Tag: Destiny Glimmer

Destiny Share Can Benefit From ‘House of Wolves’ Ditching Its Raid

Yesterday, Bungie announced something we were all expecting, a May release date for Destiny’s House of Wolves DLC, and something no one was, that the new expansion would not contain another Raid.

 

Rather than introducing another complex, six-man activity, Bungie instead revealed a few details about another type of mission called the “Prison of Elders.” They describe it as “a new cooperative end game activity focused on variety, replayability, and skill.”

They refer to it as a “battle arena,” which many fans have taken to mean that Prison of Elders is some sort of co-operative Horde Mode type activity where players (in groups of three, not six) will work together to survive waves of enemies. Though Bungie says in the statement they are working on a new Raid to be released later this year (which jives with a timeline anticipating a big new content drop in the fall), House of Wolves will not have one.

 

The community seems pretty stunned by the decision, given that the Raid has always been the ultimate endgame of Destiny content, both in the original game, and now recently in the first DLC, Crota’s End. Without more details about what the Prison of Elders will contain, it can be hard to tell if the decision is a wise one, but obviously many fans are making up their minds already that this is a very bad thing.

I’m not so sure, and I think once again the most engaged, vocal fans about an issue like this are forgetting the true make-up of the Destiny playerbase.

New Patch Offers New Feature That Could Help Prevent Accidental Item Deletion From Destiny

Bungie announced earlier this week that the studio has already “completed” their work on the next update for their hit first-person shooter video game, “Destiny.”

As indicated in the official Bungie blog post update, Patch 1.1.2 will see the new feature that could help prevent accidental item deletion. Meanwhile, there’s also the improvement of weapons and ammo features for Crucible.

User Interface Engineer Daniel Hanson speaks about the item deletion issue:

“One recurring story we keep seeing involves Legendary and Exotic gear getting accidentally dismantled by errant pets and over-enthusiastic children. We decided to empower players to protect their precious gear with Item Locking,” Hanson said (via Bungie).

The Item Locking feature requires players to highlight their favorite item and then click down on the right thumb-stick to secure the item.

“It’ll be safe until you unlock it,” Hanson went on to explain.

Then there’s also the improvement for the weapon and ammo features in Crucible.

Kevin Yanes, who works as Crucible Designer, pointed out a few improvements which include:

  • Making Special Ammo “a more precious resource”
  • Putting further emphasis on the Heavy Ammo’s role
  • Limiting the high-damage weapons

“The recent update to sandbox balance was the first step. Creating a new system to manage ammo drops will enable us to adjust the Crucible experience without altering other activities in your Director. We believe that making ammo more scarce and important will provide players with more choices and more memorable encounters in Crucible,” Yanes said.

As further explained by Yanes, Special Ammos will “spawn less frequently” in Patch 1.1.2.

“…it will take longer to pick up, there will be less crates located on the map, and the bricks you find will provide you with less ammo,” he said.

Further details about the Destiny Update 1.1.2 will be provided for in the upcoming Patch Notes.

Destiny Share ‘House of Wolves’ DLC Gets A Release Date And A Trailer

But now Bungie is starting to dole out actual information about House of Wolves, namely when we’ll actually see it released. The expansion will be out May 19th, and the announcement debuted alongside a new “Prologue Trailer” which can be seen below.

The 100-second spot is a prerendered, not-in-engine cutscene, which is a relative rarity for Destiny. It’s narrated by the Awoken Queen of the Reef (voice actress Kirsten Potter) who explains that after showing the Fallen mercy, the Awoken were betrayed by them. She’s “offering the riches of the realm” as bounty for Guardians to come into the Reef and exact vengeance on the Fallen.

The clip confirms what most have known for a while about House of Wolves, that we’ll be working for the Queen and the Reef will be a new, playable area, at least in part. I suspect that it won’t be the size of a full-on planet like the zones we see in Earth, Mars , Venus and the Moon, but a genuine new area is something to celebrate nonetheless, as the first DLC, Crota’s End, only unlocked a few nooks and crannies of existing maps.

