Destiny 2 Solstice 2022 Reveals New Armour and a New Way to P(l)ay

The Destiny 2 Summer event, Solstice, is arriving in a few short days with a whole heap of new changes and iterations. This is including a new set of flashy armour, a new way to farm high stat roll armour pieces, a revamp to the classic (and slightly dull) European Aerial Zone activity and a brand new Event Pass system, featuring both a paid and free track of rewards.
Destiny 2 Solstice 2022 Reveals New Armour and a New Way to P(l)ay

Destiny 2 Solstice 2022 Reveals New Armour and a New Way to P(l)ay

This week’s instalment of Bungie’s community check-up, This Week at Bungie, has arrived for the week of July 14th 2022 and has bought with it news about the upcoming Summer event coming to Destiny 2: Solstice.

What used to be known as Solstice of Heroes, this holiday event has become an exciting tradition for the Destiny 2 player base, giving players access to a limited time mode, new armour, cosmetics and gear over the course of about 3 weeks. Bungie has made some changes to Solstice this year, including the addition of a new way to play the game… by paying for a cosmetic pass. 

Let’s have a look over the new information revealed for Solstice 2022 in Destiny 2.

Solstice 2022 Overview: Start Date, End Date, General Information 

Solstice begins in Destiny 2 next week on July 19th and it will run up until the event ends on August 9th. 

The event comes with everything we have come to expect from a Destiny event: the Tower will be decked out in a variety of festive decorations matching the event’s theme, this this years standout seemingly being the iconic Solstice Guardian statue in the main entrance surrounded by grass and foliage. We will also be making a return trip to the EAZ, the standard battleground location for Solstice for the last 3 years, but Bungie claims that it has been given new life through a revamp called ‘Bonfire Bash’.

We will also be getting some brand new armour (and probably a brand new weapon too) for all 3 classes, all of them based on the classic Solstice aesthetic identity. The armour can be upgraded to receive a free white glow, and additional glows based on the Destiny 2 elements (Solar, Arc, Void and Stasis) can be bought in a bundle at Eververse for 6000 Silver (6000 Silver unlocks all glows for one character). 

New Armour Glows

New Armour Glows

There are several brand new aspects to Solstice this year too, including a new way to upgrade the armour we earn (complete with a bevy of new currencies) and a new Event Card, a new free and paid system which rewards cosmetics and other goodies for challenge completions.

The Solstice 2022 Event Card

The biggest change coming is the new Event Card, which a new way for players to engage with holiday events. 

The Event Card is supposed to ‘organize objectives and help guide players on what they can do during the event’ and is available for free to all players. You access your Card by first talking to Eva in the tower (she will be right in front of the big Guardian statue) and then it is accessible through the Quests tab in your menu.

This card comes in two forms: a free track and a paid track. With the card, players can access:

  • Event Challenges that reward ‘event-related rewards and Event Tickets’.
  • Event Seals and Titles – there will be a Seal and associated Title for every seasonal event, and a 5th Seal combining your efforts from all 4 events in a year, as revealed in a TWAB from May.
  • Upgraded Event Card Rewards (seemingly only accessible if you have the paid edition of the card).

Bungie does stress that the free events we have all come to know will remain the same, with some of the free rewards now being part of the free track of the Event Card instead (with no additional purchases or upgrades required). 

So what does the paid portion actually get you?

For 1000 Silver, you can upgrade your free Event Card to an Upgraded Event Card, upon which players will immediately get access to a unique cosmetics reward bundle and have the ability to spend Event Tickets on even more cosmetics. The items in the bundle have been previously revealed, and we got a brief look at 2 of the new items today: the Hot Dog Eating Champ Exotic Emote and the Sunny Exotic Ghost Shell. Other items include a Legendary Shader, Legendary Emote, Exotic Ship, Ghost Hologram and Transmat Effect.

