Category: Destiny Guide

Destiny Share May See The Return Of Queen’s Wrath Bounties

“Destiny” may be looking at new bounties in the future, specifically some new Queen’s Wrath Bounties. This is if new unearthed information via data mining is to be believed.

The new findings are courtesy of Redditor THConer. Inquisitr managed to spot the new findings, which hint at the possible return of the event once the “House of Wolves” arrives.

All of these should be taken with a grain of salt. As far as official promises go, Bungie has announced before that it will be dropping one more update before “House of Wolves” hits “Destiny.”

For now, developer Bungie has revealed the details, tweaks and changes that will be set for Inferno mode this week. The Inferno Clash will see some similarities with the Inferno Control mode.

There are 10 maps to be expected for Inferno Clash. These include The Anomaly, Firebase Delphi, Twilight Gap, Rusted Lands, Shores of Time, Bind Watch, Asylum, The Burning Shrine, The Cauldron and Pantheon.

The changes for the new Crucible have been lumped into four main areas of “Destiny.” The first is that there will be no trackers or radars involved when playing. In line with this, Bungie has also limited the Heavy crates per match to just one set. This matches the lack of Tracker for the mode.

As far as scoring is concerned, the Inferno mode will only be about getting kills. So even if players deliver good assists, it’s mostly to aid with teamwork more than anything else. On the topic of teamwork, Bungie Crucible Designer Jeremiah Pieschl also emphasised the importance of communication to push players more towards the winning side of the battle.

Bungie is already preparing a new bounty for “Destiny” players, to be held on April 1, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time for PS4 players. Unlike a couple of gaming April Fools’ pranks, the hunt and reward are real. Those who claim victory will receive a nameplate as pictured in the Bungie blog post here.

The battle will be against the Guardians of Destiny. The team will have two members of Bungie as players.

Destiny Share New Queen’s Wrath Bounties

The baking of Queen’s Wrath was likely drawn out further as resources were split between updating Destiny and getting The Dark Below expansion ready for release. However, it appears that it could return with The House of Wolves based on these bounties discovered in DestinyDB by a sharp-eyed Redditor.

The first Queen’s Wrath PVE event received mixed reviews from Destiny players when it was first released a couple of weeks after the game’s launch. A mid-event patch was needed once Bungie realized how easy it was for players to rack up Ascendant Shards. The developer then announced the event was “going back into the oven for a while” at the end of October 2014.

New Queen’s Wrath Bounties

  • Moluk, Wormwaker – Defeat Molik, Wormwaker in “The Seeding” mission in the Cosmodrome on Earth.
  • Nycor, Reborn – Defeat Nycor, Reborn in “The Veil Lifted” mission in the Cosmodrome on Earth.
  • Watchers of Crota – Defeat the Watchers of Crota in “The Wakening” mission on the Moon.

The first two listed above are missions that appear to come with The House of Wolves expansions. Meanwhile, the Watchers of Crota bounty refers to a mission from The Dark Below.

These new bounties plus the pre-existing Queen’s Wrath bounties are all classified as “Reef” bounties. I can’t recall if they were classified as such when the original event was released, but it lines up with the new Reef social space outed in a recent Destiny leak.

Those aren’t the only new bounties discovered. There’s also a new Vanguard bounty.

  • Battle Scars – Earn 20000 Experience in story missions with the Epic modifier active.

And, a new Iron Banner bounty.

  • Salvaged Hope – Participate in the capture of 15 Salvage zones while competing in the Iron Banner tournament.

The Iron Banner bounty is interesting, because it is based on the Salvage game type. All six of the Iron Banner events to date have run the Control gametype. Could the PVP special event be due for a shakeup as well?

It’s good to see that Bungie hasn’t forgotten the Queen’s Wrath and there has been work done on it. Hopefully, it can help fill in some of the mid-game content where Destiny hits a lull between when players complete the campaign and when they can start participating in raids.

The House of Wolves is expected to bump up the starting levels for Heroic and Nightfall Strikes plus the Strike Playlist. Mid-game content will become more and more important as Destiny continues to expand.

Senior gameplay left Bungie to join Fallout and Elder Scrolls studio from Destiny

Destiny senior gameplay designer Josh Hamrick has left Bungie to join Fallout and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda. He announced the news on Twitter, expressing gratitude to Bungie, and wishing the developer all the best as it continues to work on Destiny going forward without him.

Hamrick did not announce his exact title at Bethesda, nor did he say what project at the developer he’ll be working on. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim team Betheda Game Studios is currently working on an unannounced game.

Some are suggesting this game may be announced at E3 given that Bethesda is–for the first time ever–holding its own press conference at the show.

