This Week At Bungie - 05/23/2019

This week at Bungie, we're setting the stage for Season of Opulence. 

The next season begins in less than two weeks. On June 4, we'll deliver the full and final patch notes.  Before that happens, though, we'd like to share with you some more of the key changes you'll be seeing in Season of Opulence.

From One Season to the Next

As Season of the Drifter comes to a close, a new source for powerful rewards will emerge. The Drifter will return to his role as your Gambit hype man, and Benedict 99-40 is about to become your source for brand new secrets and rewards.  Let's take a look at how this new perspective will be making some sweeping changes to your weekly routine...

Power Surge 

• Instead of a set of bounties, a new Power Surge quest will be your jumping off point for Season of Opulence
• You will need to complete this quest to access the new Raid!
• Learning from Season of the Forge, this quest must be completed only once per account
• After one character completes the quest, alternate characters will be rewarded with Surge gear at Power Level 690

Gambit Bounties

• We didn't want rewards from The Drifter to be one of the primary sources of power following his run as the central character for Season of the Drifter
• As a result, Power boosts received from Gambit Bounties will decrease once you've achieved 700 Power
• They will decrease even further once you reached 720 Power

Prime Attunements

• On day one, prime attunements will be reset to two charges for each player
• You'll receive two new prime attunements, even if you were playing right up to the reset
• We want you to be able to play your favorite character without it impacting your power leveling strategy. We talked about this in a previous TWAB

Crown of Sorrow Raid

• The Crown of Sorrow raid begins on day one of Season of Opulence at 4 PM PDT
• Players who want to compete will need to complete the Power Surge Quest
• We've taken additional steps to level the playing field for World First status
• All player power will be capped at power under each encounter within the raid for the first 24 hours
  • While Contest is active, players will face an enforced challenge throughout the Raid. This means, Power beyond certain levels will provide no advantage for a given fight (e.g., for the first fight all Power above 700 won't provide an advantage, and for the final fight Power above 720 will not provide an advantage). 
  • We are going to deploy the update at 8AM Pacific and the game will be down until 10AM Pacific, so that as many players as possible can get through the download and verification step and be ready for Opulence launch. 
• Our goals for this cap:
  • Progression that challenges raiders to climb to compete for World First
  • A World First race that tests your skill, communication, and strategy
  • A World First raid that is fair

Eververse Updates

With Season of Opulence, we're making some changes to the Eververse store. 

We had two main goals for the changes we're making to Eververse in Season of Opulence:

Direct Pick:  

• Every new Eververse item in Season of Opulence will be available for direct purchase via Silver or Bright Dust
• Most of these offers will be time limited, with new items available weekly

Greatest Hits:  

• Season of Opulence's Bright Engram will contain a collection of community favorite legacy items, with a focus on the "Best of Year One."  
• If you missed out on Spicy Ramen or the Selfie Emote, Season of Opulence is your chance

Some additional details:

Armor:

• Full armor sets will be made available as a single, per class bundle, as opposed to being offered only via Bright Engrams
• Individual Armor pieces can also be purchased for Bright Dust whenever they appear on the storefront
• These Armor pieces feature fixed perk rolls that are not randomized across duplicates

A Simpler Interface

• Specific items are now featured on the front page and will be cycled with each weekly reset
• Most offers will be time-limited to make way for rotating inventory, with some coming back into rotation at a later date
•  Players can access this new interface by visiting Tess in her usual Tower location

Wrapped Items and Refunds

• Individual items purchased for Silver will now go to the relevant character inventory location in a "wrapped" state
• Example: A sparrow purchased directly for Silver will arrive "wrapped" in the Sparrow inventory
• To use an item, it must be "opened" just like a bundle
• Once opened, the item functions and can be accessed normally
• If you wish to refund an item, you will have seven days from purchase to do so
• Items that have been opened cannot be refunded

All of these changes go live on day one of Season of Opulence. As always, we'll be monitoring how this all works, and are eager to hear what you do and don't like about the new storefront.

At Your Service

Batman had Alfred. Iron Man had Jarvis. You have our Player Support Team.

This is their report.

Crown of Sorrow Raid: Day One Preparations
As soon as Season of Opulence kicks off on June 4, the World first race for the Crown of Sorrow raid will begin. To help illustrate a more definitive starting line, we've provided vital information below that Day One contenders should be aware of.

• Players will not be able to access the Crown of Sorrow raid if they have not yet completed the Season of Opulence Power Surge quest, even after this raid unlocks at 4 PM PDT. This will apply to all members in a Fireteam. We'll have more information on this experience as we get closer to June 4.
• Players who join in progress during the Crown of Sorrow raid's first encounter will spawn in dead outside of the encounter space. To mitigate this issue, all Fireteam members must join up in Orbit prior to launching the Crown of Sorrow raid activity.

Look forward to reading more information as we get closer to the Season of Opulence launch.

Seasonal Weapon Drops
After Season of the Drifter concludes on June 4, the following weapons will be unavailable to unlock at their respective vendors for a limited time. An issue was discovered late in development, and we are working on a fix for a future patch.

• Service Revolver from Commander Zavala
• Last Perdition from Lord Shaxx

Players who have already unlocked these Year 2 variants will continue to receive them as random drops from rank up packages. Players who do not unlock these weapons by the June 4 deadline will be able to acquire the weapons once they are addressed in a future update.

It's worth noting that pursuit rewards such as The Recluse, Oxygen SR3, and 21% Delirium will continue to be available.

Movie of the Week

We're always watching. Here is the stuff we saw that made us smile. To the filmmakers go a precious emblem as evidence of their skills.

Movie of the Week: Toland's Warning

Honorable Mention: The Beauty of Destiny 2

These are some of the game changers you'll discover when Season of Opulence begins, but we have even more to show next week.  We're already working on a preview of new Pinnacle Weapons. We've also seen a preview of the new Raid jacket that is totally awesome. With the finer points for the systemic changes on the table, we can next turn our attention to revealing the places you'll go and the reasons you'll fight.

Right now, our focus is on Opulence. But after the Season has launched and Raid belts have been awarded, we'll be looking deeper into the future, and sharing with you more about a new era for Bungie and Destiny 2.

Buckle up and stay tuned. 

DeeJ, out.