This Week At Bungie - 4/08/2021

This week at Bungie, we dive into the details.

Season of the Chosen has entered its second half. You've faced the Right of Proving on behalf of the Vanguard. In doing so, you've put an end to a growing conflict with Empress Caiatl and her followers. When not preventing wars, you also found time to investigate a distress signal from a ghost ship of sorts in the Presage mission, unraveling the mystery of a missing Guardian and discovering the Dead Man's Tale Exotic Scout Rifle.

Earlier this week, we spent some time with the development team to talk through the creation of Presage, navigating various inspirations behind the activity and scrutinizing screenshots of their work as it went through development. If you missed the stream, don't sweat it. You can watch the full replay here! And don't forget to check out our fresh article covering some behind-the-scenes stories from the team!

PRESAGE: BUILDING AN OMEN

Now, we look to the future. We have some fun news about our upcoming Kilts for Kids fundraising event, details on Iron Banner, and a new set of patch notes planned for Season 14, otherwise known as Season of [REDACTED].

Kilts for Kids 2021

One of the things we're always proud to support are charity initiatives, giving players a chance to be Guardians of the world. This week, the Senior Bungie Foundation Manager Christine Edwards brings some news on the upcoming Kilts for Kids initiative.

Christine: We can hardly believe that we are celebrating ten years of Kilts for Kids, our annual fundraiser that supports Seattle Ronald McDonald House! It is also our Second Annual Kilts for Kids: Stay at Home Edition. We bring you our usual suspects - Christine, Mark, and Forrest - as they highlight how they are supporting their mental health as we all continue to stay safe and socially distanced.

Mark


Christine


Forrest


Our hearts continue to go out to the children and families who are battling illness throughout the pandemic, which has left many RMHC families isolated and facing economic hardships during a time when community support means everything to them. Help us achieve our $77,000 goal. Head to the RMHC Donation Page to cast your votes for Team Bungie by donating $10 or more before Friday, April 23 at 5 PM PST. Every $30 donated will pay for a family to stay at the House for one night.

Need a sweeter incentive? Check out these backer rewards* for donating to Kilts for Kids!

• $50: Receive this year's unique Destiny 2 emblem.
  • This emblem is still in development, and its name is TBD. Unique codes will be sent to all $50+ donors on or before May 20, 2021.
• $100: The prize above, plus receive a postcard, digitally signed by our Kilts for Kids team and mailed to you.
• $250: All prizes above, plus a digital copy of a new and unique piece of artwork made by Bungie's Mark Flieg himself.
• $1,000: All prizes above, plus a 1-hour Destiny 2 gameplay session with Bungie employees and fellow Kilts for Kids donors**.
  • Dates/times will be mutually agreeable and determined upon completion of the fundraiser.
• $2,000: All prizes above, plus the first three donors at $2,000+ will receive one of three hand-painted Destiny Vinyl Goblin figure, themed to past, present, and future.
  • These three vinyl figures will be hand-painted by Bungie employees and will be shipped to the winners in late spring.

*Rewards will not be automatically redeemed, as we must receive donor data from RMHC before reward distribution. An email will be sent to donors at each prize level at the end of the event, no later than Friday, April 30, with further details on redemption of each prize. Some prizes will be delivered later than this date.

**No secrets will be revealed. Bungie employees have the right to refuse answers to any questions that aren't appropriate to answer.

Iron Futures

It's almost time for the final Iron Banner of Season of the Chosen. This will be your last opportunity to complete the Iron Sharpens Iron Seasonal Challenge, so get in there and smash some heads! If you're also trying to get your Power to 1325 for Grandmaster Nightfalls, don't forget the four Pinnacle-powered weekly bounties that Saladin offers.

Iron Banner
Start: April 13 at 10:00 AM PST
End: April 20 at 10:00 AM PST

Before we go, we'd like to take a moment to look forward in time. Season of [REDACTED] is coming in a few short weeks, and Saladin has a few new items up his sleeve for you to earn when the new season begins in May.