 

During Hamrick’s nearly six years at Bungie, he also worked on the developer’s final Halo title, Halo: Reach. Prior to joining Bungie in 2009, Hamrick worked at Midway Studios Austin on BlackSite: Area 51, among other titles.

Destiny launched in September 2014 and Bungie has continually supported and expanded game since then. The game’s first add-on, The Dark Below, was released in December, while the next expansion–House of Wolves–will be released before the end of June. Bungie is also working on “Destiny 2.”

 

Will Support PS4’s Suspend/Resume Feature After Patch 1.1.2 From Destiny

Yesterday, Sony released PlayStation 4 firmware 2.50, which added the long pending “Suspend/Resume” feature. This feature will be supported nearly all PlayStation 4 gamers, however PlayStation 4 owners will need to turned it ON manually as it is not Turned ON By Default In Firmware 2.50, and requires PS4 owners to select “Keep Application Suspended” Setting. Check out our guide on how to activate PS4 Suspend/Resume feature.

destiny

Destiny players will have to wait a bit longer to make use of this Suspend/Resume feature on PlayStation 4. According to details shared by Bungie, Destiny will work with the Suspend/Resume feature after the patch coming in April 2015. The message from Bungie reads:

“The PlayStation 4 2.50 Firmware update will implement a Suspend and Resume function on 3/26. This function will not work with Destiny at this time. For the time being, when suspending the game to Rest Mode a message will read: Cannot enter rest mode with the following application suspended. The PS4 will close this application and then enter rest mode.

There will be an icon of the application and then underneath a prompt: “The PS4 will automatically close the application in 30 seconds” with an OK and a Cancel button if you do not wish to close the game.

Functionality for the Suspend and Resume feature will be enabled for the 1.1.2 Update.”

Vault Expansion Was Limited

Sci-fi shooter Destiny will be getting the House of Wolves downloadable content pack soon, and Bungie has revealed more information on the patch players will be getting prior to its release. Detailed on the official Bungie site, the update makes a few tweaks to the game, including increasing players’ in-game vault space.

 

Update 1.1.2 will increase vault space for weapons from 20 slots to 36, but this required a compromise for PS3 and 360 versions of Destiny.

Update 1.1.2 will increase the vault dimensions for armors and item to 24 slots and for weapons to 36 slots. Prior to this, all vault item spaces were capped at 20 slots each. The expansion of the vault was limited by “memory constraints on older generation hardware,” which required a compromise to expand storage space. For Destiny players on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the item comparison feature will no longer function in the vault. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will remain unaffected.

PlayStation 4 owners are getting the 2.50 Yukimura update today, which introduces a Suspend and Resume function. While Suspend and Resume won’t immediately work with Destiny, the 1.1.2 Update will enable its function.

Patch 1.1.2 will be out in April, before the House of Wolves DLC hits. The update will also bring new audio options, a feature for colorblind players, and various gameplay fixes.

Stats Remind Us Just How Casual Playerbase From Destiny

Just how tiny? Now we have some idea, thanks to a clever fan who decided to show us just how top-tier many of our problems with the game really are.

Redditor btg7471 decided to hunt through his PS4 Destiny trophies and looked at the overall stats on a few of them. The result shows us a rough estimate of how many players have done what in Destiny, and more specifically, what they haven’t done. Here’s the list:

  • Only 31.1% of Guardians have equipped a piece of Exotic gear.
  • Only 23.8% of Guardians have worn Legendary/Exotic armor in every slot.
  • Only 24.2% of Guardians have earned max Vanguard marks in a week, while just 16% have maxed their Crucible marks in a week.
  • Only 23.1% of Guardians have reached rank 3 with the Vanguard.
  • Only 19.2% of Guardians have completed a Raid.
  • Only 16.9% of Guardians have maxed out a Warlock or Hunter subclass, and just 15.2% have maxed out a Titan subclass.

Granted, we see this in many games, where top-tier content is crafted for only a select handful of players, but I think Destiny’s exclusivity problem is exacerbated by the structure of the core game itself, and it’s something that could be improved upon in future installments.

What I’m talking about is what I’ll call “The Gulf.”

“The Gulf” exists as a space of time between beating the game’s story mode/reaching level 20, which are usually roughly the same time, give or take a few hours, and the promised land “endgame” where players are able to take on pretty much all the content the game has to offer.

In the levels between 20-26 or so, Destiny puts players in a weird sort of purgatory. They’ve beaten the main story so there’s no real way to progress there, other than doing the daily “special” story missions, and they’re trapped in the bottom-to-mid-tiers of the Strike playlist, where rewards are relatively sparse.

