The day many Destiny 2 fans have been waiting for has finally arrived as the Forsaken expansion once again opens The Reef area for players. Even with new content to dive into, fans have been enjoying a rejuvenated game for a week already after the latest update for the sandbox arrived last week. While the hefty update added so many changes and fixes to the overall experience, some players noticed that they seemed to be doing even more damage than normal and found some interesting data that explains why.
A user known as Cincl ran a number of tests to determine why Destiny 2 enemies seemed to be falling faster than ever before and discovered a change in how Recommended Power Level is now calculated. When combining the individual weapon power and player power level, RPL was always hard capped at a maximum 20 levels above enemies with the exception to prestige raids which prevent over leveling. However, after the sandbox update, Cincl ran the same test again using the DARCI exotic sniper and noticed that the RPL has now changed to a maximum of 50 levels.
His baseline test before the update concluded that 300 RPL enemies shot with a 300 RPL weapon would do slightly less damage than the same weapon with a RPL of 320. However, anything beyond 320 would do the same 12% damage increase due the maximum level cap. After update 2.0, the same test was run on the 300 RPL Cabal legionaries within the normal Leviathan Raid. This time, however, the results proved differently as a 340 RPL weapon produced slightly less damage than a 352 level weapon. Testing a 381 power level weapon actually produced the same damage output as the 352 level weapon indicating that the cap now appears to be at 50 levels above.
While the experiments and data are fascinating, it’ll be interesting to see how this evolves over the course of the new expansion which is confirmed to contain some very memorable and powerful new exotic weapons. In addition to bows and the return of the Ace of Spades, a recent trailer has shown off weapons with truly unique abilities like a spread shot assault rifle, a beam rifle that unleashes a constant stream of explosive energy, and a rocket launcher that fires a solar and void tracking rocket that burns and suppresses the target. Along with brand new class specific gear, players are going to have plenty of new toys to play with over the next few months.
Destiny 2: Forsaken is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
SourcE: Reddit
