Destiny 2: Lightfall

[K]

16 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

Who are you exactly, and where do you get off calling Forsaken a weaker campaign? Or have I forgotten it as the rest of Forsaken was pretty good? Shattered Throne and Last Wish might be tinting my glasses.

 

I remember the Forsaken campaign having an amazing start and an amazing end, but the middle bit being a lengthy slightly tedious process of going round the purple open world area whose name escapes me (which was easily the least interesting location in Destiny) killing loads of sub-bosses. The overall package of Forsaken was fantastic, as you got the Dreaming City and all the associated secrets, quests, etc, plus the raid too, but the campaign I recall as being a bit of a slog. 

 

It's been deleted now, so any memories of the game have now passed into folklore and the oral tradition, and any accounts of it (mine included) will be exaggerated and distorted by the passage of time.

[Uncle Mike]

I did wonder if my memory of it might have been tinted by the overall package. Maybe hunting the Scorn "Barons" across the Tangled Shore was dull? It's so long ago.

[K]

I've just looked it up, and there were only five missions in Forsaken, with the third one being the process of hunting the Scorn barons (which took ages). Maybe I was in a bad mood, but I remember it just feeling like Ubisoft map-tidying work. Maybe I just don't like purple.

[p1nseeker]

From what i can see, legendary campaigns etc seem to limit your light level for the sake of difficulty, is that right? Is that the same with all the tough activities (dungeons etc)?

 

If so why am i trying to max my level with pinnacle gear etc? This is probably a daft question I know.

 

 

[dreamylittledream]

Forsaken was definitely one of the stronger campaigns, particularly if you regard it as being in two parts (the bit leading up to killing Uldron and then the Dreaming City stuff).

 

To be honest I’ve enjoyed pretty much all the Destiny campaigns but Shadowkeep was the weakest by a long way.

[mikeyl]

10 hours ago, Mr Ben said:

No-one can carry you through any jumping sections Mikey!

Lies and a myth.

 

Anyway, Strand sucks on Hunter. I grapple into danger, whiff a melee and run off again. Or do that stupid tassel super which seems very lightweight.

 

Story is bobbins. No idea what is happening or why things are happening. Don’t know what a Veil is either or what happened at the end. Nimbus needs to go back to his home planet. Whole thing was just a Strand tutorial 

 

[mikeyl]

What was the soft cap btw? Legendary campaign only rewarded a set of 1770 which seems lame?

[McFly]

Went into a lost sector, hydroponics delta, and I cant damage any enemies whichever weapon I use. Have I not progressed enough or something?

 

 

 

[Mr Ben]

17 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

Lies and a myth.

 

Anyway, Strand sucks on Hunter. I grapple into danger, whiff a melee and run off again. Or do that stupid tassel super which seems very lightweight.

 

Story is bobbins. No idea what is happening or why things are happening. Don’t know what a Veil is either or what happened at the end. Nimbus needs to go back to his home planet. Whole thing was just a Strand tutorial 

 

 

The veil is never explained previously in the game, its only mentioned by Rasputin that its an immensely powerful paracausal artifact at the very end of last season and that its on Neptune. If players didnt play last season, then tough I guess.

 

I think the softcap is 1750 Power, so that gears fine. Witch Queen legendary campaign did the same, albeit with an additional shite roll of the new exotic if I remember rightly.

[p1nseeker]

21 minutes ago, McFly said:

Went into a lost sector, hydroponics delta, and I cant damage any enemies whichever weapon I use. Have I not progressed enough or something?

 

 

 

Your light level is too low yeah

[McFly]

1 minute ago, p1nseeker said:

Your light level is too low yeah

OK ta

[Uncle Mike]

24 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

What was the soft cap btw? Legendary campaign only rewarded a set of 1770 which seems lame?

 

Soft cap: 1750

Powerful cap: 1800

Pinnacle cap: 1810

[Uncle Mike]

1 hour ago, p1nseeker said:

From what i can see, legendary campaigns etc seem to limit your light level for the sake of difficulty, is that right? Is that the same with all the tough activities (dungeons etc)?

