Destiny 2: Lightfall

[Larsen B]

Oz is burying the lede by not saying we then swiftly went on to do Prestige Eater where some got the Telesto catalyst, some got a 400LL Midnight Coup and our weakest link undeservedly got both. Then we finished an Escalation Protocol for a laugh. Then your strongest link, dear reader, was rewarded with a DFA.

 

And that was capping a weekend when every member of the Positivity Club got the Whisper, 36% on the catalyst and the ship blueprint.

 

All applications welcome. Keys available. Starting from level 1? No problem. We'll help you get to where you belong.

 

 

What targeted marketing?

[Purin]

I'm back in. I bought this with the 2 DLC packs for £16.50 in the sale.

 

What have I done?

[Gorf King]

1 hour ago, Hexx said:

I've had a good time pottering about this. But only as a "dip back in". I'm not sure how people have played it for months [...]

 

I'd forgotten how hard it was to "catch" up LL. I want to 370-380 to decently contribute to EP/Worm etc - but at current rate that's 4-5 weeks away (SoH armor might change this). There's nothing I can do (e.g. commit more time) to catch up. Just weekly milestones. Have they given any hint if that nightmare of a progression system is returning for Foresaken?

 

I think you've kinda answered your own question there. As well as levelling there's a lot of content people have been playing that I don't think you have yet. Just the basic raid/raid lairs, for one thing, and also multiple Escalation runs to bag all the armour and hopefully the weapons. That can take a lot of runs. And both those things also help with levelling, since they drop powerful gear or engrams. I've been back playing since a week or so before Warmind and there's never been a lack of things to do - more a lack of time to do them all. And since they brought the prestige raid lairs out a couple of weeks ago, and then dropped the Whisper quest (which takes a minimum of three weekends to complete), there's been far too much to do if anything. In fact, people are playing so much we're getting a fair bit of burnout now; the players run out of steam long before the content does.

 

When you add in the Triumphs that run for four weeks starting tomorrow, you could even say it's all a bit too much really. I've commented in party that it's madness to have all the stuff cascading down on you in such a short space of time, when there was so little post-campaign content in vanilla. Of course, I understand that they had to actually develop the content, but if only this had all been sprinkled across the whole year instead of being packed into the last month and a half of year one, it'd have been a far better game and far fewer people would have jacked it in at the end of 2017 (the Eater of Worlds prestige in particular should have come out in January, not a couple of weeks ago). Not sure if those lapsed players can be brought back now, but if they do come back, they'd find the game much improved and bolstered by what's happened since Warmind. And after four weeks of Triumphs, we have a major update a week before Forsaken, and then Forsaken itself of course. There's a mad amount of content - especially challenging content - to grapple with right now.

 

On your question about levelling systems, as I posted a few pages back they are changing in the August 28 update:

 

 

Looks a bit better than the current system, but with the new power level cap being 600 you can bet it'll be a fairly long road to get to the top. Unless you absolutely hammer all the content each week on multiple characters, of course. And you'd have to be petty fucking crazy to attempt that.

 

*glances in rear view mirror, sees Travis Bickle*

[Oz]

16 minutes ago, Larsen B said:

Oz is burying the lede by not saying we then swiftly went on to do Prestige Eater where some got the Telesto catalyst, some got a 400LL Midnight Coup and our weakest link undeservedly got both. Then we finished an Escalation Protocol for a laugh. Then your strongest link, dear reader, was rewarded with a DFA.

 

And that was capping a weekend when every member of the Positivity Club got the Whisper, 36% on the catalyst and the ship blueprint.

 

All applications welcome. Keys available. Starting from level 1? No problem. We'll help you get to where you belong.

 

 

 

  Hide contents

What targeted marketing?

 

Because fuck sleeping

[Nate Dogg III]

You know, just the other night I was lamenting how one of my great sadnesses about Destiny 2 is what it's done to the rllmuk thread, which used to be a very happy helpful place but is now, like most of the Destiny community, just somewhere people moan.

Then someone comes in and drops a Hold Steady reference and suddenly things are looking up. Nice one Larsen.

[Scruff]

1 hour ago, Larsen B said:

and our weakest link undeservedly got both.

