Destiny 2: microtransactions to be toned down, XP to be tweaked again, and all Season content free to everyone

Destiny 2 is getting an economy shake up which should please critics of the loot box system, Eververse.

Destiny 2 game director Christopher Barrett has addressed major complaints about the loot shooter and Bungie’s frustrating lack of response to feedback.

Riffing on Bungie’s frequent comment of “we’re listening”, Barrett said the team is no longer “just listening” – “We are doing”. The huge laundry list of changes coming to Destiny 2 over the next few seasons is one example of that, as it contains many community-requested features.

However, the developer has made more immediate adjustments to Destiny 2 which are worth highlighting on their own, and these pertain to Destiny 2 loot box driven economy. Before we get into that, it’s worth going over what Barrett said about Destiny 2 in general.

First, Barrett drew a distinction between three kinds of ongoing Destiny 2 content. Expansions are premium add-ons that include things like Story, Crucible, Strike and Raid Lair content, as well as gear and even Destinations. Curse of Osiris is an example.

Seasons, on the other hand, are quarterly line-ups of free events and free to all players, regardless of which Destiny 2 expansions they own. This currently includes Faction Rallies and Iron Banner, and in the near future, Season rewards from Crucible, Strikes and Trials of the Nine will also be free to everyone. Season content returns soon – a new Faction Rally starts January 16 and Iron Banner returns January 30.

Finally, there’s Eververse content – customisation items, emotes and boons (things like XP gain tokens). This is the bit that’s really interesting, because Barrett said Bungie recognises that “the scales are tipped too far towards Tess at the moment” in Destiny 2.

“Eververse was never intended to be a substitute for end game content and rewards,” he said.

To try and course correct, Bungie will be adding Ghosts, Sparrows and ships to activity rewards, so that Bright Engrams are less essential to Destiny 2’s endgame.

The developer also promised Destiny 2 will feature gameplay paths to earn Bright Engrams and all rewards, include event-exclusive loot, which was a big issue with the recent The Dawning event. Finally, adjustments to Bright Engrams and direct purchase options will make it easier for players to get the stuff they want more frequently than the current RNG allows.

Hopefully that means Destiny 2 will be rewarding however you play, as opposed to the situation we’re in currently, where hardcore players grind public event for XP for loot boxes – and don’t do much else, especially after they collect the Raid gear.

It sounds great, and it’s definitely right on point when it comes to things Destiny 2 players have been complaining about. Bungie’s even implementing all these Eververse changes as early as Crimson Days, which kicks off February 13.

However, the XP situation is still up in the air, as Bungie is still working out how to adjust adjusting XP rates for both fairness and transparency. The difficulty seems to be in making rewards fair both to players who grind and to those who don’t, which is tricky. Apparently its first solution was bugged to hell, so it’s currently working on a new one.

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Destiny 2: private Crucible matches, ranked PvP, better Raid rewards and masterwork armour highlight nine month road map

Destiny 2 has a solid line up of content, events and updates ahead of it – many of which address pressing community concerns.

Destiny 2 game director Christopher Barrett took the helm of the Bungie Weekly Update to issue a whopping outline of what Bungie has planned for the loot shooter – along with yet another promise to be more communicative in future.

After a bit of a painful silence over the holidays, the developer now feels confident enough in its own plans to at least sketch in the details of two upcoming Destiny 2 updates – one on January 30 and one in February – and outline what’s planned for a series of updates scheduled for northern spring 2018 and northern autumn 2018.

The updates will introduce many features the community has been asking for such as ranked PvP and private Crucible matches, and come in addition to the second Destiny 2 expansion and scheduled seasonal content.

Speaking of Seasonal content and events, Crimson Days beings February 13, a new Faction Rally starts January 16 and Iron Banner returns January 30.

Anyway, here’s the current Destiny 2 roadmap, which is subject to change. Everything listed here is free to all players regardless of what expansions they own – think of it as features for the base Destiny 2 client.

Destiny 2 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.

Destiny 2 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.

Destiny 2 Spring 2018 updates

Bungie will release a second Destiny 2 expansion during spring 2018, and will have more to say on that later. For now, here’s what’s coming to the base game around the same time:

• 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.