 

If so why am i trying to max my level with pinnacle gear etc? This is probably a daft question I know.

 

It's not an entirely daft question - the power levelling system is increasingly becoming a bit of a vestigial limb of a system. The correct answer is that it's an RPG so it has levelling. The longer answer is that they're starting to move away from ever-increasing numbers on your Level to gating content by fixed relative difficulty levels and haven't finished that yet. So the Legendary campaign has an increasing level cap on each mission as you go through it, and you need to raise your power level to it to be at max effectiveness for each mission. And then the endgame content will have higher level caps again.

[McFly]

Also they seem to have removed Pinnacle drops from quite a few things, Gambit Vanguard Ops etc. It's a fair amount of change with the menus, locations and setup all at once. Not saying its bad, just new and I need to find my way around.

 

 

[Jigsaw Monkey]

18 minutes ago, McFly said:

Also they seem to have removed Pinnacle drops from quite a few things, Gambit Vanguard Ops etc. It's a fair amount of change with the menus, locations and setup all at once. Not saying its bad, just new and I need to find my way around.

 

 

Core playlist (Vanguard, Gambit etc) won’t give pinnacle drops until you’re at the 1750 light level.

[McFly]

44 minutes ago, Jigsaw Monkey said:

Core playlist (Vanguard, Gambit etc) won’t give pinnacle drops until you’re at the 1750 light level.

Thanks, am only 1651 but only part way through 2nd mission on legendary and things seem to take giant leaps in light level

[Jigsaw Monkey]

I always shake my head in disbelief when (pre new expansion) it would take days to up my power level by just 1 point - waiting for the right drop in the right slot.

 

After 5 mins of the new expansion you’re getting huge jumps in power…. I guess that’s the nature of the grind.

[mikeyl]

Take it back. Strand is cool as F. They don’t tell you that in the campaign, they give you a lame version without all the aspects and fragments. Which lets you sack off the grapple nonsense, this ain’t Halo, and go with the double banter grenades.

[shirubagan]

Faffing about doing public events and the welcome missions and before I know it I’m level 1700. Haven’t even touched the new missions. 

[dreamylittledream]

59 minutes ago, BubbleDragon said:

So I havent played destiny since the curse of someone or other.  Is it worth dipping back in for Lightfall?

Well Curse of Osiris was pretty much the nadir of D2 so it’s certainly got a lot better since then. You’ve missed a lot of good stuff…I never stopped playing 😂

Early days so far but seems like Lightfall isn’t going to be quite up to the standard of Witch Queen but definitely looking like an upper middle tier Destiny expansion.

 

 

[Uncle Mike]

Finished the main Campaign missions last night. It's quite the mess, isn't it? More so than normal, I reckon. Obviously, the overall expansion might be good - we've got post-Campaign stuff, Strand might be really good once it's properly opened up, the Raid etc - but the Campaign on its own seems like a duffer?

 

The Veil! The Radiant Mast! All our citizens have been put onto war duty! Hurry up, stop wasting time! You must master Strand (defeat the boss without picking it up.) Hi guys, it's me, your boy Nimbus.

 

I quite enjoyed playing through it on Legendary. The fights were fun and tricky and varied and yes I like the Legendary difficulty, but as a story I think it's a right old mess.

 

You have to assume there's a lot that simply had to be cut to make the release date. It can't have been intended to be so messy?

[Sumire]

I tried playing last night but kept getting disconnected every 5 to 10 mins. I will try again tonight.

[mikeyl]

There’s a lot to do once the duff campaign is done. More than the Witch Queen. Seriously, Partition is top-top tier the most fun you will have.

[p1nseeker]

Another daft question: Do I have to do the seasonal storyline week 1 this week, week 2 next week etc? If i miss a week can i not complete it?

[Nate Dogg III]

11 minutes ago, p1nseeker said:

Another daft question: Do I have to do the seasonal storyline week 1 this week, week 2 next week etc? If i miss a week can i not complete it?

