Bungie Weekly Update - 02/19/2015Megathread | News (Reddit)

[mannon]

Literally copy/pasting from Reddit here, some interesting news:

Bungie Weekly Update - 02/19/2015Megathread | News (Reddit)


This week at Bungie, we’re taking final steps to make Destiny Update 1.1.1 a reality.



That’s the one we’ve been talking about for a while now. We know you’ve been waiting, but we’re also keenly aware that you’ve been asking for more insight into what you can expect from our team. So we’ve been sharing their ongoing efforts to prioritize and deliver tweaks, updates, and features based on your feedback. While the team has been plugging away, I’ve been eavesdropping - even hovering over shoulders, carefully leaning in to whisper softly into many an ear.



Before I get into the new intel I’ve gathered, here’s a quick summary of our ongoing conversation (in case you missed it).



When the bits from 1.1.1 stream into your drive, we’ll be (finally) fixing a heavy ammo bug, applying some newfound balance to the weapon sandbox, and enhancing the view into your ever-growing reputation.



Assuming you’re caught up now, or already were, you can scroll down to find even more 1.1.1 goodness that the team is excited to share.



Move to Strike!



If you didn’t know anything about Destiny, I’d look earnestly into camera, cock an eyebrow, and tell you that Strikes are one of the primary cooperative activities in Destiny. Kick some alien ass. Earn some rewards. Do it all in the company of friends or complete and total strangers via matchmaking.



But you don’t need to hear that from me. You’ve played your share of Strikes. Your alien ass kicking comes with a side of gameplay modifiers and Strange Coins. All the while, to ensure you’ve been fighting alongside Guardians as battletested as yourself, we suspended matchmaking.



Until now…



www.bungie.net/pubassets/36063/heroic_strike.gif



As part of 1.1.1, we’re changing the Weekly Heroic Strike to be a matchmade activity. Why? Let’s ask Design Lead M.E. Chung.



M.E. We wanted the Weekly Heroics to be a challenge that pushed you and your buddies, but what we observed was that these strikes don’t demand the same cooperation of a cohesive pre-made group. The overwhelming community response was such that many players didn’t have the numbers on their friends list to experience the activity on a weekly basis.



Can I still solo the Weekly Heroic?



M.E. No, this change applies to all levels of the Weekly Heroic.



What about the Nightfall?



M.E. No change. Since players are kicked to Orbit on team wipe, we want people to be able to preserve that group so they could give it another go.



So, no matchmaking for Raids neither?



M.E. No, but we are keenly aware of the issue. We think good Raid sessions rely on groups of communicative players who are invested in each other, but we know that it’s challenging for many players to find groups for Raids and Nightfall today. We are thinking hard about how we can help make that an easier experience in future releases.



Beyond this update, we’ll talk more about M.E.’s team and how they work. Supporting a live game like Destiny is a job that’s never finished, and they have plans for the update that will follow 1.1.1 that I think you might find exciting.



Bullet Time



Now you’re asking, “When can I have the bits I so richly deserve?”



I’m still getting the answer I expect. “When they're ready!”



I’m still placing my bets on “before the end of February.” Even though it’s the shortest month of the year, I’m feeling lucky.



In the meantime, here are some of the other things you’ll enjoy when we deliver fresh bullet points to the Updates blog:



Xûr will stop forgetting to bring his Exotic engrams when he visits us from… wherever Xûr is from.



Iron Banner will work as previously promised, with a greater variety of maps in rotation as well as a couple of new Bounties that give you more control over which weapon you can use to complete them – and we were hoping that one would have arrived before the current event.



Strikes and Crucible Maps will be less likely to repeat themselves when you stay in a matchmaking playlist with your Fireteam.



Grimoire Cards will drop when you expect them to.



There's also some other stuff that we’ll detail out for you once we’re go for launch. SoonTM.



With the Community, for the Community.



