Destiny 2 Update 1.2.3 Adds Tons of Quality of Life Improvements, Bounties, Prestige Raid Lairs, and Crucible Changes

The final major update before Destiny 2: Forsaken launches is finally here and it brings a long list of requested changes and features free for all players. As the headliner, this update prepares for the Solstice of Heroes and Moments of Triumph event that will go live on July 31. Some of the Triumphs are live now, with more to be revealed in a couple of weeks. Destiny 2 update 1.2.3 also adds bounties into game (which Bungie promises some surprises for), and new Exotic Weapon Masterwork Catalysts to grind for.

Update 1.2.3 brings the long-awaited 6v6 Crucible Quickplay playlist, returning the Crucible to its Destiny 1 counterpart. There are also some major changes to how Crucible ranking works, now less punishing for players. Another highlight sees some Exotic armor pieces getting major overhauls to be more exotic. You can read the full Destiny 2 Update 1.2.3 patch notes below.

Destiny 2 Update 1.2.3 Patch Notes

Solstice of Heroes

Moments of Triumph

• Moments of Triumph bounties will become available in-game for the Solstice of Heroes event starting July 31, 2018.
  • Players may access a set number of Triumphs on Bungie.net prior to the event beginning.
  • Players can complete Triumphs to earn points that they can trade for rewards such as emblems, a Sparrow, and a code to purchase a special T-shirt.
• When the summer event becomes available on July 31, 2018, players can receive these Triumph bounties from the special summer event vendor and will have the entirety of the event to complete them.
• Triumphs are based on account-specific data; once a Triumph has been claimed and redeemed for points, it cannot be claimed for points on another character.
• All Triumphs can be tracked via bungie.net; the highest values of a character on that account will be displayed.
• In-game rewards will become available on July 31, 2018. Stay tuned to @Bungie for announcements of availability.

NOTE: All information concerning Solstice of Heroes: Moments of Triumph may be found at help.Bungie.net.

 

Investment

Bounties

• 5 Crucible bounties a day will now be available from Shaxx.
• 5 Vanguard bounties a day will now be available from Zavala.
• These bounties rotate on a daily cadence.
• Bounties can expire after you obtain them. Expiration of individual bounties is shown in the tooltip.

Exotic Masterworks

• Catalysts for Legend of Acrius, Telesto, and Sleeper Simulant are now available as rewards from Prestige “Leviathan,” Prestige “Leviathan, Eater of Worlds,” and Prestige “Leviathan, Spire of Stars,” respectively.
• Exotic catalysts from Heroic strikes now have slightly higher drop chances.
• The Skyburner’s Oath Exotic catalyst from the “Leviathan” raid now has slightly higher drop chances.
• The catalyst for Sturm can now be found by defeating enemies on Nessus.

Miscellaneous Quality-of-Life Changes

• Adjusted Escalation Protocol weapon reward chances to be more deterministic.
  • Players improve their chances each time they defeat the boss.
• Once all Mercury Forge weapons have been obtained, they become available for direct purchase from Brother Vance in the Lighthouse (second vendor page).
• Momentum has been removed from Heroic adventures.
• The “Pursuits” inventory bucket has been moved to the top of Inventory categories.
• Fixed an issue where unequippable emotes could be selected.
• Fixed an issue where no sound would play on increasing and decreasing the handicap on Challenge Cards.
• Commas have been added to large numbers as separators on the IGCR and PGCR.
• Fixed an issue which prevented the Season 3 Dead Orbit Gauntlet Ornament from receiving progress from Arcstriders using the Way of the Warrior subclass tree.
• Armor may now be purchased from Iron Banner and Faction Rallies vendors.

Strikes

Strike Modifiers

• Blackout: Now increases enemy melee damage significantly but is no longer a guaranteed one-shot kill for all players.
• Glass: Slightly reduced the health and shield penalty.
• Grounded: Significantly reduced incoming damage when you are airborne, to account for odd geometry that Guardians may not have any control over.

Developer Insight: The goal is to ensure these modifiers are noticeable, but when Guardians advance their Power and stats, they can notice themselves overcoming the debuffs.

Nightfall

• The Nightfall tutorial experience for new players has been updated to no longer call out pre-1.1.3 Nightfall mechanics.

Destinations

Mars

• Fixed an issue that was preventing some players from accessing Mars adventures.
• Fixed an issue that caused some open world chests on Mars to not drop Glimmer or Mars tokens.
• Fixed an issue which prevented prophecy materials for Brother Vance from dropping from chests found on Mars.

