Now we’re getting somewhere
As promised, Bungie has shared its plans for the future of Destiny 2 in a blog post today.
Aside from going over upcoming “systems, features, and updates […] being designed specifically to focus on and support players who want Destiny to be their hobby,” the developer also admitted that it needs to be “more open” with its fans lest they get tired and move on from the game.
Most notably, on December 12, Bungie will be introducing Masterworks, which are Legendary weapons that track and show your kill count, generate orbs upon multi-kills, and add “stat bonuses that are selected randomly from a small pool and are re-rollable.” You’ll be able to earn Masterworks as drops from any source of 250 Power weaponry (especially Trials of the Nine and the Raid), and you can upgrade to them using existing Legendary gear. (“Unwanted Masterworks can be dismantled.”)
Masterworks should give players more of an incentive to keep, well, playing — and not feel bad about it. And while this system only applies to weapons to start, Bungie plans to extend it to other gear.
There’s a lot of other ground to cover, including account-wide armor ornaments; better vendor rewards; more worthwhile incentives for Prestige activities and Strikes, Adventures, and Lost Sectors; private matches and Ranked play in the Crucible; and more uses for Tokens and Legendary Shards.
The much-derided scaling XP system that recently made headlines is still being addressed. Leveling is “too slow for some activities” as it currently stands. “Expect to see a lot of conversation from our team on this front, as XP rewards are updated and brought back in-line with player expectations.”
Looking ahead, the developers say they “plan to continue this dialog as openly and frequently as possible” and it’ll be “an ongoing process.” But as far as next month goes, we’re looking at:
- [DEC 12] Legendary Weapons will drop as or be upgraded to become Masterworks versions
- Masterworks will have a few advantages over the baseline Legendary weapon:
- Track and display the number of kills with that weapon (with choice between total count or Crucible-only count)
- Generate orbs for you and your allies on multi-kills
- Add weapon stat bonuses that are selected randomly from a small pool and are re-rollable
- Masterworks drop from any source of Legendary weapons for characters above 250 Power
- Unwanted Masterworks can be dismantled into materials that can upgrade an existing Legendary Weapon into a Masterwork
- Raid and Trials of the Nine Weapons will have a very high chance to be Masterworks
- We have future plans to extend Masterworks to other gear and expose your kill counts in more places (e.g. Crucible kill screen)
- Masterworks will have a few advantages over the baseline Legendary weapon:
- [DEC 5] Armor Ornaments will be added to some existing Armor sets for more visual customization without losing your Shaders or Mods
- These ornaments will be unlocked by completing objectives specific to each set, and are permanently unlocked account-wide, just like Exotic Weapon ornaments
- They will be applied to the base pieces that you may already have collected, and can now unlock on Vendors if not
- In Season 2, the following sets have ornaments unlocked in their respective activities:
- Vanguard Faction Armor
- Crucible Faction Armor
- Trials of the Nine Armor
- Iron Banner Armor
- Dead Orbit Armor
- Future War Cult Armor
- New Monarchy Armor
- Eater of Worlds Raid Lair Armor
- [DEC 12] Faction Armor and Weapons will be unlocked for purchase for Legendary Shards and Faction Tokens on most Faction Vendors
- All five Armor Slots will always be present, and Weapons will rotate weekly on Factions that have them
- Slots will be unlocked by claiming Reward Engrams from the respective Faction
- You will get credit for engrams you may have already claimed since launch
- [DEC 12] Xur has some new offerings for players collecting Exotics:
- Every week, you’ll be able to acquire one of the new Fated Engrams using Legendary Shards that will decrypt as Exotics that aren’t already in your collection
- A simpler Three of Coins that boosts Exotic drop rates from any source for 4 hours
- No obscure stacking mechanics or need to re-apply before every boss
- These cost Legendary Shards and you can have as many as you like
- [DEC 5] Banshee has some updates on the Weapon and Armor Mod front:
- For players wanting to clear some Mod inventory space, Rare quality Mods will dismantle into Gunsmith Materials and have a chance to produce Legendary quality Mod Components
- For players chasing specific Legendary Mods (including Legendary Kinetic Mods), Banshee will offer a selection of specific Legendary Mods for direct purchase, with a selection that will rotate daily and cost Legendary Shards and Mod Components
- [DEC 5] For players chasing a world Legendary or looking for Masterworks, Master Rahool will sell some of his rumored hoard of Legendary Engrams for Legendary Shards
- [DEC 12] Commander Zavala and Lord Shaxx will sell Gift consumables for Legendary Shards that can be used during a Strike or Crucible Match that will serve the following functions:
- Grant bonus rewards to everyone in that activity upon completion, friend or foe alike
- Award anything from Faction Tokens to a round of Exotics for everyone in the match
- [DEC 12] Exploit safeguards on Chests and Resource Nodes are greatly relaxed and players should encounter them less frequently
- Even if they do, drop rates for Tokens is only reduced to 30% instead of 0%, and Glimmer will be unaffected
- We want to associate a visual indicator with this in a future update, but we weren’t able to pull that off in this update (but we hear you!)
- [DEC 12] Vendors will now beckon you to hand in your Reputation Tokens only when you’re carrying enough to earn a Reward Engram
- [DEC 5] Changes affecting Reputation Tokens:
- Daily Challenges will have Reputation Token awards increased across the board
- Cayde’s Treasure Chests still offer variable rewards, but now guarantee (at minimum) a payout of destination appropriate Reputation Tokens
- Strikes will drop a larger number of Vanguard Reputation Tokens
- Common quality Destination Resource Tokens will have their drop rates increased to 100%, and values per Token increased as well (by 50% for common quality Tokens and 250% for rare quality Tokens)
- On the balance, Reputation required per Reward Engram will increase for Destination Factions (+37%) and Gunsmith (+50%)
- Leviathan Raid Tokens will be redeemed at Benedict immediately upon obtaining a Token, instead of requiring a full clear before unlocking
I haven’t felt the urge to play Destiny 2 much lately but I’ll have to pop back in next month. Whether or not Bungie can carry that momentum into 2018 and stay communicative remains to be seen.
The State of Destiny 2 [Bungie]
