After months of being criticized by the Destiny 2 player base for not communicating well enough, the development team working on the game is finally starting to extend an olive branch to its core community of users. Recently the team released a rare development video update about the upcoming sandbox gameplay update and now members of the team are fielding tons of questions about the new content.

A few representatives from Bungie recently took to Twitter to answered a ton of Destiny 2 questions about the upcoming sandbox update. There is a lot of new information to break down, so we'll post the highlights here. Settle in for a good read, Guardians...

The follow answers were all provided by either Josh Hamrick, Sandbox Design Lead, or Senior PVP designer Kevin Yanes.

Q. I noticed a lot of damage increases on pulses, scouts, etc mentioned PvE but not PvP. Is the goal for decreasing TTK based on buffing our abilities and power ammo spawns?

Any Base Damage or Precision Damage buffs is in both PvE and PvP. Bonus PvE damage goes on top of that.

Q. I see PvE wise, loads of weapons are getting a damage boost. Is this a flat 10%? Or is this being individually tuned for each weapon class and if so, possible to give us a rough idea?

Changes per weapon. Think the average is currently sitting at 15%.

Q. With the extra second of invis, I can see it being used preemptively instead of as an escape more, like in D1. Will Graviton Forfeit extend that duration even further?

Yep, Graviton remains unchanged.

destiny 2 graviton lance

Q. With changes it feels like NS gets hit hard. Knucklehead and Gemini no longer viable in comp/Trials, aim assist in invis gone & smoke nades in comp/trials less potent as can't scramble radar. Are they being buffed elsewhere to compensate?

Not at this time. However, I run NS in 90% of playtest, including Comp, and I was still able to be very effective. You'll likely want to investigate other Exotics to use in competitive. I've been having a lot of fun with Foetracer in comp playtests.

Q. What setup did you run as NS? Foetracer I know you mentioned, what about the subclass?

Spike, Triple, reload dodge and mostly top path. I actually think bottom path may be the way to go but I'm more comfortable with top at the moment.

Q. So is Foe Tracer now useless in comp? with no radar now in comp doesn't that reduce it's usefulness considerably tbh I don't PvP much I'm just curious since I main a Hunter.

Foetracer is GREAT in comp. [But], I think you're thinking about knucklehead, in which case, yes... Switch to Foetracer recommended.

Q. Really, cause i love knuckelhead. I dont find the foetracer bonus to helpful though. Thats my opinion though

Right but if knucklehead doesn't help in comp and foetracer marks targets... Knucklehead will still be great in quickplay!

Q. Will we still have the call outs displayed still even tho radar is displayed. Call outs will be useful to know which part of the map a player is located with out radar.

Yup

Q. Your road map is looking good so far however instead of removing the radar in comp/ trials I propose you limit the range of radar as a whole for all pvp playlist. I believe the radar's range is the problem removing it altogether feels counter intuitive. (Followup comment by another user: They keep throwing away baby and bathwater)

We played like that for a while. It feels broken when you see someone closer to you than you'd expect but your tracker is telling you no one is there. That being said, like I said in the TWAB, these changes are a step forward and not the end. Let's play it live and go from there.

Q. The solution to that problem is fixing the radar. If I can see a player in there within a double jump distance from me, they should appear on radar. If they don’t, that is a bug, not an enhancement request

I feel like we're saying the same thing. We felt like we didn't have enough room to do both. Shrink range enough to allow flanking and now the radar feels broken... Extend the radar enough to feel right and now you struggle to flank...

Q. If time to kill doesnt change i and many many others wont come back [SIC]

I think you should try 1.1.4 for a bit first and then talk to us more about what you think knowing how those changes play. I'm not saying you'll change your mind only that you'll have more context.

Q. Aim assist and invisibility explanation is confusing. Does this mean that Aim Assist is re-enabled after the dodge ends, but before the invis ends?

Sorry you guys, I tried to write that multiple times multiple ways but clearly didn't get it perfect... but yes, [aim assist is re-enabled after the dodge ends, but before invis ends] is what happening.

You break tracking and aim assist briefly when you initiate a dodge. That's unchanged. But invisibility and tracking is reenabled during invisibility. You're easier to shoot and tracking grenades and the like will seek you out.

Destiny 2 Aim Assist Enabled for PC Launch - Sniper

Q. Would you mind giving us some more insight as to why the sniper flinch bug will take another 2 months to release? You could win over the hearts of many players/creators by prioritizing that.

Happily. It was a big, nasty bug that forced our artist to go through and do work on every sniper in the game. So huge amount of work AND it means every sniper in the game has to get retested. Once we figured it out we just didn't have the time to complete it for 1.1.4.

Trust me, we tried and everyone except Father Time himself wanted it. But, we do have it going through testing in 1.2.0 as you saw in the video and we're very excited to get it out to you.

Q. Any info on why super recharge times are going to be faster instead of giving more super energy per kill? I think the latter would raise the skill gap, I liked the D1 super system much more for this reason.

It was a big global change for PvE and PvP. We felt like it was just too long in general. That being said, we actually did bump up those amounts some too and I'm glad you mentioned it because I need to make sure I put it into patchnotes.

Q. Looks fun, but I really think we need four weapon slots. Way too much going on in the Power Ammo slot.

Give it a go when it's out. Like I said, we're not (ever) done working to make it as good as it can be.

Q. So the video showcased alone as a god, which has no sniper bounce I believe. Is that still a thing? all my options have that little spin and reticle bounce; is that going to remain as an intended design mechanic because it’s incredibly frustrating Double so when you have no ability to get alone as a god or the NM sniper that have QuickDraw and no bounce.

