This week in Destiny, we're donning some sweet glow action to praise the sun, talking about upcoming economy changes and the philosophy of Warden's Law, and celebrating accessibility in games. Before we dive into this week's shenanigans, here's a recap of what we chatted about last week:
For this week, we're diving into:
Let's dive into it.
It's almost time. Another raid experience is just around the corner. Coming up in Season 22, we'll be reprising another raid for you to relive or maybe tackle for the first time. Although the name of the raid is still under wraps, we did want to make sure that we shared the date so you can start making those day-one plans now in preparation for the new Season.
The upcoming raid will go live on Friday, September 1, 2023.
A few things to keep in mind, just like when King's Fall and Vault of Glass returned:
Season 21 brought a few surprises (hello, deep sea diving, and fishing?!) and new lore to uncover. Season 21's Veil Containment is among those new experiences, including delving more into what actually is this mysterious Veil. To explore more about this feature in Season of the Deep, we've got the Narrative team here to deep dive into both what the Veil Containment activity even is and some behind-the-scenes action on developing it. Take it away, Narrative team!
Narrative Team: The Veil Containment repeatable activity continues to tell the story of Neomuna's history with the Veil as introduced in Lightfall. If you haven't checked in with Osiris and Nimbus yet, you might not be alone. In wanting Veil Containment to be something discoverable, we went a little too far in one direction and made the activity hard to find, even for the lore-hounds interested in digging more into the Veil. (A lesson learned for any future content of this sort!)
For the folks who haven't done Veil Containment yet, it begins after you complete the Unfinished Business quest at the end of the Lightfall campaign and begin the Parting the Veil quest. From here you'll pursue leads about unusual Vex activity, leading to the discovery of hidden archival records in the Veil Containment facility. After successfully completing this mission, you can return to the Veil Containment node on the far-bottom-left side of the map. The encrypted recordings have been slowly unlocked week over week, but if you're just starting now, you can get multiple entries back-to-back at your leisure!
Veil Containment will continue being unlocked for the remaining three weeks of Season 21, and additional entries will unlock at the start of Season 22 and Season 23.
Writing the story of Veil Containment was an opportunity to dig into the cosmic horror side of Destiny. Creating the encrypted records of Ishtar Scientist Chioma Esi as she and her wife researched an alien force was a chance to bring the essence of things like the SCP Foundation and creepy podcasts like the Magnus Archives into Destiny. It's a different experience than what we're used to, where we follow along in these peeled-back layers of revelations with Osiris and Nimbus, acting like researchers ourselves.
Movies like Altered States and 2001 a Space Odyssey helped inform the tone of the messages you uncovered, all of which are underlined by the emotional story of Chioma Esi and Maya Sundaresh's lives unraveling in the aftermath of the Collapse and their contact with the Veil. We've even seen some keen-eyed players noticing similarities between what Maya attempts with the Veil to what the Witness did in sacrificing its own people, and even what Calus did with the Crown of Sorrows and a pack of Scorn. Those threads and thematic recurrence are intentional guidelines anchoring us to related moments in the past, and help the curious delve into the deeper lore armed with a fistful of useful citations.
Another source of inspiration during the creation of Veil Containment was the relation between an outside observer and the concept of the Winnower mentioned in the Books of Sorrow. We wanted to explore the relationships people experience to cosmic, otherworldly forces beyond their understanding and how it tears both their own moral foundations and sense of self apart at the seams. As we've discovered with Osiris and Nimbus over the past few weeks, the Veil is a cosmic collective consciousness, a psychic network that spreads like a mycelial network through the universe. There's intentional visual and thematic connections to Egregore there. But also, an allusion to the famous scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf warns Saruman about using the Palantir. "You don't know who else may be watching."
Capturing that sense of foreboding unknown is a staple of cosmic horror. The moment where you realize that your role in the universe is a small one, that the universe itself may be uncaring, and things lurk in it that you have been blissfully unaware of. As our cast is pushed through these harrowing experiences, it also sets the stage for the future in The Final Shape and beyond.
