Destiny 2: Lightfall

[pledge]

8 minutes ago, pinholestar said:

 

Witch Queen is not going to be included on Game Pass. 🙁

 

Thanks. Might change to buying it on PC then.

[Thor]

Liking the new hand cannon, and loving the Lucky Pants!

 

 

[KartoffelKopf]

16 hours ago, Thor said:

Liking the new hand cannon, and loving the Lucky Pants!

 

 

 

The Pants are barmy with Crimson and Last Word.

 

 

I'm liking this season actually. I like the Alignment thingy, good mix of objectives and as long as they can sort the bugs out (had to leave about 3 times because of things bugging out), it should stay freshish. No idea if they are adding more locations (where's the roadmap?!). I've always liked the creepy feel of the Ascendant Realm too and the new areas look like they're full of secrets. Seasonal loot is fair to middling, that hand cannon is nice but the auto and fusion are a bit meh. Reprised Trials weapons from Prophecy look look to be a better bet.

 

Can't believe I'm saying this either but I might even give Trials a go, the changes look to be very well thought out.

 

Overall though, I'm back in, for a while at least.

 

[Hexx]

Seasonal mods look a little dull this time (Ashes to Assets 😪) - other than maybe Fusion Rifles 😛

[Thor]

I'm keen to see how I get on with the fusion rifle buff mod at the bottom of the final column. Combined with fusion and linear fusion holster mods that could be very good indeed. I just need to unlock it.

[Hexx]

29 minutes ago, Thor said:

I'm keen to see how I get on with the fusion rifle buff mod at the bottom of the final column. Combined with fusion and linear fusion holster mods that could be very good indeed. I just need to unlock it.

It reads as though it’s not weapon specific so - quick/multi fire energy fusion rifle then switch to heavy hitting linear?

 

 

[Nobuo's Organ]

Lucky Pants are so good, such a fun playstyle for hunters. Whip a handcannon out, unload it into the nearest face, hunter dodge to reload and immediately switch to your other weapon to start the timer.

 

While doing the last strike to let me get an Exotic Cipher from Xur when he arrived, I finally got the Huckleberry catalyst. Cue 2 or 3 runs of Altars of Sorrow to grind that out, with my trusty 16-shot Ikelos void hand cannon as an effective damage dealer in the energy slot.

 

Then I used the cipher to get the Last Word and... oh my! It's perfect - you can just get 2 clips and a reload in before Illegally Modded Holster runs out so you can save your reload dodge for another weapon. I did another Altars of Sorrow to test it out and one of the other players had a Divinity on the go. Oh! My!

[pledge]

I skipped the last couple of weeks of last season. I now have a legacy quest which says I need to do override in the city. Do I have to wait until it is in rotation or I'm missing something obvious?

[moosegrinder]

Yeah, just keep an eye on rotation.

[Hamus]

On 25/08/2021 at 11:29, Uncle Mike said:

Whilst I agreed with Bungie's "running out of primary has never been interesting" rhetoric and was pretty OK with the change in advance, having done it for an evening, does it bring in some downside?

 

It seems like you now inherently know you're not going to run out, it encourages a stand back in chip away mentality. I don't need to close, I don't need to push, I'm not going to run out. Tuck in behind the doorway, block, whatever and plinky-plink with a scout. Not sure it's without drawbacks.

 

That's a very good point and observation.

 

Certainly needs a something like a bonus for getting up close or less bullets used? I dunno what exactly what, but a positive reinforcement loop that encourages more positive play. Bonuses!

[mikeyl]

 

lol, they did the Titan one too. Proves that the best time to play about with a broken exotic is as soon as it comes out. The second best time to play with a broken exotic is to never take off Geomags. 

[moosegrinder]

I know it's a Reddit meme but it made me laugh.

 

[Qazimod]

I feel like this season is a bit more generous with Parallax Trajectory, which is nice. So now you can just do an activity and get Parallax Trajectory - rather than do an activity and get Ether to craft into a key to spend on an Override activity to get Decrypted Data. However, the upgrade costs have been tweaked a bit, and you need to do your calibration stuff, so it’ll still take me a while.  

[Hexx]

37 minutes ago, Qazimod said:

I feel like this season is a bit more generous with Parallax Trajectory, which is nice. So now you can just do an activity and get Parallax Trajectory - rather than do an activity and get Ether to craft into a key to spend on an Override activity to get Decrypted Data. However, the upgrade costs have been tweaked a bit, and you need to do your calibration stuff, so it’ll still take me a while.  

It’s very easy to hit the cap of 1500 PT

[Janski]

Yep, I don't think it tells you anywhere you are at the cap too so do need to keep an eye on it.

 

Doesn't seem as many sources to get pinnacle drops this season, unless I'm missing something.

 

Not sure yet on the Ascendant activity really, seems a bit overlong but at least we're not banking motes. 

[Thor]

Was one of the few affected by tonight's PSN shenanigans, and so the PS5 booted me from the game midway through the Atheon fight!

 

Thank fuck for crossplay, after a brief download of the update on PC I was back in and Atheon was done.

[Nobuo's Organ]

As a returning player, the light level grind absolutely sucks, especially when Iron Banner turns up on week 2 of the season

[moosegrinder]

I've given up on iron banner. I don't care about the pinnacle rewards so the only reason to do it is challenges but I haven't checked what they are yet.

[Nathan Wind]

As a former PS4 player returning to play on PC after an absence of several years, this game is utterly, bafflingly impenetrable and loads of the content I was looking forward to playing through again has gone. That said, it looks astounding on PC.  As in jaw droppingly good.  Also, the core shooting and movement mechanics are the most satisfying out there.

