Destiny 2: Bungie outlines their plans for upcoming content, starting next week
Bungie delivers a look at the future of their action shooter Destiny 2 with a detailed blog post, explains changes and improvements - starting next week.
Last month Bungie spoke a little about their upcoming content for Destiny 2, and now they have outlined their plans in greater detail to explain what will happen with the future of the game. Luckily for most people you won't have long to wait for a number of these improvements as the first set of improvements will be launching on December 5th - the same day as the Curse of Osiris DLC arrives. Originally, Bungie wanted to do a livestream on the upcoming DLC weapons and talk more in detail about those, however due to criticism around the game they were forced to shift their plans to discuss what they plan to do to improve the state of the game.
Taking to their blog, Game Directors Luke Smith & Chris Barrett spoke a little about the lack of communication from the team, as well as being more open about their plans on the game with a focus on building communities for players to spend time in the game as they see fit.
Our team has been reading feedback and working on updates to improve the game. We’ve also been reading some tough criticism about our lack of communication, and we agree we need to be more open.
Going forward, Destiny 2’s post-launch game systems, features, and updates are being designed specifically to focus on and support players who want Destiny to be their hobby – the game they return to, and a game where friendships are made. We want Destiny to be a game that fits into your life, providing you with reasons to log in and play with your friends, clans, and families. We want Destiny to be a world you want to be a part of.
They've also admitted that it's annoying when there is a lack of communication from the team to the community, and they are promising more frequent updates in the future.
We know it’s frustrating when there isn’t enough of a dialog with the development team. You have our commitment that we’re going to do a better job going forward.
Upcoming Updates Overview
Here's a look at some of the upcoming improvements coming to Destiny 2, beginning next week with the launch of the Curse of Osiris DLC which will feature some of these changes. A number of changes will take a while to develop, and as such players should expect the majority of these changes in 2018 - with a new update from the team in the New Year.
New systems and rewards
- A new Weapon Tier known as "Masterworks" will feature stat trackers, random and re-rollable bonuses, unique item tooltips and detailed item screens.
- Improved Vendor Rewards will give more ways for people to spend their Legendary Shards and Tokens.
- Armor Ornaments will offer players new visual changes for their armour by completing specific challenges.
Better rewards for players who complete take on Prestige
- More will be revealed in January for new incentives with Prestige.
*Strikes, Adventures, and Lost Sectors will offer better rewards and replayability
- Next month will see a new "Heroic Strikes Playlist" and more lucrative Strike Rewards.
- Bungie will also improve rewards for Adventures and Lost Sectors, but these will not be ready for December.
The Crucible will get private matches
- Starting in Early 2018 players can finally get private matches - more details to arrive in the New Year.
- Ranked PVP will also be a top priority for the team and they want to support the competitive community.
Tuning coming to The Crucible for better Supremacy scoring and improved spawning
- Next month will bring a new of improvements to The Crucible, including updates and bug fixes to the various modes in PVP.
Better rewards for competing in PVP, and penalties for quitting early
- One thing Bungie wants to add is a new "Quitter Penalty" system and are currently working on it, with an update on the system promised for New Year.
Iron Banner and Faction Rallies will be improved further, including unique rewards
- Players can look forward to improvements with the next Iron Banner and Faction Rally, which starts in December with unique rewards.
Interesting and impactful changes coming to the mod economy
- Expect The Gunsmith to offer you updates on how you can acquire mods. More changes are planned for the system next year.
Improvements to Exotics, such as lowering duplicates from dropping
- Bungie have acknowledged that Exortics are under-performing and will continue to improve/update the system.
- The duplication protection will be added to upcoming Exotics in the New Year.
More ways to spend Legendary Shards and Tokens
- Too many excess tokens? Players can now find new ways to spend their Tokens and Legendary Shards on the Vendor Inventory (more below).
- Xur will also be featuring new items for players to grab.
A new Emote Interface will allow players to equip more emotes
- Ever wanted to add more emotes? Well a new interface will allow players equip all of their favourite emotes at once, an update for the system is coming next year.
December Updates
That's just a taste of what players can expect in the future, but what about next month? Bungie has promised to deliver a number of improvements to the game (as well as the upcoming DLC) starting with 4 major changes which will go live on either December 5th or December 12th.
- Deepen Rewards for advanced players
- Provide More Player Control over obtaining rewards
- Make Shards Useful by adding things to use them for
- Provide General Quality fixes wherever possible
Both the December 5th and December 12th updates will combine to offer the best possible experience, as well as bringing a number of systems to the game which we'll explore in detail below.