The Destiny Operations Center was built to keep an eye on the network that supports Destiny. They also keep an eye on the #Help forum on Bungie.net. Along with some fearless volunteers from our community, their mission is to provide the information you need to keep playing, and help us all react to players issues are they are reported. This is what they would like for you to know this week.



Update 1.1.1 is approaching, and we’d like to help prepare you for any troubleshooting needs during patching. The most common issue players experience with patches are slow download speeds or patches ceasing to download after a certain percentage of completion. This issue can typically be resolved by maintaining a wired connection during patch installs. To do this, simply plug your console directly into the modem and configure your console to run on a wired connection while you are patching. You can go back to playing wirelessly after the patch has finished installing.



Another common issue on patch days is players encountering issues with joining friends in a Fireteam. If this issue occurs, ensure that you and your friends have all installed the patch. Be on the lookout for the 1.1.1 Patch Notes.



We’re also very excited to make an announcement about some Guardians who have been promoted to the rank of Mentor on Bungie.net. They have accepted our challenge to join the team that helps Guardians play games. They’re probably just as a surprised as you are.



Please join us is welcoming the following to the Welcoming Committee!



Lime Lyfe

Anidien

Jopstar 13

VENOM MDK

YapperFlapper

If you’re curious how you can get involved, just do your part on the #Help forum. You don’t need a badge to be nice to a fellow player. Providing a service to the community is how these people caught our eye in the first place. They’re joining a proud Bungie.net tradition of a community that tends to its own garden, and we’re thrilled to give them a green thumbs up.



And... Action!



We’re making legends and passing out emblems up in here. Share your videos with us on Twitter. Tag them with #DestinyMOTW. We'll make you famous!



Winner: For deadly sleight of hand and ironic tastes in music, we celebrate MTashed.

Honorable Mention: For musical stylings and Swift justice against the enemies of humanity, we recognize HereticInHD.

Honorable Mention: For outstanding achievements in wielding the Fist of Havok, the award goes to Shay.







Oh, and did you see this unfortunate turn of events??







Please be careful out there, kids. Bungie has some ideas for how we can make regrettable deletions like these less permanent. While we plan the right course of action (and build out new game features), protect your Guardians from sleazy online jerks – or dogs that step on your controller.



That’s all the news for this week. Thanks for stopping by. And don’t forget to check in with us tomorrow, as we explore Mars in search of art and science.

[mannon]

So sometime soon we'll have matchmaking for weekly heroic strikes, but not nightfall. hmm... I'm okay with that. I often don't get to weeklies until late and often have to solo them. Since I'll get a team by default it could mean doing weeklies even without friends will be fast and efficient.... or there will be nothing but AFK guardians... Bungie needs to address afk players in strikes.

Also looks like Iron Banner will get some love after all, but we'll have to wait for it.

And we're getting the weapon rebalance... but then again it's coming not too long before HoW so there's no telling what those weapons will be like. Still... I guess it's a welcome change to help balance things. I'll miss my pocket sniper accuracy, though. I don't think I'd miss it as much if scout rifles didn't feel a bit... weak. (Seriously I understand hand cannons are big friggin' pistols, but they are still pistols. Yet the full sized rifles don't really do that much damage. I loved scout rifle first in beta, but I've barely touched them since release because I just haven't found any that feel like they have any killing power. Though my bad luck with RNG hasn't helped. This game loves giving me hand cannons, and only gives me scout rifles that are obsolete. I'll just have to buy my own. ;3

[GodMars]

Fang of Ir Yut is the best primary that drops in the Crota raid, and one of the very best Scout Rifles in the game (Vision of Confluence is still a serious contender here).

[wings]

So solo players are still screwed over with Nightfall presumably because there's a chance of an exotic I guess.

[qupie]

^ lol, at least try to counter their arguments before you throw in a conspiracy theory.

Nice patch from bungie, I hope the heavy ammo patch will be solved for good

Also, I really think the raid auto rifle is at least on par with the fang. Just don't use the focus fire upgrade.

