Welcome to another TWAB, Guardians. Time flies and we’re once again on the cusp of another season of Destiny 2. We can’t believe we’re saying this, but we’re already halfway through November, which means we’re only a few weeks away from its season [REDACTED]. This week, we’re going to discuss some fun topics with you.
In the immediate timeframe, it’s Trans Awareness Week! We have some great words from the [email protected] Inclusion Club. Next week, we start the Eliksni Quarter community event. While the Spider has a sweet spot, we think it’s time to make some improvements for our friends. We also have some news regarding narrative bug fixes and some changes to the Scallywag Seal requirements. We have a short and sweet update from our Game Safety Team. We’ve introduced some new detection methods to help keep things cleaner. Next season, we start our Crucible updates. There’s a lot to discuss, so we’re providing a TL;DR at the beginning of this section if you’re in a hurry.
I’ll be honest with you, we’re trying to keep this TWAB under six thousand words. (Spoiler alert: we didn’t.) It’s always fun to have chunky blog articles, but they can be a little difficult to squeeze into our weekly communications schedule — sometimes there’s just too much news. If you want to take some time for a deep dive, you might end up reading 30+ minutes. Please note that we are taking next week off from the TWAB Thanksgiving cycle here in the states, so after reading this, we won’t be seeing you on TWAB again until December 1st.
Trans Awareness Week
Before we dive into the gaming news, we’d like to put a spotlight on our [email protected] Inclusion Club. This week is Trans Awareness Week and they have some great words about its importance and how the profits from the Bungie Pride Pin will be used to better our communities. You can also find a code for our Be True badge below, in case you haven’t redeemed it yet.
[email protected]: In such a tumultuous time as the past few years, it is especially important to remember that we stand by each other in times of strife. So at this TWAB, we’d like to remind everyone of Transgender Awareness Week which starts on November 13th and ends on November 19th for Transgender Day of Remembrance.
We here at [email protected] and Bungie as a whole support our gender non-conforming and transgender community, and we hope you’ll join us in celebrating those who have come before, those who are with us, and those who will they come after us. May your lights continue to shine bright and proud as all the stars are part of the greater sky and the world would be darker without you.
As the celebration leads up to Transgender Day of Remembrance, we hope you will join us in remembering those in our community who we have lost to transphobic hate or violence. The transgender and gender non-conforming community faces unique difficulties and hardships, so again we’re calling on everyone to show support and remembrance by wearing our Be True badge. Unlock it using code ML3-FD4-ND9 on the code redemption site.
As previously announced, all proceeds from the November Bungie Pride Pin will benefit the National Center for Transgender Equality, a wonderful source of information and support for both the transgender and gender non-conforming community and allies. We also encourage you to see if there are ways to support your local community throughout the year.
Community event: Improvement of the Eliksni district
From Season of the Splicer, we find our new Eliksni friends in some of the most unexpected places. Many corners of our Tower have become safe havens for them, even if they struggle with vending machines. A site in the Last City was also carved out to serve as their home. However, we have noticed that the Eliksni district is a bit… cold. While the Spider has built a cozy little shop to house his business dealings, many still inhabit places without walls, shelter or warmth. Misraaks invites us to help improve their living environment. The Eliksni Quarter community event starts next Tuesday. Here’s how you can help:
All Guardians will be tasked with collecting treasure in the form of Captain Coins from across the system to donate to the Eliksni Quarter, helping Spider with improvements and maintenance while Misraaks and Eido spend their time researching the Relics of Nezarec . Captain’s Coins can be found in Destination Chests, Lost Sectors, Public Events and of course the Season of Plunder Ketchcrash and Expedition activities. You can also find Captain’s coins in King’s Fall raid, Dares of Eternity, strikes, Crucible and Gambit. Each Guardian will have their own personal donation reward piece with an emblem, upgrade materials and a new swashbuckling Ghost Shell. The community as a whole will pool their treasure together to help the Misraaks and Spider improve the Eliksni District, receiving rewards from the global community and special Eliksni “thank you” gifts along the way. Guardians might even find a Deepsight weapon or two to help round out their crafting collection. The community event only lasts for two weeks, so tell your friends, gather a fireteam and find this treasure!
