Destiny 2 is about to shake up the game, and with its latest expansion, far-reaching changes are coming to the game. Especially the recently announced artifact mod change is great, and MeinMMO reveals to you why.
The seasonal artifact brings special mods into play every season that significantly influence gameplay. By earning experience points, players could unlock 12 out of 25 mods and customize their artifact.
- The artifact determines which weapons work against champions in the respective season
- Special artifact armor mods personalize the game and often become meta
- The seasonal artifact also allows players to raise their power level until the end of each season by collecting experience points.
However, the seasonal artifact has a problem: Players criticize that while 25 mods are available every season, they can only unlock and actively use 12 of them.
A reset is possible, allowing players to choose different mods and change their initial choice. However, each reset costs increasingly more of the earnable in-game currency Glimmer. This limits build diversity, is expensive, and makes it difficult to try new things.
Bungie wanted to keep it simple: As early as September, Bungie’s Game Director, Joe Blackburn, in the PC Gamer interview talked about the seasonal artifact. The reason they initially decided to allow only 12 unlockable mods was to reduce complexity. However, he did not elaborate whether his statement referred to the game itself or to the players’ overwhelm with the many artifact mods.
The limitation should never dampen the fun: After the development team was able to observe how players used their seasonal artifacts and especially what they want to use, this mechanic is now being changed.
Future change to the artifact mod system is great
Especially in the fifth row of the seasonal artifact, it was quite difficult to make a suitable selection due to the limitation to 12 mods.
This will give you more freedom soon: The adjustment of the artifact mod system is especially great because it no longer prevents build diversity in a game where creating theories and inventing unique build combinations is very rewarding and desired.
The times when players had to deliberate on which valuable artifact mods, alongside the champion mods, they wanted to play are soon over. Bungie will allow it for Witch Queen that everything can be unlocked, so you can really experiment freely from then on.
As a small example: If Bungie had introduced this change to the artifact mod system already in the current Season 15 for the “Pathfinder Compass”, players could have easily combined the indispensable endgame mods Particle Disintegration, Thermoclastic Bloom, Focus Lens, and the elemental source mod “Strength Source” together.
How does the system work exactly?
Bungie stated in the latest TWaB (This Week at Bungie) from January 13, 2022 that fundamentally not much will change in how the artifact levels up and how the mods are unlocked. You play and accumulate experience points. The more experience you earn, the more artifact mods you can unlock and use.
There will only be a small adjustment to the amount of experience points needed for the first 12 artifact mods. However, according to Bungie, this should not noticeably differ from the known unlocking pace from the current Season 15.
Players should still be able to quickly unlock the most important artifact mods, such as the important champion mods in row 1.
What does it cost to unlock the artifact mods? After the 12th unlock, more and more experience points are required for the next artifact mod unlock. Players who want to unlock everything will have to play a lot and collect corresponding experience points.
Players will have to grind a bit more, but will no longer have to decide which artifact mods they want, only in which order they want to unlock them. Furthermore, they can change their minds at any time and reset the artifact to make a new selection.
When will the change come, and what else can players expect? Bungie will introduce the new system for artifact mods with the expansion “The Witch Queen”. So on February 22, 2022. In the coming weeks, things will also remain exciting. Players can expect more information on Gambit and the new weapon crafting.
What do you personally think of the changes to the seasonal artifact? Is it what you wished for? Or does Bungie provide a solution that you are not satisfied with?
