INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

‘Destiny: The Taken King’ Hits, Leaves Those Who Don’t Purchase Behind

By Scott Grill
Published on: 00:09 PST, Sep 15, 2015

Bungie released the final update that unlocks Destiny: The Taken King early Tuesday morning. PlayStation and Xbox players will now get the full taste of all the changes that 2.0 update and the expansion brings, while those who do not upgrade will likely feel left behind.

“Destiny has the best and most passionate community we’ve ever seen at Bungie. As we started planning for year two, we wanted to surprise, engage and challenge those that have put in hundreds, if not thousands of hours of their personal time in to the universe,” said Luke Smith, creative director for The Taken King at Bungie. “We hope The Taken King will exceed the high bar of expectations from our voracious audience, and welcome new Guardians into this next great chapter.”

The overwhelming majority of The Taken King was made available with the Destiny 2.0 update released last week. This did introduce some issues with the game such as VIP Rewards appearing too early. The new update released this morning alongside the expansion unlocks all of the content and straightens out the content. However, it also leaves Year One players behind. Those who do not purchase The Taken King will lose access to some of the Destiny staples.

The Weekly Heroic Strike is replaced with the Vanguard Heroic Strike Playlist, which requires the expansion. Meanwhile, the Daily Heroic activities and Weekly Nightfall Strike will require players at level 40, which also means The Taken King is required. This leaves Destiny Year One players who do not upgrade to The Taken King with the story missions, patrols, Crucible, Legacy Strike Playlists, Vault of Glass, Crota’s End, and Prison of Elders.

As for The Taken King release itself, it is substantial. There are new bounties, new Strikes, new Crucible maps and modes, new story missions with better cut-scenes and plot, plus plenty of new weapons and armor with new ways to get them.

Note that new issues are being discovered, though. Some players in the Destiny sub-Reddit are reporting losing Golden Chest progress towards their Moments of Triumph emblem. As Bungie investigates that, you can check the full patch notes for The Taken King below.

The Taken King

  • Oryx and his army has arrived
  • Meet them on Phobos, a moon of Mars
  • Requires The Taken King and a minimum character level of 25

General

  • Max Character Level Cap now increased to 40 (Requires The Taken King)
  • New Vanguard and Crucible bounties are now available at your local Bounty Tracke
  • Year One Moments of Triumph are now locked in history and cannot be progressed
  • VIP ‘Founders Fortune’ rewards will be distributed in the Tower (Requires The Taken King)
  • “Spark of Light” Level 25 Character Boost consumable is available at the Postmaster (Requires The Taken King)

Classes

  • Subclass quests for new subclasses are now available after the completion of The Coming War story mission (Requires The Taken King)

Activities

Patrols

  • Patrols now offer rewards once again

Daily Heroics

  • Required Level: 40
  • Requires The Taken King
  • These missions will include selections from Year One and Year Two

Vanguard Strike Playlists

  • Weekly Heroic Strike has been replaced by the Vanguard Heroic Strike Playlist
  • There are now three Strike playlists:
  • Legacy Strike Playlist
  • Available to all players
  • Contains all Year One Strikes, including original Dust Palace and Undying Mind Strikes
  • Vanguard Strike Playlist
  • Requires The Taken King
  • Contains all new The Taken King Strikes, as well as 3 remixed Year One Strikes (Dust Palace, Undying Mind, and Cerberus Vae III)
  • Vanguard Heroic Strike Playlist:
  • Requires The Taken King
  • Contains all new The Taken King Strikes, as well as 3 remixed Year One Strikes (Dust Palace, Undying Mind, and Cerberus Vae III)
  • Heroic Strikes earn bonus rewards on weekly completion:
  • Legendary Engram (1 time per character)
  • +10 Legendary Marks (3 times per account)
  • Playing multiple Strikes without returning to orbit increases reward chances
  • All The Taken King and Updated Strikes now feature random encounter variation and may contain Taken combatants

Nightfall

  • Required Level: 40
  • Requires The Taken King
  • Wiping in Darkness Zones no longer kicks player to orbit
  • Resurrection timer is now a 30-second cooldown (must be resurrected by teammates)

Crucible

  • Year Two Crucible is now in effect (Requires The Taken King):
  • Rift, Control, Clash, Skirmish, Salvage, Rumble, Elimination are now Year Two core playlists
  • When Trials of Osiris is active, Elimination will only be playable via Trials of Osiris playlist
  • Featured Daily and Weekly activities are now active
  • Year One Core Playlists now contains Classic 6v6, Classic 3v3 and Classic FFA playlists

Tower

Cryptarch

  • The Cryptarchs will now exchange Legendary Marks for Legendary Engrams
  • Available engrams will be randomly selected by each Cryptarch every Tuesday
  • Legendary Engrams no longer have a chance to produce simple Materials
  • Rare Armor Engrams have a chance to produce Artifacts instead of Armor

Banshee

  • Starting on Armsday (Wednesday), Banshee-44 will accept Orders for new Foundry Weapons to characters at Gunsmith Rank 1 or higher. Higher Ranks will allow placement of more orders per week

Speaker

  • Legendary Armor has been added to the Speaker’s inventory

Shaxx

  • PvP Quests are now provided to players (Required Level: 5)
  • Shaxx now carries a set of Weekly Crucible Bounties, with Nightfall equivalent rewards for completing all five in a week

Arcite

  • Arcite now carries a set of Weekly Crucible Weapon Bounties

Roni-9940

  • The Vanguard Quartermaster will now exchange old Class Armor Materials for new unified Armor Materials

Queen’s Wrath

  • Petra now has new bounties available in the reef upon completing a new quest
  • These bounties will also drop a Treasure Key the first time one is completed each week

Economy

  • Vanguard and Crucible Marks deprecate and are converted to Commendations (at a rate of 50:1)
  • Legendary Loot drop rates have been increased across all activities
  • Legendary Marks are now earnable by completing Daily Story Chapters, Weekly Heroic Strikes, Daily PVP Activities, Weekly PVP Activities and Dismantling Year Two Legendary items
  • Strike rewards now drop from bosses instead of in the PGCR
  • Except for Sepiks Prime, who has been known to cleverly fly above water to deny victorious Guardians their rightfully earned spoils
  • Strikes reward tables now include items for all Armor and Weapon slots

Edit – Known Issues

  • Strike Legacy playlists are currently not providing rewards. This is a known issue and will be hotfixed as soon as possible

[Images via Bungie]

Share this article: ‘Destiny: The Taken King’ Hits, Leaves Those Who Don’t Purchase Behind
xbox 360 bungie destiny Xbox one
More from Inquisitr