Tag: Hunter

PlayStation and Xbox owners can now obtain the Husk of the Pit once again, find a changed rotation of PVP maps, and get ready for the Nepal Aid rewards and other upcoming changes.

The Husk of the Pit suddenly dropped stopping in Destiny around the time that House of Wolves came out. This prevented many players from being able to initiate and complete the Necrochasm upgrade quest.

You may point out that the Exotic Necrochasm Auto Rifle wasn’t that hot of a weapon to begin with, and you’d be right. The amount of effort it took to obtain compared to its power was disappointing. However, the 2.0 update is buffing Auto Rifles in general and the Necrochasm in particular. That should hopefully make it a more appealing weapon.

The Nepal Aid rewards should be obtainable soon following the release of the Destiny 1.2.05 update. The shader and emblem have been added to the game now, and all that remains is the emails from Bungie containing the redemption code for those that purchased the Nepal Aid items from the Bungie Store following the devastating earthquake that struck the country.

Crucible multiplayer is receiving some tweaks, as well. Some of the maps in rotation for House of Wolves Control and Clash playlists are receiving a lower weight to lessen their chance of appearing repeatedly in the playlists. Meanwhile, the Inferno and Doubles playlists have been given different Heavy and Special Weapon ammo crate spawn rules from other playlists.

We also get our first peek at one of the Destiny Tower changes coming with The Taken King. A kiosk has been added near Eva Levante to replace Tess Everis. Tess is leaving the Tower only temporarily, though. It sounds like Bungie may have a job promotion in store for the special items merchant voiced by Claudia Black.

You can check out the full Destiny 1.2.0.5 hotfix update notes below.

Weapons

• Fixed an issue where “Packing Heat” achievement/trophy could not be unlocked by newly acquired Exotic weapons
• Fixed an issue where Husk of the Pit drops were disabled
• Drop rates for the Husk of the Pit from Blades of Crota have been increased by 150%

PvP

• Updated the House of Wolves Control playlist to include the following maps with a lower weight in the rotation:
• Rusted Lands, Shores of Time, Pantheon, Exodus Blue (Sony)
• Updated the House of Wolves Clash playlist to include the following maps with a lower weight in the rotation:
• Firebase Delphi, Twilight Gap, Blind Watch, Exodus Blue (Sony)
• Inferno and Doubles playlists now have different tuning values for ammo crates
• Special Ammo initial spawn time and respawn intervals have been changed to 180 seconds
• Max of three Special Ammo crates will now be placed at one time
• Heavy Ammo crates now spawn only once per match at 300 seconds

Tower

• Tess Everis is temporarily leaving the Tower
• A Kiosk terminal can be found near Eva Levante in North Tower that contains Tess’ old inventory of special order items
• The Nepal Aid shader and emblem have been added to the game
• Redemption codes will soon be sent to the email used to place orders in the Bungie Store
• These items will be found at the kiosk mentioned above

Technical

• Fixed a potential crash when closing the vendor screen
• Fixed a very rare case where an account could blocked by a WEASEL error on sign on
• Fixed issues with suspend/resume handling on Xbox One

With little more than a month before The Taken King expansion lands in “Destiny,” developer Bungie has provided some eye candy for players. After last week’s controversy and outrage among fans with the nerfing of the Gjallarhorn, the new guns in the game may fuel another round of discussions among guardians.

In the latest Bungie update, the developer gave a brief backgrounder on the kind of new weapons by introducing three product lines in the game. There are sample concept art pieces for the gun completing the illustration.

There are three product lines for the weapons, and each has its own thrust in weapon-making and focus in terms of the weapons’ contribution in the battle against the Taken. The first are the Hakke weapons, which have stable base stats that make them ideal in upgrading the weapon. As for their battle capabilities, the Hakke weapons are more offensive and tactical.

The Omolon range of weapons are concerned with breakthroughs and breaking borders with weapon design. The weapons are lighter, and the perks are more behavioral in nature rather than stat-based. Finally, perk selections are more beneficial when choosing those that are energy-based or are interactive with the guardian’s abilities.

Suros, the last line of weapons, is concerned more with customizability and adaptability of the weapons in battle. This allows Suros weapons to suit the situation on the battlefield. This is made possible by the ability to have more options in changing the weapon stats compared to others, and it has the ability to swap nodes and change its range effectively and efficiently.

The new guns and weapons are not the end in terms of additions for “Destiny” and its upcoming expansion. PlayStation Lifestyle spotted a feedback forum exchange with new manager Chris “Cozmo23” Shannon. He shared with fans some features taken from the community’s wishlist. He noted not all can be implemented, but he wanted fans to know the developer is listening to what people want.

