Destiny 2 (PS4)

[Moog72]

Mikeyjae said:

How often or when does the Vex clan attempt the raids?

Depends a bit when people are about and who fancies doing one at the time, it's rare that anything gets set up in advance at the moment. There is a small group of members that run it reasonably often, but the rest of us just do it as and when an opportunity presents itself

Having said that, I think a few of us want to try and get one done this weekend if nothing else to expand the Raid knowledge of the group with a view to being able to take more solo orientated or lower power players through it for those that want to

I also need to run it properly, I still haven't got any further than opening the first door!

[Moog72]

Nightfall - bring your A game for it this week. The modifiers make it a bit of a sod and there are many shielded knights and wizards, plus 3? mini boss ogres all before you even get to the final boss room!

[Moog72]

To me, D2 feels like they've taken vanilla D1 and built on that to create number 2 rather than start with where D1 ended up (with all of the massive improvements introduced along the way)

In a lot of ways, 2 is miles behind where I think it should and perhaps expected it to be, it all feels a bit watered down to be honest and based on Internet "evidence" many people are finding the same, with quite a lot already calling it a day, at least until the DLC comes out

Nice clips though Sims. That rocket, from my perspective, hit him square in the chest but it doesn't look that way from your angle

[Moog72]

The Leviathan raid is the biggest disappointment of the lot IMO. The lack of "must have" raid weapons with unique or useful perks is a massive balls up on Bungie's part - VoG and Crota to some extent got it so perfectly right in that regard

I really don't think I'd feel I was missing out on anything at all as a casual or solo payer, the only reason to run it is for a laugh with mates and given the content of this week's TWAB, it appears that's what Bungie was going for anyhow

The Prestige version is out next week too, but apart from saying you've done it, there is zero reason to do so. No character progression and no new shiny weapons to chase either

I've also got about 75 to 80 hours in D2 now and whilst I do enjoy playing it, I do feel short changed given everything we've been through with D1. The Bungie hype train worked a treat in that regard, over promised and sadly, under delivered. We really shouldn't be saying that in just a little over a month since launch, aside from a few weekly milestones that take a couple of hours to knock out per character, that there is nothing left to chase in the game

[Moog72]

Hit IB level 10 this afternoon and so received the season "reward" if you call it that and in that time I've had three armour pieces drop (arms, chest and titan mark) plus all of the weapons with just a single duplicate (the pulse rifle)

Not a bad haul considering how some people seem to be getting very little to drop

Pity they are all at power level 294 when I'm sat at 304 - that is such an odd decision on Bungie's part. I guess it's so they didn't have to implement anything truly new, just bosh out a re-skinned Shaxx-o-like with exactly the same token based reward mechanic

Only really wanted the Titan arms out of the event (and the level 10 milestone done), so there is now zero reason to play Banner any further

I've seen a bit of lag but nothing super game breaking except for one match where I got booted out, got disconnected from PSN and my router went haywire. Oh and yesterday when I got booted from a winning game before the tokens were awarded so that Destiny could install an update, ffs - no downtime expected they said, didn't say we wouldn't boot you from a match though did we!

[Moog72]

If you manage to complete all 3 of the daily IB challenges, then you get 6 tokens for doing so plus a bonus 15 from Saladin. Doing just that is enough to get another level / engram

You can do this on any other characters you may have so potentially 3 whole levels a day if you go for it (assuming you save the tokens and hand them all in on one character). Do this and 10 is easy to achieve even if your win rate is a little low

[Moog72]

Mikeyjae said:

It feels like the Tuesday reset is the only time I can level up to 300 or infact improve my power score.

