It’s week two and the second livestream celebrating Age of Triumph, the final live update of the Destiny 1 era content which is due to launch come March 28th. “Rituals and Strikes,” has taken place – but what did it show? We take a look.
In the latest of the three scheduled live streams to introduce the Age of Triumph, Bungie Community Manager, Deej, was joined by two of the game designers, Tim Williams and Joe Siferman, in what turned out to be a somewhat lightweight look at the road forward.
Starting in the Tower, Deej ran around and introduced us to the Speaker, who will kick off the Age of Triumph by getting us to take part in the first of the new additions, the Weekly Story Missions. After he had received the quest from The Speaker, he then took a trip to the Eververse Store, where the new collectibles, Treasure of Ages, were revealed. These can contain any item from Destiny 1, including emotes, ships, and armour pieces. There are three categories of goods in the new bags; first is armour/sparrows etc, second are ornaments and chroma, again from Destiny 1, but the third category is by far the most interesting. This is where the new armour sets that have been developed for the Age of Triumph can be earned, but Deej was playing those cards close to his chest and promised to reveal them in next weeks stream.
Lastly while he was in the Tower, he introduced an expanded Silver Dust Store, so we will be able to buy those missing things that we’ve always wanted. In a kind of throw away comment, it was made clear that Silver will not be used in Destiny 2, so if you have any stock holdings, now is the time to use them.
Destiny 1 will be around “for the foreseeable future”, but no timescale was put on its longevity after Destiny 2 is released.
Back in orbit, we were introduced to the new way that Strikes will work, while it was also revealed that the Challenge of Elders has also been upgraded to 390 light – so will be well worth having a crack at. It will work in the same way, with Variks giving you access, and even though the rewards will stay the same, it’ll just be a lot harder. Although the designers have mentioned that RNGeesus has been made more sharing, and the phrase “generous as frick” was bandied about a few times. Not being fluent in American, I Googled the phrase and apparently it means “more likely to give good loot at the end of an activity”.S o, all good there then. The aforementioned Treasure of Ages bags will also be available on your first weekly completion of the CoE – another reason there to give it a crack.
Nightfall Strikes are also to be given a new modifier, known as Daybreak. In a Daybreak strike, it is a fusion of the PVE we all know and love and the Mayhem modifier from the Crucible, giving vastly increased grenade, melee and super recharge rates. In the illustration Strike that was shown, The Sunless Cell, you could see the super bar refilling as the Guardians went about their business, meaning the action on screen was pretty non stop tethers, hammers and stormcalling. I did take exception to the Titan using his Hammers of Sol on a Strike with an Arc burn, but it looks good on stream I suppose and they managed to kill the boss within the allotted time.
Again, the rewards haven’t changed, although they are set to be more generous, and the first completion of the week will again net a Treasures of Ages loot bag, alongside the familiar Skeleton Key. The new tactics that would be necessary to use were touched on, with no more saving of supers until you need it; just burn through your super attacks and get the next one charging. The Daybreak modifier is set to occur only once a month starting March 28th until July 18th, when the modifier will be on every week for six weeks. There was also some crazy talk of Destiny bringing in a Rainbow Burn modifier, but that sounds like the stuff of nightmares and they wouldn’t be that cruel. Would they?
The new Weekly Story Missions will be taking the place of the Daily Heroic mission, at least if I was reading the screen right. These are groups of missions tied to a certain location or planet. In the example they gave, week one will be all the story missions on Earth and the Moon, while week three would see missions from House of Wolves and Dark Below. Again, increased generosity when it comes to rewards is standard, with Treasure of Ages loot bags for first mission completion for each week, and the first five missions you complete will give you 20 Legendary Marks for each one, so it will be possible to earn a massively increased amount of Legendary Marks come the start of the event. Modifiers such as Grounded and Airborne will also be added to these story missions, giving them just a little bit of a twist.
The featured Crucible activities are going to be focused on the 6v6 game types for the duration, and Shaxx will also be giving out two weekly bounties per week, instead of one. It should come as no surprise to learn that the Treasure of Ages loot can be earned by completing a match in the featured playlist too. Other than that, it appears not much changes on the Crucible front.
The last section of the stream revealed a feature that is coming back for those good, or brave enough, to complete the Nightfall – yep, the blue flames are back. For those of you who are new to Destiny, way back in the mists of time, the Nightfall kicked you to orbit and you had to start again if everyone died, completion earned you an XP buff and a visible blue flame sat around your head as a mark of honour. Well, the buff and the flame are back. Not sure why, when most people seem to be maxed out, you’d need an XP buff, but there it is. I can’t lie, seeing the flames again was like a trip down memory lane, when it all used to be fields round here, you know?!
The tease for next weeks stream was to be able to see the new ornaments and armour that will be coming, so that should be something to look forward to. The stream can be seen at twitch.tv/bungie, so have a look if you missed it and let us know what you think in the comments below!
Thanks Paul for this write up. I used to love Destiny but it did become too much of a grind for my short attention span to handle but sounds like its worth firing up before Destiny 2 comes out
It really does mate, the Daybreak strikes and revamped raids might just be the shot in the arm this game needs. Maybe we need an XboxHub clan?