Destiny 2

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I died once on those platforms too because of a mis-timed jump. Just wait until raids come out. If Bungie focuses entirely too much on raid content like in Destiny 1 they'll loose all their casual players again. If they want to nerf turbines for the sake of casual retention, they might start nerfing everything else to appeal to the masses with the most money to spend. Then again, this is just them telling people they'll make fixes to ensure pre-orders stay in place. Once the game ships and they have the money I doubt they'll do small tweaks like this again. This could also just be vg247 turning a small dev comment into an entire article because they have a couple huge destiny fans there. I remember during the height of Destiny 1, they had at least 2 Destiny articles a day and a guaranteed Xur inventory update article every friday.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

They still do have Xur articles every Friday. I think he sold Monte Carlo last week. If I was the Dev, I'd ad 2 more turbines to each level and speed them up by 50%.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/14/destiny-2s-pve-content-spans-over-80-missions-and-activities-will-take-you-over-50-hours-to-complete/

50 hours of PvE content sounds good, I like how they try to make people that don't pay attention believe that the actual story is 50 hours by lumping in activities into the mix.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Including activities, gear progression and all 'content' to the total gameplay time is stupid. I bet the campaign will only take 6-8 hours to beat. Almost every game I play I only do the campaign and then kick all the activities and trophies to the curb.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Its a great action trailer. Still minimal on the plot. So many movie trailers completely give away the entire plot of the movie, but Destiny trailers reveal maybe 2 plot points and then a bunch of stuff blowing up like Michael Bay made it.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

 

Well the open world doesn't look much bigger than what D1 offered, but the improvements are much welcomed. On map PE timers, secret objectives to unlock a Heroic version of them sounds cool too, even though the previous video I posted still dropped blue for the guy. But getting guaranteed legendary and exotic engram from completing map objectives sounds excellent. Progression based grind is always better than RNG grind, even when your progression is still going to end up being an RNG drop, at least it's guaranteed not to be some shit blue drop. I'll at least have fun doing these things until GW2: PoF comes out.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I missed that video. lol. Looks like activision doesn't want too much getting leaked out.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Oh wow, That was even an Arekkz video. Apparently some guy in germany got a copy of the game and streamed it for 5 hours until they banned his account.

It seems every video about it was taken down. I just used his because he's better at most when covering the game.

Basically, it showed off a new exotic Osiris themed pulse rifle that shot 5 rounds per burst and had some mystery ability that wasn't shown. There was a meter on it that filled up with every kill. Since its rumored that Trials of Osiris would be no more and it would be Trials of the Nine, it seems likely this is gained through regular game play.

The Vault has 200 slots. It should be ample since there are no longer different rolls for like items. There was also 10 slots for engrams in the inventory screen. No word on if those are special engrams you save up or the mission based ones.

Then it showed one of the adventures which teleported you to a different map entirely, looked pretty neat. I think they're taking them down mostly because they've been so secret about the inventory/vault and weapon perk layout screen for some bizarre reason. I mean 200 slots is way more than what we had in D1.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Initial thoughts

While this game mechanically is identical to D1. You can really tell what a copy/cut and paste job D1 was. The train wreck of the previous game becomes more noticeable with how this game flows. The story is superior in every way possible. There is purpose, narrative, and direction. There is an actual villain, and you have a real goal. The musical score is amazing. They could probably Rerelease Destiny 1 ten years from now in some special edition for whatever underpowered Nintendo console is out at the time, with all its cut content restored/redone. So far the story is really good. And if you're wondering, the Generator room nerf consisted of the second tier turbines being removed so there is only one set of them.

What else is good?

