This Week In Destiny – 10/05/2023

Happy TWIDsday, Guardians. We are back this week and ready to… you know what? Some of us might not have finished this week’s story yet, so we will save that for another day. We hope you are enjoying it, and honestly, I’m looking forward to the art y’all will inevitably come up with. 

OK, before we get too distracted, let’s dive right into the news.

Topics covered last week: 

• New rewards to earn.
• A preview of next week’s weapons update.
• Gunsmith focused world engrams.

Topics for this week:  

• Exotic focusing updates.
• Deck of Whispers article highlight.
• Mid-Season armor and weapons preview. 
• More Seasons added to the cutscene archive.

Rahool hosts “The Price is Right”

Hi-ho, Economy team here! One of the biggest challenges for our Economy team is making sure that the in-game currency required for our most exciting in-game gear is fair and achievable for players of all skill levels and playstyles. If the required currency is too high, only players who play the hardest content every week feel like they can afford something, and it stops feeling aspirational for new and more casual players. On the other hand, if the price is too low, highly engaged folks will essentially have infinite access to the currency in question, and it makes getting high-end gear like Exotics feel like no big deal. 

When we made Exotic focusing, we spent a lot of time asking ourselves, “What feels fair to players of all types?” We then modeled the prices after the cost of buying new Exotics from the Monument to Lost Lights. It was a high price point, but by including a cheaper and more randomized option, we felt sure that, if nothing else, we wouldn’t accidentally flood the game with Exotics until they felt like the items were extremely common. Since then, we have had a lot of opportunities to both listen to community feedback about Exotic focusing and collect detailed data about how much players with different time commitments tend to earn and own week to week.

To make a long story short, we saw that, except for folks who play Destiny 2 a whole heck of a lot, most weeks you all weren’t earning more than a few Ascendant Shards a week, with players who only have a few hours to play maybe earning one. Armed with that information, we’ve made two important changes to how Exotic focusing is priced. First and foremost, we are eliminating the Exotic Cipher cost for Tier-2 focusing. Focusing was always meant to be a way for players to put in the work and pick what they want, and the slow rate at which players earn Exotic Ciphers works against that.

Secondly, we are reducing Ascendant Shard costs for both tiers of Exotic focusing. Tier-2 focusing will now cost two Shards, so most players will be able to get a few extra targeted rolls for buildcrafting per week, if that’s where they choose to spend them. Tier-1 focusing already only costs one Shard, but we heard a lot of feedback that the cost still felt steep. In all that data about materials, we also realized that players don’t have enough places to spend Enhancement Prisms in a meaningful way, so we changed the cost from one Shard to ten Prisms. On the surface, the price hasn’t changed much—50,000 Glimmer—but now, for less than it costs to get a Shard, you can get a semi-targeted Exotic roll. Updated: 12:00 PM PST 10/5/2023

In closing, here are the new and lower Exotic focusing costs that will be implemented on October 17, 2023:

Deck of Whispers

As players have witnessed [heh, Witness] there is a new feature in the Season of the Witch: the Deck of Whispers. Earlier this week we released a feature story going into more depth and detail around the creation and execution of getting the Deck into the game and then and then summoning an IRL version of the Deck you can own for yourself.. Learning more about the how’s and why’s of this is truly something special, so make sure you take a look at the blog post here.

Mid-Season Armor and Weapons Preview

It is time for the mid-Season armor and weapons update, and today we are diving deeper into the upcoming changes that you can look forward to in update 7.2.5! Here we go:

First up, let´s look at some armor changes:

Upcoming Season 22 Exotic Armor Balance Changes

For the Season 22 mid-Season update, we wanted to adjust two Exotic armors that we felt were becoming hard to counter in PvP.

Antaeus Wards:

• Reflective Vents now requires full class ability to deploy. Following deactivation of Reflective Vents, your class ability energy is drained proportional to the amount of damage reflected. 
• No longer provides an improved slide.

Antaeus Wards was granting too large a benefit for too little a cost. It also suffered from a lack of meaningful counterplay options. By tying the damage reflection to class ability, we hope to reduce the uptime of the effect and to prevent it from easily stacking with the Juggernaut Arc aspect. Anteaus Wards users will have to think about their engagements more carefully because opponents can exploit the times their class ability is on cooldown.

