In response to a swell of player push-back, Bungie have decided to disable the Artifact for Power-enabled PvP game modes, such as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris, which is returning for the Season of the Worthy when it starts on 10th March.
We will be disabling the Artifact for Power-enabled PVP (Iron Banner & Trials) until we can implement a Power Cap feature.
This cap will allow us to weave Artifact and Power Pursuit together while preventing unbound Power growth in PVP.
— Luke Smith (@thislukesmith) February 28, 2020
That’s all well and good, but what the hell is this all about? Though the PvE game is balanced to take into account the steadily increasing Power level of your character and gear, most competitive multiplayer game modes remove the effects of Power, ensuring that players are given an even playing field… to pick the most powerful weapons within the game’s current meta.
Some modes, Iron Banner and Trials, add player Power into the mix. It means that someone that’s Power 700 will have a damage and defence advantage over someone that’s Power 690, for example. Normally the difference will be a couple points
Since the launch of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, a new spanner has been thrown into the works with the Artifact, an item that constantly builds and adds power on top of your gear throughout a season. While it gives players a way to constantly increase their power, for Iron Banner and Trials, it also means that the gap between people playing day in day out and those that only occasionally can grow throughout the season, instead of levelling off as more people approach the Power cap.
With the return of Trials of Osiris as a major component of the new season, this point was highlighted by fans, and thankfully Bungie have listened. The Artifact is being disabled with an intention to add a Power Cap feature that will limit its impact for players.
Destiny Director Luke Smith also explained that they will dig into how Power actually affects PvP, hoping to dispell some of the knee jerk assumptions about its impact. It’s obviously very easy to blame the game instead of accept that another player was just better than you!
Somewhere down the road (but before we implement the Cap!), we're going to talk about what effect Power has on combat in PVP (think deep dive/numbers/etc).
All of that is way more info than Twitter can take.
See you soon.— Luke Smith (@thislukesmith) February 28, 2020
Beyond this, a number of other key issues will be resolved by update 2.8.0 and the launch of the new season.
- Tower travel loading times will be returned to normal.
- The Prime Attunement buff will once again show up on new characters after previous character deletion.
- The Pigeon and the Phoenix lore will become available again to those who earned the lore. Players who acquire Bastion in later Seasons will be granted all Pigeon and Pheonix lore.
- The empty Solstice of Heroes gift message from Tess will no longer show up.
