This Week At Bungie - 03/16/2023

This week at Bungie, we have been raiding nonstop! Did you participate in the World First Race? Have you finished with your clanmates already? How about those new raid armor sets? Were you lucky enough to already get your hands on the new raid Exotic? We hope the psychedelic panoramas created by the clash of Light and Dark were a pleasant surprise.

We’re already deep into Season of Defiance’s third week, so let's keep this intro short so we can all go back to get some of that amazing Awoken-themed gear. Here's a reminder of what we talked about last week:

• Sneak peek at an upcoming Season of the Deep quest.
• Trials of Osiris is back this week.
• Iron Banner returns on Tuesday.
• New Prime Gaming rewards vendor.
• We launched a New Player Guide.

And now, our fresh batch of TWAB news:

• Congrats to the World First Race winners!
• Art of Lightfall developer insight video.
• Updates to Commendations and Guardian Ranks.
• Have you played the new Exotic quest?
• Trials of Osiris is back this week.
• Iron Banner returns on Tuesday.
• Updates from the Destiny Player Support team.
• Our Movie of the Week and Art of the Week picks.

They Are the Champions, My Friend

There was no stopping the champions that won the Root of Nightmares World First Race. Congratulations one more time, Team Hard in the Paint! For those curious about the team, how they worked together to finish first, and how they play the game, go check our interview with them.

It doesn't matter if you played along and tried to best the best of the best, or if you preferred to relax and watched a few streams to enjoy the experience and earn some cool emblems. Raid launches are unforgettable for the studio and this one was extra special as we broke our viewership record on Twitch.

We hope that players (more than 190,000 of you) who beat the final boss during Contest Mode are feeling good right about now. Time to go complete some challenges if you want to improve your chances of getting the new Conditional Finality Exotic Shotgun.

The Art of Lightfall

Art, what a concept! Isn't it amazing how humans transform thoughts and ideas into literally the most stunning and inspiring stuff you’ve ever seen? From creating brand-new characters to designing a metropolis in the post-Collapse world of Destiny 2, Lightfall’s art was a very special challenge for our team.

There’s a lot of work behind Strand’s identity and the design of Neomuna’s buildings, billboards, lights, and that very specific Neptune-neon vibe. It’s not easy making something that looks cool and feels unique.

Check out our latest Developer Insight video focused on The Art of Lightfall—they do a better job explaining all of this than I’ll ever do. And if you want to check out concept art and ideas about weapons, armor, enemies and even the raid itself, you can also check our latest art blast on ArtStation.

Updates to Commendations and Guardian Ranks

This week’s updates bring some welcome changes and quality-of-life improvements to the game, including an increase to the Exotic engram drop rate for completing Legend and Master Lost Sectors, and more.

On Tuesday, we also reduced the Commendations requirements for Guardian Ranks 7 through 11 to better fit our player goals for the feature. Even with plenty of data and experience, it's tough to predict social system behavior until it's in the hands of our community!

Here are the new requirements:

• Rank 7: 460 (was 750)
• Rank 8: 790 (was 1,250)
• Rank 9: 1,290 (was 1,750)
• Rank 10: 1,530 (was 5,000)
• Rank 11: 1,800 (was 6,000)

We're not done making changes to Commendations and Guardian Ranks, and we'll be updating you all with more info soon on what’s to come (e.g., moving the Lost Sector objectives to higher Guardian Ranks so fewer players are “stuck” at Rank 6). Stay tuned!

Good Work, Assistants!

We hope by this time you’ve had the chance to play the new Exotic quest //NODE.OVRD.AVALON//. If you haven’t, you might want to visit the Gulch in the European Dead Zone (EDZ). Take a look , then a second one, and you might start noticing those fancy white cubes literally hanging around. We’ll leave the rest to you, but let’s just say there’s several of them.

Upon your first completion, your fireteam (or just you if you’re brave enough), will be awarded the very cool Exotic Glaive called Vexcalibur. It’s a special weapon, and not only because of the Special ammunition it fires. Its perk allows you to build a replenishable Void overshield, and you can also craft and enhance it. In order to do the latter, you’ll have to wield your fancy new Glaive while exploring the various angles of the Vex network that this quest opens. Use your head, but also your Glaive’s shield to go farther each week.

