‘Destiny’ February Update Tweaks Nightfall, Raid, Adds New Playlist

The Destiny February update hit PlayStation and Xbox consoles with a number of small fixes to Bungie’s online shooter. There are no major changes to the online shooter with this update, but the developer did clean up a number of long-standing issues as well as fixed sometimes painful glitches in the King’s Fall Raid.

The patch notes for the Destiny February update cover several minor issues such as emote icons appearing twice as well as bounties being moved to the top of Lord Shaxx’s vendor menu. The major changes are listed below, but you can click through to Bungie’s website for the complete details.

The Crimson Days event with its new Crimson Doubles playlist went live with this update. Full details on the week-long event can be found here.

The February Update is here. Check out what's in it. https://t.co/Ujsl2g8X9K pic.twitter.com/ttIwBvuFbt

— Bungie (@Bungie) February 9, 2016

The rewards for the weekly Nightfall activity continues to be adjusted. Bungie added Ghost Shell to the loot table, but Destiny players discovered they were perhaps dropping a little too frequently. The drop rate has been tweaked to reduce the chance to receive a Ghost Shell and increase the chance of receiving other rewards.

Meanwhile, those who dared to use a glitch in the Totem room of the King’s Fall Raid as a shortcut will no longer have that option. This is probably for the best, as the shortcut was not much of a shortcut to begin with.

More importantly, the issue causing Ogres to teleport during the Oryx encounter has been addressed along with the camera issues for the aura holder during the Daughters of Oryx section.

The Crucible received the biggest list of changes, with the new Freelance playlists being the big addition. These new playlists will be for solo players only who are tired of getting thrown in against a full fireteam in multiplayer activities. It will be interesting to see the reception to these new 3v3 plus 6v6 playlists and if they will affect the population of existing playlists.

Additionally, Bungie has implemented a new “Damage Referee” in the Crucible. This is to prevent players with bad connections from gaining an advantage over others. It is being limited to just the Control playlist for now but should spread to others once it has been tested out and adjusted to a point that the developers and players are happy with it.

Finally, a new Iron Banner is scheduled to start on Tuesday, February 23. Destiny players can look forward to increased reputation amounts from wins along with some small fixes, such as adding a waypoint to Lord Saladin when the Rank 3 and Rank 5 rewards are available.

The highlights of the Destiny February update are as follows.

Weapons

• Fixed an issue with Hakke pulse rifle damage scaling to bring them back in line with other pulse rifles

Raid: King’s Fall

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to become immune to the Totem room damage by using a sword’s block ability
  • Totems will now kill players under the totem after an extended period of time
• Fixed an issue on the aura holder when exiting 3rd person, the camera forward would get reset back facing the direction of the players feet
• Fixed an issue where the Ogres would teleport when they had issues path finding around previously dropped bombs

Crucible

General

• Players now start without special ammo in all 3v3 modes
• Fixed an issue where the quest step to “Complete a match with 6+ Auto Rifle kills” was not properly registering
• Damage Referee has been enabled in the Control playlist for the Crucible

Playlists

New Rotating Playlists

• Freelance 3v3 featuring Skirmish, Salvage and Elimination – only accessible by solo players, no fireteams
• Freelance 6v6 featuring Control, Clash and Rift – only accessible by solo players, no fireteams
• Inferno 3v3 featuring Inferno Skirmish, Inferno Salvage and introducing Inferno Elimination!
• Inferno 6v6 featuring Inferno Control and Inferno Clash

Iron Banner

• Iron Banner returns on February 23rd, 10AM to February 29th, 1AM PST
• Iron Banner armor pieces from Rank 5 packages will now be granted immediately, instead of appearing once you return to Orbit
• Increased the base win rep amount by +20% (50 to 60)
• Waypoints have been added to Lord Saladin when the Rank 3 and Rank 5 packages are available
• Players can no longer recycle into Iron Banner matches after the event has ended

Trials of Osiris

• Adjusted loot tables to make rewards more consistent and less likely to have a non-payout match

Maps

Crossroads

• Fixed an issue where some players are able to perch in an advantageous position on a giant tree root

The Timekeeper

• Removed dynamic objects and moved overtime objective to help it play better in Elimination

[Image via Bungie]