This Week At Bungie –11/09/2017

M.E.: Well, one thing we're really happy to see is that Guided Games has enabled a bunch of new players to play the Nightfall and/or Raid for the first time (since Destiny 1).  Our goal with Guided Games for end-game content is about helping players find tight-knit communities to join, but we see and are very aware of the current issues. For example, we know that the lack of reconnections causes all kinds of problems with unintentional oathbreakers, that the lack of audio feedback when a clan is found is causing players to miss the queue, that guides lack proper incentives, that we need a guided games option for Trials of the Nine, etc.

Steve: We have several of our superhero engineers working on really important things, like network stability across the game, but we hope to continue making progress on Guided Games as soon as possible. Here are some short-term fixes we’ll deliver with the release of Curse of Osiris on December 5: 

• We've added an audio cue so that you know when you've found a guide.
  
• Full clans can now guide.
  
• Added reminders that if you reject a clan, you're still at the front of the line, so you can only pick guides with a mission statement that looks appealing.
  
• Guided games will support the new Nightfall and Raid content you’ll find in Curse of Osiris (and you’ll learn more about that next week on our first livestream).
  

M.E.: The original goal was to prevent checkpoint farming (where players would start a game with a pickup group and drop right when they reached the right checkpoints to take to their buddies), but not having checkpoints causes different issues that we're not happy with either.  We're still looking at this.

 

Steve: We also wanted to make sure every player had the same expectation of where you would be starting.  When you go into a guided game, you will always start from the beginning.  We considered breaking up the starting points by checkpoints, but our fear is that if we split up the matchmaking pools on a per-checkpoint basis, we would make queue times even longer. It's always a balancing act when putting new players together to play endgame content. 

M.E.: We can do a waaaaayyyyyy better job in the game to encourage players to communicate, like making more obvious public/team channels and a good time to enter (i.e., NOT when the player gains control when boots are on the ground), or letting players know about chat setting defaults up front when you start the game, or letting you know when someone is trying to whisper you, etc. These are the kinds of things we have on our backlogs, but again, everything is prioritized against all other asks.

M.E.: Yes! No one wants this more than me, and we're trying our best to make it happen as soon as possible.

Steve: I've wanted this forever! Even without an emote wheel there has been amazing content put out by the machinima community. I can't wait to see what y’all create once the wheel is out and it's easier to chain your favorite moves together.

Curse of Osiris: Reset Changes

With the release of Curse of Osiris, Ritual Resets will no longer take place at 1 AM Pacific. Starting December 5, resets will occur at 1700 UTC.

Throughout Destiny 1’s lifespan, players would frequently encounter an issue where weekly resets would not always coincide with content releases. This would prevent impacted players from earning new rewards. Countermeasures were taken by disabling activity playlists, but we were unable to prevent every scenario. Additionally, we’re seeking to align the Milestone resets with event availability, such as Trials of the Nine or Iron Banner, to provide a uniform experience for players to follow each week.

The following is a short list of time zone conversions from 1700 UTC. If you do not see your local time below, we advise using an online time zone converter to prepare for the upcoming change.

• 9 AM PST
  
• 12 PM EST
  
• 5 PM GMT
  
• 9 PM MSK
  
• 2 AM JST
  
• 4 AM AEDT
  
• 6 AM NZDT
  

Stay tuned to help.bungie.net for future Support updates regarding the Curse of Osiris and the start of Season 2, releasing on December 5, 2017.

PC Support:

We are actively investigating general issues and crashes impacting Destiny 2 that have been reported to the PC Support forum. This chatter is helpful and we invite more of it.

Framerate Stutters or Hitches: Hotfix 1.0.6.2 was deployed this week to address issues introduced in Hotfix 1.0.6.1. Some players are reporting continued framerate stutters or hitching. We advise the following troubleshooting steps:

• Ensure you have installed the latest Windows updates
  
• Ensure you have the latest graphics drivers available for your GPU
  
• Attempt running Destiny 2 in true Fullscreen mode
  
• Set clock speeds for hardware, including memory, to manufacturer-recommended defaults
  

General Gameplay Crashes: As we continue to investigate general crash reports during Destiny 2 gameplay, we advise the following troubleshooting steps:

• Ensure you have the latest graphics drivers available for your GPU.
  
• Note: AMD Vega and AMD R9 380 GPU’s have been reported frequently to the #Help forums.
• Set clock speeds for hardware, including memory, to manufacturer-recommended defaults.
  
• Some anti-virus programs may interfere with Destiny 2. Please consider temporarily disabling the program to see if this resolves your issues. If so, please report your findings to the #Help forum.
  
• If you are receiving a “Run a scan and repair” error when crashing, yet seeing no improvements after doing so, attempt installing Destiny 2 to an alternate hard drive if available.
  

Additionally, we are investigating reports of issues encountered when attempting to visit the Third Spire destination during Trials events. Players may circumvent this issue by using in-game vsync settings or the framerate_cap setting in their cvars.xml file to limit framerate to under 100. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp for updates on our investigation.

If you encounter any issues when attempting to play Destiny 2 on PC, please see our Vital Information and Known Issues thread in the #Help forum.