What exactly Event Tickets get you is unclear right now, but you do gain Tickets even if you have not purchased the upgraded track, meaning that you can purchase the card whenever you get enough Tickets to buy everything. All tickets must be spent by August 9th, or they disappear and become unusable. 

In the previously mentioned May TWAB, Bungie revealed that the value of the Upgraded Event Card is 3000 Silver (2000 more than you pay) with all the cosmetics and items you can earn. Bungie also note that while these cosmetics will not be available outside of the Upgraded Event Card this year, they may find their way to Solstice in the upcoming years. 

New Way to Upgrade Armour for Solstice 2022

New armour has always been an exciting part of Solstice, with a new Legendary armour set available for each class every year. Each armour set can also be equipped with a variety of glows: either pure white from just completing events and upgrading the armour, or the colour of the elements if the glow bundle is purchased from Eververse.

The armour this year retains the style and theme of previous years, while still being distinct enough. Each set this year has a set of unique sigils and markings across the armour, with ornate golden head-dresses, shoulder-pads and Solstice symbols that all shine brightly when a glow is equipped.

New Armour With Base Glow

New Armour With Base Glow

Solstice armour is usually earned through playing the event exclusive activity, the European Aerial Zone, where killing bosses in a strict time limit award boxes that can give Solstice armour. In the past, getting the initial set has been easy, but getting high stat rolls of the sets has been extremely difficult. If you simply want the armour for Transmog, this may not bother you, but Bungie has implemented a new system to help aid players in grinding out these armour rolls.

This year, upgrading and earning armour will involve 3 new currencies: Silver Leaves, Silver Ash and Kindling.

Silver Leaves are earned through completing various activities throughout the game, likely bounties or by participating in the core playlist.

Silver Ash is earned by transforming Silver Leaves in the new EAZ activity called Bonfire Bash, which seems to be a hoard mode style encounter mixed with area defence. By using Silver Ash, you can reroll Solstice armour in the mod slot menu. 

Kindling comes in three tiers (Small, Medium and Large) and is slotted into armour after being earned through Event Challenges. These Kindling mods upgrade the ‘potential’ of your armour, meaning that can reach high stat rolls when rerolled using Silver Ash. Each armour piece (helmet, chest, exc.) can be upgraded three times, increasing your potential each time you do it, and it only needs to be done once per slot: once you have reached max potential on your helmet, every Solstice helmet you have or will get in the future has that same tier 3 potential.

Solstice Kindling

Solstice Kindling

How this translates to gameplay is such, as described by Design Lead CJ Payne:

  1. ‘Complete Event Challenges to earn Kindling.
  2. Use Kindling to permanently upgrade your Solstice armor stat roll potential.
  3. Complete a wide variety of activities throughout the game to earn Silver Leaves. 
  4. Complete the Solstice Activity, Bonfire Bash, to transform Silver Leaves into Silver Ash. 
  5. Use Silver Ash to reroll armor stats from the armor mod screen.
  6. Keep earning and spending Silver Ash to reroll armor to get the stats you want. 
  7. Once you’ve fully rerolled stats on a piece of armor, pick up a new piece for the same slot to start rerolling stats again.’

Additionally, once you have fully upgraded your armour so that it glows, you can focus specific stats such as Resilience and Recovery so that they get higher during Silver Ash rerolling. 

While this may seem confusing or daunting, Destiny players have always been faced with, and are unfortunately used to, a lot of currencies and this new system seems as though it will cut down on the need for repetitive grinding and hoarding of armour pieces. Hopefully.

Closing

Destiny 2‘s holiday events have long since languished in a feeling of indifference, something that Bungie seems to want to improve upon with their introduction of the Event Card.

While many may scoff at the introduction of another paid element to the game, it does provide free players with something more to do at holiday time than before: Seals and Titles will be available to complete, as well as cosmetics and the new armour rerolling system. 

We will learn everything about Solstice when it launches on July 19th. 

SOURCE: THIS WEEK AT BUNGIE – 7/14/2022 ON BUNGIE.NET

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