Bungie in continuing their "New year, new Destiny" promise by making the changes possible in-game a reality after the popular MMO has received an endless supply of backlash since launch. Though the team honored their promise for a fulfilling storyline, something the first Destiny lacked until later expansions, many players felt that it was at the sacrifice of post-campaign content.
As is standard with MMOs, raiding is an important factor and the team has given an update about what changes are on the way with the coming January patch:
"Raiding is one of Destiny 2's ultimate endgame experiences. So far, you have explored the mysteries of the Leviathan and dove even deeper into its first Lair, the Eater of Worlds. We've received feedback that, while the experiences were epic, the rewards could use some more love. We invited Senior Designer Daniel Auchenpaugh to tell you more about what we're changing with rewards starting with next week's Raids."
Auchenpaugh discusses how they plane to make raids exciting again, given that this is the biggest issue that comes up in the title's online forums. More tokens, more thrill, more - well, everything, is in the cards. This is what he had to say about the issues they are tackling next:
With the upcoming January patch, we're making a number of changes to the way Raid rewards work. We've been hearing that the current system doesn't feel exciting when you kill bosses, that tokens aren't interesting enough, and that you want more deep-chase items to hunt down. This is our first swing at tackling some of those, and we hope you'll jump in and play with these changes a bit and then let us know how you feel. For now, let's dive in to the changes and talk a bit about our goals and thinking with them.Raid Armor: Now With Raid Perks!Raid armor now drops with perks that function on the Leviathan; these appear on mods that are selectable on both new drops and existing Raid armor pieces you may alread have in your inventory. Additionally, these mods are reusable: if you swap to another one these will always be in the list to swap back to on your Raid armor for the low, low price of 1 Calus Token. Since no one wants to take a -5 Power penalty if they remove their Legendary mods while in the Raid, all the Raid mods are Legendary by default. This should also be extra icing on the cake for players who can't seem to get that last mod they need to max their gear out.The goal for these perks was to elevate the power of Guardians in the Raid, and we aimed to build things that were useful in every encounter. As a result, we avoided things that relied on specific mechanics to be useful and moved to broadly useful perks like "Recharge your grenade when you activate your Super" and "Deal 20% extra damage after getting a melee kill" as opposed to things tied to specific mechanics. Double DropsClearing Prestige now gives you Prestige and normal drops. If you have the prowess to clear Prestige, then you've proven yourself enough that we don't need to force you to go back and do Normal as well.Raid Encounters Always Drop a Raid PieceWe didn't want players to have that "dead encounter" feeling anymore, where they had already received all the rewards for that encounter and were just waiting on a later encounter. Or, even worse, the disappointed feeling where no one in your raid group gets something, which could happen under rare circumstances in the old system. So we've unified the drop tables for the encounters so that raid gear isn't tied to a specific encounter anymore (with an exception I'll get in to down below...) so no matter what encounter you clear, you can get raid loot. Oh, and every encounter has a chance to drop an exotic. Not an engram that you have to take back to Rahool for decryption, but an item you could equip and start using immediately if you want. This list of possible exotic drops is comprised of all non-quest exotics, with armor and weapons weighted equally, and is restricted to things your class can equip.Raid Vendor Sells a Rotating Selection of Raid GearIf you just can't get that last piece to drop for you, we want to give you some agency with your tokens. For a cost of Legendary Shards and some Calus Tokens, you can purchase these pieces if you have completed that raid for the week. For instance, if you want to buy the Prestige Chest armor, you need to complete Prestige mode that week before you can do so. This is so people can't save up tokens by sticking to normal mode and still wear the Prestige gear; we wanted to give people agency to fill in those few slots they're missing, not negate the need to progress further in the raid. Ole Benedict will change up what pieces they have available for purchase each week.New Item: Exotic Raid Ghost "Contender's Shell"While not quite at the grind level of the legendary Nanophoenix, we felt like we needed to add a chase item to the Raid pool to make coming back still have reward potential each week. Enter the Contender's Shell. This Ghost can drop from the final encounter in either Leviathan or Eater of Worlds. We also included some bad luck protection to avoid the previously mentioned "Nanophoenix Problem" so that dedicated raiders can rest assured they'll get their hands on it eventually, even if it takes several weeks. The Contender's Shell comes with some brand new perks that we're hoping helps reward players that keep clearing the Raid even after they've gotten their Ghost. Both active only on the Leviathan, and its lair, they aim to make Leviathan encounter rewards stay awesome. First, Seeker of Brilliance enables the chance for encounters to drop Bright Engrams from their loot pools. Every time one doesn't drop a Bright Engram, we increase the chance for the next. Remember those Exotics that can drop from encounters I was talking about earlier? Well, Seeker of Opulence means those exotics have a 50% chance to pull from a list of Exotics you haven't collected yet instead of the standard list. Lastly, to top off this already pretty rad Ghost, we threw on Seeker of Glory, which provides a tracker for the number of encounters you have defeated on the Leviathan
All of the above changes will be seen with the update planned for next week, giving a more enjoyable online experience for all. Destiny 2 is now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
