On May 8, the update 1.2.0 and the 2nd expansion “Warmind” for Destiny 2 will be released simultaneously. May 8 also marks the start of Season 3. Just in time for its launch, Bungie is adjusting the difficulty level in PvE. We will show what changes for the Guardians.
Just recently, Bungie surprised fans and casually announced the name and release date of the second expansion for Destiny 2. This will simply be called “Warmind” and is set to be released on May 8, 2018.
The second DLC comes hand in hand with the last remaining milestone from Bungie’s old emergency plan for spring – the update 1.2.0. Season 3 in Destiny 2 also starts at the same time.
At the start of Season 3, Bungie makes adjustments to the difficulty level in PvE. The main goal of this tuning is to provide a more challenging experience for players when they engage in higher-level activities, such as the Prestige Nightfall.
This gives PvE masters among the Guardians the opportunity to prove their skills at the highest level.
Progression and ascension in power level should become more meaningful. The choice of the right elemental damage with energy and heavy weapons should also be encouraged and rewarded in PvE.
The following changes will take place for players with the start of Season 3 on May 8:
Higher-level enemies are harder to defeat
The scaling of damage dealt by Guardians towards higher-level enemies will be made steeper (harder), similar to Destiny 1. The result will be that it will take longer than before to eliminate higher-level enemies. However, if you are at the same or higher level, you can still take them down just as quickly as you are used to since update 1.1.4.
The scaling of dealt and received damage will be raised from a 40 power level cap to a 50 power level cap. Currently, this scaling only affects the difficulty of enemies up to 40 power levels above the player until they hit a cap. Expanding this cap to 50 power levels gives players more opportunities to prove their skills in PvE.
If enemies are more than 50 power levels above the Guardian, they will become immune to damage from the affected player and a “??” symbol will appear next to their name. Guardian veterans may remember the first time they encountered the Hive in the Cosmodrome and often had to flee because they faced enemies with question marks that they could (yet) not defeat. Bungie wants to bring back the feeling of uncertainty and provide players with challenges they can return to later.
Appropriate elemental damage will become more important
The energy shields of enemies will also be adjusted. This should make the choice of appropriate elemental damage more rewarding again.
The most effective will be to adjust the energy elemental damage to the shields of the enemies. This results in approximately triple damage plus the corresponding shield explosion. Unmatched elemental damage still brings about double damage. Kinetic damage does not provide any additional damage multiplier.
To further encourage matching elemental damage, the triple multiplier for matching damage types will not be influenced by the damage scaling of stronger enemies until the “??” symbol appears next to their name.
Through the aforementioned changes, Bungie will also be able to bring back the matching mod for the Prestige Nightfall. When this modifier is active, all damage against mismatched shields will be reduced by 10 percent in the future. This will require better coordination and organization of the strike team.
The current plan is for the matching modifier to be introduced simultaneously with the adjustments to the difficulty level.
What do you think of this step? Is Bungie finally on the right track with the numerous changes of late?
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