This Week At Bungie – 12/02/2021

Dec 2, 2021 - A_dmg04

This Week at Bungie, we talk 30th Anniversary release, Moments of Triumph, Trials Labs (Freelance), and QOL updates!

Welcome to our final TWAB before the 30th Anniversary release. It’s an exciting time. Just a few more days stand between you and some fresh Destiny 2 experiences. We have some fun news to get through today, so let’s get to it! We’ll start you off with a recap of our Game2Give Charity announcement, some news on Trials: Freelance, and then a few fun patch notes previews.

Third Annual Game2Give Charity Event!

Earlier today, our 3rd Annual Game2Give charity event kicked off! Between December 2 and December 15, we’re inviting the Bungie Community to join us in celebrating what we can accomplish together through games and generosity. This year, we have a wonderful stream marathon (which you’re also invited to participate in), and a few awesome charity rewards for you to receive as a thank you for your donations.

Hi-5 Heart Exotic Multiplayer Emote

Altrux Pura Mk1 Exotic Ship

We’re also planning some fun for a Bungie block to end the livestream marathon, so stay tuned for even more awesome announcements. Thank you, again, to all Guardians who’ve been doing their part to support the world at large. We’re excited to see what we can accomplish together through this charity event, and even further beyond.

Trials Labs: Freelance

This weekend brings another round of Trials Labs to Destiny 2. While Freelance will be familiar, we also have a minor change to access requirements to get into Trials for the first time. Here’s a quick rundown from the team on what to expect:

Team: Hey all, we’ve got some Trials of Osiris quick hits ahead of the December holidays to share with you! While this will be a brief update before we take an end-of-year break, we’re excited for the upcoming Trials Labs before the end of the year.

This week is Trials Labs: Freelance! A separate node where everyone playing queues by themselves. The mode is perfect if you don't have a regular team, but may even be a space for you to find other players to party up with for some Flawless success in the Team node.

This week is also a Labs where we do not require the Trials Intro quest to launch into the nodes; the only requirements are owning Beyond Light and being at 1290 Power level or higher. While Trials can be a bit competitive, we hope this variation will open up PvP to more players and introduce them to some sweet rewards, and fuel more desire to give the Crucible a try from time to time.

December 16 will be our last TWAB of the year, so we are announcing this well in advance: On December 31-Jan 3 we will be running another Trials Labs: Freelance. If you’d like to ring in the new year alone, we’ve got the playlist just... for... you? Wait, no! That's a sad way to look at it. If you’re looking for a playlist that you can enter solo and potentially meet lifelong friends in, we’ve got the playlist just for you!

Expect an additional Capture Zone and Freelance in early February, before The Witch Queen launches. We’ll also be looking at map rotation in the Trials playlist over the next few months, starting with pulling lower performing maps from rotation. Stay tuned for future announcements!

Moments of Triumph 2021

Ah yes, Moments of Triumph. It’s one of our favorite times of year. Looking back at all our accomplishments of the past year and celebrating how far we’ve come, while knowing we still have so far to go. This year, we hope Moments of Triumph will be the perfect complement to the 30th Anniversary release. Between your Dungeon runs or your adventures in Dares of Eternity, we have a collection of rewards for you to earn in-game, showing your dedication over the last year. Of course, if you complete all required Triumphs and collect all the rewards, you will unlock the MMXXII Seal and Title. Before we do a quick preview of rewards, we’d like to pass the mic to the dev team to explain some of the inspirations behind this year’s design.

Team: Moments of Triumph (MoT) is always a special time for us, but this year it hits different.

Not only are we celebrating your incredible achievements across the solar system (and dimensions) this past year, but we also get to celebrate a Triumph of our own – Bungie’s 30th Anniversary. One might argue that’s twice as much celebration as last year, and you know what? You’d be right.

