As we roll into the last week prior to the release of Forsaken, the information being revealed is increasing both in frequency and importance. I was out of town for this TWAB, but it’s worth it to catch up and let you know what it was all about.

As a reminder, my primary sources for these recaps are the TWAB post from Bungie, which you can find here, and the notes jotted down for the same week at Destiny Roundup, which you can find here.

Let’s start by talking about the new third progression system you’ll be earning when Forsaken launches: Infamy.

Gambit Progression

If you haven’t already heard of Gambit—the new competitive PvE activity coming in Forsaken—you can read more about that mode on Bungie’s official page for it here. It sounds very exciting, and I’m looking forward to playing it.

Bungie revealed this week that Gambit will receive a player progression system that will function the way Valor and Glory function for PvP, and that new progression will be called Infamy.

You’ll earn Infamy by:

• Playing matches. You’ll get more Infamy if you win, and even more per match if you are on a win streak—but you’ll always get a few points just for playing.
• Completing Bounties available from Gambit’s vendor NPC: The Drifter.

Infamy will be used much like Valor or Glory, with specific and unique rewards that will unlock or be made available once you reach certain tiers. It will also have more granular tiers than the current PvP ranking systems—three per overall level.

Once you reach level 50, you can acquire a special Bounty each week from The Drifter that will reward a powerful gear drop for completion.

Crucible Progression

Bungie’s making some changes to both Crucible progression ladders, with more changes to Glory and associated rewards than Valor. Remember that Valor is the point system you earn for playing most playlists—win or lose—and that Glory is the point system where you earn points for wins in the Competitive playlist and lose points when you lose.

There’s also a change coming related to the Redrix’s Claymore chase from Season 3—and some systems changes coming to the Competitive playlist.

Changes to the Competitive PvP Playlist

• Radar has been re-enabled in Competitive.
• Control and Clash modes have been added to Competitive.
  
• Bungie wants to add reconnection to existing games in case you drop connection, but this is not currently working.

Changes to Glory

• Glory points gained and lost are being retuned, but the specifics of this retuning were not mentioned in the TWAB.
• The weekly award for playing three matches per week has been fixed and the number of points it awards has been doubled.
• Players who competed in Season 3 will earn a one-time bonus when they complete a match in Season 4.
• Loss streaks have been removed.

Changes to Valor

• Losses in the Competitive playlist will no longer reset your Valor win streak.
• Placing top 3 in Rumble will now count as a win and award Valor points appropriately.

Changes to Rewards

• Pinnacle Crucible rewards (like Redrix’s Claymore in Season 3) will now be awarded via quests, and not necessarily specific rank accomplishments, though some quests will require you to engage with either Valor or Glory—or perhaps both. These quests will persist past the end of a given Season.
  
• Redrix’s Claymore will be retired and unable to be earned after Season 3 concludes. If you earned it in Season 3, you will receive exclusive bonuses in Season 4:
  • You’ll receive an exclusive emblem when you redeem the Triumph for having earned Claymore in Season 3.
    
• A new drop is being added that comes from a quest: Redrix’s Broadsword.
  • The quest is significant and you can read the details here. 
  • Every drop will have Outlaw + Desperado as perks.
  • Every drop will have random barrel, magazine, and Masterwork perks.
  • Once you earn this weapon, it will also drop from Crucible engrams. Owners of Redrix’s Claymore will start receiving Broadsword from engram drops immediately and will not need to complete the quest.
• An additional unspecified reward weapon will be made available in Season 4 via a quest.

It’s clear that the ten thousand or so players able to earn Redrix’s Claymore in Season 3 were fewer than expected, so the reward is being given a second life in Season 4. The quest is fairly significant and will take a decent amount of time to complete, but should be within reach for a greater number of players, provided they want to invest the necessary time.

Giving the Broadsword immediately in drops and giving a swag emblem as well as exclusive lore and a Triumph is also a good concession to the folks who spent long hours earning the Claymore in Season 3.

Matchmaking Fireteam Persistence

Starting with patch 2.0, fireteams matchmade together in some activities will stay together unless one or more of them cancel out of the matchmaking queue between activities in a playlist. The activities receiving this are:

• Strikes
• Gambit
• Crucible (with the exception of Competitive mode)

Crucible matchmaking hoppers will also reset if a match ends via mercy or if there is a significantly-lopsided score result.

This is a fantastic return to how Destiny 1 functioned when you were playing in activity playlists, and hearing it will also be coming to Gambit is heartening. A great quality-of-life improvement.

There are also some changes being made to Guided Games to help players who suffer disconnections by holding their place in the activity for three minutes after a disconnect. Guided Games raid checkpoints will also persist if you need to end the activity: you’ll be able to use them in a normal raid group if you have them.

Clan Rewards

The Clan XP milestone is currently a system where you earn points for finishing certain activities within the game in a given week. Each player is capped at a certain amount of XP, and then each clan is capped at a certain amount per week as well.

Starting with Forsaken, instead of an amount awarded automatically when finishing other things, Hawthorne will have Bounties available for completion to earn Clan XP.

You’ll earn it through:

• Three daily bounties each day that earn a small amount of Clan XP when completed
• Three weekly bounties only available after you reach Level 50 that will require playing with other clanmates and will grant larger amounts of Clan XP

No information was given regarding Clan Engram drops and whether they will be changing.

I’m tentative regarding these changes; it sounds like they are preparing people for the Clan XP grind to be longer/more significant within a Season. We’ll see how it pans out.

Crucible Labs: Scorched

Over the week after this TWAB was released, there was an amazing Crucible Labs game type available called Scorched, where all players only had Scorch Cannons and played Clash (team deathmatch) with only those weapons.

It was a blast and it should come back at a later date. I hope you played it.

Solstice Armor Upgrade Deadlines

Solstice is now over, so I’m a bit late to the party here, but the requirement is that you had to have the sets leveled to Legendary rarity before the conclusion of the event on 28 August.

Masterwork unlocks can still be achieved after the end of Solstice of Heroes. Some of the requirements will change—for example, clearing Heroic Strikes with a clanmate is changing to be any Strike from the main playlist after the Forsaken update lands on 4 September.

It’s also important to note that some Masterworks won’t be achievable between the reset on 28 August and reset on 4 September, as some systems in the game will have temporary restrictions due to the preload of Forsaken.

Personally, I am quite pleased with being given the option to Masterwork the armor after the conclusion of the event. I wish they had communicated this closer to the beginning of the event itself so people could more informedly dedicate their time to the tasks, but having clear information ahead of the deadline was a plus.

Hotfix 1.2.3.2

You have this patch already at the time of this writing. It fixed some specific issues with Solstice armor for a small number of people.

Patch 2.0

Patch 2.0 has also been released at the time of this writing. It’s huge, and I’ll be going over it in more detail in a future post.