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Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50995
This week at Bungie, we’ve got a lot going on.
Hello, and welcome to another installment of This Week at Bungie, our weekly source of news and chatter from around the studio. Nothing too wild happened this week, right? Just your normal Monday morning announcement of BUNGIE JOINS SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT (“SIE”).
Well, okay. That is kind of a big deal. If you haven’t heard much about it, well, we’ve joined Sony Interactive Entertainment! There’s a lot to unpack here, and we highly recommend reading through our announcement article from Bungie CEO Pete Parsons and our Destiny 2: Our Shared Vision article from the development team.
In the realm of Destiny 2, we don’t expect you to notice much of a change in your day-to-day adventures as a Guardian. We aren’t going to make Destiny 2 platform exclusive. We’re committed to a Destiny that you can play on your platform of choice, and that has the same great game experience regardless of what device you are using. We’re going to continue developing amazing new worlds for multiple platforms, and we’re more than excited about what potential this unlocks for us. If you haven’t read the FAQ in our update from the dev team, please do so!
So, with that said, what else is going on? Well, it’s February for starters. We’re less than three weeks away from the launch of The Witch Queen. Did you see that we hit one million pre-orders? Did you hear that, Savathûn? One million Guardians would like a word...
Thank you to the more than ONE MILLION Destiny players who have pre-ordered Destiny 2: The Witch Queen.
With your incredible support, it’s on track to be the most pre-ordered expansion in Destiny 2 history.
See you on 2.22.22, Guardians! pic.twitter.com/1fFzAWyV30
— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) February 1, 2022
We also had a kickass gear trailer go live on Tuesday. Have you seen it yet? Well, even if you have, we’re going to embed the video right here for you to go through the carnage frame by frame, hunting for new info.
You may have noticed there was a quick little glimpse into weapon crafting at the top of that video. Well, let’s take a moment to walk through it. No, not just the video, but crafting as a feature. After, we’ll follow the TWAB tradition of digging into the nitty-gritty of sandbox balance patch notes in a quick preview. (Just kidding, this TWAB is already over 6,000 words. Nothing about it is quick.)
Let’s dig in.
Welcome to the Enclave
Savathûn is building an army of Hive. These aren’t just ordinary Hive, mind you. They’ve become the Lucent Brood. How could this happen? What will the Vanguard do as we begin to question the line between Light and Dark? As you begin to unravel the mystery and battle the Witch Queen’s brood, you’ll discover the Enclave. This will be your destination for weapon crafting.
Crafting a Legendary weapon from scratch isn’t a simple matter. Finding Patterns (think weapon blueprints), collecting materials, and building your weapon is the starting point. After crafting your tool of destruction, you’ll begin to unlock its full potential through combat.
Beginning your Quest (to Craft)
Early in The Witch Queen campaign, you’ll be given an introductory quest that runs you through the ins and outs of crafting. In the first and second missions of The Witch Queen, free to all players, Guardians will uncover the Deepsight ability and be introduced to the Enclave.
This is where you’ll begin to shape your first Glaive, a brand new weapon archetype being introduced in The Witch Queen. All of the necessary materials will be provided for your first crafted weapon, but you’ll also be given a short tutorial on how to find those materials for future crafting. A subset of weapons and archetypes will be craftable from the start, but more will be added in the future.
In order to shape your future tools of destruction, you’ll need to do a little bit of research first. Patterns are your first requirement. Some will be acquired through quest completions, while others can be earned by completing various gameplay objectives. Once you’ve earned your desired Pattern, it can be crafted at any time with the required materials. Now, it’s all about the mixings.
After reaching the enclave and crafting your first Glaive, randomly rolled weapons throughout the game have a chance to drop with a new ability: Deepsight Resonance. This will be used as you begin to target specific traits to craft. As an example, if you find a Deepsight Resonance Legendary Auto Rifle with the Rampage perk, you can complete an objective and extract the essence of the perk to then craft a weapon with Rampage or another perk that increases damage.
Pictured: A Guardian holding Deepsight Resonance weaponry, noted by red weapon borders.
Pictured: A Deepsight Resonance Weapon with no progress, essence ready to be attuned through combat.