Also promising is the idea that there might actually be some semblance of story attached to this DLC, including hopefully new cutscenes which expand on the lore of the game. The Queen and her brother are characters we’ve already encountered in the game to date, and already this would seem to be more involved story-wise than Crota’s End, which introduced its story through the addition of a new Tower vendor alone whose exposition was limited to a handful of mission voiceovers.

It seems likely that Bungie has worked to rectify many of the problems of Crota’s End, hence the delay between the last DLC and this one. Crota’s End came out just three months after the release of the original game, but now House of Wolves won’t arrive until the end of May, meaning it’s going to be about five and a half months in between the last two pieces of content. The delay means more fans have probably lost interest in the game, but if the content itself is good enough, it could bring them back.

I think it’s great Bungie took some extra time with House of Wolves, and I have to imagine they’ll have learned a lot from Crota’s End. They’ll have had to, given that the most common sentiment I heard among fans after the release of the first DLC was “if House of Wolves is just like this I’m done.

The super-rare gear sale this weekend from Destiny

Xur deals in Destiny’s so-called “exotic” gear. In a game ruled by random loot drops from virtually any scenario, exotics are the most sought-after of them all. They’re also the only class of gear in the game with usage restrictions; namely, you can only have one exotic armor piece and one exotic weapon equipped at any given moment.

Every Friday is a holiday when you’re a Destiny fan. That’s when Xur, Agent of the Nine, appears in a random part of the game’s Tower social hub to peddle his rare weapons and armor. As long as you have enough Strange Coins, a rare currency that can be earned by completing Weekly Heroic Strikes, Xur has the goods for you.

Xur’s in the Tower from 4 a.m. ET on Friday to 4 a.m. ET on Sunday. To find him, hook a right on your way to the Tower hangar. Let’s take a look at what he’s got in stock for the weekend of April 10 to 12.

The Armamentarium (Titan chestpiece): This Titan chestpiece is for players that like to bring massive firepower to bear on anything standing in their way. In addition to boosting both special and heavy weapon ammo capacities, The Armamentarium — once upgraded — also gives Titans a second grenade to toss. Cost: 13 Strange Coins

ATS/8 ARACHNID (Hunter helmet): This helmet is mostly of interest to Hunters that like to run the Gunslinger sub-class. Its Arachnid Sensorium upgrade increases the range of the Gunslinger’s Golden Gun “super ability,” while its Ashes to Asset upgrade refills the super’s meter faster with every grenade kill. There’s also a third upgrade, Light the Blade, that reduces the cooldown of the Hunter’s melee ability — for Gunslingers, that’s a throwing knife — when dealing damage with a grenade. Cost: 13 Strange Coins

Starfire Protocol (Warlock chestpiece): Starfire Protocol is basically the Warlock’s version of The Armamentarium, but it’s only of interest to the Sunsinger sub-class. Boosts to heavy weapon ammo and fusion rifle ammo are handy, but the marquee upgrade for Starfire gives Sunsinger Warlocks a second fusion grenade to toss. Cost: 13 Strange Coins

SUROS Regime (auto rifle): Long one of Destiny’s most sought-after exotic weapons, SUROS Regime is available to buy from Xur this week. This auto rifle has a number of features that make it unique, starting with the Focused Fire upgrade. Once unlocked, SUROS switches from a high rate-of-fire bullet hose to a slower firing, higher damage headshot beast as the user moves between hip fire and sighted aiming, respectively. Then there’s the upgrade that the weapon is named for, which causes the bottom half of each magazine to deal bonus damage and potentially restore some health to the user. As with any Destiny gear that has healing capabilities, this is most useful during the final phase of the Crota’s End raid, when healing is limited. Cost: 23 Strange Coins

Exotic Chestpiece engram: Destiny’s engrams are unidentified gear that spit out a random item when “decoded” by the Cryptarch vendor in the Tower. Xur occasionally sells exotic engrams in exchange for another rare currency, “Motes of Light.” It’s always a roll of the dice when you buy an exotic engram. Given that Destiny’s next expansion, House of Wolves, is likely just a few weeks away, it’s probably a good idea to hang onto your Motes and wait to see what the DLC brings. Cost: 23 Motes of Light

Exotic Shard: This crafting material was introduced alongside Destiny’s first expansion pack, The Dark Below. One is required to fully upgrade any exotic gear, weapon and armor both. You can always get a “free” exotic shard when you dismantling an exotic, but Xur sells them every week.

