The third and final Twitch livestream that Bungie hosted in anticipation of the Destiny April Update, coming April 12, focused on changes to the weapons sandbox, as well as changes to PvP activities.
The stream started off by discussing some general changes to PvP encounters, such as removing the ability of players to “sprint revive,” instead requiring players to be more exposed as they revived a downed teammate in a 3v3 scenario such as Trial of Osiris. Additionally, the shield granted by reviving and being revived was diminished slightly, which caused a few fans to wonder if changes to the archetypes of snipers that could “res-snipe” could be affected. Another change to the elimination game mode was extending the countdown timer for teammates available to be revived by 2 second for each time they have died within a round.
The team also discussed changes to the ammo economies within PvP game modes. The previous special ammo patch is being recalled, once again allowing guardians to spawn with special ammo across the board. To counter this, special ammo now spawns in much later in matches, and more sparingly. Heavy ammo now only spawns once per match at the five-minute mark.
Bungie also discussed changes to the Crucible rewards, indicating that legendary gear drops will increase across the board. Gear attainable from the chest at the fabled Lighthouse will drop max-light level gear, and the gear dropped in the bounties in Trials will drop at light level 330, with the gold-tier package now becoming available each day as opposed to each week. Iron Banner gear will also receive a light buff.
Senior Gameplay Designer Jon Weisnewski also discussed weapon balancing in this next update (Note: This list is not comprehensive, as there will be a full list of changes and specifics in the patch notes next week). Auto Rifles will have the base damage increased slightly on slow rate-of-fire weapons, but decreased slightly on high rate-of-fire weapons. Pulse Rifles will have a slight buff for low rate-of-fire weapons, and Hand Cannons will have in increased ammo inventory overall. Fusion rifles will have a blanket stability increase. Snipers, a hot topic as of late in the community, have some changes coming as well. Increased zoom on the low-zoom scopes (which will also give a range increase), two frames of extra zoom transition while transitioning to aim down the sights, and a slight reduction to all sniper stability stats will make it a little harder to snipe enemy players at closer ranges.
Exotic weapons will also receive some tuning. MIDA Multi-Tool will have the perk high-caliber rounds removed, for example. The SUROS Regime will receive a damage buff if the perk Focused-Fire is active, and it will also receive a ranged buff that, combined with other ranged perks, can actually allow players to max out range on the weapon. The spin-up perk will also trigger four bullets later than it currently does, making this gunplay perk decision swing a little differently than it does in the current weapon meta. Hawkmoon will receive a range buff, while The Last Word will receive a damage nerf to its namesake perk. The infamous Thorn will get a bit of nerf, as the Damage over Time will do less damage and tick for four pulses as opposed to the current 6, and the intensity of the poison screen effects will be a little less than it is currently. The Icebreaker special ammo glitch commonly utilized to get around the special ammo nerf included in the last update will no longer work, just as the glitch using sidearms will also be disabled. Additionally, total ammo for heavy machine guns and sniper rifles have been decreased. The exotic sidearm, Dreg’s Promise tracking rounds now lock on better to enemies. Tellesto’s projectiles will now stick to ally guardians, as well as to a Defender Titan’s Ward of Dawn, which could allow for some interesting team gameplay. The legendary weapon, 1000-Yard Stare, which Bungie revealed has been the single most-used special weapon in the game to date, will receive an additional ammo inventory reduction, and Quillum’s Terminus, the raid heavy machine gun, will also receive the same. The King’s Fall weapons overall will receive a buff to reload speed, and the raid auto rifle will also get a stability buff.
The final segment of the stream discussed the way that Bungie is changing subclasses to help balance the Crucible, namely the Warlock subclasses. Again, this list is not comprehensive, and the detailed patch notes will be shared when the update goes live. Sunsinger Warlocks will have a nerf to Flameshield, both with regard to the amount of shield granted and the ability cooldown. Additionally, triggering a self-revive while having Firebolt grenades equipped will cause the super to drain more quickly, although the grenades as a whole were unaffected in the update, a surprising move to many players. Stormcallers were also affected by changes, including a shortened active time of Stormtrance. The developers stated that they made changes to the subclass that were designed to influence the importance of “more decisions” as the player decided on their loadout with a Stormcaller Warlock. The third subclass of Warlocks, the Voidwalkers, received a few changes to the way that abilities triggered, focusing on the draining and vampiric effects that define the subclass. A specific change mentioned was the effect of a more immediate melee ability.
Obviously, there was a lot of ground covered in this livestream, and the team emphasized several times that this was an overview of the content changes coming in the new update, and that this is not an exhaustive list.
What do you think of the changes coming to Destiny in the April Update? Let us know in the comments below.