Young Ahamkara's Spine:

• Reduced the Tripmine Grenade's bonus health from 100 to 70 and removed the bonus 50% damage resistance.
• Grenade energy is now provided on ability kills instead of damage with abilities.

These changes to Young Ahamkara’s Spine targeted two aspects of the Exotic that we felt were causing issues. First, we want to bring its total bonus grenade energy more in line with other Solar ability-focused Exotics, like Athrys’s Embrace and Caliban’s Hand. This change keeps the amount of energy provided large but reduces how easily it can be gained.

Second, we wanted to make it easier to counter the enhanced Tripmine Grenades in PvP by reducing the amount of bonus durability that the Exotic provides. The hope is that a well-placed Tripmine will still offer the Hunter an advantage, but a careless one no longer shifts the flow of an engagement all on its own.

Weapon Balancing

Weapon Archetypes

• Submachine Guns - While SMGs as a whole have generally been brought into line by the recent changes, we're still finding that many players, especially those on mouse and keyboard, see little downside to sacrificing their stability stat to maximize range. We always want players to have a choice when it comes to which stat they want to prioritize, but those choices should have tradeoffs. Until now, ignoring or even reducing stability was not seen as much of a penalty, and the benefits of range far outstripped the downsides, so we are going to make that choice a little bit tougher. The goal of this change is not to make SMGs feel hard to control at base. That said, if you choose to sacrifice stability or not to invest in it, you will notice the difference in controllability, especially at maximum ranges where greater precision is required. 

• General
  • Increased recoil globally by 10%.
  • Reduced the mouse and keyboard stability bonus from 20% to 10%.

• Auto Rifles - In general, we're happy that Auto Rifles are seeing more play in PvP (even in higher level lobbies), but we believe the two-part buff to range they received in Season 22 may have been a bit too much. This is especially true for the Rapid-Fire and Precision subfamilies, which were already strong. On the other hand, we're still not happy with where Adaptive and High-Impact Auto Rifles shake out compared to other ARs, so we've made some tweaks to separate them a bit. For Rapid-Fire, Adaptive, and Precision ARs, we have reduced their aim down sight (ADS) damage falloff scalar stat back down to 1.6x, while we have left High-Impacts at 1.7x. This should sufficiently differentiate the maximum ranges they are able to achieve and give High-Impacts room to breathe over Precisions, which are currently able to achieve the same ranges without the downside of needing to be more accurate. For Adaptive ARs, we weren't happy with how difficult they felt to use, so we have increased their base damage and decreased their critical hit multiplier to make them more forgiving, while retaining their current optimal time to kill. 

• Rapid-Fire Auto Rifles
  • Reduced the ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.7x to 1.6x.
• Adaptive Auto Rifles
  • Reduced the ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.7x to 1.6x.
  • Increased the base damage from 14.25 to 15.
  • Decreased the critical hit multiplier from 1.6 to 1.55 (critical damage goes from 22.8 to 23.3).
• Precision Auto Rifles
  • Reduced the ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.7x to 1.6x.
  • Ammit AR4 - In our final change to ARs, we are going to be experimenting with the new freedom that separating zoom from damage falloff has given us by moving the Ammit AR4's zoom value from 17 to 15. In the live game, Ammit is currently the undisputed king of all ARs for multiple reasons. Its high range, the ability to craft it with double-enhanced consistency perks, the Omolon origin trait, and its above-average zoom all contribute to the weapon feeling like there is no reason to use anything else. Reducing the zoom will make the weapon easier to use at closer range, where it has stiff competition from SMGs like Immortal and Unending Tempest, but it will make it harder to use at long range, as the accuracy will be decreased, and the aim assist will falloff sooner. This will introduce a tradeoff to using the weapon and open the door for other ARs to step in and fill the longer-range gap.
    • Reduced the zoom from 17 to 15.
• Pulse Rifles - While we're generally satisfied with the place that High-Impact Pulse Rifles have found themselves in after the recent round of range changes, it has come at the cost of almost all other Pulse Rifle subfamilies swinging heavily negative in terms of effectiveness. As such, we'll be making two changes to Pulse Rifles in the mid-Season patch. Our explicit goal is to keep High-Impact Pulse Rifles near where they are now, while elevating the other subfamilies to move back into contention. We'll be increasing the damage falloff start at 0 range by 1m, which means that Pulse Rifles with low-range stats (Rapid-Fire, Lightweight, and Adaptive) will all see a noticeable benefit to their damage falloff start distances, while Pulse Rifles with higher-range stats (those over 60, like High-Impact Pulse Rifles) will see little to no improvement. Combined with the reduction in most Auto Rifle ranges, we believe this change will allow the faster firing, lower-range Pulses Rifles to find some room in the sandbox. 
• At the other end of the spectrum, Aggressive Pulse Rifles have been overshadowed by High-Impacts for almost all their existence, due to needing to land more shots at a higher critical hit ratio, plus having a longer burst time and a much slower body shot time to kill. We are wary of buffing their damage and entering into another High-Impact Pulse Rifle situation, but we believe there is some room to improve their comparative range due to their distinctly lower ease of use. As such, we have moved their ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.7x to 1.8x, which will elevate them over High-Impact Pulse Rifles in terms of damage falloff distance and give players a reason to take the tradeoff in terms of lethality and forgiveness.

