Players have had the better part of two months to dig their claws into the Destiny engines and really familiarize themselves with its epic new world. Now Bungie looks to change all that in one fell swoop.
According to their official support page, the upcoming DLC entitled The Dark Below will utterly flip the Destiny experience on its ear. Earlier in the week, the Destiny Dev Team posted the following rundown of all that comes in the upcoming expansion, which includes the following:
- New Legendary Gear
- Existing Legendary gear on display in the Tower will be replaced
- New Legendary gear will feature higher Attack and Defense values
- Legendary items will still require Ascendant Materials for upgrades
- This new, more powerful gear will be available to all players of Destiny
- Legendary gear will not be as powerful as new Raid gear or Exotic
- New Rank Commendations
- In addition to Crucible or Vanguard Marks, purchasing new Legendary items will require a Crucible or Vanguard Commendation
- Commendations are received in Reputation Reward Packages delivered by the Postmaster upon reaching a new Reputation Level
- Exotic Talent Changes
- As part of the December 1st Destiny Update, Exotic Armor and Weapons no longer require Ascendant Materials for upgrades
- The final power node of all Exotic Gear will require an Exotic Shard
- This new material is obtained by one of the following means:
- Dismantling unwanted Exotics
- Purchased from Xûr for 7 Strange Coins
- New Exotic Upgrading
- Exotic Gear in The Dark Below will have higher Attack and Defense values than current Exotic Gear. For players and their current caches of Exotics, a path will exist to bring them forward into The Dark Below.
- Starting December 9th, Xûr will offer players the opportunity to upgrade Exotics to the higher Attack and Defense values
- Upgrading an Exotic in this way will require an Exotic Shard
- The upgrade will reset the progression invested into the item
- Each week, Xûr will possess a selection of upgrades for existing Exotics in his inventory
- Crucible (PvP) Changes
- Expansion I will include two new exclusive competitive playlists
- New Crucible arenas (Pantheon, Skyshock, and The Cauldron) will be featured in map rotation
- Playlists available in the Director will change week over week
- Experiences will alternate between 12 and 6 player engagements
- Map rotation will alternate between focusing solely on new expansion arenas and including original launch maps in the mix
- Heroics and Nightfall (PvE) Changes
- With the Light level increase to 32, Heroics and Nightfalls will be increased by 2 Light levels to keep up with new content, level increases, and gear items
- New Raid: Crota’s End
- The new Raid, Crota’s End, will unlock on December 9th
- Players at Light level 30 can lead a Fireteam immediately upon release
- The reward system in Crota’s End will address some issues reported in the Vault of Glass:
- Raid loot in Crota’s End will drop at a higher rate
- New Raid gear will contain a wider variety of potential perks
- Weapons and Gear from Crota’s End will not require Ascendant materials for upgrades
- Radiant Shards and Radiant Energy acquired in the Raid will be used to upgrade new Raid gear
- Unwanted weapons and gear from Crota’s End will dismantle into Radiant materials
- Primary weapons will only drop in the harder version of Crota’s End, released sometime in January