Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion will bring a slew of crafting changes, remove Deepsight drops on non-craftable weapons

Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion is bringing a treasure trove of new content, but it will also add a slew of changes to the crafting system established in The Witch Queen, Bungie confirmed in a blog post today. The company shared some goals and strategies for the crafting system when the next expansion launches—including the removal of red-border drops from non-craftable weapons.

In today’s This Week at Bungie blog post, Bungie outlined some elements the team looked to hit, “not only to help address player feedback, but to improve crafting overall.” Though Bungie didn’t give an in-depth look at specific measures—which “are being developed, tested, and finalized,” it says—the team shared a series of pain points with the system, including one drastic measure that will debut with the next expansion.

As part of the set of changes, Bungie already gave players early warning that non-craftable weapons will no longer drop with red borders starting with Lightfall and advised players to consume those crafting elements before the expansion lands on Feb. 28, 2023. Though the measure is a stark departure from the current system, Bungie also outlined a few pain points with crafting and its strategies to improve the system as a whole in the future of Destiny 2.

Deepsight weapons were “far too common,” according to Bungie, which leads to veteran players hoarding weapons in case of a rainy day (and causing stress to their vaults) and newer players being confused about the system and what weapons can actually be crafted.

The post also outlined the need to equip weapons to earn Resonant Elements, which conflicted with players’ loadouts, especially with builds that could rely on specific Exotics. Though the goal was to encourage players to experiment with weapons they could otherwise sleep on, Bungie said it would “like for players to want to try new weapons for other reasons, not just to earn crafting currencies.”

In line with that reasoning, Bungie also pointed out Shuro Chi as a possible issue. The post acknowledged that some players can have fun with farming Deepsight levels on the Shuro Chi checkpoint, but also said doing so “is tedious and provides no useful benefits to the player or encounter.” As another acknowledgment, Bungie said “there are no methods for increasing a weapon’s level outside of equipping it.”

Through the pain points the blog post mentioned, the team landed on specific goals for crafting in Lightfall and beyond. Reducing Deepsight weapon hoarding was one of the objectives, which Bungie aims to attain by offering more sources of Resonant Elements. Bungie also plans to reduce bad luck with Pattern acquisition by providing “opportunities within the crafting system to allow users to deterministically choose what weapon to target,” as the blog post states. Developers also want to reduce the pressure on loadouts by mitigating the incentives to equip a suboptimal Deepsight or crafted weapon, though it’s unclear how Bungie will do so.

The last point relates to craftable versions of the raid weapons being objectively better than their Adept counterparts since they have access to enhanced versions of the same perks. Bungie will allow the new Lightfall Adept raid weapons to have enhanced perks, though “this is not going to be full, freeform crafting,” Bungie acknowledged.

The upcoming changes to crafting in Lightfall will mark an effort from Bungie to tweak an ever-living system that has already seen tweaks since its inception this February. Players can expect more communication from Bungie on upcoming measures as the release of Lightfall approaches.