That Wizard Came From the Moon!: Talking 'Bout DESTINY - Page 28

Lucas · #**811** 06-11-2018, 04:51 AM

I'm getting walled by a story fight on Io despite being above the light limit. How do I get a group together to take it on?

Also, does rallying to the flag for a public event actually do anything?

Mightyblue · #**812** 06-11-2018, 06:46 AM

Unless they've changed it since I played vanilla; gives you a bit of ammo and prods the spawn timer along.

CaptBlasto · #**813** 06-11-2018, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucas

Also, does rallying to the flag for a public event actually do anything?

It fills all your ammo and fills your super. Very helpful if there is a rally point nearby at the start of a nightfall.

Egarwaen · #**814** 06-11-2018, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakupo

Most of the changes put in place for season 3 and Warmind were probably already on the roadmap before the summit. But the streamers were kind of right because Vanilla Destiny 2 didn't have enough to keep a lot of people coming back--just look around here. Would that have changed if Curse of Osiris hadn't been the worst expansion in the series? I dunno.

The streamers were absolutely not "kind of right". There's a specific market segment that wants to drop $60 on a game and then play it every night for a year, and wants every game to distort its design to reward this behavior. Twitch has empowered this market segment because there's another market segment that wants to watch someone else do this while engaging in witty banter, and is willing to pay way more than $60/year for the privilege.

Most people don't play any one game for especially long; for example, consider that about 30% of players who purchased it have beaten Assassin's Creed: Origins. AC games generally don't have strong execution barriers; if you sink in about 40 hours, you will beat the game. Overwatch and Fortnight do a good job of making it very easy to play casually and come back; you don't have to grind up your light level to the new cap or purchase new expansions to resume playing the game. Nor do they encourage having a stable 6 player team capable of engaging in scheduled activities.

Patrick · #**815** 06-11-2018, 10:27 AM

I've mentioned this before, but I put 30 hours into Destiny 2 and I loved it. It's one of my favorite PS4 games. I never understand the ongoing complaints about how it's a bad game or whatever.

Egarwaen · #**816** 06-11-2018, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick

I've mentioned this before, but I put 30 hours into Destiny 2 and I loved it. It's one of my favorite PS4 games. I never understand the ongoing complaints about how it's a bad game or whatever.

It's a perfectly solid game if you just want to play the campaign, or the campaigns + expansions as they come out, or even just want a co-op experience 1 or 2 nights a week.

But if you're looking for a lifestyle game, something you play every night and make incremental progress towards a distant reward that will mark you as a Real Player? The launch design was 100% not that, and unfortunately Destiny had attracted a population that was invested in it being a lifestyle game that were also the kinds of high-status customers (male, vocal online) that publishers are rewarded for courting.

Oathbreaker · #**817** 06-13-2018, 01:57 PM

I'm gonna pop in to say that the PvE itself, the gameplay, is solid. There are problems with it that Destiny 1 had already solved so that's kind of... it's very much like Dark Souls 2 was to Dark Souls. But unlike Dark Souls 2, it's genuinely better (except Arc Staff. The Dagger in D1 is wayyyy better).

The PvP and anything involving tokens is where the cracks not only start to show, but massive gaping holes start to form. It was bad at launch. The tokens are slightly better than they were at launch even if planet resources have no purpose, and the PvP is incredibly worse than it was at launch. Iron Banner in Season 3, even as it's meant to be done across the whole season, is still one of the longest grinds in the game, and the terrible PvP is required to do it.

The streamers that want it to be a lifestyle game? Are only mostly wrong. That's not what Bungie seems to have originally wanted it to be they just don't know how to make it reflect what they want because they still designed the reward system as though it was a lifestyle game from step 1. The streamers that want it already have it, they just don't like that there's no way to be rewarded with things that are better than casual players get (remember "god rolls" in D1? I watched a streamer's friend get a perfect weapon roll from the crucible and all of them in the voice call were mad instead of congratulatory). Getting input is a good thing. If they can't stop themselves from making rewards require extreme amounts of time investment, then they may as well get advice on how to make it work well and be more rewarding. For instance the Season 3 Faction Rally grind is better than it used to be, but ultimately misguided because it tries to dictate what players should do for it. It's also arbitrarily more outright punishing to casual players for participating at all with how Renown gives you a Nightfall/heroic Strike modifier that makes it harder to recover from damage unless you're mowing everything down, meaning renown is likely to drop off, meaning it takes longer to get tokens.

