The Big Changes Coming To Destiny’s Gameplay Balance

The third and final live stream exploring the April 12 update completed earlier this afternoon, and the hour-plus presentation provided some interesting insight into several facets of the Destiny experience that are in for changes.

The third and final live stream exploring the April 12 update completed earlier this afternoon, and the hour-plus presentation provided some interesting insight into several facets of the Destiny experience that are in for changes. Two weeks ago, we learned about new activities coming to the game, and last week brought details about specific gear and progression systems. This week’s stream explored changes on the way to the Crucible, new approaches to weapon balance, and a significant overhaul of the warlock’s three subclasses.

Let’s dig in to what we learned, and analyze what it means to the ongoing game.

Revives

Anyone who plays a lot of small-team Crucible matches like Elimination and Skirmish knows that reviving teammates is a contentious issue. Right now, after dropping an enemy, it feels like it’s relatively easy for someone on the opposing team to bring them back into the fight.

That’s set to change on April 12, when several factors are set to combine to make committing to a revive a harder choice. Revive-focused exotics like Light Beyond Nemesis and Crest of Alpha Lupi now take a little bit longer to complete the revive, preventing the so-called “sprint revive.”

Whether using an exotic or not, the overshield acquired after a revive is now slightly weaker, it takes a little longer to complete the revive, and you need to be closer to your target to start the revive. Finally, the previous five-second revive timer is moving to seven seconds, and that timer does stack on multiple revives. For example, your second consequent revive in a round will go out to 14 seconds.

Taken together, you can expect that teams that have relied on aggressive forward players who are then subsequently revived by their supporting players will now have a tougher time enacting that strategy than before.

Ammo Economy

Crucible ammo economy is a hotly debated issue among hardcore Destiny players, and Bungie has made frequent changes to the system over the life of the game. That tradition is set to continue in the April update, in which both special and heavy ammo is getting a retrofit.

Special ammo will now return to spawning at the start of a match, allowing players to deploy their preferred opening tactics, such as taking up an early sniper position. However, additional special ammo won’t spawn until three minutes into the match, so being careful about overusing special ammo is essential. A subsequent drop will occur two minutes after that. We double-checked with Bungie post-stream, and this change includes Elimination and Trials matches – places where the change will likely be particularly notable in match results.

Attentive guardians may have also noted the way many opponents in the Crucible have used Icebreaker and sidearms as a way to get around the special ammo inventory, by using those weapons and then switching out to another preferred weapon. That option has now been eliminated.

Meanwhile, heavy ammo is becoming all the more precious. Bungie seems to have decided that the frequency of heavy-ammo appearances was overriding the Crucible experience, so heavy ammo will now only drop once in a standard Crucible match, at exactly the five-minute mark. Mayhem, which as the name implies focuses on crazy action, will not see any change to its heavy-ammo-drop deployment.

Next Page: What's happening with Crucible loot, and how are the major weapon archetypes being rebalanced?