Destiny Come On Already

King of Posters
309

I’m trying to get the subclass Crucible quests done because those are the only nodes I have left in the record book pages for each class, and completing it would allow me to knock down that node and the “complete all nodes on this page” node. Radiance multikills in the Crucible is fucking impossible though, even in Mayhem Clash. I played for an hour last night and only got two.

Also it seems pretty obvious to me right now that D2 Trials is gonna be in this new Countdown mode. Datto’s got a video w/no commentary if you wanna see footage but don’t want a dudebro using their bad radio voice impression on top of it

1 Like
310
311

day 2: yeah, i watched that datto pvp footage and it pretty much looked like… well, the game i’ve already been playing. it killed my buzz a little. the game definitely looks more iterative than transformative, and the content refresh means yet more old things being left behind so you can play a handful of new things over and over till you quickly grow tired of them.

those emblems also look to be pretty much the same size and shape as the ones i have now, so tell me just exactly why those can’t carry over?

i think if they’re looking to bring in a large number of new players they’re not going to be that successful. i think if you’ve been playing and following destiny, then here’s more destiny for you.

312

i’ve been getting halo vibes from the sound design, the way higher ttk in pvp and the large open spaces in the one strike we’ve seen so far

a good thing

re: trials, i hope whatever replaces it has some kind of league structure and more thoughtful matchmaking. i really got into it last year and feel like it could be an activity as beloved as the raids for way more people but right now a new team starting a card for the first time is going to match up against elo farmers every other game and crash out quickly

1 Like
313

I heard in someone’s video that they talked to the Crucible map designers and they’ve inverted the way they do PvP maps now. They used to start with concept art and flavor, and then find a way to morph that into a viable map. For D2, they’re starting with designing the core of the map (lanes, rotation routes, ammo spawns, etc…) and then asking the art team to make it look good once it’s been battle tested.

I hope these maps are really fucking good. Also really like that they have callouts up near the minimap so now everyone can have a common set of callouts instead of having a play go awry because someone didn’t understand what you meant.

As a fusion rifle fan, I’m sad that it’s in the power weapon slot now. That does make me wonder if it means fusions are going to be more like Sleeper Sim in D2 or if they’re the same as they used to be before but put into the power slot because of the one-shot kill potential in PvP.

Entirely new players seem unlikely aside from PC gamers, though anecdotally, some of my old coworkers gave up during the latter half of Year One and said they were waiting until D2 for the game to reach a higher level of refinement. I think there are a lot of people like them out there.

314

Here’s that whole strike. Looked pretty alright? looked like a strike at least, just with a lot more going on.

the ghost is back and manages to say really dumb things constantly. it’s like they wrote his dialogue for 10 year olds. if he actually chilled out his delivery of them just a bit i don’t think i’d mind as much, but seriously it’s so damn dopey. i’ll take dinklage’s apathy over this zany, silly, voice-actory as fuck voice acting.

315

I like the speculation from Waypoint that Future War Cult sabotaged the sentries. That’s the kind of faction lore I want.

316
317

that waypoint podcast articulated my feelings about all this nicely. the fwc stuff is neat to think about, the factions (and everything in the first game) though i don’t really expect bungie to do anything nearly that interesting. if the game needs anything though, it’s more moving parts. all these big players exist and they do nothing but stand around the tower ready to sell you the occaional killer-roll weapon with a different logo on it.

318
1 Like
319

Excited about the EDZ and that sinking human colony, but the other one just looks like venus with more vex rocks and red leaves and a moon with green overcast. hopefully there’s more to them, but they look like b-sides. I wish some of the old locations couldn’t have stuck around in some form, maybe expanded? It’s a bit strange that we’ll no longer go to the moon, venus, or mars anymore. Mars felt like such a lost opportunity - a derelict city buried in sand, networks of subway tunnels underneath it. a great idea that wasn’t quite as fleshed out as it could’ve been. Likewise, even the EDZ shots they showed looked like more forested area than empty european towns like those crucible maps (who’s ready to try and go into the woods only to be greeted by a “turn back!” warning).

who am I kidding though, I pre-ordered the dang thing so i’ll see ya in the beta

1 Like
320

There was a peek at an EDZ area during the reveal that looks way more like Widow’s Court or Memento than the other forest-y stuff they showed. You can see it a 7:04 here.