But the ones that constantly criticize the PvP? Are absolutely right. You could just about write a dissertation on it. The weapon system change so shotguns and sniper rifles are power ammo necessarily pushes sniper rifles out of viability because it synergizes with another problem Destiny 2 has which is that their maps are too small. The small maps make shotguns and grenade launchers (especially the newly buffed to ridiculousness Tractor Cannon) inarguably the most powerful options because there's so much less space to pursue/find enemies in. And then there's how sniper rifles in general are clunkier than they were in D1, while Shotguns are generally easier to handle. Then Bungie decided that dropping power ammo into the mix every what... 60 seconds starting 15 seconds in, would be a fantastic idea somehow? And it drops on death, so it's never not in circulation. Primary and Secondary weapons do something like half the damage they did in Destiny 1 (except Graviton Lance which would fit in nicely even in D1 after its buff) on top of all this meaning the entire game bends around having the 1-hit-kill ammo. Supers are probably the only thing that work well (except Arc Staff which suffers the same inconsistent hit registration bugs as regular melee and swords). Thankfully the summit convinced Bungie to fix the greater half of this. They can't do anything with the maps and probably don't want to do anything about the team sizes because they already recognize the map size problem. But they're fixing the weapon system problem and hopefully the damage disparity with it. One can only dream the power ammo will get dialed wayyyyyy the hell back too.

And if I can detail all this as a pretty casual player leaving out the problems in Competitive/Trials, I can only imagine how miserable the PvP must be for people that really want to love it.

Egarwaen · #**818** 06-13-2018, 02:12 PM

Yeah, we don't do a ton of PvP, so I've got very limited experience there. Though everyone already seems to die in the blink of an eye on PC, whether heavy ammo or not, so I can't imagine how brutal it would be with D1 levels of damage on kinetic/energy weapons.

I hear that about the maps being smaller; a guy in my clan who played D1 was telling us about how much larger even the PvE maps used to be. RPS had a good article about the tech behind the game that points to them shrinking the maps to try to encourage more encounters with other players and generally more focused engagement.

Mightyblue · #**819** 06-13-2018, 02:16 PM

The last time I gave a semi-serious shot at PVP was the period between the two MIDA Multi-Tool nerfs (I did try out lazer tag weekend, which was the last time I'd had fun with FPS PvP in yeeeears), and that was dire. Reminded me in an unpleasant way of playing the SWAT playlists in Halo 3/Reach.

Oathbreaker · #**820** 06-13-2018, 02:21 PM

Yeah, that whole shrinking the maps to encourage focused engagement also resulted in another problem that PvP buffs really hate. Team-shooting. If you die in the blink of an eye without power ammo, it's because the more experienced PvPers have learned that laser-focusing individuals as a team instead of spreading out to cover objectives is far more rewarding than... doing the objectives. Bungie really believed this was fun, but I question how much playtesting they've ever done of their Destiny 2 PvP before releasing it/patches to it. A question which seems to answer itself because they're making some kind of pseudo-PTR server for it going forward.

Egarwaen · #**821** 06-13-2018, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oathbreaker

Yeah, that whole shrinking the maps to encourage focused engagement also resulted in another problem that PvP buffs really hate. Team-shooting. If you die in the blink of an eye without power ammo, it's because the more experienced PvPers have learned that laser-focusing individuals as a team instead of spreading out to cover objectives is far more rewarding than... doing the objectives. Bungie really believed this was fun, but I question how much playtesting they've ever done of their Destiny 2 PvP before releasing it/patches to it. A question which seems to answer itself because they're making some kind of pseudo-PTR server for it going forward.

The ironic thing is that it's still more fun than Overwatch PvP, where the entire game is 100% about "team shooting".

