Change is coming to Destiny 2. Bungie’s weekly update gives a tentative release date of early next year for private PvP matches, and outlines some encouraging tweaks to its reward economy. There’s also a lesser patch due next week, which tunes the Crucible.
Game director Christopher Barrett outlines the changes that Bungie have cooked up in the seven weeks since Destiny 2’s console launch. The headline is “private matches for the competitive community.” Luke Smith (the other game director) previously mentioned these were on Bungie’s wish-list, but now we know they’re in development and targeted to release in early 2018.
Other notable changes include better rewards and replay value for strikes, adventures, and lost sectors – three open-world activities that are currently poorly incentivised to the detriment of the mid-game, as I noted in my review. There will also be “better incentives for players who complete challenging Prestige activities,” which should help extend the endgame. Tweaks to the mod economy are planned, as are new ways to spend surplus currency and materials (including Legendary Shards), and a better emote interface. We’ll also see fewer duplicate Exotics, and improvements to the Iron Banner and Faction Rally events.
This is all hugely positive. These changes target some of the game’s most pressing issues and show Bungie have been listening to feedback. Public events are too prominent in the mid-game activity mix, while there’s not enough incentive to attempt, much less repeat, the Prestige raid. With these two fixes in particular, the game should improve a great deal.
In the nearer term, patch 1.0.6 arrives in the game next week. It fixes an exploit with the game’s Monty Python emote, and tunes the score limits for Crucible games: Clash, Control, and Survival are all about to get a bit shorter. Supremacy’s score limit is raised, but you’ll also earn points for kills as well as for capturing Crests – which sounds to me like it’ll undermine the whole point of the mode, but I suppose they know what they’re doing.
Check out all the details on Bungie’s website.