In addition to the gear, Xur also peddles a rotating stock of consumables every week. For this week, he’s got Pulse Rifle Telemetry, Hand Cannon Telemetry and Machine Gun Telemetry (temporarily increases the XP gains on the designated weapon class) in bundles of five, for 1 Strange Coin apiece; a Plasma Drive that boosts the speed and durability of rare Sparrows (Destiny’s speeder bikes), for 23 Strange Coins; an Emerald Coil, which works the same as a Plasma Drive but also adds a green contrail to the Sparrow, also for 23 Strange Coins; and bundles of five Heavy Ammo Synthesis (ammo packs, y’all), for 1 Strange Coin.

If you want to dive even deeper on the relative value of Xur’s offering this week, head over to the Destiny subreddit. User aWrySharK provides weekly analysis that breaks down the stat rolls on each armor piece, complete with recommendations covering what’s worth it and what’s not. Check out this week’s rundown right here.

House Of Wolves DLC Will Be ‘Intense’ And Dark Days Ahead For Guardians

Some news for you Guardians still amongst us that are surely beginning to feel a little bit bored waiting on the House of Wolves to drop. Kirsten Potter, Voice Over Actress that worked on Destiny power leveling, has taken to Twitter to both inform and disappoint. She said, “Just recorded some cool stuff with Team Bungie. House of Wolves shaping up to be pretty intense. There are dark days ahead, Guardian!”

This of course points towards the DLC still not being quite complete. Which is a bit of a kick in the teeth especially given the fact that the release date is right around the corner. However, it will surely be interesting to see what these “dark days” will be, especially if the Queen of the Reef is warning you about them.

 

Now might be a good time to grind out some better armour, just to be on the safe side. Destiny is now available on the PS3, Ps4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and hopefully one day on the PC. For more on Destiny check out our hub page here.

Bungie weekly update detailing the fate of PVP changes from Destiny

While Bungie still is not ready to reveal a release date for the next major Destiny update, the studio has shed light on yet another noteworthy change coming to the game’s competitive mode. If you have upgrade trouble, you can find destiny power leveling.

According to the developer’s weekly update, ammo within the Crucible is getting a few modifications in order to change the the general flow of PVP matches. As such, Special ammunition will be a “more precious resource,” as Bungie seeks to create a more balanced landscape for those playing against one another online.

Limiting high-damage weapons and clearly defining the role of Heavy ammo within the shared-world shooter’s PVP is a major goal of the studio as well, undoubtedly altering the way gamers will have to approach online battles.

For more on Destiny, you can read all about the forthcoming changes that were revealed last week.

Agent of the Nine Exotic Items Up To May 19 from Destiny

It seems like Destiny Xur: Agent of the Nine vs Megaman saga has finally come to an end. For past few weeks, Megaman openly admitted that he is finding it difficult to leak Xur Agent of the Nine exotic items (with the help of data mining tech) ahead of its official arrival. The reason behind it was (according to Megaman) Bungie made some drastic changes to curb hacking of Xur Agent of the Nine exotic items and upgrades via data mining tech (in short, Bungie started manually controlling Xur and changing Xur’s stock in real time via patch).

Megaman is a relief man now and feels like his task is accomplished, and he openly let this feeling of his know to Destiny community via Reddit. In the comment section of one of his thread, Megaman stated that because of recent Xur’s Stocks leak, Bungie was forced to changed him with new stocks because all old stocks were WEAK and Destiny players were not happy with it.

In addition to this, Megaman stated that he had possession of Xur: Agent of the Nine stocks and exotic items up to May 19, and those were “Awful”, Mida Multi Tool was scheduled to come three times.