Adam · #**822** 06-13-2018, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Egarwaen

The ironic thing is that it's still more fun than Overwatch PvP, where the entire game is 100% about "team shooting".

what the hell

Egarwaen · #**823** 06-13-2018, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam

what the hell

Hey in Destiny PvP I don't have to worry about half my team going Genji, Widow, Hanzo and spending the entire match running around trying to 1v6 solo when the entire game is designed around forming up as a 6-man squad and pushing a cart across the map.

Aleryn · #**824** 06-14-2018, 04:43 PM

Game is in a weird state. It still has the pallor of the mediocre BLECH, but just... feels better. Must be the gun patch, again. Course I just came off three heroics as my Titan with the Halo I theme blaring. RETROFUTURIST SHOTGUN, EVERY_DAMN_TIME. FOR... HUMANITY!

StriderDL · #**825** 09-26-2018, 07:57 AM

Your favorite suuuuuper doofy white dude warlock is back in action!

Man I wish I could edit that thing. At least give him a different haircut. Just...awful.

Mightyblue · #**826** 09-26-2018, 09:04 AM

Knowing me, I'll probably pick up the super duper bundle once the last of the Year 2 DLC hits and they start prepping for D3.

Egarwaen · #**827** 09-26-2018, 09:09 AM

I think we're likely to get at least one more major expansion out of D2 before then, especially since Forsaken sold at basically full price.

Mightyblue · #**828** 09-26-2018, 09:15 AM

Eh, maybe. I was thinking their schedule is going to be like D1's was; two minor expansions, major expansion, two minor expansions, lull til D3.

Egarwaen · #**829** 09-26-2018, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mightyblue

Eh, maybe. I was thinking their schedule is going to be like D1's was; two minor expansions, major expansion, two minor expansions, lull til D3.

There's already three minor expansions on the calendar for year 2 (Black Armory, Joker's Wild, and Penumbra) so.

Mightyblue · #**830** 09-26-2018, 09:57 AM

Ah, I haven't been paying that close attention. Fair enough!

Oathbreaker · #**831** 09-27-2018, 02:24 PM

One thing to watch out for with Forsaken is that while it made a lot of good changes, they changed infusion and general reward for casual gameplay so that this is more of a lifestyle game than Destiny has ever been before in terms of PvE (at least as far as I know, I remember D1 Year 1 being a bit of a trainwreck with infusion having RNG? That was probably worse). Also weapon rolls from D1 are back presumably for good this time. Iron Banner also has level difference advantage whenever it's up now if that's your jam.

Aside from the old maps still being small and poorly designed, almost every other thing about the weapon slot and PvP problems in my post from a few months ago was addressed and it's way better now. There still aren't any maps that are very multi-layered like some of them were in D1, but the new maps are still really solid, especially compared to what they shoveled at us in Warmind.

One really interesting fun thing is that if you've got at least one friend (it's much easier if you have two friends though) who at least bought Warmind who's really good at the game, you don't need any expansions to get Whisper of the Worm, which is an Exotic heavy sniper and one of the best weapons in the game bar none. Just gotta be able to deal with a really long jumping puzzle while your friend deals with all the enemies and bosses.

Umbaglo · #**832** 09-27-2018, 03:57 PM

I've been thinking lately about trying out Destiny 2, especially since I got it for "free" on both PS4 (PS+) and PC (Humble Monthly). I just don't know where I want to play it, I guess? On PS4 I can at least transfer over my character, even if nothing happens over then that cutscene at the start, but PC is likely to be the better place to play. And probably the more active place?

Daikaiju · #**833** 11-03-2018, 12:20 PM

Got D2 via Battle.net

Is there a TT clan?

Lakupo · #**834** 11-05-2018, 07:18 AM

Yes, there is a Talking Tyrants clan. I'm not sure how active it is on the PC side since I'm on the PS4 side--a few of our very active PC clan members moved to other clans during the Post-Osiris lull in the games activity when everyone did everything. With more people joining through the free offer, there are bound to be more forum members to join up with now though.

P.S. a note to clan members, clan experience is not accrued automatically anymore though certain activities in Forsaken--you have to take bounties from Hawthorne now. The personal contribution cap of 5000 XP per week is still in place. I keep forgetting to grab the bounties and then do those things that would've earned XP.

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