As promised, the team over at Bungie has provided players of the MMO sequel, Destiny 2, with an extensive update regarding their 2018 plans in an effort for pure transparency. Since launch, the team has been in a lot of sticky situations regarding paywall blocks, the Eververse’s microtransaction setup, lacking post-campaign content, and more. Though they did deliver on their promise for tons of more story than the first Destiny provided, it still wasn’t enough for many to overlook some of the more noticeable flaws in-game.

Christopher Barnett, the game’s director, took to the Bungie blog to divulge a full outline of their plans to make Destiny 2 a better play experience for all. He also took this moment to clarify the confusion surrounding seasons and expansions, where they went wrong with the Eververse, and way more about the end-game content. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started.

As per Bungie:

One thing we want is to set clearer expectations for is which categories of content are available to everyone each Season, and which are exclusive to Destiny 2 Expansions:

Expansions are purchasable updates that typically add new Story, Destinations, and Gear, as well as new Crucible, Strike, and Raid Lair content.

Seasons introduce content that is made available to all players of Destiny 2, at no additional cost.

Iron Banner, Faction Rallies, and their rewards will be available to everyone as part of Season 2. Additionally, going forward we are making a change that new Seasonal rewards from Crucible, Strikes, and Trials of the Nine will be available to all players.

Faction Rallies returns on January 16 and Iron Banner will be back in the rotation on January 30.

Eververse

We recognize that the scales are tipped too far towards Tess at the moment, and Eververse was never intended to be a substitute for end game content and rewards. So, we’ll be making three changes for upcoming Seasons:

• We’re shifting the balance of new content in favor of activity rewards over Bright Engrams. This includes adding Ghosts, Sparrows, and ships (to date found only in Bright Engrams) to achievement reward pools.
• We’ll provide a gameplay path to earn Bright Engrams and all contained rewards (including Event Engrams).
• We’ll give players more direct purchase options and make adjustments to Bright Engrams to allow players to get the items they want more often.

We’ve begun implementing these changes for the Crimson Days event beginning February 13 (with even more changes on the way in Season 3):

• Completing Nightfall, Raid, and Crimson Days milestones during Crimson Days will reward you an exclusive Legendary Emote, Weapon Skin, and Exotic Sparrow, respectively.
• Players will earn double engrams at level-up: one Crimson Engram and one Illuminated Engram for the duration of the event.
• Crimson Engrams can also drop from completing the Crimson Days match and from completing the Crimson Days milestone on each character.
• Each Crimson Engram is very strongly weighted to new rewards when decrypted until all new event items have been obtained.

XP Rates

We are still investigating changes to XP earn rates. Our goal with any updates to XP are transparency and consistent XP gain regardless of your preferred activity. Right now, it’s too slow in general and lopsided towards grinding specific activities (which is not a fun grind) and we want to fix that without making those activities low value to players who aren’t grinding them (fairness is cool). Our first attempt turned out to be unworkably buggy so we’re having to investigate other angles. We will continue to update you as we move forward.

Feature Roadmap

There are three releases that we want to put on your radar right now. Later releases will get more specific dates as they get closer.

The following content and features will be available to all D2 players, regardless of expansion ownership.

January 30 Update

• Masterwork Armor
  • We are expanding the Masterwork system to include armor.
  • Masterwork Armor provides increased damage reduction while using your Super.
  • You can reroll the armor stat type on Masterwork Armor, and similar to Masterwork weapons, you can upgrade a piece of armor to Masterwork by spending Masterwork Cores and Legendary Shards.

• Raid Reward Rework
  • We are updating Raid rewards to make them more unique and interesting. They will now feature mods with Raid-specific perks, and we are adjusting the rewards to ensure a Raid item drops from each major encounter. The Raid vendor will also directly sell Leviathan and Eater of Worlds armor and weapons for purchase with Raid tokens and Legendary Shards.
  • We are also adding a new Ghost with Raid-specific perks that has a chance to drop from the Leviathan and Eater of Worlds final encounters. We intend to return to creating more Raid and other activity-unique rewards in the future.

