This Week At Bungie - 10/07/2021

This week at Bungie, preparations for Festival of the Lost begin!

Welcome back to another weekly installment of the TWAB. There's been quite a bit going on, hasn't there? We've got teatime with Savathûn. Trails to trek in the Shattered Realm. Astrals to align in Astral Alignment. Fikrul and his hoard of mini-Screebs also kicked off our Seasonal offering of Grandmaster Nightfalls with The Hallowed Lair. Maybe you're simply looking for some sweet loot, decoding Umbral Engrams for the perfect double-double perk roll on the Stasis Fractethyst Shotgun. If you took a couple weeks off, no better time to catch up!

Outside of gameplay, we've also provided an update on our plans for the Destiny Content Vault. Haven't read it yet? Here are some of the bigger notes:

• The Tangled Shore, the Forsaken campaign, and Year 4 Seasonal content will be entering the DCV in February 2022.
• Starting on December 7, the Forsaken campaign will be free to play until it enters the DCV.
• Some activities, like the Dreaming City destination and Battlegrounds, will be retained.

Head over to the Destiny Content Vault Update article for the full write up.

Looking back to Season of the Lost, we have some content on the horizon. Next week, there will be some challenge to embrace within the Shattered Realm. It may be dangerous to go alone, so you might want to call up a friend for some assistance.

Festival of the Lost is also making its debut! While we don't have a full reveal just yet, we do have an awesome Ghost Shell preview below, accompanied with an interview with its artist.

Let's get to it!

Festival of the Lost: Introducing the Calavera Ghost Shell

Next week, Festival of the Lost kicks off. This is a time for Guardians to take a moment and reflect upon the past year, celebrating those we've lost as we continue to overcome each challenge that's been thrown our way. Many of the themes found within Festival of the Lost can be compared with those of a holiday celebrated by many in our community: D'a de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Diversity and representation is not only important in the worlds of Destiny 2, but throughout our real-life community. And so, we're excited to introduce the Calavera Ghost Shell, concepted by an incredible artist Bungie had the honor of collaborating with, Luis Yepez.

Let's take a moment to meet the mind behind this beautiful creation, shall we?

Hi Luis, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Luis: Of course! My full name is Luis Miguel Yepez Franco, and I was born in Mexico City and spent my teenage years in Cancun before moving to the US to learn 3D, Art, and hopefully get to make games. I studied at The Art Institute of Phoenix before I got my first game job up here in rainy Seattle WA. I have been a gamer my whole life and always wanted to do something creative growing up so I figured making games could be my thing. And I have been doing that for the last 16 years. I also love movies, most specifically sci-fi and horror movies. I prefer a rainy cozy afternoon with movies, family, and games at my disposal as my go-to activities.

How long have you been a Destiny player?

Luis: Honestly, I don't remember but I know I started playing during the alpha build of Destiny 1 on Xbox 360. So definitely a while. Back in the original Destiny 1 days, I would run a clan on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 simultaneously. Friday and Saturday nights were raid nights and I had them scheduled to help the crew on Xbox and then immediately jump onto the PS4 to do it again with another group. Needless to say, when someone wouldn't down Crota in the third try, schedules got off track. 🙂 Not to mention a slightly-off jump in Oryx's Chamber — oh how fun those days were.

I spent so many hours paying that when Destiny 2 launched and all my legendary achievements were shown to me, it was a powerful moment acknowledging all that had happened until that point with my crew. I continue to be active, with Season of the Splicer being my most absent time from the game since I became a new parent. I still have some of my original Queens gear from early D1 which I won't trash for sentimental value, no matter how much vault space I may need. And for all of you old timers, let me assure you I was one of those who never got Gjallarhorn to drop until a week before Xûr sold it. So, to all the Guardians who suffered the same fate, you're not alone! Does that age me in the community? I sure hope it does. 😉

We see that you are also a game artist, what type of art do you do?

Luis: I used to be a full-time artist. Over the last seven years I've switched over into doing more design work. I do a lot of layout, pacing, and open world map designs where I get to use a lot of my skills and knowledge from my time being an artist, just with a very different focus. On the side, I started working on what I call my Trixels series. A Day of the Dead inspired style where I model stylized animals and paint them similar to alebrijes. I wanted to merge my background and Mexican roots with my present and what I do for a living since they seem so opposite of each other — and because that's ultimately who I have been shaped to be now. I give a lot of details and designs to the animals and hide some stories inside of them. Like my corgi has squirrels, tennis balls, paw prints, etc. It's all related to the animal I am making. The one common thread is a lot of color and skulls. Those are the common themes in my designs. You can check them out on IG @TrixelsArt.