We’ve channeled this celebratory spirit into this year’s new MoT crest in a few fun ways we thought were worth sharing. Three swords rest in the top right corner in honor of our 30th Anniversary, each a decade of doing what we love and being inspired by you. Flowers spring to life across the crest – honoring heroes lost, embracing change, and symbolizing growth across seasons. The Guardian’s ship lifts off towards new adventure in the lower left corner, beyond the unforgiving cold of Europa to explore the stars once more.

There are other secrets to uncover of course, but we’ll leave that to you.

Now, let’s look at some sweet loot.

If you’re looking to show your Guardian prowess in the real world, we have a new round of Bungie Rewards for you to unlock and purchase from the Bungie Store, if you so desire. With our yearly T-shirt offering, we also have the Moments of Triumph Seal Pin for your Jackets, pinboards, or whatever you may stick these things on. There is one last Bungie Reward that could be unlocked, taking the form of a coin you may remember from years past...

Your yearly quest for the Moments of Triumph T-shirt begins next week when the 30th Anniversary goes live.

Armor Mods Update: Let’s talk GlimGlam

Kicking off our list of QOL updates (otherwise known as Quality of Life), the team has been working on a change that many of you have been asking about for a while. Have you ever been tinkering with your armor mods and thinking, “Well, this is taking quite a bit of Glimmer” or even running out in the process? Well, starting on December 7, this will no longer be an issue.

Starting next week, you can swap out your armor mods instantaneously, at any time, with no Glimmer or currency required. The goal of the team is to better enable build crafting on the fly, whether you be loading into a PvP match or prepping for a Nightfall.

We’ve also seized this opportunity to make “free and reversible” socket actions available to all 3rd party Destiny 2 apps starting on December 7. So, in addition to equipping gear and transferring items to/from the Vault, your favorite D2 apps will be able to apply Armor 2.0 mods, weapon perks, shaders, ornaments, and ghost projections on your behalf.

While this may not be a solution to every build craft feedback item, it is a step forward as the team looks to dialing in build crafting and loadout opportunities for Destiny 2 in the future. The team will also be looking at Artifact mod resets and costs in the future, but general armor mod swapping is a great first step.

As we said earlier, this enables third party community apps to change mods at the tap of a finger on your phone screen, or the click of a mouse on browsers. We’re excited for how our community will take advantage of this, as it could open the door to potential loadouts for things like Nightfalls or PvP modes.

On The Note of Third Party Apps...

We’d like to take a moment and show some appreciation for API developers out there in our community. While we’ve featured some through Community Focus articles in the past, we’d also like to grant an in-game emblem to celebrate them and their work. It may be a small token of appreciation, but we hope it’s worn with pride. Here’s a quick preview of the Parallel Program emblem.

If you're running around the Cosmodrome and notice this emblem, show some love and do a little dance. Emote away so these creators feel some love.

If there are any Destiny community apps that you use frequently, give them a shout out on social media or on our Bungie.net forums! We’d love to feature more in the future, and make sure to get these emblems shared around. We’ve already started granting a few, but we have far more to dish out. If you’ve created an app to help the Destiny 2 community, we’ll likely be in touch soon.

Exciting stuff, right? This isn’t the only QOL change that will be coming next week! Keep reading for a quick list of upcoming items we’re excited about.

Our Final Patch Note Preview of 2021

Our 30th Anniversary release will be our last content drop until The Witch Queen. Sure, we might have a hotfix or two before the year is out, but this will be our last “big” patch. We’re excited for Dares of Eternity and the new Dungeon, but we’re also looking forward to releasing some QOL improvements that have been requested by players for some time.

Photosensitivity Changes

Screen Explosions

Reduced the bright flash/intense glows.
Updated near fade on particles.

Hive Headshot and Darkness Blast

Hive headshot VFX intensity reduced.
Hive Darkness blast detonation and projectile intensity reduced.

Taken projectiles and muzzle flashes

Arc rifle, Taken slug rifle, Necromancer VFX reduced intensity and normalized lights.