Then craft your personalized version of Vexcalibur and make an old friend proud. Although there’s no Lady of the Lake in this story, if you find yourself in front of a certain radiolarian pool, do your old friend a favor and assert your authority over whatever Repurposed Mind you might find around.

The Saint Awaits

Trials of Osiris is back. A week earlier than initially planned, but we’re certain you’re all more than prepared. The reason for this change is already known (see last week’s TWAB). It has nothing to do with Saint’s well-deserved paid time off nor Valus Forge’s tight schedule, but with an issue we’re fixing today.

First, an important note: Fireteam Matchmaking is enabled in Trials, and as such, we’ve removed the Freelance node. We've been analyzing 3v3 data in Competitive Division this season without Freelance in place, and we’re confident Fireteam Matchmaking provides a solid experience. More details soon!

So, Trials of Osiris is back and there are new rewards on the menu. First, we have The Immortal, a brand new 750 RPM Strand Legendary Submachine Gun that can roll with some crazy perks, like Rangefinder and Killing Wind. I’ll be looking for that combination for sure. Then, there’s Astral Horizon, a Kinetic Aggressive Frame Shotgun returning with some new perks. Worry not, Slideshot, Surplus, and Opening Shot are still there, but I would keep an eye on Shot Swap or Elemental Capacitor if I were you.

Don’t forget that the Trials of Osiris reward system has been slightly changed to work the same way as other Tower vendors. Instead of carrying your earned engrams with you, they’ll stay with Saint-14 until you decode them. Apart from the currently featured ones, there's the option to focus weapons and armor sets that are no longer in rotation for a certain number of engrams and resources. Trials engrams from previous Seasons can’t be used in this new system and must be decrypted at Master Rahool.

Iron Banner Returns Next Week

We previously announced that we would be running Iron Banner three times each Season again, starting in Season 20.

As a reminder, we also increased Iron Banner reputation gains from winning matches starting in the final week of Iron Banner in Season 19, adjusted the balance of multipliers between challenges and gear, and significantly increased the multiplier for wearing an emblem. In Season 20, players will be able to claim this emblem at Rank 16 on the first reset of Iron Banner, so more players will have a chance to equip it and start earning 50% more rep!

The Iron Banner modes we’ve launched over the past three Seasons—Rift, Eruption, and Fortress—have performed well, and while we have more ideas for interesting variations on existing standard modes, we’re going to take a breath before introducing more Iron Banner modes. We’ll share more information on these game modes in a future blog. In the meantime, we’ll be running three different modes, one each week. Next week will be the old favorite, Iron Banner Control; Week 6 will be Eruption, and Week 9 will be Fortress.

But what about the rewards? We’ve got two legacy Iron Banner weapons being added to the loot pool in Season 20:

• Jorum’s Claw (Pulse Rifle)
• Bite of the Fox (Sniper Rifle)

Players Support Report

All hail Nezarec, Final God of Dad Bod

Known Issues List / Help Forums / Bungie Help Twitter

CONTEST MODE EMBLEMS

Contest Mode for the Root of Nightmares raid ran from March 10 at 9 AM PST to March 12 at 10 AM PDT. Players must have successfully completed all encounters of the raid during the Contest Mode window and claimed the Horticulturist Triumph to earn the A Good Night's Sleep emblem.

Even if players defeated Nezarec, part of the challenge was to also complete the encounter and its wipe mechanic. Teams who died to the wipe mechanic before they were able to fully defeat Nezarec would not receive a successful clear. Additionally, factors such as poor connection, joining raids in progress, or not successfully receiving rewards for all encounters may have contributed to completion ineligibility.

Players who failed to earn and claim the Horticulturist Triumph while Contest Mode was active did not qualify for the A Good Night's Sleep emblem.

TWITCH DROP EMBLEMS

Players looking for their Dim Italics or Particle Acceleration Twitch Drop emblems should double check all pages within their Collections under Flair Emblems General, as the emblems may not appear with other newly acquired emblems as expected.

Players experiencing issues should navigate to their Partner Rewards page within their Bungie.net profile and click the Refresh button beside “Missing Twitch Rewards.” Please note that the Partner Rewards page will not display claimed Twitch Drops due to a bug, but the Refresh button on the page will still work. Once the rewards are refreshed, please restart Destiny 2.

If the emblems still don’t appear, click this page and confirm that the emblem appears in your Twitch Inventory. If the Drop appears, then you qualified for it and just need to connect your Twitch account to your Bungie.net account. If the Drop doesn’t appear, then you don’t meet the requirements to obtain the emblem.

