Bungie Details Power Differentials in Iron Banner for Destiny: The Taken King

With the Iron Banner having returned in Destiny: The Taken King, some fans have wondered how level/power differences will work in the PvP playlist, given the recent separation of a player’s experience-based level and their light level. In a blog post on Bungie’s website, senior designer Derek Carroll attempts to explain the changes.

“The Power Curve is a way of measuring the damage you do to players with a differing Light level,” Carroll wrote. “There's a lot of secret math that gets done behind the scenes that I’m not going to get into, but for the purposes of this article, you may assume that every 10 units of Light equals 1 Level on the following graph. For example: If I’m sitting at 280 Light, and attack someone with 300 Light, my disadvantage would be a delta of 2.”

Interpreting the above graph may seem difficult, but Carroll points out the most important piece of information: “the bottom of the curve is still 10%.”

He calls that 10%, “the important element for punishing players who are woefully under-leveled. There’s just a lot more room between full-power and full-sadness, given that there’s a lot more room between a new character and an endgame player in The Taken King.”

Carroll also points out that the first three levels of disadvantage (the x-axis) are where the most competitive players should pay attention.

“This means that, assuming everyone in your match is close to max-level (or “your level”), minor differences in power will matter more than ever,” Carroll wrote. “We’re assuming that matchmaking will do its thing and keep skills close, so your gear will give you the edge (or hold you back) when playing in power-enabled playlists.”

Source: Bungie