Destiny 2 Guardian Games Launches With Fresh Update Full of Fixes

Today marked the beginning of the Destiny 2 Guardian Games, an oddly cheerful competition between Guardian classes even as impending doom bears down on Destiny in-game world. (I’d say that’s unrealistic, but there’s recent evidence to the contrary.) The Games themselves are a huge seasonal event lasting three weeks, ending at reset on May 12. Players can earn points for their respective classes by completing medals for Eva Levante, and the daily standings will be updated on the Tower Podium and special Class Items that change their metallic appearance based on which position each class is in. There’s also the new Exotic Heavy Machine Gun, Heir Apparent, to earn.

Along with the launch of Guardian games, the Destiny 2 Update 2.8.1 patch was released which included a number of fixes to broken items and other issues that have been plaguing the game. Additional emblem trackers were added back in after the Season of the Worthy update removed many of people’s favorites. Quite a few Exotic items were tweaked and fixed to work as intended. And four new Pinnacle gear sources were added to ease the strain and randomness of reaching the game’s peak Power cap.

Check out the full patch notes below:

Destiny 2 Update 2.8.1 Patch Notes

COMBAT

Fixed an issue in which Ward of Dawn was not generating Orbs of Light .
Fixed an issue in which Ward of Dawn could not be activated while holding a Sword.
Fixed an issue in which casting Nova Bomb did not consume your melee ability (Attunement of Hunger).

EMBLEMS AND TRACKERS

The “Playin’ the Odds” emblem earned through the Gambit intro quest is now always claimable from Collections.
Players who have completed the Mjolnir mission, but did not correctly receive the Exotic Trace Rifle Divinity, will now have it unlocked and available to reacquire in their Collections.
Players who have completed the Forsaken campaign will find The Lawless Frontier lore book entry “By Thy Tongue Be Damned” completed and available to claim.
Emblem metrics added for emblem stat trackers that were present before 2.8.0, and display the same data as before.
- Trackers added:
  - - Season 8 Season Pass Rank Earned
    - Season 9 Season Pass Rank Earned
    - Fractaline Donated
    - Kills as a Sentinel Titan
    - Kills as a Striker Titan
    - Kills as a Sunbreaker Titan
    - Kills as a Flowwalker Hunter
    - Kills as a Nightstalker Hunter
    - Kills as a Gunslinger Hunter
    - Kills as a Stormcaller Warlock
    - Kills as a Dawnblade Warlock
    - Kills as a Voidwalker Warlock
    - Gold Medals Earned
    - Longest Glory Win Streak
    - Total Valor Resets
    - Pit of Heresy Solo Flawless Completions
    - Kills of Final Bosses in Hive Escalation
    - Completed Nightmare Hunts on Master Difficulty
    - Medal Tracker – 7th Column
    - Medal Tracker – Annihilation
    - Medal Tracker – We Ran out of Medals
    - Medal Tracker – Ghost in the Night
    - Medal Tracker – This Crown is Mine
    - Medal Tracker – I Made This for You
    - Medal Tracker – Undefeated
    - Wins in Trials of the Nine
    - Flawless Tickets in Trials of the Nine
    - Kills in Crimson Doubles
    - Defeated Opponents When Under Effects of Iron Burden
    - Black Armory Forge Completions
    - Kills of Haunted Forest Terrors
    - Deepest Branch of Haunted Forest Cleared
    - Recipes Baked
    - Completed Branches of Verdant Forest
    - Number of Revelric Light Triggers During the Revelry
    - Completed Tier 3 Encounters During the Reckoning
    - Completions of Menagerie
    - Completions of Heroic Menagerie
    - Candy Collected

REWARDS

ARMOR

The Titan’s Phoenix Cradle Exotic leg armor now correctly creates sunspots that have an extended duration and apply their benefits to allies when the Titan wearing the armor gets a weapon kill while standing in a sunspot.
Fixed an issue where the Warlock’s Felwinter’s Helm Exotic would incorrectly trigger after swapping the item off and on again.
Fixed an issue where some faction armors were not correctly allowing players to apply Faction Rally ornaments to them.
Seasonal mod sockets have been added to all armors available from world drops. See this article for more details.
Players who met the requirements, but were missing Prestige ornaments for the Eater of Worlds raid lair, will now have them unlocked and available for use.
New players can still obtain Prestige ornaments from completing the Prestige (Heroic) Eater of Worlds raid lair along with the appropriate Leviathan boss challenges.
Fixed an issue that could prevent Eater of Worlds Prestige ornaments from appearing in the ornament slot on appropriate raid gear.
The Titan’s Aeon Safe Exotic gauntlets now lists the same melee trigger requirement on both its Tooltip and Details screens.
The Mantle of Remembrance ornament for Hunters’ Exotic gauntlets Shinobu’s Vow will now properly replace the item icon to reflect the change in appearance.
The Diadem of Deceit Exotic ornament is now usable on the Year 1 version of the Warlock Exotic helm Crown of Tempests.
The Nano Redux Exotic ornament is now usable on the Year 1 version of the Hunter Exotic chest armor Raiden Flux.
The Huskcrushers Exotic ornament is now usable on the Year 1 version of the Titan Exotic leg armor Dunemarchers.
The chest armor mod Large Arm Reserves now properly provides increased ammo reserves for Shotguns.