A familiar Hand Cannon and Sniper Rifle will be rejoining the fight, but two new weapons are also making their debut. Our goals moving forward are to continue bringing some Year-1 weapons up to speed with random rolls, but also bringing some new rewards into the fold when possible. This always depends a bit on what resources we have for a given Season, but we're looking forward to a few new Iron Banner-themed tools for your arsenal.

Looking even further out, we're planning new armor for Iron Banner. These sets won't appear for a few Seasons, but we have heard your desire for some new digs. Once we have more information, we'll let you know! Until then, we hope you enjoy the new weapons.

The Never-ending Search for Balance

Prepping for Season of [REDACTED], we have a few changes that will be coming to the Destiny sandbox. This week, we'll be focusing on things that are hot, so to speak. Weapons and archetypes that need to be tuned in order to create breathing room for other aspects of the Destiny sandbox to shine. We're also planning quite a few buffs to underused perks, Linear Fusion Rifles, and more! The current plan is to cover perk and weapon buffs in an upcoming TWAB towards the end of April once they're solidified, but we wanted to get this information out earlier than normal to keep you all informed!

Without further ado, Weapons Feature Lead Chris Proctor is here once again to lay out our goals with these upcoming changes and give you the nitty-gritty details.

Weapon Archetypes

• Aggressive (120 rpm) Hand Cannons are very dominant in PvP, and we've received enough feedback that we want to rein them in a bit, without completely taking away their range benefits.
  • These weapons will now have damage and aim assist falloff distance reduced by between 2 and 4 meters, based on the Range stat.
  • This roughly halves the range buff they received in Beyond Light.
• Vortex Frame Swords -- With Falling Guillotine now viable forever, we need to adjust it a little, as its damage output is flat out higher than all other Legendary swords. With this change we allow it to keep its high damage output, but are reducing its full-reserves damage output by reducing the number of Heavy attacks you'll be able to perform.
  • Full energy Heavy attack ammo cost increased from 4 to 6.
• Chip damage -- Certain weapons (Swords and Bastion) bypass shields by varying amounts, which has caused numerous issues with Stasis-encased enemies, encounter mechanics, and other content.
  • We have removed chip damage from Swords and Bastion.

Perks

• Quickdraw -- This perk is intended to provide faster swap speed, but it also passively buffs handling by +100. This completely negates the downside of using low-handling weapons (such as Aggressive Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Hand Cannons), which isn't something we want to encourage. Those weapons should have downsides and working around those completely via a perk isn't healthy. We don't think allowing a fast-swap to the Shotgun subfamily with the highest one-hit-kill range is great either.
  • The Handling bonus is now removed one second after switching to this weapon, or upon aiming down sights.
  • Replaced Quickdraw with Surplus on new and existing drops of Felwinter's Lie and Astral Horizon.
• Frenzy -- This perk has extremely high uptime in PvE, to the point where it is clearly a better choice than most other damage perks. We like the high uptime and want to preserve that, but want it to award less damage than harder to activate damage perks
  • Reduced bonus damage from +20 percent to +15 percent.
• Reservoir Burst -- Now increases magazine size in addition to its other effects, reduced full battery bonus damage from 33 percent to 25 percent.
  • Upcoming content requires revisiting the Power Level of a damage perk that can be activated simply by having a full magazine.
  • Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more...

Exotics

• The Lament -- This weapon is a clear outlier for Sword damage, so for the health of Heavy weapon diversity, we're pulling it back a bit.
  • Reduced damage of revved Heavy attack by approximately 16 percent.
  • Note that The Lament retains standard anti-barrier despite removing chip damage.
• Bastion -- Since we're removing chip damage, Bastion gets something else instead. We've noticed increased feedback on Bastion and higher than normal usage in PvP, so are making a small change here and will revisit Bastion later.
  • Intrinsically staggers Unstoppable Champions.
  • Increased spread angle by 13 percent.

With all balance changes, we will continue to watch how they play once they're in the wild and will look to make further adjustments based on our observations and player feedback.

Suit Up

Sometimes, the only thing standing between Guardians and a successful outing is a single armor piece. This week, a new Seasonal Challenge required some very specific gear for completion, and our Player Support team has the details on why some of you may have been missing out on progress.

This is their report.