Destiny 2 Fall 2018 updates

Bungie said it has a lot in the works Destiny 2 that it can’t yet discuss, but offered this sample of things it expects to bring to the game or overhaul by autumn – and maybe sooner.

• 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

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Sail On a Giant Hot Dog and Other Silly Boats in 'Silly Sailing', Coming Next Thursday

I guess while we're on the topic of weird game premises, we might as well talk about Silly Sailing, the new upcoming game from Devm Games of Extreme Forklifting fame. It's a top-down sailing game that has you harnessing the power of wind gusts to pilot a variety of, well, silly sailboats around different watery courses as quickly as possible. Interestingly, this is an asynchronous game so you'll be battling against the ghost runs from players around the world all vying for the best time on each course. Check out the trailer for Silly Sailing.

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Yes, any game that allows you to pilot a giant hot dog, a big shoe, or a couple of hastily lashed together giant bananas gets an automatic thumbs up in my book. Unlocking increasingly bazaar boats is a big appeal of Silly Sailing, but it also looks to have some pretty solid mechanics as not only are you trying to utilize the wind direction as best as possible but there's also whirlpools that you'll want to gently graze in order to fling your craft forward without accidentally getting sucked in. It looks super cool, so keep an eye out for Silly Sailing when it launches on January 18th and in the meantime head to the forum thread for some discussion.

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'Meat Cannon Golf' is a Completely Absurd Golfing Game for Carnivores, Currently Accepting Beta Testers

One of the fun things about mobile is the wide variety of silly ideas people come up with for games. And just when you think you've seen it all something like Meat Cannon Golf comes along and raises the bar for absurdity in game ideas. So it's a golfing game, obviously, but instead of using the standard wood and iron clubs we all know and love, or those tiny little white balls which are so easy to lose, you'll be firing various types of meats from a cannon trying to get that hunk of meat to land into a hole in as few "strokes" as possible. Yep. Check out this early look at one of the holes that will be in Meat Cannon Golf.

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So yeah, this is a thing. If you're weird like me and are very intrigued by the idea of Meat Cannon Golf, you can actually head over to the game's forum thread and sign up for potential beta testing for both iOS and Android platforms. There's also some pretty great animated gifs and additional video clips in that thread that more looks at this wacky game, and if you're not really interested in testing but you're still interested in the game you can just sign up on the Meat Cannon Golf official website to get notified when the game launches.

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Humble Store Winter Sale: here’s a random list of cheap games that caught our eye

Humble wants your money. You want games. Can some compromise be reached in this eternal battle?

The Humble Store Winter Sale has kicked off so open your wallets and let the cash pour freely into its coffers.

Humble Store is my personal favourite because a tiny slice of the money that digital distributors take from all transactions goes directly to charity, and you can name your preferred fund. I managed to avoid the Steam holiday sale, but I feel a little carefully hazarded spending would not be too naughty at this time.

As usual, there’s so much on sale that we have no hope of detailing it all, but here are a couple of things that caught my eye personally.

• Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy – $8
  This one showed up a bunch of times in this year’s IGF nominees – ie, the essential festival circuit indie releases of 2017.

• A Hat in Time – $24
  I’ve heard this described as the game Yooka-Laylee should have been.

• Furi – $9
  An absolutely gorgeous 3D action boss-rush game, which combines softly Souls-style combat with bullet hell elements. Sherif loves it.

• GTA 5 – $37.50
  Surely everyone everywhere owns GTA 5 by now? You really should experience it if you haven’t yet – there’s a reason it’s a perennial bestseller so many years later.

• Undertale – $5
  Fall in love with a skeleton and talk your way out of combat – although you’ll want to be good at retro twitch arcade games if you want to take the pure pacifist route in this amazing old-school RPG.

• Rocket League – $12
  It’s soccer with cars! A blast in multiplayer. Don’t even worry about it, everyone is terrible at it and only gets goals by accident. It’s soccer with cars.

• Armello – $12
  Australians made this and my local pals who are into arty and indie games never stop banging on about it. It has cute animals.

• Wolfenstein: The New Order – $10
  I don’t have Wolfie 2 yet which makes me really sad, because I love The New Order so, so much. You should play it, it’s $10

• Dishonored: Definitive Edition – $10
  I love this universe so, so much. Start at the beginning and follow the story right through Death of the Outsider before joining me on Tumblr to ship the hell out of it all.

