Destiny: FIN

[Marmite]

I did the daily solo at the recommended light level. It was fucking difficult!!

I didn't remember the end bit of that being in the main story either. Odd.

[Mr Ben]

You mean no players? lol! Yeah its been dead. Hit me up tomorrow because i'm at the same stage on that quest.

Got it done thanks to Devdas joining me. Its freaking hard as it spawns in a boss enemy with loads of adds.

Its quite a grind as you have to do the same thing on other planets too before it gives you missions.

[QuackQuack]

Hats off to Bungie for making the Dreadnaught look like one of the most generic, brown, dull areas ever seen in games

[jcee]

So how long is the actual new story line then? I dont wanna get burned by a couple of hours of actual new stuff followed by countless hours of doing it over and over again.

[SpagMasterSwift]

Well aren't we a happy bunch...

[Gorf King]

Hats off to Bungie for making the Dreadnaught look like one of the most generic, brown, dull areas ever seen in games

Some of the areas in the Dreadnaught are visually stunning. One of them in particular that we navigated in a strike (and it didn't seem to occur anywhere else) was huge and just beautifully designed. Our team all remarked on how amazing it was that they'd created this unique location just for a strike, instead of reusing a story area - that's assuming it doesn't crop up elsewhere later.

Despite for some reason languishing in lower light levels - after two days of pounding the game into the ground I find myself somewhere around 250 and unable to get into the highest tier stuff - the content of this expansion has been absolutely top class so far. A huge improvement on TDB, and it makes HoW look even more like the almost pointless stopgap it was. The new strikes, and even the modified old ones, deserve special mention for the sea change they represent in Bungie's approach to challenging combat dynamics. No more 'find safe spot, use massive DPS = win,' the battles all have their own character and force engagement in often quite imaginative ways. Even where old areas are reused the way they're done is sometimes an actual thrill first time you encounter them.

So yeah, I'm impressed. Which is a good job because, at my rate of progress, I'll be replaying all this content about a hundred times before I get anywhere near the level required for the raid. RNG. RNG never changes.

[Uncle Mike]

Well, this is a new experience. New levels, new levelling, new currencies (effectively) and not knowing all the secrets.

I took yesterday off and ploughed through content yesterday. I quite enjoy the new Sunbreaker Titan, although I have not worked out how to use it effectively in high-end PvE.

I reached Light 248 by bedtime yesterday. With a Legendary primary Scout, a Legendary Arc Sniper and (I think) all Legendary armour excluding the helmet.

What I haven't yet figured out is where to get 250-plus rated drops.

But the new stuff is grand. I like the Dreadnaught, and the twists and turns look like they'll keep us busy for a while. Finding runes and keys and codes and so on feels extensive so far.

And I like the new strikes, and the twists on the old ones. Variability is pretty good, as well as Hard versions of story missions having new bits.

I didn't remember doing yesterday's Daily Story during the story. That confused me.

[Oz]

the new rasputin bunker is also incredible in terms of art design. also the dreagnaught has the most incredible sky box they have ever done. i like the effect of the dimentional travel. but have to agree about the look of the inside of the ship. its just hive stuff which is very brown. i am having a fucking blast with the stormcaller on pvp. power! unlimited power!

[KartoffelKopf]

I'm also loving the hunter nightstalker. So much more deadly than I was expecting. All hits when tethered seem to be crit level so needs a bit coordination but pull that thing back and you feel proper bad ass. They seem to have really given all the new supers a real feeling of badassery unlike the old ones.

[Oz]

So how long is the actual new story line then? I dont wanna get burned by a couple of hours of actual new stuff followed by countless hours of doing it over and over again.

the story is about half of the original content but much better in terms of production values and plot. this will be followed by countless hours of fun replaying the same content and complaining about bungie on party chat and on this thread. jump in!

[Capp]

I got very frustrated yesterday. I'm just not getting any decent drops, I've been stuck at light 217ish for two days! So I decided to relieve some stress in Crucible and have a crack at the Jolly Holiday quest....baaaaad idea.

But that was just me having a shitty day, the content is top notch stuff.

[PaB]

Was playing with my son last night on Dreadnought, just patrolling to harvest Halidrum or whatever its called and we got some Command Codes, which we used in one area, large boss appears then. Then some more codes, which we eventually found a use for, another boss, (which took 2 Dreadnought bosses off of the quest to get 3 bosses from each area) and eventually led to a secret room with a Gold chest and some Calcified stuff and a legendary

Loads of little hidden secrets. Found a chest that needs a key of Eir last night too. No idea what the fuck that is.

