This week at Bungie, there’s quite a bit to do in Destiny 2.
Hello, and welcome once again to our weekly installment of Bungie news. I’m going to be up front with you, I’ve been spending quite a lot of this week diving deeper and deeper into The Witch Queen and Season of the Risen. Between the Vow of Disciple raid, PsiOps Battlegrounds, weekly repeatable story missions, Throne World secrets, Master Vox Obscura, Wellspring, Iron Banner, Altars of Reflection, and our rituals… it’s difficult to think of how to even kick this TWAB off. Let’s stick to what rolled out on Tuesday at the weekly reset and go from there, shall we?
Over the last few weeks, the Vanguard has entertained a shaky alliance with Caiatl and the Cabal. A trusted Psion has been exploring the minds of Hive Lieutenants in the Tower, searching for clues on what the Lucent Brood are planning. The final PsiOps Battleground has been revealed on the Moon, and Saladin is calling for Guardians to stop whatever the Hive have started within the walls of the Scarlet Keep. If you haven’t logged in this week, now’s your time.
While some Guardians are just now hopping into The Witch Queen for the first time, a few of you are beginning to look at the next few weeks of the Season with excitement. This week, we’ll be looking through the calendar, and we have some news from the team on crafting currencies, with some additional notes on feedback that they’re monitoring.
Save the Date(s)
We’re just a few days away from our one-month anniversary of The Witch Queen. Some of you have blasted your way through the Legendary campaign, while others are still dabbling in side quests and secrets throughout the Throne World patrol area. We’ve still got a few months of Season of the Risen left, so there’s no rush in completing content. Finish things at your own pace and enjoy the ride! If you’re wondering what’s coming over the next few weeks, we’d like to plant a few dates on your calendar for things to look forward to.
We have some Iron Banner dates to share, raid challenges to complete, and Guardian Games coming towards the end of the Season. As a quick note, dates are subject to change. We’re also planning a few Gambit Labs weeks to sprinkle in, but want to let the dust settle from balance changes introduced at launch and a few tuning changes/bug fixes that are coming online.
- March 15 (This Week!): Iron Banner and a New PsiOps Battlegrounds Location
- March 22: Legend PsiOps Battlegrounds, Vow of the Disciple Challenges
- April 1: Trials Labs – Zone Capture
- April 5: Grandmaster Nightfalls
- April 8: Trials Labs – Freelance
- April 12: Iron Banner
- April 19: Vow of the Disciple Master Difficulty
- April 22: Trials Labs – Zone Capture
- May 3 – May 24: Guardian Games
- May 6: Trials Labs – Freelance, Community voted map
- May 10: Iron Banner
- May 20: Trials Labs – Freelance and Zone Capture
Stay tuned to our “Next Week in Destiny” within the game and keep an eye on @DestinytheGame for future announcements. Who knows, maybe we’ll have a few Bungie Bounties and community playdates to look forward to in April and May. See you soon!
Crafting – Let’s Talk Trait Element Caps
Over the last few weeks, Guardians have been crafting some spicy weapon rolls at the Enclave on Mars. Patterns have been discovered, traits have been enhanced, and Exotic Glaives have been shaped! As with all things Destiny, the team has been keeping an eye on player conversation around crafting, planning next steps, and looking towards the future. We’ve got a hotfix coming next Tuesday with a few minor changes, and some commentary on feedback items that the team will be looking to address in future patches and tuning passes.
Development Team: Since the launch of The Witch Queen, we’ve been watching some feedback on crafting currencies required for specific traits. One piece of feedback in particular deals with crafting element caps, as some players have been maxing out their elements frequently. Starting next Tuesday with Hotfix 4.0.0.4, we’ll be increasing element caps from 250 to 1000, and for Neutral Element, the cap will move from 8500 to 10000.
Next Season, we are removing Ruinous, Adroit, Mutable, Drowned, and Energetic elements. Only Neutral Elements will remain.
Our initial goals for these currencies were to sustain the interest in non-crafted weapon drops, and to retain the chase of weapons with well-rolled perks in a post-crafting Destiny 2. The desire was that the player would continually chase for combinations such as Subsistence plus Rampage to fuel their crafting progression through Deepsight weapon completion.
While not the only reasons we’re removing the specific currencies, there were two design changes pre-launch which made elements ineffectual:
We initially had a currency per trait perk (e.g., to craft with Rampage, you needed a weapon with Rampage), however due to technical and usability issues (too many currencies to track, for example), we opted to heavily simplify the element currencies to the handful we shipped at launch. This unfortunately resulted in a decreased interest in chasing a specific trait perk element.
Ascendant Alloys, the Exotic-quality crafting material that can be found through high-end content or purchased from Rahool for a high price, made the remaining condensed elements obsolete. The Ascendant Alloy currency was added after we had already condensed the elements, and we were unable to resolve the experiential issues between these two currencies prior to launch.