Hallowed Lair Boss Fight

Adjusted intensity/particle near fade for multiple VFX in boss fight.
Area of Effect tell intensity (how players understand the boss is casting Lightning).

Lightning Strike particles and light intensity reduced.
Impact particle near fades updated.

Cloud brightness animation frequencies slowed down.

Decals reduced in intensity.

Scorn VFX

Intensity of spawn/object effects.
Performance and near fades updated on spawn.
Toxic muzzle flash, projectile, performance and intensity tweaks.

Finisher Intensity

Adjusted shader and lights on finisher to not bloom.

Arc Abilities & Screen Effects

Arc object effect debuff have reduced intensity when in close proximity/first person.
Reduced on/off flashings of Arc screen effects.
Reduced on/off flashing of Arc screen shaders.

Blind Well

Dreaming City weapons now drop more frequently upon successful Blind Well completions.

If you’re looking to round out your Dreaming City weapon collection, we highly recommend giving the Blind Well a few runs!

Exotic Ornaments: Previews and Purchases

Starting next Tuesday, we'll be adding a new avenue for players to discover and acquire Exotic ornaments. While players may still hop in to the Eververse to purchase Exotic ornaments, they will also be visible and purchasable when inspecting a given Exotic weapon or armor piece.

As an example, Le Monarque will be receiving a sweet new ornament in the 30th Anniversary release (thanks to a recent community poll for future ornaments – thanks to all who voted!) When booting up Destiny 2, you can inspect your beautiful bow, tab down to the ornaments section, and purchase the ornament straight from the weapon itself. For armor pieces, this can be done either by inspecting the armor itself, or through the Guardian Appearance screen.

Featured ornaments may be purchased with Silver. If the ornament is available for Bright Dust on a given week, it will also be available for Bright Dust on the inspection screen.

We hope this makes it a little easier to find these items as we continue to build new looks for existing Exotic weapons and armor pieces.

Rusted Lands: Bring Back the Booms

Fixed an issue where dynamic objects, like barrels or bricks with physics and Hive exploding objects, were missing from this map

The Corrupted: General Strike Fixes

To reduce the overall length of the strike and make it less painful after hard wipes in the elevator encounter, we have removed the Taken combatants in the dark Ascendant Plane hallway leading up to the elevator.
If a fireteam hard wipes during the final phase of the boss fight in the Ascendant Realm, when they respawn the portal to the Ascendant Realm will take them straight to Phase 2, instead of making them replay the platforming section between Phase 1 and Phase 2.
When a fireteam arrives at the platforming area before the boss fight in The Adytum, any fireteam members or Ghosts left behind in earlier parts of the strike will now be teleported forward to join their fireteam.
When players begin the elevator encounter, any straggler players or their Ghosts will be pulled forward to join their fireteam.
Fixed an issue where Sedia's shields would regenerate faster than expected on Nightfall difficulties. Her shields now regenerate based on health threshold in Nightfalls, just like they do in Direct Launch or the Vanguard Playlist.
The portal to the Ascendant Realm after Phase 1 of the boss fight should now reliably place players facing the correct direction.
Fixed an issue that was preventing the combatants from walking to part of the right-side area during the first half of the boss-fight. Psions should now spread out a little bit more on that right platform.
Fixed an issue where a Taken Acolytes was spawning and immediately falling to its death during the floating platform area before the boss fight.
Fixed an issue where, in certain conditions, the relic would de-spawn and never respawn during the boss phase.
Fixed a cosmetic issue where the relic spawners during the boss would spin before the relic was spawned.

Wait, What about Dunemarchers?!

A few weeks back, we let players know that a few issues with Dunemarchers would be addressed in the upcoming patch. The goal is to remove instances of players being “double chained” by lightning created by these Exotic legs upon a successful Titan punch. Please note that it will still be possible to die to chain lightning when having low health. If you’ve taken damage from a different opponent or been hit by some AOE damage from a well-placed ballistic slam, you may still fall victim to the Dunes...