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

@Oz always did have good luck. Although I wouldn't class the Telesto catalyst as good luck as it's complete bobbins

[Hexx]

52 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

 

I think you've kinda answered your own question there. As well as levelling there's a lot of content people have been playing that I don't think you have yet. Just the basic raid/raid lairs, for one thing, and also multiple Escalation runs to bag all the armour and hopefully the weapons. That can take a lot of runs. And both those things also help with levelling, since they drop powerful gear or engrams. I've been back playing since a week or so before Warmind and there's never been a lack of things to do - more a lack of time to do them all. And since they brought the prestige raid lairs out a couple of weeks ago, and then dropped the Whisper quest (which takes a minimum of three weekends to complete), there's been far too much to do if anything. In fact, people are playing so much we're getting a fair bit of burnout now; the players run out of steam long before the content does.

 

When you add in the Triumphs that run for four weeks starting tomorrow, you could even say it's all a bit too much really. I've commented in party that it's madness to have all the stuff cascading down on you in such a short space of time, when there was so little post-campaign content in vanilla. Of course, I understand that they had to actually develop the content, but if only this had all been sprinkled across the whole year instead of being packed into the last month and a half of year one, it'd have been a far better game and far fewer people would have jacked it in at the end of 2017 (the Eater of Worlds prestige in particular should have come out in January, not a couple of weeks ago). Not sure if those lapsed players can be brought back now, but if they do come back, they'd find the game much improved and bolstered by what's happened since Warmind. And after four weeks of Triumphs, we have a major update a week before Forsaken, and then Forsaken itself of course. There's a mad amount of content - especially challenging content - to grapple with right now.

 

On your question about levelling systems, as I posted a few pages back they are changing in the August 28 update:

 

 

Looks a bit better than the current system, but with the new power level cap being 600 you can bet it'll be a fairly long road to get to the top. Unless you absolutely hammer all the content each week on multiple characters, of course. And you'd have to be petty fucking crazy to attempt that.

 

*glances in rear view mirror, sees Travis Bickle*

 

I get all that - and it's improved massively

 

But previously (for instances) you could get to [I might get the numbers wrong] 290 to 300 by grinding, and then 310 with raids. If you can back late to the party you could still get to 290/300 (by a large variety of activities) and "catch up" friends/clan/team mates.

 

I'm 360. I'd love to do the worm - but realistically I'd feel bad trying to find people  for 3-4 weeks due to DPS requirements. I could try and raid but I'd have to find a group (I assume the basic raid would be ok. I know when we did the Warmind Lair on release we got the shit kicked out of us at 340ish...no idea what now). EP...I've done it, but I felt like I was a hinderence (basically a res machine :P). The odd loot system didn't help as second time I got nothing

 

I just find the throttling of progress as baffling now as I did at the start. But at the time I was a "current" player, so was progressing at roughly the same rate as everyone but I was annoyed we couldn't go faster. Now I'm a returning player behind the curve (and not that far...I did some Milestones around Warmind), throttled by how much I can catch up. It's just a bizarre choice.

 

[Gorf King]

13 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

You know, just the other night I was lamenting how one of my great sadnesses about Destiny 2 is what it's done to the rllmuk thread, which used to be a very happy helpful place but is now, like most of the Destiny community, just somewhere people moan.

 

I think it's been pretty upbeat since Warmind came out. Most of the moaning seems to be 'activity x is too hard', which can only be a good thing. There's been some criticism in there, of course - 16 Cabals in a row can tax anyone's patience - but I think people have generally just been getting on with the game. And that's not something you could say six months or so. The game has only been improved by the strong criticisms made last year and around Christmas. If we'd all been endlessly positive and non-critical of it, and everyone had stayed playing without complaint, I have no doubt whatsoever that we'd not have seen even half the improvements that have come our way and are about to. Last year this was a badly underdeveloped game with some fundamental changes that were largely ill-advised, and certainly deserved almost all the criticism it got. In the last month or two there's plenty about it that has garnered a lot of praise from the same quarters. I think this thread has just reflected that on the whole.

[Hexx]

They've done enough (I think) for me to give them a chance on Foresaken - mainly exotics I think. Guns feel powerful again (I still miss grenades though). 

 

Absolutely no way am I getting the season pass up front again though.