Here is what Megaman said (in conversation with other Xur Items/Stock leaker) (translated) 

“I’m grateful to you. If you hadn’t published the data of xur, Bungie would not have changed xur. I had possession of data up to May 19th and it was awful. Mida Multi Tool was scheduled to come three times.”

Are you guys happy with the recent changes made (by Bungie) to Xur: Agent of the Nine exotic items, stocks and upgrades? Do let us know in the comment section below.

Destiny Share How Bungie Goes About Improving The Game Every Week

The video game industry moves fast. A game everyone’s talking about today can become a foggy memory in just a matter of weeks. The best chance most games have at success happens right around launch. One game, however, is bucking that trend: Destiny.

Built by Halo developer Bungie, Destiny came out in September 2014 to massive hype from shooter fans and the gaming press alike. But despite Bungie’s pedigree and the game’s positive pre-release press, many players’ initial reactions when it came out were surprisingly lukewarm.

For most games, this would be a death sentence; just look at what happened with the similarly-hyped but under-delivering Titanfall. But that’s not how Destiny has played out. In February — five full months after the game’s release — Destiny was the fifth most searched game on Google, well ahead of more recent major releases like Evolve and Resident Evil Revelations 2. So why is Destiny thriving while other games struggle to maintain the spotlight? It’s due in large part to the game’s weekly updates.

In the months since launch, Bungie has done a lot to improve Destiny’s gameplay experience, which pleases dedicated players and brings new ones into the fold.

The weekly updates keep the gameplay balanced and as bug-free as possible while Bungie works on the larger content updates it releases sporadically. As the developer writes on its blog:

We’ve said many times that Destiny is never finished. We’ll keep updating it, polishing it, revising it, and pushing its boundaries until you pry it from our cold, dead… You get the idea.

Bungie decides what to change in its weekly updates by listening to the fans, finding bugs, and searching its data to minimize pain points and things that frustrate players unnecessarily.

Since Destiny is an online game, it’s easy to find things to fix. The developers can look at just about everything people do in the game, which helps them identify things like which missions are too easy or difficult to complete, which guns are over- or under-powered, and exploits players have discovered.

To keep players up to speed on what’s happening in Destiny, Bungie hosts a news page. It shows an incredible amount of transparency between the game’s developers and the players. Each weekly update is accompanied by a post that explains what has changed and why. The game’s designers are quoted at length, discussing any challenges or concessions they had to make when designing the update.

Destiny’s most recent weekly update offers a telling look into how Bungie goes about improving the game from week to week. The developer found that a small number of players would chronically sit idle during raids, letting other people do the fighting, but reaping the rewards once the raid was complete. The new update puts temporary restrictions on the accounts of people who exploit the game regularly.

Bungie also looked at the statistics for its missions and found that two missions had very low completion rates, with average completion times that were excessive. According to production engineer Brenton Woodrow:

Our goal was to ease the difficulty for the least-completed strikes. In order to do this, we focused on the final boss encounters, which were fairly lengthy on higher tiers. We addressed this by reducing the strength for several of the major combatants. We also felt that the bosses themselves could use some tweaking. We reduced Valus Ta’Aurc’s health by a third and reduced the Psion Flayers’ shields by about 15%. We locked these changes after several playtests with the designers and feel that they bring these encounters in line with the rest of the Strikes.

It’s exactly this kind of attention to detail week after week that has improved the experience of playing Destiny since its September launch. There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach a game that doesn’t click with players immediately. With Destiny, Bungie is showing everyone else how it should be done.

Destiny: The Newb’s Guide to Being a Hero

Are you new to Destiny? Don’t know what any of this means? Good news! There’s a Destiny wiki that’s packed with information. Click on through for details on what Strikes are, and how Nightfall differs from Weekly Heroic challenges.

It’s that wonderful time when Bungie’s regular offering of high-reward Weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strike missions are rebooted (along with any raid progress made in the previous week), giving everyone a fresh chance at scoring some of the game’s sweetest and rarest loot.

