This Week at Bungie - 2/11/2021

This week at Bungie, Season of the Chosen began.

Season of the Chosen kicked off with a bang of sorts. Caiatl, Empress of the Cabal, has entered the fray. Zavala stood his ground when being offered a seat on her war council. Ever since, we've been watching countless Guardians doing their best in the new Battlegrounds activity to keep the Cabal from uniting into an unstoppable threat to the system. New Seasonal Challenges have made their appearance, the H.E.L.M. has opened its doors, and a fresh collection of loot has been introduced, fueling your hunt for new tools of destruction. We're just getting started. Week-1 of a new Season is always fun, but there's more coming. Stay tuned!

For those who've purchased Beyond Light, you may notice a few new goodies as well. The Stranger has a collection of new Stasis Aspects and Fragments to earn, giving you more combat options to choose from. A new landing zone has been added to the northern reaches of Europa to help you complete quests a bit quicker and new Exotic armor pieces have been added (one per class) for you to discover.

Even if you haven't purchased Beyond Light just yet, we've also updated power floors and caps to help you get caught up for Raids, Dungeons, and general Quests! If you're looking to spend some time in our ritual activities (Strikes, Crucible, Gambit), we've added some new weapons for you to hunt from post-game drops. Word on the street is that Bottom Dollar is a pretty spicy 120 RPM handcannon, currently available from Gambit. We're excited to see what new loot you claim as you start digging in to the new season.

So, let's turn our eyes to the rest of the TWAB, shall we? We have a collection of patch notes that we're eager to cover, an update from Black@Bungie, and a Player Support Report walking us through known issues from Season of the Chosen.

Be Heard

Over this last year, we've been increasing our efforts to support diversity and inclusion, not only at Bungie, but throughout the Destiny community and the gaming industry. Uplifting voices that deserve to be heard, supporting initiatives like Black Lives Matter, and forming internal clubs and committees to further support employees at Bungie looking to make a difference. These conversations should never be "one and done," and we're committed to the continued support of equal justice for all.

Black@Bungie, introduced last year, has an update for you all on our Be Heard Collectible Pin in celebration of Black History Month.

Hey all!

In August we talked about our newest addition to Bungie, Black@Bungie, with the goals of spreading equity among our employees at Bungie. With Black History month underway, Black@Bungie has been educating employees at Bungie about historical figures, current industry leaders, where to support local Black owned companies here in the Greater Seattle area, and taking our lessons and turning them into action.

2020 was a stark reminder of the systemic racism that continues to plague the United States. We are proud and grateful for the powerful ways that many of you showed up for our Black and Brown communities through your activism, willingness to engage in challenging conversations, and support of the philanthropic work being done to combat racial injustice in our society. 100% of profits from your purchases of the Be Heard Collectible Pin last year were donated to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which added up to an impressive $425,000!

These funds will help support the EJI's critical work over the next year. EJI is focusing on educating the public about America's history of racial injustice as a starting point for repairing its painful legacy of slavery, racial terror, lynching, segregation, and mass incarceration. EJI will continue to change our criminal justice system by fighting against the death penalty, challenging excessive punishment of children placed in adult prisons, and working to overturn wrongful convictions. EJI also will advocate on behalf of incarcerated men and women facing overcrowded, violent, and inhumane prison conditions. This work has become even more critical given the increased COVID-19 exposure and fatality risk inmates experience.

There is much work to be done. Thank you for continuing to support the mission of social justice for all through the purchase of the Be Heard Collectible Pin on Bungie Store and EU Store. 100% of profits from your purchases of the Be Heard Collectible Pin will continue to be donated to combat systemic racism. Every purchase will receive the Be Heard Destiny 2 emblem.

We at Bungie know that racial equity in America cannot be obtained by recognizing one month out of the year. We are dedicated to diversity and inclusion year-round and expect to hear more in the upcoming months about our plans. Thank you all for making Destiny a place where everyone is welcome.

Patch Note Stragglers

Truth be told, it can sometimes be difficult coordinating with multiple teams to ensure every bug fix, minor tweak, or major feature is covered in a patch notes document. This Season, we identified a handful of notes that we wanted to highlight, as we feel they're pretty important changes to the Destiny 2 experience! First up, we have an introduction to Quest Details from the Dev team, followed by a general list of patch notes.

Quest Details
Over the past year, we've made a handful of iterative improvements to the player's quest experience. Early on, these improvements focused on helping players understand their quests when viewed together.

Most recently, we've added the Quest Details screen. This new screen allows you to dive into the details of each quest, which should help you:

• Take in the narrative context and visual themes of the quest.
• Understand what the quest is asking you to do, and what you've done already.
• Get a better look at the rewards for completing the quest.

Taken together, we're hoping you feel more knowledgeable and motivated about the quests in your log. You can access the following screen by hovering your cursor over a given quest and using the Inspect command.

We're excited to build on the Quest Detail screen in future updates with more improvements to the quest experience.