• General
  • Increased damage falloff range at 0 stat by 1m.
• Aggressive Pulse Rifles
  • Increased the ADS damage falloff scalar to 1.8x.

ADS Damage Falloff Start Distances (0-100 range stat)

• Fusion Rifles - Some combinations of perks and damage boosts can allow Fusion Rifles to operate well outside their intended ranges. Plus in general, Fusion Rifles feel like they can reach out just a bit too much, so we have reduced the minimum damage after falloff from 50% to 45%. This means their damage falloff will occur more quickly once it starts and will decrease to a lower value than it does currently in live, which should help to reduce the instances of feeling like you were mapped well outside of expected range.
  • General
    • Reduced the minimum damage that Fusion Rifles can deal after damage falloff from 50% to 45%.
• Sniper Rifles - The changes to Sniper Rifles are two-fold. First, we wanted to address the issue that Sniper Rifles, even with moderate investment in airborne effectiveness (AE), still don't feel usable in the air. We increased their base airborne accuracy by 20%, which now has them starting at the same accuracy that they had with an Icarus mod pre-AE. Further investment in AE will still provide increased accuracy and aim assist. On the other hand, Snipers have been bordering on becoming oppressive in high-level gameplay, and part of that is they deal such high damage that even landing a body shot can push a player to critical health. This felt wrong, as the intent of the Sniper Rifle is to be a high-risk, high-reward weapon, and having them be so rewarding for missing a headshot didn't feel like it fit the amount of upside they can provide in the hands of a skilled player. As a result, we've decreased the amount of body shot damage that Sniper Rifles can do as a starting point and will evaluate how this change plays out in the wild moving forward. Note: this change also affects their body shot damage in PvE, but in Season 23, we will be buffing Sniper Rifle PvE damage by a flat 15%, which will more than offset this decrease and increase their precision damage against all targets.
  • General
    • Decreased the airborne accuracy penalty by 20%. (Sniper Rifles are now as accurate at base as they were pre-AE with an Icarus mod.)
  • Aggressive Sniper Rifles
    • Decreased body shot damage from 157.5 to 135.
    • Increased critical hit multiplier from 3x to 3.5x.
  • Adaptive Sniper Rifles
• Decreased body shot damage from 131 to 119.
  • Increased critical hit multiplier from 2.95x to 3.25x.
• Rapid-Fire Sniper Rifles
  • Decreased body shot damage from 90 to 85.
  • Increased critical hit multiplier from 3.25x to 3.45x.
• Shotguns - Like Snipers, we wanted to make Shotguns with minimal AE investment feel more usable, so we have matched the base in-air accuracy of Slug Shotguns to what they were at pre–AE with an Icarus mod. Pellet Shotguns are in a bit of a unique situation, as pre-AE they had a substantial accuracy penalty, which would deflect the entire pellet spread (which at the time was also random). We have since removed that entirely and replaced it with an increase to spread angle, so that the effect of jumping on the weapon's behavior would be more predictable (and could be displayed in the hip fire reticle). As it stands currently, their actual accuracy is the same as it is on the ground and cannot be improved, but to be fair to them, we have also decreased the pellet spread penalty by 20%.
  • General
    • Decreased the airborne accuracy penalty for Precision Slug Shotguns by 20%. (Slug Shotguns are now as accurate at base as they were pre-AE with an Icarus mod.)
    • Decreased the airborne pellet spread penalty for Pellet Shotguns by 20%.