Pictured: A Deepsight Resonance Weapon with full progress, essence ready to be extracted.
Like current weapons, not every weapon Pattern will be compatible with every trait, but you’ll have a good list of traits to mix and match as you customize a given weapon to your desired specifications. It doesn’t stop there, though. Through the Enclave, you’ll also be able to kick things up a notch and enhance your traits to strengthen their flavor.
Leveling Your Weapon & Enhanced Traits
Once a weapon is crafted, Guardians may begin to increase its level by using it in activities and by defeating enemies. This is where the bulk of your crafting playtime will be. The more you use your weapon, the faster you’ll unlock its full potential.
Enhanced stats and traits can be unlocked when reaching higher levels, granting slight bonuses to your weapons capabilities. Our goal through this system is to give players a reason to invest in their weapons, far beyond what Masterworking could offer in the past. Each weapon can now act as a longtail pursuit as you look to make your freshly crafted weapon the best it can be.
It can be intimidating to start making decisions on how to build your weapon so we are also giving you the ability to reshape your crafted weapons in the Enclave if you want to mix up the components of your weapons after you finish crafting them. You can switch up what barrel, mags, or traits you choose so you don’t feel like you got locked down one path forever.
As Guardians begin to embrace this new system, you’ll begin to see new legends rise. Some will prefer Häkke and other foundries. Others may dabble in new weapons from [REDACTED]. We’re excited to see which weapons you embrace.
Mementos
While the majority of your crafting experience will be dedicated to mixing, matching, and enhancing traits, there is also an opportunity for a bit of customization when it comes to appearances and activity-specific trackers. At launch, one weapon memento will become available for players to earn through Gambit, unlocking a Gambit-themed appearance and tracker. Rank up your weapon to max level, head back to the Enclave, and apply your freshly earned memento for some sweet flair.
More of these will come online through Trials of Osiris and Grandmaster Nightfalls. We have more plans for mementos down the line, and are excited to introduce a new endgame rarity cosmetic item for players to chase as they build out their new arsenal of weaponry.
Exotic Crafting
Legendary weapons aren’t the only thing that you’ll be able to craft. The upcoming Osteo Striga Exotic SMG and three class-unique Exotic Glaives can also be crafted through the Enclave, once you find their respective Patterns, of course.
While Legendary weapons can be crafted from the ground up, Exotic crafting is more about fine-tuning something with a defined identity. You may have the opportunity to customize things like barrels or stocks, while preserving the Exotic look and feel. Looking for a longer-range profile for the weapon, or opting to shred through your enemies up close and personal? Through the Enclave, you can do just that.
Alright, folks. We’re at the end of our weapon crafting preview. Will you have questions? Undoubtedly. Launch day of The Witch Queen is just around the corner, and we’re excited to see what weapons you create. Don’t worry, we aren’t done with the TWAB just yet. We still have some exciting news regarding weapons to cover. Let’s talk tuning.
Tuning Up, Tuning Down, Tuning all Around Crafting is going to introduce an entirely new way to invest in a given weapon. When hunting for your new favorites, it’s not just about the looks, but about the feels. Weapons Feature Lead Chris Proctor is on deck to walk through some changes coming to weapons, perks, and archetypes in The Witch Queen. The team has been hard at work over the last few months to bring this to life, and we’ve got a lot to cover.
If you’re new to the Destiny sandbox, or aren’t too deep in the terminology and know-how, this can be a lot to process at first glance. While we know a few of our sandbox-minded community members will break this down through YouTube videos and write-ups, there’s no shame in skimming this. Sandbox is about the feel, and you’ll be getting your hands on these changes when The Witch Queen launches. If you’re brave enough to take on the challenge of reading this in full, take it slow. Grab some water, maybe a little snack too!
Alright. Let’s get to it. Take it away, Proctor.
From Pinnacle to Pursuit Weapons
When pinnacle weapons were introduced, they were tuned and presented as being best-in-class weapons to act as rewards for players dedicated to a particular activity. They excited and motivated players, but they were expensive to build for Legendary weapons, and had some undesirable side-effects, such as PvP pinnacle weapons becoming mandatory in PvE (Recluse, Mountaintop), or becoming incredibly unpleasant to play against or so strong that no other weapons in the class could compete in PvP (Mountaintop, Not Forgotten).