Specific elements such as Ruinous and Adroit became redundant and, in some cases, in conflict with Ascendant Alloys and Neutral Elements, so we’re removing them altogether.
Since launch, we’ve also been watching the player conversation and keeping tabs on backend data. While we don’t have specifics to share on future changes, we did want to note a few areas that we’re looking at:
- Looking to add more player control over Deepsight weapon unlocking of weapon Patterns.
- Continuing to monitor Deepsight weapon stockpiling, acquisition rates and progression, as well as Resonant Alloy acquisition rates and behavior.
- We’re also discussing feedback around reshaping costs for those who wish to experiment more frequently with their trait selections
Many thanks to all who’ve been sounding off with feedback. Even after these changes go live, we’ll continue to monitor the conversation. Pairing feedback with data will help inform our next steps as we continue to iterate on crafting.
Another Hotfix in the Pipe
Launch windows are always a thrilling time. Tons of content for players to chew on, and lots of ways to break things! We have a quick report from our DPS team, covering our next Hotfix timeline and some issues that we’re tracking.
This is their report.
HOTFIX 4.0.0.4
Next Tuesday, March 22, Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.0.0.4 will be released. View our Destiny Server and Update Status page for maintenance times, as well as the timeline below:
- 9 AM PDT (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance begins.
- 9:45 AM (1645 UTC): Destiny 2 is brought offline.
- 10 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.0.0.4 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.
- 11 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance completes.
BUNGIE REWARDS
KNOWN ISSUES
The Synaptic Fanatic Triumph may not unlock for some characters after unlocking 25 Artifact mods. Players can log into alternate characters to complete this Triumph if the characters haven’t unlocked all the mods yet. We’re investigating a fix if all characters have unlocked the mods and haven’t received the Triumph yet.
- Armor offered by Vendors has low-stat rolls.
- This includes Tower vendors, as well as Xûr.
- We are continuing to investigate an increase in MARMOT errors.
- The Season 15 Pathfinder and Season 14 Lightkin armor sets are no longer available to equip as ornaments if previously unlocked via Armor Synthesis.
- The yellow color for subtitles on the PS5 platform either isn’t noticeable or doesn’t appear anymore and only shows white text.
- Players who go Flawless in Trials aren’t receiving post-win weapons or rewards.
- Mementos aren’t dropping for players in Trials of Osiris.
- Players aren’t receiving credit for Vow of the Disciple raid carries.
- Some players can’t change their Bungie Name.
- The One of Us emblem doesn’t appear in Collections.
Movie of the Week Title
(This is totally placeholder, I swear.)
Hippy: Okay, okay; I won’t do a meme overload like I did last week, mostly because this week has been flooded with incredible Vow of the Disciple raid tributes, sick plays in PvP, and more than a few nods to this week’s storyline for Season of the Risen. Did we mention it’s hard to just pick a few videos of the week? Because you talented globs of goodness make it very, very difficult. And that’s a good thing, keep ‘em coming!
The first pick is just an epic video of impressive takedowns in PvP but with a beautiful backdrop consisting of lulling music and expert edits. Those that can’t do, teach – and nominate for MOTW, apparently.
The second pick is a booty-clenching moment in both the worst and best way possible when a fireteam managed to take out the raid boss on day-1 seconds after they thought all was lost. Epic.
Movie of the Week: Drown
Movie of the Week: Charging
Rhulk smash.
Sam: If you told me six months ago that part of my job would include looking for artwork and memes that showcase our community and the incredible things in game, I would have told you that you were a silly goose. However, you would have been right and goodness gracious am I thankful for that because it is one of my favorite parts of the week. This week we have some memes from our boy Rhulk.
Art of the Week: So, the lore….
Art of the Week: The ol’ razzle dazzle.
Enjoy a bit of Air
While many of us have been huddled inside watching the launch of The Witch Queen and Season of the Risen, we’ve almost missed the changing of seasons out there in the real world. We’ve just had to change our clocks here in the states (which still doesn’t make sense to me, and likely never will), we have been enjoying some spring weather between a few cold fronts and rain showers. While there’s a strong desire to stay inside and level up my Forensic Nightmare SMG, it’s also been nice to step outside for fresh air. Maintaining that balance is key to success, you know? Sometimes Cozmo tells me to go out and admire the feel and textures of a nearby park.
Game hard, but take care of yourselves. Sometimes a quick break is the thing you needed all along after being stuck on a difficult boss in higher level content. Good luck to all who are still taking on Legendary difficulty in The Witch Queen’s campaign, and cheers to those who are hopping in to their first-ever Destiny raids. We hope you’re having a good time.
Much love, and see you next time.
dmg04
