This Week At Bungie - 9/17/2020

This week at Bungie, we're making the most of your Ghosts.

Last week, a new Exotic became available to add to your collection and we celebrated Destiny's birthday. I'm still keeping an eye out for pictures of attempts at making that cake. Things are a little quieter this week. Which makes it a great time to take advantage of the double rewards being offered for completions of The Ordeal this week. You love to see it when a bug becomes a feature.

Speaking of upcoming features...

Customizable Ghosts

A Guardian's Ghost is their most trusted ally and is tasked with keeping them in the fight. Your Ghost isn't just in charge of bringing you back from the brink, it also comes with some perks and a wide range of cool looks to choose from. We have some changes planned for your floaty friends and asked Designer Mina Jasinski to tell us about what her team is doing to improve how you customize your Ghosts.

Mina Jasinski: Ghosts have always been important partners to our Guardians in the Destiny universe, but they haven't received any meaningful updates in quite some time.

To allow Ghosts to truly shine as the useful and interesting companions we'd like them to be, we decided it was time to give them a bit of an overhaul.

In Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Ghosts have received a system update which shares some functionality to what was done with armor in Shadowkeep. Here's a brief outline of what to expect:

• Ghost Shells will now have energy levels and access to mods with various energy costs instead of being pre-loaded with specific perks.
• This treatment has been applied to all Ghosts outside of the Generalist Shell, so you can use your favorite Ghost Shells, regardless of tier.
• A selection of mods will be available on all Ghost Shells by default, while the remaining ones will be obtainable via various gameplay sources. Information on where to find these mods can be learned from Collections.
• Ghost mods will be obtained from gameplay reward loops and will not be purchasable from Eververse.
• Ghosts now have four mod slots. Three are unlocked by default, and the fourth is unlocked by Masterworking the Ghost Shell.

One of our goals with this update was to separate visuals from functionality. We wanted any Ghost Shell to be viable and still have access to highly useful mods, regardless of tier or source.
You'll be able to select your favorite Ghost Shell based on appearance without any detriment to your experience. Whether you purchase a Ghost Shell from Eververse, earn it from the newest raid or pull an old favorite out of Collections, your Ghost will have access to all the same mods across your account. From there you can increase energy levels on your favorite Ghost Shells and set each of them up with different mod combinations of your choosing.

As mentioned above, Ghosts will now have access to a total of four mod slots, each with their own unique mod selection. There will be an Experience mod slot, a Tracking mod slot, an Economic mod slot, and an Activity mod slot; the last of which is unlocked when the Ghost is Masterworked at 10 energy. You'll be able to mix and match mods from these categories however you like, with respect to energy limits. Mod slots each have a selection of mods that can be combined to fit your playstyle. For example, a Crucible-focused player who wants to grind out materials and earn XP towards their Seasonal rewards track might choose Guiding Light, Meager Glimmer Booster, and Lesser Core Harvest (Crucible). There are a variety of combinations that can be set up on different Ghosts to suit whatever goals you might be chasing at the time!

For those wondering what will happen to the old Ghost perks, most have been brought forward largely unchanged as default unlocked mods. In some cases, such as the destination-specific material or cache trackers, those mods have been transformed into globally effective, non-destination-specific versions of themselves for better utility. Energy costs for those mods now reflect the increased flexibility and the mods must be earned from various vendor engrams. Kill Tracker and Leviathan Boss Kill perks will remain intrinsic only on their specific Ghost Shells. Even with these changes you'll still be able to build most of the popular Exotic perk combinations that were available previously such as Guiding Light and Treasure Hunter, along with a plethora of new combinations!

We hope that these changes allow you to interact with your Ghost more meaningfully and help you to set up a variety of Ghost Shells that suit you in various playstyles and activities.

Honoring a Friend

Next week, we have a tribute going live in game to honor one of our dear friends at Vicarious Visions who passed away last year, Matt Helsom. The weekly reset will include a director message that will send you to Mars for a short quest to honor Mr. Helsom. He worked closely with teams at both Bungie and VV on various projects during our partnership and we wanted to memorialize his contributions in the Destiny universe.

We wish all of his family, friends, and everyone he impacted during his life the very best. Thank you to everyone in the community who joins us in remembering this warm soul.

X Marks the Pass

Now we turn things over to our Player Support team with the latest on known issues and upcoming fixes.

This is their report.

XBOX GAME PASS AND EXPANSION AVAILABILITY

Next Tuesday, September 22, Destiny 2 will become available on Xbox Game Pass at 8 AM PDT, however, players won't be able to access Forsaken or Shadowkeep until 10 AM PDT when Hotfix 2.9.2.1 goes live.

HOTFIX 2.9.2.1

Also, for next Tuesday, Hotfix 2.9.2.1 will go live. Below is a timeline of events:

• 8:00 AM PDT (1500 UTC): Destiny 2 will undergo maintenance for Hotfix 2.9.2.1. Xbox players may not be able to view or access recently purchased DLC content until after maintenance is completed.
• 8:45 AM PDT (1545 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought offline for expected maintenance. Players will be removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 10 AM PDT.
• 10:00 AM PDT (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.9.2.1 will be available across all platforms and regions. Players will be able to log back into Destiny 2.
• 11:00 AM PDT (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.

KNOWN ISSUES

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

• Earlier today, we announced that due to the extended season, Clans can no longer gain XP and Hawthorne's Weekly Challenge can no longer be completed. Our investigation found that trying to fix these issues could result in all Clans losing their earned ranks. These issues will be fixed on Nov. 10 when Beyond Light launches.
  
• Felwinter's Helm changes the Warlock's Solstice ornament glows to another glow.

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.

Dailies

Every day, new videos are posted on the Creations page and all around the World Wide Web. Each week, we pick our favorites and share them here for all the community to see. Hence the name, Movie of the Week. Here's this week's picks.

Movie of the Week: Fear Does Not Exist In This Dojo

Honorable Mention: EMERGENCY MEETING!

If you see your video above, please make sure you have your Bungie.net profile in the description of said video so we can deliver your new emblem.

You ever have someone shine a laser into your eye until you can see good(aka LASIK surgery)? If you're planning on it, I recommend not doing it while a huge plume of smoke blankets your area for several days. How is the air where you are? We're having a bit of "helmet on in the Tower" kind of time here on the West Coast right now.

Wherever you are, we hope you are doing well and looking forward to the bonus weeks of this Season as we rapidly approach the release on Beyond Light in a few short months. Next week, we will have Triple Infamy available, so go bank some motes.

<3 Cozmo