Four Major Changes Coming To Destiny 2 in Season 15

On June 9th, 2020, Bungie went live on Twitch and YouTube revealing the next expansion, Beyond Light. However, that was not the only Destiny related content that was unveiled for Destiny fans. Season of Arrivals also went live a few hours after the livestream ended with little to no information related to the season. Bungie usually likes to reveal what type of content to expect in a future season a week before that season releases. However, with Season of Arrivals there was no trailer a week before, there was only a launch trailer as the update when live. Theoretically speaking Bungie could be doing the same thing again with Season 15, as it is also launching the same day as the “Destiny 2 Showcase” on August 24th. Thankfully there has been a decent amount of news about Season 15 that Bungie has shared as far back as February! Let's look over some of them that you may have missed!

Crossplay

Crossplay will finally be arriving to Destiny 2 in “early Season 15.” I am assuming they do not want to launch crossplay on the same day as the season goes live in case there are a ton of backend issues and bad server stability. Bungie revealed how crossplay will work two weeks ago in “This Week at Bungie,” but I will cover some of the questions you may have.

Bungie is introducing a naming system respectfully called your “Bungie Name.” This name will be your Guardians display name in the world of Destiny. Bungie will automatically create your Bungie name based on whatever your gamertag/steam name is when you first log into Destiny once crossplay is live. It will also add a few hidden numbers at the end of your name in case there are multiple people with that name. (Similar to Discord.) Let me provide an example.

My gamertag on Xbox is “xProtheon.” So when I log into Destiny once crossplay goes live, my Bungie Name will be “xProtheon #0000,” and my display name will be “xProtheon.” However, if I have cross-save enable and choose to log into my Steam account first instead of my Xbox Account, and my Steam Name is “Hawkmoon4Lyfe,” then my Bungie name across all platforms will be “Hawkmoon4Lyfe.” If you do have cross-save enabled on multiple platforms, make sure you sign into the account with the name that you want to keep in Destiny!

In addition to this, Bungie announced they will be adding a system to allow you to change your Bungie Name, but this feature may not be available until the end of 2021 or early 2022, so choose your name wisely!

In addition to Bungie Name’s, Bungie is also introducing “Bungie Friends.” Players will now be able to add friends on multiple platforms through this new in-game system. If one player is on Steam, and another player is on PS4, they can simply add each other through the Bungie Friends system and use that system to invite each other to their fireteam. The only downside to this is that on release, players will not be able to use voice communications with one another in game. Voice Chat will be coming soon, so players may need to rely on third party channels such as Discord to communicate with their cross platform friends.

Lastly, Bungie revealed how competitive modes such as Crucible, Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner, and Gambit will work once crossplay is live. If your fireteam contains only console players, you will continue to match with other console users in these game modes. However, if you have even one PC player in your fireteam, your fireteam will participate in the PC player pool. This separation of player pools should provide an even playing field for all players no matter the platform they choose to play on.

Crossplay has been a long requested feature for Destiny, and it is truly exciting to see it arriving in Season 15! There are so many friends that I would love to team up with, and I am desperately looking forward to this feature to unite the playerbase.

Stasis Weapons/Damage Type

As Joe Blackburn said back in “The Road to Witch Queen,” Stasis will continue to evolve as a fully supported damage type in Destiny. Blackburn announced that “In Season 15, we will introduce our first round of Legendary Stasis Energy and Power weapons.”

Although many people assumed that this would be a feature when Beyond Light launched, it is nice knowing that Stasis is getting a bit more utility as a damage type. Currently there are only two weapons in Destiny 2 that deal Stasis damage, those being Salvation’s Grip and Cyrosthesia 77k. Both of these exotic weapons have the ability to freeze enemies, however I am doubtful that Bungie will be adding this freeze feature to legendary weapons. Not only would that be ridiciously unbalanced, but because the other damage types do not follow this rule. For example, solar legendary weapons do not burn enemies as you hit them. (Although this could be a cool feature for PvE.)

If Bungie is adding Stasis legendary weapons, what would they be good for? Currently, the only reason why energy and power weapons have an element at all is for breaking enemy shields, and benefiting from various burn modifiers. If legendary Stasis weapons are only added for the benefits of a burn modifier, I will be greatly disappointed. I am hoping that with the addition of Stasis weapons comes enemies with Stasis shields. However if that is the case, does that mean some enemies that we have been fighting in the past will randomly get Stasis shields? Or will it only be newly introduced enemies that might be coming in Season 15 or beyond? Regardless, Stasis legendary weapons will either shake up combat in PvE as a whole, or be underwhelming.

Light Subclass Changes

Bungie revealed that many Light Subclasses will be receiving a variety of buffs to make them more viable in PvP. However there were some nerfs to overperforming subclasses as well. (Looking at you Chaos Reach and Top Tree Dawnblade.)

I do not want to bore you with every single change to each subclass tree, but many underperforming subclasses such as Arc Staff, Nova Warp, Burning Maul, and Stormcaller are getting substantial buffs that should shake up the sandbox in both PvE and PvP.

Trials of Osiris

Writing this, I actually forgot Trials is getting a variety of changes in Season 15. One of these changes has been a long requested change to “three-peaking.” In Season 15, emotes will be disabled and players will not be able to equip weapons with no ammo in them in Trials of Osiris and Competitive Crucible. The PvP Community has been requesting this problem to be solved for years, and seeing that change in Season 15 is a relief.

Trials of Osiris is getting many quality of life updates in Season 15 according to “The Road to Witch Queen.” Without giving away specifics, Bungie revealed they plan on incentivizing a wider audience to participate in Trials on a weekly basis, including solo players. On top of that, Bungie is aiming to “rebuild the Trials reward structure” so higher skilled players will continue to push deeper into a Trials card after a loss, as well as make 3 wins and 5 wins more accessible to all players.

Trials of Osiris is unfortunately in a tough spot right now, but hopefully these changes will create a breath of fresh air for the game mode.

Season 15 is shaping up to have a huge impact in Destiny 2, and we only know about the tip of the iceberg. Season 15 of Destiny 2 launches on August 24th! As always, you can expect us at DestinyTracker to cover all the news related to Destiny and Bungie on Twitter!

-Protheon

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