How did the idea of creating a D'a de los Muertos Ghost Shell for Festival of the Lost come about?

Luis: It was very casual. I was approached by people at Bungie who are familiar with my Trixels series and was asked if I would be interested in contributing to FOTL with some of my design work. I don't think I hesitated at all — OF COURSE I WANT TO! From there it was super simple and smooth, just drawing some ideas, calling out how the designs would be in the different looks, and going back and forth with the team on what would work the best with the theme and constraints of the game. Finally, we arrived at the design you see and will be able to get in game real soon!



Trying to come up with the shapes, colors, and designs so they would read well on the body of the Ghost (even at a distance) was a lot of fun and challenging at the same time. The collaboration with everyone involved in this process was super smooth, friendly, and you could tell that they all care about Destiny just as much as we the players do. I am super honored to be a long-time player that has now contributed in a unique way to the world of Destiny and to the fight against the Darkness!

Thank you for adding your voice to the world. What are you looking forward to most in The Witch Queen?

Luis: I am really looking forward to revealing the truth and finally taking the fight to The Witch Queen's doorstep. No more hiding this time. Light will prevail and shine through. It's going to be super interesting to see how these two Light sources battle it out and if all us Guardians will prevail — I am almost certain we will (almost lol). I am also looking forward to all the surprises Bungie has in store that we don't even know about as is usual in every Season. I can't wait to gear up and fight the Darkness alongside you! If you want to team up you can find me as Yeluis on Xbox and Yupizs on Steam.

For more awesome works from Luis, be sure to visit his page over at Luisyepez.com.

The Calavera Ghost Shell will become available when Festival of the Lost begins at 10 AM Pacific on October 12. Players may acquire this directly for Silver or acquire it with Bright Dust when it is spotlighted during the event.

Check back on Tuesday for an awesome trailer before the event goes live!

What's in the Patch Notes?

Alongside Festival of the Lost, we'll be deploying Destiny 2 Update 3.3.1. We have a collection of bugfixes and some quality of life items to deploy. Here's a quick preview of the goods:

Grandmaster Nightfalls

• Increased drop chance for an Adept Nightfall weapon from a Platinum Grandmaster Nightfall to 100%.
  • While this will not guarantee perfect perk combinations on every drop, players may now expect to receive an Adept reward when overcoming the challenge of Grandmasters, even on the hardest of weeks.

The Corrupted

• Reduced the knockback buff from the "Sedia's Durance" activity modifier on Nightfall difficulty from +40% knockback to +20% knockback, which may help a few of you complete Grandmaster difficulty.
• Removed an Unstoppable Phalanx Champion from the Ransack Ogre encounter.
  • During the Ransack Ogre encounter, an Unstoppable Phalanx Champion would spawn in the Ascendant Plane when the Ogre boss reached 50% health.
  • That Champion was easy to miss, and you couldn't backtrack there to defeat it once you killed the Ogre.
  • After this Champion ruined hundreds of Platinum completion attempts, we've snapped it out of existence.
  • It's gone.
  • Dust.
  • Destroyed.
  • It will never see the light of day again.
  • That's what it deserves.
• Fixed an issue that blocked completion of The Corrupted Nightfall scoring Triumph.

Cross Play UI

• Updated the sign-on experience to show a single toast after character select if you have one or more pending Bungie Friend requests instead of a unique toast for every pending request.
  • The experience when receiving a new Bungie Friend request while playing the game has not changed.
  • Known Issue: This notification toast may appear blank for some players, but no invites are affected. This issue is already being investigated.
• Player search UI now has audio feedback.
• Fixed a bug where the text chat auto-hide setting could revert to the Season 15 default value of "off" under various conditions.
• Fixed a bug where booting a fireteam member sometimes left a blank entry in the roster or fireteam UI.
• Fixed a bug where online roster contacts were not sorting alphabetically for friends and clanmates.
• Fixed a bug where blocking a player through a fireteam invite did not hide interaction options that are expected to fail when interacting with a blocked player.

The full list of patch notes are expected to become available on Tuesday around 10 AM Pacific. Stay tuned!

Speaking of a Patch...

With the release of every update or hotfix, Destiny Player Support has the play by play to keep you informed of what's happening and when. This week, they have full details on patch prep, downloads, and deployments.

This is their report.

UPDATE 3.3.1

On Tuesday, October 12, Destiny 2 is scheduled to undergo maintenance in preparation for Destiny 2 Update 3.3.1. Below is a timeline of events. Please note that times may be subject to change during this maintenance period:

• 9 AM PDT (1600 UTC): Maintenance begins.
• 9:45 AM PDT (1645 UTC): Players are removed from activities. Destiny 2 is brought offline.
• 10 AM PDT (1700 UTC): Update 3.3.1 will be available across all platforms and regions. Players will be able to log back into Destiny 2.
• 11 AM PDT (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.

