Bungie is toning down the requirements for unlocking the Scallywag seasonal title in Destiny 2 starting next week, the developer confirmed today. The title has been one of many pain points for players during this season, especially due to how hard, RNG-dependent, and outright grindy some of its prerequisites could be.
“We’ve looked at the data and the Season of Plunder Seal and title is harder to acquire than originally intended,” Bungie said in its This Week at Bungie blog post today. The upcoming set of changes aims to make Scallywag much easier to acquire, though it will still require players to engage with the seasonal loop.
Ruffian spawns, one of the most contentious topics of the season, will see a drastic decrease. Starting next Tuesday, Nov. 22, players will only need to defeat 10 Ruffians, down from 50. Ruffians spawn on a timer in Expedition missions, and getting them to spawn requires actively playing the activity slowly and suboptimally, effectively punishing players who want the title if they play well. Bungie pushed a change to make Ruffians stop despawning when completing the objectives, but it was still easy to complete the objective before a single Ruffian spawn.
Players will also only need to obtain 14 Star Chart upgrades, down from the previous 23. This means players can finish the first seven weeks of seasonal challenges and have enough Repute to obtain the Seal. This was another particularly contentious topic since few of the challenges from week seven onwards were retroactive and most required you to play more Expedition and kill more Ruffians—activities that players have been doing to exhaustion since the beginning of the season.
Summoning First Mates will also be simpler once the next weekly reset hits. Instead of having to summon each First Mate 15 times, Bungie is dropping that number to one, saying this step “didn’t have a deep enough tutorial for some players to truly grasp.”
Lastly, players can also only complete eight out of the nine triumphs required for the Scallywag title, meaning they can ditch one of the triumphs they don’t want to complete and still walk away with the title.
Season of Plunder garnered several complaints from players since it kicked off in late August, with topics such as Ruffians, the Scallywag title, and the difficulty to unlock Patterns being some of the most common ones. Bungie changing the title just two weeks before the season ends is one of many signs the developer is open to player feedback, but the severity of the changes—including dropping the Ruffians needed to 20 percent of its value and First Mates to one of each—are strong indications that the triumphs were drastically cranked up to the maximum.
Update Nov. 17 1:54pm CT: Bungie pushed the changes early and the reduced requirements for the Scallywag seal and title are already active.