Sandbox

Exotic Armor Updates

• Hunter
  • Lucky Raspberry
    • Increased the chance to fully recharge Arcbolt Grenade on Arcbolt Grenade hits.
    • Now guarantees a full recharge when Arcbolt Grenade hits four targets.
  • St0mp-EE5
    • Increased benefits when using Strafe Jump and Triple Jump.
  • Young Ahamkara’s Spine
    • Now also improves Tripmine Grenade’s blast radius and throw speed, and makes your Tripmine Grenades harder to destroy.
    • Solar ability hits now grant some Tripmine Grenade energy (33%).
    • Added new FX treatment to the improved Tripmine Grenades to differentiate them from normal Tripmine Grenades.
    • Removed target-marking functionality.

• Titan
  • ACD/0 Feedback Fence
    • Now grants Fury Conductor stacks on melee hits instead of kills.
    • Now reduces melee damage received while you have stacks of Fury Conductor.
    • More stacks of Fury Conductor further reduce melee damage received.
  • Doom Fang Pauldrons
    • Void melee kills now grant more Super energy.
    • Shield Throw hits now grant Super energy.
  • Dunemarchers
    • Reduced the time to activate Linear Actuators while you’re sprinting to 1.5 seconds (down from 5 seconds).
    • Increased the damage of the chain lightning effect (+70% in PvP, 440% in PvE).

• Warlock
  • Crown of Tempests
    • Collapsed the total number of stacks of Conduction Tines to 3 (with the same total effect).
    • Conduction Tines now also reduces the speed that Super energy depletes while Stormtrance is active.
  • Karnstein Armlets
    • Melee kills now instantly heal you, then grant continuous healing for 8 seconds.
    • Removed bonus resilience, mobility, and enemy highlights on melee kills.
  • Starfire Protocol
    • Empowered weapon damage hits now grant some Fusion Grenade energy (20%).

Armor

• Plasteel Reinforcement Mod now includes “Trait” in its tooltip, to have conformity with Restorative and Mobility Enhancement Mods.
• Corrected stowed Hand Cannon position on the Haakon’s Iron Strides ornament.
• Dragon’s Shadow now has an audio cue when it reloads your weapons.
• Updated tooltip presentation of some Warmind Exotic armor item intrinsic perks.
• Updated the perk description for Sanguine Alchemy to better reflect its functionality.
• Fixed an issue that was causing targets marked by Sanguine Alchemy to produce orbs when defeated.
• Fixed an issue that caused Wraithmetal Mail’s active perk to appear in the UI without an icon.
• Fixed an issue that caused Starfire Protocol not to work with the Dawnblade Attunement of Sky ability path.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Warlock melee attack damage when players were using the Ophidian Aspect Exotic and Hive Swords or orb carry objects.

Abilities

• Fixed an issue for high framerates on PC that caused players to suddenly lose momentum after activating Supers and aerial dodge abilities.

Exotic Weapons

• Increased the number of rounds granted to Crimson on respawn.

Weapons

• Fixed an issue that allowed empty swords to drop heavy ammo bricks on death in the Crucible.
• Fixed the Rapid-Fire Frame intrinsic perk on Basilisk (Dead Orbit Shotgun).
• Fixed an issue that impacted the recoil of West of Sunfall 7 and the Trials of the Nine Hand Cannon, A Cold Sweat.
• Fixed an issue causing the Iron Banner Hand Cannon, Finite Impactor, to not properly track Masterwork statistics.

Raid

Prestige Raid Lairs

• Each week, there is a curated weapon suite and a global activity modifier for Spire of Stars and Eater of Worlds Prestige. The weapon set and modifier will be the same across both activities.
  • Prestige Eater of Worlds will become available at 11 a.m. PDT on July 17, 2018.
  • Prestige Spire of Stars will become available at 10 a.m. PDT on July 18, 2018.
• Prestige raid lairs will drop weapons at 400 Power and Exotic catalysts.
• Raid armor ornaments will become unlockable.

NOTE: More details concerning the Prestige Raid Lairs can be found at: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46981

Misc

• Fixed an issue which prevented Hunters from receiving some loot chest rewards in the Spire of Stars raid lair.

PC

Clan Chat

• Adds a new in-game text chat channel that allows online Destiny 2 clan members to communicate (in real time). This chat channel is separate from the companion clan chat channel.

 

Director Map PC (Mouse) User Experience

• Scrolling area reduced to the edges of the game window.
• Cursor is now restricted to game window when a map is active (mouse capture).
• Edge scrolling now freezes when game window loses focus.

