king's fall hard mode release

Weekly Update 10.15.15 (King’s Fall Hard Mode)

Published on: Oct 15, 2015 @ 18:14

This week at Bungie we’re talking about your rematch with Oryx, the return of Trials of Osiris, and (you guessed it) we’re talking about Shadowshot.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Lighthouse. It turns out that there’s a particularity nasty bug that would undoubtedly conspire to create a less competitive return to form for Trials of Osiris. We’re going to be intentionally vague here, for what we hope are obvious reasons!

We’re going to disable that bug before we invite you to take your next run at a 9-0. We’re also working on a final fix for the bug itself as soon as possible. As soon as we have a solid commitment for Brother Vance, we’ll make a formal announcement on when Trial of Osiris will begin again. We hope that most of you recognize the impact a limitless Nightstalker would have on the competitive landscape.

Thanks for your patience.

Another group that has been eager for a new challenge ever since they sent Oryx careening toward Saturn is our seasoned six-player Raid teams. If you’ve managed to slay the Taken King aboard his own fortress, you’re off to a good start, but your fight is far from finished. That battle is about to get a lot harder.

Originally, we’d planned to introduce King’s Fall Hard mode on October 30th, but the Raid team is ready to go, and we’ve decided to launch a little bit early.

King’s Fall Raid: Hard Mode
Friday, October 23rd
10 AM Pacific

Right about now, some of you are wondering what you can do to prepare. We won’t give you hints, but we’ll plot the difficulty incline. Recommended Light for Hard Mode is 300 – 320. The loot that will drop will be between 310 – 320. Gear up and mark your calendars.

Before the race for World First begins, we’ll share some more insights from the Raid design team that’s about to bring the real pain.

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After Update 2.0.1

This week we deployed another update to Destiny. If you’ve downloaded its contents, you’ve very likely already discovered what’s new in year two. We brought Tess back to teach you some new moves. Lord Saladin is holding court in the Traveler’s Walk. We’ve also made some essential changes to the player experience.

We’ve been listening to the conversation over the past few days. Here are some answers to some of the most frequent questions you’ve been asking.

“Sunbreakers?”

Indeed, we hear you. We’re looking at the data, as well. It’s too early to dig in and make any promises. We’ll talk more soon, once we get a full picture.

“Why am I not getting my Iron Banner rewards?”

Iron Banner has been both a test of skill and your best gear, as well as a way to get a new set of gilded armor and weapons. Legendary items won’t drop until you reach Rank 2 with Lord Saladin, and the pool expands as you continue to climb the ranks.

The premiere items we believe you’ll want to obtain are also available for purchase from Lord Saladin himself. Subsequent Iron Banner events will include additional pieces of gear.

“What are you doing about the lag in Iron Banner?”

If you’re manipulating network traffic, or if your connection is so bad that you’re unintentionally compromising the experience of other players, we’ll issue a temporary restriction from all Crucible activity. The first round of these restrictions went live yesterday. The second wave is happening as we speak. As always, we start small to ensure our tools are properly calibrated, and widen the net as we become more confident that we’re ensnaring the actual perpetrators of shenanigans. Fair Warning: We will also permanently ban repeat offenders!

When Trials of Osiris is live, we’ll be utilizing the same policy and technology. Play nice, and please make use of our in-game reporting tools should you come across a player you believe needs some extra time and attention from our team.

Our matchmaking engineers are also monitoring the overall health of the matchmaking pool writ large with an eye toward making improvements across the board. You’ll be hearing from that team about their progress in the weeks to come.

“How about those Nightfall rewards?”

There is another update inbound as soon as next week that will deliver more frequent and more powerful Legendary rewards to the Nightfall loot tables. We’ll save the specific numbers for the Patch Notes. And, of course, the best reality about the nature of those rewards will be found in your feedback.

“Someone datamined files that prove Tess will be selling King’s Fall consumables! You said you wouldn’t do that! Why are you doing that!?”

We’re not doing that. The files in question were actually first uncovered some time ago, well before the launch of Eververse Trading Company. They weren’t ever intended to be sold in exchange for Silver. What you’re seeing are remnant files for Three of Coins or Moldering Shard like items that would have been available from Xûr. Ultimately, the team decided that they didn’t have a place in the game, and cut them from the experience. You’re seeing some dust and echoes from the cutting room floor.

Files that get datamined aren’t official sources of news, though we understand why they are intriguing.

“Why did you change the economy for Strange Coins and Weapon Parts?”

In Year 2, we took steps to streamline and simplify the economy for players, with hopes that providing more direct paths to gear and the stuff you needed to upgrade that gear would just be more satisfying across the board. Changes to economy of the game are made in the interest of preserving the value of the items in your inventory and ensuring that you have good uses for the things you’re saving.

Weapon Parts, specifically, have been particularly vexing. Some players use a LOT of Parts, whereas others use almost none. Still, we are very aware that this is a choke point for some players, and further adjustments may be in order.

In all cases, we’re still watching our reports and listening to feedback, and we will continue to react to how things are going.

Thanks for playing, and keep sounding off. Update 2.0.1 is not the first time we’ve made changes to Destiny, and it’s guaranteed not to be the last. You’re a part of that process, so keep the conversation lively wherever you’re having it.

You can read the full weekly update at Bungie.net