Bungie Weekly Update - Oct 22 at 10:03:12 PM

This week at Bungie we ambushed you with a Hot Fix!

Like a digital sneak attack, it rifled through the tubes of the Internet and landed squarely on your console. Well, perhaps that metaphor isn't entirely accurate. We did preview it a little this helpful tip:

Improvements to Nightfall rewards are coming tomorrow morning. To benefit this week, don't play it until the patch deploys at around 10AM.

— Bungie (@Bungie) October 19, 2015

The rest of the contents were a surprise. We talk more about the big updates in advance. Smaller fixes like 2.0.1.2 have longer numbers and let us address immediate needs, like making certain activities a little more rewarding and making those pesky new Void Hunters a lot less Shadowshotty.

If you haven't played Destiny since Tuesday, there's a shiny download waiting for you. If you haven't visited us on Bungie.net since then, we've missed you. Read these Patch Notes to see what's new.

The next big update coming to Destiny, labeled 2.0.2, will arrive in November. We think you'll find a few bullet points you'll want to fire. Today, we're going to visit with some of the Bungie developers who have been working on some new solutions for issues you've been talking about.

Guardians vs. Guardians

Like the battle that rages there, the Crucible is never finished. To keep you in the fashion of combat against sentient opponents, our design team is keeping the arena on the bleeding edge of evolution.

Design Lead Lars Bakken is making sure that our promises of greater rewards from Lord Saladin aren't ironic:

Lars: Last week, it was clear to us that you were frustrated by the Iron Banner reward drops, and rightly so! It turns out that, when we started digging into the issue, we uncovered a nasty bug that affected how Legendary drops happen throughout the Crucible, including Iron Banner.

We're working hard to ensure that the next Iron Banner will work as intended, and be even better than before. These changes will make your entire Crucible career more rewarding. Once the final details are locked, we'll be sure to share them with you. Thanks for all the feedback, and may the Lords of Iron reward your future bravery.

Senior Designer Andrew Weldon has some ideas for how we can prevent a mutiny on the Bounty:

Andrew: As we continue to review and evaluate the dozens of Bounties in The Taken King, we've already identified a few that aren't quite doing what we want. You'll be able to read the exact details in the patch notes. In general, we're going to be addressing some bounties that are too hard to complete, demand too much carnage at once, or put too much requirement on other players.

Our goal is that most Daily Crucible Bounties can be knocked out within a handful of matches. Weekly Bounties and larger scoped event Bounties should require some more commitment and - in some cases - a little extra muscle to accomplish. As with the rest of the game, we'll be keeping an eye on data as well as your feedback to identify fixes and areas where we can continue to improve and expand our Bounty offerings both in this update and into the future.

Senior Designer Leif Johansen wants to make sure my friend Tortacular doesn't murder Lord Shaxx:

Leif: With The Taken King, we introduced a new Questline for the Crucible called "Crucible Forged." Our goals with the Questline were to onboard players that may be intimidated by PvP into new games modes and playstyles. In hindsight, it felt really freakin' long (like, glacially long), the rewards weren't good enough for the effort, and only awarding progress on winning in certain steps led to frustration and quitting.

Going forward, the Questline will be shorter. Completing matches will give you progress in most cases, and we'll be giving you more freedom to choose how you complete it. Instead of having to complete one Quest at a time, you can complete multiple Quests all at once. This should enable you to progress though many steps at once, and you should have an easier time pairing up with friends to finish it. And, the Crucible Weekly Bounty rewards have already been buffed in 2.0.1.2, so you should see some more endgame-level gear for your weekly efforts.

This bountiful feast of fresh carnage will arrive before Thanksgiving, if all goes well. While you wait for us to deploy the products of our fresh labor, you can also look forward to the promised return of Trials of Osiris. Now that Nightstalkers have been brought back down to the level playing field, Brother Vance is as ready to fire up the Lighthouse as you are to go there.

The competition resumes on Friday, October 30th. Mark your calendars. Upgrade your weapons. Stand together or die alone.

Guardians vs. Oryx

"But DeeJ, I don't play in the Crucible," you say. I saw you coming from a mile away, my friend.

If merciless artificial-intelligence is your sworn enemy, the next hurdle for you to clear is a less kinder, less gentler Oryx. As previously announced, tomorrow morning, King's Fall Hard Mode will welcome all challengers. That's Friday, October 23rd, at 10AM Pacific. Put on something with a LOT of Light and meet your friends in orbit.

Before you return to the Dreadnaught with your team, we thought you might like to meet the leader of our team. Lead Designer Gavin Irby is on point with the people at Bungie who create the pinnacle activities at the top of your mountaintop.