[wittyscorpion]

One minor inconvenience is that solo weekly is no longer an option. Not a big deal though, I'll just get my solo "fix" (which I do like to do once in a while, for the challenge) on NF with Warlock when I feel like it...

[wings]

Feb 20, 2015 2:08:38 GMT -5 qupie said:

^ lol, at least try to counter their arguments before you throw in a conspiracy theory.

Nice patch from bungie, I hope the heavy ammo patch will be solved for good

Also, I really think the raid auto rifle is at least on par with the fang. Just don't use the focus fire upgrade.

Are you responding to me? If so, it's too little too late for that, just like finally adding in the rep progress in the game that should have been in there from day one. The matchmaking for the Weekly Heroic is good for new players who are in short supply of Strange Coins I guess. Not sure how many people would benefit from allowing matchmaking in the Weekly Heroics though since you can get them from other methods soon enough. They could still allow matchmaking as an option in Nightfall so people can still solo or go with one other friend and no randoms if they wanted, and Bungie even stated that they were screwing over solo players with the difficulty change for Nightfall. Seems a bit stupid for a multiplayer game. The rewards for Nightfall aren't exactly stellar to warrant the refusal to allow matchmaking anyway.

Rumours I've heard that dedicated players are dropping like flies in the game. Would be interesting to see the figures anyway.

[qupie]

The rewards for Nightfall aren't exactly stellar to warrant the refusal to allow matchmaking anyway.

Yeah, the point is, I really think it doesn't have anything to do with the rewards, it is all about the 'nightfall' thing. AKA going back into orbit. They litereally explained that in their text above. So like I said, at least try to disprove their argument before you throw in a 'they don't want us to have any goodies'

Bringing in the rewards which you can get into every single argument in the form of a conspiracy theory, doesnt really make sence IMO. Next to that, any diehard player which really doesn't need any more coins, probably also doesn't need any more exotics, save for one or two. Hell, I would prefer to get 100 weapon parts in the nightfall over any exotic weapons at this point... (although, maybe a second gjallor would be nice)

I agree with you that some of the stuff should have been there day one, but that doesn't mean every descision bungie ever made is because they don't want players to have "X". If they would not like anybody to have 'x', 'x' would not have been in the game.

This is not meant to be a personal attack, but I would like to keep some actual valid arguments on this board, like it has always been. For conspiracy theories I can go to reddit

(again, no hard feelings or whateffs!)

[wings]

Feb 20, 2015 5:48:27 GMT -5 qupie said:

The rewards for Nightfall aren't exactly stellar to warrant the refusal to allow matchmaking anyway.

Yeah, the point is, I really think it doesn't have anything to do with the rewards, it is all about the 'nightfall' thing. AKA going back into orbit. They litereally explained that in their text above. So like I said, at least try to disprove their argument before you throw in a 'they don't want us to have any goodies'

Bringing in the rewards which you can get into every single argument in the form of a conspiracy theory, doesnt really make sence IMO. Next to that, any diehard player which really doesn't need any more coins, probably also doesn't need any more exotics, save for one or two. Hell, I would prefer to get 100 weapon parts in the nightfall over any exotic weapons at this point... (although, maybe a second gjallor would be nice)

I agree with you that some of the stuff should have been there day one, but that doesn't mean every descision bungie ever made is because they don't want players to have "X". If they would not like anybody to have 'x', 'x' would not have been in the game.

This is not meant to be a personal attack, but I would like to keep some actual valid arguments on this board, like it has always been. For conspiracy theories I can go to reddit

(again, no hard feelings or whateffs!)

Check out the conspiracy theories in the COD section then, it is nothing new here. Bungie are not going to want players to have too much stuff anyway, that is why everything has caps in some form of another and we know why that is. It's like as if they have never played a loot based game before.

As for Nightfall they can keep the same players when kicked to orbit so they can try again together, and then they can decide to find another lobby. That shouldn't be hard to code at all, but then neither was preserving trading in materials for marks so who knows.

