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For the entirety of Destiny 2‘s life, players have had to tough out an annoying but pervasive problem: the HUD, or heads-up display. A limitation on the way Destiny 2 uses its screen real estate meant it could only show you four messages about buffs or debuffs at a time, even if more than four were in effect–and that meant that sometimes, you might get killed because you didn’t realize an important timer was about to run out. It might even cost you a run on a tough activity.
But now, seven years since the release of Destiny 2, that HUD issue is finally getting a fix–in Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Final Shape.
Bungie ran down an update that’s coming to its HUD in its latest This Week in Destiny blog post, explaining how the user experience and user interface team are updating what you see on screen. There are more than 2,000 of these little status messages, ranging from things like boss mechanics in raids to subclass verbs such as “Amplified” or “Radiant,” so new status messages constantly push old status messages off the screen.
The changes allow more info to appear on-screen by moving some status messages to different spots on the HUD. The most important information, like the kind that includes a countdown to your impending death, is moving from the bottom-left corner of the screen and instead appearing in the center and near the top. Meanwhile, statuses related to your weapons, like Feeding Frenzy, will appear above your Super meter.
Buffs and debuffs will also have new icons that appear with the messages that give you a quick idea of what sort of status effect you’re dealing with, and Bungie has changed how certain messages are prioritized so the most important status messages will be most prominent.
“All of our green buffs and red debuffs now have a thick line weight on the top or bottom respectively to make them easier for colorblind players to read,” Bungie wrote. “Subclass-related buffs and debuffs maintain their diamond shape, but they more clearly indicate whether they are a buff or debuff in nature.”
The four-message issue has been a problem in Destiny 2 for literally its entire life. Most of that time in normal content, it was somewhat rare that more than four status effects would be in play, so the HUD problem didn’t really matter. But the four-message issue was often a problem in high-level activities such as raids, where players were almost always required to keep track of different timers and effects as part of the activities’ mechanics.
The problem has gotten even worse as Bungie has added to and enhanced Destiny 2’s subclasses. There are now just a lot more effects, and knowing which statuses are happening and when is key to using your subclasses effectively.
That makes this an incredibly welcome change, particularly with Bungie rolling out the new Prismatic subclasses that will combine elements of all the currently existing ones. Finally, your teammates will always realize they’re Imminent Detain debuff is about to go off while fighting Atheon at the end of the Vault of Glass, ruining the run for everyone. Or at the very least, they’ll no longer have an excuse.
There’s a whole lot more going on in Destiny 2 right now. Check out our guides for the new Onslaught activity, how to get Trophies of Bravery, what you’ll want to look for in a god roll of The Recluse, and how to earn the crafted version of the Whisper of the Worm Exotic sniper rifle.
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