When we moved away from pinnacle weapons we didn't go into much detail, so we’d like to take a moment to clarify the move, and also introduce the Pursuit weapon for next season.
The intent as of Season 12 is that a Pursuit weapon should be a solid weapon, roughly 70 percent of a “god roll” in its archetype, with perk options that work well in PvP and PvE, and which can be reliably obtained without a huge grind. These should act as good starter weapons for both PvP and PvE, while leaving space for weapons from pinnacle activities like Trials, raids, and Nightfalls to exceed this potential. We generally ship a similar weapon with higher potential in the same Season.
(Note: Salvager's Salvo basically ignores this guideline (oops) but we really wanted to put Chain Reaction on a Special ammo weapon, and don't currently see a reason to touch it. Chain Reaction is going to be rare on Special weapons, though.)
Here’s a quick breakdown of how each Pursuit weapon since Season 12 compares to the random-rolled options currently in the game:
- Adored is a good Sniper Rifle, but better Sniper Rifles shipped alongside it or since.
- The Salvager's Salvo breech Grenade Launcher is a great room-clearing weapon, but doesn't have the utility of blinding grenades or Auto-Loading Holster, so other Legendary Grenade Launchers (such as Truthteller or Ignition Code) often take its place in the hardest content.
- Null Composure is an excellent Fusion Rifle (and even moreso in the Season after it shipped), and brought back the Reservoir Burst perk but PLUG ONE.1 and Glacioclasm can also get Reservoir Burst, and Cartesian Coordinate has better options for DPS.
- The Ascendancy Rocket Launcher brought back the Explosive Light perk, but Hothead can also get this and it has other good perk options.
And with that, let’s look at The Reckless Endangerment Pursuit Shotgun. This weapon is coming in Season 16, and introduces the new Steady Hands perk for a massive handling boost after a kill, plus Snapshot. There are several other Shotguns in the release with more sought-after PvP and PvE perks.
Perks
We want players to be able to choose to build into hip-firing more easily, so we're adjusting the Hip-fire Grip perk to support this.
- Now increases damage falloff start and end distances by 20 percent (except on Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, and Fusion Rifle).
Adagio often felt like it changed a weapon's subfamily to the next slowest rate of fire — but worse, particularly when comparing damage falloff.
- Increased duration from 5s to 7s.
- Increased damage bonus (except on Bows and Fusion Rifles) from 25 percent to 30 percent.
- Now adds +10 range stat.
- Added a timer to the buff text to make it easier to tell when it's going to expire.
Dual Loader is okay on paper, but in practice that reload speed is pretty painful.
- Reduced reload stat penalty from -50 to -35.
Danger Zone felt pretty risky to use in some cases, resulting in a lot of self-damage.
- Reduced self-damage scalar for Grenade Launchers, combined with the other scalars, this is ends up reducing self-damage from 1.25x to 0.75x.
Tap the Trigger is the meta-breaking perk on a particular Fusion Rifle. When stacked with other elements of this roll, it makes Fusion Rifles much too stable. So much so that we stopped putting it on Fusion Rifles, and then squidface sold it a few times. With this change we believe it's still quite a strong perk without being overpowered, so it's likely to appear on future Fusion Rifles (note: we did try reducing stability from +40 to +20, but in playtests the difference wasn’t perceptible).
- On Fusion Rifles only:
- Reduced stability bonus from +40 to +10.
- Changed max recoil angle scale from 0.5 to 0.875.
- Changed error angle scale from 0.9 to 0.975.
- Unchanged on all other weapons.
Headseeker didn’t work as intended on Aggressive Burst Pulse Rifles, because the buff’s duration was too short. Sacred Provenance is the only viable Pulse Rifle that benefits from this in Season 16 (although there IS such a Pulse in the Season, it doesn’t roll with Headseeker), but expect to see more in future Seasons.
