I’m loving Shadowkeep, and I think there’s loads of potential to some of these new gameplay and customization systems. But now that I’m somewhat past the initial level climb (2 of my characters are at ~960), and I’m starting to become more familiar with armor 2.0, the Champion enemies, and the Artifact, the more I feel like Bungie has painted us into a bit of a corner.

First: Armor 2.0

I think, in the long run, Armor 2.0 will prove to be an improvement over the initial system (right off the bat, I’m appreciating the universal ornament system... I just wish we had a wider selection of ornaments to choose from). However, I do have some concerns. The fact that certain mods are tied to the elemental affinity of your armor is too restrictive, IMO. Needing to consider the light level + the stat roll + the energy level of every single armor drop is a LOT of variables. Add the RNG nature of gear acquisition to the mix, and I end up concluding that if I want to like the way my guardian looks & customize my builds to the degree that I like at the same time, I’m going to need triplicates of any set of armor I want to wear (arc, solar, and void versions of each armor piece). Neither my character inventory nor my vault can handle that kind load, not to mention what an absolute pain in the ass it would be to reacquire 3 versions of my favourite armor sets with decent stat rolls (EP armor, Riven armor, Dreaming City armor, just to name a few).

When faced with all this, I’m pushed to the conclusion that I’m just not going to chase any specific armor based on looks. I’m going to look for decent stat rolls of each element for each armor slot, then use the ornaments to get myself looking half decent. There aren’t many ornament sets that I like the look of, but there are 1 or two I can be happy with. Still, the result is that the game has pushed me away from going after new armor sets, unless they’re ornaments.

Then there’s the artifact.

I’m often guilty of speed-reading in-game instructions or tool tips, and missing important details as a result. However, I do think the artifact system could be presented better. When I first started choosing artifact abilities, I thought it worked like an extra skill-tree layered overtop of your existing character build. Seemed pretty cool to me. But then I realized that the abilities I was unlocking were not active... they had to be applied to my gear as a mod. A bit counter intuitive, IMO, but fair enough. So I started experimenting with a few of the different mods. I quickly discovered however, that experimenting with mods is a very expensive process. I went into Shadowkeep with a pretty good stockpile of glimmer and materials, but messing around with my artifact mods (and resetting my artifact a couple times) burned through so much glimmer so quickly that I’ve now mentally set the artifact off to the side, where I can largely ignore it. Once again, rather than adding a new layer of customization and depth to the game, I feel like it’s just not worth the cost of engaging with it, except when I really must.

Champions:

My problem with Artifact mods dovetails into my problem with the Champion enemy types, and the specific mods that help you combat them.

First of all, if you’re going into high-level PvE activities, you really need to be using these mods if you want any chance of succeeding. The Champions are often too tough to beat without the correct mods.

There are 3 types of champions, and therefore 3 types of anti-champion mods. These anti-champion mods can only be applied to a small selection of weapon types; hand cannons, auto rifles, bows, and sub machine guns (all based on the nodes you’ve selected on your artifact).
So let’s walk through how this plays out. If I’m about to load into to a 920 Nightfall Ordeal, the director will tell me which types of champions I’ll be dealing with during the mission. Let’s say for this specific strike, there are Unstoppable and Overcharge champions. I want to go into this mission with both mods available. I could only equip 1, or none, and hope my teammates cover those needs. But they might not, and even if they do, I don’t want to be in the situation where I’m the last guardian standing with an unstoppable champion barreling towards me, and no unstoppable mods to deal with him.

So, the prudent choice is to go into the mission with 1 of each mod equipped. But that means using 2 primary weapons (what is this, Destiny 2? Lol). More narrowly than that, it means I’m cornered into using hand canons, bows, auto rifles, or SMGs because those are the only weapons that can take anti-champion mods. It also rules out any exotic primaries, as they can’t take mods at all.
So I look through my primaries for weapons that can take the proper mods for this mission. Then I notice that I’ve chosen the wrong nodes on my artifact to suit the specific combination of weapons and mods that I want to bring into the mission, so I reset my artifact ($$$), then equip my Austringer and Recluse. I put an unstoppable mod on my Austringer ($) which replaces the rampage spec mod, meaning the gun will be noticeably less effective than usual. I then put an Overcharge mod on my Recluse ($), which replaces the major Spec I keep on it to help deal with major enemies.
So in effect, I’m being encouraged into a fairly narrow range of gear choices, and then mildly nerfing my weapons (by removing the mods I normally equip to improve their general effectiveness), while spending a fair bit of glimmer in the process, and then when I go to the next high-level PvE activity, I’ve gotta go through that whole process all over again. None of which is all that bad, but it certainly goes against Bungie’s stated goal of giving us the freedom to create our own personal “monster killing machine”. It’s also a non-trivial glimmer drain. Going forward, I plan on keeping a few weapons on each of my characters loaded up with a range of anti-champion mods, specifically for those high level activities. But that’s more slots of my inventory used up on weapons that I won’t use for anything else, and less slots for the stuff I usually like to carry.

