‘Destiny 2’ Weapon Slot Changes Coming, Bungie Addressing Time To Kill With Exotic Weapon Buffs

Bungie took time Wednesday to host a Destiny 2 community livestream via Twitch to answer some burning questions from fans. The development team dropped a couple of bombs that should give PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC fans an opportunity to cheer regarding Exotic weapons, the weapon slot setup, and more.

Destiny 2 Community Manager David “Deej” Dague was joined by Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior PVP Designer Kevin Yanes to watch some of the Bungie Community team battle it out with players in the Crucible and field questions. There were many hot topics following the recent release of the 1.1.4 “Go Fast” update and perhaps none hotter than the time it takes to kill an opposing Guardian in PVP.

Time to Kill

Season 3 of Destiny 2 is scheduled to start in May and will bring the second expansion, rumored to be titled Gods of Mars, along with it. This will also bring another round of updates to the shooter with changes to Exotic weapons and armor being one of the big bullet points.

The “Go Fast” update made many changes to the weapon sandbox but did not significantly alter the time to kill (aka TTK) for weapons in the primary or energy slot. Bungie is instead looking at buffing Exotic weapons in Destiny 2 in May’s 1.2.0 update to decrease average time to kill significantly.

Destiny 2 players may already be aware the Vigilance Wing Exotic Pulse Rifle is currently reigning supreme in Crucible thanks to its superior time to kill. Bungie intends to bring the other Exotic weapons up to its level and then fine tune the entire sandbox from there.

Weapon Slot Overhaul

The move from Destiny 1‘s primary, secondary, and heavy weapon slots to what is essentially two primary weapon slots and a heavy weapon slot has been highly criticized since before the game’s release last September. Bungie is actively working on weapon slot changes for but will not be ready to share details until later this summer.

However, Bungie did mention the goal is to give players more control over weapon configurations and loadouts. This is a big change that will require time to develop, test, and release, which suggests it may not arrive until the September update.

Speaking of Updates

Bungie has been battered repeatedly over the pace of Destiny 2 updates especially compared with current popular titles like Fortnite, which see weekly patch releases. The development roadmap with regularly scheduled releases is meant to solve part of this and the studio is looking for more ways to get the community actively involved.

Yanes confirmed Bungie is looking at ways to make test builds of Destiny 2 available to players. He could not go into details as they the studio is working on that themselves. However, he did hint at the possibility of being able to test new Crucible game modes.

Mobility Stat and Sprint Speed

The March 1.1.4 update made changes to the Mobility stat but still does nothing for sprint speed in Destiny 2. Hamrick explained this is due to an issue the studio encountered when testing faster sprint speeds and the developers need to sort that out before increasing sprint speed.

He did confirm Bungie is looking for more ways to make classes to stand out more and make Hunters faster in light of the fact they were not buffed as much as Titans or Warlocks.

Other Notes

• Bungie is focused on finding answers to make loot exciting again.
• Yanes is looking forward to the introduction of Ranked Crucible play in the May update to give PVP players something to chase every season.
• Bungie said yes and no when asked if it plans to add more weapons, weapons types, and classes to Destiny 2. The developers are looking to find new ways for Guardians to fight and have new stuff to do.
• The current Crucible matchmaking playlists were created to ensure the best quality connections between players and fast matchmaking speeds. Bungie has heard the complaints about not being able to select game modes and will have more later.
• Bungie does not want the game to feel extremely different between PVP and PVE despite the fact weapon damage is now different between the two.
• The studio has heard the complaints about random rolls but also does not want to go back to the way things were in Destiny 1. Developers want to focus on making Destiny 2 better than Destiny 1.