Destiny Update

While Destiny fans are still reeling from this week’s announcement that House of Wolves will not include a raid, Bungie is still trucking along business as usual. Well before the House of Wolves plans were officially unveiled, Bungie had revealed a substantial 6GB update was set to hit Destiny before the DLC, and today it finally goes live.

Bungie has already done well to detail today’s Destiny update, which adds some much-needed features. It’s going to be a gradual rollout, though, so Destiny players are encouraged to wait patiently if the download doesn’t begin right away.

As far as what the update comes with, it’s quite the doozy. For starters, Destiny update 1.1.2 will increase player’s vault space substantially, giving them extra slots for armor, weapons, and consumables. This particular improvement couldn’t have come at a better time, as House of Wolves is set to introduce a whole new set of gear into the fold. Not to mention, the Trials of Osiris Crucible event will carry it’s own set of gear, including the Fate of all Fools scout rifle.

The update also includes some pretty handy, but ultimately small picture, changes like the ability to lock exotics, a toggle for chat and game audio control, and new physics and color schemes for the purple ball in the Tower. It’s nothing too mind blowing, but we’re sure plenty will appreciate the exotic locks and audio controls, even if they are a little late.

We should also mention that Destiny is finally getting colorblind support, which, again, is something it should have had from the get-go. Now visually impaired players will be able to better discern the different types of weapon drops in the game, among other things.

Destiny Colorblind Changes

On the gameplay side, Bungie has addressed a few more troublesome issues with the Destiny raids, Vault of Glass and Crota’s End. Again, it may be a little too late for some, as many have hit level 32 and collected all the gear, but at the very least it’s nice to see the final boss encounters will be more agreeable.

Similarly, the Valus Ta’Aruc fight has been toned down in the Cerebus Vae III strike in an effort to make it less time-consuming. With players running strikes numerous times a week, maybe even within a day, Bungie saw that certain strikes were less popular than others, but they hope to correct that with this update.

Here’s the full list of patch notes:

Spotlight Improvements & Additions
  • Vault Capacity increased to 24 Armor Slots, 36 Weapon Slots, and 24 General Slots
    • Disabled gear comparison in Vault on Xbox 360 & PS3 platforms to account for additional slot memory
  • Colorblind support (deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia) added for highly color-driven gameplay elements
    • Motion tracker
    • Loot drops
    • Shield energy
    • Item categories
  • Audio Controls are now available in the Settings menu
    • Volume control
    • Music toggling
  • Item Lock now allows players to prevent gear and weapon items from being accidentally dismantled
  • The purple ball has been reborn in the tower as an interactive sphere with a parallaxed energy core that grows with object velocity and tints based off time of day
Weapons
General
  • Fixed a bug that caused a player to lose ammo when switching weapons while dead
  • Fixed a bug where ammo consumables did not reliably replenish ammo
  • Pocket Infinity behavior is less likely to fail during edge case conditions
  • 4th Horseman weapon stats restored to original intended values
Perks
  • Updated Thorn's first-person player feedback poison effect
  • White Nail perk no longer triggers on immune targets
  • Defensive Reflex (Don’t Touch Me) perk no longer triggers on throwing knives
  • Performance Bonus ammo on Fusion Rifles reduced to match Shotguns and Sniper Rifles
  • Fixed an issue introduced in 1.1.1 that allowed Ice Breaker to persist ammo after respawn
World
  • Players can now choose to wear their helmets in social spaces
  • Quest loot pyramid baubles are now easier to spot
  • Added Quest indicator badges to the Tower when a Quest is either completed and ready to turn in
  • Increased Crota's Bane Reputation rewards on Eris Morn's bounties
  • Fixed a bug where Major Thralls had two jaws and two left hands
  • Fixed a bug where player’s equipped items did not receive experience from completing missions
  • Fixed a bug where the Black Garden Level 30 Featured Story was incorrectly listed at Level 28
  • Fixed a bug where Heavy Ammo consumables were not available for purchase from Xûr
Strikes
Cereberus Vae III
  • Valus Ta'Aruc's strength has been reduced by 33%
  • Reduced the number of Major combatants in the Valus Ta'Aurc fight
Dust Palace
  • Dust Palace: Reduced the number of Major combatants in the Psion Flayer fight
  • Dust Palace: Lowered the strength on the Psion Flayers' shields
Raids
Vault of Glass
  • Vault of Glass will no longer display a highlighted activity notification despite players best efforts to remove it
  • Fixed a bug where splash damage could penetrate the Aegis bubble
  • Shield Relic melee attacks now land Minotaurs more consistently
  • Improved issues associated with walking through the teleport
Crota's End
  • Crota will now wait until fully standing before a sword attack
  • Fixed a bug where the sword immediately despawned after killing a swordbearer
  • Swords will now last a full 30 seconds after being picked up
Destiny Valus Ta Aurc
PvP
General
  • Greatly reduced the weighting of Blind Watch and Firebase Delphi in Control, Iron Banner, and Inferno Control playlists
  • Fixed a bug where a player that was killed by an enemy could commit suicide and be revived for points
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving points for neutralizing a control zone
  • Fixed a bug where capture points were not properly disabled after the game ends
  • Added incremental revive timers to Skirmish and Salvage
    • Each time a teammate revives you, it takes longer before you can be revived again (currently +5s each revive)
  • Stopping Power now requires Shotgun kills instead of sprees
  • Target Practice now requires Hand-Cannon kills instead of sprees
  • Electrocutioner now requires Fusion Rifle kills instead of sprees
Maps
  • Anomaly: Added invisible physics over the pool table to keep people from hiding
  • Shores of Time: Added kill volume to the open edge of "A" cave in to keep players from hiding
  • The Burning Shrine: Moved the spawn point to fix camera view
Ammunition
  • Crates are now visible for all players long before they are available to pick up, with a countdown timer added to show when they will arrive
  • Guardians no longer drop Special ammo on death
  • Lowered the amount of Special ammo picked up from crates (from 50% to 25%)
  • Special Ammo crate respawn time raised (from 45 seconds to 120 seconds)
  • Increased drop radius when a friendly picks up a Special crate (from 20 meters to 100 meters)
  • Slightly increased interaction time on Special Ammo crate (from 0.1 seconds to 0.8 seconds)
  • Reduced the number of Special crates on the maps and relocated them (from 6-8 crates to 3-5 crates)
  • Special and Heavy ammo bricks now despawn when a player dies or on a timer (20 seconds for Special, 30 seconds for Heavy)
  • Heavy ammo now lets everyone know which player or Faction picked up ammo
  • Increased warning time on Heavy ammo (from 10 seconds to 15 seconds)
UI
  • New visual treatment to Quest nodes and nodes that involve Quest activities or steps
  • Players can now click the left stick to hide the UI when inspecting items, for screenshotting/sharing purposes
  • Fixed a bug where precision kills did not appear correctly in the PGCR
  • UI flyouts are now easier to navigate (i.e. “Amazon Flyout Menu”)
Audio
  • Fixed an issue where Stealth Vandal audio was being suppressed by gunfire or other loud sounds
  • Titan Ward of Dawn now has audio indicators at low energy so players can more easily read when it will time out
  • Players walking into enemy Wards of Dawn now hear a sound when blindness is applied
Companion
  • Fixed issue where Combined Arms Grimoire card was pointing to the wrong unlock conditions
  • Fixed issue where Grimoire cards were awarding the incorrect number of Grimoire points
Technical
  • Fixed a rare soft-lock when a player's internet connection drops
  • Clarified error that displays when user has insufficient hard drive space
  • Better handling of rest mode/resume on PS4

Ultimately, the Destiny patch should do well to convince players that Bungie is listening to their requests. Key changes and additions will also make the experience smoother and less prone to headache, especially for players trying to solo Crota’s End.

However, we can’t help but wonder what impact an update like this has on the Destiny players who’ve started to move away from the game. Will this be enough to convince them to come back?

Source: Bungie