Starting March 28
Bungie’s first livestream detailing the upcoming Destiny event Age of Triumph happened today, and in it the studio showed off its newest record book. It measures in at 13 pages, dwarfing the previous record books. (Rise of Iron‘s record book was only five pages.) Included in that book is a page rewarding players who have been playing throughout Destiny‘s life, a page for completing story missions, a page for running strikes, a page for competitive multiplayer in the Crucible, a page for tackling raids, a page for collecting cosmetic items, a page for pledging allegiance to the various factions, a page for the highest level PvP in Trials of Osiris, and one page for each of the three main classes.
The goal behind the newest record book is to reward individual players depending on what they get out of Destiny. Some people may have never completed a raid, but have spent countless hours exploring the worlds in search of secrets. Some people may count Trials of Osiris as the most important part of the Destiny experience, while others may put more emphasis on owning everything there is to own.
Those who complete a significant portion (but not all, Bungie stressed) of the book will have the opportunity to buy a personalized T-shirt to commemorate the experience, similar to what the studio did with it’s Year Two Moments of Triumph.
The other big news out of today’s stream is that all four of the raids (Vault of Glass, Crota’s End, King’s Fall, and Wrath of the Machine) will be brought up to current light levels. A common complaint throughout Destiny’s life span has been that when new content was brought in, old content was made obsolete and while players could still go back and play the classic stuff, there was no extrinsic benefit to doing so.
Starting at the end of this month with Crota’s End, all four raids will eventually have a 390 light level option, with the ability to drop gear up to level 400. The light level cap will not be raised with Age of Triumph. Each week, a new raid will be featured and by the end of April every raid will have a 390 version. However, the only way to get exclusive new ornaments for the new raid armor pieces will be through the featured raid.
Additionally, new challenge modes will be added to parts of raids that didn’t originally have them. When a raid is the weekly featured raid, all challenge modes for that raid will be active.
Finally, the raid designers hinted that the old raids have been tweaked in subtle ways to improve the experience and to surprise hardened veterans. The example given was that the Oracle encounter in Vault of Glass has been shortened slightly. More substantial changes have been made to Crota’s End (widely regarded as the weakest of the four raids), but no explicit details were given.
Next week Bungie will run a livestream on the daily and weekly activities, which will now include Prison of Elders and the featured raid. The following week Bungie will talk about the next sandbox update, playing with the Crucible meta. The week after that, Age of Triumph releases on March 28, and it will be the last live event for Destiny before Destiny 2 drops this fall.