This week’s chosen Strike is the hated Cerberus Vae III mission, in which up to three players hunt down a Cabal general on the sandy surface of Mars. It’s among the lengthier Strikes in Destiny, and it’s also — as Bungie revealed in its April 2 update — one of the most frequently unfinished. So much so that the developer is planning to ease the difficulty in an imminent update.

Sadly, that update hasn’t yet arrived, which means we’re stuck with the same super-challenging gauntlet. Here’s the top-line details for this week, if you just want to know what the modifiers are:

Nightfall

  • Epic – This is a standard Nightfall modifier. It just means there are more enemies to fight, and a greater number of Majors (the yellow health bar dudes) on the field.
  • Nightfall – Another standard Nightfall modifier. This one boots the entire Fireteam back to orbit if everyone is downed inside one of the revive-only respawn Darkness Zones.
  • Lightswitch – Enemy melee attacks do mega-damage. Keep your distance at all times.
  • Angry – Headshots (and high-impact weapons) don’t stagger enemies.
  • Juggler – Ammo only drops for the weapons that you’re not actively using.

Weekly Heroic

  • Heroic
  • Lightswitch

Them’s the basics. But what does it all mean?

This week’s Nightfall is, frankly, a waste. There’s no elemental “burn” modifier like there usually is, meaning you don’t get any damage buffs from your Arc, Solar, and Void weapons. You also don’t take the increased damage from those elements without the burn. That’s nice, but the Strike is still too long and the final boss fight, too tedious.

House of Wolves Release Date Coming Soon from Destiny

The latest weekly update on the Bungie blog indicates gamers won’t have to wait much longer for information, with news regarding a release date expected before the end of the month.

Since “The Dark Below” was released in December, “Destiny” gamers have played and replayed content a thousand different ways. The patient wait for the game’s next major DLC pack, “House of Wolves” continues, but at least fans now know when they can expect more news.

As noted by Gamespot, “The House of Wolves” is believed to launch with a new storyline focusing on the Awoken, an exclusive raid, three new Crucible maps, a new Fallen Strike and new weapons, armour and gear. Gamers who purchased the “Destiny” Expansion Pass will be able to access “House of Wolves” without paying anything extra, while the DLC is available to purchase separately for $20.

“The next expansion for Destiny is something we’re really looking forward to talking about. This month, there will come a day when we’ll reveal a release date for the trials that await you, with a whole reef of details soon to follow – but it is not this day,” read the blog post, by Bungie community manager, Deej.

The tease may seem cruel, but at least gamers will still have the weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strikes to keep them busy. Regular “Destiny” data-miner, Megamanexe4 has spilled the beans on Reddit, indicating gamers are set for a level 24 Heroic Strike mission to the Mars Median Bay for a showdown with Cabal Colossus Ultra; Valus Ta’aurc. Heroic and Lightswitch modifiers will be active, meaning hordes of enemies dealing greater damaged with increased aggression will be the order of the day.

The Weekly Nightfall offers up an even sterner challenge, with a level 30 Very Hard mission featuring Nightfall, Lightswitch, Angry and Juggler modifiers. Destiny power leveling make you upgrade more easy. As always, Nighftall means if the entire fireteam dies, players get kicked back to orbit, Angry sees enemies that don’t flinch even in the face of massive damage, while Juggler means enemies don’t drop ammo for currently equipped weapons.

Players looking for a leg up on Valus Ta’aurc can check out a video hosted on the DPJ – Daily Destiny Videos YouTube channel, which shows Guardians of all classes how to cheese the boss. Players will need to make their way up to a hidden spot in the battle arena, from where they can headshot Ta’aurc with ease, whilst staying behind cover.

That said, experienced players may have no need of the cheese. As noted by Polygon, Destiny aim to make some raid bosses, including Valus Ta’aurc a little easier in the near future. Finally, the developer is also planning on temporarily banning a small number of toxic players from matchmaking. Bungie said the offenders are chronic idlers who who sit idle in competitive and cooperative multiplayer, damaging the experience for others.