This Week At Bungie - 7/14/2022

This week at Bungie, we are getting ready for Solstice!

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of This Week at Bungie. Right now, Iron Banner is going strong as teams battle to grab the Rift and quite literally dunk on their opponents. If you haven't heard yet, this Season's Iron Banner has been shaken up with not only a new mode but several other updates to the event from earning reputation and pinnacle rewards to even a new Iron Lord title. Check out this previous TWAB for the full details.

Speaking of Iron Lord, this is the last Iron Banner of the Season, so go get that title this week or you will have to wait until next Season for your next shot. Go make Lord Saladin... errr Valus Forge proud!

Solstice

Next week, we are kicking off our summer Seasonal event, Solstice. The fun begins on July 19. Expect new summer festival inspired decorations in the Tower, a major revamp to the Solstice EAZ activity and a brand-new armor upgrading experience. Additionally, we're debuting the first Event Card, a new way to engage in our events. Here is a quick reminder summary of the Event Card.

Event Card Summary

• Solstice is launching with the Event Card to organize objectives and help guide players on what they can do during the event
• The Event Card is available for free for all players.
• View your Event Card by:
  • Interacting with Eva Levante in the Tower.
  • Or via the Quests tab (right next to Seasonal Challenges).
• The Event Card consists of Event Challenges, Event Seals and titles, and Upgraded Event Card Rewards.
  • Note the free events you know and love will remain the same, and some of the free rewards are now claimed via the Event Card (upgrade not required).
• Completing Event Challenges earns players event-related rewards and Event Tickets.
• Players can upgrade their Event Card for 1000 Silver to unlock:
  • An instant claimable reward bundle.
  • The ability to spend Event Tickets for more rewards.
• Not sure you'll earn enough Event Tickets? No problem—Tickets are earned even if you haven't upgraded your card, and the Event Card can be upgraded any time while the event is active.
  • Note Event Tickets must be spent before Solstice ends on August 9!
• Upgraded Event Card rewards will be exclusively obtained through their event in the year they launch but could be added to the Eververse store in the future.

For more info on the Event Card, check out this previous TWAB.

Here is a quick look at a few rewards that are instantly unlocked from the Upgraded Event Card.

Hot Dog Eating Champ

Sunny Exotic Ghost Shell

Before the event starts up next week, we wanted to walk you through the basics of how armor upgrading works in Solstice. Here is Design Lead CJ Payne to give you a preview of how you will be upgrading your Solstice armor.

CJ Payne: Hiya everyone! We wanted to change the way you earn and upgrade armor with this update to Solstice. As part of that, we removed those pesky objectives from the armor and streamlined the upgrade process for all classes.

Here are some of our goals:

• Focus on actively upgrading armor the entire event through new player actions.
• Provide agency and choice with how you upgrade your armor.
• Give players a chance to reasonably chase armor rolls for the duration of the event.
• Tie together acquiring and upgrading armor with the theme of Solstice.
• Lower the barrier to entry for players who haven't engaged with armor stats.

If you've ever wanted to chase down specific armor rolls, Solstice is your time to shine! Want a 100 Resilience build? You got it. Need a new armor set for Nightfalls, Crucible, and Gambit? We've got you covered. And with a little luck, maybe you'll get the god-roll you've been waiting for!

Upgrading your Solstice armor requires finding and spending new event currencies. Here's what you should be looking for.

Solstice Armor Upgrading Currencies

• Silver Leaves
  • Earn Silver Leaves by completing activities throughout the game.
• Silver Ash
  • Transform Silver Leaves into Silver Ash by completing the new activity: Bonfire Bash.
  • Spend Silver Ash to reroll armor stats from the armor mod screen.
• Kindling
  • Earn Kindling by completing Solstice Event Challenges.
  • Spend Kindling to upgrade your armor stat roll potential, each piece of armor can be upgraded three times (three tiers).
  • You only need to do this once per armor slot. Every time you upgrade a piece of Solstice armor, it is permanent and shared across all pieces for that slot. So, if you upgrade a helmet all the way to Tier 3, every Solstice helmet currently in your inventory and any future helmets you earn for that class can now access Tier 3 stat rerolls.

So, let's break this down:

• Complete Event Challenges to earn Kindling.
• Use Kindling to permanently upgrade your Solstice armor stat roll potential.
  • 
    
• Complete a wide variety of activities throughout the game to earn Silver Leaves.
• Complete the Solstice Activity, Bonfire Bash, to transform Silver Leaves into Silver Ash.
• Use Silver Ash to reroll armor stats from the armor mod screen.
• Keep earning and spending Silver Ash to reroll armor to get the stats you want.
• Once you've fully rerolled stats on a piece of armor, pick up a new piece for the same slot to start rerolling stats again.

The new Solstice armor sets feature both free and paid glows like previous years. And just like last year, fully upgrading a piece of armor, with kindling, will cause it to glow.



Once your armor is all nice and shiny, you gain access to high-stat rolls focusing on a stat (or two) of your choice.



Alright, that's everything you need to know about Solstice armor upgrading. Check out the event next week to discover everything Solstice has to offer and get ready to build your perfect armor set!

Foundation Update

One week down, one week to go! Thanks to all of you who have shown your support so far, the Bungie Day Giving Festival has raised an incredible $811k to date! With a goal of $1M, we know you're going to knock it out of the park and support us in our efforts around:

• Improving children's health and wellbeing
• Uplifting the voices and rights of all individuals and communities
• Providing humanitarian aid in times of crisis

Throughout the event, we hope that you have been able to meet and connect with fresh new faces through our featured streams, as well as found unique ways to express your generosity in-game through our variety of donor and fundraiser incentives.