On the list are skins for guns and ghosts, more options in terms of aiming, matchmaking, customization and storage, private crucible matches and rebalancing of weapons. Players also brought up two things that will be interesting additions to the game: the ability to dismantle consumable items and player trading.

The latter had been hinted at repeatedly. The most recent sighting was in early June, wherein three trademarks for “Destiny” surfaced. Forbes previously reported the trademarks revolved around “Eververse” and “Eververse Trading Co.” While there are no direct relations to “Destiny,” at least based on the trademarks, Bungie has already said it plans to have player economy down the road for “Destiny.”

In the ’90s, there was no Spotify. There was no Vevo. Traditional music-based channels were a cultural norm, with live shows and music-video rotations alike. But with the advent of the internet, all of that changed. Listeners can now subscribe to a library of countless songs, and music videos are only ever one search away. Our content is no longer curated by the provider, but by us, and the days of thinking “what song will I hear next” are slowly fading away.

At least, for the most part.

Guitar Hero TV is less of a singular game than an entire platform. In October, it will release as part of Guitar Hero Live, Freestyle Games’ reboot of the seminal plastic instrument series that began 10 years ago. While the latter’s live-action sets, reactive crowds and new control scheme are doing their own part to set the reboot apart from its predecessors, Guitar Hero TV is the separate, online aspect with progression elements of its own. And it could be the thing to keep players coming back again, and again, and again.

“With Guitar Hero TV, we want to bring back that feeling,” an Activision representative tells me, while strumming a chord progression perfectly during one song’s chorus. ”That idea that the next music video is completely up in the air. You might know it’s going to be punk rock, or metal, but outside of that, no one knows.”

From what Activision showed, Guitar Hero TV is easily accessible. One press of a button on the new guitar brings up what looks like a TV guide, complete with separate channels, each based around a certain genre. Songs rotate on each channel, and there’s a schedule with a week’s worth of programming: Saturday at 7 p.m. could be pop hits, followed by a midnight shift to dirty punk music. Essentially, Guitar Hero TV is a collection of music-video channels. But these are ones we can all play along with.

A bar on the left-hand side of the iconic Guitar Hero highway shows a list of names. This is the leaderboard for the current song. Whoever hits the most notes, gains longer streaks, and uses their score multiplier at the best times will rise to the top. Subsequent rewards are based on player scores, and can be turned in for certain items–these include new note highway aesthetics, and also, of course, songs.

And that’s the thing–this mode can be completely free. If you come across a song you love, you can use in-game rewards (called “plays”) to save it to your Quick Play library, ensuring you have it on-hand for the next time you want to play it. You can use real money to buy the songs as well. But refraining from doing so won’t hinder your experience at all, like many free-to-play models might. Guitar Hero TV doesn’t bar you from any content–all the songs are available from the outset. It’s just a matter of when you’ll see them.

This model borrows heavily from MTV nostalgia, but also from something more recent: Destiny. Similar to Bungie’s flow of scheduled content, Freestyle wants to find ways to keep players returning. And as it turns out, rotating content on a weekly basis might be a good way to do that.

“Keeping a player base can be hard,” the Activision representative says, nailing a series of hammer-ons during a particularly hard solo. “And we needed a way to differentiate Guitar Hero Live from the older games, because people played those ones to death. This is our way of doing something different, and we think it will keep people hooked.”

Much like Bungie reels players back in with daily story missions, weekly cooperative strikes, and weekend events, Freestyle will swap out programming every week. While Destiny players return for the promise of new loot and experience, Guitar Hero Live players will, ideally, return for the music.

And then there are premium shows. These weekly challenges will unlock specific rewards for players skilled enough to beat them. The rewards also scale with the difficulty of the tasks. For instance: completing a certain song with a three-star rating could increase the rate of in-game currency accumulation, while a five-star rating on the expert difficulty could give access to live concert footage.

“It’s not just a question of how we can get the content to players. It’s a matter of, ‘How do we keep giving players worthwhile content, and how do we keep people interested in Guitar Hero past that first release week? That’s why designing TV was more like designing an entire platform,” according to Activision.

This school of thought is very much like Bungie’s shooter as well. Although Destiny released almost a year ago, its player base is still alive and well. Freestyle is aiming to maintain a similar crowd with Guitar Hero TV.

Tuesday means only one thing if you’re a Destiny fan: Reset day.