 

Just everything else around that core is...odd. It's such a weird experience.

[Thor]

1 hour ago, Nathan Wind said:

As a former PS4 player returning to play on PC after an absence of several years, this game is utterly, bafflingly impenetrable and loads of the content I was looking forward to playing through again has gone. That said, it looks astounding on PC.  As in jaw droppingly good.  Also, the core shooting and movement mechanics are the most satisfying out there.

 

Just everything else around that core is...odd. It's such a weird experience.

Out of curiosity what content were you looking to play through again?

[Nathan Wind]

The first campaigns. Warmind, Red War etc. Bunch of the strikes that I loved.

I don’t really care much because there’s a ton of stuff to do. It’s more the fact that the game explains nothing whatsoever. I’m thoroughly enjoying the actual playing of it to be fair. It’s just everything else around that I find totally strange.

[Thor]

Yeah, I'd quite like to replay the Red War again. That opening level from D2's launch, and some of the later stuff, was really impressive and great fun to play. The Forsaken expansion is still there mind you, but you need to start a new character to play through the story elements again. I did this recently with my hunter. In fact, that may not be available to you if you have just the free version and didn't buy Forsaken when it was out.

[Nathan Wind]

7 hours ago, Thor said:

That opening level from D2's launch,

Yes!  I was really looking forward to seeing it in PC-o-vision!  I hadn't read at all about this 'vaulting' business.  I got the legendary edition on CDKeys which came with Forsaken, the other one and Beyond Light so I'm not short of stuff to do, just faintly dissapointed I don't get to see that stunning opener again.

 

Edit - or see Venus again.

[K]

I wish they’d do a best-of campaign using older levels that can’t be played anymore (or not easily, anyway). It’d be a great way to introduce new players to the various races, locations, and characters - introduce the Cabal through that amazing intro level to the Red War, or introduce the Vex through the solo campaign version of the Curse of Osiris strikes. They could use some of the older set piece levels like 1AU, or the prison break intro to Forsaken. 
 

I suspect there would be logistical issues, as I think they can’t just drop older levels into the new engine, they need to be thoroughly reworked. But it must be easier than making content from scratch, would be a neat draw for new players, and would stop all that hard work from being lost forever. 

[Nate Dogg III]

I reckon that's part of the plan honestly. Some kind of legacy campaign-mission playlist seems like a bit of a no-brainer, especially if they can remix them a bit and rotate them in and out over time. I used to love doing the Daily Heroic back in the D1 days. Campaign missions are some of the most expensive stuff to make even before you factor in cutscenes. If they honestly plan to just bin this stuff off forever they're insane. 

[Gorf King]

I don't think that's ever been the plan, has it? Isn't it the case that the game/engine started to creak - and then break - under the strain of all the assets, locations, etc, so they had to take a big chunk out to get performance up to snuff again? So you can expect some stuff to come back from time to time (e.g. VoG, Cosmodrome) and then be rotated out again next year to make way for new stuff and old returning stuff.

 

I think the problem with an entity like the Red War campaign is that it ranges over so many locations, planets, and uses so many diverse assets that as well as requiring a lot of rework, the current framework would burst at the seams to accommodate it - while then being able to handle all the new stuff that Witch Queen will bring.

 

I'm sure everyone remembers how loading times and other performance tanked really badly over the course of a year and then dramatically recovered once they'd culled a lot of the old content that no-one played that much. So I guess the code isn't up to handling everything they've ever created all at once. And there is that thing K mentions, about them saying they just didn't have the capacity to upgrade all the old stuff to ensure it ran as well as they wanted, and also make an endless stream of new stuff at the same time. So better a smaller set of manageable resources than a limitlessly-expanding universe that they just can't keep a handle or any proper QC on, which then impacts the performance of newer stuff too. (Warframe fans - you know what I mean.)

 

Tl;dr - I'm sure it's not gone forever, but we'll probably only see bits of old things come back, at the same time as some of the current or previously-rotated-in content itself goes away. Apart from the seasonal content from this year, which has to be binned, I'm wondering what else that currently exists will have to go to make way for all the new Witch Queen stuff. VoG's on a short lease for sure, but I'm also eyeing up Nessus with suspicion, and I suspect old Spider's self-declared fiefdom on the Tangled Shore might be coming to an end - at least lore wise. But doesn't that mean we'd have to lose the Forsaken campaign? Whatever, but something's for the chop anyway.

[Hexx]

Travellers Chosen with Catalyst is a bit silly...

[Hexx]

On 24/08/2021 at 15:19, KartoffelKopf said:

 

That's what they said if I recall correctly. If you remember from Year 3, they removed the seasonal activity (Sundial, Bunker thingy etc) at the end of each season and people kicked off saying they couldn't keep up the schedule and FOMO! etc so Bungie said that seasonal activities would hang around all year but the yearly expansion would reset everything and they would all go.

 

Whether they stick to that we'll see but their reasoning around around file sizes and balancing across multiple activities would indicate they'll just do a big wipe. The new season is going to last 5 months and Beyond Light will be 16 months old by the time it launches so makes sense for a reboot. I would expect maybe things like Empire Hunts to stick around, a bit like Nightmare Hunts did but ideally I'd love to see these in the strike playlist.

Question

 

So

 

Hunts/Battlegroubds/Overide are here until Witch Queen

 

Is that only if you bought the seasons at the time?

 

If you started D2 could you access them?

[pledge]

You need the season pass for that season.

[Janski]

So if you've only got the current S15 season pass you don't get to play overide/battlegrounds/hunts?