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Destiny 2: Lightfall

Uncle Mike

By Uncle Mike
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Hexx

Hexx

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I picked Vanguard (gamer friends didn't because they suck) - stuff the edgy dodgy as hell drifter.


I didn't think it was that obvious where the terminal/agent/bugs are to be plantted. Still it's something and gives the illusion of story momentum.

 

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Phelan

Phelan

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I've not even logged on to play new Gambit after a bunch in my clan were very negative about it. One of the clan wrote this:

 



So, I've given it all a go and...I'm less than thrilled. I was hoping for something new, but what this is...is weak. Maybe that's just the power level (and I will look at this again when characters don't get crunched as easy as they do now).

Here's my TL;DR:

A. Gambit Prime is shit
B. Reckoning is great
C. There is no story, which is...terrible
D. This update is built for teams of 4 - no team? Good luck.
E. Nerf City, Population: All your favourites

Here's my nerd gland:

A. Gambit Prime is a less balanced, more frustrating Gambit. It's all the less-fun parts of Gambit, with 10,000% of the bullshit added. No matter what you do, banking motes doesn't matter. Invading is the whole point of GP, and if you can't defend being invaded, your whole game is stunted. It doesn't make it any shorter, because THE RUBBER BANDING makes it almost impossible to kill the Primeval without serious combo-ing. Think Last Wish witch encounters, except throw in another PvP player whose job it is to kill you and heal the witch. All the previous burn methods hardly make a dent, and each kill will regen a whole eighth of the health. I tested a few times about it, and twice I sat back and did nothing but stand at the bank and kill the occasional blocker. They had their Primeval and we had only banked 10 motes. Still ended up running out the clock because banking motes doesn't matter. No need to do it fast. No need to hurry, because the enemy will have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to kill their bad guy. Even if you are working super-hard at the objectives it won't matter because invaders will work you over and put you back to square one. It's unbalanced. It's frustrating. It's just not "fun". Whereas a whole team wipe was something to strive for in Gambit, in GP it's a common occurrence. They wipe you, you wipe them, and then the clock runs out...until the last minute and for some reason all the Primeval damage that does nothing for 10 minutes suddenly kicks in and you wipe it in 3 seconds. GP is literally about troll-invading the other team as hard as you can, and it's a heap of shit.

B. Reckoning is great. It's like a fun version of Blind Well that you can do over and over again for rewards you can scale up. It's just annoying that you need to do GP before heading to Reckoning. Best thing about Reckoning is that you MUST work together, and move around the map TOGETHER. It's a teamwork thing, and not too difficult to work out. You can find a rhythm and get there no problem, and it's a fun space. I look forward to future levels, and my only concern is that all I'll get out of it is stupid GP shit.

C. Look, I know that Destiny has never been about the story, but there's just...nothing here. No intro. No cut scene. Nothing. It's bullshit. Don't time-gate this shit. That worked for visiting the Queen but give me SOMETHING of a reason straight away. You didn't have a story for the Forge's and that sucked the fun out of the background. Same here. Everyone WANTS something cool, but there's just...nothing, yet. I know there's more to come, but GIVE ME A 2 HOUR CAMPAIGN, and then do your time-gated story conclusion. Just don't dump me into sweaty bullshit PvEvP and tease weird shit. Give me a reason to come back to it without going "It's gonna be cool!". By the time I get back to it it's all going to be spoiled anyway. What's the shit we want? New planets. New strikes. New cut scenes. Duh fucking duh.

D. The power cap may have increased, but good fucking luck getting there without story missions or going solo. And that sucks. It's hard enough finding the time to play games these days, but finding more than one other person to play with regularly? I mean, come ON! This expansion is built for a team of four with excellent communication and defined roles. If you aren't willing to open your mic and converse with others, then this game is going to stop dead at GP. In Gambit, everyone got a chance to do something, and contribute in a meaningful way. In GP if you deviate from your role (even by accident) you have screwed your team. Or if you're bad at your role, you will probably screw your team. Or you're not even bad, the game will just fuck you over because the Taken lag-skip and invaders pop up fucking constantly (sorry, I'm back to hating on GP). 4-stacks can crush these new modes. Random matchmaking is hit or miss, really. At least in Reckoning you can teach a newbie. Or watch what's going on. In GP everyone steals motes, ignores blockers and just bunches up when invaders arrive. It's super-frustrating. I have no idea if the GP armour will do anything, but I got four pieces and it did fuck all, apart from drop at 20 light levels below 650. What's the point? Look, this may be easier to deal with when everyone's 700, but just like the Forge's they were impossible at 615, but still fun. GP enemies CRUSH you for any mistakes, and you might as well be throwing Nerf darts if you aren't using your super. I think that's where the problem lies. The only way to increase your light is to level up. The only way to level up is to do new activities, or crunch through a bunch of old chores. At least give me new chores so that I can have some fun. Right now it's drifting in the wrong direction.  

