Destiny 2's Next Update Adds Bounties, Dials Back Some Heroic Strike Modifiers

As part of our month-long coverage of Destiny 2: Forsaken, we revealed how bounties would be making a return to the world of Destiny. As it turns out, they'll be headed back a bit earlier than we realized, and with them also come changes to some of the more frustrating Heroic Strike modifiers.

When update 1.2.3. arrives next on Tuesday, players can start picking up optional bounties which will have them completing various tasks while playing Destiny 2, and get experience and faction rep for their trouble. "[Bounties] were removed to streamline the activity experience in Destiny 2 and reduce the number of “chores” that players felt compelled to complete every day," Destiny 2 Senior Design Lead Tyson Green said in Bungie's weekly blog. "In retrospect, we realized that was an over-correction, and optional daily objectives to achieve specific goals are something we want to restore."

Bungie is making a couple of changes to how Bounties work, however. They will now eventually expire, and will cost Glimmer Destiny 2's most common currency) to take on in the first place. "We wanted to avoid the 'grab every bounty you see until your inventory is packed and sort them out later' experience without constraining players to the tiny inventory they found in previous iterations of the game," Green says.

The 1.2.3. update will also make quality-of-life changes, most notably some dialing back of the Heroic Strike modifiers which were plaguing players. Blackout, which made all melee attacks from enemies one-hit kills, is being scaled back to simply increase the amount of damage melee attacks deal.

Grounded, which increased the damage players took while in the air, is also being scaled back. " There are many times players are considered "airborne" when they're not actually jumping," said Test Engineer Drew Martineau. "To account for that, we are reducing the damage threshold so players aren't punished for things outside of their control."

Finally, Glass, which halved players' health but also halved the amount of time it took for players to regenerate their shields, has had its effects slightly reduced to "better enable players to see the effects of their overall Power progression over time."

These changes are designed to ease the difficulty of Heroic Strikes a bit, letting players feel a bit more powerful as they progressed in Power level.