They actually fixed just about every issue the beta had. Ammo drops a lot, power ammo drops from every yellow bar, but its still kinda scarce. Your super charges a lot faster to where you can needlessly hold on to it for big moments that may never happen. The enemy AI is a lot better in this game. While the Cabal are still the same clunky oversized enemies. The fallen are a lot smarter and have new movement tactics. They now do this running dash where they set there body really low to the ground and run to cover or away. Its actually annoying as i had to chase down a HVT in the open world when he kept doing this. It can really throw off your aim as well. The hive is still pretty similar but so far thrall spawns are more tactical and annoying. Instead of a bunch all running out of a narrow doorway, I experienced them in more open areas spawning out of a wider array of corners. They are still terrifying when you hear the screams. The game doesn't shy away of bringing back all your "favorites" at the start. The exploding thrall's, and the exploding shanks all make sure you make your life miserable near the start.

Once I played past the opening mission I ran around the EDZ a bit. I still don't have a sparrow so I did what I could while there. Adventures are pretty neat. Way better than the bland patrol missions in the first game. Then again I don't know if I'd want to repeat any of them or if i can. There also seemed to be a lot of stuff locked off from me as far as exploration goes. I hit a few public events... they were your standard fare of stop the fallen mining and the devilwalker. What is interesting is I got 2 exotic engrams from two different PEs. Exotics I could use at my low level as well. Sadly the boots I got already have been outclassed by the time I stopped playing by greens. Still, its interesting to get low level exotic stuff. I also did two lost sectors, but I was guided into them by the introductory adventure, and by a second adventure I did later. I'll reserve judgement on how much there is to do on patrols. After running 4-5 adventures I seemed to have done them all for the EDZ, but then again maybe its because that's all that shows up for my current power level. Like I said I saw a few force fielded walled off areas I couldn't get into yet.

Missions are varying lengths The last one I did was a good 20-30 min long.. but it was really 2 missions that were just back to back off a cut scene. Either way, they make sense as you know what you're doing, and why you're doing it. Instead of wandering around aimlessly listing to your ghost ramble about nonsensical stuff, there is a bunch of radio chatter between important characters as a narrative. It really gives the game more life.

Whats bad?

The grenades still take forever to come back. That's one thing they didn't fix. Also, you always revert to your primary kinetic weapon out of your super... I mean wtf? Why? It's thrown me off so much when I think I'll go back to shooting my SMG only to shoot one shot with my hand cannon. Also I had to wait 30 minutes after launch to get in because servers were at capacity. So much for that "rolling launch". The tool tips are annoying as fuck and wont go away until you do them. They're very obstructive to where you just do them to get rid of them. 

I'm kinda iffy on the new light system. Both your weapons and armor contribute to your power level which replaces the light system. The issue I have with it is that you're basically forced to use the weapons that drop that have the higher power value regardless of the type. Got a sweet shotgun? Too bad this shitty nade launcher dropped with a higher power level moments after you got it. Once you reach level 20, and the power level cap it won't matter I guess, but along the way it kinda sucks. Especially since adventures and missions have recommended power levels sorta like The Division had.

I also don't like that I'm having to wait to get access to my sparrow.. wtf?

So, all I can say right now is that its like D1 probably should have been, there isn't anything ground breaking or new.. you just have Destiny with a better story that isn't limited by old gen consoles. It's like a "sorry guys for that last game, this is what we meant to make". I'll post more impressions once I get into strikes and discover how useful if at all patrolling is as endgame content.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

So pretty much what I thought, Destiny 1.5. Based off of what little I've seen on streams (good god Streamers got access to it yesterday well before the launch window) that's what I've been able to gather. While I'm happy to hear there's a story (and its a pretty good one from what I hear) it's still a little to late for me.

Adventures, as far as I've been able to gather, are one time only so once it's done it's done. The only repeatable content is story missions (besides the obvious ones) which sucks because why go to work to make these things and limit it to one play through per character. It also sucks because it pretty much puts you at the same place you were at when you got to max level in D1, gear grind and wait for raid/new dlc (and we all know how fun that was).

