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4 May 2023
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This Week at Bungie - 05/04/2023

This week at Bungie, we're getting ready to dive into the deep with some new art while also peeping some fresh rewards on the horizon for those Guardians that have a soft spot for Trials of Osiris.

Before jumping into this week's TWAB, let's take a quick look back at last week:

  • Trials community map vote: Rusted Lands, Convergence, and Disjunction.
  • Strand updates for Season 21.
  • Artist reference collection updates (heads up, cosplayers!).
  • Community Artist Exotic Ornament winner: GGs Witherhoard players.
  • Adopt-a-Pet bundle time!

For this week:

  • Guardian Games and Guardian Games Cup are live!
  • Season of the Deep first look:
    • Key art and launch date/time reveal.
    • Details on our three new Strand Aspects.
    • Recapping big changes coming with abilities.
    • New Exotic armor focusing and stat roll details.
    • Upcoming economy and crafting updates.
    • A note on upcoming Season Passes.
    • Trials of Osiris updates
      • Sneak peek at new rewards and weapon changes.
      • Learnings from Trials Labs.
      • Updated Trials intro quest.
      • Changes to Passages of Wealth and Mercy.
      • Dominion as the new core mode.
      • Flawless gilding update.
      • New emblem reward.
      • Trials map voting results.
  • New Prime Gaming gear.
  • Getting our Oprah on (again) with more wallpaper.

All set? Let's get started with Guardian Games 2023!

One Class to Rule Them All, or to at Least Get Bragging Rights...

It's that time, Guardians! Time to show off that class pride and show other Guardians what you're made of. Or collect Medallions because ooh, shiny! We're not here to judge.

In case you missed it, we dropped all the info you could possibly want about this year's Guardian Games right here. If you're in a rush (we get it), here's what you may have missed.

The spirit of competition is alive and well with that familiar podium and daily crest seen at the Tower in all their glory... and Ms. Eva Levante. You simply can't forget about Space Grandma. You know the drill by now: deposit Medallions like your life depends on it for select activities and hope your fellow class dwellers are doing the same. Whichever class has the most Medallions at the end of this year's Guardian Games is the class that gets their tribute made in the Tower and the pride of knowing they're simply the best. At least for this year.

Rollin' in the Deep With a Season 21 First Look

Who doesn't love a good teaser, amiright? Here's our first look at what Season of the Deep will have to offer starting on May 23, at 10 AM Pacific.

And a version without text because come on, this art is dang pretty:

We've got plenty to share over the coming weeks, and a lot to dive into today. Including...

We Couldn't Strand Waiting Any Longer to Talk About Three New Aspects

Hey, Guardians. Combat Gameplay team here to spill the tea on the three new Strand Aspects that will become available when Season 21 launches. Our goal with these Aspects is to strengthen the existing Strand kits and expand the gameplay options of each class. You'll be able to acquire these Aspects as part of a new pursuit after visiting the Pouka Pond in Neomuna's Hall of Heroes. Let's get into it.

Hunter Aspect: Threaded Specter

Activate your class ability to leave behind a decoy woven from Strand matter that draws the attention of nearby combatants.

After taking significant damage or when combatants approach, the decoy detonates, dealing damage and releasing Threadlings that seek out and attack nearby foes.

Pesky Cabal gunfire have you pinned down? Need a quick distraction so you can revive a teammate? Have you ever thought about what a bunch of Threadlings in a trench coat looks like? The new Threaded Specter Aspect for the Hunter Threadrunner might just be what you're looking for.

When players activate their dodge, they leave behind a decoy woven from Strand matter that draws the attention of enemies on the battlefield. Enemies will shoot at the Threaded Specter until it's destroyed or expires, giving the Hunter and their fireteam enough time to get to safety. When destroyed, a Threaded Specter explodes into two Threadlings. Threaded Specter gives Hunter players access to Threadling generation and a new way to control the battlefield.

Titan Aspect: Flechette Storm

While sliding, activate your charged melee ability to leap into the air, knocking nearby targets away and dealing damage. While airborne, activate your charged melee again to launch a cluster of damaging, Unraveling projectiles. Repeatedly activating melee will chain additional throws.