E. Nerf. Shotguns. What did they do wrong? I don't know. but now they do...nothing. Might as well use a sidearm. Did you like Jotuun? Great! We've nerfed it. Like all your Whisper ammo? Cool. You can only hold 9. Did the player base work out a rock-solid meta for damage on certain things? Yep. OK, instead of upping damage for other things, we'll pull the rest back and make it take longer. The only thing that seems to be working better now are Scout Rifles, but I'm not sure we want to go back to the dark days of the MIDA-meta.

See you all in a month! Hope it gets better!

*Original*

First impressions of Gambit Prime:

1. Mote collection is reversed; go for Large Blockers that drain enemy bank

2. Game changes completely after Primeval; get yourself 2 regular invaders and you’ll frustrate enemy team to defeat.

3. Shotguns are now pissweak; go for a long range takedown

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Parksey

Parksey

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I don't agree with a lot of that. Though this could just be me reacting to a lot of it, as I don't like the overwhelming about of salt Destiny brings out in its fans. 

 

I don't buy that there's no story, just that it's not delivered through cut scenes. Bungie said that this would be the case with the Annual Pass content - no cut scenes, campaign missions or new locations, but delivered in other ways. 

 

I'm not a massive lore hound, but generally the community think that what has been revealed in this season so far is pretty good. The set up is quite interesting and is, hopefully, going to have a pay-off in the future. It's definitely building up towards something. 

 

Seeing as Bungie have said they weren't going to create any campaign-esque story content, it's about as good as they could make it without all those bells and whistles. It requires you to lean in to the lore a bit and if you don't like to do that, then fine, but don't complain it's not there. Same with the Forges which definitely did have a story behind them but, again, this was delivered in other ways.

 

Fans like the lore. It's not personally my preferred way of getting the plot and background details but the community like it and I don't begrudge Bungie doing it this way. 

 

As for Gambit Prime, it's a week or so old, so definitely has a few things that need ironing out. The primeval phase is very invader-focused, and I think in general a lot of players are way too passive when it comes to invasions. The new maps actually make it harder to be team wiped, as they aren't just a big open area with three separate parts now. You can hide much easier and ambush the invader while they are going somewhere else. 

 

I think a lot of players basically don't like the "P" part of the PvEvP experience. They'd rather it was just the mote-banking and primeval-slaying against the other team, and see the invasions as a frustrating distraction instead of a fundamental part of the game. 

 

Of course, there should be an option for solo-queuing but I go in solo quite often and it's often okay as long as you don't come up against a team. I've never had the clock run down either. The buff eventually stacks high enough that you can burn the primeval. 

 

This is meant to be endgame content too, so I think it's fine that it's hard, and focused around a competitive experience. It's meant to be equivalent to competitive in Crucible, or a Raid-like activity. 

 

I think some people expect all aspects of the game to appeal to them at all times. 

 

I also don't know why there's a massive aversion to teams, in what is basically a multiplayer PVE shooter. The game is designed, generally, around a fireteam. It's absolutely fine if you don't want to play in a team, but you can't expect a game with that focus at its core, to tailor itself to you. With the fireteam function on the Destiny app, there's a really easy way of grouping up now, and often people are fine with no mic or communication, so you can at least get a team going easily. 

 

The only thing I really agree with is the nerfing. Shotguns definitely needed tweaking - if 99% of players are using a shotgun then something's up. A certain type of shotgun and shotgunner were dominating. I can understand a little with Whisper and Jotunn too, as they were becoming de facto choices. I know Bungie don't like it when a certain exotic becomes "inevitable" for an encounter, so they probably want them brought down a little. 

 

I would rather they looked at buffing other weapons though, though generally I do think most of what they were looking at were weapons that gave you a lot of power that other options didn't. I know that I rarely used anything but a machine gun, Jotunn/shotgun and a pulse rifle in most things. 

 

I still think the game is probably the best it's ever been, and haven't been disappointed with the annual pass. I never expected DLC - it's not DLC, after all - but more a stream of stuff across the year, rather than a big DLC drop. Remember, we got nothing after The Taken King until a small drop in the April and then Rise of Iron in September. There were big content droughts in Destiny. 

 

At least now, there's generally always something to do. You might not want to do it, but that's often personal preference. In my eyes, the Annual Pass has been worth the couple of quid per month for what they've given us, and it's an improvement on what happened in Y2 of Destiny 1. 

