Difficulty is a tricky thing in a game like Destiny 2. With such a large player base, there will always be some who find certain activities easy while others find the same missions extremely difficult. That said, Bungie is tuning high-difficulty activities quite a lot in Lightfall with the hopes of raising the game’s challenge. The intention here is to make the Legend difficulty of various activities like Nightfalls more in line with the Legendary campaign difficulty that launched in Witch Queen and is returning in Lightfall.
How is Destiny 2 turning up the challenge? Firstly, the lowest “Adept” difficulty is being removed from Nightfalls. This means that “Hero” will be the lowest, which in Lightfall will be available at 1750 Power — the new Soft Cap. Legend and Master difficulties will be available at 1800, the new Power Cap. For Season 20, the Power levels for each difficulty tier are: 1770 (Hero), 1830 (Legend), and 1840 (Master). Power level disadvantages will also be in play: -5 for Hero, -15 for Legend, -20 for Master, and -25 for Grandmaster Nightfalls.
Guardians rejoice, because Match Game is being removed from Destiny 2. On the flip side, mismatched shields will now take 50% less damage across the whole game, making matching them a more consistent but less pressing concern. Speaking of elemental damage, the old Burn system is being split into Surges and Threats. Surges benefit Guardians, increasing outgoing elemental damage of the corresponding type by 25%, while Threats increase incoming elemental damage by 25%. Surges will have featured seasonal and rotating weekly types. For Season of Defiance, the featured type is Strand and the rotating weekly Surges are Solar and Void.
But that’s not all — Bungie is introducing a mechanic called Overcharged weapons into high-level activities. This is a system reminiscent of the old Nightfall and Prestige Raid weapon type system. Instead of requiring that you enter with a certain loadout, however, it rewards you for using certain weapon types. Overcharged weapons will deal 25% bonus damage in an activity, and they’re determined by both activity modifiers and the weapons assigned to anti-Champion mods on the Seasonal Artifact. Crucially, Overcharges and Surges do not stack.
Lastly, Bungie is increasing the difficulty in Destiny 2 by making it harder to stagger combatants in high-level activities. Enemies also have more health to compensate for Surge and Overcharge. Powerful enemies will see the greatest boost, while red bars will receive the least.
What do you think of these upcoming changes to high difficulty activities in Destiny 2? From our perspective, the Legendary campaign difficulty in Witch Queen was near-perfectly tuned, so we’re glad to see them taking the lessons from it and applying them to the rest of the game.
