Destiny fans have been eagerly awaiting a long-coming patch ahead of the debut of the game’s second DLC next Tuesday, The House of Wolves. To prep for the event, Bungie is patching in usual fixes and such, but they’ve also inserted a fair amount of new content for players to experience over the weekend ahead of the release of Wolves.
The biggest quality of life changes implemented with the new patch are for the Crucible. Rewards for competing in the PvP mode have effectively doubled across the board, more marks, more engrams, and the like, making PvP a viable a much more viable gear-grinding path than it was previously. (This change doesn't actually take effect until the 19th, however).
But the most interesting thing that’s been inserted into the game ahead of House of Wolves is the return of The Queen’s Wrath.
The original Queen’s Wrath was a somewhat failed attempt for Destiny to try and insert a rotating PvE event that appeared in the game every so often. But rewards were inconsistent and somewhat lackluster, and the bounties offered were fairly uninspired. But now, it seems Queen’s Wrath has been tweaked and turned into something of a puzzle.
Petra, the Queen’s Emissary, has three bounties currently available, all which task you with hunting down a specific Fallen enemy who has wronged the Queen in some way. There are two locations on Earth, and one on Venus where Guardians are supposed to hunt these boss-ish baddies, and the Destiny playerbase is scrambling to try and figure out how to find them, and learn what happens when you complete them. Here’s what we know so far:
The events start up similar to how the “Blades of Crota” would randomly appear in areas during The Dark Below. Fallen enemies spawn including Captains with the new House of Wolves weapon, the Scorch cannon, which you can pick up when you kill them. After they're dead, waves of enemies will start to appear. I counted five in all, dropped from a Fallen ship, which start in their high 20s and end up as fully level 30, including whichever target you’re tasked to kill. If you do kill them, a chest spawns somewhere in the vicinity, and the Guardians have about a minute to find it. In my chest I got a rare engram, which presumably contains House of Wolves-level weapons because the Cryptarch won’t even recognize it yet, along with materials and ammo synthesis. I’ve heard of someone getting a Treasure Key in one, which is what unlocks the special prizes at the end of House of Wolves arena activity, the Prison of Elders.
Past this, given that this patch just launched, it’s unclear what other mysteries this new Queen’s Wrath contains. Only three of six bounties are available. I didn’t get anything special from turning in just one, and I’m currently trying to hunt down the other two. It seems likely to me that if all six are completed, some grand event will be unlocked, but that’s just speculation at present.
Bungie certainly knows how to get their playerbase amped for a new content drop. Yes, a patch is probably necessary to ensure a smooth transition to DLC for technical reasons, but by giving players a reason to play all weekend before launch, it generates a lot of excitement and can pull lapsed players back into the game with something new to experience.
For now, this new Queen’s Wrath is still something of a puzzle, but there are probably at least a hundred thousand or so Guardians working together to solve it as we speak. Check back here for further updates as new information about the patch and the new Queen’s Wrath comes to light. If you need me, I’ll be out bounty hunting.
Update: Though my first kill/chest in the Skywatch was relatively straightforward, the others have...not been as smooth. In Venus's Citadel, I got the event to spawn with about four other people in the area, but for some reason I did not get credit for the bounty kill even though I was part of the group shooting the boss. And the chest afteward was nowhere to be found, despite all of us searching high and low. I'm trying to figure out if there's a radius within the initial drop area in which the chest spawns, or if literally the entire area is fair game. I have to believe it's nearby, but I couldn't find that one, and I've heard of people going 0-3. I'm also unsure if you can keep getting chests if you've already completed the bounty. In the Forgotten Shore, I have yet to see the event spawn, despite waiting around quite a long while on a few attempts. I'm not sure what kind of timer these events are on, or if there need to be a minimum number of people in the zone or something like that.
Update 2: For those confused about why bounties labeled "Day 2" and "Day 3" and such are available now, the patch was supposed to drop Wednesday until it was delayed, and I guess there was going to be one event everyday leading up until Tuesday. We obviously won't know the ultimate reward until then, but if I had to guess, I'd say it could be a piece of Etheric Light (to ascend old gear) or an Armor Core (to exchange a piece of level 34 gear). Those are pretty high level prizes yes, but I think it makes sense as a reward for six definitely-not-easy bounties.
Update 3: I've completed two of three, but across all my attempts, I'm 1 out of 3 for chests. I'm not sure I like the "scour the map for secret chest" minigame afterward, as so far, I fail to find it more often than not, and it ends the activity on a sour note. I actually just timed out of the Forgotten Shores event because me and one other guy could not physically kill the boss in time because her arc shield would recharge so fast. Even pumping it full of arc fusion rifle rounds wasn't enough, and eventually she despawned by the time we got her to 25% health. I'd say the other events are doable with two people, but for that one, at least three is probably a good idea unless you're just raining Gjallarhorn rockets down on her constantly.
Update 4: A fourth bounty just became available where you're tasked with hunting down a completely invisible Captain on Venus. Might have been tough, but fortunately I had three 32s hucking rockets at it nonstop, so he went down quick. I'm now 2 for 5 in chests across all my attempts. No treasure keys, just engrams, mats and synths. It's pretty much been confirmed that the chest can spawn anywhere in the area, not just near the drop point, so either you have to have a lot of people looking, or someone needs to come up with a guide for all the locations in which they spawn. Still a little iffy on whether or not I like this little hunt, considering sometimes you're investing 15 minutes staring into space waiting for these events to spawn and it sucks to miss the reward. I think the timer should be at least two minutes, to start. But again, once people learn all the locations, it probably will be a lot easier. (Update-within-an-update: Such a guide is being compiled as we speak.)
Update 5: Wow. After everyone figured out the chest spawns, the engram train is rolling now. I'm now having to load up my alt characters with blues in order to make more room in my stash. The Wolves event happens every 5-10 minutes, and you can open a chest that contains 1-2 engrams anywhere from 2-5 times depending on the location due to the "leave the area and come back" exploit. With all those engrams, you can theoretically max out all three characters' inventories, each of their postmasters and the shared vault space by the time this is over. I have to believe Bungie is going to patch the multiple chest opening exploit that's raining engrams down on everyone, because even though they wanted to get everyone pumped for Wolves, I sort of doubt they planned for everyone to be turning in 150 engrams on Tuesday alone. Though I've opened probably 30 chests at this point, and am still sitting at zero legendary engrams and no treasure keys, so I don't feel too bad. Also, read my new follow-up to this piece, Destiny's New 'Queen's Wrath' Event Is Everything Right With The Game.
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