Below are some issues that are expected to be resolved. A complete list will be shared when the update goes live.

• Horror's Least will no longer drop from the Corrupted Nightfall at zero power.
• The Bombardiers Exotic Hunter leg's bomb detonations now deal damage to active Supers.
• Crashes will no longer be caused by opening the Appearance Customization screen with faction armor equipped.
• The Tether Time Nightfall Triumph can now be earned as intended.
• The Corrupted Nightfall Triumph for reaching a score of 100,000 is now rewarded as intended.
• The Wayfinder Compass's inventory will now rotate with the daily reset.

For more information, players should visit our Destiny Server and Update Status help article.

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:

• We're aware of player reports claiming that Nothing Manacles isn't working as intended. This is under investigation.
• If players abandon Wayfinder's Voyage on step 19/53, they are unable to complete it when they reacquire it.
• Players may have to wait in the H.E.L.M. for a long period of times for lore to unlock after listening to radio messages.
• Step 42 of 53 for the Wayfinder's Voyage quest tells some players in non-English regions to purchase the wrong unlock in the Wayfinder's Compass. Players should purchase the Astral Attunement upgrade to advance this quest step, which is located on the bottom row on the far-right of the screen.
• Focusing certain attributes may not work if certain Ghost attribute mods are equipped.
• The Prophecy Dungeon's Cottontail Shell's ears no longer display color.
• Only four daily bounties appear in Spider's inventory but the quest step during the Forsaken campaign requires five bounties.
• Certain ability combinations can cause a Bow to become invisible in a player's hands. Firing the Bow will resolve this issue.

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.

Now That's Metal.

Thinking about it, "Season of the Lost" would be a pretty fun album title. Harder rock, probably metal, and full of crazy riffs. Top slot for this week is a killer track created by a community member. We've been headbanging for the last few days! Second pick is also a reminder of many lessons learned in Gambit. See a Nova Bomb? You Run. See mini-Nova Bomb seekers? You run. Take damage from an invader? Don't rush the boss and get stomped into the ground. In any case, the reaction of this invader is priceless.

Movie of the Week: Lost Queen

Movie of the Week: Maximum Carnage

Movie of the Week: Craft the Truth

Make sure to submit your video to the Community Creations page on Bungie.net. Sure, we may check Twitter or other social media platforms for submissions, but our Creations portal is a great place to be seen!

Inktober

This time of year always brings out some amazing pieces from the community. Some are inspired by inktober prompts, other creations come out of a whisper of a thought had during a foggy morning walk - no matter their origin, the art is awesome. Here are a few items that have crossed our monitors over the last week.

Art of the Week: Ares One

DAY#4 - Ares One#inktober2021 #Destiny #Destiny2 #DestinyArt #Destiny2Art #DestinyTober2021 pic.twitter.com/n8Ko62XhVG

— vast (@vast_iw) October 4, 2021

Art of the Week: Lyss-2

This is my main guardian
Lyss-2

I made a ton of lore for her, that ill post here someday c:#destiny2fanart #destinyart #Destiny2Art #destiny2hunter pic.twitter.com/lmnU3pEvr6

— Andskoti (Bord sometimes) (@The_Andskoti) October 6, 2021

Art of the Week: What did you show him?

Day 5 : Transmat

「 what did you show him?
Everything. 」#Destinytober2021 #destinytober#Destiny2 #Destiny2Art #thecrow #crow #uldrensov @DestinyComArt @rDESTNYCREATION@DestinyTober pic.twitter.com/KHlx0HnlLO

— moonstar ⚔️ (@moonstar_knight) October 5, 2021

Make sure to tag your art so we can find it! #DestinyArt and #Destiny2Art are the main ones, and this month we'll be watching the #DestinyTober2021 as well.

Week's Almost Over...

Is it Friday yet? No? Well shoot. Guess I have to wait a little longer to play more Trials. The revamp has been going well, and it's awesome to see renewed excitement around the mode. Looks like tomorrow will feature [REDACTED] as the Flawless reward. I got a nice roll the last time it was featured, but I'd really like to get [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] on it.

I hope you're ready to play on [REDACTED]. It has a few different range profiles to toy with, depending on which lane you go for first. Just be sure to play as a team. Flank when you can but be ready to rotate if needed. What, my descriptors are too vague? A Destiny pro would be able to guess which map I'm talking about easily!

All jokes aside, which map do you think we'll feature? @ us on Twitter. People who guess it right might get a nice virtual pat on the virtual back.

Good luck out there, and may your loot be plentiful.

Cheers,
dmg04[REDACTED]