‘Destiny 2’ Enemies Are About To Get More Difficult With ‘Warmind’ Update

In the long list of complaints about Destiny 2 from the game’s community, the level of enemy difficulty is somewhere in the middle of the pack. Bungie still plans to address how enemy difficulty scales in the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC shooter with the 1.2.0 update scheduled for release on May 8 alongside the Warmind expansion.

Bungie detailed nine different major updates for the 1.2.0 update in the Destiny 2 Development roadmap, but enemy scaling is not one. Still, Combatants Design Lead Tomonori Kinoshita gave a rundown of how enemies will be a little more challenging via the Bungie Weekly Update and confirmed the return of a couple of Destiny 1 mechanics.

Kinoshita explained the damage scaling vs. higher-leveled enemies would be steeper for Guardians with the 1.2.0 update. The current damage levels will stay the same when a Guardian is at the same power level or above. It is only when the character’s power level is under an enemy’s that combat will get more challenging.

The developers have extended the difficulty range from 40 power levels to 50 power levels as a result. This allows for better scaling of difficulty, and Bungie is bringing back the mysterious “??” icon over an enemy’s head to indicate the enemy is so high-level as to be immune to damage.

“OG Guardians probably remember the first time they stumbled across the Hive in the depths of Cosmodrome,” Kinoshita said in reference to Destiny 1. “We wanted to bring back that feeling of mystery and provide challenges for the player to come back to later in their journey.”

Another Destiny 1 mechanic is returning in the form of using a matching energy element weapon against an enemy’s shields will cause the shields to come down faster. Bungie changed this mechanic to cause shields to explode when taking them down with a matching element. Going forward with the 1.2.0 update, a matching energy element will cause 3x damage to shield and the shield detonation, non-matching energy will cause 2x damage, and Kinetic damage will not receive any bonus damage against shields.

This change will allow Bungie to introduce the old Match game modifier as one of the Prestige Nightfall modifiers. This was present in Destiny 1 and made all non-matching energy damage to shields do only 10 percent of their normal damage output.

“The main goals from this tuning pass are to provide a more challenging experience for players when they take on higher-leveled activities,” Kinoshita said. “This should make Power progression and acquisition more meaningful, reinforce and reward the energy type matching gameplay, and provide opportunities for our master PvE-ers to demonstrate their prowess at the highest levels.”

The Destiny 2: Warmind expansion and update 1.2.0 are scheduled to be released on May 8 to the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. All Crucible maps in the expansion will be available to all players in matchmaking activities whether they have purchased the DLC or not.