This Week At Bungie - 03/23/2023

Happy TWABsday guardians. This week we are back with quite a bit of Crucible information, some changes to Guardian Ranks, and more.

First up, we want to give you a little refresher of what we talked about last week:

TL;DR of last week's TWAB:

• We got to celebrate with the World First Race winners.
• Art of Lightfall developer insight video.
• Shared updates to Commendations and Guardian Ranks.
• An Exotic quest arrived.
• Trials of Osiris came back.
• Iron Banner updates and rewards.
• Updates from the Destiny Player Support team.
• Our Movie of the Week and Art of the Week picks.

Here's what's coming today:

• Tribute to Lance Reddick.
• Crucible blog TL;DR.
• Raid Master and Challenge Mode starts next week.
• Guardian Rank updates.
• Destiny Player Support updates.
• The Movie of the Week and Art of the Week picks.

Lance Reddick (1962-2023)

On Friday, we all learned of the tragic news of Lance Reddick's passing at the age of 60. As the voice of Commander Zavala—the stalwart commander of the Vanguard—Lance brought to life a character who has become virtually synonymous with Destiny itself. For nearly a decade, Guardians around the world have found purpose and comfort in Zavala's presence, bolstered by that unmistakable voice, so full of strength, serenity, and nobility.

The tributes that have poured in for Lance have been overwhelming; from endless heartfelt messages on social media to impromptu gatherings of respect in Zavala's corner of the Tower, overlooking the Last City. As an actor, musician, gamer, and family man, the passion Lance brought to the things he loved was reflected in the eyes and hearts of all who loved him.

For now, we will honor his presence through his performances yet to come in the game, and in the memories that will last us a lifetime. We are deeply saddened by his passing but so thankful for the time we spent together, and our thoughts are with his friends and loved ones.

Thank you for everything, Lance. We will miss you.

pic.twitter.com/csXjKcMOJy

— Bungie (@Bungie) March 17, 2023

Did you see our graphs?

Yesterday, we released our Lightfall Crucible Update blog post. We aren't going to repost all 5,000+ words here, but here's a summary of everything we covered:

• Updates to how maps and game modes are weighted.
• Matchmaking adjustments and an explanation of Fireteam Matchmaking.
• Competitive matchmaking and how skill rating works.
• Future Competitive rewards and quality-of-life updates.
• Upcoming Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris plans.
• New and returning game modes.

If you want to dive into the rest of the blog, you can read more here.

We hope this helps answer some of your questions about our upcoming plans for the Crucible. Feel free to share your kind and constructive feedback over on our @Destiny2Team account.

Raid Master Mode and Challenge Rotation Starts Next Week

It's time Guardians, raid Weekly Challenges are here.

Raid Master difficulty offers a higher challenge and greater rewards, including armor with a weekly rotating stat focus. The Weekly Challenges add an optional hidden objective to one encounter each week that, when completed, grant extra loot. On Normal difficulty they drop double rewards. When cleared on Master difficulty, they reward an Adept raid weapon.

As noted in a previous article, enhancing Master Root of Nightmares Adept weapons will be possible, allowing the traits that rolled on the weapon to be upgraded. This capability will not be immediately available when the Master raid launches and will arrive in the mid-Season patch. The raid Adept weapons you acquire prior to this patch will still be able to be enhanced, so you'll want to avoid throwing out any good rolls.

Before Master difficulty releases, we wanted to talk about two issues pertaining to Root of Nightmares.

The first being Nezarec's behavior. Sometimes, Nezarec doesn't always respond to players when they are standing in a Well of Radiance. In a future update we will be updating this behavior, which in turn should make Nezarec feel more like the Final God of Pain. While it is our philosophy to avoid making dramatic tuning changes to an activity once it is live, we feel it better to address the responsiveness of the boss and accept that it may alter current strategies and increased the level of challenge.

