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Welcome to one of many Developer Insight articles for Codename: Frontiers. Over the weeks and months to come, we will be covering a lot of different topics about changes coming to Destiny 2 next year with these deeper dives. Check back with our Paving the Way for New Frontiers article for more information on our plans and an always-updated list of these articles as they are published.
Now let’s talk about the Portal.
The Portal (development name may change!) will be an easier, modernized way to browse and launch Core Game activities. It will offer a varied selection of new and updated activities across a wide range of activity types.
TLDR
- The Portal will offer several categories of activities, each with a wide selection of new and updated activities, refreshed every three months with each Major Update.
- All activities in the Portal will provide updated and worthwhile rewards, so it will be easy to find something to play.
- The Destination map will be cleaned up and focused on world navigation and accessing older activities.
The Problem
The Destination map, also called the Director, is Destiny’s venerable activity browsing and selection screen. Over the years it has grown to be very unwieldy, making it harder to find specifically what’s current and worthwhile to play, and requiring ever more expert knowledge to navigate to find what you are looking for.
Even current players can have difficulty finding a new activity, while new or returning players have even greater trouble.
The Solution
Portal Screen
The Portal screen will be the new default activity selection screen, replacing the current Destination map.
Early mockup that is subject to change.
The emphasis of this redesign is quick and clean access to a wider offering of activities with updated rewards, as well as quick access to the current Expansion or Event content. Activities will be grouped into Categories (more on these below) that expand to present up to a few dozen activities each.
Every activity available to launch from the Portal will feature updated rewards every Season and will present a viable path to the highest tiers of weapons and armor available. Our intent is for most activity launching in a season to occur from the Portal, and any choice you make will be a path to worthwhile rewards.
Portal Categories
The individual Categories available in the Portal are:
- Solo Ops: 1-3 player activities requiring very low time or social commitments. These activities are designed for solo players, yet are still fun with a fireteam, and are easy to pick up and play for a quick session. Solo Ops will also feature a new activity type which will get a deep dive soon.
- Fireteam Ops: Three-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Designed for fireteams with more cooperation and coordination, these will feature activities like Strikes, Onslaught, The Coil, and new types in the future.
- Flashpoint Ops: Six-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Planned for a future Season, this category will be introduced later next year. It will feature more chaotic six-player combat like Offensives.
- Pinnacle Ops: Three-player activities featuring some more challenging content, including Dungeons, Exotic missions, and full-length Onslaughts. Pinnacle Ops have an exclusive reward pool to claim, but success is not guaranteed.
- Crucible: A selection of core Crucible playlists for solo players and fireteams, providing an opportunity to test your mettle against other Guardians. An exclusive reward pool is available to claim, with the same depth of tier as other Categories.
In addition to the above Categories, the Portal also provides direct access to the current Expansion activities, as well as any currently running Events like Iron Banner or Festival of the Lost.
Objective Streamlining
The Portal screen will also host consolidated and streamlined side objectives, like bounties or Seasonal Challenges. That aspect of the redesign is still a work in progress, but the primary goal is to greatly reduce the “chores” that need to be done before diving into an activity. We will be sharing more about this change later in the year.
Bonus Rewards
Every day, several activities in each Category will have bonus rewards added to their standard offering. These bonus rewards will include things like:
- Specific weapons
- Specific armor Slots
- Currencies, like Enhancement Materials or Strange Coins
The bonus reward is guaranteed from the first daily clear, and available at a high drop rate on future clears.
Activities with bonus rewards will be sorted to the top and easy to find, so that you can quickly scan what’s available and decide if any are worth chasing. For matchmade activities they will also offer matchmaking at a wider range of difficulty options.
For more information on changes to rewards, please check out the Deep Dive on Core Game Rewards.
FAQ
Are old activities going away?
No, except for some seasonal activities that are normally removed at the end of a year. Older activities will remain available to launch from the Destination map, just as they are today.
Over time, it is our intention to clean up and retire some older activity offerings that are well served by the Portal, such as Vanguard Ops. These have lots of ties to existing content, though, and will need to be moved over gradually.
What about Gambit?
Gambit will remain available from the Destination map but will not be rolled into the Portal Categories at the start of next year. We are still figuring out our plan for this beloved game mode, and we have some ideas ranging from closer integration into the Crucible category to standalone Events that feature it.
Will Raids and Dungeons be in the Portal?
Dungeon content will be featured in the Pinnacle Ops Category, with some alterations to support Challenge Customization and Reward Rating.
Raid content will not initially be present in Portal Categories. The long clear times combined with the wide variation in experiences present some unique challenges that we are still working through. However, we are excited to get this content into the Portal offering in the future.