Honestly I'm not overly impressed, I'm waiting for actual reviews to hit before I make my final decision on whether I want to buy this or not (and waiting on my co-workers impressions, he took all week off to play it so I won't find out what he thought until Monday. I look forward to your impressions on Strikes). I enjoyed the beta for what it was but honestly I don't think what I experienced was enough to buy this game. Only real reason I'm considering it is because I'm in a dead period for games now until Ace Combat 7 comes out and I'm burned out in both TOR and FFXIV (fuck I've been playing Ghost Recon Wildlands because I have nothing I really want to play (I can't seem to get my lazy ass in gear to beat Horizon (which I need to, DLC hits in December) or Andromeda (honestly bored with it and my need to finish everything in one play through burned me out quickly)) and before you ask no I did not buy it, I got a free copy of it when I bought my computer. I just finally got off my ass and installed it two weeks ago). Before you ask I'll probably buy it on PC if I do get it, for some reason console gaming is not really all that interesting anymore (gasp, I know. I'm turning into a PC master race gamer. I should shoot myself before it gets worse. And with your play times we probably wouldn't be able to play together anyways).

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

But you wont get too see the milestone we shared together when we entered the black garden in 2014. I forgot to mention that the game does a little tribute at opening of all your accomplishments and who you were with when it happened. I thought it was pretty neat.

So I finished the story and I was satisfied with the ending. It wasn't the best I've ever seen. Honestly they could have added a few more missions. I reached the level cap about half way through the story because I did a bunch of adventures on each planet as I got to them. Once I got to 20 I just focused on the story because I got tired of not having a sparrow. I mean wtf bungie? Thats so fucking stupid to make people do 75% of the campaign before giving you one. Completely pointless.

So where this game shines is loot acquisition. Holy crap its so much better. In just open world PvE I've gotten more exotics and legendaries than the first few months of D1 I played.  I'm not max power level yet, but I have all legendary and exotic gear. And here is the best part of it all: you can infuse a higher level weapon into your lower level leggy or exotic to bring its power level up to par... even if its a blue you are sacrificing to do it. You just have to keep enough legendary shards on hand by scrapping other legendary stuff. So this assures me my gear wont ever get shit on if I really like it. I would have loved this for my The Devil You Know in D1. I have a really good energy auto rifle that I'll keep on me forever now. Plus I've upgraded my Gravaton Lance along the way. The 3 beta exotics are low level gifts during the story. You only get to pick one though. I'll have to play through again to get Sunshot and bring it up to spec. I've gotten 3 exotic engrams from public events, and they weren't even heroic events every time. AND engrams always decode for your class... no more hunter gloves when you're a warlock. And as if it couldn't get any more convenient, every exotic you get is saved as a collection. If you ever scrap it and regret it later, you can buy it back for 10 legendary shards. 

I'm also pleased with the endgame PvE. There are challenges for each planet. I'm hoping they are daily, but they could be weekly... I'll report back on that tomorrow. Each area has 3 tasks that reward you with a rep package. Every planet has a vendor/mission coordinator type NPC. The more you do around the planet, the more coins you get to turn in. Each time you fill the rep bar you get a legendary. This also works for the gunsmith. After I beat the game I got access to him and got like 7 legendary engrams. I'm not 100% sure how you build rep with them. I guess I should see what I'm turning in. All I know is that I fill his rep bar faster than anyone. The trainers from the first game also offer tasks for rep. There are so many NPCs doling out legendary gear, its amazing. I also unlocked standard patrols... which are exactly the same from D1. But between challenge quests, adventures, lost sectors, and public events that have timers on the map... repetitive open world grinding feels rewarding.

I've gotten so much decent loot just running around the open world maps, strikes aren't that exciting right now. I did 2 for a milestone challenge... sadly they were both Inverted Spire... It came up first, and my second strike was somewhere else, but both the other players left so I had to back out and got the same damn strike again. I was too irritated to try more after that. They still seem to have the typical troll/afker problem the first game had. Inverted Spire as a Nightfall is going to be a damn nightmare. I think I only beat it once without wiping on the final boss' last stage during the beta. Both times today my teammates left me last guardian standing, and I'd get knocked off the side into the toxic fluid and die. That seems to be the only way I die, and its very irritating. Its happens on missions, and adventures. I'll jump out of a cluster fuck and someone will do a shockwave move and it pushes you off the side with no way to get back as you float. Kinda stupid since you are in the air to avoid a ground attack.

