It's been a gala week for Bungie announcing major quality-of-life improvements coming to Destiny 2. Only yesterday we got a massive breakdown of the overhaul to buildcrafting that is arriving with the Lightfall expansion on February 28, and today we learn that one of the biggest annoyances in the game is being dealt with: Blue Engrams.
These are rare quality loot drops which, in practice, are anything but rare. In fact, once you've hit the soft power cap for a season, the blues provide no effective purpose and simply serve to clog up your character's inventory and postbox as they rain down like it's monsoon season for underpowered shotguns.
Bungie had already removed blue gear as loot drops from some activities in a previous update, but is now going a step further. In this week's This Week at Bungie post it writes: "Starting with next week’s patch, after you reach the soft gear cap, blue engrams will stop dropping in the world (whenever that would have happened), and the equivalent amount of additional Glimmer baubles will spray out instead.
"We’re also adjusting all other Gunsmith reputation gains by +25% to compensate for removing Gunsmith reputation from dismantling blue gear. We may not have caught every single blue engram in the game, but a vast majority should behave this way."
It's a blessed relief if, like me, your characters are stacked with gear like struggling seaside donkeys at all times. The good news doesn't end there. The studio is also addressing the slow XP grind required to upgrade the exotic catalysts of weapons which were part of previous seasonal reward tracks. Without going into all the details, the upshot was that if you didn't level up the gun in the same season as it was originally acquired, it became a huge ballache to do so down the line.
Here's the fix: "The catalyst quests for the Year-3 Season Pass Exotics (Eriana’s Vow, Symmetry, Tommy’s Matchbook, and Witherhoard) will now benefit from the Season Pass boosts like other Exotic catalyst quests. Additionally, any Seasonal ritual playlist activity will count toward ritual progress for all Season Pass Exotic catalyst quests." As an inveterate addict who always gets this sort of stuff done in a timely fashion, this isn't for me, but I'm happy for those of you suffering with an Eriana's Vow or Witherhoard that doesn't reload itself automatically. Thoughts and prayers.
There are a few other neat changes in the post, like improved crafting requirements for exotic glaives (although these remain so bad that you may as well not bother) and the return of Rumble to Crucible as a permanent mode. The main other piece of news that stands out is the date for Lightfall's raid launch. "We’re doin’ it live on March 10, 2023, at 9 AM PST, which is the second Friday in March." I don't think my obscenely creaky body has another Day One attempt in me, but then I also said that last time, soooooo…
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