Taken as a whole, I think these gameplay features (in their current state) are either expensive to the point that they deter experimentation and build diversity, overly cumbersome and tough to manage, or directly encourage loadout monotony. I think these issues could be resolved with some tweaks, though. Any thoughts? Anyone having similar issues?

So apparently the glimmer required for a reset increases every time you do it, but how much worse does it get? I was afraid it would double or something, so after I noticed that I've only unlocked mods I absolutely needed for the raid, waiting for someone else to figure out the optimal setup. I've got anti-barrier hand cannon and anti-unstoppable hand cannon, and for the first Nightfall I did last night I just coordinated with my teammates to make sure we each had a different mod.

I’ve reset three times I think. My next reset will cost 37,500 Glimmer. No idea where it will cap.

Regarding the champions:

I like the system. Adding unique enemies to high level activities is great. I even think these particular mechanics are pretty good. Add in the fact that anti-barrier mods allow you to penetrate Hydra shields, Cabal shields, regular shields, and the Hobgoblin lockdown thing. The issue, as you said, is load out diversity. They should have just allowed use to get each mod to out on guns as we see fit. I personally unlocked that entire row of mods so I have the most available options.

Combine those needed mods for certain activities with all the exotic catalysts I’m working on, and bounties from all over the place requiring different weapons, and it’s a real mess. I’ve already reached the point where after I do my 8 bounties from each vendor for the powerful drop, I ignore bounties for the rest of the week. Which sucks, because now I’m not making good progress through the season pass ranks.

There are lots of good ideas, but it’s a mess.

Regarding armor: I think hunting sets even with all their variables would be okay, if it wasn’t for the fact that seasons are short. In two months, the level grind will start over again. I’m not sure I’ll have a set I’m even happy with at that point, much less be ready for another set to try and grind out while also leveling up. Proof again in my mind the this game would be better without the power level. They’ve already basically added selectable difficulty to end game activities. Why not go all the way with it and ditch power level?

I’m having a lot of fun with Shadowkeep, but I already am starting to feel a bit burned out by all the shit that I need to keep track of.

I’m loving Shadowkeep, and I think there’s loads of potential to some of these new gameplay and customization systems. But now that I’m somewhat past the initial level climb (2 of my characters are at ~960), and I’m starting to become more familiar with armor 2.0, the Champion enemies, and the Artifact, the more I feel like Bungie has painted us into a bit of a corner.

First: Armor 2.0

I think, in the long run, Armor 2.0 will prove to be an improvement over the initial system (right off the bat, I’m appreciating the universal ornament system... I just wish we had a wider selection of ornaments to choose from). However, I do have some concerns. The fact that certain mods are tied to the elemental affinity of your armor is too restrictive, IMO. Needing to consider the light level + the stat roll + the energy level of every single armor drop is a LOT of variables. Add the RNG nature of gear acquisition to the mix, and I end up concluding that if I want to like the way my guardian looks & customize my builds to the degree that I like at the same time, I’m going to need triplicates of any set of armor I want to wear (arc, solar, and void versions of each armor piece). Neither my character inventory nor my vault can handle that kind load, not to mention what an absolute pain in the ass it would be to reacquire 3 versions of my favourite armor sets with decent stat rolls (EP armor, Riven armor, Dreaming City armor, just to name a few).

When faced with all this, I’m pushed to the conclusion that I’m just not going to chase any specific armor based on looks. I’m going to look for decent stat rolls of each element for each armor slot, then use the ornaments to get myself looking half decent. There aren’t many ornament sets that I like the look of, but there are 1 or two I can be happy with. Still, the result is that the game has pushed me away from going after new armor sets, unless they’re ornaments.

Yeah right now I'm just looking at the "total" value and keeping the highest one from each set. I'll uhhhh worry about affinity later.

Then there’s the artifact.

I’m often guilty of speed-reading in-game instructions or tool tips, and missing important details as a result. However, I do think the artifact system could be presented better. When I first started choosing artifact abilities, I thought it worked like an extra skill-tree layered overtop of your existing character build. Seemed pretty cool to me. But then I realized that the abilities I was unlocking were not active... they had to be applied to my gear as a mod. A bit counter intuitive, IMO, but fair enough. So I started experimenting with a few of the different mods. I quickly discovered however, that experimenting with mods is a very expensive process. I went into Shadowkeep with a pretty good stockpile of glimmer and materials, but messing around with my artifact mods (and resetting my artifact a couple times) burned through so much glimmer so quickly that I’ve now mentally set the artifact off to the side, where I can largely ignore it. Once again, rather than adding a new layer of customization and depth to the game, I feel like it’s just not worth the cost of engaging with it, except when I really must.