The second issue we'd like to discuss is around the jump pads that can be found throughout Root of Nightmares (specifically in the second encounter Scission). The jump pads are a tool to help players cross large areas while allowing players to use Strand (if they'd like) to circumvent using the jump pads. We've noticed that players with higher framerates (usually above 80 FPS, but not below 60 FPS) could be unintentionally killed or almost killed by using the jump pads. We're investigating a change to address the issue in an upcoming release.

Guardian Ranks Updates

As we've watched new and veteran players alike work through their Guardian Ranks since Lightfall's launch, we realized the Legendary and Master Lost Sector objectives were placed a bit too early in the progression. In today's update, we've moved both the solo completion and solo flawless objectives up to a higher Guardian Rank, so fewer players will hit the same bottleneck at Rank 6:

• Legend Lost Sector Guardian Rank objectives have moved from Rank 7 to Rank 8.
• Master Lost Sector Guardian Rank objectives have moved from Rank 9 to Rank 10.

Combined with last week's reduction to Commendations targets in Ranks 7 through 11, these changes will make for a smoother progression path for everyone through the Guardian Ranks system. We're also working on a broader "rank remix" in the near future to improve the process even further.

Destiny Player Support

My Immortal (SMG)

The Player Support team is back this week and ready to share their known issues.

Known Issues List / Help Forums / Bungie Help Twitter

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 Dimensional Hypotrochoid Grenade Launcher can have a range Masterwork.
• Non-Lightfall quests show up under the Lightfall quest category.
• Hunters that die and have Strand reapplied will lose their first Strand Aspect.
• Thunderhead Grips are missing as an ornament for Armor Synthesis.
• Certain Heavy weapon archetypes are not benefitting from equipping a third reserve mod.
• Unpowered melee can produce fast melee combos in quick succession.
• Commendations are greyed out as already given in some activities.
• Master dungeons aren't showing Artifice armor in the reward preview when selecting the activity.
• The Shielded Foes activity modifier is showing a placeholder icon.
• We are investigating an issue causing players to be unable to join Competitive Crucible matches after their in-game suspension is scheduled to expire. Players affected by this issue can resolve it by playing a match of Competitive Crucible with an alternate character.
• Players in Legend and Master Lost Sectors and Master Wellspring can become softlocked on a black screen when wiping to orbit. Players in this state can manually return to orbit to fix the 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.

Per Audacia,

Ivan: This week it's all about tribute to Lance.

Movie of the Week: Lance Timelapse

Time lapse 🧡💙

Song: Just Pretend by Bad Omens pic.twitter.com/mztkkHwsie

— Jen (@Madam_Wizard) March 21, 2023

Bruno: Looks like it's beginning to rain.

Movie of the Week: Finishing the fight

Copied Lance's loadout and finished up the mission he was working on before he went to bed Thursday night.

Rest easy, Commander Zavala. You will be missed pic.twitter.com/YbcDF13NUk

— Andowsdan (@AndowsDan) March 19, 2023

Ad Astra.

Hippy: Last week, we lost a part of our soul. Lance Reddick was home for a lot of Guardians, and his passing hit hard. It was incredible to see so many Guardians banding together in the Tower to honor our Vanguard leader. A Titan that showed us what it means to lead with kindness and fairness. There aren't enough words to express what his loss means, but his light will always be with us. Always.

Art of the Week: See you starside, Commander.

See you star-side, Commander. #CommanderZavala #Destiny2Art #RIPLanceReddick pic.twitter.com/SmLEpiWG6G

— Red (Comms Open) (@VeryRedGir) March 17, 2023

Sam: We're going to miss you, Lance.

Art of the Week: Rest in Power.

Rest in Power, Lance ❤️ #zavala #destiny pic.twitter.com/XtbP0hWRRh

— jack (@jackdrawss) March 19, 2023

Alright Guardians, there we have it for this week's TWAB. We've seen some chatter on socials around this week's story mission, so if you haven't jumped in, we highly recommend knocking that out.

We also know that there have been some impactful moments, in-game and in real life, in many corners of our worlds recently. Please be sure to take care of you and your mental health. If you need resources for anything that might feel a bit too heavy, we have a list on our mental health blog post.

Stay Crafty,

Sam