[markopolo]

I for one, welcome this change of adding matchmaking to the weeklies.

Not now, now I have a Brocrew who I can do it with. But I remember before everything, how bad it sucked and how I wanted to do weeklies but soloing sucked.

Anywho... it's a great change for the new Guardians

[iw5000]

Feb 20, 2015 6:31:06 GMT -5 wings said:

Check out the conspiracy theories in the COD section then, it is nothing new here.

I actually haven't heard a single tin foil conspiracy yet in this section. We even had a decent discussion, analyzing the drop rates of Xur and other items. The most 'out there' opinion reached on this board, was probably mine. And that was simply that I believe Bungie does indeed tinker somewhat at times with drop rates and other items, to keep population data even, as well as keeping a goal of players logging in continued play time. That's hardly conspiracy theory.

As far as CoD...if you are referring to SBMM...detractors need to stfu on that stuff these days. Actual real research has been done this time with AW, and real studies done, to show exactly how SBMM is working. It is there. See Driftor's couple week long project.

[probaddie]

Feb 20, 2015 10:12:07 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Feb 20, 2015 6:31:06 GMT -5 wings said:

Check out the conspiracy theories in the COD section then, it is nothing new here.

I actually haven't heard a single tin foil conspiracy yet in this section.

That's because the Freemasons are censoring this board.

C-c-c-combo breaker? (I'll leave now....)

[mannon]

Feb 20, 2015 6:31:06 GMT -5 wings said:

...everything has caps in some form of another and we know why that is. It's like as if they have never played a loot based game before.

I fixed it for you... ;3 I don't see why people jump to the conclusion that Bungie doesn't know shit about this kind of game when 95% of the systems they have put in place are right on track and working as intended and the most egregious problems are being tackled and patched one by one. Caps don't suggest to me that Bungie doesn't know anything about loot based games. It suggests to me that the know damn skippy what their players will do with an open license to farm. And that it's not in their best interests for Destiny to be played that way.

I think people keep looking at it the wrong way. People keep saying that Bungie is keeping us "poor", (even though there are hundreds of thousands of exotics and raid items out in the population and the high end players have so much crap they don't even need stuff that players like me still beg for...) because they don't want us to have stuff. Frankly... what do they care? All of the items in the game are designed to be in the game. Some are more powerful than others, but if any of them are really game breaking, (in Bungie's opinion) then they will be patched. People keep thinking that keeping items rare keeps them from breaking the game in some way. But keep in mind that there is no player market. Destiny is an economy of 1 for every single person in the game. If one person gets 50 Gjallarhorns then you still only have 1 person affected by that directly.



Yes, there is some affect on the community due to a person with Gjallarhorn participating in coop missions with it. I still argue that if having a crew of six people with Gjallarhorn is somehow "game breaking" then it should be patched, because even if there are only a "few" out there that's still hundreds and hundreds of players and they will come together at times and run a six man Gjallarhorn fest on raids. You can't balance coop for only X number of players having item Y, because RNG works both ways when the developer isn't in control of who groups up.



The point is as soon as you have 1 copy of a weapon... you HAVE that weapon. Anything more is extra. Maybe for an alt, or to reforge if it's an IB item or something. Otherwise it's probably nothing to you but shards. And that goes double for armor which is class specific. So, why are loot rates what they are? It's a reward system. It's designed to dole out rewards over time played. The rewards largely get better over time played as you open up new avenues of gaining rewards. But it's also random so that it's a lottery. Think about it. You can purchase bank CODs or bonds or any number of different kinds of investments with your money, but most people don't do that. Why? Well it's because the return on investment is pretty small so you have to invest quite a bit to see any appreciable gain, and it takes time to earn that gain as well. It's dull, boring, and won't make you rich quick. By contrast people go nuts over the lottery. They spend millions buying mostly worthless lottery tickets all for the chance at a jackpot. Averaged out the return on investment is much worse. Most of these people are literally throwing their money away. But, it's exciting... because what if! Randomness in Destiny is there for the same reason. To make getting loot feel more like the lottery or a slot machine.