Perks

• Perfect Float - Perfect Float has strong benefits, but the duration was too short for something that just improves stats and requires extended combat.
  • Increased base duration from 6 to 10 seconds.
  • Increased extended duration from 7 to 12 seconds.
• Kickstart - Kickstart is one of the most popular damage perks on Fusion Rifles, and it allows them to have both a substantial damage buff and faster charge time without a difficult activation cost, so we have reduced the damage bonus provided by the perk.
  • Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15%.

Checkmate

We will also have some minor tuning coming for Checkmate Control, including increasing the score to win from 100 to 125 and decreasing the frequency of Heavy Ammo spawns from 90 to 180 seconds.

Future Stuff

In Season 23, we will have a host of PvE tuning changes. We don’t want to share too many specifics because some things still have the possibility of shifting during testing, but we can give you this sneak peek:

• Increased base PvE damage for Glaive projectiles and Sniper Rifles.
• Increased damage against minor combatants for Pulse Rifles and Auto Rifles.
• Greatly increased damage against Champions for Revision Zero and Vex Mythoclast.

We’re also very excited to finally get the Glaive rework into your hands, including some changes we’ve made to the Exotic class Glaives to make them more effective and enjoyable to use!

Have any thoughts about what we’ve shared so far? Be sure to hit us up over on Twitter/X @Destiny2Team and our Feedback Forums right here.

Destiny 2 Cutscene Archive Update

The cutscene archive has been updated once again! This week we are bringing the following Seasons to our Cutscene Playlist on YouTube:

Season of the Worthy (Season 10):

 Season of Arrivals (Season 11):

Season of the Hunt (Season 12):

Season of the Deep (Season 21):

Player Support Report

Honey.

The Player Support Team is back, and here is their latest update on bugs and known issues.  

Known Issues List  |  Help Forums  |  Bungie Help Twitter/X 

CROTA’S END 48-HOUR CHALLENGE MODE EMBLEM

We are continuing to work on sending the Crota's End Challenge Mode emblem and acknowledging the All for One Triumph for eligible players.

As a reminder, to qualify for the emblem and Triumph, players must have completed the Crota’s End raid and the Crota’s End Challenge Mode within 48 hours of the raid’s release. 

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:

• We are continuing to investigate ongoing reports of error codes in Destiny 2.
• Hive swords will occasionally consume a player's enlightenment but fail to be picked up in Crota's Reprise.
• Photonic Vest is currently unable to be transmogged.

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.

Fast Colors

Sometimes, it's easy to miss how beautiful Destiny is and how many astonishing places we virtually visit. I know I'm biased when I say that, but after a few weeks obsessing over getting the new loot, this video was a nice reminder of  Destiny 2's ever-present beauty.

Movie of the Week: Colors via Twitter/X

Ivan: Some unusual weapon choices, but they work, right? What an insane combination of Bow, Glaive, and Strand. Almost forgot about the main ingredient: speed. Congrats on #Destiny2motw!

Movie of the Week #2: Bow 2 Punch

Your Light Fades Away

Hippy: Nothing like a solid wallpaper to make your gaming PC feel just a little more personal. If you’re like me and have a problem with chronic death in Destiny 2 (seriously, if there’s a weird way to die, I’ve found it, done it, and yeeted any possible chance at survival out into the universe), then this wallpaper is right for you! Fellow in-game-dying lovers: we’re not ashamed. We’re not proud, but at least now we have a dope wallpaper to feel a little bit better. Bright side. 

Art of the Week: Your Light Fades Away by Zzephiris via Twitter

Sam: Sometimes you’re the champion of Trials, and sometimes you have to hide from Strand. It’s called balance.

Art of the Week #2: Trials by kurikusuri via Twitter 

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There we have it, pals, this week's TWID. Make sure you head over and check out the Deck of Whispers article and get ready for those armor and weapons changes. Make sure you sound off on Twitter/X and let us know what you think of them, so the teams can see. 

And as Ikora said, “Continue your tithes, Guardians. Without them we are lost.”

Stay crafty,

Sam