Eventually, you get to the promised land. After bridging the Gulf, even if you’re not max level, you still exist in a space where you can reliably save up for Legendary vendor gear, earn enough coins to occasionally buy something from Xur, or see a lot of Engram drops from the Strike playlist. This is a pretty fun place to be, but many players will find themselves swallowed by the Gulf, quitting out of frustration or boredom.

Destiny’s item system is disproportionately skewed toward the late game to the point where the rest of the game is largely pointless before level 20. There are simply no Legendary or Exotics before then. There is no “lower tier” of high end weapons to get players excited.

This is contrary to say, a game like Diablo, where the game has a max level of 70. Destiny power leveling make you upgrade easy, yet players can find Legendary drops at level 5 if they’re lucky, which will be better than whatever they currently have, and make the game more fun. Obviously drop rates increase as time goes on, and Legendary gear gets way more powerful, but at least until then there’s something to look forward to during gameplay.

Finally, the 20% Raid stat makes perfect sense, assuming it’s due to a combination of what we’re talking about above, and a lack of in-game matchmaking for the mode.

It’s probably too late for the game to change many of the things discussed here, but it’s definitely something to think about for the longer term health of the game, and particularly how Destiny 2 is structured. The game needs to put its best foot forward from the start, and being yet another game where “the real game doesn’t start until you beat it” means there will be many, many dropouts along the way.

Destiny Share Spent 1200 Hours In The Game

Destiny has only been on the market since September, but one hyper-dedicated player has managed to sink more than 1200 hours into the game.

A Reddit user named comphermc posted a screenshot of his inventory, and, surprisingly, 1200 hours isn’t enough time to collect every item that Destiny has to offer. Though, the faction ships/shaders are the only things left on his list.

Here are a few highlights, as told by comphermc:

  • I have all the Iron Banner gear for all classes, except for the helmets and the pulse rifle, since they’ve not been sold.
  •  I have gotten all the raid gear from both raids, but for one reason or another, I broke down my titan’s VoG gauntlets. I regret that now.
  •  I have gotten all exotic weapons and armor, and all but the titan’s No Backup Plans are post-DLC versions. I just never use No Backup Plans, so haven’t bothered to upgrade.
  •  I was using my mailbox to hold duplicates of Hard Light and Plan C, and deleted those I actually had in my inventory, so my vault had room to breath. During Iron Banner, I collected too many things on my titan, and Plan C was deleted from the mailbox. Moral: keep a few open slots in your mailbox. 
  •  Each character has their own Vision of Confluence, Icebreaker, and Gjallarhorn. I would probably have done this for other weapons, but using bungie.net to move items around makes it less necessary to have character-specific items.

My wife hates Destiny

You’re probably wondering how it’s possible, to spend that much time in a game while still maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But, that depends on your definition of “healthy.”

I did the math. Here’s the breakdown:

  • About 4700 hours have passed since the game was released, so comphermc has spent roughly 25 percent of his life playing Destiny.
  • This means that he averages about six hours of gameplay per day, without taking a day off. So, if he took weekends off, this would be the equivalent of a full-time job.
  • According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the average American gets about 507 minutes of sleep per day and spends about two hours preparing and consuming meals. After sleep, eating, and Destiny comphermc has just under eight hours left in the day for work, family, friends, and other interests.

Most wives probably wouldn’t stand for this, but it sounds like she’s got her own obsession.  Here’s comphermc:

  • My wife is a teacher who binge-watches Netflix. I won’t say I haven’t gotten in trouble a few times, but she is usually pretty busy with school stuff and/or whatever show she’s currently obsessed with.

Surprisingly enough, several hardcore Destiny players commented on comphermc’s post, revealing that they too have logged around 1200 hours. In fact, a user named BeefaloCL has about 1500 in-game hours.

Crazy

Whenever I see reports like this, the comments are filled with people who liberally use phrases like “what a loser” and “get a job,” but I hope we can avoid that stuff with comphermc (and anyone else, actually).Comphermc loves Destiny, so he’s playing Destiny. We don’t know anything about his personal life or his work situation, so lets not judge.

Comphermc seems like a dude who has some extra time and wants to spend it playing a game. I’m cool with that.

Upcoming Nightfall And Heroic Strikes Detailed From Destiny

Reddit user Megamanexe4 has been up to his usual data mining activities in an attempt to try and find out more about upcoming gameplay details for Destiny. Such is his reliable nature, he has managed to turn up the Strike missions for next week, both of which we will detail below for you.

