Destiny 2 players very vocally express their frustration whenever their characters and guns get nerfed. Primary weapon damage has been a point of friction for a while now, and recently, players have shared a sudden feeling of downgrade in their characters' vitality.
Bungie has steadily moved to make the game more difficult by adjust player and enemy powers. Destiny 2 Shadowkeep saw sweeping weapon adjustments that to many made the game not challenging in a good way but more tedious.
On top of this, since Season of Arrivals, numerous posts about players feeling more fragile during PvE engagements has cropped up on Reddit. Some fans believe that enemies are doing more damage while others believe that there is a chance the developers might have adjusted player vitality to incentivize playing smarter.
No official word was given to clarify the subject so all discussion has been speculation at this point. User on AJugCanDoEverything on Reddit took it upon themselves to do the testing and they state that resilience values (a player's ability to mitigate damage) hasn't been adjusted in the recent past.
Regardless, day after day, anecdotes of fireteams failing activities they had no problem completing beforehand have filled the subreddit. One likely theory is that enemies are simply more aggressive, alert, and accurate. This could explain why veteran teams are finding themselves dying at inopportune times because enemies have unexpectedly started to hit their mark.
Players have conveyed frustration specifically in the game's two dungeons, Shattered Throne and Prophecy, as well as Gambit at times. What all these activities have in common is that they heavily feature Taken enemies. According to some, Taken Knights in particular seem to be a lot more capable with their ranged attacks, landing implausible shots.
Since Season of Arrivals' main missions also feature Taken, a change to enemy competence could've been made to make these missions more challenging, affecting other Taken oriented activities in the process. Or, it could just be confirmation bias because the rumors are widespread enough that the playerbase is actively looking out for changes. Or a placebo effect, where players feel the effects of a change simply because they believe there is a change.
It would also be a questionable decision on Bungie's part to not reveal an update to enemy AI such as this.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.