- Extended buff duration from 0.17 to 0.3s
Let’s talk about Eager Edge. It’s a lot of fun to use, but it can be used to do some mind-blowing, environment-breaking things if used in particular ways while airborne. While the tuning below isn’t meant to remove the fun factor, we have a fresh raid (and other fun content) coming with The Witch Queen and want to ensure we retain challenge behind our upcoming rewards. Breaking out of maps can be fun, indeed, but can easily remove the prestige and value of a given item or experience.
- Reduced lunge distance benefit while airborne by 25 percent.
- Now caps maximum player airborne velocity (to a fairly high value) while active.
Occasionally we’ll shelve perks, because they’re not working for some reason (too strong or too weak). This means we won’t put them on weapons in the future unless we change the perk. In many cases we’d rather put design work into new perks than old ones, but there’s a whole “Perks” section here. Anyway, these perks are shelved (some have been shelved a while):
- Bottomless Grief and Celerity (Both were attempts to inject some uniqueness into Trials of Osiris and Nightfall weapons, which we’re now doing with Origin Traits.)
- Underdog
- Shield Disorient
- Air Assault (though note that this may get a redesign in a future Season)
The Near Future
- In Season 17 we’ll have a set of PvP-focused weapon changes, including:
- New ways for players to build for flinch resistance.
- Balance tuning for primary weapons (looking at you, Pulse Rifles; Lightweights in particular).
- Special weapon tuning (Snapshot feeling mandatory on Sniper Rifles in PvP, other balance changes).
- Another PvP Special ammo economy change, if needed.
- Adjusting how zoom outliers (both low and high) affect the performance of a subset of weapons (i.e., the Scope column shouldn’t be the most important thing on a weapon). This could take various forms but the intent is to bring both high and low outliers towards the average (to the overall benefit of the weapon archetype).
- We’re also adjusting several much-requested Exotics, along with Legendary perks.
Cheers to Proctor and the team for that massive info-dump. We'll have a full roundup of patch notes on February 22 when The Witch Queen goes live. Stay tuned!
Year of the Tiger
So, we’ve covered what’s coming to Destiny with The Witch Queen and Season 16 (and beyond). What’s going on right now? Well, we have a celebration of the Lunar New Year! Some of you may have already noticed, but Eververse has been filled with some wonderful new items.
Light the path to new adventures in the Year of the Tiger.
New Lunar New Year items are available this week at Eververse. pic.twitter.com/MHt1CVcFse
— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) February 2, 2022
These items will be available through next Tuesday reset (February 8, 10:00 AM Pacific), so snag them if they’ve caught your eye! We also have a few items from last year available for Bright Dust if you’d like to join in on the celebration.
Prepare to Launch (A Worm)
This TWAB is long, but this train isn't stopping yet. Our Destiny Player Support team has some important information for you, so keep on reading!
This is their report.
PRE-LAUNCH DOWNTIME AND PRE-LOAD
To prepare for the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, Destiny 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 7:00 PM PST (0300 UTC) on February 21 to 9:00 AM PST (1700 UTC) on February 22.
dmg04's note: As this TWAB is running pretty long, we’ll do the math for you. That’s Fourteen hours of downtime. We hope you can use this time to get some sleep, prep some tasty food, or do whatever your heart desires before diving into The Witch Queen. With the announcement of one million Guardians already having pre-ordered, we’re also expecting a bit of a queue as things open up. Please stay tuned for additional details.
Pre-load for The Witch Queen is planned to become available on all platforms beginning at 9:00 PM PST (0500 UTC) on February 21. Stay tuned for further updates as we get closer to launch.
SHATTERED REALM
With the end of the Season approaching, the Shattered Realm seasonal activity has been updated to a daily rotation from a weekly rotation.
Players who wish to complete Triumphs, Seasonal Challenges, or Seals associated with the Shattered Realm should make sure to do so prior to its removal with the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22.
GM NIGHTFALL CATCHUP NODE CLARIFICATION
This past week the Next Week In Destiny login message incorrectly indicated that the Grandmaster Nightfall catchup node had just become active. The Grandmaster Nightfall catchup node has been live and is currently available for players who completed the Conqueror Seal to be able to gild their Seal.