And now, onto some general patch notes:

Rituals

• Removed Hawthorne's Red War-era dialog when completing her Clan challenge.
• Players can now turn in Gunsmith materials 100 at a time, and Vanguard tokens 20 at a time - enough to get a full rank.

Reputation

• Valor, Glory, and Infamy rank-up banners are now at the bottom of the screen, no longer blocking players from taking actions in orbit when hitting a new rank.
• Valor, Glory, and Infamy values are now available on the main Director screen for the ritual.

Gambit

• Reworked the mote system for more reliable gathering.

Crucible

• Iron Banner
  • Removed Skill Based Matchmaking listing from the Iron Banner tooltip - it has been using Connection-Based Matchmaking, along with the rest of the Crucible, since June of 2020.
• Survival
  • Life count changed from 6 to 4, respawn time changed from 7s to 5s, consistent with ruleset prior to Beyond Light.

New Light

• A Guardian Rises
  • Destroying the Spider Tank during The Divide phase will now progress the directive by 50%.
  • Fixed an issue where veteran accounts that start a new character could not be progress or dismiss some tutorials.
• Schism
  • Fixed an issue where players could jump through a window during the Navota vignette and block their mission progress.
• Cold Boot
  • Fixed an issue for veteran characters playing the New Light quest that would cause the Legendary weapon tutorial to persist through the entire mission.

Risk/Reward (Riskrunner)

• Fixed an issue where players with full Energy weapon inventory slots would have Riskrunner sent to the Postmaster upon pick up.
• The weapon now drops as an Exotic Engram during the mission, allowing players to clear room in their inventories if they wish to pick up their Riskrunner immediately.

Forsaken Campaign

• Fixed an issue where players would see a "Quests Full" message when trying to start the Forsaken campaign, forcing them to find and pick up the quest at the Quest Archive in the Tower before proceeding.

All missing patch notes are being added to the Destiny 2 Update 3.1.0 article. If you haven't taken a look at everything that's changed this Season, stop by and give it a read!

Destiny Content Vault + Cosmodrome

This season, two strikes from Destiny 1 are making their entrance to Destiny 2 through the Destiny Content Vault. We have a quick update on our plans for the Cosmodrome from the Development Team.

Dev Team:Last summer, when we revealed our plans for the Destiny Content Vault - where we cycle out older underused content to improve our ability to evolve Destiny 2 - we also committed to periodically unvaulting legacy content, merging some of the best that Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 has to offer. That announcement included the reveal that the Cosmodrome would be returning, and that it would be 'fleshed out to roughly Destiny 1 Year-1 parity.'

When we first shared our plans, we were still early in development and uncertain how far we would go with the Cosmodrome unvault. We were pretty sure it wouldn't include the Plaguelands but what about the locations added in the Year-1 DLCs, or the awesome Colony Ship behind Sepik's Lair with The Taken King? What about all of the public patrol spaces? How much of Cosmo would we need in order to accomplish our goals of having a great space to tell the new Guardian origin story while still giving veteran players a big dose of nostalgia via some updates to the strike playlist?

As we approached Beyond Light's launch, it became clear to us that we had a choice to make: After returning all three of its original strikes, do we invest more time and resources in bringing Cosmodrome to D1 parity or do we switch our focus to building new experiences for Year 4 and beyond? Given that we believed we had achieved our original goals and knowing the community and team's desire for new content, we chose the latter option. But, when we made that decision, we failed to properly update your expectations for how far the Cosmodrome experience was going to be extended and that was a mistake. So, to clear things up: With the Devil's Lair and Fallen S.A.B.E.R. strikes returning, we don't have any active plans to add more to the Cosmodrome than what is there will be focusing on new updates overall.

We will continue to use the Destiny Content Vault to drive variety in the live game in the future. The Cosmodrome was our first big push and later this year the Vault of Glass will return. We'll share more later this year.

Chosen Ones

We never want to jinx a new Season by saying "things are looking good!" - so let's avoid that. Earlier this week, we issued a hotfix to address some crashing issues on Steam, and we have a handful of new issues being tracked with Season of the Chosen content. Destiny Player Support has a full writeup on known issues, workarounds, and fresh investigations below.

This is their report.

UPDATE 3.1.0.1

Next Thursday, February 18, Hotfix 3.1.0.1 will be released. Here is a timeline of events:

• February 17, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Hotfix 3.1.0.1 begins.
• February 17, 2 PM PST (2200 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Hotfix 3.1.0.1 completes.
• February 18, 8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance for Hotfix 3.1.0.1 begins.
• February 18, 8:45 AM PST (1630 UTC): Players are removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 9 AM PST when Hotfix 3.1.0.1 is available.
• February 18, 9 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Hotfix 3.1.0.1 is rolled out across all platforms and regions. Players can log back into Destiny 2 at this time. Ongoing maintenance is expected to conclude at 10 AM PST.
• February 18, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.

Below are some issues that will be resolved with Hotfix 3.1.0.1. A complete list will be shared when the update goes live.