I have not f'd around with the artifact too much because re-rolling it seemed like a nightmare

Champions:

My problem with Artifact mods dovetails into my problem with the Champion enemy types, and the specific mods that help you combat them.

First of all, if you’re going into high-level PvE activities, you really need to be using these mods if you want any chance of succeeding. The Champions are often too tough to beat without the correct mods.

There are 3 types of champions, and therefore 3 types of anti-champion mods. These anti-champion mods can only be applied to a small selection of weapon types; hand cannons, auto rifles, bows, and sub machine guns (all based on the nodes you’ve selected on your artifact).
So let’s walk through how this plays out. If I’m about to load into to a 920 Nightfall Ordeal, the director will tell me which types of champions I’ll be dealing with during the mission. Let’s say for this specific strike, there are Unstoppable and Overcharge champions. I want to go into this mission with both mods available. I could only equip 1, or none, and hope my teammates cover those needs. But they might not, and even if they do, I don’t want to be in the situation where I’m the last guardian standing with an unstoppable champion barreling towards me, and no unstoppable mods to deal with him.

So, the prudent choice is to go into the mission with 1 of each mod equipped. But that means using 2 primary weapons (what is this, Destiny 2? Lol). More narrowly than that, it means I’m cornered into using hand canons, bows, auto rifles, or SMGs because those are the only weapons that can take anti-champion mods. It also rules out any exotic primaries, as they can’t take mods at all.
So I look through my primaries for weapons that can take the proper mods for this mission. Then I notice that I’ve chosen the wrong nodes on my artifact to suit the specific combination of weapons and mods that I want to bring into the mission, so I reset my artifact ($$$), then equip my Austringer and Recluse. I put an unstoppable mod on my Austringer ($) which replaces the rampage spec mod, meaning the gun will be noticeably less effective than usual. I then put an Overcharge mod on my Recluse ($), which replaces the major Spec I keep on it to help deal with major enemies.
So in effect, I’m being encouraged into a fairly narrow range of gear choices, and then mildly nerfing my weapons (by removing the mods I normally equip to improve their general effectiveness), while spending a fair bit of glimmer in the process, and then when I go to the next high-level PvE activity, I’ve gotta go through that whole process all over again. None of which is all that bad, but it certainly goes against Bungie’s stated goal of giving us the freedom to create our own personal “monster killing machine”. It’s also a non-trivial glimmer drain. Going forward, I plan on keeping a few weapons on each of my characters loaded up with a range of anti-champion mods, specifically for those high level activities. But that’s more slots of my inventory used up on weapons that I won’t use for anything else, and less slots for the stuff I usually like to carry.

Ah man I haven't tried anything re: nightfalls yet (I'm only @ 906...) this sounds like a.... nightmare ;-)

Taken as a whole, I think these gameplay features (in their current state) are either expensive to the point that they deter experimentation and build diversity, overly cumbersome and tough to manage, or directly encourage loadout monotony. I think these issues could be resolved with some tweaks, though. Any thoughts? Anyone having similar issues?

Overall I've had the same thoughts towards the "elemental" restrictions, as well as the "Champion" specific mods, and am working on the approach I'm going to take in response to these restrictions. The artifact though, I think is your own fault there I'm afraid. It doesn't even take 2 minutes to read the tool tips, which could have saved a lot of pain in the glimmer wallet. There are some... STUNNINGLY effective mods in the artifact. Maybe too good, as I find them so must have that I'm not sure I'm going to use "any other mods" by default once I get kit that can hold on to what I have in mind.

All said there is defiantly a pattern in the design choices made. I look forward to the TWABs in the coming weeks and months.

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You lack something.

First of all, if you’re going into high-level PvE activities, you really need to be using these mods if you want any chance of succeeding. The Champions are often too tough to beat without the correct mods.

Exactly why mods that make you 'better' are bad. Mods should make you 'different'.

From what you write, this sounds needlessly complex. Remember how Halo's rules were simple, yet super flexible?

... He may use his admin powers to steal it from you. (The guy keeps replacing the Jade Rabbit stickers on his car trying to get the size exactly right...)