Berserker Titans are known for their unbridled aggression. While sprinting headfirst into battle is often the best way to deploy Berserker abilities, we want to provide players with a tool that allows for more potency at range and gives Titans easier ways to unravel enemies. This is where Flechette Storm comes into play.

With Flechette Storm, Berserkers have access to a powerful new slide-melee attack that quickly launches them up into the air and blasts away any nearby enemies. While still airborne, press the melee button again to fire a cluster of tracking projectiles that deal heavy damage and unravel enemies.

Flechette Storm provides the Berserker with a ranged melee option while keeping with the spirit of their fast-paced gameplay.

Warlock Aspect: The Wanderer

Tangles you throw attach to enemies and detonate into a suspending burst. Threadling final blows create a Tangle.

Since the Warlock Broodweaver is a Strand minion master, it felt natural to explore additional ways the Broodweaver might weave life into the world around them. Enter The Wanderer—a sentient Tangle woven from Broodweaver brilliance.

When Warlocks equipped with this Aspect pick up a Tangle, they weave the Tangle into The Wanderer. When thrown, The Wanderer travels through the air, seeking targets. Once it finds a target, it soars towards them, latches on, and explodes into a Suspending detonation that deals damage and suspends any nearby enemies. To round out the gameplay loop, The Wanderer also enables Threadling final blows from any source to generate a Tangle.

The Wanderer gives Broodweavers another way to upgrade their Tangles and grants access to the suspend effect without needing a Shackle Grenade.

We're pretty excited to get these new Strand Aspects in the game, and we hope you enjoy them when Season 21 launches. We'll be monitoring their performance across the game and will continue to balance them over time.

Stasis, Strand, and Light Subclasses Get Their Glow-Ups for Season 21

Earlier this week, you may have seen a new blog post from our friendly Combat Gameplay team. The team dove into ability tuning changes that Guardians can look forward to with Season 21, including changes to roaming Supers that we think are pretty spiffy. From Fragment budget to a breakdown of both Stasis and Strand changes on the horizon, here's a handy TL;DR for your viewing pleasure:

  • Tuning changes to Supers, including a nice buff to damage resistance and damage dealt in PvE.
  • A class-by-class breakdown in Season 21 changes.
  • What we're doing to beef up Stasis.
  • How subclass keywords are evolving for Arc and Solar players.

You can read the full blog post right here to learn more about what's around the riverbend (come on, at least one '90s animation fan had to sing that last part).

Economy Changes? In This Economy?! Wait...

Let's talk about the in-game economy, shall we? We've got a few things to go over, including changes to our power band, crafting economy changes, Exotic armor focusing, and even more:

  • For the first time, we will not be increasing the power bands in Destiny 2 in Season 21.
    • Power Floor (1600), Soft Cap (1750), Powerful Cap (1800), and Pinnacle Caps (1810) will not change over the course of Season 21.
      • If players hit the Pinnacle Cap during Season 20, they will remain at the Pinnacle Cap in Season 21.
Exotic Armor Focusing and Decryption

We touched on this in the past but it's worth repeating regarding Exotic armor focusing and decryption coming to Rahool at the start of Season 21:

Focusing Options

Standard Decryption

  • Allows players to decrypt engrams for free.
  • Players receive random drops from standard Exotic engram loot pools.
  • No additional cost.

Exotic Focusing Tier 1

  • Focus an engram to receive a random roll of an Exotic from the associated expansion.
    • Red War: Exotic Helms
    • Red War: Exotic Arms
    • Red War: Exotic Chests
    • Red War: Exotic Legs
    • Forsaken: Exotic Armor
    • Shadowkeep: Exotic Armor
    • Beyond Light: Exotic Armor
    • The Witch Queen: Exotic Armor
    • Lightfall: Exotic Armor focusing will be coming in a future Season!
  • Requires ownership of the associated expansion as well as having previously acquired all armor pieces within the engram for your class.
  • It will cost:
    • 1 Exotic engram.
    • 30,000 Glimmer.
    • 1 Ascendant Shard.

