Maybe you’ve heard: Destiny is about to get a whole bunch of changes. Some of those changes are tied to the upcoming Taken King expansion, but a fair amount of them will happen whether you buy the expansion or not.
In the latest weekly update at the company blog, Bungie has explained a bunch of the new stuff that will come with Destiny‘s 2.0 “Year Two” update. The update comes out next Tuesday on September 8th, a week in advance of The Taken King, which hits on the 15th.
Short version, up front: Everyone’s gonna get to try out the new Crucible maps and modes for a week, lots of changes to levelling and economy will go into effect, auto rifles (allegedly) won’t suck anymore, there’ll be new stuff to do and buy in the tower, and players are getting an extra week to get that cool year-one triumphs emblem.
From the Bungie weekly update:
You have one more weekend to experience Destiny as it has existed in Year One. On September 8th, the deployment of Update 2.0 will change the way we play. Next week, we’ll deliver complete patch notes to keep you occupied. Here’s a tactical preview for how things about to change:
Character
- Character Level Cap for all players will be raised to 34
- Level Cap for The Taken King will be 40
- You will be able to level up by gaining XP aloneCharacter Level and Light are now separate statisticsYour Character Level will be grandfathered into your highest possible Light Level from all gear in your inventory and vault
- Attack and Defence ratings for armour and weapons will be translated to the new systems – their power levels will be unchanged
- Grimoire Score has been moved from the Character Nameplate and now displays in the Character Screen
Quests
- A Quest Screen will be added to your Menu
- Tracks all active Quests
- Abandoned Quests can be recovered in the Hall of Guardians
- Year One Activities have been converted to the Quest system
Bounties
- Bounty slots will be increased to 16
- Incomplete Year One Bounties will be auto-abandoned on 09/08 in preparation for launch of The Taken King
- Incomplete Year One Exotic Bounties are auto-completed with their respective Vendors
- Year One bounties issues by Eris will be retired
- Reputation with Crota’s Bane can continue to be earned by completing Quests in The Taken King
Tower
- Collections have been added to the Tower
- Emblems/Shaders can be found near Eva LavanteShips can be found near Amanda Holliday
- Exotic Armour and Weapon Blueprint added to the Tower
- You will now have the Blueprint for all Exotics you own in your CollectionReport to the Vanguard in the Hall of Guardians
Inventory
- Motes of Light will be used to grant XP to Weapons and Armour
- Class-specific Armour materials will be deprecated in favour of a unified Armour Material
- Vanguard Quartermaster, Roni-9940, will exchange old materials for armour material [Update: This change takes effect on 09/15]
Weapons & Armour
- Revised Sandbox balance will be in effect, based on our previous analysis
World
- Fallen Wolf Hunt Patrols will retreat in anticipation of the arrival of Oryx in your solar system
They offer some more specifics on what will and won’t make the jump from year one to year two:
What’s leaving Destiny when you download the 2.0 update:
- Vanguard & Crucible Marks: Activities where you previously earned Vanguard/Crucible marks will now grant Legendary Marks. On Tuesday, your current Vanguard/Crucible marks will converted into faction commendations. [Update: This change takes effect on 09/15]The Elder Cipher will no longer drop upon completion of the Skolas Challenge Arena in the Prison of Elders. The Exotic items offered with the Elder Cipher will now have a chance to drop from the Prison of Elders Treasure Chest.
What’s going to be required to install the 2.0 update:
- If you’re playing Destiny on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you’ll need around 18GB of hard drive space free. We recommend turning on any console features that will automatically download game updates, when available.If you’re playing Destiny on PlayStation 3, you’ll need about 20GB of hard drive space free to download and then install the update. Once the update is fully installed, you will only need around 10GB free.If you’re playing Destiny on Xbox 360, you’ll need around 10GB of hard drive space free.You can read more about the Hard Drive Requirements for the Destiny 2.0 update here.
What’s the best way to send off Year One of Destiny:
- The Moments of Triumph have been extended to September 14, 2015 at 11:59 PM PDT (6:59 AM UTC). You can check your progress by visiting the Moments of Triumph progress page as part of your Legend.Remember that your Moments of Triumph are tied to your active character roster. With the new Quest system and 2.0 changes incoming, we understand the appeal to start a new character. However, deleting a character to do so may jeopardize your progress towards the Moments of Triumph. We recommend waiting until you’ve secured your Emblem before deleting any characters that contributed to your Moments of Triumph progress.
