Mel Turnage
Remnant 2 has only been out for two weeks, but developer Gunfire Games has already introduced significant quality-of-life changes. A patch for the game released on August 4th has implemented several tweaks to “ensure players [have] more freedom to experiment.” In addition to changes to the class system and some performance enhancements, Gunfire has also increased the trait cap, added more EXP-gaining options, increased the usability of certain items, and introduced several smaller tweaks to Scrap gain and item costs. These changes are intended to simplify the grinding process while encouraging player experimentation.
What Did Remnant 2’s Grind Look Like Before the Patch?
To understand Remnant 2’s grind, we must first understand traits. Each character starts with four traits: Vigor, Endurance, Spirit, and Expertise. These impact health, stamina, mod power regeneration, and skill cooldowns. Traits are levelled up with trait points acquired from random drops and by defeating bosses. Each character archetype also has a unique trait, such as the Medic’s “Triage,” which increases the player’s overall healing ability.
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Additional traits can be discovered by defeating bosses and solving puzzles. These range from “Scholar,” which increases experience gain, to “Handling,” which reduces weapon spread and recoil. Each trait can be maxed out with ten trait points.
Here’s the catch: before August 4th, you only had sixty trait points total. So if you invested heavily into your base traits and your unique class trait, you might already be running low on points to invest in that new trait you found while exploring. You can respec your stats, but doing so requires an Orb of Undoing, which can be bought for 3 Lumenite Crystals and 1,500 Scrap.
How Did This Impact Remnant 2’s Gameplay, and How Was It Fixed?
Such a limiting trait cap seems antithetical to Remnant 2, which is all about experimentation with different builds. The effects of the trait cap reverberated throughout the game: Tomes of Knowledge, a rare consumable that grants a bonus trait point, effectively became useless after the cap was reached.
The time-consuming process of finding an Engram, which grants access to a new archetype, should have been a hefty reward. But because you had to fully upgrade a trait to carry it over to your new archetype, that meant dedicating ten out of sixty stat points to that old trait, making Engrams a difficult value proposition. And if a player wanted to respec after finding an Engram, they might have been out of luck; the Lumenite and Scrap cost of converting a “Mysterious” item into an Engram was so steep that they might not have been able to afford an Orb of Undoing.
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The old balancing of Remnant 2 was stacked against the player and seemed to discourage experimentation, so the developers set out to make things right. They increased the trait cap to sixty-five and made the Orb of Undoing infinitely reusable, allowing for more frequent and forgiving respeccing. You also no longer need to fully upgrade a trait to carry it over to a new archetype, allowing for much more build variety.
Tomes of Knowledge now grant Scrap and EXP when the player has reached the trait cap, giving these rare items more use. The devs also removed the Scrap cost of converting a Mysterious item into an Engram entirely. This, along with a blanket increase to Scrap gain overall, greatly increases the currency the player has on hand at any given time.
The August 4th patch to Remnant 2 has made grinding trait points a breeze and offered much more freedom to players in a game built around experimenting. So what do you make of this? Are you happy about the lowered grind now? Let us know in the comments!
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