Exotic Focusing Tier 2

  • Focus Specific Exotic Armor for high cost.
  • Requires ownership of the associated expansion as well as having previously acquired that piece of armor.
  • It has a higher cost:
    • 1 Exotic engram.
    • 60,000 Glimmer.
    • 3 Ascendant Shards.
    • 1 Exotic Cipher.

We have also taken a pass at the Exotic armor stat packages, so your Exotics should roll consistently higher stats, and with more frequent individual stat spikes starting in Season 21. You can expect the average stats to be in the mid-60s!

Lastly, since we are not raising the Pinnacle Cap in Season 21, the need for many Pinnacle Legendary rewards has dropped significantly. To help make playing in our evergreen ritual playlists more worthwhile, we are changing the rewards for the basic 'complete activities' challenges to a focusable Powerful Exotic engram. This gives most players 3 to 9 free, achievable, and deterministic weekly Exotic engrams, ready for focusing.

But yes, you will be losing some pinnacle drops, so reaching the Pinnacle Cap will be a bit slower for everyone. We are hoping the need for less pinnacle drops continues in future Seasons, but we will be looking at feedback and analytics, and are ready to adjust as necessary!

Other sources of focusable Exotic engrams:

  • Random world drops
  • Season Pass paid and free tracks (6 paid, 2 free per Season)
  • Vendor reputation tracks (one each reset after the first)

You can expect additional focusable Exotic engram sources in future Seasons! Now, let's set our sights on Deepsight activation and other crafting changes on the way.

Deepsight Activation and Crafting Economy Changes

In Season 21, we will be adding the ability to electively activate Deepsight on weapon instances to obtain pattern progress. This capability will be accessible through a new mod slot in the weapon details screen for eligible weapons.

  • To perform a Deepsight activation on a weapon, you will need a new Deepsight Harmonizer currency. Non-raid weapons will cost 1 Harmonizer, while raid weapons will require 15 Spoils of Conquest in addition to the 1 Harmonizer cost.
  • This Deepsight Harmonizer currency can be obtained from Season pass rank rewards, 3 in the free ranks and another 3 in the paid. This will be the sole source of this currency for the initial rollout of the feature. Additionally, only one Harmonizer can be stored in the inventory at any time—this currency does not stack.
  • Not all weapon instances will be compatible with Deepsight activation:
    • You will be prevented from activating Deepsight for a weapon that has already had its pattern unlocked.
    • Weapons that previously had Deepsight will be ineligible. You cannot activate Deepsight on a weapon instance which had originally been acquired with Deepsight, nor can you activate Deepsight multiple times on a single weapon instance.
    • Weapon instances purchased from raid vendors will be ineligible, however weapons purchased from Xรปr and the Gunsmith will support Deepsight activation.

Crafting costs will also see a change in Season 21:

  • Legendary Shard costs will be removed from all crafting components. Glimmer and Enhancement Core costs will remain untouched.
  • Enhanced weapon costs are based on weapon Masterwork costs, and thus will still require Legendary Shards as we are not yet modifying the weapon Masterwork economy in Season 21.

Quality-of-Life Updates That We Think You'll Enjoy

Coming in Season 21, we have a number of quality-of-life updates we are excited to share with you! First up, let's take a look at raid Triumphs.07-

Over the last year, the Raid and Dungeon team has added Triumphs to new raids and dungeons—Duality, Spire of the Watcher, and Root of Nightmares—which give a boosted chance to receive the Exotic weapon drop for that raid or dungeon once completed. In Season 21, we're adding boosted Triumphs to legacy content with randomly dropped Exotic weapons to bring them up to our standard for raids and dungeons. We added them to existing Triumphs and are retroactive, so if you already have done the requisite Triumphs, you immediately start getting a boost!

