‘Destiny’ 2.0 Brings Crucible Preview Event, Positive Changes To PVP

Crucible PVP players have much to look forward to with the Destiny 2.0 update for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. In addition to the many weapon changes that re-balances the entire lineup of guns, Bungie detailed new map rotations are being added, the Mercy rule is now in effect, some gametypes are tweaked, and the Crucible Preview Event is here.

The Bungie patch notes for Destiny 2.0 are too massive to cover in a single article. For details on the other changes, please see the Character and Class changes, Weapon changes, Strike changes, or click through to Bungie’s website for the entire patch notes.

Read all about Update 2.0.0 in the Patch Notes. Welcome to Destiny Year Two, Guardians. https://t.co/0chhS5AIUg pic.twitter.com/oHzB54SIgb

— Bungie (@Bungie) September 8, 2015

The Crucible Preview Event is now live in Destiny and gives all players the opportunity to try the new Rift and Mayhem game types prior to the release of The Taken King on the all the new maps. Rift is available now through the launch of the expansion while Mayhem will go live on Friday, September 11. The regular Crucible daily events will not be available during the preview.

On happy notes, the Legendary loot drop rates have been increased while the Mercy rule is also now in effect, which has previously been covered by Inquisitr. Xbox players will also finally get the The Time Keeper and Exodus Blue maps that were previously PlayStation exclusives. Meanwhile, all players will receive the Widow’s Court, Black Shield, and Thieves’ Den maps that were only available to those that purchased House of Wolves.

The Salvage game mode has been moved to the core Destiny playlist and its score limit reduced to 7500. Bungie saw the time limit being hit in this mode too frequently so they felt this was the best correction.

There’s honestly not much in the way of potential negatives with the Crucible changes in the Destiny 2.0 update. The closest fans can see is the addition of the Bastion, First Light, and Skyshock maps to the Control playlist. These were vehicle-based Combined Arms maps before, so their size in pure Control is a concern.

You can check out the complete list of Crucible changes in the Destiny 2.0 update below. Which ones do you like or dislike? Sound off in the comments.

Crucible

Preview Event

• The Taken King maps will be available for all players to preview for free 09/08 until 09/15
• Rift game mode will be available for all players to preview for free 09/08 until 09/15
• Crucible Daily will not be available on 09/08 and will resume on 09/15
• Mayhem Clash game mode will be available for all players to preview for free from 09/11 until 09/15

General

• House of Wolves maps (Widow’s Court, Black Shield, Thieves’ Den) are now available to all Destiny players
• Year 1 Platform-exclusive maps (The Timekeeper, Exodus Blue) are now available to all Destiny players
• Added a new Mercy rule that will end blowout games early
  • When the Mercy Rule hits, Shaxx will call out the end of the match. We immediately disable join in progress to prevent any additional players from joining the game (if anyone has dropped already) and reset the game clock to 10 seconds. After those 10 seconds, the match will end normally. All players will receive their end of match rewards and return to matchmaking.
  • More detail about this system can be found here
• Legendary Loot drop rates have been increased
• PVP post-game scoreboards now use abbreviated names
  • Hover over these stat headers to see more detailed information on what each stat tracks
• The PGCR now does not display the “Score” column if the mode does not have individual player scores
• Shaxx will now comment on multi-kills and kill streaks
• “Victory Imminent” voice-over will no longer play when there is less than 30 seconds remaining in Crucible matches

Director

• Salvage and Rift are now core Crucible playlists
• The Taken King maps are now included in the core Crucible playlists

Medals

• Added set of new Crucible medals
• Buckshot Bruiser, Machine Lord, Sharpshooter, and Master Blaster medals can now be earned multiple times in a row (if you’re awesome enough)
• Fixed an issue where “First Place Kill” score bonus (which triggers the “Uprising” medal) was awarded when killing the highest scoring player on the winning team, instead of the highest scoring player in the match

Maps

Widow’s Court

• Added invisible physics to keep players from hiding in the ivy overlooking the courtyard Heavy Ammo

Game Types

Salvage

• Reduced Salvage score limit from 10000 to 7500, as our data showed too many games were ending to the time limit
• Modified the base 3v3 options to have a 7-second min respawn timer

Skirmish

• Modified the base 3v3 options to have a 7-second min respawn timer

Inferno

• Changed special ammo crate timing for Inferno Clash, Inferno Control and Inferno Rumble modes to 2 minutes (small team modes will remain at 3 minutes)
• Removed heavy ammo crates from all Inferno playlists

Rumble

• Placing in the top 3 in Rumble playlists now counts as a win for Quest Step purposes

Control

• Bastion, First Light, and Skyshock have been added to the core Control playlist with Pikes and Interceptors disabled
• “Zone Captured” and “Zone Neutralized” scoring messages in Control will now display the zone being captured, i.e. “Zone A Captured,” “Zone C Neutralized”

Trials of Osiris

• Trials Passage Coins are now discarded by the stack rather than by the item

UI

• Super icons in kill messages are now displayed in yellow
• Added icons to kill messages for precision kills
• Super kill messages now display the name of the Super used
• Voice channel settings in Nav Mode have been moved into the Nav Mode toggle display, which also includes quests & bounties, active modifiers, and PvP Scoreboard

[Images via Bungie]