[Gorf King]

2 minutes ago, Hexx said:

 

I get all that - and it's improved massively

 

But previously (for instances) you could get to [I might get the numbers wrong] 290 to 300 by grinding, and then 310 with raids. If you can back late to the party you could still get to 290/300 (by a large variety of activities) and "catch up" friends/clan/team mates.

 

I'm 360. I'd love to do the worm - but realistically I'd feel bad trying to find people  for 3-4 weeks due to DPS requirements. I could try and raid but I'd have to find a group (I assume the basic raid would be ok. I know when we did the Warmind Lair on release we got the shit kicked out of us at 340ish...no idea what now). EP...I've done it, but I felt like I was a hinderence (basically a res machine :P). The odd loot system didn't help as second time I got nothing

 

I just find the throttling of progress as baffling now as I did at the start. But at the time I was a "current" player, so was progressing at roughly the same rate as everyone but I was annoyed we couldn't go faster. Now I'm a returning player behind the curve (and not that far...I did some Milestones around Warmind), throttled by how much I can catch up. It's just a bizarre choice.

 

 

If you mean the limited number of milestone per week, yeah, I don't much care for that either. But they do look to be improving that in Forsaken.

 

You could have been higher than 360 though - heroic strikes, which don't require any pre-made team at all, can now drop stuff up to 360. Admittedly, they only have a 25% drop chance or something like that, so you only get one for every four-ish strikes. So that is a grind, but if you're after grinding the shit out of this to level in a short space of time really you should have grinded those out before handing in your milestones for the engrams, and they would have taken you higher. Strike drops at 360 have no +5s in, so they'd get you to 365 if you got enough, and handing your milestones in after that would have taken you higher still. If you're 360 now including your +5s it's still worth grinding out some strikes because as I said they occasionally drop 360 naturals, which is better than what you have.

 

Aside from that, have you got all the milestones apart from the raid ones this week? If you already have the Nightfall one, make sure you go and do the prestige Nightfall because you get another powerful drop from that. Like I said, I'm not a great fan of the limited weekly milestones myself, but if you do them all and only cash them in once you've exhausted the other stuff like heroic strikes, you can make the most of the rewards.

[Mafro]

Three cabal events in a row  Can't be arsed wasting any more time on it today.

[Hexx]

2 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

 

If you mean the limited number of milestone per week, yeah, I don't much care for that either. But they do look to be improving that in Forsaken.

 

You could have been higher than 360 though - heroic strikes, which don't require any pre-made team at all, can now drop stuff up to 360. Admittedly, they only have a 25% drop chance or something like that, so you only get one for every four-ish strikes. So that is a grind, but if you're after grinding the shit out of this to level in a short space of time really you should have grinded those out before handing in your milestones for the engrams, and they would have taken you higher. Strike drops at 360 have no +5s in, so they'd get you to 365 if you got enough, and handing your milestones in after that would have taken you higher still. If you're 360 now including your +5s it's still worth grinding out some strikes because as I said they occasionally drop 360 naturals, which is better than what you have.

 

Aside from that, have you got all the milestones apart from the raid ones this week? If you already have the Nightfall one, make sure you go and do the prestige Nightfall because you get another powerful drop from that. Like I said, I'm not a great fan of the limited weekly milestones myself, but if you do them all and only cash them in once you've exhausted the other stuff like heroic strikes, you can make the most of the rewards.

 

Oh I didn't know about heroic strikes. Oh well.

Yeah done them all but raid (and To9). I'm not sure the people I'm playing with (dip back inners) are up for Prestiege Nightfall. What's different about it? (I do like that the Nightfall has NO timelimit. Best change away from it)

[Gorf King]

You set the modifiers yourself using the the Five of Swords you get from Xûr. If you set them easy - give yourselves the positives and not the negative modifiers - it's actually easier than the normal Nightfall. So if you've still time, knock some strikes out first, maybe a get another 360 natural or two, then do the prestige NF.

[Uncle Mike]

Yep - Normal Nightfall, then an easy-mode Prestige (an elemental singe and Heavyweight, for example) are two easier Engrams at 360. And, if you can find the volunteers, Doing the Castellum in Leviathan twice (once Normal, once Prestige) makes for another two easy Powerfuls.

[Mafro]

I’ve never done a prestige nightfall either. 