Last Wish: One Thousand Voices

TRIUMPH RATE BOOST
Petra's Run +3
The New Meta +2
Thunderstruck+1
Sunburn+1
Night Owl +1
Habitual Wisher+1
Challenges:
Coliseum Champion
Summoning Ritual
Strength of Memory
Keep Out
Forever Fight
+1 per (5 total)

Deepstone Crypt: Eyes of Tomorrow

TRIUMPHRATE BOOST
Survival of the Fittest +3
Freezing Point +1
Control Group +2
Challenges:
Red Rover
Copies of Copies
Of All Trades
The Core Four
+1 (4 total)
Complications:
Resource Contention
5 Seconds to Paradise
Short Circuit
Ready, Set, Go!
+1 per (4 total)

Vow of the Disciple: Collective Obligation

TRIUMPHSRATE BOOST
Risen from the Deep+3
Master Difficulty "Vow of the Disciple" +2
Together in the Deep+1
Challenges:
Swift Destruction
Base Information
Defenses Down
Looping Catalyst
+1 (4 total)
Complications:
On My Go
Handle With Care
Glyph to Glyph
Symmetrical Energy
+1 per (4 total)

Vault of Glass: Vex Mythoclast

TRIUMPHSRATE BOOST
Flawless Vault of Glass +3
Master Glasser +1
Challenges:
Wait For It...
The Only Oracle For You
Out of Its Way
Rabid Relic
Eyes on Antheon
+1 per (5 total)
Complications:
Dragon's Den
Take Cover
Tempered Teleport
Strangers in Time
Ensemble's Refrain
+1 per (5 total)

Kingsfall: Touch of Malice

TRIUMPHSRATE
Crux of the King+3
One True King+1
Challenges:
The Grass is Always Greener
Devious Thievery
Gaze Amaze
Under Construction
Hands Off
+1 per (5 total)
Complications:
Overzealous
Brand Busters
Taking Turns
The Floor is Lava
Overwhelming Power
+1 per (5 total)
Finest Matterweave and Rainmaker Deprecation

As part of our ongoing efforts to simplify the economy of Destiny 2, it's time to say goodbye to the Finest Matterweave and Rainmaker consumable items. Starting in Season 21, these items will no longer drop from any source in the game. In any instance where players would have received a Finest Matterweave, they will receive 1 Enhancement Core instead. And whenever players would have gotten a drop of a Rainmaker, they will instead earn 3,000 Glimmer.

Furthermore, all existing instances of these items in players' inventories can be consumed to directly grant their associated materials.

  • All existing instances of Finest Matterweave can be Dismantled for 1 Enhancement Core each.
  • All existing instances of Rainmaker can be dismantled for 3000 Glimmer.
Vanguard Bounty Updates

We haven't made wide-ranging updates to Vanguard bounties in a while, so we took a pass to make them friendlier!

Daily Bounties

Existing daily bounties requiring you to get a specific type of kill—grenade, headshot, or any of the Special or Heavy weapons—now require twice as many kills to complete but can be done anywhere in the game, with increased progress in Vanguard Ops or Nightfalls. If you only plan on doing these in Vanguard activities, you should see no change in behavior.

We also added a number of new bounties:

  • Killing elites, mini-bosses, and Champions.
  • Kills with elemental abilities, with bonuses for killing with a subclass verb.
  • Complete 2 Vanguard activities.

Regarding repeatable bounties: all enemy-type kill bounties (Hive, Vex, Taken, Cabal, Fallen, Scorn) have significantly increased requirements, but can be advanced by killing any combatant in a Vanguard activity, with significantly increased progress for killing the correct type of combatant.

We also added one new repeatable bounty—one for getting fireteam kills in a Vanguard activity.

Good Boy Protocol

Archie is returning in Season 21! Now that we've found him a permanent home in the Tower, we are re-introducing the Good Boy Protocol stat tracker and moving it to the Account/Career category. Your previous progress from Season 19 will also carry over!

Important Season Pass Info Starting with Season 21

As our teams continue to invest in crafting compelling Seasonal experiences for the year of Lightfall, there's a heads-up we wanted to give regarding a small increase in the standalone Season Pass price, beginning with Season of the Deep. Here's what you can expect:

  • Season Pass: 1,000 Silver -> 1,200 Silver
  • Season Pass + 10 Ranks Bundle: 2,000 Silver -> 2,200 Silver

This will be the new pricing for Season Passes in Lightfall's year for those looking to maximize their rewards with each new Season, and we'll be evaluating new approaches to post-launch content in the year of The Final Shape.

Pricing will remain unchanged for the Lightfall standard edition (which includes access to the current live Season at the time of purchase) and Lightfall + Annual Pass edition (which includes access to Seasons 20-23).