Once a player is hit by a Dunemarchers lightning chain, they cannot be hit again by Dunemarchers for 2s.
Dunemarchers lightning now only chains on targets that are alive.

Icefall Mantle

Stasis overshield can now be cancelled by pressing the class-ability input once more.

Next Tuesday, we’ll have the full list of patch notes available for your reading pleasure. Our goal is to get the article out a bit earlier in the morning so our sandbox-focused players can get some eyes on more details for the upcoming Abilities changes. Expect timers for grenades, melee’s, and other abilities that were not covered in our previous TWAB!

Cross Play: Text Chat Check-in

It’s been a while since our last Cross Play update from the Social team. In a previous TWAB, they provided a nice roadmap of what to expect as we brought Cross Play online in Season of the Lost, but also on what to expect for future updates. Today we have a quick run-through on text chat and what to expect in the winter timeframe.

Hello everyone, the Social team wanted to give you a quick update on our progress towards a unified text chat system. We recently rolled out cross-platform text chat between our two PC platforms, Steam and the Microsoft Store. We also let you know we’d be adding display-only support and then USB keyboard support in ‘winter.’ So, what does ‘winter’ mean? It’s time for an update!

Display-only text chat will be available for all consoles with the release of the 30th Anniversary Pack on December 7.
With the launch of The Witch Queen, USB keyboard text chat will arrive for consoles.

What is Display only text chat on consoles (30th Anniversary)?

You’ll be able to turn on text chat display in your settings.
By using the Ghost menu, you’ll be able bring up the display again if you’d missed a message.
You will not be able to send messages, but you will finally be able to read what your PC fireteam mates are chatting about.

What does USB keyboard text chat on consoles mean (The Witch Queen)?

You will NOT be able to move your character via the keyboard.
You’ll be able to invoke the text chat window by pressing enter.
You’ll be able to text chat using the full suite of chat channels in Destiny.
You will be able to pick from five different font size display options.
IME support will follow in an update shortly after Witch Queen.

We can’t wait for our console friends to be able to join into text chat when in Cross Play. Now you’ll be able to see raid callouts in the middle of an encounter, or set up some strategy before starting a round of Trials. As always, keep the feedback coming, as these features roll out.

The Social Team

Twitch Bounty Emblem Update

In the spirit of communicating early and often, we’d like to announce a new emblem coming online for the Destiny 2 Twitch Extension! For those that may not be aware, we offer rewards for players who engage with Destiny 2 streams on Twitch. During Trials weekends, players can react to matches to earn some Trials reputation and in-game currencies. We also offer a unique emblem for players who gift two subscriptions on Twitch channels using the Destiny 2 Twitch extension.

Starting on December 16, players who complete the gift-subscription bounty will unlock a fresh emblem: Dreissigste. We highly recommend visiting your favorite stream on Dec. 16 and showing some love to their community with a holiday season gift sub!

Stay tuned for updates on availability. We’ll be loud and clear the moment Dreissigste live!

10950 Days Old

It’s the week before a patch. You know what that means? Server downtimes and patch downloads. Player support has the need to know information on how to plan your Tuesday as the bits go live.

This is their report.

UPDATE 3.4.0 RELEASE SCHEDULE

Next Tuesday, December 7, Destiny 2 Update 3.4.0, the 30th Anniversary Pack, and Moments of Triumph will be released. View our Destiny Server and Update Status page for maintenance times, as well as the timeline below:

8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance begins.
8:45 AM (1645 UTC): Destiny 2 is brought offline.
9 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.4.0 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.
10 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance completes.

