Destiny's new Item Lock will protect against catastrophic weapons loss

Players who accidentally dismantle precious gear in Destinyare to be offered a useful fix.

On the Destiny blog today, UI Engineer Daniel Hanson talked about a new way to lock down precious gear, so it's not accidentally deleted in moments of absent-minded clear-outs, or by pesky kids playing where they ought not.

"One recurring story we keep seeing involves Legendary and Exotic gear getting accidentally dismantled by errant pets and over-enthusiastic children," said Hanson. "We decided to empower players to protect their precious gear with Item Locking."

To protect something in inventory from being dismantled players will be able to highlight the item and click down on the right thumb-stick. It will remain locked until explicitly unlocked.

Ammo Changes

In other update news, ammunition's role in Destiny player-vs-player matches is also changing, with ammo drops set to become rarer and high damage weapons more limited.

On the blog update, Kevin Yanes, Bungie designer of the PvP Crucible arenas, answered some questions about the new direction and how it has worked out in play-tests.

He said that the team wants to make Special ammo a more precious resource in Crucible, solidify Heavy ammo's role in the Crucible and "further improve the balance of encounters" by limiting high-damage weapons.

"We believe that making ammo more scarce and important will provide players with more choices and more memorable encounters in Crucible," said Yanes. "Special Ammo will spawn less frequently, it will take longer to pick up, there will be less crates located on the map, and the bricks you find will provide you with less ammo."

Full details will be provided in forthcoming patch notes for update 1.1.2, which has not yet been given a release date, but was described as being "weeks away" last month.

Yanes talked about significant changes like widening heavy ammo drop team radiuses, creating despawn conditions when players sit on crates and extending the inbound timer by five seconds. He described how play sessions have changed in testing.

"Internally, we've seen the arrival of Heavy Ammo create short bursts of intensity in a match that eventually reverts back to the neutral game. We think the transition back to regular gameplay is super important because it gives the team on the losing end of Heavy Ammo distribution a chance to rally back."