The deep lore is out there.
It's week-two of the Solstice event and you know what that means: it's time to go out there and make Space Grandma proud. Miss Eva Levante is waiting for you at the Tower for you to go wild with the new Strand Rocket Launcher, Crowning Duologue. That, or just prance around with your swanky new armor. We're not here to judge how you spend your Solstice time, we just need you to be nice to grandma, please, and thank you.
And now, an update from our Weapons team:
When we were looking at weapons to bring back for Nightfall rewards this Season, we knew we wanted to do something unique. The Warden's Law Hand Cannon fit the bill; it was a fun idea from back in the Forsaken days that never really caught on with players due to the difficulty in landing both shots from the vertical spread that it fired. So, we thought to ourselves, how could we make this gun feel better to use, while maintaining the identity it originally shipped with?
We felt the most important thing was to move away from the idea of it firing a spread, which is when multiple shots are fired at the same time with a single trigger pull (think Shotguns), and to allow it to fire a burst, which is when multiple shots are fired one after the other with a single trigger pull (think Pulse Rifles). The initial version of the new Warden's Law pretty much had it becoming a Legendary version of Crimson, complete with a three-round burst (but minus the healing on kills). And while that was fun it never felt right, and it also felt like it took something away from Crimson itself. We went through several variants, including a handful that modified the time between the bullets in the burst, before settling on a two-round burst with a slightly longer delay between shots than normal (normal bursts fire at 900 RPM, this one fires at 600 RPM).
Next, we knew we had to tune it to give players a reason to run this over a standard 120 RPM Hand Cannon, and we also knew we needed to make it feel great to use, while still leaving room for perks and stats to improve it. We spent time focusing on several major parts of the equation: the damage per burst, the PvP time-to-kill, and the recoil pattern. Because the weapon is harder to use than a normal Hand Cannon, in that you must hit two shots in a burst with each trigger pull instead of just one, we decided to allow it to do slightly more critical hit damage and kill just a bit faster than something like Igneous Hammer. We utilized the damage profile that Aggressive Frame Hand Cannons had some years back, dealing up to 90 damage per burst against players (25 per body, 45 per crit). Then we slightly reduced the burst delay (the time between the bursts themselves, as opposed to the time between shots within a burst) so that it has a slightly faster 0.93s time-to-kill instead of the standard 1.00s.
We were also very careful to tune the recoil pattern in such a way that it felt manageable at a base level, but that still motivated players to utilize perks to improve it. The pattern itself is doubly important because the tightness of the burst has a direct impact on how usable the gun is at longer ranges. Since we were allowing the gun to deal more damage and kill more quickly, we did not want it to be able to reach the same maximum ranges as standard 120 Hand Cannons, so we designed the recoil pattern in such a way that (without manual recoil control and a little bit of help from perks), it would be more difficult to land two crits from the same burst at 35m+, while still maintaining a smooth feel and decent ease of use at closer ranges. We're really excited for you all to get this revamped weapon into your hands, and we hope you have as much fun shooting it as we had working on it!
Yesterday, we shared our newest developer insights article diving into more changes specifically coming to ritual activity rewards. In case you missed it, you can mosey on over right here. Before you do that, however, let's look at a brief recap. And for fans of Dead Man's Tale, there's a little something new included below that you won't find in the article.
TL&DR:
For new Masterwork material caps (and the philosophy behind the below changes in the original article):
Not mentioned in the article is that Dead Man's Tale will be added to the loot pool for the Exotic Mission Rotator when Presage is available. This will also make Dead Man's Tale craftable, so get those crafting pants on because it's about to go down for DMT lovers.
Because you can craft it or grab it from the Exotic Mission Rotator, this Exotic Scout Rifle won't be a part of Xûr's wares in Season 22, but it'll always be a part of our hearts.
It's time to vote for which map you want to host your next glorious Trials of Osiris battle. So? Where do you want to throw down at?
