This Week At Bungie - 4/2/2020

This week at Bungie, we look towards Io.

So, you're a few weeks into your seasonal journey. You've cleared the EDZ Bunker of Fallen, and have been taking the Hive to task on the Moon. You've reclaimed The Fourth Horseman, and maybe even completed its catalyst. So, what's next?

Tuesday, the final Seraph bunker will open on Io. New Seraph weapons and seasonal mods enter the mix, giving you more options to build your monster-killing machine. Later in the month, Guardian Games will kick off some good old-fashioned Guardian rivalry, accompanied by the Grandmaster Nightfall difficulty. 

This week, we'll be parsing through some feedback we've been seeing since the season launched, and discussing next steps for emblem stat trackers.

Focused Feedback

Over the last few weeks, we've been watching the conversation about Season of the Worthy, and more specifically Trials of Osiris. We wanted to walk through the topics we've been exploring and give some basic thoughts on what we'd like to approach in the future. Some items below may be addressed in the coming weeks, but other may take a season or more to tackle. We're having meetings and discussions daily to determine the best course of action. In the meantime, it's important to us that you know your voices are heard.

Card Rewards
We've been discussing feedback around a lack of incentive for players to go Flawless. We understand that some players have found the first few games to be more lucrative, which we'd love to shift to the later games. Early card token farming, as some would call it, is something that we are very interested in solving. We want to make sure that every Destiny player who wants to play Trials has something to show for it at the end of a weekend.

Additionally, we've seen feedback that the Flawless chest isn't comparable the rewards associated with grinding out Nightfalls. This is something that we'd love to improve upon. There are quite a few ways we could approach this, and we're currently discussing what would be the best for Trials in the long run.

Disconnections
We've been investigating an issue that prevented us from enabling rejoin options when Trials first launched. The short version: A player's score could reset if that player left and rejoins the match. Since we've resolved this issue, we are currently planning to enable rejoin in Update 2.8.1.

Additionally, our teams are continuing to investigate the rise in error codes since the launch of the season. This is one of our top priorities, and we've made some progress in identifying the issue. What's left is developing a fix and testing it. We want to take the appropriate time here to avoid introducing any further issues into the game.

Fair Play
We've seen reports from players that have encountered cheaters in Trials over the last few weekends. What follows is a quick update on what we've been doing to improve your experience, and what we're discussing internally for future improvements. To restate the note in the intro, some of these items may not be addressed for some time, as we're in early conversations, but we wanted to give you an update of what's going on behind the scenes here at Bungie. 

• Our anti-cheat is not as "visible" (by design) as some security products. However, we regularly detect and remove thousands of malicious accounts from the PvP ecosystem.
• On the front lines we continue to implement new anti-cheat improvements during patch releases (we don't include these in the patch notes for obvious reasons), and are always investigating new approaches as cheat developers adapt to our latest tech.
• Many of the cheats you may find in the wild already have detections and countermeasures deployed or in development, with work being done constantly to keep them updated against new threats. Because cheat developers don't stop, we know we have to keep working to improve these systems.
  • Note: This is a tricky line to walk, as we don't want to punish any innocent players that may consistently have high stats due to extreme skill, game bugs, or game logic exploits which Bungie considers our fault.
• We are working with our platform partners to identify ways in which we can further strengthen our security.
• We are investigating ways in which we can let you know when your reports have resulted in a permanent ban or a temporary restriction.

Additionally, we wanted to give a few tips on information that helps us during our investigations when processing reports from the "Report Suspected Cheating" contact form. Important Note: Do NOT post any of this information publicly. Not on Reddit. Not on the Bungie forums. This information should only go in this specific form. Here's the information we are looking for:

• Display name of the "known good" player. Is this you? A friend of yours?
• Display name of the suspect(s) and any other identifying info you have (clan name, Steam ID, etc.)
• Explain what suspicious behavior was observed.
• Note the platform the behavior was observed on.
• Provide a link to the Post-Game Carnage Report (PGCR) on Bungie.net.

And if possible:

• Give us links to any video evidence. This could be a YouTube video or archived Twitch stream with timestamps, a clip, or a video you have recorded and shared via a public sharing service. (Sorry, we can't connect to your private Google Drive or OneDrive to view a video).

I know that some of you out there may find the statement of "We're listening!" to be a repetitive cliché of community management, but the first step toward taking action is to listen. We've been collecting your feedback and looking to fully understand the root of the perceived issues that are being discussed by players in the wild. Your voice is important to us, and helps us as we walk the path to what's next in Destiny 2. We'll be sure to keep you updated on our plans as they become more concrete, and we thank you for your continued feedback on the game.

Speaking of the future, let's talk about Stat Trackers.

Back on Track

At the beginning of the season, changes were introduced to stat trackers to give players more ways to express their achievements in Destiny 2. We introduced weekly Seasonal and Lifetime trackers, and these were completely optional to those who might want to have a clean emblem. With this overhaul, previously featured trackers were removed. Players were quick to highlight this as a pain point, which we're eager to address. This week, we have a list of the stats we'll be bringing back in Update 2.8.1, which is coming later this month.