Yea, the incoming (1.2.0) fix touches ALL snipers.

Q. Ability cool downs up to 2x faster AND stack (3 times currently) ???!! Or Diminishing Returns?

Triple stack gives you 2x. 1.33x, 1.67x, 2x

Q. I’m curious and I hope I’m not out of line. What went into the decision to not allow the explosive rounds to keep the damage they have in PvE? We love our overpoweredness.

They will deal the same damage overall in PvE, the ratio of what causes it has been tweaked.

Q. I okay. So it’s still a buff but the damage is mostly from the bullet and not the Explosive Impact. Leads me to this question. You specify pve damage buffs. So just so people don’t speculate. This means the damage buff, when specified, is only in PvE?

Yes, on top of any base damage boosts.

Q. Enjoyed reading the update! I'm excited to try them myself. Will we possibly get a static ability cool down buff? Or will it stay tied to mods? Dawnblade tuning sounds hella fun.

Possible, yes. Not planned at this time though.

destiny 2 how to get mida mini multi tool

Q. Mida will still be very good in trials. High cal, very consistent. Its a good weapon without its exotic perks. But it won't be " exotic " it will be just a normal good gun.

It'll work like normal in Quickplay

Q. If you don't bring up TTK inline with movement this will lead to people being able to easily disengage and run away due to how long it takes to kill a player. However, the increased super and ability times may improve gameplay. Who knows, it's a change so we'll have to wait and see when it's live.

Playtests have been really good and it's definitely changed things. It's a lot of moving parts all at once. However, like I said, we're not claiming to be finished. This just felt right the right amount of change to put forth and let you all in to re-evaluate it with us.

Q. The nerf to aim assist on dodge for hunter seems haaaarsh. Especially considering how potent all other class abilities are for Titan and Warlock.

To be clear, Dodge is unchanged... Invisibiltiy was nerfed.

Q. When compared to a rocket, which is an easy 1 hit kill on up to several enemies, a sniper and a shotgun will always be overlooked. Always. It's an easy decision.

I'm not going to imply I can predict the future, but I can say that in combination with with ammo changes there have been significantly less rockets in playtests.

Q. Just wondering why no fusion rifle changes? Do y'all think they're good as is? I have no problem in PvP, but they seem a little weak in PvE compared to the other power weapons. Cheers, can't wait to try the changes!

We bumped up linear fusion to make them much better. Standard fusions are left unchanged for now.

Q. We’ve heard a lot about weapons archetypes cooldowns and exotic weapons but nothing about exotic armor, any way you can tell us about some of the changes happening? They’re just as important to the builds everyone wants to create.

We're definitely looking at Exotic Armor. I'm confident the day will come where we share information like we did with weapons.

Q. any way to confirm if some of the changes on console will be felt by controller users on PC? (such as handcannon accuracy, aim assist etc)

Yea, those changes should all manifest on PC with controllers.

Kevin Y:

Q. To clarify gents, is the time to kill remaining the same whilst movement speed is increasing? Wasn't quite clear in the update

Some weapons are being brought up to be more viable and competitive. We're modeling our ideal TTK to that around Precision Auto Rifles. In current D2 most of our TTK and pace is defined by weapons due to lack of variety in gameplay. This means we have a fixed (static) TTK which is on the slow side. We're actively going to change that. Heavy, Ability Mod/Perks, Movement, and weapons are being brought up to make sure the game is fast and spicy and at the level we believe players would expect from Destiny.

I look forward to you trying 1.1.4 & getting your feedback further. I know you're concerned about movement trumping TTK & I understand where you are coming from. In our playtests we (and external participants) felt that disengaging is not as prevalent as it reads on paper. <3

Q. Also Colony is rife atm, but its ammo supplies are being raised w/ power ammo frequency right?

Colony stays at 4 shots per pull! We feel it’s good enough as is.

Q. Gotcha, but doesn't that still mean more potential ammo as power ammo spawns more often and blocks can be picked from enemies/teammates? Not trying to be combative here at all btw, just worried that Colony spam might be even worse!

Yep but with this patch we wanted to establish a new base line and balance around that instead of holding onto preconceived notions of the previous build. We’re open to tuning this based on feedback though.

Josh H followup comment:

”We definitely had people running Colony in playtests but with the buffs to movement speed, snipers and shotguns it felt like there were more counters available overall. We didnt wanna crush it into the ground for no reason. Again, we'd rather balance around cool things.”

EXTRA STUFF FROM DMG:

As seen in the video, you have to hold to pick up Heavy ammo off of defeated enemies.

“Yep. If you want that ammo, you have to actively pick it up. Noticed this in playtests, had less instances of someone dying as they realized they had picked up power. Adding that barrier, the conscious decision to pick it up, led to me actually getting a bit more power ammo more often. Sometimes players ignore it entirely, as they're focusing on a kill or getting to a portion of the map to trigger a super.”

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As you can see, there's a TON of new information and clarifications to unpack from that Q&A session. A lot of it may seem like too much math, but these are the kind of gritty details that the community has been begging Bungie to be more open up.

Hopefully this information surrounding each particular buff, nerf, or other change will help foster a healthier relationship between the community and the the devs and help bring Destiny 2 back to life.

The change in communication strategy, combined with the rumors about the upcoming DLC content, could help turn the tide for Destiny 2 and perhaps even bring back the lapse players who bailed after completing the campaign.

Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: Twitter via Reddit