuesday, September 17.

At that time, the 2019 Moments of Triumph and the MMXIX Seal will no longer be available to players who have not completed them.

PC Silver Purchases—Log In to Claim by October 1
In preparation for the upcoming Destiny 2 PC migration to Steam, this week all Destiny 2 game and Silver product listings were disabled for purchase on Battle.net.

Players should be aware, however, that all in order for recent Silver purchases to successfully transfer to Steam, players MUST log in to Destiny 2 on Battle.net before October 1 to claim their purchased Silver.

The option to purchase Silver will be re-enabled on Steam on October 1 when Shadowkeep launches. For more information on the move to Steam, please visit our PC Move page.

Cross Save Issues
We are aware that some players have entered an undesirable Cross Save state due to Silver purchases on their account prior to the launch of Cross Save. To help mitigate these and other player issues, we have created a Cross Save Contact Form. All tickets regarding Cross Save issues will be addressed at the discretion of Destiny Player Support during regular business hours.

I’m Losing My Mind

I keep looking over my computer monitors, expecting to see the smiling face of Cozmo23. He’s been texting me every day, making sure I’m all right—but I have to say that I’m going a little crazy. It was nice to see him at PAX, but it just wasn’t enough time. Wait a second, this is a Movie of the Week intro, not my personal diary. Let’s look at what’s hot on the creations page this week!

Movie of the Week: Once Upon a Time in the Reef

Honorable Mention: Ricochet Rounds + Sniper = Profit

If you’d like to put your name in the hat for Movie of the Week, make sure to post your content to the Community Creations page on bungie.net, or throw a video to myself or Cozmo on Twitter.

I’m a candle burning at both ends right now. Shadowkeep is so close. SO CLOSE! I can’t wait to get back on that lunar surface with you all. See you next week when we talk about some exciting Sandbox weapon changes, like Sunshot having 12 in the mag, or Graviton Lance getting a 30% PvE damage increase…

Thanks for stopping by. Let’s finish this summer out with some radiance, shall we?

Cheers,

Dmg04