SUITED FOR COMBAT SEASONAL CHALLENGE

This week we introduced the ninth week of Season of the Chosen Seasonal Challenges. One of the challenges, "Suited for Combat," asked players to defeat targets anywhere in the system wearing a full set of armor, but it didn't clarify that the armor had to be the Praefectus Seasonal armor. Only the Praefectus Season of the Chosen armor will grant progress toward this challenge.

"INACTIVITY" IN GRANDMASTER NIGHTFALLS

Since the Grandmaster Nightfall was introduced, we noticed that some players who can't be revived will eventually get kicked out of the activity due to "inactivity." To mitigate this issue in future Grandmaster Nightfalls, players should open their Character or Director screens and go through their menus to avoid being removed from activity. We are investigating a solution for this issue in a future Season.

DISMANTLE YOUR SHADERS

Beginning in Season 14 (launching May 11), we are overhauling our shader system and how shaders can be applied to armor. Due to the overhaul, shaders will become permanent unlocks, and all shaders in player inventories will be removed. We encourage everyone to dismantle their shaders before Season 14 begins to receive Glimmer and Legendary Shards.

More information about our new shader system can be found here under: "Getting Reacquainted with Adelaide."

TWITCH GIFT SUB BOUNTY REWARDS

Players who purchase Twitch gift subs to progress the associated viewer bounty in the Destiny 2 Official Twitch Extension may not see bounty progress appear immediately after purchase. Players should make sure to visit Amanda Holliday in the Tower to verify whether their bounty rewards were granted prior to submitting a support ticket.

Those who continue to encounter issues with bounty rewards should view our Twitch Extension Support article.

WEEKLY 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:

• Only the Praefectus armor set can be used for progress toward the Week 9 Seasonal Challenge, "Suited for Combat."
• Enemies are teleporting in various activities.
• Some players may still have the Season of the Hunt Milestone listed in their Milestones after listening to Osiris' transmission in Zavala's office.
• The Dreaming City bounty, "Challenge: The Shattered," doesn't complete after Tolan is found in Ascendant Challenges.
• Destiny 1 Memories may display inaccurate completion dates.
• Legatus Mark Seasonal Titan ornament clips into itself slightly.

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.

Falling Into Sleep

While some may think Movie of the Week is restricted to Crucible montages or live action flicks, we also want to leverage this space to highlight creators throughout our community who do their homework a little bit early. This week, Warlocks are already recruiting for Guardian Games.

Movie of the Week: The Warlock Propaganda is starting early, isn't it?

Movie of the Week: Embraced

If you'd like to be featured, upload your video to YouTube or another hosting service and submit it to the Creations page on Bungie.net. Always be sure to provide your Bungie.net account in the description so we know where to send the emblem.

Stonework

Each week, we're hit in the face with more and more eye candy. The artists of this community never cease to amaze. Attention to detail is always a given, with no creative stone left unturned.

Art of the Week: Intertwined

THE FREEBORN // Intertwined — Otzot Fanart

Please read the story: https://t.co/TYAmK2Oj0t #destiny2art #destinythegame #bungie pic.twitter.com/30l9qXnIcy

— Seryozha Parshakov (@milkpack) April 6, 2021

Art of the Week: Handheld Season of the Chosen

handheld season of the chosen#destiny2art #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/HOszFzQ0xW

— 又甜又圆太太 @ save the USPS (@adulture) April 7, 2021

Sandbox tuning is always a fun topic to discuss with the team. Some of my favorite conversations with coworkers have been talking through feedback on various perks, their viability in different activities throughout Destiny 2, and the ways in which the team could make them more desirable for players moving forward. We covered Celerity and Bottomless Grief last week, but we're all excited to look at things like Iron Grip, Subsistence, Unrelenting, and more. We'll have the full list, and detailed changes, ready for you to read through in just a few short weeks.

But outside of scintillating sandbox scoops, we still have a bit more to cover in the coming weeks. Guardian Games is almost on our doorstep. Transmog is right around the corner. Vault of Glass is on its way. Hell, there's a fresh new Season of content just over a month away...

Excited yet? I know I am.

Cheers,
dmg04