Fear not, 'Destiny' fans: Infusion isn't changing in 'Rise of Iron'
Infuse, the Destiny tool that enables players to permanently boost the stats on a weapon or piece of armor, won't be changing when Rise of Iron launches in September.
We got confirmation straight from the source: Bungie game director Christopher Barrett, who leads the team working on the upcoming expansion.
"So Infusion is staying around," he told Mashable in an E3 2016 interview. "The stuff that you have now that you like and love, you'll be able to bring up to the new power level, the new Light level."
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Infusion was introduced with the launch of The Taken King in Sept. 2015. It was added to the game so players could keep beloved pieces of gear relevant by raising their Light, the Destiny stat that indicates a player's or piece of gear's overall power level.
Using Infusion, players could "feed" a higher-power weapon or armor piece to a lower-power item of the same type. Doing so raised the Light level of the lower-level item, at the cost of the higher-level item and a handful of crafting materials.
In its original form after The Taken King's release, Infusion only boosted Light by a fraction of the difference between the two pieces of gear. If you had a Light 290 helmet that you loved and a Light 320 helmet that you didn't, Infusing the latter into the former would bring your favored helmet's Light up to 314.
It was an initially popular feature, but -- due to the way loot drops in Destiny -- it led to a case of diminishing returns. Players that wanted to boost their character's Light level, which is determined by averaging out the Light of all equipped gear, found the final climb to Destiny's maximum Light a slow and arduous process.
Bungie tweaked the formula in a major way with the game's April 2016 update. After the update, Infusion operated on a 1:1 ratio. So using the same helmet example, feeding a 320 into a 290 would bring the 290 up to 320.
Barrett confirmed that this feature won't be changing. He's excited for players to dig into the new piles of gear that Rise of Iron introduces, but that won't come at the expense of saying goodbye to beloved items from Destiny's Year Two.
"I think that system is working really well," Barrett said. "We've gotten good feedback from fans, and they seem to like it."
The focus for Rise of Iron, he says, is to look at addressing the current pain points in Destiny. The elements that seem to jam up regular play.
"We're looking to not fix what isn't broken and look for stuff that fans have been asking for and looking to make tweaks for. We're focusing on that stuff," he said.
"No changes to announce or anything like that for Infusion. I think that's working pretty well in the game."
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Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
