Destiny ditches balance with PVP mode Iron Banner
Game goes offline this afternoon for hotfix.
This evening Destiny will add a new competitive multiplayer mode that ditches game balance.
Iron Banner, which opens this evening and runs till 14th October, enables level advantages. This means the attack and defense ratings for your weapons and your armour count in Destiny's PVP mode, The Crucible. It is - deliberately - not a level playing field.
As with other factions in Bungie's first-person shooter, Iron Banner has reputation levels for players to work through. At rank one you unlock an Iron Banner emblem and shaders, which each provide a stacking 10 per cent boost to Iron Banner reputation gains. At rank two you unlock Class Items, which again provide a 10 per cent boost to Iron Banner reputation gains. And at rank three you unlock Iron Banner armour items, which include legendary weapons and armour, as well as new emblems and shaders.
The Iron Banner launches alongside a new hotfix that improves the technology that lets players connect to the game. It'll be applied at around 3pm this afternoon. Bungie warned the maintenance window for the hotfix will interrupt Destiny services for several hours, so you won't be able to play.
Of note: the hotfix fixes a bug that allowed users to quick scope on some weapons.
Here's the patch notes in full:
Client fixes
- Added more data logging for matchmaking systems
- Improved connectivity failure handling to reduce beaver (Kick To Orbit events) KTOs
- Improved logging of player disconnections
- Internal tools fixes to speed up our release process
- Fixes to the roster system to allow us to tune the frequency of roster updates on Xbox One
- Fixed a bug that allowed users to quick scope on some weapons
Server Fixes
- Security fixes
- Server performance improvements
- Fixes to reduce the frequency of some KTOs
- Better logging to help diagnose connectivity problems
- Fixes to some Centipede errors that were exclusive to specific player characters
