'Destiny 2' Update 2.0.5 (1.28) Fixes Exotic & Masterwork Drops - Patch Notes

Destiny 2 update 2.0.5 is officially live as version 1.28 on PS4. In contrast to the content-focused 2.04 patch that released two weeks ago, this one focuses on fixing problems the community has endured since the launch of Forsaken. Most notably, the grind for Masterwork Cores and Exotic drops has suddenly become a lot easier. The full patch notes come courtesy of a blog post from Bungie.

Sandbox

Weapons

• Malfeasance
  • Increased Explosive Shadow detonation damage
  • Increased damage against Taken and invaders
• Wish-Ender
  • Increased base Wish-Ender damage
  • Fixed an issue where Wish-Ender's Broadhead perk would not activate properly, which would result in a loss of damage
  • Wish-Ender's Queen's Wrath perk effects are now more readable and consistent
• Trace Rifles
  • Now spawn with 50 ammo in the Crucible
  • Now benefit from the following armor perks:
  • Auto Rifle Loader
  • Unflinching Auto Rifle Aim
  • Auto Rifle Targeting
  • Precision Weapon Targeting
  • Auto Rifle Dexterity
• Increased Sword damage in PvE
• Increased Fusion Rifle damage in PvE
• Proximity Grenades now have a stat penalty to blast radius
• Reduced the amount by which Full Choke narrows projectile spread
• Changed the Dynamo and Distribution perks
  • Players will need to activate your class ability in proximity to at least one enemy to gain the benefit
  • Increased the energy gain by 20 percent to compensate slightly for the new requirement
  • Fixed an issue where Dynamo's effect was not scaling based on the player's class type; the Distribution perk had this, but it was unintentionally left out of Dynamo

General

• Increased visibility through a Titan's Banner Shield for allies
• The White Nail perk should no longer occasionally activate before the player achieves the required number of precision hits
• Fixed an issue where the SUROS Regime scope was opaque yellow
• Fixed an issue where Polaris Lance's The Perfect Fifth perk was not triggering

Combatants

General

• Fixed an issue where Vex Cyclopes weren't attacking players
• Fixed an issue where Hive Knights and Taken Vandals were not using special abilities

Activities

Crucible

• Breakthrough
  • Decreased attacker respawn time from seven seconds to five seconds after the Breaker is deployed
  • Modified the game rules to prevent teams from forcing the round into a stalemate:
    • In the initial fight over the Breaker, the team with the most capture progress (high-water mark) will win the Breaker if time runs out without any Breaker progress present. There will still be overtime if time runs out with progress present, and the Breaker will go to the team with current progress at the end of 30 seconds, or to the high-water mark if progress reaches zero with no players on the Breaker.
    • While a team is hacking the other team's Vault, progress decay accelerates gradually during Sudden Death for up to 30 seconds, after which the round will end the moment no attackers are present in the capture zone.
  • If the round ends in a draw twice, the match ends in a tie.
  • Neither team will get Glory points from this scenario.
  • Win Streaks are maintained.

Gambit

• Sleeper Simulant now gains less ammo from Heavy ammo crates on the wall in Gambit (now two, down from four)
• Swords now gain more ammo from Heavy ammo crates on the wall in Gambit (now 12, up from six)
• Fixed an issue where sometimes one team's invasion portal would not open
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the wrong team would be credited for defeating the Ascendant Primeval
• Increased the spawn rate of the Ascendant Primeval Servitor
• The Gambit ship and Sparrow are no longer guaranteed drops
• Quitter protection
  • Fixed an issue where matchmaking would sometimes result in players being kicked from Gambit matches, thus triggering quitter penalties
  • Quitter penalties have been reenabled
  • Players will now receive two warnings before they are suspended from Gambit
  • Players will not be immediately suspended on the first match of the day if they quit a match the night before
  • Increased suspension time to 30 minutes

General

• Fixed an issue where players could play the strike "The Corrupted" with a six-player fireteam

Items and Economy

Exotic Duplicate Weighting

• When a player receives an Exotic, we now take into account all Exotics the player has found and weight them against Exotics they have yet to acquire. This lowers the player's chances of receiving Exotics they already own.
• Exotics that the player does not yet own are individually weighted much higher than duplicate Exotics
• When receiving duplicate Exotics, the player is more likely to earn armor pieces as these have randomly rolled perks
• Removed quest Exotic weapons from the Exotic engram loot pool
  • Worldline Zero
  • Ace of Spades
  • Wish-Ender
  • One Thousand Voices
  • Malfeasance
  • Lord of Wolves
  • The Chaperone

Enhancement Cores

• Renamed Masterwork Cores to Enhancement Cores
• Enhancement Cores are now awarded by Scrapper bounties and six of the Spider's weekly bounties
• Enhancement Cores will be more visible in the loot feed

General

• Banshee-44 now accepts up to 25 Gunsmith Materials at a time
• Removed hold time for the Spider's material exchange interactions
• Increased the stack size of Ghost Fragments from 10 to 20
• Reduced shader dismantle time from one second to 0.25 seconds
• Fixed an issue where the Secret Victories emblem was using the wrong tracker description
• It now correctly displays as "Ascendant chests looted"
• The requirements for the Queen's Bounty "Purification Ritual" have been clarified and now list the target as "Abyssal Champions" instead of "Swordbearing Knights"
• Raid challenge bounties now rotate in a fixed, round-robin fashion
• Nightfall unique rewards will drop more consistently; the longer players go without a unique drop, the higher their chances of a unique reward on their next Nightfall completion
• The chance resets once a player receives any Nightfall unique reward

PC

General

Text chat auto-fade can now be toggled on or off in the Gameplay settings menu; when turned off, text chat will never automatically fade out, even after a period of inactivity

The switch from Masterwork Cores to Enhancement Cores can't be overstated. Rather than grinding like mad for more Cores or dismantling high-level weapons, the new system offers six or seven guaranteed Cores in a given week, in addition to increased probability of a random drop. The same can be said for Exotic drops as well, which now pay far less favor to duplicates. It's also nice to see Wish-Ender and Malfeasance get a bit of a buff, considering how challenging it is to get both of those weapons.

In general, the theme for Destiny 2 update 2.0.5 revolves around maintaining the game's daily grind while removing parts of it that were frustrating or obtuse. The game's high-level gear is more powerful and slightly easier to get, which opens up space for the PvE and PvP metas to evolve. There's not a ton of glamor in this patch, but it certainly makes the Destiny 2 experience feel a lot better than it did before.

Destiny 2 is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Update 2.0.5 is rolling out now on all platforms.

What are your thoughts on Destiny 2 update 2.0.5? Do you like the shift toward Enhancement Cores? Tell us in the comments section!