February Update

• Strike Scoring + High Score Tracking
  • Strike Scoring is coming to Nightfall and replacing the current time limit mechanic. The scoring is similar to the Destiny 1 system but with adjustments to emphasize competitive execution of Strike objectives and support for player selectable score modifiers. In February, Nightfall High Scores will be exposed in-game via new emblems and will unlock rewards. We also have plans for Clan and Community High Scores in the works.
• Mods 2.0
  • Work is underway on a full rework of armor and weapon mods. This will focus on reducing redundant mods, more unique theming, and greatly increasing their impact on your power. We are aiming for a February release, but the scope of the rework could push parts or all of it out to early spring. We will be evaluating how Mods play into the Bright Engram economy as a result, because we’re sensitive to pay-to-win outcomes.
• Quickplay Improvements
  • We are adjusting game mode rules to increase the pace of gameplay and power ammo acquisition in Quickplay.
• PC Tower Chat
  • We are adding text chat to the Tower for the PC version of the game.
• Exotic Repetition Reduction
  • This will prevent players from receiving the same Exotic twice in a row. You may still receive duplicates, just not consecutively.
• Fireteam Members on Destination Map
  • You will finally be able to see the other members of your fireteam on the destination map. No more having to ask your fireteam where they went when they fast travel to another landing zone.

Spring 2018

We’re taking the time we need in development of Expansion 2 that will allow us to react to player feedback from Curse of Osiris. In the coming months, we’ll talk to you more about what you can expect to find in Destiny 2’s next story. The team is eager to show you what they’ve been working on.

Independent of Expansion 2, the team will deliver a number of new features that will be released before or during Season 3. Every player of Destiny 2 will receive new content in the following categories:

Crucible

We want to give players new reasons to play, more variety, and balance improvements. Spring will bring a number of exciting and long awaited features to the Crucible.

• Crucible Rank
  • Beginning with Season 3 we will introduce Seasonal Crucible Ranks. There will be two different ranks for players to pursue:
    • Valor – A progression rank that goes up as you complete matches. Winning helps you move up faster, but there are no loss penalties.
    • Glory – A progression rank that goes up when you win and down when you lose. Performance is how you move up here.

• Private Matches
  • Private Matches are coming to all players of Destiny 2. Players will be able to invite their friends to play on the map and mode of their choosing.

• 6v6 Playlist
  • We’re bringing 6v6 PvP to Destiny 2 in addition to the current 4v4 game modes.
• Mayhem Event
  • Mayhem will return as a limited-time event during Season 3 and going forward.
• Additional Fixes
  • We are making some changes to make quitting less common and behind-the-scenes security improvements to help improve the overall Crucible experience.

Additional Highlights

• Weapon and Ability Balance Pass
  • Sandbox adjustments based on player feedback and data from the live game. The Sandbox team will share specific changes as we lead up to Season 3.
• Exotic Weapon and Armor Balance Pass
  • Exotic weapons and armor are receiving a comprehensive design pass to ensure they stand out from the rest of the gear and offer new, exciting, powerful ways to play.
• Seasonal Reputation
  • Specific vendors will now display a Seasonal ranking. Earning reputation will unlock unique Seasonal rewards and will reset each Season.
• Improved Iron Banner and Faction Rallies
  • In addition to the changes that you will see when Iron Banner and Faction Rallies return this month, we will continue iterating on these to make them unique, exciting experiences that you all look forward to.
• Playlist Repetition Reduction
  • This feature solves the problem of experiencing the same playlist entry multiple times in consecutive or frequent succession for both Crucible and Strikes.
• End Game Player Pursuits
  • We agree with your feedback on the imbalance between Achievement and Bright Engram rewards, and we will be making adjustments to shift more rewards into specific endgame pursuits instead of generic XP grinding for Bright Engrams. We are excited to share the details as soon as we have them worked out.
• Multi-Emote
  • When multi-emote launches, you will be able to choose which emote you have equipped to each of your four emote slots.
• Vault space
  • We are targeting an additional 50 slots to player vaults. We don’t believe just adding more space is a complete solution and are actively working on other changes to reduce load on your vault space.
  • We are adding an Exotic accessory tab to Vault collections so you will no longer need to spend Vault space on Exotic Ships, Sparrows, and Ghosts.
• PC Clan Chat
  • In addition to the Tower chat that is targeted for February, we are adding clan chat to the PC version of the game.
• Heroic Strike Changes
  • We’ll be introducing modifiers to add more gameplay variety to the experience.

Fall 2018 (or sooner)

We are working on a lot more that we’re not quite ready to discuss. Expect more on this small sample of items in the future:

• Item Collections and Records
• Weapon Slot and Archetype Improvements
• Additional Crucible Playlists (e.g. Rumble)
• Better Clan Rewards
• Masterwork Exotics
• Pinnacle Weapon and Gear Improvements
• Trials of the Nine improvements
• Shaders and dismantling
• The Future of Guided Games
• Address Solo Vs Fireteam matching

One Final Note

Expect to hear more from us via Bungie.net, Twitch, and social media. We’ll be talking to you more directly, and more often, as promised. We want to thank our community for all the passionate and detailed feedback you provide. It’s critical to our ability to continually improve Destiny, so thank you!