That's not to say there aren't problems with it. But I don't buy the whole "Bungie doesn't want us to have stuff" argument. They aren't keeping you poor to keep you poor. They are just trying to spread out the rewards. They don't want play time and luck alone to be the factors controlling the rate you get things. That's the reason for the caps, right there. They want real time to be a factor. They want to slow down the hardcore players a bit. That both helps level the playing field just a bit between players and helps keep hardcore players engaged for a longer period of time. If players can get everything in a week and be done many will do exactly that, then quit and never look back. But keep them playing week after week after week and you have time to bring out the next DLC. It keeps people playing.



While we are playing the game together in groups the loot system is designed to be 1 on 1.

[iw5000]

Every FPSer game ever made, it's developers track weapon performance and it's general usage in the population. They don't do it for shits and giggles.

[mannon]

So what?

[wings]

Feb 20, 2015 12:08:50 GMT -5 mannon said:

That's not to say there aren't problems with it. But I don't buy the whole "Bungie doesn't want us to have stuff" argument. They aren't keeping you poor to keep you poor. They are just trying to spread out the rewards. They don't want play time and luck alone to be the factors controlling the rate you get things. That's the reason for the caps, right there. They want real time to be a factor. They want to slow down the Touch Football players a bit. That both helps level the playing field just a bit between players and helps keep Touch Football players engaged for a longer period of time. If players can get everything in a week and be done many will do exactly that, then quit and never look back. But keep them playing week after week after week and you have time to bring out the next DLC. It keeps people playing.

I have everything I wanted in Borderlands 2 because I got involved with Gibbed and I still played a fair amount afterwards. I have basically everything a lot of players want with optimal parts but I still play it because it's fun. I can change characters and how I approach some bosses can be very different, e.g Hyperious. And, so, having the correct loot for each character is important in how viable each character is. This was the reason why I thought Zer0 sucked at sniping because all I used were Jakobs sniper rifles since I couldn't get my hands on Vladof sniper rifles at the time. So when I got Vladof sniper rifles I gave all my Jakobs weapons to Maya since she performs with them better anyway.

I don't mind some exotics being elusive if they are very, very good but perhaps they should be tied to very specific achievements in PvE or PvP (e.g. Crucible medals like Mark of the Unbroken), or they should have made some really hard exotic bounties that awarded decent exotics. It seems bizarre to me that the exotics from Vanguard Mentor Missive were, overall, uninspiring before they were buffed and they were the only exotics, barring the Vex Mythoclast arguably, that are 'really earned'. If only a few exotics are being held back for some reason then players will see it as an unnecessary grind because other exotics are sold each week by Xur. It's also an indicator that there aren't many exotics to start with. And apparently the Gjallahorn is not to be sold again at least not in the near future. Below shows someone who managed to datamine an upcoming inventory of Xur that was time stamped 5 hours before he arrived in the Tower and got it 100% correct:

www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2wi7fq/misc_about_xur_sale_list_iron_banner_sale_list/
www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2wjbqy/media_umegamanexe4s_prediction_about_xurs_stock/

At least I can buy light level 36 chest pieces next time, a machine gun and an auto rifle, on the weekend for the 17th of March. Seems a bit weird having that auto rifle headshot bounty for Iron Banner when the reward for level 5 is a scout rifle.

I get loot based games will want to keep players grinding but there are usually limits and the implementation of loot that might deter people. For many people, myself included, getting non-endgame rewards in Nightfall is one of those when they can be given as bounty rewards. A ratio of 1:20 or so of an exotic with the rest being legendaries would be good enough and then I can actually try out more weapons. I only did the Crucible section of the Thorn bounty because Atheon gave me the Epilogue. There was no way I was going to grind for a void shotgun sold for 150 Crucible Marks and then take ten times as long getting the void kills, especially as they're going to get nerfed and secondary ammo is being reduced upon spawn anyway. Do developers enjoy creating gear in the game that barely ever gets used? Seems bizarre to not allow many players to enjoy craftsmanship at the expense of grind. Guess that's how the story became what it is.