You can cast that favored vote from August 1 to August 2 for those that have registered for official Bungie emails. For those that are looking for a non-email way to vote, stay tuned for the link on the Destiny 2 Twitter channel on August 1.
Accessibility at Bungie is proud to share that Bungie has won our first-ever Accessibility Award thanks to the wonderful organization Games for Change. Games for Change is a leader in amplifying voices and driving positive and impactful evolution in the gaming industry, and we couldn't be more honored and humbled by the recognition awarded to our team. Accessibility in games is vital but it's also important to remember that this type of work takes time, even more so if a game has already launched. Sometimes, there are changes that can be deployed within 24 hours, others can take years to implement; both scenarios are critically important and deserve the time and resources dedicated to make sure "games for everyone" remains a promise for all.
We also wanted to thank our incredible players that have shared their feedback with us in this area. You've helped with changes like the recent colorblind overhaul and auto-firing/melee. You've helped as we continue taking steps toward a more a more photosensitive-friendly Destiny 2 experience. You've helped with other aspects of accessibility that we are currently working on and aren't quite ready to talk about. You've helped and you help. So, again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
If you're interested in checking out the 2023 Games for Change Awards, take a gander at the video below. (You can see some of our team accept the award at the 1:14:48 mark!) As for the organization itself, Games for Change is a non-profit organization that provides support, resources, visibility, and love for individuals and organizations alike that help bring positive change through the magic of video games. It's an incredible initiative, and we are so grateful to have been awarded this honor alongside so many incredible folks. Thank you again!
We've got another update from our Player Support team today to go over known issues in Destiny 2 and what Guardians should be aware of for the near future.
This is their report.
Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help TwitterKINDLING ARMOR ISSUE
We are actively investigating a fix for a new issue that has been discovered further along the Solstice quest chain after Update 7.1.5.1 went out.
This issue has kept the Kindling popup active for some players and further blocks quest progress when rekindling all armor on one character.EVENT CARD REMINDER
With Solstice currently being live, the Solstice Event Card is also active. The Event Card is only accessible during the Solstice event, so players should be sure to claim any completed objectives or rewards before the event ends on August 8. Any unclaimed rewards will no longer be available once the event ends.BRING A SPARROW TO A BONFIRE FIGHT
Beginning next week, you'll be able to Sparrow to your heart's content in Bonfire. Y'all wanted it, so have fun.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:
- Several Solstice items are missing from Collections.
- We have identified and temporarily turned off a performance optimization that caused visual flickering for some transparent objects on NVIDIA 3000/4000 series cards. While we investigate a permanent fix for all players, we anticipate minimal impact on overall performance.
- The Solstice challenge, In the Hot Seat, is not progressing from all Neomuna activities. Players can still complete this objective by completing Lost Sectors or the HyperNet Current strike.
- Certain Honored Centurions in the Gilded Precept Lost Sector are abnormally bright.
- Due to an issue, we have temporarily disabled the Bolstering Detonation, Focusing Strike, Impact Induction, and Momentum Transfer armor mods.
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.
Ivan: What's the weather like in your area? After watching this #Destiny2MOTW you'll feel a little bit of thunder. Also, probably you will stop going around your teammates too closely. Cloudstrike is vicious!
Movie of the Week: Arc Montage - Thunder
Hippy: Have you ever thought to yourself, "Self, can screebs get any freakier?" Then hold onto your butts, because one artist took this question personally and decided, "challenge accepted."
Art of the Week: Think screebs but make them "precious" by @Madam_Wizard via Twitter
And that's a wrap! We've got a few more TWID articles before the upcoming Destiny 2 Showcase on August 22, 2023. We'll have more to chat about before the reveal action starts, including a few more standalone articles to dive a little bit deeper into the world of Destiny 2.
Your usual Hippy reminder to remember to drink your water, practice that self-care, and always lead with your kindest foot forward. Until next time, friends.
"I should go,"
<3 Hippy
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