UPCOMING KNOWN ISSUES

Forsaken Ciphers - Forsaken Ciphers don’t appear in a player’s loot stream if players already own Forsaken. The Ciphers can be picked up from the Forsaken section of the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic Archive in the Tower. They will end up in a player’s Consumables inventory, but if the inventory is full, they may go to the Postmaster. Players should pick these up immediately so that they don’t get pushed out of the Postmaster.
Moments of Triumph – One Triumph’s description states that one Lost Sector on Master Difficulty needs to be completed, but there are four that need to be completed.

DESTINY 2 LEAVING XBOX GAME PASS

On December 8, Destiny 2 and its expansions (Forsaken, Shadowkeep, and Beyond Light) will leave Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming for Xbox consoles. Destiny 2 will remain on the Xbox Game Pass for PC.

Once Destiny 2 leaves Xbox Game Pass, players who don’t own any of the expansions on the Xbox platform will lose access to:

Expansion quests and campaigns.
Stasis Subclass, which is Beyond Light-specific.
The middle-tree Supers for each subclass. The purchase of any major expansion (sans Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack) will unlock these Subclass supers.
the 10% off perk for Silver purchases and other game add-ons.

Items, such as Exotics, already acquired will still be available for players who earned them, and Season Passes will remain active.

KNOWN ISSUES

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.

Can't thank our Player Support team enough for these weekly check-ins. Keeping the community informed of what's bugged, what's being fixed, and when downloads go live is no easy task. They continue to execute in style.

Next up, we'll be passing the mic to our two newest Community team members to feature awesome movies and art pieces for the week!

I Think Movies Go Here, Right?

Hippy: Look, we like to grind with the best of them, but sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the scenery. In one creative submission’s case, we’re enjoying the MS Paint-ification that one Guardian applied to some pretty notable strike bosses. And you know what? We’re here for it. This week, we've got a playful art contribution and some satisfying holiday-inspired ASMR about reloading that perfect weapon. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into our most recent Movie of the Week picks!

Movie of the Week: A Holiday Spin On Reloading

Movie of the Week: Turning Strike Bosses Into MS-Paint

There are so many incredible creations out there. From epic Destiny 2 moment recreations to moves made in Crucible that have Shaxx screaming in the way we all like to hear; we love seeing it all. Don’t forget to tag your creations with #MOTW for a shot at your time in that delectable TWAB spotlight.

Art Also Goes Here!

Sam: What do a Warlock in Scorned Baron robes, a luminous Osiris, and a tattooed version of Crow have in common? Absolutely nothing, but we think they are pretty rad!

Art of the Week: For I am prey no longer

Now it is my turn to stalk you among the long shadows. To make your strength my own. To take all you hold dear.

For I am prey no longer.#Destiny2Art #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/Bs1kn2bmtt
— Shiny (@xoShiny_) November 29, 2021

Art of the Week: Secrets

Crow with Uldren's early concept art tattoos 💦#Destiny2Art #DestinyArt pic.twitter.com/eE3aalsByz
— elesir (@ElesirArt) November 29, 2021

Art of the Week: Kintsugi

"Kintsugi"
Prompt by @Runesael
.
.
.
Sorry it's more of an inspiration than execution 😔 I've been busy & spent only an hour on this.#Destiny2Art #Destiny2 #O14Week2021 https://t.co/73PUnu5Gyk pic.twitter.com/kfsBpKA9a9
— Soul! (@TheSoulTheta) November 26, 2021

Congratulations! If you are one of the featured artists above, please reply to your original post with a link to your Bungie.net profile so we can get your emblem sent out.

How Many More Sleeps?

Thanks for reading through another weekly installment of the TWAB. I’ll keep the outro short and sweet, as we’ve already talked so much over the last few TWABs already. While it’s tempting to add another three thousand words to this draft in an attempt to ship another TWABehemoth before launch, we still have a few things to tie down before launch next week.

Thirty years of Bungie have led us here. Thank you for playing. Thank you for being an amazing community. We’ll see you bright and early on Tuesday, and we can’t wait to see your reactions.

Much love,

-dmg04