A few years ago, when Bungie rolled out the first public beta for Destiny, nobody really knew that the game was going to look like. Bungie packed the beta with a massive amount of content, including access to one of four open world areas that would be available in the retail release. For the Destiny 2 beta, the developer didn’t have to prove anything — the goal was just to make sure the game would run.
But just because the Destiny 2 console beta was a technical test doesn’t mean that Bungie isn’t changing content and balancing combat as well. In fact, on Thursday, Bungie community manager DeeJ took to the Bungie blog to highlight some of the changes that are being made for the upcoming PC beta.
Some of the most significant changes are coming to the player vs. player mode — the Crucible — where Bungie has decided to tune Quickplay and Competitive matchmaking separately going forward:
Quickplay: Matchmaking times will be shorter, with less emphasis on Skill. This is the fastest route to a game, but you may face opponents outside of your comfort zone. The winning score in Control has been extended from 75 to 100 to allow for more time to play and use your abilities. Because too many matches were shorter than we expected (some Guardians weren’t even able charge their Super) we’ve extended the trigger for the Mercy rule so it will come into play less often.
Competitive: Matchmaking takes more time to introduce you to players that are closer to you in skill with a good connection. These matchmaking settings may take longer, but we feel that the quality of the gameplay experience will be worth the wait. We have also made improvements to the way we calculate your skill in Countdown to better reflect how you’ll perform against your opponents.
Beyond the new approach to the Crucible, Bungie also fixed and tweaked a wide variety of issues that players encountered during the console beta. PC beta players will have the chance to check out the following fixes and adjustments when they jump into the game at the end of the month:
FIXED: Infinite Super Glitch
Infinite Supers are all well and good until someone loses an eye.FIXED: Warlock Glide Glitch
This bug was awesome… So awesome it hurt us a little bit to kill it. Thanks to those in the console Beta who helped us track this down.FIXED: Infinite Grenades Glitch
Another issue found with the help of our friends in the console Beta. (Thank you!)FIXED: Warlocks now have the same Melee Range as all other classes
With the exception of where perks directly increase their range, Warlocks will punch like the rest of us. Our PC friends will get a chance to experience a world with consistent base melee ranges. So will the rest of you, when the game launches.TWEAKED: Globally reduced the time it takes to charge your Super
This was a big change that came directly from your feedback during the console beta. We agree it was taking a bit too long to cook up a Super.TWEAKED: Increased Grenade Damage in PvE
Increased damage helps Grenades feel as powerful as they should facing hordes of alien combatants and, more specifically, makes the longer cooldowns more palatable. We want abilities to be slightly more rare, but worth it. In the console Beta, the “worth it” part wasn’t quite there yet.TWEAKED: Increased Power Ammo drops in PvE
This is something we had felt internally and have been slowly tuning up over the last several weeks. The PC beta has been updated with our new values and will provide much more Power ammo in PvE than what was found before. Power ammo can also be directly farmed from all Yellow Bar Combatants. Go big, Guardians!
If you want to participate in the Destiny 2 PC beta
, you can preorder the game from Bungie or participating retailers to join during the early access period on August 28th. The beta will then open up to anyone who wants to give it a try on the 29th and will conclude on the 31st. Destiny 2 launches on PS4 and Xbox One on September 6th, with a PC release planned for October 24th.
