This Week At Bungie - 4/25/2019

This week at Bungie, Saladin joins the Revelry. 

The Power-enabled combat of Iron Banner is live, and Guardians are mixing things up a bit. Wolf's Favors, Iron Burdens, and the Reveler's Tonic have all combined for a lively event. Whether you're skipping grenades or hunting Iron Banner rewards, this is a week to break the rules and experiment with your loadouts. Double Valor is currently available, with Triple Valor beginning tomorrow at 10 AM PDT.

Last week, we covered some sandbox Super tuning on its way in Destiny 2 Update 2.2.2, planned for next month. Today, we'll be looking at some changes currently in development for Season of Opulence, which is a bit further out. Read on to learn how the pinnacle Hand Cannons of Destiny 2 will be changing.

Balance the Bite

At the release of Destiny 2: Forsaken, two pinnacle weapons became available for players to earn in the Competitive playlist in the Crucible. Each weapon has a unique quest, requiring mastery of Hand Cannons to complete. There has been a lot of feedback on how the pinnacle Crucible Hand Cannons stand above most other weapons in the sandbox. Today, we'll be going through some balance changes planned for Season of Opulence. We wanted to start this conversation early, to ensure players understood that change was coming, even if they were still on the path to acquiring these rewards. Here's the Destiny Dev Team to walk us through the planned changes:

Dev Team: We wanted to give you a preview of some plans we have to balance Luna's Howl and Not Forgotten in Season of Opulence. After significant amounts of feedback, internal discussion, and playtesting, we've decided to adjust how these Hand Cannons work. For some players, these weapons can represent a significant investment of time and the personal improvement needed to acquire them. When tuning, we attempt to take into account the time commitment players make to acquire weapons and balance that against how those weapons affect the different game modes.

Magnificent Howl (the unique perk on these weapons) is too effective. It works in a neutral setting and rewards players for getting precision shots—something they would have done naturally. As a result, the time to kill of the game shifts to meet this new benchmark, and players feel that the majority of primary weapons in Destiny 2 cannot compete with these pinnacle weapons.

Our current plan is to make Luna's Howl and Not Forgotten the only 150 RPM precision Hand Cannons. They will maintain some aspects of their current behavior while taking on the firing speed and damage of the 150 RPM Hand Cannons. Magnificent Howl will also be adjusted so that it increases only body-shot damage, resulting in a two headshot/one body-shot kill. Magnificent Howl will still give an advantage due to requiring less precision hits for optimal time to kill.

Like we do whenever Destiny gameplay evolves, we'll be watching the conversation starting today on our planned changes. We'll continue collecting feedback once these changes go live at the beginning of Season of Opulence. If you have feedback now, please make sure to sound off on the #Destiny2 forum, right here on bungie.net

Revelry: Verdant Light

Last week, Revelry Orbs were disabled in Gambit, Gambit Prime, raids, and Competitive Crucible due to an increase in GUITAR errors and activity disconnections. As multiple sources of progress for the "Verdant Light: Competitive" Triumph are no longer available, the team has been investigating a change to the requirements for completion.

As the above listed activities no longer provide progress, players are required to create 200 orbs by defeating other Guardians with precision kills in Quickplay, Rumble, and the featured Crucible playlist. This week, that playlist is Iron Banner, for example.

At this time, our current plan is to reduce this requirement to 20 orbs.

This change will be deployed after the Revelry ends, in Destiny 2 Update 2.2.2. Players who meet the requirement of 20 orbs will have the Triumph auto-complete after downloading the patch, which will also unlock the "Party Harder" Triumph and "Stimulant Spring" Emblem reward if all other Revelry Triumphs have been completed.

Exploring the Curse

Last month, we featured a string of three Bungie Bounties to celebrate Season of the Drifter and Gambit Prime. A few of you have been asking when we'd be jumping back on stream with a Ride Along. With the curse in full effect this week, it's the perfect time to engage in some developer commentary in a live-fire environment.

Shattered Throne Ride Along
Monday, April 29
2:30 PM Pacific
Twitch.tv/Bungie

We'll have Bungie developers in the hot seats to speak to their inspirations, share some behind the scenes stories of development, and answer a few questions. Get ready for a fun ride. We'll see you in chat.

At the Ready

With Season of the Drifter, new activities and weekly rituals became available to owners of the Annual Pass. Destiny Player Support has been investigating reports of various issues, and this week brings vital information regarding the Invitations of the Nine.

This is their report.

Denial of the Nine
Tomorrow, the seventh Invitation of the Nine will become available from Xûr. Before this pursuit goes live, we'd like to make players aware of a blocking issue, which we are currently working on.

Tomorrow's invitation, titled "The Tower," will require players to complete the Hollowed Lair strike and defeat Hive, Scorn, and Vex on the Tangled Shore. Currently, this invitation cannot be completed, since Vex are not available as enemies at any location on the Tangled Shore. This issue does not impact previous Invitations of the Nine, only "The Tower" invitation is currently blocked. We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

For more information as soon as it is available, please follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed on help.bungie.net.

Spring Fever
On Tuesday, the Revelry kicked off its second week in Destiny 2.

Whether you're plundering the depths of the Verdant Forest or you're bringing a good mood to your favorite activity, there's still another full week ahead of us before the Revelry ends at the weekly reset on May 7, 2019.

As a reminder, each new week brings a refresh of weekly bounties to Eva Levante. Players can complete these bounties to earn powerful Inaugural Revelry gear, as well as earn progress toward the "A Bountiful Spring" Triumph. Once the Revelry concludes, all unearned and unclaimed Triumphs will be hidden, so players are encouraged to party hard while they still can.

Additionally, we'd like to remind players that we're tracking the following known issues in the Revelry:

• Virescent Emblem Tracking: We're investigating an issue where the Virescent emblem doesn't track the deepest branch reached during a single run of the Verdant Forest.
• Revelric Light and GUITAR Errors: To mitigate issues causing elevated GUITAR errors in Destiny 2, Revelric Light orb generation has been disabled in raids, Gambit, Gambit Prime, and Competitive Crucible.
• Jubilant Engrams: We have identified an issue where Jubilant Engrams are not knocking out items as expected when opened across multiple characters. We will be reaching out to affected players to resolve this issue after the Revelry event has ended.
• PC Players, Bergusia Forge and Ornaments: We're investigating an issue where PC players who wear Revelry ornaments near the Bergusia Forge experience crashing. To mitigate this issue, it's recommended to remove the Revelry ornament before going to the Forge.

For more information on the Revelry, players should visit our Revelry Guide.

Demolish Your Foes

The Revelry is all about breaking rules, and a few of you are having a field day. Brew your tonic and drink up, because the following videos may inspire you to throw more grenades.

Movie of the Week: Tripping over mines

Runner Up: Verdant Forest Solo : 5 Bosses Defeated

Runner Up: Perfect Grenades Don't Exist

If you'd like a chance at the Lens of Fate emblem, be sure to submit your footage to the Community Creations portal on bungie.net.

We're almost to the weekend, and I'm feeling heavy as death. Not in a bad way—truly! I'm on the grind toward the reward for 2,500 Iron Burden kills in the Iron Banner. I don't know about you, but this is my favorite emblem in Destiny 2, with a badass name to boot.

I admit, the challenge is difficult. Tasking myself to fight against enemies at a 100 Power deficit is a wild ride. I've had to change the way I approach most engagements, but I'm getting closer and closer to my prize with each game.

Maybe I'll see you out there. Apologies if you're in the sights of my Arbalest.

Cheers,
Dmg04