Highlights
- Bungie is putting restrictions on bounties and weapon crafting in order to ensure server stability during Crota’s End contest mode raid weekends.
- Crota’s End is the third reprised raid in Destiny 2 and players can expect additional challenges after finishing the raid to be crowned world’s first.
- The restrictions implemented for Crota’s End may become normal for future contest mode raids and could help gauge the difficulty of upcoming raids like The Final Shape.
Bungie has been keen to ensure server stability during contest mode raid weekends, and to do so for the return of Crota’s End, Destiny 2 will have restrictions put on bounties and weapon crafting for the duration of contest mode. Day one races for the last several raids, such as Vow of the Disciple and King’s Fall, have seen plenty of issues born from server instability which end up playing a role in who crosses the finish line first. While it remains to be seen how stable things will be for Crota’s End, the studio is clearly looking at any way it can ensure a smooth experience with the contest mode restrictions.
Crota’s End originally debuted in Destiny‘s first expansion, The Dark Below, which introduced players to the character who would become the Tower’s defacto expert on the Hive, Eris Morn. The raid tasks a fireteam to delve deep below the Moon’s surface to locate and enter Crota’s Throne World, the only place the Hive god can be killed. It is set to join Vault of Glass and King’s Fall as Destiny 2‘s third reprised raid, debuting as part of the sequel’s latest season, Season of the Witch.
Ahead of the day one race, Bungie has been outlining what players can expect from the return of Crota’s End which includes the restrictions put in place to help combat server instability. The studio said in the latest This Week in Destiny that, as part of contest mode weekend, “bounty and weapon crafting progress” will be limited to “boss tier” enemies in order to give servers “room to breathe.” This restriction will also extend to King’s Fall for the duration of contest mode in Crota’s End for some added breathing room on the game’s servers.
The restrictions are just two of many steps Bungie is taking to try and ensure the return of Crota’s End has as few issues as possible for the day one race. Other steps the studio is taking include additional challenges fireteams will need to complete after finishing the raid to be crowned world’s first, which was also done for contest mode Vault of Glass and King’s Fall.
It would not be surprising if these restrictions become normal for future contest mode raids, given how Bungie has teased how “brutal” the reprised version of Crota’s End will be. Additionally, players could argue that the studio may be using the refreshed raid as a way to gauge the difficulty of The Final Shape‘s raid if Crota’s End is as challenging as teased.
Destiny 2 is currently available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Bungie
