You beat me to it! (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Thursday, August 29, 2019, 11:41 (1931 days ago) @ INSANEdrive
edited by cheapLEY, Thursday, August 29, 2019, 11:51

But only because I was doing a summary. Good thing I checked before I posted!

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/48097

There's not really an easy way to break down what he said, so I'll just pick some stuff to highlight, but you should absolutely go read it all.

Seasons will now be more connected and serve to push the narrative of Destiny forward. The events of one season will lead into the next. Seasonal activities will go away the end of the season, but any weapons will still be obtainable afterwards somehow (though not necessarily immediately after the season ends).

He also talks a bit about power and rewards:

We all love the chase—that perfect roll!—but we all play differently. Year 3 will add more transparency and predictability while still giving you the RNG option for the unexpected gear or roll you didn’t know you loved until you got it.

While leveling up and unlocking mods, you will also increase the Power of the Artifact, which will continue increasing until the end of the Season (yes, it is uncapped). Artifact Power adds directly to your overall Power and is account-wide. We are both excited, and a little terrified, to see how high players will manage to raise their Artifact Power during the Season.

And, introducing Season Pass Ranks:

That’s why we’ve added 100 ranks to earn each Season, with Free and Premium track rewards, plus a UX design that’s intuitive and familiar if you play other games. Unlike those other games, you’ll make progress by earning XP doing the things you’re already doing in Destiny—defeating monsters and completing bounties and activities. This is about a new additive layer of predictable rewards for just playing the game.

Season Pass owners get access to a new seasonal activity, the Vex Offensive, which includes:

• Four Legendary Weapon drops
  
• Additional weekly and daily bounties
  
• Additional weekly challenges with powerful rewards
  
• A new weapon quest for an Exotic Bow, Leviathan’s Breath
  
• • Exclusive to Season Pass owners
  
  
• A new Exotic Hand Cannon, Eriana’s Vow
  
• • Awarded on Rank 35 of the free track
    
  • Awarded on Rank 1 of the premium track
  
  
• Three seasonal Legendary armor sets (one for each class)
  
• • Collect a complete set during the first 25 ranks of the free track
    
  • NOTE: This is a change from the Annual Pass, where you were required to purchase gear from the Season.
    
  • On the premium track you get all three sets on Rank 1
    
  • These also drop within the Vex Offensive seasonal activity
    
  • If you want versions with higher stat tiers, you’ll need to play Vex Offensive to earn them
  
  
• Some additional premium track rewards:
  
• • Three universal ornament armor sets (one for each class)
    
  • An Exotic weapon ornament for Eriana’s Vow
    
  • Two Legendary weapon ornaments
    
  • A new finisher
    
  • An Exotic emote
    
  • An Exotic ship

He talks about being able to buy ranks. They are going to do this, but plan on letting people buy ranks within the last 2-4 weeks of the season--they don't want people to just buy all the ranks right up front, and instead want people to actually just play the game. But they also want to allow folks to get all the rewards if they want them.

This next bit is particularly interesting, and I really hope it's not writing a check Bungie isn't prepared to cash. Looking back at Season of the Forge if they could rework it:

A week before the Season begins, all players receive a note in their mailbox. It simply reads: “I have returned from the stars. Meet me on Dec. 4 at 10:15 AM PST. —Ada” Once this note has been given out, a small countdown timer appears on the Traveler. When the timer reaches 0, players in the Tower see a ship unlike any they’ve ever seen land between Zavala and Lord Shaxx. A figure transmats out and walks through the Tower, opening a door that had long been shut. Players follow the character through the Tower and the figure lowers her hood and greets players, “I am Ada, and we have work to do.”

The Season Pass in the Director is updated, the rewards are revealed, and now Ada and players begin a Season-long experience of refining forges in the world, completing bounties, finding materials, working on Black Armory armor sets, and taking on the new raid, Scourge of the Past. In a twist, Datto and his group are the first to finish.

As players work together to forge weapons early in the track, smithing and building new ones, the room around Ada begins to change. The schematic data from players’ work is resulting in new weapons and mods for players to create. These weapons and mods don’t all require playing the Seasonal activity—some of them are found in new encounters within strikes, some of them are forged in Last Wish (like the Alchemy Lab in Blackwing Lair).

As the player community plays, meta objectives are revealed. Once a certain number of players have unlocked ranks on the Pass, cinematics unlock for everyone to watch. We see the Drifter and Ada arguing over something pitting the two against each other, the scene ends with Drifter raising an eyebrow at a set of gun schematics behind Ada.

As the Season winds to a close, the Drifter begins to summon players to him. He’s having a new space built in the Tower, and the first people he asks for help are those who’ve earned the title of Dredgen. Now players begin to gather materials and donate them to fund the Drifter’s new scam. The Drifter won’t stop talking about the gun schematics he saw behind Ada.

Very late in the Season, players notice Ada’s room looks like it’s being packed up. She’s leaving. The schematics that sat behind her are missing. Over the course of a few weeks, she packs her equipment and, in an event similar to her arrival, she vanishes. Ada, her wares, and her forges are gone.

Banshee-44 reminds players that even though Ada is gone, she left him the schematics for her weapons and armor, and he’ll be rotating them through over time.

And the Drifter asks you to visit him, saying he’s got a surprise…

He then follows up with:

And while today, the “Let’s Pretend” section above is very much a work of fiction, we are working to build the technology that would make something like this possible and help make our Season Pass feel uniquely Destiny.

Womp womp.

I actually like the sound of a lot of this. I'm not a huge fan of buying seasonal ranks. It feels scummy to prey on fear of missing out. But I really love the idea of a seasonal progression system and feeling like we are actually doing things together to move the world forward.