It's early days for Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate, an expansion I've had a lot of fun with so far despite some complaints, and the MMO's community has a lot of catching up to do after some sweeping systemic changes. But one pain point with the new armor system is becoming increasingly common, and we know there's at least some unquestionable truth to it because Bungie says it's already working on a fix.
On top of new set bonuses, armor in Destiny 2 now gives you six different stats. The bottom stat on your character sheet, Weapons, affects your weapon damage, reload, handling, and ammo drops, and has landed with polarizing effects.
Some of that almost feels intended. Bungie is very clearly leaning into tradeoffs harder than ever with buildcrafting, and there is a palpable disadvantage to not investing into Weapons. But the whiplash from the sandbox experience we had just a few days ago, and had had for years before that, is intense, with many players complaining that Bungie has essentially nerfed every build and resold the resulting power vacuum as buildcrafting.
Some people like being able to heavily invest into their weapons, as opposed to ability spam, and have their mods and stats reward them with piles of ammo that will do more damage once loaded and fired. Others are worried that, though the ceiling on weapon power has risen moderately with Edge of Fate, the floor – that is, the baseline gameplay experience – has utterly collapsed, with a suddenly sparse ammo economy proving particularly unpopular.
There are, as expected, complaints up and down the usual Destiny 2 feedback forums like Reddit and Twitter. Bungie's already come out and addressed "Updates to Ammo: Ammo Generation Stat, Mods, and More" in a Reddit post of its own, seemingly hoping to explain the new system and steer players toward some options that can improve the ammo economy.
Bungie points to the new ammo generation stat on each weapon, which affects how quickly the special and heavy ammo drop bars are filled, as well as chest and weapon mods that buff this stat. Similarly, Finder mods for your head and Scavenger mods for your boots can increase brick frequency and ammo quantity.
Lastly, "the newly introduced Weapon stat from 100-200 also offers an escalating chance for ammo bricks to contain additional ammo, and your chance can be seen on the inspection screen," Bungie clarifies.
And yeah, that is something, though I don't know if it will appease the folks who are frustrated that these solutions have only been created to solve a problem that simply did not exist in this way for the past 11 years. The ammo economy was never perfect, and I think it's a good thing that it is at least more deterministic now, but it feels weird to call fixing it buildcrafting. It's like saying that putting tires on a car is customizing it. No, it just needs that to run.
After finishing the campaign, I lean toward the camp arguing that the ability to reliably get ammo should be decoupled from buildcrafting because it feels too essential, but I do need to do more testing. That said, the fact that the Weapons stat does not affect damage to bosses, presumably because Bungie knows that would make it loud-and-proud mandatory for any endgame content, but does affect the ammo you need to damage those bosses in the first place feels telling.
One undeniable problem here is that some weapons are currently getting way too little ammo. Two days ago, associate weapon designer Mercules904 affirmed that "Getting less ammo per brick is intended, as bricks can drop far more frequently in the new system. However, getting only two shots with a Scavenger definitely sounds like a bug. I'll take a look at it."
Yesterday, Bungie affirmed it is "investigating a few weapons that are receiving less ammunition than intended (some Area-Denial Grenade Launchers, Rocket Sidearms, Bipod Rocket Launchers)".
In a more recent post, the Destiny 2 Team account confirmed a July 22 fix targeting "Incorrect ammo gains on Area-Denial Grenade Launchers, Rocket Sidearms, and Rocket Launchers with the Bipod perk."
These are some of the most popular special and heavy weapon picks, so it's no wonder that issues with their ammo exploded after launch. Fixing these should improve the feel of the new post-Weapons stat Destiny 2 – though how much remains to be seen – but I don't know if the core issues with the stat will be resolved without more drastic changes.
Folks like the Destiny Fun Police have already demonstrated how the Weapons stat has plunged PvP back into one of the fastest and most toxic metas in history – three-tap 180 hand cannons, welcome back – and the effects on PvE seem divisive with no real positives to offset them. At best, it can feel like you are reducing negative effects from the armor change, which is less like buildcrafting and more like triage.
