Destiny Patch Fixes Rise of Iron Engrams & Improves Raid Rewards
By Anthony Taormina 06 November 2016
Today’s Destiny patch made some important ‘quality of life’ improvements, according to Bungie, including a boost to raid rewards and an important fix for engrams.
It’s been almost two months since the launch of Destiny: Rise of Iron, which means two months to try to hit the new light level cap, two months to experience the Wrath of the Machine raid, and two months to try to go flawless in Trials of Osiris. It also means two months for Bungie to feel out its player base and discover ways they can improve the Destiny experience moving forward.
Today, Bungie released a new Destiny patch that the developer claims will improve the “quality of life” of its popular multiplayer shooter. More specifically, Bungie is improving the behaviors of engrams in-game, to ensure that Destiny players see new gear more often.
While not the only major change, the biggest one in today’s Destiny patch makes it so Rise of Iron Vanguard and Crucible weapons will decrypt from engrams. Most players may not have noticed, but pre-patch engrams were only decrypting into Year 2 weapons, not any of the new Rise of Iron gear. Hopefully this means we wont see any more Choleric Dragon rocket launchers or Diluvian 10/4X heavy machine guns.
Alongside the engram “fix,” Bungie has also removed the Silver Dust requirement from Iron Lord, Trials of Osiris, and Perfected Ornaments. The Silver Dust requirement was becoming quite the contentious issue as of late; with many feeling it pushed players towards Destiny’s microtransactions. That being said, weapon ornaments will still require Silver Dust and Xur will still sell them in exchange for Silver Dust.
Raids have also been made more rewarding for those players who want to complete the endgame activity multiple times per week. Now, a raid boss will drop three SIVA Key Fragments after the first kill on Normal difficulty, and three SIVA Key Fragments for the first kill on Heroic Difficulty for a total of 6 Fragments. After the first kill, players will earn one less per difficulty (i.e. 4 for the second kill, 2 for the third, and 0 for the fourth).
Read the full patch notes below:
- Fixed an issue where The Taken Archon Priest in the Winter’s Run Strike was not dropping Skeleton Keys at the intended rate
- Fixed an issue where players were able to access the rooftops on Skyline
- Fixed an issue where Rise of Iron Vanguard and Crucible weapons were not decrypting from Engrams
- Fixed an issue where Comitatus was continuing to not drop properly from Faction Packages for players who own Kondratyuk’s Escape
- Fixed an issue where Armor decrypted from Dusty Iron Engrams was dismantling into Legendary Marks
- It will now dismantle into 1 Silver Dust
- Removed Silver Dust cost to apply Iron Lord, Trials of Osiris, and Heroic Mode Raid Armor Ornaments
- Players will now earn SIVA Key Fragments at an overall increased rate
- The first time a Raid boss is killed on Normal difficulty they will drop three SIVA Key Fragments. For the next kill that week, they will drop two, and then one for the third kill that week
- After the fourth or greater kill, the boss will no longer drop SIVA Key Fragments for the week
- The same behavior will occur for killing Heroic bosses
While most of these changes will go a long way towards improving the quality of life of Destiny’s rewards systems, most would argue that there are still plenty of areas that need attention. Weapon balance will always be a constant struggle for Destiny and right now shotguns are arguably too dominant thanks to the return of Matador 64. Additionally, there are some subclass changes that most PvP players would like to see made, most notably a nerf to the Juggernaut ability on Titans and the Stormcaller melee range.
Even on the rewards side there are some changes that Bungie could make, like an improvement to Skeleton Key drop rates. Luckily, problems with rewards haven’t stood out so much, thanks to the smart loot system. Even if players aren’t getting the items they want, at the very least they are consistently getting rewards, and that’s a major improvement compared to Destiny in the earlier years. Still, the hope is that this is just the beginning for quality of life changes in Year 3.
Destiny: Rise of Iron is out now for PS4 and Xbox One.