Trials: These Rewards Are Flawless and Weapon Changes on the Way

Season 21 will be here before you know it, and luckily for Trials fans this means new rewards to earn are just around the corner. Next Season, Guardians will have a chance to unlock new Exotic cosmetic rewards when opening the Lighthouse rewards chest.

Hero's Wake Exotic Ghost Shell

Valiant Memory Exotic Ship

Survivor's Journey Exotic Sparrow

But that's not all. We also have a new shader on the horizon called Glorious Patina that players will unlock the first time they open the Lighthouse rewards chest in Season 21.

This shader, and any shaders released in the future for Trials of Osiris, will be permanently unlocked once acquired. Transmog to your heart's content, this beauty can be applied to any piece of equipment. Just as a head's up: Glorious Patina will only be available to players who go Flawless during Season 21. Future Seasons will see the return of older Trials shaders (that were previously exclusive to Adept weapons) as rewards for completing the first Seasonal Flawless Ticket, and they will now be fully accessible and usable as on all your transmog-hungry gear.

SHADER NAMESEASON AVAILABLE AS FLAWLESS REWARD
Glorious PatinaSeason 21
Bloodline FeudSeason 22
Vizier RegaliaSeason 23

For Season 21, here is what's being added to Trials loot pool:

The Messenger High-Impact Kinetic Pulse Rifle

Unexpected Resurgence Adaptive Arc Glaive

The Adept version of Unexpected Resurgence will be first available on the weekend of June 9, while the Adept version of The Messenger will be available on the weekend of June 16.

The following weapons will be removed from the standard loot pool in Season 21, but the non-Adept versions will be available via legacy focusing with Saint-14:

  • The Inquisitor Shotgun
  • Whistler's Whim Bow

Let's Talk About Labs

In Week 8, we ran a Trials Labs to test a new style of matchmaking for Trials of Osiris. Overall, the new system worked mostly as intended, but we did discover an issue with the Lobby Balancer which was causing high-skill solo players to often feel like matches were stacked against them. For some background, since we moved to using ticket-based matchmaking years ago, we have not been tracking skill in Trials and have not been utilizing any sort of skill-based lobby balancing either.

The new matchmaking system allows us to match based on card-state and track skill, which we were planning to use for analytics purposes. Preemptively, we believed we had disabled the skill-based lobby balancing, as the intent of the new system was to maintain the randomized nature of the lobbies present in previous iterations of Trials. Unfortunately, this turned out to not be the case, and the previously latent lobby balancer came back online as soon as player's skill values started to solidify over the weekend.

We were able to identify this issue through player reports in a timely manner and we have implemented a fix for Season 21, which will overwrite everyone in the Challenger pool's skill with the same value, effectively randomizing the lobby balancing for all players pursuing Flawless. This fix will not be present in the Week 11 Labs during Season 20, but we will continue to monitor player feedback on the new system to make sure everything else is working as intended.

A second issue that came to our attention with the Week 8 Labs was that we did not communicate properly that, starting Sunday at reset, players who had already been Flawless could still farm Adept rewards on any 7-win card (even Flawed cards), like they could when the Flawless pool was active. For the Week 11 labs, we will be activating this feature starting as soon as Trials goes live on Friday. What this means is that, once you go Flawless, you can continue to play on that same 7-win card for the rest of the weekend (even if it is Flawed) and any win has a chance to grant you the Adept weapon for the week.

Because we have removed ticket-based matchmaking, if you want to help a friend get to the Lighthouse after you have already been, you do not need to reset your card, as the number of wins on it no longer influences the difficulty of the matches you will face. We believe this will make getting Flawless feel significantly more rewarding and should help to alleviate the friction between farming Adepts and helping other players to go Flawless.

Overall, the two soft pools system worked well, blending as needed to ensure connection quality stayed high and matchmaking times were fast, and the farming and stomp protection features both also functioned as designed in the Practice pool. For the Labs, we set the farming protection values aggressively, both to make sure they worked and to make sure that if anyone was attempting to farm, we would be able to catch them quickly before they could potentially cause issues. As stated, the intent of the system is to prevent nefarious people from attempting to abuse the Practice pool, not to prevent normal players from engaging with it if they choose to do so.