[KartoffelKopf]

I got very frustrated yesterday. I'm just not getting any decent drops, I've been stuck at light 217ish for two days! So I decided to relieve some stress in Crucible and have a crack at the Jolly Holiday quest....baaaaad idea.

But that was just me having a shitty day, the content is top notch stuff.

Yeah, Jolly Holiday has that same annoying thing the Thorn bounty had where you earn points for kills and they get taken away for death so progression is veeeeeery sloooow and frustrating (if you're shit like me :/).

Apparently you don't need to actually use Ladt Word though, just have it equipped so the hang back and heavy technique probably works best.

[Oz]

My stormcaller its starting to look like she means business.

[Coolcongo]

Have they said what light level you need to be for the raid yet. i am hoping this new raid is as good as the vault of glass.

[Uncle Mike]

There's loads of Chests needing specific keys. When you get the key, it has a cryptic hint in the description as to where the chest is.

Gorf King, Van and I used the intial code thing on the Cabal, but haven't yet found the follow-up. We also found a Rune that you plug into a terminal in the Dreadnaught. That triggers a wave of Hive followed by a huge boss. After another action, that then drops a chest key. Then you go hunting.

So there's a few of that sort of thing. I think Gorf said he found another Hive thing too.

Also, we tried the Court of Oryx. Reciprocal runes seem pretty easy to come by. The level 2 Rune (Stolen) a bit less so! We joined in on someone else's tier 2 attempt yesterday. Two knights and a Centurion with shield subtleties. We failed.

[Uncle Mike]

What is quite cool on this code/Rune/key stuff is that it seems you only need one person in the fireteam to get the initial drop, and all the fireteam get to share in the rewards.

[Curtis]

Anyone know if that was a story level? Don't remember doing it. It's called Outbound Signal.

Its one of a plethora of missions you get after kicking Oryx in the nads.

There's so much new content. I've never once sat there and thought "what now, grind?". My Quest page is always full.

[QuackQuack]

A few things to try this evening....

- Spend my legendary marks on a 280 defence ghost. I haven't seen any legendary ones or high level blues drop yet (I've got one from a quest) and this would get me up a few light levels instantly

- Open my engrams one at a time instead of mashing X. If you get a better piece of armour, put it on to get your light up and then you might get a better decryption than you would have done if you opened them all at once

- Just play the game and don't worry so much about marks and legendary stock armour. It sounds like you can get very good blues as your light goes up

[Uncle Mike]

Is there any evidence that being higher level helps higher drops? It's just RNG and confirmation bias, isn't it?

I suppose the thing they said about sitting in the Vanguard playlist for longer helping higher drops is a thing though. Perhaps I should do that.

[Moodmon]

the story is about half of the original content but much better in terms of production values and plot. this will be followed by countless hours of fun replaying the same content and complaining about bungie on party chat and on this thread. jump in!

This is one of the things I feel does deserve criticism in Taken King. Sure, there are a couple of new areas. There is a good chunk of running the same stuff backwards again, this time with X thing added! A cynical person may even go so far to say as this was stuff not finished in time/held back from the main game. I mean not like we have had an empty sub class slot since vanilla Desti....oh wait.

On the other hand, they have put a lot of character into the characters now. I am very impressed with the large amount of stuff after the story is done. I like the slow drip feed of slightly better stuff, rather than absolutely having to wait for those legendaries/exotics.

[SpagMasterSwift]

The Dreadnaught is ace, love all the secret rooms and having no idea what you need to unlock things yet. There is a room that

kills you when you try to get at the chest in there...I love that kind of stuff. Walking on on a bunch of hive chanting is awesome too, just gives them that extra bit of character. Felt sorry for the Vex all malfunctioning during one mission. It's the little things...

[BarryL85]

I thought the contents of engrams were fully formed when you receive them, and that decrypting them just revealed them.

Is there any evidence that being higher level helps higher drops? It's just RNG and confirmation bias, isn't it?

I suppose the thing they said about sitting in the Vanguard playlist for longer helping higher drops is a thing though. Perhaps I should do that.

It does work in the way Suchuu stated, the game seems to be designed to slowly creep you up light levels.