• Fallout 4 – $15
  I have played hundreds of hours of Fallout 4 and every few months I have to hide the disc or I will play more. I have broken it so thoroughly there is no point even switching it on and yet: I always do.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year Edition – $20
  I think this is probably the best open world game of the generation, although Horizon Zero Dawn and Assassin’s Creed Origins learned a great deal from it.

• Stardew Valley – $11.24
  Harvest Moon, made by a fan who felt the series had gone off the rails (an accurate assessment). Eats lives, but in such a lovely way nobody minds.

• Sir, you Are Being Hunted – $5
  That guy from RPS made this and I keep meaning to play it sometime.

• Superhot – $15
  Sort of a tactical turn based but also real time live action fight choreography simulator. Also the world’s most interesting FPS.

• SOMA – $7.49
  From the Amnesia team, and not even supposed to be a horror game. Scared me so badly I cried (as usual). Recently patched with a no monsters mode, which they may as well have called Brenna Is A Baby Mode.

• Desktop Dungeons – $7.49
  A great short-burst rogue like dungeon crawler with persistent progression. Harder than it used to be, which also means it eats fewer lives.

• Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell – $3.74
  Best winged flight mechanics gaming has ever produced. Pure joy. Less than $4??

• Rainbow Six Siege: Complete Edition – $59.37
  One of the finest examples of ongoing live support for a multiplayer game we’ve ever seen. Seems pricey but includes all the stuff you’d otherwise have to buy as add-ons.

• The Stanley Parable – $7.49
  Plays with games themselves in a way that inspired many later titles. I love The Stanley Parable so much.

• Dishonored: Death of the Outsider Deluxe Bundle – $24
  Probably the best Dishonored game, and definitely the shortest if you’re not sure you can handle umpteen hours of tense stealth assassinations.

• Far Cry Complete Collection – $25
  Contrary to title is not actually anywhere near the complete collection but still contains enough Ubisoft open world nonsense to occupy you for the rest of your natural life.

Well, and then I got tired of scrolling. Go check out the full Humble Store Winter Sale for much, much more.

Humble Store Winter Sale: here’s a random list of cheap games that caught our eye posted first on http://ift.tt/2k0LiGW

Rayark's Intense New Rhythm Game 'Cytus II' Launching January 18th, Pre-Order is Up Now

While a lot of people associate Rayark with their excellent character action game Implosion - Never Lose Hope [$9.99], they're also quite well-known for their library of fantastic rhythm games which thus far include Cytus [$1.99], Deemo [$1.99], and VOEZ [Free]. Now the Taiwanese developer is readying a sequel to Cytus, appropriately titled Cytus II, and it's coming really soon: Next Thursday, January 18th to be exact. Check out some of the characters you'll see as well as some of the furious tracks you'll be playing in Cytus II in the following trailer.

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For reference, we really enjoyed the original Cytus (and Deemo and VOEZ, for that matter) and it looks like the sequel is shaping up to be another great rhythm game experience. As is the cool new thing to do nowadays, you can actually pre-order Cytus II by visiting this link on your iOS 11 device and going through the purchase motions in the App Store. The game's App Store description goes into more detail about the story if you're interested, and also states that Cytus II will have over 50 songs at launch and will cost just $1.99. If you're of the Android persuasion don't worry, Cytus II will be heading to your platform this coming March.

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PUBG has over 3 million players on Xbox One

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is rather popular with the Xbox One crowd.

Since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds released on Xbox One in early-December through the Xbox Game Preview program, it’s pulled in over three million players.

It’s not surprising considering PUBG’s popularity on PC. Just last week the game hit over 3.1 million concurrent players on Steam.

Plus, the Xbox One version sold over one million copies within its first 48 hours of availability.

 

The team at PUBG Corp. has released four updates since the game’s release on Xbox One, and players will continue to see regular updates roll out. This week, an update added first-person support for solo, duo, and squads gameplay

Like its PC counterpart, PUBG will continue to receive enhancements, new content updates such as the Miramar desert map and optimizations on Xbox One. Until then, you can look over what’s currently included with PUBG on Xbox One through our handy guide.

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