‘Destiny’ Update Features 90+ Gameplay Changes; Removes Strike Exploit

When Bungie first revealed details for their upcoming Destiny update (1.0.3) most of the focus was on the addition of the Strike Team Chat feature, which allows matchmade teammates to communicate using an additional voice channel. What the developer didn’t tell us was that the update would also introduce some significant gameplay changes as well.

Now that the update has gone live we know that this substantial update does more than just add Strike Team Chat. As Bungie has revealed in their patch notes, this update paves the way for The Dark Below expansion and sets the new rules for Iron Banner 2.0, but it also improves, or at the very least tweaks, the game for regular players.

Obviously, going change-by-change through the 2.5 GB update would be a fool’s errand, but there are some tweaks worth highlighting. Post-patch, for example, Destiny players will be able to carry 10 bounties at a time instead of 5, which alleviates the need to keep going back and forth to The Tower.

Bungie has also squashed a few exploits on both the single player and multiplayer side of things, removing advantageous spots from a few Crucible maps and knocking out the hiding spot from the Askor boss fight in the Winter’s Run strike. And coincidentally, the Winter’s Run strike just happens to be the Weekly Nightfall.

The good news, though, is that strikes should be getting easier thanks to this update. According to the patch notes, difficulty will now scale less for a 3-player Fireteam than it did before, essentially making each event easier to complete. Previously, the strikes’ difficulty scaled on a much higher curve when played with multiple players.

As we said, the update is more than just a few simple changes. Here are the full patch notes:

Interestingly enough, the update is also introducing some unintended changes to the game, specifically with some of the game’s exotic weapons. Some gamers are reporting that exotic guns like Thorn are actually seeing a decrease in effectiveness post-patch, and Bungie has since acknowledged that there were some unintentional changes to exotics. However, rather that patch the patch Bungie says they will address these unintentional changes in Thursday’s Weekly Update post.

Sounds to us like the guns that Bungie originally said they were going to buff are the main targets of these unintended nerfs. Could be that these buffs just went in the opposite direction and a second update is on the way that flips the numbers from negatives to positives, or maybe something else is going on. We’ll have to wait and see.

And for the rest of Destiny players, this latest update is a nice first step towards the release of new content. Bungie is delivering on promises and making concerted efforts to improve the game, even after two months. Now hopefully they can keep that momentum going.

What do you think of this latest Destiny update? What would you like to see fixed or changed in a future update?

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Source: Bungie

‘Destiny’ Update Features 90+ Gameplay Changes; Removes Strike Exploit