When you reach higher light level engrams contain higher attack/defence, when you are say light level 200 you don't just suddenly open a 295 light item they are usually just above what you currently are.

The opposite is also true being light level ~294 myself you stop opening engrams that contain items that are below say 265 but more often than not they are 280+

The overwhelming evidence to support that engrams are not a locked value upon picking them up is that if you transfer armour engrams picked up by say a Titan to a different character class you will find 99% of them will then decrypt for that specific class i.e. Hunter or Warlock.

The Dreadnaught is ace, love all the secret rooms and having no idea what you need to unlock things yet. There is a room that

kills you when you try to get at the chest in there...I love that kind of stuff. Walking on on a bunch of hive chanting is awesome too, just gives them that extra bit of character. Felt sorry for the Vex all malfunctioning during one mission. It's the little things...

Yeah.....

I used titan defender with armour of light bubble to open that chest, couldn't figure out how to do it legit

[Oz]

I just did a cheeky work break strike with randoms. This was followed by two friend invites on account of my inspired dancing, which combined my two dance emotes and my signature teabag douche move. Purchase justified.

[Mafro]

I did the daily solo at the recommended light level. It was fucking difficult!!

I didn't remember the end bit of that being in the main story either. Odd.

I did it at 260 light, 20 above the recommended level and it was still classified as hard, and it bloody was. I was expecting the difficulty to change to normal like story missions would have previously when you were at the same level or above. Feels like Bungie are being cheap like what they did with Crota and Skolas and having enemies be at a higher level than you, but this time they are nerfing you if you are higher.

Not sure I'm a fan of the The Taken as enemies. I don't find most of them particularly fun to fight and the abilities some of them have are just plain irritating. Really wish Bungie would get over their obsession with enemies with homing attacks too, they were annoying enough in the vanilla game but they really can just piss off now.

[Curtis]

I suppose the thing they said about sitting in the Vanguard playlist for longer helping higher drops is a thing though. Perhaps I should do that.

I've only had one stint, but after 5 consecutive Strikes yesterday, it started dropping a purple at the end. Could be a coincidence, or it could be the buff kicking in.

That was the regular playlist, not the Heroic, which is obviously guaranteed a purple every time. Which begs the question: what do you get if you rinse those all day long without orbiting? Besides brain ache and knackered hands.

[legaldinho]

Do it Curtis. For science.

Do it Curtis. For science.

[SpagMasterSwift]

I keep getting that Bomb Brothers strike in a row in playlist...tiring.

[Mafro]

I really like the taken, they're a nice twist on things. But Bungie really has pissed me off with what they've done with the heroic and nightfall stuff. They've taken the one thing that everyone unanimously hated about the Hard Crota raid, and applied it to everything: Making the enemies a higher level than you.

Also, I am really loving the new content. But the level increase to 40 is, well, a pathetic joke. What was the fucking point?

Would it not have made more sense to make the levelling last longer, and then have heroic stuff tiered at different levels like before? Same for the raid. Everyone acknowledges that the Vault of Glass was the best, and that was a level 28 strike, a level that was achieveable.

Of course we don't know what's involved in this new strike, but I know the cheap system they use will annoy me.

Don't forget the level 35 and 36 enemies on Skolas too

Yeah the level 40 thing is weird. You could easily get up to that on the first day and for what? Further content was still blocked off until you reached the required light level.

[BarryL85]

I really like the taken, they're a nice twist on things. But Bungie really has pissed me off with what they've done with the heroic and nightfall stuff. They've taken the one thing that everyone unanimously hated about the Hard Crota raid, and applied it to everything: Making the enemies a higher level than you.

Also, I am really loving the new content. But the level increase to 40 is, well, a pathetic joke. What was the fucking point?

Would it not have made more sense to make the levelling last longer, and then have heroic stuff tiered at different levels like before? Same for the raid. Everyone acknowledges that the Vault of Glass was the best, and that was a level 28 strike, a level that was achieveable.

Of course we don't know what's involved in this new strike, but I know the cheap system they use will annoy me.

I think everyone should forget about the experience level of 40, it's all about light now.

Me, lyrical and nate done the nightfall last night, I was the only one above 280 at the time and it was fine.

If you are 280+ at a recommended 280 light, forget what level the enemies are showing whether it be 41 or 42, you are basically at the same level as the enemies IMO, it feels like you are doing a level 30 mission/strike at level 30 from year one (if that makes sense).