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Bungie Kills Destiny 'Treasure Cave' In Latest Patch, Will Address Loot Problems Soon
Last night, I spent about an hour shooting at a cave in Destiny's Old Russia region. The Hive kept flooding out, and I kept firing, taking a break only to collect ammo and dropped engrams. That mind-numbing activity is no longer an option. The "Treasure Cave" is no more.
In addition to "fixing" the loot cave, Bungie has revealed some plans to patch some of Destiny's quirkier issues. One of the most troubling things is picking up a higher level engram (which needs to be "decoded" into weapon or armor back at the Tower) only to have it be something quite useless. "We didn't adequately communicate the potential random outcomes of decryption," Bungie community manager David Dague writes ." Players see what looks like the familiar metaphor of item identification, while the Cryptarch thinks he's opening a grab bag of loot. Rage sharding of blues ensues. Expect to see changes to address this soon."
Bungie is also making changes to the different weapon classes. Auto-rifles will see range and stability nerfs, scout rifles will get damage buffs, and shotguns have been deemed effective beyond their intended range. Those tweaks will be coming soon (but not to our precious hand cannons). Additionally, some exotic weapons like Thorn and Bad Juju will be getting upgrades to make them more useful.
Opt-in voice communication is coming to matchmaking events, too. This will allow players in multiplayer matches and strikes to chat with one another more easily. Finally, Bungie has identified a problem with strikes, in that the enemies deal more damage and players take more than intended. Expect strikes to get a little easier soon (The Vault of Glass raid is properly tuned, though).
For more on Destiny, check out our review. You can also read about life after hitting the soft level cap of 20.
Our Take
These are good changes, but as someone who has been sitting at level 20 for a while, I was hoping that there would be some improvements to the drop rates. I'll wait and see what's coming for engram decoding, but right now it feels too random to be fun. Maybe that will change when my luck does.
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