It’s that wonderful time when Bungie’s rotating selection of high-reward activities are rebooted (along with any raid progress made in the previous week), giving everyone a fresh chance at scoring some of the game’s sweetest and rarest loot.

Are you new to Destiny? Don’t know what any of this means? Good news. There’s a Destiny wiki that’s packed with information. Click for details on what Strikes are, and how Nightfall differs from Weekly Heroic challenges.

The House of Wolves add-on also adds a new weekly wrinkle, in the form of Prison of Elders. The multi-round gauntlets are built for endgame play, with the specific enemy types and modifiers changing from week to week.

Here’s a rundown of what’s happening this week:

Nightfall (The Shadow Thief)

• Epic – This is a standard Nightfall modifier. It just means there are more enemies to fight, and a greater number of Majors (the yellow health bar dudes) on the field.
• Nightfall – Another standard Nightfall modifier. This one boots the entire Fireteam back to orbit if everyone is downed inside one of the revive-only respawn Darkness Zones.

Arc Burn – All Arc damage is increased.

• Juggler – Ammo doesn’t drop for your currently equipped weapon.
• Brawler – Guardian melee damage is increased.

It’s a House of Wolves-only week for Nightfall runners. You either have the add-on or you’re out of luck. We’ve seen this exact lineup of modifiers applied to this Nightfall before, so there are very few mysteries here.

The most dangerous moment of the quest is the mini-boss battle against the spider tank, because its main weapon is an Arc launcher. A good strategy is to have all three Guardians hang a left when they first enter the chamber and defend that corner of the room. The tank can’t easily shoot you there, so the fight becomes a matter of clearing out reinforcements as they rush in, then popping out to lay some damage on the tank (with Arc weapons, naturally).

The final boss is a snap. Enter the chamber through the left-hand door and shoot the boss until he teleports, Then head up to the raised platform at the opposite end of the chamber from where you entered, and rain hell down on the boss (who should appear on the right side of the chamber after his first teleport).

Weekly Heroic (Winter’s Run)

• Heroic – Standard Weekly Heroic modifier. More enemies show up than you would see on a standard Strike, and they’re more aggressive.
• Juggler – Ammo doesn’t drop for your currently equipped weapon.

Yawn. Exactly the same Strike as the previous Weekly Heroic. The only difference: instead of last week’s favorable Void Burn modifier, we’re saddled with Juggler. Nothing to deduce here. Just shoot all the thing and don’t forget to keep switching weapons so you get ammo drops for everything.

Prison of Elders

If you’ve got House of Wolves then you can also participate in the weekly Prison of Elders activities. These endgame challenges send players through a multi-round gauntlet in which each round has its own enemy type and Nightfall/Weekly-style modifier(s).

The lineup of enemies, modifiers and, in some cases, bosses for the level 32, 34 and 35 activities changes every week. You can find some general tips for surviving Prison of Elders right here. Read on for a breakdown of enemies and modifiers for each round this week.

Level 32: Broken Legion

• Round 1 (Hive): Trickle (All abilities recharge very slowly)
• Round 2 (Cabal): Small Arms (Primary weapon damage increased)
• Round 3 (Cabal): Exposure (Guardian shields are significantly increased but recharge very slowly)
• Round 4 (Hive): Arc Burn (All Arc damage is increased)
• Round 5 (Urrox boss): Solar Burn (All Solar damage is increased)

Fighting Urrox amounts to a deadly game of “Hot Lava.” Every once in awhile throughout the fight, Urrox goes into rage mode, which makes anything that counts as “ground” (including the tops of crates and rocks) burn, causing damage. The trick is to keep hopping for the 10 seconds Urrox’s rage is active.

Defender Titans should save their bubble shield (equipped with Blessing of Light) for these rage moments, as the Blessing upgrade gives you a bonus overshield each time you hop out of then back into the bubble. It’s important to understand the mechanics of how each class jumps, the better to maximize your air time. Pro tip for Hunters: switch to Gunslinger, and turn on your triple jump.

In the spectrum of Prison of Elders boss fights, Urrox is one of the easier ones. Especially with Solar Burn active. Vision of Confluence/Black Hammer/Gjallarhorn is the ideal loadout. If you’re a Hunter Gunslinger and you have the Celestial Nighthawk exotic helm from House of Wolves, use that; the natural damage boost that the helmet offers is compounded by the Solar Burn bonus.