That's because it is. The four milestones per character (planet events, clan XP, Crucible & Nightfall) are the only ways to get gear higher than your current level (not sure about the Raid, still haven't done it). Oh, and reward engrams if you are in a clan

But if RNG sucks, and it does for me it seems, all you get is many grenade launchers and other power weapons that are neither use nor ornament ... come back next week and try again - signed, the stupid devs at Bungie

Which doesn't give end game players much to do frankly since those milestones can be knocked out relatively quickly hence why I was looking forward to IB. In D1 this was a great way to level up your light, I was expecting the same in D2 but instead we got the same crappy token level system, under power rewards, nothing to chase in terms of guaranteed rewards at a certain level and the biggest kick in the nuts, a freakin' emblem for hitting the MILESTONE level of 10! No luminous engram to make it worth your while, nothing of any note whatsoever

D2 has been fun but take off the new game rosetinted specs and it's absolutely miles behind where D1 ended up being in year 3. This I simply can't understand. D2 is a sequel, so why it doesn't take all of the best bits from D1, all of the lessons learned, all of the improvements made over the 3 years and start from that point baffles me frankly

[Moog72]

SimianWonder said:

I'm curious what constitutes being "miles behind", in your eyes, Moog?

Year 3 Destiny was the culmination of three years worth (duh) of content and even then, some of it was simply padding. Bringing the classic raids back, with updated weapons and new armour sets was a wonderful incentive, but there was still a lot of content that simply never got touched. D2 has given us a much needed clean slate to build on, and a far stronger base at that. Is there as much content as end-of-life D1? No, but it's a much more approachable game with clearly defined paths to your goals and much more rewarding to casual players as a result.

The knock-on effect is that there's less to do endgame; we're down to one raid rather than four, strikes are basically worthless outside of Nightfalls and whilst Crucible balance is better than at any point in D1, the total inability to choice your game mode and lack of custom matches is a step back.

I can't really put my finger on it honestly Sims, it just doesn't feel as rounded and polished as I thought it would be. Almost every sequel game I've bought has built on the first and improved on it for the better. Destiny 2 is different but I'm not yet convinced it's actually any better an experience than the first one

All the loved Destiny elements are there, it just doesn't move anything on significantly enough to make it stand out and some things are worse, in my view (infusion system, new weapon slots, the inability to choose activities i.e. Crucible mode, which strike to run, etc, kiosks missing, lack of vendors, lack of persistent factions, the vault and general inventory organisation is still awful).

I suspect you've nailed it on the head when you say Bungie have made it more accessible / rewarding for casual players and as such have dumbed down some of the elements as a result. Destiny 1 was always about the grind in some shape or form and a lot of that has gone from Destiny 2 - some people will like that, but that's what made the game what it was, the reason to go back, the reason to have one more try (when it's already been a hour since saying you had to go)

It will develop for sure in the same way that D1 did over it's life, but I guess I just expected D2 to be more advanced than it is taking all of the best bits from year 3 D1 and then fixing some of those inherent flaws and adding some improvements in order to create vanilla D2

It could have swung the other way though and become the next Warframe and I'm glad that it didn't do that - I tried to get back into that game recently, and found myself not having a clue as to what was going on, what am I supposed to do next, what is this material for, why can't I use any of those guns, etc etc. I gave up on that one again for the time being

[Moog72]

As we talked about earlier Sims, I think that Reddit post is spot on with the Raid being the obvious candidate. Aside from the trophy or simply saying you've done it, what is the point?

I've done all of the adventures but that was just to clear them off the map, I can't say my D2 experience has been enhanced by any of them but then I pay little attention to lore and all that gubbins. All of the other content rewards nothing for the "end game" player, so again, what's the point?

D2 has been fine and I've enjoyed it, but it's badly lacking in reasons to keep playing it at the moment

Now, can I interest any Destiny folks in picking up Warframe? It's free to download and play, it's very grindy, granted, but I'm having a blast with it having started to play it again recently. Sims has helped immensely getting stuff / unlocking things otherwise unavailable to a Noob, but it's definitely worth a look. Who knows, a PH Warframe clan in the offing?

Edited by Moog72 on Sunday 29th October 00:17