I completely agree about Mars, but I think destiny did sort of a poor job in general of utilizing its more evocative areas. The stuff w clovis bray on Mars is really interesting to me, but you get a lot less of that and a lot more of the (to me, intensely boring) cabal flavor. Same goes for venus, where you hardly ever see the cool ishtar commons / archive / dig site stuff. Or like, the subway area in pre-siva cosmodrome.

321
322

There’s a subway area in cosmodrome?

I wonder if we feel the way we do about Mars because it’s the only planet in D1 not to have had its own raid. There were always the rumours in the background about the Cabal raid on Mars, and honestly I would be shocked if that didn’t morph into vanilla D2’s raid somehow because it seems improbable that it would be anything other than a Cabal raid.

323

I might be mixing it up with mars! I thought there was one off the rocketyard? Idk, I haven’t played in a minute.

324

yeah there’s a subway area not far from where you spawn in on cosmodrome patrol, you might remember it as the best place to do the ‘kill x hive majors’ bounty way back, i think that’s the only reason you’d ever have to visit

325

Oh, huh. That never registered as being a subway in my mind but I guess that makes sense.

1 Like
326
327

Today I ran into a fireteam of two who would set their shaders to match the background color of the area they were camping every map I played against them, nerf shaders please

2 Likes
328

The problem is that, as I was playing Destiny 2, I felt like Bungie had also put all the meaningful weapon variety into a single category. It’s weird to hear Bakken using the language of player empowerment—“It’s also about the freedom to build the type of guardian you want”—when the effect of that decision feels so crushingly limiting. The new submachine gun feels like a zippier Auto Rifle, which basically means that the first two weapon slots break down into two broad categories: high-damage single-shot weapons and automatics. Doing anything different has moved from being a choice to being a rare treat. Triply so in multiplayer, where Power ammo is only getting more scarce.

this is my biggest concern with the core gameplay changes. you’re taking all of the interesting weapon types and putting them into a single slot (and we all know how inconsistently heavy ammo drops) and basically giving us two primary slots. one of the slots has a flavor, the other doesn’t.

that seems like it’s going to get real old real fast. it doesn’t feel like it’s a change being made for fun, but so people don’t get one-shot in pvp as often and they don’t have to worry about fly-swatting certain weapon types with nerfs. but the marketing spin is that it “empowers” players, but I bet as soon as people get their hands on the game this will be a top complaint. want to use a rocket launcher and a grenade launcher? no. a sword and a? — no. no, this is our game, and only appropriate fun is allowed here.

so much of destiny feels like a game of restrictions vs. empowerment, and empowerment does not win. i wish it would.

so many changes in D1 felt like they were made in service of this stubborn vision of consistency that bungie has for the game across both spheres of play. one size does not always fit all, but they sure want it to. destiny will never be a competitive game when you have randomized weapon drops, a frame-rate of 30, and hybrid peer-to-peer hosted networking. they also say they don’t want it to be a competitive game, but it seems like most of the changes they make to the sandbox are governed by the competitive modes. so they’re either lying to us, or lying to themselves.

i didn’t like how they mentioned that with the gear reset, they’ve ‘leveling the playing field’ for new players. there’s ‘never been a better time to jump in.’ proper MMOs don’t do this. they respect the gear you’ve put time into earning, though it will be outclassed by new top-tier drops, you get to keep it. this behavior worries me. they’re always going to want new players, so expect all the gear you earn in destiny 2 to get wiped in two years for the 3rd installment? in the end it’s just fake stuff on a server, but dammit, i spent a lot of time earning those emblems and i’m pretty mad that i can’t keep them as a flag to fly, because that emblem slot sure looks like it’s the same exact fucking size and format as the old one. is this all so the new kids can feel more like special snowflakes and not put out? fuck the new kids, i want my emblems.