This Week at Bungie - 9/19/2019

This week at Bungie, we went on the record about our plans for the third year of Destiny 2.

It takes a big team of talented people to make a game that truly feels alive. You can see a bunch of those team members, either hard at work or talking about our goals, in the newest Bungie ViDoc. If you missed this invitation into our studio, give it a watch now. Or give it a watch again.

Shadowkeep is just the beginning—and it begins in under two weeks!

They're Not Belts

On Saturday, October 5, Guardians will venture into a new raid: Garden of Salvation. Many of you have been to the Black Garden before, but don't be fooled—an entirely new challenge awaits you. 

Contest mode will be active for the first 24 hours, similar to the Crown of Sorrow World First competition. While Contest is active, players will face an enforced challenge throughout the raid. Power beyond certain levels will provide no additional advantage for a given fight (e.g., for the first fight, Power above 890 doesn't provide an advantage, and for the final fight, Power above 920 doesn't provide an advantage). 

After the 24-hour period ends, we will disable Contest mode, and players can take full advantage of their higher Power to overcome the raid's challenges.

As always, we will be watching as fireteams race to claim the prestige of being World First to complete the raid. Their prize, besides bragging rights of course, will be this custom-made Garden of Salvation World First Belt.

The Big Show pointed out during our World First ceremony at GuardianCon (now known as GCX) this year, that they are not belts; they are titles. But since we have "titles" in the game we are going to keep calling them belts. Sorry Big Show.

You can read the full rules here. The gist is: Only the final six players of the winning fireteam to finish the activity will receive a belt. The first fireteam to complete the raid and return to orbit will be declared the winner. Unlike in previous raids, the winning team won't receive an Exotic drop from the final encounter, so don't rely on your loot stream to determine whether you may have won. We'll check our data before crowning the official winners from @Bungie.

If you are not first, you don't have to be last. All Guardians who complete the raid within the first 24 hours will be able to show off this exclusive emblem.

We also have this emblem available to anyone who completes the raid at their leisure. 

Stay tuned as we reveal more Bungie Rewards in Season of the Undying!

Applied Science

There has been an annoying bug in the UI where you would try to apply something like a shader or a mod and nothing would happen. The bar would fill up, but the desired action would not be applied. Sometimes it would fail multiple times. You could feel your blood pressure rise with each futile attempt. Back in update 2.5.0, we issued a fix for this issue. And it worked... kind of. But any fix that doesn't completely solve the problem is no fix it all. So we went back to work. We have a fix that should squash this bug for good coming up with Shadowkeep on October 1. Here is the Destiny Dev Team to give you some behind-the-scenes info on what was going on with the apply button and what we are doing to fix it.

Destiny Dev Team: The inconsistency of the apply button stems from overly aggressive safety features designed to protect your character from accidental UI interactions. 

The first safety feature was cursor movement detection. If we noticed any amount of cursor movement while the apply button was held, we'd cancel the action to prevent you from accidently applying your action to the wrong item. Because it is fairly easy to experience a small amount of mouse movement while clicking a mouse button, this restriction impacted PC players much more than console players. We removed the cursor movement detection in 2.5.0. Now we only check to see if the cursor has moved off the item.

The second safety feature is a bit more complicated. Let's say you're applying a mod. While you're holding down the button, a new mod shows up in your inventory at the start of the list, and shifts all the other mods displayed in the UI over one slot. The cursor is now hovering over a different mod, but the cursor hasn't moved. In this kind of situation, we want to make absolutely sure that we don't insert the wrong mod because that action can't be undone. To protect against this, we cancel the action if we detect any change to your character page. This is problematic because there are a myriad of stats we track and countless things happening around you that can cause a number on your character page to change. Even if you're sitting in orbit, getting a clan XP notification is enough to cancel the apply button.

While the protection described above serves as a good general safety net, it has clearly reached its limits. In 2.6.0, our plan is to tweak this protection. When we detect an update to your character page, we will check if the cursor is still hovering over the same item. If the cursor is still over the same item, we won't cancel the action.

Preparing for Launch

As we go over our final checklists before launch, player support will be acting as your ground control. If your mission to the moon experiences any unexpected issues, let them know on the help forum and they'll get the right people working the problem. Remember to read the gauge before you stir the tanks. 

This is their report.

Update 2.6.0 Deployment and PC Migration

This week, we'd like to begin setting expectations on what the Shadowkeep launch experience will be for existing PC players on October 1.

On October 1, prior to the official launch of Shadowkeep, Destiny 2 will be taken offline for maintenance on all platforms. During this maintenance window, PC players who have linked their Steam accounts to their Bungie.net profile will automatically have their Guardians and Silver transferred from Battle.net to Steam.

Once maintenance concludes and Shadowkeep has officially launched, PC players who've undergone Steam linking will be able to launch Destiny 2 on Steam and immediately access their Guardians and Silver. However, migrated PC players should be aware that there will be a delay in the transfer of their Destiny 2: Forsaken licenses from Battle.net to Steam.

After the launch of Shadowkeep, Forsaken license transfers for Steam-linked PC players will continue in the background until they are complete. While that work is underway, PC players can access all Destiny 2 content not reliant on a Forsaken license, as well as new Shadowkeep content if owned on Steam. And of course, all New Light content will be available to all players, for free.

Examples of Forsaken content that will not be available to migrated PC players during this window:

• Forsaken campaign missions
• Forsaken quest content
• The Last Wish raid
• The Shattered Throne dungeon

Examples of Forsaken activities that will be available to players immediately, since they will be bundled in with New Light:

• Gambit playlist activities
• Forsaken strikes in strike playlist activities
• Forsaken maps in Crucible playlist activities
• Patrols on the Tangled Shore destination
• Patrols on the Dreaming City destination

For information on maintenance times when they become available, players should follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed on help.bungie.net.

Battle.net Code Redemption for Destiny 2

Another item of housekeeping as we transition from Battle.net to Steam is about the redemption of Destiny 2 codes for Battle.net.

Players should be aware that any Battle.net code they possess for Destiny 2 content MUST be redeemed on their Battle.net account before they perform PC Migration. Players who have already prepared for PC Migration have until the start of Destiny 2 maintenance on October 1 to redeem any unused Battle.net codes - to have that license transfer to their Steam account.

Players who migrate to Steam after our October 1 maintenance must also ensure that their Battle.net code is redeemed before they link their Steam account. Once a Steam account is linked, their Guardians, Silver, and game licenses will be automatically migrated from Battle.net to Steam. This is a one-time process that cannot be repeated for new licenses. For information on Battle.net code redemption, players should visit Blizzard's How to Claim a Code knowledgebase article.

It's worth noting that all content which was previously included in the base Destiny 2 game, Curse of Osiris, or Warmind, will be available to all players for free through the launch of Destiny 2: New Light on October 1.

REMINDER: Steam Linking and PC Migration

Once again, we'd like to remind PC players to link their Steam accounts to their Bungie.net profile in preparation for our migration to Steam on October 1.

From October 1 onward, any existing PC player who links a Steam account to their Bungie.net profile will automatically be migrated forward to the Steam ecosystem.

To prevent the unintentional loss of Guardians, game licenses, and Silver, it is imperative that all PC players make sure they are linking their correct Steam AND Battle.net accounts to their Bungie.net profile.

REMINDER: Destiny 2 and Silver Purchases on Battle.net

We'd also like to remind PC players that Destiny 2 game content and Destiny 2 Silver can no longer be purchased from the Battle.net shop.

Existing PC players can continue to play on Battle.net until Destiny 2 migrates to Steam on October 1. At that time, new players are also welcome to jump in with the launches of New Light and Shadowkeep.

Additionally, every existing PC player should be aware that in order for recent Silver purchases to successfully transfer to Steam, players MUST log in to Destiny 2 on Battle.net before October 1 to claim their purchased Silver.

Existing Campaign Progress and New Light

Lastly, this week we'd like to make players aware of how New Light will impact their existing progress for the Red War, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken campaigns.

On October 1, after Destiny 2 Update 2.6.0 rolls out, players who have not completed any of the above Destiny 2 campaigns will have progress toward that campaign reset. For example: any player who has not completed the Forsaken campaign will have to restart that campaign after 2.6.0 maintenance on October 1.

It's worth noting, however, that most endgame activities will generally be available to players as soon as they unlock their corresponding destinations. This is as a part of the accelerated player progression that will be introduced with New Light on October 1.

Silence You Phones

Once again we honor creative players in our community with a little something called Movie of the Week. This is where we pick our favorite community-made videos and award their creators with a special emblem. 

Movie of the Week: Oh Listener Mine

Honorable Mention: Jotunn for Real

It's good to be back. I've kept an eye on things, checking in on the community during late-night feedings, but it's nice to finally be back in the studio where it happens. Just in time too, as Dmg required a jumpstart to get his ticker ticking correctly. Send him some love as he rests up.

Shadowkeep is just around the corner. Next week will be the final TWAB before we let you loose on the Moon. From there, things escalate quickly with the raid and a full calendar of content going live throughout the Season of the Undying. See you soon on the Moon. 

<3 Cozmo