Masterworks
December 12th:
- Legendary Weapons will drop as or be upgraded to become Masterworks versions
- Masterworks will have a few advantages over the baseline Legendary weapon:
- Track and display the number of kills with that weapon (with choice between total count or Crucible-only count)
- Generate orbs for you and your allies on multi-kills
- Add weapon stat bonuses that are selected randomly from a small pool and are re-rollable Masterworks drop from any source of Legendary weapons for characters above 250 Power
- Unwanted Masterworks can be dismantled into materials that can upgrade an existing Legendary Weapon into a Masterwork
- Raid and Trials of the Nine Weapons will have a very high chance to be Masterworks We have future plans to extend Masterworks to other gear and expose your kill counts in more places (e.g. Crucible kill screen)
- Masterworks will have a few advantages over the baseline Legendary weapon:
Armor Ornaments
December 5th:
- Armor Ornaments will be added to some existing Armor sets for more visual customization without losing your Shaders or Mods
- These ornaments will be unlocked by completing objectives specific to each set, and are permanently unlocked account-wide, just like Exotic Weapon ornaments
- They will be applied to the base pieces that you may already have collected, and can now unlock on Vendors if not
- In Season 2, the following sets have ornaments unlocked in their respective activities:
- Vanguard Faction Armor
- Crucible Faction Armor
- Trials of the Nine Armor
- Iron Banner Armor
- Dead Orbit Armor
- Future War Cult Armor
- New Monarchy Armor
- Eater of Worlds Raid Lair Armor
December 12th:
- Faction Armor and Weapons will be unlocked for purchase for Legendary Shards and Faction Tokens on most Faction Vendors
- All five Armor Slots will always be present, and Weapons will rotate weekly on Factions that have them
- Slots will be unlocked by claiming Reward Engrams from the respective Faction
- You will get credit for engrams you may have already claimed since launch
- Xur has some new offerings for players collecting Exotics:
- Every week, you’ll be able to acquire one of the new Fated Engrams using Legendary Shards that will decrypt as Exotics that aren’t already in your collection
- A simpler Three of Coins that boosts Exotic drop rates from any source for 4 hours
- No obscure stacking mechanics or need to re-apply before every boss
- These cost Legendary Shards and you can have as many as you like
General Investment
December 5th:
- Banshee has some updates on the Weapon and Armor Mod front:
- For players wanting to clear some Mod inventory space, Rare quality Mods will dismantle into Gunsmith Materials and have a chance to produce Legendary quality Mod Components
- For players chasing specific Legendary Mods (including Legendary Kinetic Mods), Banshee will offer a selection of specific Legendary Mods for direct purchase, with a selection that will rotate daily and cost Legendary Shards and Mod Components
For players chasing a world Legendary or looking for Masterworks, Master Rahool will sell some of his rumored hoard of Legendary Engrams for Legendary Shards
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Changes affecting Reputation Tokens:
- Daily Challenges will have Reputation Token awards increased across the board
- Cayde’s Treasure Chests still offer variable rewards, but now guarantee (at minimum) a payout of destination appropriate Reputation Tokens
- Strikes will drop a larger number of Vanguard Reputation Tokens
- Common quality Destination Resource Tokens will have their drop rates increased to 100%, and values per Token increased as well (by 50% for common quality Tokens and 250% for rare quality Tokens)
- On the balance, Reputation required per Reward Engram will increase for Destination Factions (+37%) and Gunsmith (+50%)
- Leviathan Raid Tokens will be redeemed at Benedict immediately upon obtaining a Token, instead of requiring a full clear before unlocking
December 12th:
- Commander Zavala and Lord Shaxx will sell Gift consumables for Legendary Shards that can be used during a Strike or Crucible Match that will serve the following functions:
- Grant bonus rewards to everyone in that activity upon completion, friend or foe alike
- Award anything from Faction Tokens to a round of Exotics for everyone in the match
- Exploit safeguards on Chests and Resource Nodes are greatly relaxed and players should encounter them less frequently
- Even if they do, drop rates for Tokens is only reduced to 30% instead of 0%, and Glimmer will be unaffected
- We want to associate a visual indicator with this in a future update, but we weren’t able to pull that off in this update (but we hear you!)
- Vendors will now beckon you to hand in your Reputation Tokens only when you’re carrying enough to earn a Reward Engram
XP Improvements
Last week saw Bungie disabling the scaling mechanic for the XP in Destiny 2, which changed how gains were given for activities, however this was not reflected with the UI. The idea was to allow players who took on slower-paced activities to get the same type of XP as those who took on the highly intensive grinding, but the system did not do a good job in it's approach.
Bungie was able to disable the system with a server update, but they are now looking to a new solution to re-balance the XP in Destiny 2 - with work already started on the changes. One of the biggest concerns with the changed XP system was regarding the 160K XP per level, and they agree that the leveling is too slow for some activities. They've promised to re-balance XP rates as they collect more data as soon as possible. XP Boosts (both passive and consumable) were applied after the system, which should not unaffected by the changes made to disabling the system.
They are focused on XP changes and we'll get more updates regarding this matter in the near future, as they bring the rewards back in line with what players expect.
What comes next?
Bungie wants to be committed to keeping their community informed as much as they can, which is something they will be doing frequently in the future. Later this week they have promised to release a new podcast to discuss the state of Destiny 2, which will give players an idea of their communication going forward.
The launch of the upcoming Curse of Osiris DLC will bring mark the start of Season 2, which will bring with it a number of changes and patch notes will be available soon. They've also promised to deliver pre-load and launch day details for the DLC, including a roadmap for their Season 2 content which adds "The Dawning" in mid-December.
Destiny 2 Curse of Osiris launches on December 5th with the Season Pass (or Deluxe Edition). It will also bring some of the changes listed above, with more coming December 12th and then early next year.