Misc

• Fixed an issue which caused bluetooth headphones to not play sound properly on some PC configurations. For more info, please see the Vital Information section of our Destiny Audio Guide.

Crucible

Iron Banner Updates

• The Iron Banner game mode now uses Iron Temple fire pits as capture zones instead of standard Control flags.
• Added new Power Play rules unique to Iron Banner:
  • Upon capturing a third zone, all three zones lock for 20 seconds.
  • After 20 seconds, all three zones reset to neutral and must be recaptured.
• Added new audio for fire pits and Power Play alerts.
• Updated score and time limits to match standard Control now that Quickplay is also 6v6.

Private Match Bug Fixes

• Private Match is no longer available to trial users.

Crucible Lab Update

• Added “BETA” to the activity tooltip.
• Added support for more Labs in the future.
• Added end-of-match rewards.

Crucible Playlist Update

• Quickplay
  • Increased player configuration to 6v6 and updated playlist description.
  • Removed Supremacy.
  • Updated Clash win score to 100.
  • Updated Control win score to 150.
  • Control Zones are initially neutral.
• Competitive
  • Updated playlist description.
  • Countdown: Bomb Fuse timer lowered from 40 seconds to 35 seconds.
• Rumble is now available full-time.
• Supremacy is now a rotating 6v6 playlist with a score to win of 150.

Crucible Ranks Update

• Players can now earn Valor Rank from the following playlists:
  • Competitive
  • Crucible Labs
  • Iron Banner
• Joining a game in progress now protects your Valor Win Streak for that game.
  • If you lose: No penalties incurred to your Valor Win Streak.
  • If you win: Valor Win Streak increases.
• Players will now be matched using their Glory Rank.
  • This means your opponents will be of similar rank to you.
  • The higher you climb, the tougher the opponent!
• Glory Loss Streaks have been re-tuned to be less punishing over time.
  • Consecutive losses now decrease the Rank Points lost instead of increasing.
  • Streaks still cap out at five.
• All Rank Streaks no longer reset once they hit their cap.
• Fixed a bug where Rank Up toasts were not firing once a player hit orbit.
• Fixed a bug where players who logged into a character for the first time after a weekly reset would incur the Glory Rank weekly award/penalty.
• Fixed a bug where players were incorrectly hearing the rank points increase/decrease sounds where there was no rank attached to the activity.

Audio

• Miscellaneous adjustments to increase the readability of enemy audio cues across all modes.

Eververse

Summer Event Engram

• For the duration of Solstice of Heroes, players will earn a bonus Solstice Engram with each Prototype Engram earned through Prestige level-up.
• When decrypting Solstice Engrams, players will receive new items until they’ve unlocked all items in the box. Once all items have been acquired, additional Solstice Engrams will award duplicate items. Players may track what items they’ve earned from the Solstice Engram through the engram’s preview.
• New item type: armor glows. Players who earn the Solstice of Heroes armor sets may use armor glows obtained from Eververse or the Solstice Engram.
  • Armor glows illuminate portions of the Solstice of Heroes armor and shine brightest when the element of the armor glow and the Guardian’s subclass align.
  • Once obtained, armor glows may be used and re-used on any Solstice of Heroes armor piece, regardless of class.
• During Solstice of Heroes, players may purchase event-exclusive items from Eververse for Bright Dust.

Prismatic Matrix

• The Prismatic Matrix has been temporarily removed. It will return in Season 4.
• Prismatic facets have been deprecated. Dismantling deprecated Prismatic facets will grant Bright Dust.

Other

HDR Calibration

• Adds a calibration screen for HDR on all platforms. It can be accessed through the Brightness video setting when HDR is turned on.

GDPR Compliance

• Updated LSLA screen in bootflow, including link to GDPR resources.

Item Preview Updates

• Players can preview spawn effects and Sparrow contrails in their inventory.

If you missed it, Nathan Fillion confirmed yesterday that he will not be voicing Cayde-6 in the Forsaken expansion, which is the last time we’re likely to see the plucky Exo Hunter. Still can’t get enough Destiny 2 ahead of Forsaken? We got our hands on Gambit, the new PvP/PvE hybrid mode, at E3, and our preview will just make the wait even harder. We also discussed why Uldren is the best villain that Destiny has had so far.

What do you think of Destiny 2 Update 1.2.3? Which changes are your favorite? Will you be attempting to tackle the Prestige Raid Lairs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

[Source: Bungie]