Published on: Aug 18, 2015 @ 18:54
Less than a minute of teaser and we’re just itching to see what Bungie has in store for us tomorrow!
While there isn’t a whole lot to go on, we’ve broken down what little there is to be seen in a video, and this article will reiterate these points in addition to offering pertinent feedback on anything we do understand enough to comment on.
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Your Guardian
The snapshot of the inventory screen provides a concrete visual example of what we were told TTK would bring in the GI cover story. The visual style has been retooled slightly, and the tooltips for Int/Disc/Str are more clearly spelled out. There appear to be 5 “tiers” that indicate the thresholds at which cooldown bonuses are applied. It’s a safe bet these might represent increments of 20% or so – but Bungie said they’ll likely spell out just how much time you’ll be saving, rather than a confusing percentage.
A Ghost shell slot has been added to the left side of the inventory screen, and an Artifact slot to the right, beneath the class items. We don’t know what Artifacts do yet, exactly, but we will know more tomorrow. We know that both of these items can be upgraded and ‘maxed’ out because of the yellow outline surrounding them.
Grimoire now appears to be displayed beneath the Level indicator and not on the nameplate; the Hunter in the video has 85.
The newly relevant “Light” also has a much more clear description. Apparently, it will function as an all-in-one stat defining the damage you deal and the damage you can take. However, it will be compiled from both your Armor and your Weapons. If this is the case, your potency in battle is still effectively defined by the quality of your gear – though we’re glad Level is at least going to be used as a gating mechanism for opening up tougher content.
Next to “Character” at the top, we see the new “Quests” tab, which promises to consolidate tasks that were stuffed unceremoniously until “Inventory” for the longest time. We’re glad to see it, and the demo screen is stuffed full of multi-stage challenges that embody the new “questification” of The Taken King. On the right-hand side, the expanded Bounty slots take up the rest of the screen. The vertical, 2×8 arrangement is a little odd, but the extra space is a welcome addition. Considering that we’ll be able to turn them in without going to the Tower, we’re guessing it will be more than enough room.
Other helpful small things include the small elemental icons that tell you your burn damage without the need to drag your cursor over your weapons, and the Grenade/Melee/Super icons that accompany your stats, to draw a clear line of correlation for new players.
At the end of the trailer you can see that the ‘instant character boost‘ will be to level 25; this is a free boost for 1 character that will be available for pickup at the Tower. Since you’re keeping your current level, you may not even need it.
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Becoming Legend, Again
So you’ve got a whole bunch of Crucible and Vanguard Marks, but how are they going to stay useful? The answer comes in the form of Legendary Marks, which are poised to replace both. While we don’t know if there’s an equal exchange rate or if you’ll need to grind them out on Day 1, we know they’ll be the primary Vendor currency going forward.
We catch a sneak peek of Shaxx’s inventory, which features some blue and green gear for the Hunter examining him, in addition to some brand new similarly colored Ghost Shells!
It’s important to note that the tooltip for Legendary Marks indicates that you can receive these from dismantling your current gear, which we believe is the reason for Bungie’s warning re: “Don’t dismantle your Year 1 gear yet.” If you clean house now, you might not get those precious marks, so hang tight!
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Bunker War-4 and New Modifiers
As the three Guardian fireteam completes their mission, we see a few juicy elements of novelty. 10 Legendary Marks are immediately provided, which indicates Bungie is not being particularly stingy with them – at least when it comes to story missions. The Hunter whose PoV we share also gets a Legendary Engram and a Rare Sidearm, which may give us some idea of the rarity of quality rewards. Finally, we see a neat little new modifier next to the usual Heroic Crown. What is means is anyone’s guess, but Patrick thinks it may have something to do with precision damage.
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Faction Allegiance
Well, here it is. It turns out you can pledge allegiance to a faction once per week, so think carefully before taking the plunge! After you do so, any and all reputation gains from Crucible and Vanguard activities will go toward the faction of your choice.
So if you’re chasing Rank 3 in Crucible or Vanguard with a new character, maybe hold off in selling your soul to the Future War Cult. Oh, and make sure you’ve got 2500 Glimmer on hand. No word on if you have to re-pledge at the start of every week, but we’re hoping it carries over.
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We’ve Woken The Hoard
Collection 1, Collection 2 – the screen filled with Destiny’s golden wonders looks extremely promising for helping to creatively manage vault space. If you can requisition any one of these guns at any time after initially acquiring it, that’s all the more room you have for other weapons in your vault. They are also helpfully sorted into categories according to their type (Primary/Special/Heavy) and date of release (Year 1/Year 2). Two pages suggests we could be looking at both Weapons and Armor, but as we don’t see a scrollbar and Year 1 Specials and Primaries are conspicuously absent, it may simply be the remainder of your Exotic Weapons.
It looks like a few weapons from Year 1 have also snuck their way into the Year 2 list. Does this mean they’ve been updated, cosmetically or otherwise? Our gut says “yes”, but we’ll have to wait for Bungie’s confirmation to guarantee it!
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Until Tomorrow…
We won’t linger on this teaser any longer; Bungie’s got bigger and better things in store for everyone on Wednesday! Be sure to tune in to Bungie’s twitch stream at 11 AM PDT to see it yourself, and keep another eye on Planet Destiny for analysis and information just as soon as we have it. Thanks!