 

You can catch up at any point in the season (and beyond that, actually), it's really just a timegated quest. 

 

Finished the campaign on Legend last night. Soloed the whole thing but had to cheese that boss fight with the spinning wall of death and call in a second, and then a third, for the final boss. I didn't do Witch Queen on Legend at launch as I wasn't committed enough to the game when it came out, so I can't make an accurate comparison, but I think the higher difficulty is a weird fit for a campaign that's effectively a very long tutorial for a very barebones subclass. Like, right, here's a really hard bit, enjoy your really weak three-charge melee and grappling straight into trouble! Also I am afraid we will have to break your build. 

 

The result of that is that as soon as the campaign was over I dropped Strand like a stone. I'll go back to it once all the fragments etc are unlocked and some YouTubers have told me how to fit it all together. Until then I'll just keep flinging solar grenades around if that's okay with everyone.

 

Seems like a decent amount of postgame stuff, mind you. Still plenty to do. Story-wise it's one of the weaker expansions for sure but postponing judgement on the whole thing for now. 

 

[Uncle Mike]

You can always catch up and do previous weeks.

[K]

I think a new subclass is quite a hard sell given that they’ve spent 2-3 years jacking up the existing subclasses until they’re absolutely fucking ridiculous. I’ve never really gotten on with void, but as a titan main, the arc and solar subclasses are savage. Even with the nerf, the arc storm grenades are death machines, and more importantly, they feel very satisfying to use. The same goes for using incandescent weapons with a solar subclass – they feel great and very effective, and with the publicised return of difficulty to Destiny, Strand would have to feel capable of similar levels of overkill to make me want to use it.

 

I’m sure it’s great and has potential synergies that will inspire a million youtube videos with titles like “This Build Is Straight Busted Y’all” and random red arrows in the thumbnail, but fundamentally I just want to use Arc and Solar because I’m still not bored of them and they’re brutal. I still haven’t unlocked voltshot on my Ikelos SMG.

[Nobuo's Organ]

I feel sorry for the “This Build Is Straight Busted Y’all” people, the mod system has had some big QoL changes but - unless there are more to come - the mod changes themselves are a huge nerf to putting together builds which synergise with specific exotics and classes the way you used to be able to.

[Uncle Mike]

1 hour ago, Nate Dogg III said:

Like, right, here's a really hard bit, enjoy your really weak three-charge melee and grappling straight into trouble!

 

Strand was in a weird place during the Campaign. Like, I did actually find it quite useful in the spinning death room and the final boss (suspending the Tormentors to enable massive damage, for example) but yes, without having all the mods, aspects, the piece of armour you'd want, guns that synergise etc it's just weaker.

 

I think we ended up only really having one of our fireteam on Stand for those fights for that reason.

[Hexx]

Legend Campaign was a bum ache. Aforementioned Vex spinning room of death, the Mast Room fight and final boss fight. Managed to solo it all but the last boss which I was close to (burning through with fusion grenades/well) but had to get help in.

 

It's a weird nonsensical story campaign that's tonally all over the place. You get "empowered" by buildless strand repeatedly - which is weaker and breaks your existing builds (which are already weaker and more homogenised than pre-LF). Have to see how Strand is in 8 days when everything unlocks (timegating why?) but it doesn't feel for warlocks like it'll be OP.

 

Across the board Resi and build changes, compared with new power level changes/threats and we feel REALLY squishy. Feels like builds have been balanced around fireteams making orbs/drops. Also would love a "seeking orbs" mod to replace the seeking wells. Stasis seems particularly borked as it's got the least reliable way to make you charged without elemental shards equivalent.

 

As a counterpoint the season, narratively, feels much stronger and higher production values.

 

But with short, unsatisfying campaign, only 1 strike, no cruicible maps etc it's feels like it's very pricey for now. WQ felt like a bold statement of new approach on their announced roadmap. This feels like Curse of Osiris 2. The Osirising.