Level 35: Skolas’ Revenge (all modifier descriptions listed here)

• Round 1 (Hive): Exposure and Brawler
• Round 2 (Vex): Grounded and Airborne
• Round 3 (Cabal): Catapult and Arc Burn
• Round 4 (Fallen): Specialist and Juggler
• Round 5 (Fallen): Trickle and Small Arms
• Round 6 (Skolas boss): Brawler and Juggler

Skolas is a Fallen boss and the constant big bad for all level 35 Prison of Elders runs. He’s a tricky one. You can’t even damage him until you take out one of his two special Servitor defenders (they keep respawning), and even then you have only a small window (20 seconds) in which to dish out damage. That’s the first half of the fight; once Skolas is at half health, the Servitor issue goes away.

They’re replaced by Skolas’ “Devouring Essence” attack, which puts one randomly chosen player on a 30-second countdown to death.The countdown can be reset by passing Devouring Essence to another player, but there’s a 35-second delay before the player that gives it up can grab it again. This means that all three fireteam members need to participate in a deadly game of hot potato.

The second half of the fight also features two rounds of mines that need to be dismantled. It’s tricky to juggle dismantling alongside the Devouring Essence hand-offs; frequent, clear communication is vital. Designate someone (preferably a Bladedancer Hunter with invisibility) to grab the more distant mines. You should pretty much ignore Skolas until you can get those taken care of.

If you’re looking for favorable Skolas fight conditions, it doesn’t get much better than Brawler/Juggler. These are great modifiers mainly because neither of them create any major problems, complicating what is already a lengthy and challenging fight. Brawler gives you a great “Oh shit” button to lean on when you’re surrounded and out of ammo, and Juggler is just inoffensive. If you still need a Skolas win to finish out your Moments of Triumph, make it happen this week.

Destiny has without a doubt been one of the most talked about games of any other since it released last year and that is likely not going to be changing anytime soon. We previously heard Bungie say that the money put into Destiny was part of a 10 year plan and now they have given even more details on the future.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Destiny’s Engineering Lead Luke Timmins spoke about the future of Destiny and how seriously they are taking their ten-year plan moving forward. The most interesting aspect is that he confirmed we will continue to use our same character created Guardians that we made from the start.

“We certainly take it seriously that Destiny is a ten-year thing. It’s a long-term thing and with these adventures that we’re adding my contract to you – and any player – is that your Guardian will always be there.”

While this is something that many expected, with MMOs being the same it is interesting to have confirmation on the subject from Bungie themselves.

The biggest problem here though is how far behind newcomers will feel multiple years in, especially in the shooter genre that usually you can just hop in and be on a close to level playing ground with.

The Taken King is the first major expansion for the game, but I’m sure we’ll see a Destiny 2 and beyond in that span as well. As a result, we’ll have to wait and see just how they handle transitions when they aren’t just merely expansions with new missions and such like we’ve gotten so far.

Destiny: The Taken King won’t be the game’s last expansion, if Bungie can keep the game’s community around to see most/all of its 10-year plan for Destiny, and now fans finally have some confirmation that the characters they’ve come to love won’t be left behind in an upcoming Destiny release.

Bungie and Activision don’t typically like to discuss their long-term plans for Destiny, with both companies frequently dodging questions about the future of the game in favor of promoting whatever Destiny release is closest on the horizon. But a new interview with a member of the Destiny team offers a bit of departure from the trend, even if on a subject that probably won’t come as much of a surprise to the Destiny community.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Destiny engineering lead Luke Timmins promised the community it would always have access to the Guardians they’re currently enjoying. More specifically, Timmins says your current Guardian(s) will “always be there” but (like so many topics related to Destiny) the engineer remains a bit vague as to what that could mean post-Destiny: The Taken King.

To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of Activision attempting to capitalize on fans desire to continue growing there Guardians. It’s always possible (though admittedly unlikely) that the introduction of a new console, towards the end of Destiny’s life, could bring a paid character transfer service. It’s also possible that an eventual sequel could require players to pre-order, or own all of the prior Destiny releases, to keep their existing Guardian instead of starting anew.

Given Bungie’s desire to continue growing the Destiny community, it’s hard to imagine the company going out of its way to drive away those most-supportive of the studio’s vision. And Timmins comments suggest Bungie plans on using your Guardian, and fond memories of the many adventures you’ll take him/her on, to sink the game’s hooks into Destiny players around the globe.

Destiny: The Taken King is being developed for PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The next Destiny expansion is scheduled to hit PSN and Xbox Live on September 15.

Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional Destiny coverage throughout the rest of 2015 and for however long Activision and Bungie keep the Destiny franchise alive in the years to come.