Whether we like it or not, change is good. And for a game like Destiny 2, change is essential to maintaining the health of the game over time. Awhile back, Bungie announced that they're working on a way to cycle out legendary weapons and armor. That mꦫeans the Recluse you've been using for all of year 2 and 3 (even after the nerf) will one day be deprecated to make room for different guns to shine and a new meta to emerge. The change won't happen overnight, and with the , players will be able to see the rotation coming a year ahead of time🌃 so that, hopefully, they can make peace with the loss and get excited for something new.
Why Do Guns Have To Rotate Out Now?
In the latest "This Week At Bungie," the dev team explains why they've decided to make changes to the infusion system, starting next season. Simply put, in order to keep the meta from stagnating, weapons and armor need to rotate out to make room for new ones. The Destiny 2 team can't simply keep adding new guns on top of the old ones because every time they add a new gun, 1 of 2 things happens: either the gun isn't as good as the current best gun, so it doesn't see play, or it's better, meaning stronger than current guns, and power creep occurs. When power creep happens, the time-to-kill decreases, and eventually, the game isn't fun to play. It's like inflation: they can't just keep putting stronger and stronger guns in the gam🌄e and expect the game to stay healthy.
All of the Ye💟ar 1 guns naturally deprecated because Year 2 gear (and beyond) had random rolls. Since then though, players have been able to continuously infuse their guns and armor season after season. In order to stop power creep in its tracks, Bungie is creating a new system that limits how long a weapon or armor can be infused withღ higher-level gear.
How Does The New Infusion System Work?
Starting next season, Season 12, every piece of new and current gear will have a maximum power level (excluding Exotics). The max level for every item in season 12 will be equivalent to the player Power Cap 3 season after. In other 💜words, weapons and armor can be infused for 4 season, or 1 year, before they hit the max level.
This means that means by the end of season 15, what will likely be June 2021, all gear currently obtainable in Destiny 2 will be deprecated. When Season 12 starts, gear from seasons 1-8 will be locked at the season 11 power cap. In other words, Year 1 and Year 2 gear will no longer infuse. From there, g🐽ear from year 3 and onward will have a one year window where they can be infused to max level, then they'll be locked to the highest level of the previous season. At the start of a new season, all of the gear from 4 seasons ago will age out.
What Does This Mean For Our Favorite Weapons
Bungie makes it clear that weapons ꦿcan still be used after their 1-year window, they simply just won't be as powerful as guns in ꧑the current meta. Exotics will be the exception, as will gear from the Last Wish and Garden of Salvation raids, because of the unique modifiers they have on them.
Nothing will be stopping you from using your favorite classic weapon, it simply won't be as effective. This gives Bungie the space to design and add new guns without having to worry about making them stronger and stronger forever. It may be a disappointing change, but according to Bunౠgie, it's a necessary one.
In the post, Bungie also leaves the door open for reissued weಞapons, meaning deprecated guns have the potential to come back, reworked, for another yꦑear of relevancy. So don't worry, this doesn't mean your favorite gun is gone forever. And knowing how Bungie tends to recycle content – it may not even be gone for very long.