Gavin: Although I'm unlikely to be known by many of you, I've been intimately involved with Destiny Raids since Vault of Glass. Our team began as an interesting collaboration between people who had made shooters, but not Raids, and people who had made Raids, but not shooters. In a lot of ways, our conversation is mirrored by the Destiny community; long-time Raid veterans and action-game wunderkinder have come together to share stories, strategies, and knowledge. I feel like we're all in the same experiment together, and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

But enough about me. Let's talk about King's Fall!

I've seen a lot of speculation online about the mechanics for Hard Mode. Will Oryx choose a random player to be Torn Between Dimensions? Does Golgoroth blind the taunters? Did we replace every combatant with Taken Captains? Let's just cut to the chase, because I think we all really know what Hard Mode is going to be this time around: Everything is clockwise. BAM!

Okay, so that's a joke. I don't want to spoil the actual mechanics. Instead, I'd like to describe our process for developing Hard Mode in King's Fall.

This time, we followed a subtractive approach by building the mechanics early on. For a long time, we play-tested internally in Hard Mode, treating it as the default experience. Once we were satisfied, we removed them to arrive at the Raid you have already played.

For the mechanics themselves, we shied away from simply increasing sandbox difficulty (not that it won't be harder). You've had time to hone your strategies and develop a rhythm. Some of you might even be able to do it backwards, blindfolded, or upside-down. Hard Mode is going to upset that rhythm. We're going to give you one more plate to spin, and make you think on your feet.

Good luck out there, Guardians! You can be sure that we'll be watching, and playing right there along beside you.

I'm tuning my browser to Twitch. We like to watch at Bungie. Anyone out there ready to knock Team BroGothRex off their smug platform?

World First Pro-Tip: Return to Orbit! Bungie User Research would like you to know that, according to their database, your Raid activity is only complete once you vacate the Destination. Kill Oryx and get out of there. Celebratory dancing could rob you of your glory.

Good luck.

Lost and Found

Among the many vendors that support your Guardian lifestyle in the Tower, you'll find the Postmaster. More affectionately known as Kadi 55-30, she's not the most vivid player on the City stage. We don't even think she has a parody Twitter account like the Cryptarch. So sad!

Kadi 55-30 deserves more respect. She's the nice robot that makes sure you never miss an Engram. All she asks is that you don't leave them on her shelves to collect dust. We're taking a moment to remind you that if you ask Kadi to hang to more than 20 items, she'll throw them away. Now that Eververse Trading is on the scene, loot overflow could lead to serious trouble.

"Too many packages. Tracking subroutines failing. Tess upset. Oh dear. Oh dear. No logs. Packages lost."

Don't let that happen to you! Please keep your inventory orderly. Claim your lost and found items from the Postmaster as they arrive.

Happy hunting.

Need To Know Basis

What do you need to know to keep playing Destiny? If it's a technical issue, you have Destiny Player Support.

DPS: During Iron Banner, it became apparent to many Guardians that Nightstalker Hunters had near infinite arrows in their Quiver. In case you missed it, Hot Fix 2.0.1.2 was released on Tuesday, 10/20/2015. This contained a temporary fix which disabled the additional arrow shots granted with the "Quiver" sub-class node. This node will be restored in a future update, but don't count on it immediately carrying your Raid group to victory when King's Fall Hard Mode launches on 10/23/2015.

With the return of Tess Everis, we recently launched a new reporting tool to gather information and hear directly from you. We've expanded this reporting tool to cover any issues you may see for the Destiny Companion on Bungie.net or the iOS/Android app. If you encounter any bugs, usability issues or account problems you can utilize these new Contact Forms starting today. Keep in mind, these Contact Forms are largely for data collection. If you send in information, it may not net a response but we'll keep track of the stats. Consider it our own personal Sports Almanac for reference. 

You don't need to wait for this weekly report to get the support you need as a player, by the way. Let us know if we can #Help you in the future.

Flix Pix

Yoohoo! He'll make you famous.

Cozmo: Last week we featured several videos of Guardians showing off their new emotes. This week, we have a collection of Super videos. Some of them feature Guardians using Supers in amazing ways. Others show Guardians shutting down enemies using said Supers with hilarious results. As always, MOTW winners will be receiving a special emblem. Please allow three to four business days for it to arrive. We'll pay for the shipping. If you desire that emblem, make a submission to the Creations page.

On to the winners. Roll that beautiful Destiny footage.

Movie of the Week: An easy Hammer of Sol counter that Sunbreakers don't want you to know about.

Honorable Mention: Check out this Seventh Column medal that will shock you!

Honorable Mention: This Bubble Bro is shutting down Supers. Hunters hate him.

Now that Cozmo has baited your mouse, there's nothing left to do here. If you need me, I'll be on my perch, supervising Rahool.

Back to work, Master. Do your job right. We're all counting on you.

DeeJ, out.