Destiny 2 Could Finally Kill the Power System
Power has been an issue in Destiny2 for a long time. This mechanic is a sort of abstract leveling system. The idea is that players become stronger by leveling up their gear and seasonal artifacts. Because the maximum power cap is increased with each expansion, a 1600-level player doesn’t feel any different from a player who had an 800-level back then. Some, like us, have asked for Power to be removed from Destiny2 completely. It seems that Destiny2 might finally be ending the Power system, but not for too long.
Bungie seems to be aware of Power’s problems. Last year, Bungie’s game director Joe Blackburn stated that Power was doing “some really bad things to Destiny” and that he is continuing to be concerned in his State of the Game article on Lightfall and the year ahead.
“You might have noticed that we have been trying out different Power settings over the past few seasons. We are looking to continue these experiments this year. We believe there are major problems with Destiny 2’s Power settings and how they prevent players from viewing some of our best content. Therefore, we want to make big changes to the system in The Final Shape. We want to continue tweaking our Power settings throughout the year of Lightfall to better understand how we could improve our changes.”
This seems to indicate that Bungie is trying to kill off Power in destiny 2 entirely. However, it seems unlikely that this will be the case for quite some time. We can expect Power to continue around through the year of Darkfall. Destiny2 has already made significant changes in the way it handles the mechanic.
There have been a number of activities this year that raised players’ Power to a ceiling or brought them up to a floor. Blackburn notes that Lightfall will have a Power climb comparable to Witch Queen but there will not be an increase in the Power cap for Season of the Deep (the season following Lightfall).