We believe we have captured the data we need to make accurate assessments, so we will be tuning the values for Season 21 to make it far less likely that any standard players get caught up by farming protection (we estimate less than 1% of the Trials population will even be eligible to trigger it moving forward, compared to approximately 5% during the first Labs weekend). This should allow the performance-based matchmaking used in the Practice pool to provide a high-quality experience for all players who choose to participate.

Anyway, enough about that. The real question is, "What is changing in Season 21 for Trials?" Glad you asked.

Trials of Osiris Intro Quest, Dominion, and More

We want to make the Trials introductory quest more of an actual introduction to Trials and less of a "do a time-consuming thing before you can play Trials."

In Season 20, new players are currently asked to get 50 Crucible kills, raise their Power level, and reset their Valor rank once. The last step is asking a lot and serves more as a barrier to entry for the mode than we'd like, in addition to not really preparing a player for the type of experience that Trials offers. New players are also not given any real reward for completing the quest outside of Trials access, which can feel bad given the time commitment required to complete it.

As such, we have made the following changes to the introductory quest for Trials:

  • Step 1
    • Complete your Competitive placement matches (helps to get players introduced to 3v3 and revive game modes in an environment where they will be matched against similarly skilled opponents).
    • Get 50 kills in Competitive.
    • Raise your Power level.
  • Step 2
    • Pick up a Trials Passage.
    • Play a game of Trials.
    • Win 1 round of Trials.
    • Get 1 elimination in Trials.
  • Reward
  • A roll of the Astral Horizon Trials Shotgun!
Triages Passages

As mentioned earlier in the Season, we are also updating a couple of our Trials Passage offerings to provide a better experience in the new system.

  • Passage of Wealth
    • Previously granted increased reputation on wins 3, 5, and 7 on a card.
      • This is at odds with a system that wants you to continue playing on a 7-win card to get the most efficient progress and best rewards.
    • In Season 21, this passage will grant +75 Trials rep for every win, along with an additional bonus for your current major rank in Trials, up to +150 total.
      • This encourages players to stay on the same card and take advantage of the system granting more reputation for wins later in the card.
  • Passage of Mercy
    • In Season 21, this passage will forgive 2 losses if you have not yet been Flawless for the week.
    • After going Flawless if you reset your card, it will revert to forgiving a single loss on each card.
    • This will give all players a better chance of going Flawless for the first time each week, and for those players who can go Flawless without using both Mercies, it will give them additional opportunities to play for extra rewards while their first card remains Flawless.
Dominion

In Season 21, we will be moving to Dominion as the core game mode for Trials. This is not a change we are making lightly, but after several Seasons of testing it in Trials Labs and analyzing both the positives and negatives, we believe this shift is in the best interest of Trials as a whole, for several reasons.

  1. Offers a choice between playing Elimination and playing an objective.
    1. Offering an objective for players to focus on outside of kills can allow more types of players to contribute to winning.
  2. On average, games are 15% faster than standard Elimination games.
    1. The prevailing strategy for most Elimination games has devolved over the years to focus on passive play, waiting on someone to make a mistake and get picked, or just simply waiting for the zone to come up at the end of the round anyways.
    2. By spawning the zone earlier, it creates pressure for players to engage and fight earlier in the round and puts extreme passivity at a disadvantage.
  3. Objectives promote more varied engagements on the maps, as the zones direct players around the map and establish multiple defined fronts.
    1. Most engagements in standard Elimination happen at a single central location, generally centered around where the overtime zone will spawn.
    2. Having multiple zones allows for different permutations of rounds, based on team and zone spawn locations, which makes gameplay less static and pushes players to experience different engagement arenas on each map.
  4. Promotes a healthier sandbox variety in both weapons and subclasses.
    1. On weekends where we run Dominion, we see less consolidation around the general strongest elements in the sandbox and success is spread out amongst more weapon and subclass types.
    2. We have been hesitant to balance parts of the sandbox around a game mode that only rotated into Trials on occasion, but moving to it as the core mode will allow us to better focus on its sandbox and address the outliers in effectiveness that do exist.
  5. Provides us with more balancing levers to change the gameplay experience.
    1. If a map plays poorly in standard Elimination, there is little we can do to alter it.
    2. With Dominion, we have a larger number of levers we can use to modify how a map plays to provide the best and most balanced experience possible. For example, in Season 21 we will be changing the initial player and zone spawn locations on Burnout based on feedback from the first Season 20 Trials Lab.
      1. Teams will no longer spawn at Hall inside and East Yard outside, now both teams spawn between Tumbler and Yard on the East and West sides, and the zones will run down the center of the map at Middle Yard, Center, and Altar.
    3. Having multiple zones means we can make changes to maps more quickly to address concerns about flow or balance, allowing us to better manage asymmetrical maps.

We understand that switching to Dominion may make carrying other players to the Lighthouse a more difficult challenge due to the increased premium placed on solid teamwork, but it is important to note that those experiences must be weighed against the bulk of all player experiences in the playlist when we make decisions on what changes to implement.

Gilded Flawless

We wanted to make some changes to gilding Flawless to better align it with the difficulty of gilding the Glorious title, and to focus more on rewarding players for their dedication and individual and team skill in the game mode.

The gilded Flawless requirements in Season 20 were as follows:

  • Get 180 kills.
  • Collect 100 Rewards.
  • Go Flawless with one of the Seasonal Exotic weapons equipped.
  • Carry 2 players to Flawless.
  • Win 7 games on a 7-win ticket.

In Season 21, the requirements will change to the below:

  • Get 500 kills.
  • Earn 16 Trials ranks (reset Trials reputation once).
  • Go Flawless and get 50 kills with one of the Seasonal Exotic weapons equipped.
    • You do not need to get 50 kills with the weapon itself, you just need to have it equipped while you get 50 kills.
  • Skill of the One - While on a ticket with 0 losses with the Light for the Lost emblem equipped:
    • Win 20 games.
    • Acquire the following medals.
      • Double Kell (rapidly eliminate 2 opponents) - 10x.
      • Skull Breaker (deal the most total damage to opponents in a match) - 5x.
      • The Beginning (land the first elimination of a match) - 5x.
  • Strength of the Many - While on a ticket with 0 losses with the Flawless Empyrean Emblem equipped:
    • Win 20 games.
    • Acquire the following medals.
      • Flight of the Pigeon (win a match in which your team never trailed) - 10x.
      • Paradoxically Perfect (as a team, win a round in which each player eliminates a different opponent, and no opponent is revived) - 10x.
      • Time Trials (as a team, win a round within 20 seconds) - 5x.

We believe these changes better reflect the spirit of the game mode and show a level of core competency that is worthy of gilding the Flawless title.

Yo, Dawg, Got Any More of Those Emblems?

For this new iteration of Trials, we wanted to provide a special, deterministic reward to allow players to prove their skill above and beyond simply going Flawless. This emblem will be rewarded to players when they open the Flawless chest at the Lighthouse if they did not trail during any of their wins on their Flawless run (meaning you must get a Flight of the Pigeon medal for every win). Highly skilled players may be able to achieve this feat on their first Lighthouse run, but for others, it may be a significantly more challenging achievement, and we hope the emblem will be something players are proud to show off that they have earned.

Speaking of Trials...

Map voting results here. Too soon to call now, but Rusted is in the lead.

Guardians voted and the results are in. Go out there and make 'ol Saint-14 proud with Rusted Lands. For those personally invested in the results of this (which... we get it), here's how Convergence and Disjunction fared in the voting polls:

  • Disjunction 30%
  • Convergence 29%
  • Rusted Lands 41%

Free Prime Gaming Gear? Free Prime Gaming Gear. Let's Do This.

Now time for some freebies. It's that time again, time for players with Prime Gaming to snag some free gear with a new Destiny 2 bundle that's up for grabs. Here's what you can get for May's drop:

  • Hit the Bag Exotic Emote
  • Phalanx Exotic Ghost Shell
  • Alton's Ambus Legendary Sparrow
  • Pumping Iron Legendary Ghost Holo Projection

For any Guardians that may want a refresher on what Prime Gaming even is, it is a program with Amazon Prime that offers players a select few Exotics and Legendary goodies to unlock. It's super easy to use too. Just sign up for your Prime Gaming account and link it to your Bungie.net account. (If you have Amazon Prime, congrats! You also have Prime Gaming.) Once signed in, you can select the spiffy cosmetics link to claim them, and then they'll be waiting for you in the Tower with Rahool the next time you log in.

