More big changes coming to Destiny’s Strikes in Year Two

With The Taken King expansion right around the corner, Bungie has been rolling out information about the future of Destiny faster than we can keep up. Let's just put it this way, the game you've been playing for the past year is going to drastically change in Year Two — (hopefully) for the better. Following this week's livestream in which Bungie previewed the new Strike from The Taken King, the developer took to the blog to share even more ways Strikes will change in Year Two.

Changes to Heroic Strikes

For starters, Bungie is removing Destiny's Weekly Heroic Strikes. In its place will be a new playlist: the Vanguard Heroic Playlist. "Each week players receive bonus Legendary Marks from the Weekly Heroic Playlist," explained The Taken King Creative Director Luke Smith. "These rewards are received at the Account level rather than the character level – as was the case with Year One Weekly Heroic Rewards."

The reason for the change, according to Smith, is to encourage players to focus on a single character more, "or feel less pressure to gear three characters at once for Legendary Marks." The following is what will be changed for Strikes in Year Two:

• Requires Level 40
• Removed the Weekly Heroic Strikes
• Instead, accounts receive Legendary Marks for completing the first three Weekly Strikes
• Removed the Weekly Cap on how many Legendary Marks can be earned.
• Guarantee a Legendary Engram drop from a character's first clear of a Weekly Heroic Strike

Changes to Weekly Nightfall

Bungie is also making some big changes to the weekly Nightfall. In addition to Burn skulls, which Smith says "motivate weapon rotation," the Nightfall burn resist talents found on chest pieces will rotate armor. Bungie is also doing away with the death penalty of kicking you into orbit after the team wipes.

As one final change, Bungie has shelved the Nightfall buff "until we can reform it into something closer to its original intent – a mark of prestige for having achieved something challenging." According to Smith, "another thing we didn't like about the Year 1 Nightfall was how players could feel forced to play Nightfall as early as possible in the week to maximize the benefit from the Nightfall buff." To account for the buff's absence, Bungie has adjusted sources of XP and Reputation accordingly.

Again, here's a quick bulleted recap of the changes to Nightfall in case you hate reading:

• Now Requires Level 40
• Wiping no longer returns Fireteams to Orbit
• Now uses 30 second time-out penalty for Death (same as Raid Normal)

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In addition to these changes, Bungie is looking to keep Strikes feeling fresh by introducing variable encounters, or different combat setups that offer slight wrinkles in gameplay like different enemy types or new spawn locations.