On a final note for now, the humor in this game is pretty great. Funny how they didn't want any in the first game and screwed the whole story for that reason.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I'll also add a buyers beware. Destiny does have a loot box system called Bright Engrams. Once you hit level 20, you can earn these by continuing to level up. They give you shaders, weapon ornaments (which i guess are skins), ships, sparrows and most controversially... mods. People are calling it pay to win because you can buy silver to buy these engrams in bulk. I don't know if the mods will be usable in Trails or Iron Banner.. I'll assume they will be. Its things like +5 weapon damage and what not. It will also give you some power 10 legendary armor, which you can bring up to spec via the infusion system if you like the perk it has... that seems the least appealing with how easy legendary armor is to obtain now. Its the mods the people are worried about.

I'm more interested in the cosmetics as I doubt I'll ever care about other people's mods. The PvP isn't my thing in this game, but I'd be worried too if it was. So far I've gotten 3 legendary ships, and an extoic sparrow that shoots out crazy booster flames. I'm pretty happy with it... but damn I miss my Crota ship.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Thanks for all the info on the game. Its good to read up on what I'm missing out on. I still don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this any time soon, but its good to know that Bungie is moving forward with improvements. Although I'm surprised they had those max server issues on day one.

How many hours did it take you to beat the campaign? Now that you've had the game for 2 days, you're already at the end game content. How is it so far? Are you feeling compelled to keep logging in daily to get more loot? Or is the loot so plentiful now you'll get best in slot for everything within a matter of a few weeks and run out of things to do?

 

On 9/6/2017 at 8:44 PM, Strider Hiryu said:

Before you ask I'll probably buy it on PC if I do get it, for some reason console gaming is not really all that interesting anymore (gasp, I know. I'm turning into a PC master race gamer.

Did you get through a bunch of your steam backlog now that you have a PC that can play everything?

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

22 minutes ago, Sledgstone said:

Did you get through a bunch of your steam backlog now that you have a PC that can play everything?

Pfft, I wish. I pretty much instantly log into FFXIV, TOR, or Wildlands now when I boot my PC up. I really do need to get through that backlog though.

DX you're supposed to convince me not to buy the game not giving me more reasons to go out and buy it Meh, I might break down this weekend and buy it on my PS4 (just for those milestones which I share 90% of them with you on my side (pretty much all but my one VoG clear)). I keep hearing good things about it everywhere I go and honestly if it gives me a reason to step away from FFXIV for awhile (at least a few days out of the week, I have nothing to do until Oct when the new patch hits) why not. Then again I'm backing down from my statement of not supporting Bungie and their lackluster game design (I still can't understand how the developers of Halo failed so fucking hard with D1, then again most of the Halo team stayed with Microsoft to form 343. The lack of understanding still stands).

[Sledgstone 8,672]

http://kotaku.com/destiny-2-players-fume-over-one-time-use-shaders-and-m-1801803456

Quote

Shaders are earned through gameplay: leveling, chests, engrams, vendors. We expect you’ll be flush w/ Shaders as you continue to play. When you reach level 20, Shaders will drop more often: vendor rewards, destination play and endgame activities. Shaders are now an ongoing reward for playing. Customization will inspire gameplay. Each planet has unique armor and Shader rewards. With D2, we want statements like “I want to run the Raid, Trials, or go back to Titan to get more of its Shader” to be possible.

Shaders are consumables!? Nooooooo! Raid only dye colors.. I hardly ever changed my shaders in D1, so I doubt I'd care much in D2, but it seems a bit dumb to change the standard shader system into a consumable version instead just to give everyone something new to grind for.

I like the hashtag this guy uses. #MakeFashionGreatAgain

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Yes I did beat the story in a day, but you have to remember I played 5 hours of launch night, and then played from 11am to 4am that day. At your pace Sledge, it would probably take you a month to beat the campaign.   There is plenty to log back in for each day. It seems the planet challenges are daily? Earth and Io changed for me, but Nessus is still on what I was working on the previous day... maybe its 24 hours after doing all the challenges. The adventures could be considered part of the story, more appear after you beat the campaign. These must have replaced grimoire cards because they are actually lengthy side stories. The challenge missions are as well. Once you beat the challenge missions on each planet you get what amounts to the old style bounty for an exotic weapon. I had to stop doing those because they take up an weapon inventory slot just like the old ones. C'mon Bungie, why?

