Destiny 2 is shaping up to be an anomaly; something incomparable to the first game in many ways. The inclusion of an actual, cohesive story is perhaps the biggest change, but that depends on who you ask. A lot of people don’t play Destiny for the story, they play it for the loot, and Destiny 2 is changing the way we look at new weapons and armor in a huge way. This time around, you can forget about randomized stats and perks. There’s no more roll of the dice when decrypting this legendary weapon or that legendary helmet.
This, according to Destiny 2 director Luke Smith (via Mashable). “There aren’t random rolls on weapons anymore,” he said. “Better Devils is a Crucible hand cannon [in Destiny 2], and what it has on it is what it has on it. Period.” While this may seem like a pointless and heartbreaking change, Smith asserts that this will make the game much easier to balance in the long run. “You can look at all the hand cannons now [for example] and track the data for everything,” he said.
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In other words, in the first Destiny, not all legendaries were created equal. Not every Hawkmoon had identical stats, and while the defining perks were always the same, there were secondary perks that differed from weapon to weapon. That will no longer be the case. In Smith’s opinion, this will make the meta game, especially for PvP, much easier to analyze and balance out over time. If the community is flooding the forums saying that Hawkmoon is overpowered, which version of Hawkmoon are they talking about? Which combination of perks and stats are overly favorable? Those kinds of questions will now be much easier to answer.
But still… Not everyone who loved unlocking new loot in Destiny cared about balance in the crucible. Some of us (I’m including myself in this group) loved the roll of the dice. It was so exciting seeing a legendary item decrypt and then opening the menu to see what stats and perks you rolled. The fact that different players could have different versions of the same item made loadouts seem more unique, and the favorable combinations of stats and perks would make certain legendaries feel more unique, like very rare gems. Now, they will all be the same.
Smith has already anticipated our disappointment. “How can my second, third, and tenth Better Devils hand cannon be interesting? That’s a question we should be asking and answering as quickly as we can,” he said.
“We have ideas. While I would like nothing more than to share those ideas with you, we’re up against [a deadline]. I don’t know if they’ll make it for our Sept. 6 [release] date. But we have some ideas that we’re pretty excited about.”
Sounds like he didn’t even have time to explain why he didn’t have time to explain… Anyway, what do you think about this change? Are you for standardized stats and perks, sacrificing the thrill of the roll for overall balance? Let us know in the poll below:
