Destiny 2 Seasons - Artifact Progression

Using the artifacts from Season of the Chosen and Season of the Splicer, I think it's important to identify a few key aspects of the artifact:

1. It introduces a rotating selection of mods of varying potency each season.

2. Five primary champion mods are included in the first column and one special champion mod is included in the fourth column, for a total of six champion weapon mods (two for each type of champion).

3. Columns two and three contain miscellaneous reload, targeting, unflinching, or scavenger mods for weapons that appear in the first and fourth columns. These can be thought of as filler mods, as they do not enable new gameplay.

4. The fourth and fifth columns are reserved for powerful, build-defining mods.

5. The fifth column is limited to 2/5 mods enabled at a time.

   1. The fourth column, therefore, is limited to 3/5 mods enabled at a time. This assumes the player does not forego fifth-column unlocks.

These points let us condense the artifact into a relatively comprehensive design goal:

Each season, provide players with new or returning sandbox tools to engage with difficult content in new ways.

For instance, taking Season of the Chosen's artifact as an example, I can center my build around long-range combat, with Overload Bow, Anti-Barrier Sniper, and Sundering Glade. This has a very tangible impact on how I engage with the current hardest content, Grandmaster Nightfalls. To really drive this point home though, only three mods of my selected twelve will have a tangible impact on gameplay in endgame activities. This is not including discounted mods like Sniper Targeting, Bow Dexterity, or Sniper Scavenger, but for a reason: those mods existed in the game before the season began, and thus provide no novel sandbox experience. While Overload Bow may be a returning mod in a given season, it was still absent from the game for at least one season at one point; thus, mods that are not consistent on a season-to-season basis have "tangible impact".

I think an apt comparison to the discount mods present in columns two and three would be small, incremental perks in other RPGs, such as "+1% Fire Damage" or "+10 Health".

I'll use World of Warcraft's old talent system here as an example. To unlock a row in a given tree, the player must invest a five points in the tree as a whole — not necessarily the previous row, mind. Some talents are minor upgrades to existing skills, while others introduce a new skill entirely.

Compare that system to Destiny 2's artifact. While champion mods and mods like Warmind's Decree are very impactful and help players create novel builds, mods such as Rocket Launcher Scavenger do nothing to spice up seasonal gameplay.

A possible objection to this might be "other games have small, min-max type skills, so why is it a bad thing in Destiny 2?" I'm happy to say that it isn't a bad thing in Destiny, at all; but while it isn't negatively impacting my time in-game, the existence of milquetoast mods that I have to trudge through each season to start unlocking cool things like Warmind's Decree definitely isn't something I enjoy. The seasonal artifact XP grind coupled with the gear power grind seems to be how Destiny 2 is going to handle leveling for the time being, and I think the experience could be improved. I've included a rough mockup of the new artifact system below.

At its core, this new system separates mods into three distinct categories based on engagement range: close range, medium range, and long range. Weapons included in each category are as follows:

1. Close — Sidearms, SMGs, Shotguns, Grenade Launchers, Swords

2. Medium — Handcannons, Pulse Rifles, Auto Rifles, Fusion Rifles, Rocket Launchers

3. Long — Scout Rifles, Bows, Sniper Rifles, Trace Rifles, Linear Fusion Rifles

These are broken up into a relatively equal distribution of ammo types, though close and medium would probably have to share Grenade Launchers as a weapon category. The artifact mods in rows two through five are also related to their respective column's engagement range, though that is more flexible than weapon archetypes. Each skill past the first row also has two investment points, and rows are unlocked when a certain number of points have been spent in their column:

• One point spent unlocks the second row

• Four points spent unlocks the third row

• Seven points spent unlocks the fourth row

• Ten points spent unlocks the fifth row

This retains the current artifact's unlock model while allowing players to specialize and gain more powerful passive bonuses that shape the way they play in a given season. If a player wants to create a hybrid specialization, they can invest in two or three different columns simultaneously. While there are only two more mods available in this artifact system, as each mod has two stages of investment, there are functionally 45 mods available. Each mod with a two-stage investment improves itself in a minor way when fully upgraded. For instance, Focusing Lens (available in the Long Range column, third row) currently grants a 25% damage increase to targets effected by Stasis. In the new system, Focusing Lens 1 would grant 15% damage, and Focusing Lens 2 would grant the original 25% damage increase. This provides opportunities for players to min-max their builds far beyond what is currently in-game.

Regarding player experimentation, I think a player's first three resets each season should be a low, flat-rate cost. After the third reset, costs should increase on a logarithmic curve so that build experimentation is still possible while also having a negative cost, to incentivize build theory crafting and sticking with one build throughout a season. Furthermore, given the state of armor and player builds in Destiny 2, I would propose that artifact mods are artifact-only. That is to say: artifact mods are no longer applied to armor pieces, but become passive bonuses that are always applied — similar to Ghost Shell mods. Player builds are directly tied to armor mods, and given the quality and quantity of current Charged With Light, Warmind Cell, and Elemental Well mods, these two aspects of player builds should be mutually exclusive in cost-to-the-player. As mod costs would no longer be a balancing factor for artifact mod power, mods would need individual re-tuning for this system. In addition if mods adopt a passive-application system as detailed above, they would need further tuning to avoid game-breaking buff or debuff stacking. I think this would really freshen up the seasonal artifact grind and breathe new life into the Destiny 2 leveling experience.

As always, thank you for reading.

I hope this was as interesting for you as it was fun for me to design and write!