• Seasons
  • Career
    • Forge Completions
    • All of the Trackers below are hidden if their value is zero:
      • Season 8 Season Pass Rank Earned
      • Season 9 Season Pass Rank Earned
      • Number of Tier III encounters completed in the Reckoning
        
      • Fractaline Donated
      • Menagerie Completions
      • Heroic Menagerie Completions
      • Kills of Haunted Forest Terrors
      • Deepest Branch of Haunted Forest Cleared
      • Completed Branches of the Verdant Forest
      • Revelric Light triggers during the Revelry
      • Candy Collected
      • Recipes Baked
• Account
  
  • Career
    • Heroic Missions Completed
    • All of the Trackers below are visible on their class:
      • Kills as a Sentinel Titan
      • Kills as a Striker Titan
      • Kills as a Sunbreaker Titan
      • Kills as a Arcstrider Hunter
      • Kills as a Nightstalker Hunter
      • Kills as a Gunslinger Hunter
      • Kills as a Stormcaller Warlock
      • Kills as a Dawnblade Warlock
      • Kills as a Voidwalker Warlock
• Crucible
  • Career
    • Gold Medals Earned
    • Longest Glory Win Streak
    • Total Valor Resets
    • Iron Banner Rank
    • Gold Medals Earned in Iron Banner
    • Iron Banner Bounties Completed
    • All of the Trackers below are hidden if their value is zero:
      • Wins in Trials of the Nine
      • Flawless tickets in Trials of Nine
      • 7th column Medals Earned
      • Annihilation Medals Earned
      • Undefeated Medals Earned
      • We Ran Out of Medals Medals Earned
      • Ghost in the Night Medals Earned
      • This Crown is Mine Medals Earned
      • I Made This for You Medals Earned
      • Kills in Crimson Doubles
      • Kills while under the effects of Iron Burden
• Destination
  • Career
    • Kills of Final Bosses in Escalation Protocol
    • Available on Mars and Escalation Protocol Emblems
    • All of the Trackers below are available on Luna Emblems:
      • Completed Nightmare Hunts on Master Difficulty
      • Pit of Heresy Solo Flawless Completions
• Gambit
  • Career
    • Infamy Rank Resets
• Raids
  • Career
    • Prestige Leviathan Completions
    • Available on Leviathan and Guided Games Emblems
    • Prestige Eater of Worlds Completions
    • Available on Eater of Worlds and Guided Games Emblems
    • Prestige Spire of Stars Completions
    • Available on Spire of Stars and Guided Games Emblems
• Strikes
  • Career
    • Nightfall Challenge Completions

We understand that there may be a few stats that are still not present that you're interested in returning. To be clear, we have a hard cap on how many stats can be listed on emblems, so we want to make sure we have room to grow in the future. Please continue to give feedback on what you'd like to see, and we'll keep you in the know of what our plans are.

Under the Magnifying Glass

No stone is left unturned when Destiny Player Support is on the case. When issues begin to trend, they disperse troubleshooting articles, but also dig deep to diagnose the issues. 

This is their report. 

HOTFIX 2.8.0.2
On Tuesday, March 31, we released Hotfix 2.8.0.2 to the world. While maintenance was underway, we incorrectly noted two items in the 2.8.0.2 patch notes:

• A fix where bunker upgrades on the Season Pass are only unlocked on one character. 
• A fix where the first weekly clear of a Legendary Lost Sector won't award a powerful drop.

These issues were not fixed in 2.8.0.2. Fixes for these issues will be available with a later update.

CURRENT KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here's a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

• We are continuing to investigate increased WATERCRESS and NEWT errors.
• We have identified an issue with the Felwinter's Helm exotic helmet that allows players to emit a detonation impulse that blinds and weakens enemies on any kill. We have disabled this Exotic until a fix can be deployed at a later date.
• We are investigating reports of players who have their emblems blacked out completely with power appearing as 0 in the Roster tab of the Director.
• The Level 32 PDS upgrade can only be used to clear the Bunker by the character who unlocked the EDZ Bunker. 
• Rasputin's Daily Seraph Weapon can only be claimed on the character players were on when Rank 92 of the Season Pass was unlocked - this cannot be claimed on other characters.
• The Cloak of the Exile Trials armor is not glowing properly when going Flawless in Trials of Osiris.
• Defeating an enemy with the ranged Celestial Fire Warlock melee ability does not trigger the Warlord's Sigil perk on the Winter's Guile Exotic gauntlets.
• The lore piece "By Thy Tongue Be Damned" is not properly unlocking for players.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Spinning Up

Look, I'm biased towards Omolon weapons. Hard Light was one of my first Exotics back when Destiny first launched, and it's fun to see it take the spotlight for a season. That said, Auto Rifles in general are pretty hot right now. This week's winner takes Suros for a spin, making some great plays in the Crucible.

Movie of the Week: The Suros Simulation

Honorable Mention: Honey, I'm good...

If you'd like a chance at a fancy new emblem, cook up a creation and post it over on Bungie.net.

The days and weeks are beginning to meld together. As our local weather station put it, we've entered the month of "Maprilay." The sun continues to rise and fall, but it's becoming a little difficult to keep track of what day it is. Thankfully, we have Destiny 2 to bring us together during these times of isolation. Sometimes, the only thing I have to remind me of what day of the week we are living is this every-Thursday mainstay blog article. 

I'd like to take a moment to highlight the Essential Workers of the world. While we're all in this together, we couldn't do it without you. You are all Legends in our eyes. You're helping to keep the world spinning in times of crisis, and we cannot thank you enough for your efforts. 

We're cooking up some initiatives on our side to amplify the good in this world. More on that soon...

Much love,
Dmg04