 

My only criticism is that the PvP side has been neglected a bit. I'm not a massive Crucible player, though I don't mind it and I don't get the absolute huge amounts of salt other players give it, like they'd rather this whole other half of the game didn't exist because it's not for them. But it hasn't had much content for a while. A few new maps, or even old D1 maps that were made for 6v6, would help it out a bit.  

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Hexx

Hexx

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10 hours ago, Phelan said:

I've not even logged on to play new Gambit after a bunch in my clan were very negative about it. One of the clan wrote this:

 

 

 

 

The guy gets a fair bit of basic mechanics fundamentally wrong and just sounds angry. It comes across as angry it's not what he wanted, rather than a critique of what it actually is.

 

Is it the best content ever? Absolutely not - but that's just an angry internet post.

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Mr Ben

Mr Ben

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The Whisper nerf is a bit overboard when the total ammo without reserves went from 20 to 9 in one patch. Should have been 15 to make it more bearable. Machine guns damage should have been left as it was, but I kind of agree with the ammo change as it was possible to carry a lot of it.

 

The fact you have to play Gambit Prime is a bit shit though to be able to do any of the other content. All the allegiance quest stuff (and Thorn) is also stuff we've done to death - play more gambit, more strikes, more crucible. Where are the missions? The secrets? The Whisper quest was the most loved secret and yet there's been nothing like it since! Same with Shattered Throne.

 

As it stands the Season of the Forge, while grindy as hell, had more reason to play than Drifter as it had a raid. In Drifter there doesnt seem to be any need to get to 700 power outside of maybe Iron Banner and tier 3 of Reckoning, and even with the latter I'm not sure it needs max power.

 

I suspect the playerbase is/will be quite low this season, due in no small part to the lack of "new" content, a raid and the release of competition - Division 2 mainly, but also just other games (even single player ones). Bungie had to have known this though, as it was all over Reddit prior to Season of the Drifter's release.

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mop

mop

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Maybe there's a secret raid and we haven't found it yet. 

 

Because if there isn't (there isn't) this season leaves me very, very cold. As you say, as grindy as the Forge was, I felt more purpose going through the gears there than here.

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Marmite

Marmite

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Agree with the grindy chat. The new story content is potentially great (choosing a side), but with no cut scenes or gameplay to engage with outside of the usual activities it feels boring very quickly. 

 

I got to the crucible 'kill a load of people with void energy and void hand cannons' bit last night for Thorn. I quite like crucible but when I realised just how many games it will require to complete that step I simply couldn't be arsed. Not a fan of the Ikelos hand cannon everyone is using for that part and I don't have a better void option so I ordered the Division 2 instead!

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Hexx

Hexx

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14 minutes ago, Marmite said:

Agree with the grindy chat. The new story content is potentially great (choosing a side), but with no cut scenes or gameplay to engage with outside of the usual activities it feels boring very quickly. 

 

I got to the crucible 'kill a load of people with void energy and void hand cannons' bit last night for Thorn. I quite like crucible but when I realised just how many games it will require to complete that step I simply couldn't be arsed. Not a fan of the Ikelos hand cannon everyone is using for that part and I don't have a better void option so I ordered the Division 2 instead!

 

Try a Kindled Orchid. That thing is CRAZY

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Phelan

Phelan

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12 hours ago, Hexx said:

 

The guy gets a fair bit of basic mechanics fundamentally wrong and just sounds angry. It comes across as angry it's not what he wanted, rather than a critique of what it actually is.

 

Is it the best content ever? Absolutely not - but that's just an angry internet post.

Ironically, he is the main person who has defended every bit of Destiny 2 over the past two years while I've been ranting my head off!

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Uncle Mike

Uncle Mike

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Yes, all the campaign story missions can be (and by default, are) played solo. There are "Strikes" (a longer mission type, not part of the main campaign) that matchmake you into a 3, but all the campaign and all the post- and side- Adventure content (short story missions) are all solo.

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FlowerOfInfinity

FlowerOfInfinity

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6 hours ago, JoeK said:

So, because I live under a rock and don't like people, can you play the main D2 campaign solo? I know it's not really the way of doing things, but I do want to give it a run through if possible.

 

Yup! That's how I've played the main game & all the story bits of the expansions.

 

Just enjoy playing through it and trying out different weapon types - you're not likely to get much that's a keeper until the endgame, so use this time to experiment.

 

Definitely get a companion app too (I use Destiny Item Manager) to swap out gear as you play, though you won't really *need* until you get enough stuff you'll actually use.