[wings]

Feb 20, 2015 10:12:07 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Feb 20, 2015 6:31:06 GMT -5 wings said:

Check out the conspiracy theories in the COD section then, it is nothing new here.

I actually haven't heard a single tin foil conspiracy yet in this section. We even had a decent discussion, analyzing the drop rates of Xur and other items. The most 'out there' opinion reached on this board, was probably mine. And that was simply that I believe Bungie does indeed tinker somewhat at times with drop rates and other items, to keep population data even, as well as keeping a goal of players logging in continued play time. That's hardly conspiracy theory.

As far as CoD...if you are referring to SBMM...detractors need to stfu on that stuff these days. Actual real research has been done this time with AW, and real studies done, to show exactly how SBMM is working. It is there. See Driftor's couple week long project.

Well I guess it depends on what you consider conspiracies. I haven't seen any about Destiny but just differing opinions and some have changed theirs over time I believe.

Let's have a look at what a Bungie employee stated before I get accused of another conspiracy theory.

M.E. We wanted the Weekly Heroics to be a challenge that pushed you and your buddies, but what we observed was that these strikes don’t demand the same cooperation of a cohesive pre-made group. The overwhelming community response was such that many players didn’t have the numbers on their friends list to experience the activity on a weekly basis.

Can I still solo the Weekly Heroic?

M.E. No, this change applies to all levels of the Weekly Heroic.

How is it going to be a challenge when I get a third player being the matchmade random, into my game, when his or her presence means enemies health scale down? It makes it easier because of the patch they did to encourage people to play Nightfall in a fireteam, instead they acknowledged screwing over solo players. And they're worried that not many people run the Weekly Heroic by the sounds of it. Isn't that because after you get so many Strange Coins that there's no point? You cannot reforge weapons at the Gunsmith for Strange Coins and there's no bank NPC either. You will end up getting a load when Xur sells the same stuff and goes on a dry spell of not selling heavy ammo synthesis for over a month. I don't see Nightfall needing the same cohesive teamwork as the Raid since it's basically "hide and cheese the boss" because of how it is designed. However, there's nothing wrong with making matchmaking as a choice in Raids and Nightfalls. And this is why I see it as potentially being a way to stop people trying for too many exotics. So watch the complaints about AFKers getting 9 Strange Coins instead of completing the "Complete a Strike without dying" bounty now. I've seen enough AFKers when I've been doing the Bad Juju bounty.

[mannon]

They don't scale enemy health down when there are more players, they used to scale it up by quite a large margin, which made it counterproductive to play with other players rather than just solo. So they changed that to encourage players to play together by reducing or removing the scaling. They had to pick a difficulty, though. And they chose to go with one a bit less than the level it was with 3 players. That made it a little easier with a full team and a lot harder solo.

I think afk players in strikes will certainly get more attention when it starts happening in weeklies now. Maybe that's a good thing in the long term, because it should encourage Bungie to deal with it.

[wings]

I read somewhere that enemy health scaled down by the number of Guardians in a game. Either way I am a bit baffled that they decided to make it harder for solo players in one instance and then allow them to get free handouts in another. And surely it was obvious that the Weekly Heroic doesn't need the same cohesive teamwork as the Raid? Did they not test this? Also, the Weekly Heroic is sometimes considered to be harder than the Nightfall depending on the burns of each.

[markopolo]

Feb 22, 2015 5:51:42 GMT -5 wings said:

Also, the Weekly Heroic is sometimes considered to be harder than the Nightfall depending on the burns of each.

So long as the enemy's damage isn't the same burn, absolutely.

[wittyscorpion]

Regarding the patch schedule:

Bungie is going to do a 2-hour server side maintenance tomorrow from 10am - noon PT, game play NOT affected. The patch will go live later this week.