• Salvager's Salvo can now be reclaimed from Collections.
• Vendor tooltips will no longer say they require Trials Tokens to rank up reputation.
• The Whisper of Chains Stasis Fragment will now properly grant damage resistance when standing near frozen enemies.
• Swapping between Challenger Medallions or Cabal Runes on the Hammer of Proving will now refund currencies used.

STEAM LAUNCH ISSUES

We are currently investigating reports of players being unable to launch Destiny 2 from Steam, and will provide more information as it becomes available. Players who are affected by this issue should report to our #Help Forum.

BEYOND LIGHT AND SEASON PASS CLARIFICATION
Players should be aware that the "Beyond Light+Season" bundle and the "Destiny 2 Legendary Edition" include a single Season Pass that will be applied to their account upon purchase. These bundles do not include more than one Season Pass.

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:

• Cabal Gold is not dropping from raid or dungeon completions.
• Socketing the Hammer of Proving prior to receiving a quest step to do so will not complete the step; players will need to re-socket the Hammer to progress.
• Barrier Colossus Champions in Battleground: Behemoth may walk out of their Barrier shields.
• Ascendant Shards from Crucible and Gambit rank rewards cannot be acquired with a full consumables inventory, even if there is room in an Ascendant Shard stack.
• The back half of the Bump and Run Sparrow is missing.
• Warlock Lucent Night Universal Armor Ornaments disappear from the Appearance tab of armor when unequipped.
• Dunemarchers Linear Actuators perk no longer activates.
• Multiple armor mods, including Handcannon targetting, are missing from player inventories.
• The Fourteenth Anamnesis ornament shows that it can be applied to Khepri's Sting instead of the Helm of Saint-14.
• The Mantle of Remembrance ornament shows that it can be applied to Aeon Swift, but it's actually for Shinobu's Vow.
• Step two of the Decrypting Darkness quest will not grant a free Umbral Engram when being completed on a second character. This is intentional, and players will need to play activities to find another Umbral Engram or acquire one from their Season Pass.
• We are investigating an increase in ANTEATER error codes.
• The Vanguard 8-bounty challenge sometimes does not award Bright Dust on completion.
• The Caduceus ornament shows that it can be applied to Aeon Soul, but it's actually for Ophidian Aspect.
• Eyes of Tomorrow is doing less damage than intended.

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.

Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight

I'm not going to lie - it's been difficult picking a MOTW this week. Our feeds have been covered in players experiencing Battlegrounds for the first time, taking new weapons out for a spin, and having some good old-fashioned fun with Destiny 2. The picks this week were a bit unexpected. Well, I mean... they were unexpected in the grand scheme of things. We definitely saw a lot of players saying "Oh, these will probably win MOTW." Turns out those expectations were correct!

Movie of the Week: Law of the Jungle

Law of the Jungle- A Destiny Fan Film from James Newman on Vimeo.

Movie of the Week: You Want A Knife (Warning: Language...)

A THROWING KNIFE ONLY 8TH COLUMN.

The best clip I have ever hit in Destiny...

World's first? pic.twitter.com/8YMFgPxqhy

— Benj (@Benjjjyy) February 6, 2021

If you'd like to submit your creation for MOTW, make sure to share it on the Creations page of Bungie.net

Caiatl and Crow

So, Crow noticed you noticing his new clothes. We just wanted you to know that we noticed too. We also noticed the really fun reception to Caiatl last week. The fan art has been awesome, and we have to say that your attention to detail is unparalleled!

Art of the Week: Bow

BOW'

Quick 1 hr sketch of the new season's big bad, Caiatl.

Happy Chosen day, Guardians! Looking forward to jumping on later! #Destiny2 #Caiatl #Cabal #SeasonoftgeChosen #Destiny2Art #WhetherWeWantedItOrNot pic.twitter.com/WbMIDnsloU

— Chris Gill (@ATasteOfZen) February 9, 2021

Art of the Week: He's Young Now

"He's young now. A Guardian so bright he bleeds Light whatever he does. It is the kindest one we've ever crossed by."#Destiny2 #Destiny2Art #DestinyArt #TheCrow @Bungie @DestinyTheGame @rDESTNYCREATION @DestinyComArt pic.twitter.com/RKI3HH5EAN

— ⚡Brighan⚡ (they/them) (@BrighanArt) February 9, 2021

For the last few TWAB's, we've been advocating the use of #Destiny2Art when sharing your content. Truth be told, we check quite a few hashtags when looking for pieces to be featured. #DestinyArt, #Destiny, #HeyBungieLookAtThisCoolArt... they're all acceptable. In any case, cheers to all who spend their time creating sweet art based on the Destiny universe. We always love seeing and sharing these.

With everything going on, it's been hard keeping track of the days this week. Depending on your time zone (and when you're reading this), today is Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday... I think. The team is pretty excited for you to get your hands on some Trials gear this weekend. New armor, New weapons, a returning favorite, and even some perks to keep an eye out for...

Even if you can't reach the Lighthouse, you can start collecting some new gear from wins 3, 5, and 7. Don't forget, we also have a weekly bounty that grants the 3-win-reward upon completion!

See you out there. Don't go easy on me if we cross paths.

Cheers,
dmg04