Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep. (Destiny)
by cheapLEY 
, Monday, July 22, 2019, 16:06 (1738 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.
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
by cheapLEY , Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 10:37 (1737 days ago) @ cheapLEY
I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I think I like it as a concept.
It seems like a decent way of keeping hardcore players invested all season, while allowing the less hardcore to come back for a new season without having to worry about being so far behind, because everything just reset. They won’t have to worry about having missed three seasons worth of Artifacts because they don’t carry over. And it allows for a fresh progression every season and, as they put it, a new flavor every few months.
If it’s executed well, I could see myself really liking it.
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
I've had a similar sequence of thoughts. At first I was skeptical of taking things away, because what if they are a lot of fun? Then I remembered the Revelry, which was mostly pretty fun (PvE anyway), but also not something I'd always like the game to be.
It seems like it'll be a fine line, that they will need to be prepared to fix quickly if the artifact effect is broken or stupid in a certain mode. They can't keep doing this stuff where it's like "don't play Crucible for 3 weeks/months".
Either way, it's a better strategy than nerfing entire weapon classes just for variety's sake.
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
by MacAddictXIV , Seattle WA, Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 11:43 (1737 days ago) @ squidnh3
It seems like it'll be a fine line, that they will need to be prepared to fix quickly if the artifact effect is broken or stupid in a certain mode. They can't keep doing this stuff where it's like "don't play Crucible for 3 weeks/months".
Either way, it's a better strategy than nerfing entire weapon classes just for variety's sake.
I imagine they will be able to disable artifacts at will for certain game types. Would make it so they could either alleviate a problem temporary or make certain game types a level playing field (competitive)
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
by cheapLEY , Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 13:08 (1737 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV
I don’t anticipate them doing that. It goes against their entire design philosophy, which has always been to ensure that PvE and PvP feel the same. Disabling an entire skill tree in one mode just doesn’t seem like something they’re going to do.
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
by Harmanimus , Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 13:22 (1737 days ago) @ cheapLEY
I would imagine many effects that would be overpowered for PvP will inherently be against “enemy combatants” which doesn’t cover down on Guardians. There is no reason to assume that the core “feel” doesn’t allow them to have some perks not do anything in PvP.
Polygon article on Artifacts in Shadowkeep.
by cheapLEY , Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 13:30 (1737 days ago) @ Harmanimus
Sure, but that’s already true. That’s not the same thing as disabling the Artifact completely. I guess they could build the Artifact such that all the perks are like that, but I don’t really expect that either. I guess we’ll see!