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Welcome to one of many Developer Insight articles for Codename: Frontiers. Over the weeks and months to come, we will be covering a lot of different topics about changes coming to Destiny 2 next year with these deeper dives. Check back with our Paving the Way for New Frontiers article for more information on our plans and an always-updated list of these articles as they are published.
This deep dive is on our future plans for armor.
Compared to weapons, armor has been a relatively unexciting reward for a few years now. In the year ahead, we will be introducing new properties to armor, and changing how stats work to make it easier to change armor around.
TLDR
- Armor will be a more active, interesting part of buildcrafting.
- Stats will be reworked to be more impactful, less confusing, and less constraining.
- Set bonuses will be introduced to give individual armor sets more unique identities and buildcrafting elements.
The Problem
In the years since the last major update, Shadowkeep’s “Armor 2.0”, armor has settled into a relatively static part of the reward story. Once you have the right stat rolls, there is very little else to look forward to, and the intricate balance of stat values has a lock-in effect that makes it hard to want to swap anything out anyway.
For armor to be exciting again, it needs some unique properties, and stats need to be easier to manage without so much need for fine tuning.
The Solution
Reworked Stat Mechanics
Stats on armor will be changing in Codename: Frontiers in order to make them more player friendly.
The first major change is the mechanics of the stats themselves:
- Stats effects will no longer be tiered every 10 points. Every point in a stat will provide a benefit. This change is intended to reduce the “lock-in” effect that happens when a fine-tuned combination of stat values makes it feel impossible to switch out any single Armor piece.
- Stat effects will be capped at 200, with the range from 101-200 providing an additional powerful effect building on the base effect. This change is intended to support deeper investment in a smaller number of stats, and “spikier” stat distributions on armor with fewer secondary “dump stats.”
In addition to the above changes, the distribution of stats on armor will also be changing:
- Legendary armor will have a Stat Archetype, which determines the primary and secondary stat types, with a third stat being a free roll. The values of these stats should overall be “spikier”, leading to fewer points in “dump stats”.
- The class slot (Hunter Cloaks, Warlock Bonds, and Titan Marks) will have full stat distributions, on par with other slots.
The result will be a smaller number of unique stats on any piece of armor, with larger contributions to these stats, and every stat point providing a benefit. These changes should ultimately make every piece of armor more interesting and easier to evaluate.
New Stats
Some stats will be changing with three goals in mind:
- Improve specific weak stats that offer little value.
- Reduce or eliminate mandatory “must have” stats.
- Overall improve understandability of stats and their effects.
These changes are still under active development, but here are a few examples from work-in-progress designs, which will eventually include most or all of the current stats found on armor:
- Discipline
- From 1 to 100, provides increasing grenade cooldown reduction.
- From 101 to 200, provides an increasing chance to gain a bonus grenade charge whenever your grenade becomes available.
- Stat renamed to Grenade to improve readability.
- Strength
- From 1 to 100, provides increasing melee cooldown reduction
- From 101 to 200, provides an increasing chance to gain a bonus melee charge whenever your powered melee becomes available.
- Stat renamed to Melee to improve readability.
- Special Ammo
- From 1 to 100, increases rate at which Special ammo bricks drop from final blows.
- From 101 to 200, provides an increasing chance that a double-sized brick will drop.
Set Bonuses
The second major change to armor is the introduction of Set Bonuses.
Think of them like an origin trait for armor; they'll represent the theme of the armor and allow you to reflect that fantasy in the way your build plays.
Set Bonuses are perks granted when you equip two and four pieces of armor from the same set. This allows you to either commit to two bonuses from the same set or find combinations that fit your unique needs. We're keeping both approaches in mind as they take shape and are excited to see what each Guardian chooses to do with these new tools.
Note that there is no bonus at five pieces, because most builds are expected to include a piece of Exotic armor.
As you’ll see, perks will consist of either existing mods or will be newly designed. We’ve included a few examples below that represent the general direction we’d like to go.
Theme | Perk 1 (2 pieces) | Perk 2 (4 pieces) |
Tex Mechanica | While shooting from the hip, you have increased movement speed and weapon handling. Effect increases when you score hits. | Tex Mechanica weapons have increased range and accuracy when hipfired. |
Nonstop Aggression | Final blows with freshly reloaded weapons heal you. | Damaging a target with a Shotgun or Fusion Rifle increases the damage it takes from those weapons for a short time. |
Demolitions Expert | Direct hits with explosive weapons temporarily increases their reload speed. | Repeated direct hits with explosive weapons temporarily increase grenade ability damage. |
Vanguard Operative | Activating your grenade gives you and nearby allies damage resistance against combatants. | Defeating Champions with a finisher generates Special ammo for you and your fireteam. |
FAQ
What happens to my old armor?
Old Legendary armor will be changed as little as possible, but because the change to stat mechanics and types are global changes, old armor pieces will have their stat types (but not their values) changed around. When possible, these changes will be to the most similar stat, but with some stats being fundamentally reworked this won’t always be possible.
What about Exotic armor?
Updating the Exotic armor pursuit is on our roadmap but won’t be part of the initial update that is focusing on Legendary armor. So, to make sure that Exotics and their build-defining perks remain a compelling option, we are working out a design that will allow players to update their Exotic armor to bring their stat bonuses in line with the changes to Legendary armor.
The Exotic class items introduced in The Final Shape are a special case – even though Legendary class items will be gaining full random stats with this update, we don’t wish to add additional randomness to the Exotic class item chase. Instead, we will be providing a method for players to update their existing Exotic class items with additional stats of their choosing to bring them in line with the stat contribution of the new Legendary class items.
More details on the longer-term plans for Exotic Armor coming as we nail them down!
My Vault is full. Where am I supposed to store all of this new Armor?
We know that Vault pressure is a real problem for many players, even with recent increases in Vault space. Outside of adding more space (an option!), real solutions that enable long term storage of more desirable rolls are really hard problems.
But those are the problems we’re penciling into our roadmap at or around next year’s second Expansion, Codename: Behemoth. We’ll share more details when we have a clearer direction for how we think we can solve this one.