[Hexx]

Oh wait I'd need something from Xur...

[Uncle Mike]

Xur's still there until 6pm tonight.

[Hexx]

I get home at 6.15. Curses! Foiled again! It's like Bungie personally target me

 

[Uncle Mike]

Get your wife/child/cleaner/neighbour to do it. Or remote play on a Vita/PC.

[Uncle Mike]

Failing that, you only need the Fireteam lead to have the Xur card. So trawl your friends list.

[Lyrical Donut]

Xur doesn't disappear until weekly reset, which is 6 PM tomorrow.

[Jerec]

2 hours ago, Larsen B said:

Oz is burying the lede by not saying we then swiftly went on to do Prestige Eater where some got the Telesto catalyst, some got a 400LL Midnight Coup and our weakest link undeservedly got both. Then we finished an Escalation Protocol for a laugh. Then your strongest link, dear reader, was rewarded with a DFA.

 

And that was capping a weekend when every member of the Positivity Club got the Whisper, 36% on the catalyst and the ship blueprint.

 

All applications welcome. Keys available. Starting from level 1? No problem. We'll help you get to where you belong.

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

What targeted marketing?

 

 

Sign me up, I love a Rainbow.

[lewismistreated]

Got a couple of practice runs at Whisper last night, after joining up with a couple of 360ish randoms. There's something oddly comforting in watching a bunch of other Guardians basically loitering around IO waiting for the Taken event to hit. 

 

But yeah. Jumping puzzle isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but we just weren't doing anywhere near enough damage to make it through the enemies at the end. I felt underpowered at 384, so lord knows how they were getting on. Hoping I can jump back in this weekend and finish it off - but more of this sort of thing for sure, please, Bungie, thanks yes okay bye. 

[Uncle Mike]

We hit the Spire of Stars for our final run this week (on Normal.)

 

One extra tutorial for our 6th member, and we cleared it on like our 5th run. Turns out sniping from the rooms where you spawn is a lot less risky than the Wardcliff one-phase strat.

 

Thanks to all the guys who helped us clear it, and those who helped us get there in the first place.

 

What a satisfying end to the Destiny week.

 

Then we got in a pretty speedy clear of Calus as well, for old times sake.

[Nate Dogg III]

Congrats!

 

I had a very productive couple of hours on this last night too. Happened across a decent EP group so got my first clear of that — no drop but I’m happy to just have done it at last. Then knocked out the final part of nascent dawn for the Polaris Lance catalyst, then spent ten mins farming kills for it in Castellum and got the Tractor Cannon catalyst. Lovely stuff. 

[Hexx]

Finished off the Regional Chests yesterday (The last one on Merc you need to make the PE go the right way was a pain)

 

Also got Perfect Paradox (although getting the remaining 5 of the verses is going to be a pain for MoT)

 

And got my Polaris Catalyst powered up. What a lovely little gun.

 

Finally a 360 hat from a strike

 

Pretty good all round even without PNF

[Nate Dogg III]

And to continue the good mood, a word about the Whisper.

Even without the masterwork it is absurdly powerful, the strongest and most useful gun in the game by a stretch, and exactly the sort of thing a) Bungie wanted to avoid in Destiny 2 and b) the game has been crying out for.

 

I spent the last couple of nights polishing off the Polaris Lance quest, and doing so involves replaying campaign missions at supposedly higher light levels. This made me a bit nervous because I still bear the scars of cockily going into the Heroic Strike playlist the week Warmind came up, and spending an hour killing Nokris. This time he kept putting his shield up before I could empty a clip. He went down in, I think, a total of eight shots. The boss of Fury, who gets shielded by an elite Taken goblin (I think), was also a struggle for me the first time through, and he went down in five bullets. The game was so surprised that it spawned another wave of adds and didn't despawn them for a good 15 seconds.

 

It's the boss melter, the gun that trivialises a bunch of content providing you know how to use it. It's a beast, and the game is so, so much better for it. 

 

It doesn't quite rescue the game – there are loads of good guns but they're all exotics, and Forsaken has to solve the legendary problem if it's going to be anywhere near on par with TTK-era D1. But holy moly we are heading in the right direction.

[Uncle Mike]

A team of Whispers versus Calus is pretty fun also. And, it turns out, against Val Ca'uor also when you hide in the right place.

