The community manager of Destiny, Deej, and IGN’s Fran Mirabella sat down at Gamescom to discuss Destiny: The Taken King. Earlier this week, Gameinformer released a huge list of questions and answers between the fan community and the Destiny’s development team. We already know about Dinklebot and the new subclasses. However, there are a few specific things Deej wanted address in more detail.
Class Items
Guardians no longer have to wear the class items for faction rep as they now offer bounties available to those who declare allegiance to that faction. Specific rewards exist for specific factions that the player can work towards rather than relying on randomness.
Deej explains that clarity is key in The Taken King. Guardians will be able to work towards specific items and not have to hustle for randomly generated drops.
Gameplay
The video shows the first mission of The Taken King, which involves investigating a Cabal distress signal on Phobos and battling the Taken. The Taken are the new enemy with new attacks, calling for an evaluation in player strategy.
Phobos is a playable space, however, there is no patrol for the area. The new main location is Oryx’s dreadnought. The dreadnought has its own bounties, public events, and the huge new raid. Deej could not comment on the raid difficulty.
Leveling up
The new level cap is 40 and will no longer rely on light, but rather XP. Light is still important as it determines the strength of your guardian’s attacks and defenses. Therefore, certain activities suggest a minimum light level, but not necessarily an XP level.
The Taken King is focusing more on choice, rather than grinding and randomness
Guardians will begin The Taken King at the acquired light level from year one and then go from there to earn XP, capping at 40. Guardians who are below level 20 now can get a consumable from the tower to boost their level to the starting point of The Taken King. This gives new players (or perhaps players with only one character) the incentive to create more without having to go through year one content. The Taken King is focusing more on choice, rather than grinding and randomness.
Deej explains that one of the goals in The Taken King is to remove the mystery of how to advance (such as the previously elusive etheric light, faction commendations, and faction class items) but preserve the mystery in missions, puzzles, and “the fun things to do in Destiny.” That way, a bad roll won’t ruin the long journey through the Vault of Glass.
Weapons
Although you can’t upgrade old weapons (such as Fatebringer, mentioned in the video), they are not worthless (even if you only keep them to tease the year two newbies). The Vault, the Crucible, and patrols will readily welcome Fatebringer (so don’t dismantle!).
The Tower in The Taken King will have the largest arsenal yet. Deej hopes that the new weapons (fully customizable and upgradable) and new weapon foundries will inspire players to rediscover their fighting tactics and try different loadouts.
Fran mentioned a concern of the fan community: the cheapness of the House of Wolves’ weaponry and the nerfing of Gjallarhorn and Thorn. Deej agrees that:
“if it’s the only logical choice…we sort of warned players…if there is any one logical choice about how to play this game, our goal as developers, our design team is to keep you guessing, keep you thinking…and if Gjallarhorn is the obvious choice, then we’d like to provoke you to think a little bit more about your loadout…Destiny shouldn’t be Gjallarhorn simulator version 4.0″.
Deej goes on to explain that the new weapon options (as well as the nerfs) are so that the player can experience the enormous new arsenal without prejudice.
Vault Space
Although Deej does not explicitly say, “Yes, there will be more,” he assures us that The Taken King will work with and not against advancing your guardian. Bungie will release a live walk-through of the Tower before the launch of The Taken King and no guardian is left in the Dark Zone about how to approach year two with The Taken King.
Destiny: The Taken King’s release date is September 15.