This is the second one. About 2.5" in size, I think. I mounted it at an angle just like it is on the Scout Rifle. :-P

This is the second one. About 2.5" in size, I think. I mounted it at an angle just like it is on the Scout Rifle. :-P

But I'm into this

Being limited to "primary" type weapons is a bummer, but until I reach much higher power levels (only 920 rn), I'm not going to be worried about gear sets or optimizing multiple sets at all. I really like the potential for interesting builds (ie grenade centric builds) that we havent seen possible before. The easy fix is to change the champion artifact mods to not be weapon specific.

I'm liking where the game is at. I've longed for the type of gear experimentation that I used to experience in a game like Diablo, but in Destiny, and this is the closest we've been to that, so its aces in my book.

They dont make you "better" in some generic sense, they make you specialized at the cost of overall damage output. So actually, more like what you describe mods should do in the first place.

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I am assuming that any Armor 2.0 that I get this season (Dreaming City FTW.) can be upgraded to next season's power level, reducing the amount of grind a bit. ... 'Course, that could be wrong. :)

They dont make you "better" in some generic sense, they make you specialized at the cost of overall damage output. So actually, more like what you describe mods should do in the first place.

Ok so as you know I have no idea what all this stuff is because I don't play anymore, but what exactly does it do?

From what was described, you can equip mods that make you do more damage against champions. Seems like that INCREASES damage output. What's the tradeoff? What do you give up?

From what was described, you can equip mods that make you do more damage against champions. Seems like that INCREASES damage output. What's the tradeoff? What do you give up?

So there are three Champion types.

Overload Champions which just run around relentlessly and beat shit up. I've mainly seen these in the form of teleporting Minotaurs. You can equip an Overload mod to SMGs, Auto Rifles, or Bows. If you hit them with Overload rounds, they get locked in place, and you can destroy them.

Unstoppable Champions are similar (I've only seen them in the form of big ol' fuck off Ogres in this week's Nightfall). Only Hand Cannons have Unstoppable Mods. When you aim down sights, after about a second you get a buff on the hand cannon, which will freeze them in place.

Barrier Champions will occasionally bubble up in a shield that only a Hand Cannon, Auto Rifle, or SMG with Anti-Barrier mods can penetrate. They also heal while in their shield. Anti-Barrier mods also have the added benefit of piercing normal shields, Hydra shields, and the Hobgoblin lockdown thing (sadly, they don't penetrate the Taken Goblin tether or the Servitor tether).

All of those champions are totally killable without any of those mods, it's just more difficult (and probably vastly more difficult on higher tier Nightfalls). They don't make you strictly "better" overall, just for dealing with those champions that only show up in certain activities. They also lock you into using certain loadouts, which can only be Hand Cannons, Bows, SMGs, and Auto Rifles (and those mods cannot be applied to exotics). So you have to decide if you want to give up using your favorite loadout to cover one or more champion types, or if you rely on your team to have those covered. Being able to effectively deal with Champions may also mean not being as effective overall in varying situations.

It's not perfect, but I do think it's interesting, and I think there's definitely more room to experiment in that direction in other seasons.

Barrier rounds also penetrate Phalanx shields and Knight shadow shields. The mods take up your weapon mod slot so you cannot have regular weapon mod on them, like Backup Mag or Rampage Spec.

There are also mods which interact with the weapons, such as giving you Grenade Energy for kills with a Barrier weapon or whenever a Barrier Champion’s shields get popped. These mods aren’t cheap on energy in your armor, and they occupy one of your mod slots which could be used for other benefits.

There is one exotic exception - eryanas's vow. Comes with anti barrier as an intrinsic perk.

I've been experimenting with controversy hold / demolitionist / top tree void in a grenade recharge build and it's been a blast. Cant wait to unlock more if the higher energy grenade mods to test out more synergies.

I finally got some decent rolls and now have a set for my Hunter with max Discipline. It works really well on my Hunter when I run Monte Carlo with throwing knives. The combination of Playing with Fire and Monte Carlo means my throwing knife uptime is nearly 100%, and max Discipline means my grenades recharge every 30 seconds.

I want to get a similar set on my Titan to use with the throwing hammers and Monte Carlo and then Heart of Inmost Light and its faster ability recharge rate.

There is an Exotic for each of the three Champion types. Eriana’s Vow, Leviathan’s Breath, and Divinity for Barrier, Unstoppable, and Overload respectively.

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Nice! Thought it odd that just barrier would be represented, this makes more sense.

Nice! A discipline set sounds like a a nice alternative to not being locked into running the hunter exotic chest (can't remember the name) that gives you 2 knife charges to get max uptime.

I ran my grenade build in the raid last night and it worked really well. Overload grenades + the damage debuff they assign made the big guys on the first fight a pushover.