Bungie has announced a few notable ways Destiny: The Taken King will differ from the original game in the publisher's weekly update published Thursday.
More specifically, Bungie has updated Nightfall quite a bit, now requiring Level 40, instituting a 30-second time-out penalty for Death and Fireteams no longer return to Orbit with Wiping.
Luke Smith, the creative director of The Taken King provided this rationale for the changes in the weekly update:
"Another thing we didn't like about the Year 1 Nightfall was how players could feel forced to play Nightfall as early as possible in the week to maximize the benefit from the Nightfall buff. So, we've shelved that buff until we can reform it into something closer to its original intent - a mark of prestige for having achieved something challenging. We've adjusted sources of XP and Reputation up to account for its absence."
Smith also said that the death penalty of being thrown into orbit often made players feel like they had to play more conservatively. The new 30-second time-out penalty should now enable them to run "through the world as a monster killing machine," as they should be playing the game, according to Smith.
This fall, Bungie will also remove Weekly Heroic Strikes and replace them with the Vanguard Heroic Playlist. Through this, players will receive bonus Legendary Marks, which will be received each week at the Account level rather than the character level, like Year One Weekly Heroic Rewards were.
"We made this change to enable players to focus on a single character more, or feel less pressure to gear three characters at once for Legendary Marks," Smith wrote.
This will also require Level 40, and players will earn a Legendary Engram drop when a character clears a Weekly Heroic Strike for the first time. The Weekly Cap on the number of Legendary Marks that can be earned has also been removed.
Finally, Bungie has also revamped the PvP experience, making it a weekly ritual PvP experience. Players can access the Weekly PvP quests on Lord Shaxx and the PvP Quartermaster when they finish the PvP Intro Chain on Lord Shaxx. Players can also unlock Nightfall tier rewards by completing Lord Shaxx's weekly Bounty called "The True Meaning of War."
Bungie has also increased the rewards of Daily Heroic and Daily PvP and made them an account completion. This is in an effort to allow players to have more choice in which characters they want to play and earn Legendary Marks on, according to Smith.
Destiny: The Taken King will be available for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on Sept. 15.
Via: IGN
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