Destiny 2 Update Provides Details for the Drastic Changes Coming to Nightfall Strikes, New Loadout Challenges

02/09/2018 11:36 am EST

Bungie recently revealed a roadmap of changes coming to their latest shooter, Destiny 2. In an effort to be more transparent since the back to back backlash waves seen in 2017 since launch, the team is working double time to make the most requested changes happen in the new MMO.

The developers sat down in their most recent update to discuss some of the changes players may have already been noticing, more specifically - what's new with the Nightfall strikes. Game Director Christopher Barrett once again took center stage to deliver the good word, here's what he had to say:

"Nightfall should be a challenging test that only the bravest Guardians dare face. Fireteams of any size should be able to participate, from organized clan groups to skilled solo players. Players should be able to determine their own challenge level, by going slow and steady or fast and wild, with elective modifiers to test the most hardcore veterans. Your final score will separate the best from the rest, and with high risk comes high reward. Each terrible villain that players face should have a very rare and powerful unique item, themed to them, that tumbles to the ground as they collapse into a pile of bones. Conquering Nightfall should be a badge of honor, with the best players able to show off their achievements with new dynamic emblems and exclusive auras.

That's the vision of where we want to take Nightfall, you'll be seeing the first of this direction in the next patch, with more being added over time."

Designer John Favaro is also working hard on the upcoming sandbox changes alongside to Senior Design Lead Tyson Green. "We recognized the need for a venue in which those improvements matter more," Green said when talking about the sandbox changes. "The weekly Nightfall, especially on the prestige difficulty, was intended to be such a venue, but the controversial time limit mechanic is a simple pass-fail mechanism. It only acknowledges success as a big clear, with no degrees of success past that."

Thus, Nightfall Scoring allows more of an achievement feel with rewards to boot. Here's what the targeted mechanics will be:

• Reward you for engaging and defeating enemies instead of running past them.
• Avoid over-emphasizing specific mechanics like precision kills that highlight certain areas of the sandbox (and/or punish other areas), so that players are the ones who determine the most effective Meta.
• Reward you for taking on greater challenges up to the limits of your own capabilities.
• Reward you for doing the above quickly and over the course of a short run versus long slogs over several hours

Updated Mechanics:

• Scoring is team-based and the sum of individual performances. A team should be able to focus on what works best, not feeling put out by who stole whose kill.
• Scoring is primarily driven by kills and secondarily by orb generation. We want you to find what works best for clearing strikes instead of telling you which weapons to use, but we want coordinated use of Supers and other team support mechanics to contribute to high scores. We're interested in restoring special point awards based on medals, but we want your input to understand the basic meta first.
• Score bleeds over time. We are watching this closely — score decay can feel bad, but all else being equal, a team that clears faster than another team should score higher. Score decay achieves this in the most transparent fashion.
• Scoring cuts off after time thresholds. At 15 minutes, new points earned are reduced by 50%. At 18 minutes, you stop earning new points and it's a race to finish the run and post your score. We want time to matter (see above), but we also want to avoid some of the problems we saw with Prison of Elders, where a "high score" might involve punishing respawning combatants (and yourself) for a few hours until the novelty wore off. A good Nightfall clear shouldn't feel like a slog.

Challenge Cards will also be available to boost the challenge in exchange for score multipliers. You can see an example of these cards, and more on the rewards, right here.

Destiny 2 is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

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