This week's latest article in This Week at Bungie (opens in a new tab) tackles one of the hottest topics in the Destiny 2 community: weapon crafting. Specifically, its balance. For an avid Destiny addict like myself, the addition of crafting is a positive, allowing me to create the perfect arsenal, painstakingly tweaked with enhanced versions of the perks I want. For the less dedicated (some might say) player, the process of tracking crafting patterns and leveling up weapons can be time consuming and tedious.

So much so that the recent emphasis on acquiring patterns that require finding multiple rare "red box" drops of the same gun is at the core of Destiny 2's seasonal loop, and not in a good way. Frustration with the process has led to the current complaint that the seasonal model has become too similar. Even I admit that spending hours on Shulo Chee's Raid Encounter is not a sign of a healthy system, simply because it is the most efficient way to farm trash mobs for weapon-level progress.

Change is coming, but we will have to wait until next year's Lightfall expansion to reap its full benefits. The post identifies multiple pain points that Bungie is trying to resolve and explains how. Here are some of them:

They all sound good and honestly don't surprise me too much. Adding crafting to a loot shooter was always going to have a seismic effect on the perceived value of both the equipment itself and the player's time required to craft it. It would have been miraculous if this system had been perfect from the start, and a fair amount of tweaking was always to be expected.

Before these systemic changes came to Lightfall, Bungie also announced that crafting would be introduced for weapons in the upcoming season of the Deep Stone Crypt raid starting December 6. The perk pool for these guns will also be redesigned.

"Our goal is to keep the most beloved combinations and throw out the rest to make room for new perks," said Chris Proctor, Senior Design Lead. For Deep Stone Crypt in particular, we looked for new Perks that synergized with the Perk derived from Deep Stone Crypt: Reconstruction, Recombination, and Reorientation. (In other words, the new perks would be combinations of the following: for example, the new perk combinations would be "Recombination + Focused Fury" or "Fourth Time's the Changer + Change of Direction.")

Deep Stone Raid's arsenal already includes absolutely strong weapons like the Succession sniper rifle and the Heritage slug shotgun; Proctor gave three examples of possible combinations, all disgustingly good They all look good enough.

Proctor added that the revamped Deep Stone Crypt gun will also add a unique origin characteristic called "Bray Inheritance." But he did not say what benefit it would bring, so let the speculation begin.

Whether this alone will quell the existing mood of displeasure with the excessive Crafting system: ...... There is probably no inevitable answer, but at least players can now see that concrete changes are coming. Regardless, next season we will be reunited with our good friend Tanix (open in new tab) in the skies over Europa. Who would have thought he would be back again?