With the launch of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep earlier this month, Bungie ushered in a new armor modification system dubbed Armor 2.0. But it wasn’t quite finished apparently, as today’s This Week at Bungie post outlined further adjustments coming to Armor 2.0 in a (far) future update.
First up, Bungie plans to introduce more “broad category” mods (read: mods that ignore elemental affinity) at the beginning of Destiny 2‘s next season. “Not every mod type got a broad-category version, notably the mod types that affect the ammo economy,” the “Bungie Dev Team” pseudonym said in the post. “That’s because any mods that tinker with the ammo economy have a lot of caveats and exceptions, mostly due to weapons that use ammo types not normally associated with that weapon archetype, such as Eriana’s Vow, the Mountaintop, Whisper of the Worm, and so forth.”
Bungie needed more time to work on Ammo Finder/Scavenger-type mods that aren’t limited by the elemental affinity, hence the delay until next season. “We needed a bit more time to build the broad category versions of these mods and test them thoroughly, but at the start of next season there will be broad-category mods for both the ammo finder and ammo scavenger categories, and they will be automatically unlocked for all players.” For the record, Shadowkeep Season 2 doesn’t begin until January 2020 at the absolute earliest. Bungie also has plans for broad category mods that alter how much ammo you can carry, rather than how often you find ammo, but those mods are even further out.
Next season will also see the removal of Armor 2.0’s prohibition against slotting multiple mods of the same type into the same piece of armor. “Starting next season, the restrictions on having multiple mods of the same type in a single piece of armor will be removed,” the post reads. “You’ll be able to run two Hand Cannon Loader mods, or two Shotgun Ammo Finder mods, and so forth.”
The caveat, and there always is one, is that stacked mods of the same type deliver diminishing returns. “Two Hand Cannon Loader mods don’t provide twice the benefit; instead, they provide about 1.5x the benefit of one Hand Cannon Loader mod. However, this puts them on equal footing with the enhanced mods. So, two Hand Cannon Loader mods provide the equivalent benefit of a single Enhanced Hand Cannon Loader. We’re also going to be lowering the energy costs of some of the armor mods to better reflect the value of an enhanced mod.”
Bungie says that the only mods except from the new stacking rules are “mods that provide no benefit when stacked, such as Fastball and Traction.” Fastball increases a Guardian’s grenade throw distance, but rather than applying a numerical boost to it (e.g. X meters multiplied by 1.5), Fastball just sets the throw distance to Y meters instead of X meters. A second instance of Fastball would also set the throw distance to Y meters, and the outcome would therefore be the same.
Lastly, Bungie has plans to add Armor 2.0 mods to the Collection interface, starting with the 2.6.1 update currently scheduled for Oct. 29. You’ll have to read the tooltips to see what elemental affinity each mods has for now — “armor energy type and cost” won’t make it onto the Collection screen’s icons until next season.
