Destiny 2 Wants to "Speed" Things Up With New Sandbox Update

Just yesterday we covered the extensive road map that Bungie outlined for Destiny 2 players in an effort for more transparency about the MMO and its many changes. Among those bulleted points comes quite a few changes to the Sandbox, which Bungie has just recently gone into more detail about.

Design Lead Josh Hamrick took center stage to clarify a few of the targeted changes coming to Destiny 2 and what exactly the Sandbox team is hoping to accomplish. One of the major points of interest is the "Go Fast Update," which is currently in testing phase to allow Guardians to increase their overall speed, mobility, and the amount of charge can be fueled during combat. He also provided a bullet point list hitting each point of change they are looking at:

• All three glides plus Catapult and Strafe Lift have been retuned and buffed to make them more unique and faster.
• The mobility stat has had its range expanded and been completely retuned as well. In short, everyone gets faster and the high end is higher.
• The players' ground speed cap has been increased, allowing for faster total movement speed, regardless of how you may get there.
• Arcstrider, Sentinel, and Striker all move faster, and at the same speed as one another, while in their Supers.
• Arcstrider, as a whole, is performing well in PvP but mostly due to its neutral game perks. We've made the following changes in an effort to get the Super to be a more competitive option:
• Faster Attack Animations.
• Faster Dodge Animations.
• Increased range of all attacks.
• Supers recharge faster for everyone!
• We've buffed several weapon archetypes (including, but not limited to, Hand Cannons, Pulse Rifles, Sniper Rifles, and Shotguns) and a few specific perks, as well.
• A key goal here is to make Shotguns, Snipers, and Fusion rifles more prevalent in the game.
• We've also been working side-by-side with our friends on PvP to increase the pace of PvP combat and the frequency of power play. Here's a sneak peek at their hard work:
• Player respawn times for all Quickplay modes have been decreased.
• Power Ammo respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced ~30%.
• Power Ammo respawn timers in Survival have been reduced ~40%.
• Power Ammo respawn timers in Countdown have been reduced ~25%.
• Ammo counts have been adjusted in relation to these timers, and in relation to weapon type.
• Enemy players now drop their power ammo on death.
• The dropped brick is available to anyone until picked up or 30 seconds have passed.

He also added, "Finally, the Shoulder Charge changes that went in a couple of months ago have been fully reverted. Shoulder Charge's movement utility was perceived as more valuable than its damage utility, which made it feel bad to actually hit someone with Shoulder Charge. The movement was effectively a "free" dodge.

One final note that will be important to all the snipers out there. Many of you have rightfully complained that Snipers flinch too hard when you're taking hits, especially as they are now power weapons. We have dug into this and found that somewhere along the way towards shipping D2, we acquired a bug that is preventing us from being able to successfully tune this to the values that we would all like. While the current batch of changes we are playtesting go a long way to bringing snipers back to where they should be, this bug will still prevent them from feeling perfect. That bug, which we are actively working on fixing, requires some deep changes to the art of each of the individual snipers in the game. That will take us a while to stomp out. We'll get it fixed and pushed out to you as soon as we possibly can."

Essentially, the change looks to make things a bit more exciting, allowing a bit more freedom for players in-game, and making mobility much more accessible. Combat will see increased efficiency as well, with buffs to quite a few areas in the online world.

It will be a busy time as the team prepares to launch Season 3 in May. For now, Destiny 2 is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

(via Bungie)