 

Like you I don't really play with others, though strikes are fun (once you have some semi-decent equipment at least).

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JoeK

JoeK

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13 minutes ago, Giraffetastic said:

 

Yup! That's how I've played the main game & all the story bits of the expansions.

 

Just enjoy playing through it and trying out different weapon types - you're not likely to get much that's a keeper until the endgame, so use this time to experiment.

 

Definitely get a companion app too (I use Destiny Item Manager) to swap out gear as you play, though you won't really *need* until you get enough stuff you'll actually use.

 

Like you I don't really play with others, though strikes are fun (once you have some semi-decent equipment at least).

 

I took the plunge earlier on, and I have to say I've missed playing a Bungie game :) . There's something really unique about they way they do FPS stuff...it's how I remember Halo gunplay was like (but it's been a few years since I played them, so I could be wrong on that front!).

 

Looks fab on PC too - just really stylish and the use of colours is wonderful.


So much so that I've just bought the 'Art of...' books :D . 

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JoeK

JoeK

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Yeah, it's incredibly enjoyable to play and I'm glad I jumped in. 

 

It's a bit of a pity that whilst I really like the overall universe and set-up to what's going on, the missions and story told therein are really pretty naff! It does kind of feel like Bungie begrudgingly decided to write something down on the back of a beer mat because they kind of felt obligated to do it rather than any desire to do so.

 

Which is odd, because they've clearly gone to indescribable depth with everything else in the whole lore and stuff.

 

But from a gameplay perspective, it's by far the most fun I've had in an FPS for a long, long time.

 

In other Destiny news, I got my copy of the 'Art of Destiny' today, and it's bloody awesome. I do love an artbook most of the time, but this one's absolutely top drawer.

 

Definite Crash Smash all over the place.

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Mr Ben

Mr Ben

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Hmm, decided to give this a whirl tonight as I'm taking a break from Anthem for a bit.

 

Dont like what they've done to powerful drops only being +1 over your current light right from the outset (650). Apparently only Prime engrams and a few other sparse sources give higher than that, right up to 695 ish. There's no real urgency to get to 700 this season, but this is definitely an artificial grind for the sake of stretching out content, and most of it is old content at that. Almost feels like your wasting your time doing 3 strikes for a grand total of +1 to your max power for example.

 

This post seems spot on though, as I had the Chaperone reward on my Warlock, so picked it up, and it was +3, so seems accurate:

Apparently the +1/+6 for the black armory weapon frame is for the first frame and then the second, so if thats correct, you should make sure your lowest power weapon slot is the second frame to be completed.

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lewismistreated

lewismistreated

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I've reached the point now where I've stopped paying that much attention to levelling up efficiently - as you said, there's no realy incentive or urgency to get to 700, with The Reckoning really the only activity I'm locked out of right now. 

 

Part of me is also wondering whether the Power Surge bounties are going to be a regular thing with every new expansion that comes out in the future. Which gives even less of a reason to be spending time levelling up now... In any case, it's now perfectly possible to just dip into a couple of activities on a weekly basis to make some slow and steady progress. Skipping from Gambit to Crucible to Strikes to Flashpoint to Xur bounty to... other stuff feels pretty darn satisfying. The only thing I'm staying clear of is the Dreaming City weekly bounties - far too much effort for the rewards on offer.

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Ghost Pirate 101

Ghost Pirate 101

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I've hit this reasonably hard with my hunter and hit 683 yesterday, high enough to try tier 3 Reckoning once I've unlocked it. 

 

The new vanguard/drifter quest line seems to reward powerful gear too as you progress by the way. 

 

Scourge is definitely worth running if you get a chance, big power boost there. 

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sbrandon111

sbrandon111

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19 hours ago, JoeK said:

Yeah, it's incredibly enjoyable to play and I'm glad I jumped in. 

 

It's a bit of a pity that whilst I really like the overall universe and set-up to what's going on, the missions and story told therein are really pretty naff! It does kind of feel like Bungie begrudgingly decided to write something down on the back of a beer mat because they kind of felt obligated to do it rather than any desire to do so.

 

Which is odd, because they've clearly gone to indescribable depth with everything else in the whole lore and stuff.

 

But from a gameplay perspective, it's by far the most fun I've had in an FPS for a long, long time.

 

In other Destiny news, I got my copy of the 'Art of Destiny' today, and it's bloody awesome. I do love an artbook most of the time, but this one's absolutely top drawer.

 

Definite Crash Smash all over the place.

Add me on pc if you want, it's better to run some content in a team, nightfalls and such. I'm sbrandon111 on blizzard I think :)

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  • Uncle Mike changed the title to Destiny 2: Lightfall

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