While Destiny 2 has seen its difficulty get a boost with the launch of Lightfall, Bungie plans to touch up difficulty further in select activities after having players run around in the current sandbox. The studio's plans don't end there, either, as commendations will be getting a second pass as there has still been player criticism on how it impacts progression for Guardian Ranks. It is the first taste of the mid-season changes Bungie will bring to the game's sandbox, setting the stage for the meta players can expect to see for the remainder of the season.
The conversation around Destiny 2's difficulty has been an ongoing one for several years, typically picking up steam whenever issues of power creep become more obvious inside the game's sandbox. Lightfall and Season of Defiance saw Bungie inject a fresh dose of difficulty into the game, particularly on the new destination of Neomuna and seasonal activities. That said, the conversation only persisted with the launch of the Root of Nightmares raid which saw nearly 200,000 players complete the raid during the 48-hour contest mode.
Bungie spoke on Destiny 2's difficulty in the latest This Week at Bungie post, which previewed some of the changes coming in the larger mid-season patch for Season of Defiance. The studio said it would be reducing enemy HP scalar by 10% in the Legend and Master difficulty modes for most activities, except for raids and dungeons which will keep the current enemy HP scalar. Avalon, the new exotic mission for Vexcalibur, will receive a similar enemy HP touch-up for cooperative players, with enemy HP scalar being reduced by 33%.
Along with the enemy health nerfs, Bungie is further reducing the commendation requirements for weekly clan and overall Guardian Rank progression to fit with "a more enjoyable pace." The first will be a second reduction to commendations needed to rank up, with rank 7 now requiring 200 instead of 460, rank 8 requiring 477 instead of 790, and rank 9 requiring 910 instead of 1290, while also removing any rank objectives requiring players to give commendations for said ranks. Suraya Hawthorne will then have her weekly commendation pinnacle reduced from 20 to 5, providing an easier weekly pinnacle for players to earn.
The changes appear to be aimed at bringing some ease back to Destiny 2's grind and gameplay, though not at the sacrifice of other activities. Commendations, in particular, had been a sticking point for the more vocal members of the game's community as a common complaint was the requirements to rank up were far too high and significantly slowed down possible rank progression. As for the game's overall difficulty, it wouldn't be surprising to see players welcome this change due to complaints about select enemies in the new Defiant Battlegrounds or higher-difficulty Nightfalls but not at the cost of the raids and dungeons' own difficulty.
Destiny 2 is currently available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Bungie