DESTINY 2 RITUAL RESET - DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

Destiny 2’s daily and weekly reset time has updated in the United States to 10 AM PDT (1700 UTC or UTC -7). For more information on ritual resets, please see our Ritual Reset Guide.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help forum:

• Some players are unable to unlock the EDZ.
• The Preservation mission in the Throne World is not available for newer players.
• Some players are unable to unlock the Throne World.
• Returning veteran players do not have access to all weapon and Ghost mods.
• Veteran players do not receive the correct amount of lore books when they rank up for the first time.
• Countdown and its variants are not added to the weekly Crucible challenge.
• Reservoir Burst explosion with Subsistence can sometimes fail to activate on kill.
• The Adept Trials of Osiris Hand Cannon is getting one round less in the magazine than the non-Adept version.
• The grav-lift on Neomuna is tied to framerate, causing players with higher framerates to die upon landing.
• The "Mark All as Seen" button in Collections is no longer functioning.
• The Dimensional Hypotrochoid Grenade Launcher can have a range Masterwork.
• Non-Lightfall quests show up under the Lightfall quest category.
• Hunters that die and have Strand reapplied will lose their first Strand Aspect.
• Hunter gauntlets Thunderhead Grips are missing as an ornament for Armor Synthesis.
• Certain Heavy weapon archetypes are not benefitting from equipping a third reserve mod.
• Players are no longer able to equip the Unbroken title.
• Restoration reverts to a lower timer when reapplying the original source of the buff.
• Weapons can mark targets through Titan barricades.
• Thread of Generation stops functioning on Hunters for grenades that aren't Grapple after using their Super.
• Unpowered melee can produce fast melee combos in quick succession.
• Players experience a black screen when previewing armor bundles on PS5.
• Equipping a large amount of decaying Armor Charge mods starts to deactivate tier 4 and 5 artifact mods from the player.
• Some players on Steam are unable to progress past the class icon loading spinner on launch. Please send us your DxDiag on our Help forum.
• Commendations are greyed out as already given in some activities.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

The Crucible Himself

Ivan: In this amazing #Destiny2AOTW, Lord Shaxx has the vibe of a superhero from your favorite comic book. He conquered another (brick) mountain and his punch is charged, so I don’t envy his enemy. Fantastic work, R_Neophyte!

Art of the Week: LOOOOORD SHAAAAAAAAAXX!!!

Made a drawing of LOOOOORD SHAAAAAAAAAXX!!! AAAAAAAHHH!
...I'm pretty sure that spelling his name without yelling is illegal.@DirtyEffinHippy @DestinyComArt @Cozmo23 #Destiny2Art #Destiny2AOTW #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/OPvgqKz1fJ

— R_Neophyte 🇺🇦☮️ (@neophyte_r) March 4, 2023

Bruno: You know that meme about dragon heads? Right.

Art of the Week: Disciples, in terms of chadness

Disciples, in terms of chadness:#Destiny2Art #Destiny2AOTW #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/s9APmGJ9bv

— Soul! (@TheSoulTheta) March 13, 2023

Literal Impostor Syndrome

Hippy: Oh, you thought we were done talking about those saucy little alien beans? Oh, nay nay. We’re upping the ante a bit with Among Us fever, this time with an all-out recreation of Innersloth’s space murder mystery in Destiny 2. It’s pretty rad, and I’m not saying that because I’m the impostor. You’re the impostor. What’s a vent? Y—

Movie of the Week:Among Us? Among You!

Sam: We just want to know how many times Nimbus had to ask them to participate, because I’m guessing it wasn’t “a few.”

Movie of the Week: the spoiler-free Lightfall experience

the spoiler-free lightfall experience #destiny2 #destiny2fanart #Destiny2MOTW #Destiny2AOTW pic.twitter.com/vF19eLOzwF

— Vern 🌆 (@verndusk) March 5, 2023

And we are done here, amigos.

For those of you looking for Saint’s approval tomorrow, best of luck with your matches and your rewards. For the teams fighting to finish the raid for the first (or eleventh) time, go for it, you got this! Those of you looking to get max level or the best builds, it’s okay to min-max every drop, but don’t obsess over it, there’s plenty of time! And if you’re just chilling under the Ironwood Tree, hey, we like that too.

‘Hasta luego’

Br1