Today at 4am AEST (11am PST) Bungie hosted a Twitch livestream event which revealed a bunch of information regarding UI changes, storage changes and basic functionality changes that are coming with The Taken King (released September 15). The event was hosted by community managers Deej and Cozmo with Subject Matter Experts Mark Noseworthy (Executive Producer) and Tyson Green (Senior Design Lead). The team only went through The Tower. Let’s dive into what they discussed:
New character menu (New Monarchy for life, stuff Dead Orbit)
New character menu, how your level/light level works:
The first area that this team looked at was how the character menu has changed and how some of the systems we already know have changed. For starters, you will notice that there is an additional slot in the character menu. This additional slot is for your ghost shell. Yes, you can now equip different ghost shells. Your ghost shell actually assists you in many varieties but we’ll touch on that later. Take a look at the light level of the character, notice how its’ a massive number in comparison to your current level of 34. That’s because light as a stat is being calculated completely differently now and does not affect your level in any way. Your light level is now an average score of all your attack and defence numbers put together. Here we see an average of 186. Most of the gear equipped by Deej here has an attack or defence value of 190, but his light level is being brought down by his ghost which only gives 170 in defence (yes a ghost will apply a defence value). Light level now determines both your attack and defence. For those of you who are asking, level will now be determined by experience points, meaning that you don’t have to grind out the raid to reach the level cap. You can essentially reach level 40 by grinding out some inefficient loot cave.
For a Warlock, he doesn’t have much intellect
Ability stats are being changed into a tier based system. There will be 5 tiers and each tier will decrease how much time it takes for your abilities to cooldown. As you can see, the character they are using somehow does not have grenades, even though by the looks of it the skill tree is nearly maxed out. So currently we do not know how much a tier will reduce the cooldown by. I’ll update this if we find out by how much it changes.
New quests tab? Hell yeah!! Plus, 32 quests can be held at once?!
Here we get to take a look at the new quests tab. On the right you will see a list of currently purchased bounties. You can’t really see it in that image, but you can now hold up to 16 bounties which is a nice change. Bounties themselves have had an update too. Mark Noseworthy mentioned that there are a whole bunch of new PVE and PVP bounties which is great! I was getting a little tired of doing The Archive mission over and over again. The quests page will show any active quests or story missions that you have in the middle of the screen. As you can see we also get a glimpse of the “Shield Brothers” strike which Bungie will reveal next week on another livestream event (expect to be updated on that). They also hovered over the Stormcaller subclass’ questline which revealed a little more information on that questline. I’ll put that screenshot down the bottom with a few others. You’ll notice that some of the bounties/quests have a green marker on them. That is for tracking with your ghost while you play. To mark a bounty or quest for tracking, use the action button for your respective console (‘X’ or ‘A’). Tracking allows you to pull your ghosts out while you are playing as see how much you’ve progressed with your objective. You also do not need to return to the Tower (or the Reef for that matter) to turn in your bounties. You are now able to turn in your bounties from the quests page. However, you still are required to go to the Tower to collect the bounties.
For those of you who are wanting to create a new character for a new subclass, when you download and start up The Taken King you will have an item called “Spark of Light” waiting for you at the postmaster. This item will instantly boost your character up to the minimum level to start TTK (which is 25). This item is a one time use and is irreversible. You are also able to display any weapon you please in social spaces, meaning you can show off your flashy new (maybe even exclusive) exotics (Hawkmoon, Monte Carlo or Fourth Horseman Xbox people and the Jade Rabbit for PlayStation people).
If I were a car, this would be my spark plug
All these ghosts and I can’t find a boo…
Most vendors now sell ghost shells. The Speaker (like the other vendors) has been updated to become more relevant in the modern Destiny. He now sells blue rare-quality ghost shells for glimmer and the faction vendors (Vanguard, Crucible, Future War Cult, New Monarchy and Dead Orbit) sell purple legendary-quality ghost shells for the new currency item, Legendary Marks. The Speaker also still has the material exchanges for any ascendant or radiant material you may have. The Speaker in general has now been updated to sell things that actually benefit you. One of the class items sold by him speeds up either Scout Rifle upgrades or Machine Gun upgrades, depending on whichever option you chose. These new class items have multiple upgrade/perk selection choices inside of the one item. Some items also give a boost to reputation gained towards a specific faction. The ghost shells that The Speaker sells also have unique perks. Some make it easier to find certain destination materials (for example, Spirit Bloom) by detecting nearby sources and marking them on your HUD. The Speaker also no longer sells emblems.
Oh, shiny
All the emblems, along with shaders and ships (among other things) have been moved to terminals which you can find in and amongst the Tower. They are called collections. They display everything that is obtainable and everything you have collected. For those emblems, ships or shaders that you do not have, hovering over that item will briefly and vaguely explain how to go about obtaining said item.