As the event unfolds, we’re excited to see things shape up for our Fallen friends. Stay tuned for updates on your progress. COMMUNITIES ARE CLEAN Just in time for this little event, we’ve also got a quick message from the development team dealing with Narrative Voices: Developer Team: Due to some space pirate interference, voice dialogue in Ketchcrash and Expedition may not accurately reflect a character’s progress in the Seasonal story. We’ve made those bugs walk the plank and now the correct lines will be in play for anyone looking to get back into the community event or finish some last minute campaigning before Season 19 drops. Updated Scallywag title requirements Next Tuesday, we’ll also have some changes to the Season of Plunder title. Specifically, we’ll be lowering some requirements to unlock Scallywag. We have a few words from the development team to explain the changes: Developer Team: We’ve looked at the data and Season of Plunder Seal and the title are more difficult to obtain than originally anticipated. To earn the Seal you’ll need to complete the vast majority of Plunder’s content and demonstrate mastery of seasonal activities, Seals is meant to be an ambitious goal, but our data shows that some triumphs were overkill. We’re taking feedback about Destiny’s grind seriously, so we’ve decided to implement the following changes before the season ends:
Drop the Ruffian completion value to 10 (down from 50). Although we introduced a fix to prevent Ruffians from being released in Missions, players are still able to progress through objectives a little too quickly for these Champions to be able to. Therefore, we are lowering the requirement to help players meet the requirements a little faster. Vendor upgrades required to be dropped (14 down from 23). This would equate to completing the first 7 weeks of Seasonal Challenges which award Repute, the upgrade currency. Change the promotion and have the first companions do it 1 time each. We realize this step didn’t have a deep enough tutorial for some players to fully understand and requires a long grind to unlock all three First Mates. Change the Seal requirement to complete 8 of 9 Triumphs. This will allow some flexibility for players as they progress through Triumphs and Seasonal Challenges to unlock the Seasonal title.
Stay tuned to Bungie Help for further announcements.
Game security update
While we know you’re hungry for Crucible news, we have one last update for you before we get to the products. Earlier this week, the Security team made some changes to help protect our competitive Crucible experience (and more!). We’re keeping the details a little light for security reasons, but here’s the update in their words: Security Team: The team continues to improve with the detections and mitigations gained with BattlEye. With their help, we have implemented a mitigation of network tools used to gain unfair advantage in various activities. We will continue to collect data and observe this behavior to strengthen our detections over time. Competition is best when it is fair. While we evaluate this data, we will continue to issue bans to those who abuse these methods. As always, please use the in-game reporting tools or file a report here on Bungie.net when you come across other players you suspect may be cheating.
The Smelter and the Future
Today we’re going to explore what the Crucible is for Destiny 2. We’ll explain philosophies behind things like Quickplay and Ranked, and talk about several general changes we’re making as part of our maintenance. Some of these sections will be dense. Others will be a breeze from bulleted lists and patch note previews. If you don’t like diving in, here’s a quick bulleted summary for you: TL;DR
We define our goals for the Crucible ecosystem. We’re updating our Crucible playlist structure to optimize our Crucible offerings and help focus our Crucible population. Collapsing Control and Clash into a single Quickplay playlist. We bring some of the less played game modes into weekly rotators. We’re introducing a new Crucible Seal and bringing the Lord Shaxx-focused engram to give players more ways to engage with the Crucible’s rewards. In Lightfall, we’ll be expanding engram focus to include older weapon and armor sets in Crucible, Iron Banner, Trials, and more. In Season 19, the Iron Banner gets a new mode and a set of legacy armor that veteran Guardians should recognize. We update the matching techniques between…