YEAR 4 CONTENT VAULTING
With the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, certain activities, quests, destinations, and items from Seasons 12-15 and Forsaken will become unavailable to access. For full lists of vaulted and deprecated content please see our guides below.
WEAPON CYCLING
The following weapons will be leaving the Ritual Rewards pools with the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22:
Trials of Osiris
- Igneous Hammer
- Sola’s Scar
Nightfall
- THE SWARM
- Shadow Price
- Uzume RR4
- Hung Jury SR4
Iron Banner
- Multimach CCX
- Timeworn Spire
- Guiding Sight
- Steady Hand
Players should make sure to claim all engrams and other rewards before the new season begins. Any rewards not claimed from ritual vendors (Zavala, Shaxx, Drifter, and Saint 14) will be removed at the end of the season.
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:
Weapons do not successfully attach to Phoenix Protocol when stowed.
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.
RAWR
Sam: Happy Thursday Guardians! The days are flying by but also taking forever on this road up to The Witch Queen, so this week we are staying short and sweet with our MOTW winners! First up we are sharing a precious celebration of the Chinese New Year as well as then Saint acting, well, exactly as we would expect.
Movie of the Week: Happy Chinese New Year 2022 (Tiger)
Movie of the Week: Saint has had enough.
Saint has had enough.#motw #AOTW #Destiny2Art pic.twitter.com/WxHJwuMHPp
— MokoChoco (@MokoChoco) February 1, 2022
Please don’t forget to tag us on twitter and use the hashtags #MOTW and #Destiny2Art!
Carved In Tone
Hippy: Less than a month to go, you can feel the excitement in the air – and no, that’s not just the four cups of coffee this morning. We’ve got some more art goodness from the community, this time with a wittle adorable wormie to celebrate one of our newest exotics, a cosplay that would make Crow both scared and intrigued, and – another worm, because come on. That’s just cool.
Let’s dive in!
Art of the Week: Sad Woomie
Sad woomie pic.twitter.com/81U6pxcsm7
— Kim Mihok (@hapicatART) February 1, 2022
Art of the Week: Venj, Petra Venja
Buenos días, gente. ¡Cosplay nuevo!
Petra Venj, que le tenía unas ganas locas. pic.twitter.com/4QleXFkJNG
— Laura Sánchez (@Nebulaluben_) January 31, 2022
Art of the Week: Witch Queen PvP in a Nutshell:
Witch Queen PvP in a nutshell:#Destiny2 #Destiny2Art pic.twitter.com/e4HuId3M66
— Gjorne (@Gjorne_) February 1, 2022
Well, you’ve made it. Once again, a mega-TWAB has landed, and you’ve read every word of it. Maybe almost every word. I know some of you skip the outros.
Between now and launch, we have a few more little things to cover in TWABs but we aren’t expecting anything as long as this edition. These next few weeks will be your opportunity to rest up before the launch of our next expansion. Get some sleep, eat well, maybe even soak in some sunlight if the weather permits.
Of course, you’re going to maintain a healthy lifestyle after February 22, right? There won’t be any moments where you think I’ll do the dishes later or eh, I guess I can take the trash out next week while leveling up your brand new, freshly crafted weapons.
On a Final, Somber Note...
Before we go, we’d like to take a moment to honor one of our moderators. We received tragic news over the weekend that Seraphim Crypto, one of our German community volunteers, passed away.
Words are incredibly difficult to find here. Seraphim has been among the Destiny community since the start, pitching in to help anyone who needed an assist, or simply sitting back and relaxing among our forums to pass the time. We’d met him in person on his own home turf when visiting Germany for gamescom, and even had him come out to Seattle to help us with a Community Summit. Every exchange was positive, inspiring, and heartfelt. His love for this community was immeasurable. You could tell with every exchange how wonderful, unique, and passionate he was – and how much of an inspiration he could be, not only to us at Bungie, but to players of our worldwide community.
Thank you for everything, Seraphim. You are loved. You are missed. We hope you are able to rest well, and we are sending our love to your family.
Much love.
-dmg04
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