You Get Free Wallpaper, You Get Free Wallpaper, Everybody Gets Free Wallpaper!

You know the drill, let's just drop some freebie wallpaper for you to enjoy. Your computer can't compute if it ain't cute.

Desktop and Mobile Guardian Games Wallpapers

Player Support Report

This year's official DPS endorsement goes to the Warlocks.

The games are live and so is our updated Known Issues list. Our wonderous Player Support team is back with more updates on the state of the game and what's coming down the immediate pipeline.

Known Issues List | Help Forum | Bungie Help Twitter
GUARDIAN GAMES
Guardian Games has returned and will run from May 2 until May 23 at the weekly reset. Check out our Guardian Games help article for more information on the event and how to compete for your team!
HOTFIX 7.0.5.2
Hotfix 7.0.5.2 was released earlier this week on Tuesday, May 2. Players can view the full list of fixes and updates that are now live in the 7.0.5.2 Patch Notes.
UPGRADED EVENT CARD
Players who purchase the upgraded Event Card should ensure that they have opened the Guardian Games Event Pack bundle, located in their Wrapped Items or Consumables Inventory, in order to claim the instant-unlock items. Players who do not claim the bundle from the Event Card prior to the end of Guardian Games will not receive their items.
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 node for normal Supremacy matchmaking is missing its description.
  • Some Guardian Games quests are only progressing with Bronze medals, or medals from the recreational Vanguard Guardian Games playlist.
  • Wish-Ender does not penetrate extended Phalanx or Hydra shields.
  • In the Lake of Shadows Nightfall, wiping in the final boss room will cause some enemies and Champions in a previous room to respawn, blocking Platinum rewards.
  • The Vexcalibur catalyst Triumph is not completing.
  • Some gilded titles are no longer gilded, and some associated Triumphs have been marked as incomplete.
  • The Strand Hunter's Aspect Ensnaring Slam does not trigger some Class Ability mods.
  • Masterworking then enhancing a weapon will make it appear that a player will get +20 to the base stat, when in reality players can only get +10 to the base stat.
  • Using 3 copies of the same Resist armor mod provides no benefit over using 2 copies of the same mod.
  • Some players report that radiant no longer stuns Barrier Champions.
  • Firesprites may no longer be generated from Grenade kills.


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.

You Dare to Blockify Me?!

Ivan: It's always amazing to see our community's dedication and creativity. Even though I never played Minecraft, this video looks like a lot of effort was put into it. Congratulations with an amazing #Destiny2MOTW.

Movie of the Week: We Defeated RHULK In Minecraft! #destiny2motw

Timon: There are always two in a raid team who are joking around! Warlocks doing Warlock stuff.

Movie of the Week: Warlocks in Sync

B-b-bonus Movie of the Week: Aurora Sacrifice

Hunters and Poukas, BFFs for Life

Hippy: Do it for the pouka. Enough said.

Art of the Week: Pouka Supremacy

Sam: We love all classes around here, even if we only use one of our characters. But also, you gotta give credit where credit is due, and this Hunter dreamyyy.

Art of the Week: Epic Hunter

Another week, another TWAB. But alas, our time has ended. At least for this week. We'll have more to share on Season of the Deep leading up to its launch on May 23. We'll also be diving into more weapon and armor changes, showing off some new Exotics for next Season, and asking you to save the date for a new dungeon to throw yourselves into with abandon.

Oh! And don't forget to toss a follow over at the official community manager accounts on Twitter and Reddit! Feedback, bugs, anything at all. Just to reiterate why we're moving over to this account from the initial announcement, this is to make sure our CM team does not miss any pings on socials while also helping the team to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Until then, thanks for hanging out for our latest TWAB. As usual: make sure you're drinking that water, prioritizing that self-care, and always leading with your kindest foot forward. Until next time, friends.

"I should go,"

<3 Hippy