ECONOMY

Nightfall: The Ordeal Grandmaster difficulty now grants Season 10 Season Pass Exotic weapon catalyst quest progression.
Crimson Day Sparrows now have the correct event watermark (was The Dawning).
Duplicate individual emotes purchased separately from a bundle can now be opened.
Universal ornaments being sold for Bright Dust in the Eververse store now properly display the text “Already Purchased on Account” when owned.
Fixed an issue that caused the Warlock Season Pass universal chest ornament to erroneously cause an unreleased event’s universal ornament to also display as unlocked.
Trials of Osiris Ghost Shell will now drop with Crucible-related perks.

POWER AND PROGRESSION

Four weekly Powerful gear sources upgraded to Pinnacle (+1): Crucible, Strike, and Gambit challenges, and the weekly clan engram.
Fixed an issue where the Trials vendor engram was not previewing rewards at the correct power level.

WEAPONS

Fixed an issue with The Fourth Horseman where its Broadside perk would fail to replicate its effects over the network.
Fixed an issue with Breech Loaded (Special ammo) Grenade Launchers that resulted in them having a significantly reduced blast radius.

WORLD SYSTEMS

Completing Warden of Nothing now counts for a Fallen boss kill for the weekly Strike bounty: Serve the Servitors.
Fixed an issue causing Warden of Nothing to give double Champion Rewards.
For the Wish-Ender Exotic quest, any players who were missing Uncharged Tokens after turning in their Awoken Talisman and then completing the “???” secret mission, will now find them in their Pursuits.
- - If a player’s Pursuits are full, they will find the Uncharged Tokens added once they’ve cleared some space and then returned to orbit or re-logged into Destiny 2.
Dreaming City world chests are awarding Glimmer again.
Fixed an issue where players could get blocked from obtaining the Essence from the Bad Juju mission The Other Side, preventing completion of the Bad Juju Exotic quest Spellbound.
- - A player could get into a bad state if, before being on the quest themselves, they joined another player on the appropriate quest step, completed The Other Side mission, obtained the Essence, and then bound it to obtain Bad Juju.
  - Players in this bad state, who have obtained Bad Juju and completed The Other Side mission, but have not completed the Spellbound Exotic quest, will now be able to Bind Essence at the altar to complete it.
Fixed an issue causing a crash when players attempted to turn in their Awoken Talisman to the statue of Sjur Eido in the Shattered Throne dungeon.

UI

Made a change so that completed bounties now sort to the top of the bounty bucket, grouping them together.
Friends listed in a player’s roster should no longer show up as black nameplates with zero Power.

GENERAL

Fixed an issue where the Champion Servitor’s invulnerability beams were not appearing during Seraph Tower events.
Fixed a string identifying for the four Seraph weapons to include the word “Source:” so players know where to obtain the weapons.
Fixed an issue where the Rasputin bounty, The Lost Classics was not counting Classic Mix matches.
Added the activity rejoin functionality in the Trials playlist.
Fixed an issue where fully upgrading a destination bunker sometimes doesn’t unlock the Warmind Security Triumph.
The “Seasonal Triumphs Complete” field now increments when Triumphs are completed.
Added Vex barriers to the Grove of Ulan-Tan Legendary Lost Sector.
Fixed an issue in the Seraph Towers public event where Ana’s dialog would still call out towers being overwhelmed when the towers are down and Champions are present in the final phase.
Fixed an issue with the Heavy Frame spawning away from its platform in The Quarry and Scavenger’s Den Legendary Lost Sectors on EDZ.
Fixed an issue affecting the difficulty scaling of several activities including Whisper of the Worm and Zero Hour missions.

Now that Guardian Games is here, we’re flying blind as to what’s coming later in the Season. With it looking increasingly likely that Bungie might wipe out the Titan patrol location altogether, the Season of the Worthy roadmap doesn’t really give us any clues as to what’s incoming next. No matter what happens, Bungie hinted last summer that the conclusion of this year’s seasons would be a massive event that fans won’t want to miss, so there’s no better time to get back into Destiny 2.

[Source: Bungie]