As a reminder, here are just a few of those incentives:

Donate $50+ to earn the new Seven of Seven emblem

Donate $100+ to earn the Hearts Emblem Bundle

Fundraisers who meet a $2500+ lifetime milestone will receive the Metagalactic Bloom emblem

Fundraisers who meet a $5000+ lifetime milestone will receive the new Function of Grace emblem

*All in-game digital incentives will be automatically redeemed via donors' Bungie.net ID and will appear in Destiny 2 Collections. Prizes are only valid if earned on or before July 20, 2022. We are actively working on aggregating lifetime fundraising totals for our participants. If you achieve lifetime reward that spans multiple fundraising campaigns, you will receive a separate email no later than Friday, July 29th with details about the timeline for your incentive redemptions.

We are also thrilled to update you on the success to-date of the Loyal Companion emote—since the beginning of Season 17, over 165,000 Guardians have found their Loyal Companion just like Make-a-Wish Kid, Cristian.

You've also shown so much support through the Bungie Store pre-order of Prime-40's Artemis plushy that we've already run through our inventory and need to manufacture more! If you missed out on pre-ordering this item, please express your interest by hitting that "Notify Me" button on the link above so we can serve you best.

We are endlessly grateful for the enthusiasm and generosity you all continue to show us here at the Bungie Foundation. You are the Light Keepers that make this world a brighter place!

Player Support Report

Beep beep.

Please join me in welcoming our Player Support Team to the front to share an important update on the state of the live game.

This is their report.

Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help Twitter

UPDATE 4.1.5

Next Tuesday, July 19, Destiny 2 Update 4.1.5 will be released. For this update, Destiny 1 and 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 6:45 AM (1345 UTC) to 10 AM (1700 UTC) on July 19. Below is a scheduled timeline for this release:

• 6 AM PDT (1300 UTC): Destiny 1 and 2 maintenance begins.
• 6:45 AM (1345 UTC): Destiny 1 and 2 are brought offline.
• 10 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 4.1.5 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.
• 11 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 1 and 2 maintenance completes.

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

Below is a list of some of the issues that will be resolved with this update:

• Tooltips disappear when dismantling items from the Postmaster.
• Defeating targets while Radiant with the Knock 'em Down aspect is not refunding melee energy when used with Caliban's Hand.
• The voice chat volume setting is absent on console platforms.

SOLSTICE STASIS GLOW

Prior to the launch of Solstice on July 19, players should be aware that the Stasis Solstice armor glow is incorrectly displaying a purple hue rather than blue when the Stasis subclass is equipped. This is a known issue and will be resolved soon after the event launch.

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:

• The Linear Fusion Scavenger mod grants less Heavy ammo per scavenger brick when equipped on Legendary Linear Fusion Rifles.
• During A Guardian Rises, Shaw Han's cutscene dialogue can be cut off by Public Event start dialogue.
• The left engine flare on the Transpose JT-24-X Exotic ship is misaligned.

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.

Feature Presentation

Bruno: I might not look like one, but I've been a metal-head my whole life, so listening to such a good cover of one of the most badass Cabal themes of Destiny 2 makes me tremendously happy. And the Cabal are very metal, if you think about it. Just take a look at Caiatl. Also, they eat mountains and drink seas, you know.

Movie of the Week: Rocking Grounds

Ivan: We were delighted and surprised to see that there's an actual Dunder Mifflin branch operating here in the Tower! Well, not really—but if it did, it would look something like this. Parkour!

Movie of the Week: The Office Intro In Destiny 2

We Recreated The Office Intro In Destiny 2!@DirtyEffinHippy @A_dmg04 @Cozmo23 @Bungie @DestinyGameUK #MOTW pic.twitter.com/8zl9X7MNXO

— Mythical (@Mythicalitye) June 27, 2022

Works of Art

Hippy: The Season of the Haunted storyline did its name proud with its hauntingly engrossing story about topics that sear their way into our souls. The raw emotion from each character, facing the very things that they've tried to keep buried—it has been inspiring, really. Since many of us are very much stuck in our feels, this art piece depicting Caiatl and Zavala side-by-side has me a weeping bawling mess, but in a good way. Incredibly done and also thanks for ruining my makeup due to aforementioned cryfest. That's a good sign of a powerful piece of art!

Art of the Week: Rage

#Destiny2Art #Destiny2#AOTW @Cozmo23 @DirtyEffinHippy

Grief / Rage Forgiveness / Resolve pic.twitter.com/6vE9OZPKmA

— NINE ✨ (@ninerivens) June 29, 2022

Sam: Happy TWABsday, Guardians! One of the coolest things we have seen recently has been the influx of fiber artists within our community. What is a fiber artist you may be asking? A common description is it is someone who creates art, with any type of fiber! So, if you crochet, knit, embroider, spin fibers, dye fibers, sew, punch needle, or anything like that, you are a fiber artist!

This week we have a lovely embroidery piece made with silk thread on a linen backing and I am just blown away by how smooth those stitches look.

Art of the Week: Rhulk

Rhulk embroidery completed.
Silk on linen.
This was super hard to get pictures of for some reason.
I need to figure out a better way to get pictures. #Destiny2Art #AOTW #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/QNycKaEBl6

— VallaragnaArt (@VallaragnaArt) July 8, 2022

That is a wrap for this week. I don't know about where you are, but it's heating up around here. Once again, we are reminding you to drink water and keep cool. Hope you have a great Solstice next week!

<3 Cozmo