 

The newer stuff is definitely a shot in the arm. EP shotgun, from all accounts, also.

 

I was in what turned out to be a hilarious Heroic Strike on Pyramidion when someone tried to melt Brakion on arrival with the EP shotgun, and didn't quite manage it. He took him down to the roaming pissed off phase, but he then went immune and stayed immune until we'd done the two plates. Fuck's sake, that was tough.

 

But pro- melting bosses should be Destiny 101. Do it the hard way, then get loot, then giggle as stuff crumbles.

[Gorf King]

1 hour ago, Nate Dogg III said:

And to continue the good mood, a word about the Whisper.

Even without the masterwork it is absurdly powerful, the strongest and most useful gun in the game by a stretch, and exactly the sort of thing a) Bungie wanted to avoid in Destiny 2 and b) the thing the game has been crying out for.

 

I spent the last couple of nights polishing off the Polaris Lance quest, and doing so involves replaying campaign missions at supposedly higher light levels. This made me a bit nervous because I still bear the scars of cockily going into the Heroic Strike playlist the week Warmind came up, and spending an hour killing Nokris. This time he kept putting his shield up before I could empty a clip. He went down in, I think, a total of eight shots. The boss of Fury, who gets shielded by an elite Taken goblin (I think), was also a struggle for me the first time through, and he went down in five bullets. The game was so surprised that it spawned another wave of adds and didn't despawn them for a good 15 seconds.

 

It's the boss melter, the gun that trivialises a bunch of content providing you know how to use it. It's a beast, and the game is so, so much better for it. 

 

It doesn't quite rescue the game – there are loads of good guns but they're all exotics, and Forsaken has to solve the legendary problem if it's going to be anywhere near on par with TTK-era D1. But holy moly we are heading in the right direction.

 

Yup, as I've said before, Warmind is the era of D2 where the game starts to feel, in parts, as good as D1. More importantly, it makes you feel as good as D1 did. Some of the new weapons are an absolute blast, throwing away any semblance of balance in the same way Fatebringer, Gjallarhorn and Black Hammer did (and Whisper defies all logic by taking that same Black Hammer and bolting a D.A.R.C.I on top by way of its catalyst). Polaris Lance is another boss melter - those two, swapped out where necessary, make the otherwise fairly gruelling Heroic Whisper quest relatively painless as long as you're competent. 'But hold on,' say Bungie. 'There's more. Why not have another modifier that makes all your guns more powerful in the quest, the more catalyst you've collected? Here you go then.' Totally unlike their stance when launching D2, a stance whereby all the fun was put on hold in the name of 'balance'.

 

The great news is that this approach seems likely to accelerate exponentially in Forsaken. A real culture of power insanity seems to have taken hold, and I'm expecting the expansion to be a glorious mess of it all. If we add in a change of tone and aesthetic (especially in the raids please - more of the sort of unnerving exploratory environments that Whisper provided), and the weapon slots restoring some meaningful choice to how you want to fight, I reckon Forsaken could be up there with Taken King in terms of actual content. But with the brakes taken off and the accelerator jammed down.

 

Thank fuck the 'nerf MIDA' brigade from last year never got their wishes granted. I just hope enough people come back to D2 to see it become the game it should have been from the start. A familiar refrain in the franchise's history, sadly.

[KartoffelKopf]

The new exotics they've just announced for Forsaken do seem to signify a continuation Bungie's new 'fuck it, LOL!' philosophy.

 

Spoiler

A rocket launcher that fires two tracking rockets at the same time in two separate directions!

 

A Warlock chest that gives EVERY kinetic weapon an elemental explosion on headhsots!!

 

A hand cannon that fires an explosion after every 5 hits (not precision hits, just hit hits)!!!

 

A bow that rains down arc grenade style arrows with precision kills!!!

 

Another bow that is basically a wall hack!!!!

 

all potentially game-breaking, all sound fucking ace.

 

Agree that they need to make the legendaries more exciting to keep up with the mental exotics but with the new more meaningful mods, new perks and potential of random rolls, I'm confident Forsaken will deliver. Let's face it, it has to.

 

A mix of finally beating Spire, getting the Whisper and polishing of all the current Triumphs, I have also had the most fun week in D2 for a long time.