Additionally, from September 8 to the 14th, everyone will be able to try out the two new Crucible game modes, Mayhem and Rift, and play on all of the new maps. (After the 14th, the new stuff will only be available to people who bought The Taken King. Crafty.)
They even made a trailer for it:
Not bad! I will definitely be playing this next week.
Comments
27 responses to “Destiny Gets Some Big Changes Next Week, No Expansion Required”
Sounds interesting, will give it a go
“You will be able to level up by gaining XP aloneCharacter Level and Light are now separate statisticsYour Character Level will be grandfathered into your highest possible Light Level from all gear in your inventory and vault”
The new leveling system seems interesting. I’m tempted to dive back in and play again as haven’t really played since launch
The number of Exotic Bounties that I’ve given up on and now they’ll be auto completed…
Yep. I trahsed all of them. Oh well 😉
I’m so glad i never trashed the thorn bounty. Woohoo
Yep, I’m getting a free Thorn and Invective!
Bad Juju for me 🙂 lol
Haha. Same. I’ve got 3 exotic bounties just sitting there, untouched. 1 of which is thorn.
If I’ve never played Destiny before, is after the update going to be a good time to go in fresh? I assumed it will be better as they’re overhauling the gearing/leveling system?
Given that you will benefit from the changes that are being applied to the base game, you are certainly in a much better position to play the game from scratch over anyone who played during year one. Plus you will have the opportunity to level boost one of your characters and therefore be ready to head into the Taken King — although it’s recommended you should play from game start with your first character.
I’d suggest waiting until the patch, yes. As a new player, I don’t think many changes will affect you if you start before the 2.0 patch, but starting after 2.0 will likely give you a better first impression of the game. The story missions as they currently exist don’t convey the story very well, but 2.0 should improve that side of things. And, if you’re into PvP, 2.0 will be a good time to start, as the weapon rebalancing means the meta will be shaken up from its current state of “exotic hand cannon or death”, so anything could be viable.
I suggest buying the legendary edition, as that has all dlc including the one coming out on the 15th/16th.
Pretty damn pumped for the latest patch and TTK.
Should be shiny.
Now if I could only find a team to regularly play with.
Anyone else in a similar boat?
I hear you brother!
Ps4? If so: Jocon89
Add me and we shall kill things.
Xbone, sorry dude 🙁 – stickyresin
PS4 – i01001001
anybody keen, hit me up!
Mate I would highly recommend looking up “the100.io” site.
I myself am part of this site, there are dozens of groups that you can join. Just enter your gaming preferences, and it’ll add to to a group. I absolutely love it, I’m sure you’ll find a group of people with similar gaming preferences on there.
That is fucking awesome. Thanks mate!
While I have people to play with it’d be nice to have someone in the same timezone to play with.
Want to join Alpha Company 476? 😀
If you are Au timezone and Ps4 that is.
i’d be keen for this to be a final re-write of the levelling system, be it XP, marks or what-not
i’ve no issue with old gear becoming obsolete (that’s the nature of gear in MMO’s) but i’m tired of feeling like i’m part of a rolling alpha – i dont say beta as game systems are usually a bit more locked-in-stone by beta.
fingers crossed
I’m cool with the legendaries, but the exotics should not become obsolete, especially some of the ones we worked so hard to get 🙁
Totally agree with the alpha comment though, I just start getting used to the game and wrapping my head around how every little facet works… then they change it all and I’m back to feeling like a noob again!
Still not sure how I feel about it all, i’m interested, but also annoyed. Appreciate what they’ve done with game, but not sure about where they are taking it
And it seems I’m going to get pulled back into this game. After not completing a Nightfall for a few weeks, I think I might be ready to jump in.
Damn this game for making my pile of Shame huge. Damn. It. To. Hades.
Oh man, could not agree more. So many games to play, but destiny is just taking up all of my free time! I’ve managed to go a full week without playing… but now they’ve sparked my bloody curiosity lol
Pretty hyped for taken king.
I stopped playing Destiny on xbox one after launched but rerolled on PS4 and am loving all the stuff from the last 2 expansions I missed out on!