Anyways, Ive played through a lot of these things and the stories are pretty neat. And you actually can repeat them if you like them enough. They become available at the planet's NPC rep vendor after you do them. My favorite one so far was ole Rasputin luring me into a damn Vex death trap, and then periodically trolling them with some type of hypnosis music while I killed them. I've also managed to reach power level 264 doing all open world PvE. To do the nightfall you must reach 230 for reference. I seems every time you do reach a new level of rep with these vendors you get a more powerful legendary engram.

I'm pleasantly surprised. I like this game way more than I thought I would. If the DLC adds more planets, more adventures, and what not, it will be worth it for me. Even though I have all exotic and legendary gear, blues are still worth picking up for infusions. So doing public events and adventures that only give you rare gear, are still worth doing because they could drop a blue that has a higher attack power than what you have. They must have put someone else in charge of designing this loot system, because its the best I've seen in any RNG based game... and its crazy I can say that. What is even funnier, is I am seeing a few friends trying to acquire loot the old way. When I log on I see them doing strikes or PvP, and I'm like 20 points higher than them with a few hours less of playtime.

Strider I meant that as a joke. Those milestones are just a short intro the first time you launch the game. I'm not sure if you can ever look at it again after that. I thought it was a cool tribute. I had a VoG clear, Crota clear, Made it to the Light House on Trials of Osiris, and The Black Garden. If all you did was VoG, then you'll only see 2 cards for that and us beating the last mission. Get it for what ever platform you want. Like you said our play times may not match up. I'm generally off on Sunday's and Wednesday's, otherwise I play from 10:30pm to about 3am central time. If you do get it for PS4, I'd be more than happy to team up when possible. It seems a few of these bounties require you to be in a fireteam of at least 2.

On a final note.... The Taken are annoying as fuck. At least those of us that didn't buy any DLC outside of the season pass get to experience it in this game. I'm curious if they put in subtle alternate dialog for players based on their save date from D1. The first time I encoutered them the whole Oryx thing was explained, and it was the only time something like that was made out like it was brand new to me. Oh and Swords are bad ass. I didn't think I'd like them, but they are among my favorite power weapon. I have an arc one just to slay the shit out of fallen captains. The fact that you don't need to reload them ever makes them great for panic moments. Nothing worse than swapping to your power weapon only to have to reload it because you previously used up all the ammo.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

5 hours ago, DeathscytheX said:

Strider I meant that as a joke. Those milestones are just a short intro the first time you launch the game. I'm not sure if you can ever look at it again after that. I thought it was a cool tribute. I had a VoG clear, Crota clear, Made it to the Light House on Trials of Osiris, and The Black Garden. If all you did was VoG, then you'll only see 2 cards for that and us beating the last mission. Get it for what ever platform you want. Like you said our play times may not match up. I'm generally off on Sunday's and Wednesday's, otherwise I play from 10:30pm to about 3am central time. If you do get it for PS4, I'd be more than happy to team up when possible. It seems a few of these bounties require you to be in a fireteam of at least 2.

Oh I knew it was a joke but after thinking about it I really don't want to wait until Oct (especially considering the new FFXIV patch goes live the week before) to play it and honestly I suck at shooters when I use a mouse and keyboard, better off just getting it on my PS4. I'm going to watch some more streamers today and make my final decision by tomorrow (I was watching some last night before I finally passed out, seems like the higher you go in Power Level the harder it is to raise it (seems like the loot system isn't working correctly, Teawrex was stuck at 284-285 before I went to bed) which kind of turns me off then again I'm not exactly looking at getting into the raid until Guided Games becomes available for it. Oh yea and I am off every Sunday so there is at least one day a week we can try and do stuff if I do buy it.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Yeah it seems 265 is the soft cap then the grind gets worse. 270 gear comes from the nightfall, Xur (most likely 300 exotics), and rep vendors on rare occasions. The raid will probably push people to 290 and then 300. Kinda sucks, but we'll see how guided games go. The guys I normally did raids with were all about doing it at reset and I'll never be on for that. I want to do at least one for this secret bounty that dropped for me and I can't advance until then. 

