Bungie Weekly Update - 01/08/2015

This week at Bungie, much of the team returned from the holiday break, powered by holiday feasting and the imbibification of what appears to be more than a few glasses of festive brew. We're not quite back at full strength, though, with stragglers like DeeJ still out and about spending precious moments with friends and family, but we are ready to chat about the most recent rounds of updates we're planning for Destiny to kick off the New Year in January.
Let's get to it.

Unlike our inaugural Vault of Glass Raid offering, hard mode for Crota's End didn't launch day and date alongside its younger, more affable sibling. I'll bet you noticed, even though you've been busily swinging that sword into poor Crota's big shiny green mug between dainty bites of soft, warm cheese.

You've had plenty of time to divine your way through the dark, skirting over and around holes while sending dozens of Thrall screaming into the black. You've built bridges, silenced Shriekers, and plundered the lunar depths for the latest and greatest gear. Matter of fact, by the time you read this sentence you'll have collectively put an end to Crota...wait for it...more than a whopping one million times.

Impressive. Most impressive. And now you want to know what's next.

Hard Mode for Crota's End is going through the final few stages of deployment. It's almost ready. As soon as we have a concrete date to share, we'll set it in stone so you can assemble your crew for that first run, or so you can find the time to tune into the streams and vicariously witness the madness and make note of the new and necessary strategy updates.

We're not going to spoil any hard mode surprises here. You'll need to learn a new trick or two, but given your past performances, we're pretty sure plenty of you will find a way to come out on top and earn some shiny new trophies to take with you on your next adventure.

In the meantime, we've prepped a separate patch, which will be ready for deployment as early as next Tuesday, January 13^th. Below is a preview of changes being made to Crota's End and a little bit of a love tap for the Vault of Glass.

Crota's End - Updates

• The existing Pit treasure chest reward moved to killing Ir Yut, the Deathsinger. She has a chance to drop Exotic weapons and armor, class pieces, and Radiant materials.
  
• The Pit treasure chest will now contain Radiant Materials.

Pit Encounter

• Removed the physics impulse caused by exploding lanterns.
  

Bridge Encounter

• Players will now be required to cross the bridge in order to complete the bridge encounter.
  
• Players will now be required to wait for the bridge to be completed prior to crossing with the sword.
  

Deathsinger Encounter

• Fixed a rare case where the Shriekers would not spawn, preventing players from reaching the Deathsinger.
  

Crota Encounter

• Two Swordbearers will no longer spawn at the same time at the outset of the encounter.
  
• Crota will now recover from his kneeling state after a player quits.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to remove the "Presence of Crota" using a Radiance Warlock's Fireborn ability.
  
• Fixed a bug that made the Oversoul appear destroyed to some players in a Fireteam when it was actually still active.

Vault of Glass - Updates

• Exotic weapon drops in the Vault of Glass are now Level 32.
  

Getting Swole in the Crucible
The Raid crew wasn't the only team readying tweaks heading into and out of the holiday season. Our Crucible designers have a few things in the works to add some spice to the early goings of 2015.

• Asylum, The Anomaly, and The Burning Shrine maps will be added to existing Clash and Control playlist rotation.
  
• Iron Banner will return, with updated rewards, running from January 13^th through January 19^th.
  

Full and final details for Raid, Crucible, and Iron Banner updates will be provided as patch notes next week.

Stay tuned.

The True Meaning of Christmas
So committed are we at Bungie to the celebration of non-denominational yuletide that we held off on delivering gifts this year until we were well clear of the traditionally established holidays. What can we say? We're non-conformists at heart.

It's either that, or some other obvious, sensible, and unspoken reason that you just got your hands on our small token of holiday gratitude. For a good portion of you, the gift you received will truly be Legendary - a weaponized memento to guide you through some of Destiny's most challenging moments. For others, our gift has already been summarily dismissed, dismantled, and delivered straight into the dust bin of history.

Whatever category you fall into, we hope you appreciate the gesture. They say it's the thought that counts. Either way, whether you feel empowered or slighted, whether you believe you received a thoughtful gift or were unceremoniously slapped across the face with a sooty lump of coal, we hope you had a wonderful holiday break, and enjoyed playing Destiny with friends and family as much as we did.

Guns, Guns, Guns!
Our chief resident researcher at Bungie, Dr. Bunson Honeydew, is one of the select few people at the studio who has access to the billions of rows of data that comprise the historical legacy you've imprinted onto Destiny. This week, he shared with us the popularity of Primary, Special, and Heavy Weapons that Guardians, Level 20 and above, equipped most over the last fourteen days.

Here's a note from the man himself to help put the full selection of Destiny's arsenal into perspective.

"Weapon use in Destiny is pretty diverse and follows a very fat 'long tail' distribution. The guns on these lists are indeed awesome but a lot of players are finding that other, more obscure weapons better fit their tactical needs or their personal play styles. Besides, punching all of the aliens in the face is obviously the correct way to play Destiny anyway."

Want to see if your weapon selection lines up with the pack, or if you're a unique snowflake, just like your mother proclaims? Here are the top ten weapons for Level 20 Guardians and above, spanning all activity types over the past two weeks.

For fun, we also ran the same query against players of all levels, and as expected, the influx of holiday "Kinderguardians" shifts the most equipped weapons interestingly more towards the "battered and worn" side of the scale as new players pick up a controller and play through the opening moments for their first time.

Primary Weapons

1. Vision of Confluence
   
2. Khvostov 7G-02
   
3. Cydonia-AR3
   
4. The Stranger's Rifle
   
5. Marshal-A
   
6. Suros Regime
   
7. Marshal-A1
   
8. Atheon's Epilogue
9. Shingen-E
10. Galahad-E

Our sandbox lead designer, Sage, also wanted to point out that the Crucible selections shake out quite differently, especially when we take a peek at what weapons our top performing competitive players rely upon to finish at the top of the pack.

Primary Weapons

1. SUROS Regime
   
2. Vex Mythoclast
   
3. Thorn
   
4. Atheon's epilogue
   
5. Shingen-E
   
6. Cydonia-AR3
   
7. The Last Word
   
8. Galahad-E
   
9. Up For Anything
   
10. The Stranger's Rifle
    

Shots fired!

We have a lot of newcomers to Destiny, and some of you may have questions about getting the best connection to play Destiny. We have a network troubleshooting guide, as well as numerous Bungie Help articles that may assist you with error codes and other issues you encounter in game. To find a specific issue, use the Search bar located on the Bungie Help page to find help articles and troubleshooting tips. If you received an in-game error message, just enter the name of the error as it appears in-game.

Over the past couple weeks, we have reports of Xbox One players experiencing WASP errors and a 76 MB update each time they launch Destiny. As we investigate, please see our forum post on troubleshooting tips that may help you get out of this state.

If you're encountering issues where you cannot access your exclusive content or The Dark Below, there are two ways that can help get you out of this state: restoring licenses and clearing your console's cache. When clearing your cache, you'll need to shut down your console, unplug it for 10 minutes, and plug it back in.

If this does not resolve your issue, please let us know by posting on the #Help forums.

That's it for now. DeeJ will be returning next week, so expect to see the output of our blog posts and sweet Tweets return to normal. In the meantime, stay resolute, and thanks for reading.