Today, Bungie patched a new update to Destiny, Patch 1.0.2. Below is the summary of the notes, which can also be found here. 

Summary:

With this patch, we address some widely-discussed concerns with how Engrams are earned and claimed. Strikes have become more rewarding, and the rewards gained from them are more predictable. Also affected is the rotation of maps that appear in the Crucible.

Cryptarch

• Legendary (purple) engrams will always produce a Legendary quality item or higher
  • Note: Legendary engrams that exist in your inventory will change to Rare quality items when the patch is applied. However, decoding these engrams will still produce the same results as before
• Rare (blue) engrams will always produce a Rare quality item or higher
  • Chance for Legendary gear increased
• Materials: Ascendant Shards and Ascendant Energy promoted to Legendary quality (from Rare quality)

Rewards

• Rare (Blue) and Legendary (Purple) Engram drops added to the potential rewards for:
  • Vanguard: Tiger Strike Playlist
  • Daily Heroic Missions (first time per day)
  • Weekly Heroic Missions (first time per week)
• Known issues
  • When selecting a higher difficulty for daily missions, XP Bonus not show in the reward display
  • You will still get the XP bonus, you just won't see it in the UI

Crucible

• Reduced time limit on Bastion and First Light in Control and Clash from 15 to 12 minutes, bringing them in line with non-vehicle maps in those playlists
• Lowered weighting on Bastion and First Light in Control and Clash so they appear less often in those playlists

So what does this all mean? Strikes, for one, become more than a mind numbing gear grind. Now it's a grind with better rewards! Snark aside, people seem to be pretty happy with these changes, and even happier that the time limit for Bastion and First Light have been reduced, which means they can get their farm on three minutes faster each time. These two will also show up less often in the playlist, so you won't end up being as sick of them as you have in the past.

However, players are worried that this means people will continue to abuse the system by going for easy mode AFK carries. Players are saying that they've seen no changes to matchmaking in Destiny from reporting players. Have you had these issues? Do you think it's working fine as is, or is this something Bungie will need to address? I am not a console gamer, so I have to rely on the input of others here and cannot create an opinion for myself as to whether or not this is an issue.

The rewards revamp, however, is definitely something I have seen players complain about since Destiny's launch, so there is a good amount of excitement surrounding that. From an outsider's perspective, the changes to engrams looks like it would create community outrage, but reading responses, it seems to be just the opposite. It looks like the chance to get (or decrypt, in Destiny lingo) purple gear out of rare (blue) engrams remains the same percentage, but now there's a better chance to get purple engrams for better gear. This all boils down to better rewards overall. If you came to this patch looking for weapon buffs, though, sorry they are not in here. People were expecting buffs for Bad Juju mostly, but also Thorn and MIDA Multi-Tool. Some people were also asking of shotgun nerfs were put in this patch, which also appears to not be the case.

Did you know that we have a Destiny Guide Portal? You can find all of our high-quality, custom-made Destiny guides all in one place. From classes to weapons to farming hot spots, Ten Ton Hammer has your Destiny needs covered! Check out the portal and let us know what you think about Patch 1.02 in the comments below!