I did 3 different strikes today and they were pretty fun. They really made sure you can't cheese these things. I hear the nightfall has a time limit too. All the end bosses fights took place in a chamber or a high scaffolding with fall hazards. The Vex strike on Io was my favorite. It's very VoG inspired and lacked big skips but instead had hazardous puzzles between each encounter. The other Nessus strike was a fallen one, and the boss was like Archon Priest up on a circular scaffolding I just mentioned. Special Shanks would electrify the ground disabling your ability to sprint and jump if you didn't kill them. The Vex boss on Io made cover dissappear, and a massive Taken cabal phalanx boss on the 3rd one made the floor around all the cover near the walls of the chamber toxic so you had to fight from the center or exposed on top the structures. The Inverted Spire is def the worst of what I've played. 

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Heh, Teawrex finally hit 290 today after 7 hours of grinding for it. It's nice they're so giving with the legendary and exotic gear but it seems they want you to work for that damn power level (which apparently the highest PL guardian right now is or was sitting at 296 as of 4 pm today). Seems to be the best way of going about it is just grinding out rep with each of the factions and hoping for the best (and getting in a clan, the damn rewards you get from that can be fucking amazing from what I've seen) as well as doing you're exotic weapon quests and what not (Tea has a Strum at 294 (Kinetic Exotic Handcannon, pretty sweet looking if you ask me. He had a 294 Multi-tool but he infused it into a legendary energy scout) until the raid goes live Wednesday.

The Nightfall looked pretty damn interesting (I was watching Gothalion and Broman do it this morning) and I kind of like the idea of a time limit (though it doesn't seem to be all that bad, they cleared with plenty of time to spare). Sadly the one downside to watching Tea play is he doesn't do the Strikes since he's so obsessed with hitting 300 PL before the raid so it's nice to hear that at least some of them are fun.

After watching Tea grind all day today (yea, I spent a lot of time watching Twitch today. I really need to find something better to do with my time on days off) I broke down and purchased it, just waiting on it to download (got the standard edition, if I end up enjoying it I'll buy the season pass). The adventures look like fun (and they're nice little additions to the story), public events actually look like they're worth doing now (and those heroic versions for some of them look like fun), the story seems pretty damn solid, and honestly I'm just surprised by how much Bungie did to improve upon shit they fucked up in D1 (there are still things I see that didn't get fixed but they're minor). I look forward to giving this a go tomorrow after my initial FFXIV grind, will be a nice distraction until I get my ass in gear to play Horizon.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

At least you CAN grind it in PvE, thats really all I ever asked for. In D1 getting a legendary alone was a feat, and then it would be a low light level.

I got MIDA and Strum tonight. Mine are only 284 and 285 though. That MIDA mini-tool is a damn good SMG. I also managed to get Sweet Business to drop off an engram I got during an adventure. Its crazy how these things drop from anywhere. That would be my 7th one as well. I need to do the nightfall and have 5 minutes left to get the Rat King. Once I get two crucible matches out of the way that is. These bounties are fairly reasonable to do. I'm glad there is no "get 50 void kills in the crucible".

I'm at 272 now. I did get clan rewards from the guys I did raids with. It dropped me some good armor. I figured as long as I keep giving XP I can stick around, I only know 1 of them IRL. All I'm really doing now is trying to hit every adventure. I joined a friend that just started yesterday and I like how it does a GW2 style scaling to where I couldn't wreck everything with one shot... and I even got a legendary engram to drop during the mission. He was level 8, so it was pretty impressive. I really need to start another character soon. As much as I like Strum I'd rather get Sun Shot and use Strum to infuse it. Strum takes a little to long to reload for my liking.