Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep. (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Monday, July 22, 2019, 16:06 (1734 days ago)

Polygon interviewer Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy and have been posting articles over the last week or so. The newest one is about the new seasonal Artifacts.

The Artifact is one part of this philosophy around making sure that in Destiny going forward, our seasonal content feels like it’s got a sense of momentum,” said Smith.

Each season, players will set aside their old Artifact and pick up a new one. For the game’s fiction, it’s to help players feel like there’s a through-line in the Destiny experience.

Smith suggested that players will slot mods into their new Artifact each season, some of which could seriously impact player powers or abilities. At the end of the season, players will replace their Artifact with something completely new, with new mods and abilities.

Bungie intends to use Artifacts to test new kinds of abilities each season. Presumably, this allows the studio to experiment with more creative builds for players to test out without creating a problem it needs to fix down the line. Since all seasonal mods expire after three months, the problems of power creep should solve themselves by the end of each season.

Noseworthy reiterated Smith’s point. “We think of every season having some kind of flavor,” said Noseworthy. He added that the team wants players to push their characters in completely new directions or builds each season.

It’s a neat idea on paper. I’m worried, though, that it will ultimately feel as thin as the current RPG mechanics, which might as well not even exist given how little they seem to matter. On the other side of that coin, if it ends up being really impactful, I sort of worry that it will feel bad to get ultra power with unique perks and then be reset back to square one every season. I think it’s a better solution than power level, though. I wish they would drop that and use this instead. Encounters would be doable but difficult at the start of the season, then become easier as you gain new mods for your artifact and new abilities and become better at using them. Would be far more interesting than just growing a number.