Bungie, you know I love Vexthetic but Nessus is totally just Autumn Venus:
yeah i mentioned this when we last played but iām not feeling hugely interested in the new destinations aside from EDZ and that derelict floating colony. three out of the four maps are all kinda based around existing tilesets/asset libraries, which iām sure is good for efficiency but also makes them feel a bit less special because weāve seen them before.
Also a little bummed that suddenly we canāt go to any of the old planets anymore? i understand why logistically, it just feels odd. maybe weāll see some of those destinations come back for special events or something.
They made Felwinterās Peak into a PvP map so I wouldnāt be surprised if we saw familiar locales return in the Crucible.
mars, venus, earth, and the moon also seemed to have a wider visual contrast between them than these new destinations. each one felt really distinct. itās nitpicky af but these kinda feel like b-list ideas for locations but iām stoked to explore them anyway i guess!
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The feeling Iām getting is that these are the back half of content they intended to for early Destiny 1 until they realized the full, terrifying scope of their endeavor. While falling steadily behind audience demands for content they realized they couldnāt launch on elaborate new concepts but could only color in their marginsā¦
More than anything I want what nobody else wants; a return to a ghostly shell of narrative told only through purple placenames and evocative background art, distant enough to raise our adventures towards myth
Today is going to feel like the longest day at work ever. 
What Iāve seen so far of the D2 story has all the tonal range of a Saturday morning cartoon, so this actually sounds pretty good to me.
Nolan North is a really bad ghost, but also the ghost is bad. They didnāt know what to do with the character (also probably the entirety of Destiny 1) so they made it into a comical side-kick that talks for our character (the one thing I did like about D1ās story was that our characters spoke when spoken to). Anyway this is the worst possible direction they could have taken the character.
I was watching somebody play halo reach on a stream, and it looked pretty cool. the story at least had felt like it had some maturity and emotional gravitas, it made destiny look silly.
been playing the beta for a few hours and have thoughts! I will wait for others to catch up though before I share too much.
The Ghost is trying to be Cayde when Cayde already exists.
i think the change to 4v4 in crucible seems pretty excellent
yeah i played a couple control matches and despite getting pub stomped for most of them it felt pretty good!
They seem to be reusing the Cortana/Guilty Spark archetype, aware that they need some in-head chatter and a āgive ordersā role, but unsure of where to pitch the tone. They also seem to be avoiding their favorite spice for these characters, rampant AI ā it was always nice to wonder if your orders were on the level, if you were viewed as meat by your robo-buddy.
Iām in favor of smaller, more understandable matches. Gears of War felt best at small sizes, emphasizing the work of buddying up and focus-fire in a way that happens in less-directed ways when more bodies are thrown into the mix.
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I played the story mission! It was fine! I mostly wanted the beta to have character creation or some kind of progression because Iām a giant dork for that so Iām disappointed. I kept mixing up my primary and energy weapon and then wondering why my auto rifle was firing in bursts or whatever.
Iāll probably do the strike later. Iām taking a break from competitive stuff bc I know Iāll get too emotionally invested and I donāt want to get mad at video games.
I feel like I have no idea what this game will be like to play in a day to day kind of way. Like, I want to see patrol , picking up quests, public events and such. The story is bad and not made better by joss whedonād dialogue. I just want to get dropped on a weird planet and ride around on a sparrow and read way too much into flavor text.
add head-pops and we got ourselves a real-deal VIDCON
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I liked popping the gas tanks on those flame guys!
yeah i keep switching my weapon and being confused.
abilities/super recharge really slowly, feels like playing the whole game with the trickle modifier. works great for pvp, but pve feels a bit dry.
you get slightly different weapons to try in the beta depending on the class you play. the exotic hand-cannon the hunters get is nice. warlocks get a poor manās zhalo super-cell that has a chance to do chain-lighting damage, but only when you take arc damage. really??
Iām worried most weapons and abilities will just be less good versions of D1 stuff in the name of PVP balance. idk why Iām complaining so much, I still got a little too excited when I saw slots for individual weapon and armor shaders. Iāll probably be happy as long as I get o be a pretty space wizard.
I just beat the strike andā¦ engrams donāt pop out of bosses like a loot piƱata anymore? That animation made strikes 200% more exciting to run in Year Two onwards.
Iām gonna go take a shower and then read through what people found on Crucible Playbook.
this is also my concern. all of the weapon perks iāve looked at so far seem pretty conservative as well.
They said that loot/progression of the beta is not indicative of the final game. I think engram drops are just turned off completely.
The rewards are still dropping when you get to the end of the strike, but it just falls into your inventory instead of having the whole animation and fanfare. Doesnāt feel satisfying at all without the fanfare though.
I got thrown into a random Control game with a super try hard team that was monopolizing the power ammo and it was horrible. I donāt think anyone on my team got a super the entire game, so we were very limited in how we could try to prevent the match from snowballing out of control.
Something feels off about the weapon balance to me, but I canāt tell if itās because Iām using weapon archetypes Iām not used to playing with or if itās actually weird.