Destiny 2 server maintenance is complete, the 1.1.0 update is live, and the Curse of Osiris expansion is now available to play. With all of that comes patch notes, which detail a host of changes to weapons, armor, classes, activities, and even the mobile companion app. Let's have a look!
Arc Titans will notice right off the hop that the advantage they've enjoyed over their fellow heavy-hitters has been dialed back somewhat: Pulse grenade damage has been "slightly" reduced, as has the camera shake effect they inflict on players caught in their blast. The recharge rate of second grenades has also been slowed, so you won't be able to toss them out quite so quickly anymore. The recharge rate of Arcbolt grenades, and also Firebolt, have been "normalized" to match the other grenade types.
On the bright side for players who enjoy chucking around sizzling baseballs of death (and really, who doesn't?), damage inflicted by Flashbang, Magnetic, Suppressor, Incendiary, Fusion, Skip, Flux, Arcbolt, Swarm, Tripmine, Storm, Firebolt, Axion, and Scatter grenades—so pretty much all of them—has been increased.
Hunter leg armor with the Survivalist package now grants Recovery, which will be a real boon for Hunters who don't bounce back from trouble quite as quickly as they'd like. Lucky Pants gets a nice (and needed) buff too, as it will now load a single round into holstered hand cannons whenever the wearer scores a precision hit with any weapon: In other words, get headshots, get bullets. And the grenade recharge rate on the Starfire Protocol chest armor for Warlocks has been adjusted to compensate for the overall reduction in the recharge rate of second grenades.
To the guns: Long-range aim-assist effectiveness of Scout Rifles has been reduced, the Relentless Strikes sword perk no longer returns ammo on heavy attacks, and the rate of fire time between bursts with all Omolon Sidearms has been increased slightly, which should cut back on their effectiveness in PvP combat. (I'm not a sidearm guy but I've been told by a someone who is that the Last Hope and Last Dance Sidearms basically "melted you at close range.")
Across-the-board rewards for Quickplay and Competitive PvP—XP, and Rare and Legendary drops—have been improved, and Strikes will also cough up more Glimmer and XP. Recommended Power ratings for the Leviathan raid, Nightfall strikes, and Guided Games have been adjusted, and for kind of an amusing oddity, a problem that caused Lord Saladin to refer to Guardians by the wrong class has been fixed, because that was just awkward.
Of course, there are some PC-specific changes:
- Players can now exit the game using a controller
- Players can now keybind to the NumPad when NumLock is active
- The scroll wheel now works on gear lore tabs
- Fixed crashing in the New Pacific Arcology area of Titan
- Fixed a source of random crashes
- Fixed an issue that prevented fullscreen mode from working properly in rare situations
- Improved the accuracy of the in game framerate counter under fluctuating framerates on PC
- Fixed an issue where Destiny 2 would crash upon shutdown
- Improved font texture handling to address cases of stuttering or hitching
- Fixed an issue where some SLI configurations would cause framerate stuttering
There aren't any real "holy cow" moments here as far as I can tell—the update is more of a broad-based fix-and-tweak than a revolutionary overhaul. But that's in keeping with what Bungie has said previously about the work of improving the game being a process, which will include another big update in just a week that will usher in the Masterworks system. On the whole (and despite having to give up my Arc Titan edge), I like what I see.
If you haven't checked it out yet, the Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris launch trailer shows off a little bit about the new raid coming in the expansion, and we've got a rundown of all the new Eververse goodies for you curious types. The full Destiny 2 1.1.0 patch notes are available at bungie.net.