Though despite his efforts, it would appear that he can no longer get accurate returns on predicting Xur’s upcoming stock, this is thought to be caused by alleged changes in how Bungie operates Xur now. A translation from his original post, which is in Japanese, reads “Apparently he can’t query for single items in Xur inventory anymore, whenever he tries the server just returns the same items from this week, all he can do now is predict the Exotic Engram and some of the items in the Upgrade Exotic list.”

The translation goes on to talk about his thoughts on the recent difficulties, saying “He’s not sure if this happens because Bungie is controlling Xur directly or because of the server side changes that have been implemented recently, but if this happens again next week, or the following, he’ll most likely be unable to predict Xur anymore.”

Now, regarding those Strikes. Next week fireteams of 1 to 3 players can take to the Ocean of Storms on the Moon Nightfall Strike where they will take part in a Very Hard difficulty Strike Mission. As per usual, players can expect modifiers to be in play, this time around there are the Epic, Nightfall, Arc Burn, Lightswitch and Angry modifiers in effect.

On the other end of the spectrum in the Weekly Heroic Strike, players will be taking to the Ocean of Storms on the Moon for a Hard difficulty Strike Mission that will have only the Heroic and Arc Burn modifiers in effect. Rewards for this mission include Strange Coins, Cryptarch Engrams, Vanguard Marks and Vanguard Reputation.

Some of the items in the Upgrade Exotic list (rest of the items such as Exotic Gear are similar to what Xur had on 20th March, 2015):

27th, March 2015:

 

3rd April 2015:

Next Week’s Heroic and Nightfall Strikes:

Next Week’s Weekly Heroic And Nightfall Strike Ahead Of Time From Destiny

As leaked by Reddit’s fabled Megamanexe4, next week’s Strike is ‘The Summoning Pits’, starring Phogoth, everyone’s favorite Ogre. Next week’s Destiny Nightfall will feature:

  • Epic
  • Nightfall
  • Arc Burn
  • Lightswitch
  • Angry

Having the Arc Burn in The Summoning Pits won’t be quite as bad as bad in the final fight with Phogoth, considering that the Ogre himself does Void damage, but considering that the Strike takes place in the Hellmouth, most Hive enemies deal Arc Damage.

Finding yourself in close quarters with blade-swinging Knights or Thrall will also land you in hot water, considering that they deal immense damage when Lightswitch is active. The fight with Phogoth is particularly intense, given the number of Thrall, Wizards, Knights, and Acolytes; most of which either hit you or shoot some sort of Arc-based weapon. Plus, Phogoth is shooting his death-ray your way.

The Weekly Heroic takes things back a step by just having Arc Burn and Heroic modifiers active, making for a more forgiving raid; albeit challenging.

Guardians can go about beating the Strike a number of ways, but the most popular seems to be staying in the first room before entering Phogoth’s chamber. In there, each player can shoot at Phogoth with their weapon of choice, all while avoiding the majority of enemies outside.

There are a couple of occasions on which you will need to retreat – when enemies, such as Wizards and Knights, enter the room to murder you, or when a Shrieker spawns behind you; both of which will happen. When they do, retreat to the second room back, and simply wait for the enemies to despawn, then head back in to rinse and repeat.

In his post, Megaman also announced that he is no longer able to successfully predict Xur’s stock, meaning that his stock will well and truly be a surprise from now on.

1.1.2 update coming prior to House of Wolves From Destiny

Bungie has further detailed the next update for Destiny, revealing some new features that should be extremely useful for select players.

On the audio front, Destiny’s 1.1.2 patch will add new options to help boost the volume of voice chat relative to in-game sound. Players will be able to tweak a Chat Volume setting that affects player voices coming through your speakers (but not your chat headset) and a Game Volume option that controls all game dialogue, sound effects, and music.

The game’s music, wonderful as it is, can be disabled in the new patch, allowing players to listen to their own music. To incentivize players to keep it turned on, Bungie teases a secret in its latest blog post. “To prove again that Destiny music can also enhance the time you spend with your friends, we’ve added a fun little audio Easter egg to the game,” writes audio boss Jay Weinland. “It’ll be in there, somewhere. Once the update is live, see if you can find it…”

Colorblind support is also being introduced in 1.1.2. While you might not realize it if you aren’t colorblind, the condition can have a real effect on a player’s ability to perceive certain things in the game. The images above demonstrates this; by using the slider to compare the two screenshots, you can see how a colorblind player might be unable to differentiate between loot drop qualities or enemy shield types. The image below shows how higher contrast levels will allow for these players to be able to identify things more easily.

Other changes in the update, which is coming sometime before the House of Wolves DLC, include raid fixes and additional storage space.