Now, let’s talk about factions. In The Taken King you are no longer required to wear a faction class item to gain reputation for your respective faction. You need only to pledge your allegiance to your faction for a minimal fee of 2500 glimmer. This action can only be done ONCE A WEEK.
Executor Hideo, execute Deej for his treason
New Monarchy, more like badass!!
Those packages up the top are material and currency exchanges. You can now turn in weapon parts, armour materials, ammo syntheses and more for extra reputation in your respective faction (hopefully New Monarchy). Faction weapons are made by specific foundries. From what we have seen New Monarchy is SUROS and Dead Orbit is Omolon so that leads me to believe that Future War Cult will be Häkke. New armour pieces have new perks. They showed the New Monarchy chest piece which has a perk that increases recovery speed for 5 seconds when damaged by Solar splash damage or increased armour when using a solar-based subclass. These new perks sound awesome and I cannot wait to get my hands on this new gear! For all you faction grinders, faction packages are now guaranteed legendary drops. There will also be Strange Coins and Motes of Light in and amongst those rewards. They have also increased the chances of getting the shaders from packages and once a shader has been added to your collection it is taken out of the stream to prevent duplicates.
You must be wondering “what happens to all my Vanguard and Crucible marks seeing as there is a new currency set to replace these ones?” Well, your current marks will be converted into commendations so you can convert them into major reputation boosts. Legendary Marks will be a singular currency that can be obtained from both Playlist Strikes and the Crucible. They will cap out in your inventory at 200 but there is no limit as to how many you can obtain in a week. Sharding a legendary item will also grant you some legendary marks. They tried to demonstrate this but they seemed to forget that Deej had the max amount of Legendary marks.
Shaxx has bounties?!
Here we get to see Lord Shaxx’s new weekly Crucible bounties. The one highlighted here is the one for completing every weekly bounty Lord Shaxx has to offer. This gives similar drops to the Nightfall. Lord Shaxx also offers Crucible quests.This is more tailored to “people who binge on PVP.” Not being one of them (anymore) I can’t really say for sure how excited I am for this, but it is nice to see some more flavour being introduced into the pot that is currently the Thorncible. According to Noseworthy and Green these weekly bounties are not easy bounties. They will be a challenge, but it is worth it. The Crucible weapons also look very very cool.
My gun has a green Glowho
Exotic weapons and armour:
Only a select few exotic weapons and armour pieces are being upgraded for TTK. No, the Gjallarhorn is NOT one of them (by the looks of it). Now you no longer need to store every exotic you collect. Once you have collected it, you will always be able to access it. Down near all the Vanguard representatives you will see two devices mounted on the wall when leaving the war-room. On the right is the exotic armour blueprints kiosk and on the left is the exotic weapons blueprints kiosk.
Is it touchscreen?
This, much like the shaders and ships collections, will display all the exotics you have obtained in both their year one and year two variants (if applicable). Seeing as there are a lot of new exotics coming with TTK, I would speculate that only a handful of weapons and armour are being upgraded. Don’t fret, this is for the best. Otherwise, why wouldn’t you just wear your Helm of Saint-14 and use your Gjallarhorn for the 10 years that Destiny as a franchise is being planned for. Repurchasing these exotics will cost an exotic shard and 2500 glimmer. Some exotics are also getting changed a bit if they have a year two variant. The SUROS Regime now has a rapid fire or focused fire choice instead of being forced to use focused fire.
Black SUROS made anew
The Cryptarch will now sell you Legendary Engrams for 60-135 Legendary Marks. This is a very very nice change seeing as he’ll be useful for something other than disappointing you with the one legendary engram becoming “The Culling.” We also got to take a look at the new and improved gunsmith who now offers prototype weapons that have bounties essentially built into them. Once you complete these weapons, “Armsday Orders” will become available and will give you a randomly-rolled legendary weapon. The Gunsmith also has is own reputation. They showed an example of an armsday weapon with the SUROS DIS-43. This is a SUROS Scout Rifle which looks very very cool. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. They also discussed the new upgrading systems called “infusion.” For the price of glimmer, weapon parts, a mote of light, legendary marks and a higher damage weapon that you don’t necessarily want to use you can upgrade the damage of your desired weapon. This appears to be a gradual process as the weapon displayed went from 280 attack to 288.
That’s a lot of vault space. Also, is that a legendary Stranger’s Rifle?
That’s right. More vault space! They have doubled weapon vault space, a little more than doubled armour vault space. Both weapons and armour vaults have a whopping 72 slots now. That’s fantastic! The general vault space is still 36 slots, but now with ships, shaders and emblem collections being introduced we will see that minimal space restraint being alleviated. Lastly, they showed off some of the new dances which look really goofy and awesome!
That’s all there is today. Are you as excited about these changes as I am? Let us know in the comments below. In the meantime…
Guardians out!
