Bungie have posted a rather lengthy blog detailing forthcoming updated to Destiny 2 and there’s a lot to read, but I have summarised the main points below. The biggest news is that Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, the next major expansion to the game, has been delayed from the end of 2021 to early 2022.
The company cites the challenging situation with remote game development through the pandemic as the chief cause of the delay, but the long term plan for Destiny 2 has also been extended. Having outlined three major narrative yearly expansion – Beyond Light, The Witch Queen and Lightfall – they have only now realised that they “need” to add an extra chapter after Lightfall to “fully complete” the first saga of Destiny.
That’s all looking way off into the distance though, when players have issues and complaints with the game right now. In particular, Bungie have heard complaints about Trials, the exacting multiplayer mode that has always felt impossibly unbalanced, and will look to fix some of the issues with how it’s incorporated into the game. Also, Stasis in PvP.
Beyond that, there was an update about crossplay, which is now expected to arrive in Season 15 later this year – we’re currently in Season 13, which runs for three months until 11th May, so Season 15 is expected in August.
Now, on to the list:
- Any weapon or armour that can currently be infused to max Power will continue to be able to reach max Power permanently and will not be sunset. “While we still strongly believe that Destiny needs a method to shift our meta in the game’s most challenging activities, we don’t believe that infusion caps are the right answer,” say Bungie.
- As existing weapons and armour will no longer have power caps, expect more tweaks and tuning to existing weapons.
- Starting in Season 14, we will only be raising the Power cap by 10 for each non-expansion season. This means if you reach the maximum Power in Season 13, when next season rolls around you will be directly in the 10-point Pinnacle band of the Power pursuit.
- In Season 15 Bungie will addressing “three-peeking” in Trials and Competitive. This when a player swaps to third person mode using an emote or sword to allow them to see round corners. ” In these modes, emotes will be disabled and players will be unable to pull out any third person weapon that doesn’t have ammo,” say Bungie.
Armour from the next annual release
- Over the coming seasons Stasis and Light subclasses will be tweaked for the Crucible. These include:
Behemoth Titan:
- Decrease Super damage reduction.
- Increase Super energy cost when performing light attacks.
- Remove freeze AOE on Super cast.
- Reduce travelling efficacy of Shiver Strike when slowed.
Revenant Hunter:
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- Decrease Withering Blade damage and tracking.
- Decrease slow stacks applied to targets.
- Remove Shatterdive damage reduction.
Shadebinder Warlock:
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- Fix bug where Iceflare Bolts wouldn’t track towards targets immediately on creation.
- Fix bug where Shadebinder Super projectiles were not tracking until a certain distance travelled.
General:
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- Decrease crystal shatter damage.
- Season 15 will also see universal adjustments to Stasis by increasing damage reduction when frozen to provide more survivability for the victim.
- Cheating remains a problem, particular on PC and bungie want to address this by doubling the size of the Bungie game security team, making more surveys, and taking legal action against cheaters.
- Big news: They’re going to fix Trials of Osiris! The matchmaking pool will be made bigger, solo players will have more incentives, and Trials cards will be rethought.
- Season 14 will seen the Vault of Glass will return.
- Ada-1 will return to the Tower in Season 14, “with her comes the ability for players to take any armor they have in their collections and turn it into a universal ornament. In Destiny 2 we will call this transmog system ‘Armor Synthesis.'”
- Ada will have bounties which will power her Loom (obviously).
Fancy hats are a staple of Destiny 2
- Crossplay arrives in Season 15.
- Ikora Rey will be back, she’s not said a word for years but she will be playing a pivotal role in The Witch Queen.
- Season 15 will introduce our first round of Legendary Stasis Energy and Power weapons.
Source: Bungie
