It's a step in the right direction.
Our December Updates guide contains everything you need to know about the improvements coming to Destiny 2 in the near future, including release dates and content updates.
It’s safe to say the Destiny community has been in uproar since Bungie’s second Curse of Osiris livestream which left fans feeling rather disappointed. This discontent quickly boiled over when it was revealed that Destiny 2’s EXP systems were being invisibly rigged to provide less progress than advertised.
This growing unrest compelled Bungie to cancel their third DLC livestream in order to properly address player concerns with a huge blog post instead. It details economy updates, investment updates, gameplay updates and more. Even Game director Luke Smith and project lead Mark Noseworthy have stepped in to answer community feedback since Destiny 2’s launch.
Below we’ve broken down all this information into separate sections so it’s nice and easy to see exactly what’s in store for Destiny 2 in the coming weeks and months.
Basic Overview
Bungie is targeting four key areas for improvement in December. Some will arrive on the 5th December, others will be introduced a week later on the 12th December.
It’s important to note that a full suite of patch notes including these updates and more gameplay and sandbox tuning changes will be coming our way when the Curse of Osiris launches.
Curse of Osiris pre-load and launch day details are on their way, as well as a roadmap for Season 2 content. The Dawning is also confirmed for a mid-December release.
Below we’ve split all of these updates into their relevant release dates. Do bear in mind this is the first iteration of our guide and we’ll be updating it thoroughly very soon!
5th December Updates
Armour Ornaments
- Armour ornaments will be added to some existing armour sets for more visual customisation.
- They will be applied to the base pieces that you may have already collected, and can now unlock them on Vendors if not.
- In Season 2, these are the armour sets which will have ornaments unlocked.
- Vanguard Faction Armour
- Crucible Faction Armour
- Trials of the Nine Armour
- Iron Banner Armour
- Dead Orbit Armour
- Future War Cult Armour
- New Monarchy Armor
- Eater of Worlds Raid Lair Armour
General Investment
Banshee-44
Banshee has some updates on the Weapon and Armor Mod front:
- For players wanting to clear some Mod inventory space, Rare quality Mods will dismantle into Gunsmith Materials and have a chance to produce Legendary quality Mod Components.
- For players chasing specific Legendary Mods (including Legendary Kinetic Mods), Banshee will offer a selection of specific Legendary Mods for direct purchase, with a selection that will rotate daily and cost Legendary Shards and Mod Components.
Master Rahool
For players chasing a world Legendary or looking for Masterworks, Master Rahool will also sell some of his rumored hoard of Legendary Engrams for Legendary Shards.
Reputation Tokens
Changes affecting Reputation Tokens:
- Daily Challenges will have Reputation Token awards increased across the board.
- Cayde’s Treasure Chests still offer variable rewards, but now guarantee (at minimum) a payout of destination appropriate Reputation Tokens.
- Strikes will drop a larger number of Vanguard Reputation Tokens.
- Common quality Destination Resource Tokens will have their drop rates increased to 100%, and values per Token increased as well (by 50% for common quality Tokens and 250% for rare quality Tokens).
- On the balance, Reputation required per Reward Engram will increase for Destination Factions (+37%) and Gunsmith (+50%).
- Leviathan Raid Tokens will be redeemed at Benedict immediately upon obtaining a Token, instead of requiring a full clear before unlocking.
12th December Updates
Masterworks
Legendary Weapons will drop as or be upgraded to become Masterworks versions.
Masterworks will have a few advantages over the baseline Legendary weapon:
- Track and display the number of kills with that weapon (with choice between total count or Crucible-only count).
- Generate orbs for you and your allies on multi-kills.
- Add weapon stat bonuses that are selected randomly from a small pool and are re-rollable.
- Masterworks drop from any source of Legendary weapons for characters above 250 Power.
- Unwanted Masterworks can be dismantled into materials that can upgrade an existing Legendary Weapon into a Masterwork.
- Raid and Trials of the Nine Weapons will have a very high chance to be Masterworks.
- We have future plans to extend Masterworks to other gear and expose your kill counts in more places (e.g. Crucible kill screen).
Faction Rewards
- Faction Armor and Weapons will be unlocked for purchase for Legendary Shards and Faction Tokens on most Faction Vendors.
- All five Armor Slots will always be present, and Weapons will rotate weekly on Factions that have them.
- Slots will be unlocked by claiming Reward Engrams from the respective Faction.
- You will get credit for engrams you may have already claimed since launch.
Xur
Xur has some new offerings for players collecting Exotics:
- Every week, you’ll be able to acquire one of the new Fated Engrams using Legendary.
- Shards that will decrypt as Exotics that aren’t already in your collection.
- A simpler Three of Coins that boosts Exotic drop rates from any source for 4 hours.
- No obscure stacking mechanics or need to re-apply before every boss.
- These cost Legendary Shards and you can have as many as you like.
General Investment
Gift Consumables
Commander Zavala and Lord Shaxx will sell Gift consumables for Legendary Shards that can be used during a Strike or Crucible Match that will serve the following functions:
- Grant bonus rewards to everyone in that activity upon completion, friend or foe alike.
- Award anything from Faction Tokens to a round of Exotics for everyone in the match.
Chests and Resource Nodes
- Exploit safeguards on Chests and Resource Nodes are greatly relaxed and players should encounter them less frequently.
- Even if they do, drop rates for Tokens is only reduced to 30% instead of 0%, and Glimmer will be unaffected.
- We want to associate a visual indicator with this in a future update, but we weren’t able to pull that off in this update (but we hear you!)
Vendors
Vendors will now beckon you to hand in your Reputation Tokens only when you’re carrying enough to earn a Reward Engram.
Further December and New Year Updates
Some of these updates will be landing sometime in December and the New Year. These are things Bungie is continuously working on, and we can expect to hear more soon.
Here’s the list of upcoming improvements.
- A January update is being targeted to provide better incentives for Prestige Activities.
- More generous Strike rewards will arrive in December.
- Improved rewards for Adventures and Lost Sectors will arrive sometime next year.
- Private matches are being targeted for an early 2018 release.
- Ranked PVP is being prioritised.
- A Quitter Penalty system is under development and will be arriving sometime in the New Year.
- Under-performing Exotics will be tuned.
- Duplication protection will be added for Exotics in the New Year.
- Emote interface improvements are on the way – expect it sometime in the New Year.
