Destiny |OT2| The Last Guardians

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I don't know if this was posted but IGN has some emblem, shader and grimoire codes to be used.

thx, and FYI emblems and shader have to be 'used' after entering the code successfully. it wasn't until I went into the redeemed codes page of my bungie.net profile that I saw the option to 'use' all of the shaders and emblems I redeemed. it confirms which account you want to use them for, then they show up at the special orders vendor. might be dependent on the code because I had a couple of emblems that showed up automatically without having to 'use' them.
 
Hahahahah. Oh man.

You guys'll probably eat this up.

One of the major characters in my story is
a Scottish Exo
.

Actually, I don't think anyone will care.
 
I have enough light to try the Nightfall Strike

It's Level 28, the Sepikis Prime strike.

Modifiers:

Epic: heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers

Angry: minions of the Darkness won't flinch, even after massive damage

Lightswitch: minions of the Darkness deal much more melee damage

Arc Burn: Arc Damage from any source is greatly increased

Nightfall: If all players die, your Fireteam is returned to Orbit

Tried it solo and got immediately killed by a wizard and sent back to Orbit lol

I'll wait till I get more gear I think...
 
That's a doddle, pick a level with plenty of thrall on it, preferably Heroic - they line themselves up for you. A run and a half of Evil Within on Earth should do it.
 
My bloke.

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Game is great fun but I feel slightly cramped by the amount of strikes available. Also, the time it takes for stock refreshes and the Vanguard marks a week thing discourages lengthy sessions of play.


The more stuff like this I see, people sharing drops and such, the more it is succeeding as a loot game... and that will certainly give it some legs.
 
Well just hit 20+ and finished the 'story'. I still can't believe how bad the story was, really I'm not even sure you can call it that. Anyway it seems like already there isn't actually any more content right? Just grinding old stuff for skills and gear?

For this reason I've been trying to take it sort of slow. The Moon opened up for me a couple days ago but I still haven't even touched it because I'm going to grind around Earth a bit more. I'm level 12 still doing the level 8 strike mission and aimlessly wandering around cosmodrome.
 
When you get to level 20 there is any kind of heroic mode for Strikes? I mean i did all strikes on normal, how i do on hard?

They should open strikes for level 20 fast!!!!
 
Posting this again since the thread is fast
Been going dark on the game, after the slew of reviews I really need to know now.

1) How big are each of the areas in the game & how many are there?
Like in Borderlands 2, there were maybe a dozen hub areas & they were very big, some practically the size of open world games, where you absolutely needed a vehicle to get around in them.
How big are the areas in Destiny?

2) How is the gun variety?
Are all the core weapons the same as Halo but with different stat variations or are there really super unique rare weapons like there were in Borderlands 2?


3) How is online co-op?
Is it like Borderlands 2? Just drop-in/drop-out co-op in anyones game or in yours (i spen the majority of my time with that)?
I been hearing evil things about no matchmaking in this game, makes me verrrry weary about the game.

1. Each area is about the size of three average-sized WoW zones, if that helps. I don't really have much else to reference for scale. Maybe the space of 2 very large Battlefield maps? As big as Rome in AC: Brotherhood? You never need to use the vehicle, but if you don't want to deal with wandering groups of enemies it is useful to just zoom past them, or if you're going to a specific location for farming.

2. There are only 5 or 6 basic types of guns, each of the types has multitudes of individual weapons with individual stats. The individual weapons also sometimes have individual upgrades. There are a few super-shiny rare weapons, but they don't show up until endgame.

3. You can form Fireteams (groups) at the Tower social hub and head out from there. You can also form Fireteams in the field. The only times you are stuck unable to play with people are when you are in respawn-restricting "dark zones" that function like instanced dungeons in other MMOs. However, unless you have an RL friend or two to play with, forming a PuG is not easy because there aren't any socialization methods besides simple gestures that you can use to communicate unless people are in your Fireteam in the first place. In short, no mic chat unless you are already grouped, but you can group almost anywhere at any time. You'll also see people who you aren't grouped with running around on the maps unless you are in a "dark zone."
 
I'm trying to hammer down all the big problems that I think could be fixed in future revisions and updates. Feel free to comment or add to the list.

-The socialization stinks, flat out. There's no way to communicate with the 1-3 randoms you may run into out in the field. You need to get close, then press R3, then press options, THEN press invite to Fireteam, THEN press send invite, and hope they join. God forbid one of you enter a darkness zone or your fireteam is filled up and maybe you just want to talk to them. You got 4 emotes they could fit on a d-pad and that's the extent of it. There's a clan feature, but its currently has NO actual in-game usage and is essentially pointless.

Ideas to fix this: Proximity chat on/off. Make it so we can actually communicate with other people in game more easily. Put SOME kind of in-game clan system, so we can easily and freely see how many people in your clan are online and maybe they would like to play together.

-The loot is boring. There aren't many weapon types, and the variety of machine guns simply don't cut it. The main weapons don't have much difference between them, there's nothing like Critical Hit Chance or elemental damage or anything really interesting about them except higher attack numbers and magazine. You still get a lot of garbage white/green/currency/items that have nothing to do with your class, you can beat Strikes/PvP and get nothing. The post-level 20 leveling system is tied to armor, but the armor drops are totally random and more chances than not, they're awful. You can grind in Strikes and PvP for hours and come out with barely any advancement, if at all..for a loot game its just not a very good loot game.

Ideas to fix this: More, better guaranteed loot for performing certain tasks. I should not come out of a 15-20 minute Strike with nothing to show for it. I should not go several PvP games in a row with various K/Ds and points and get an uncommon gear for a Warlock I'm not using. Loot drops should be tailored to your class, and your level. I shouldn't even see another white item once I'm post level 20.

-The mission design is uncreative and highly repetitive. Practically every story mission plays out the exact same way: there's an unskippable exposition dump that you don't really understand and given very little reason to care about, you fly off on your ghost to whatever location the arrow tells you do, fight waves of enemies until you get to press square at certain intervals to spawn even more waves of enemies. There will be a big yellow guy at the end, so kill him and his wave of enemies. Ghost will then say something no one knows anything about and can't possibly care about it either, then you dance around for 30 seconds. Rinse and repeat for 20 hours. The "final" story mission feels like all the other story missions, and when its over you shrug your shoulders and wonder how this game took 5 years to make.

Its like playing Halo, but with worse...everything. Worse encounter design, less interesting weapons, zero dramatic stakes or narrative cohesion whatsoever, no sense of character, the exact same pacing every single time out. There's one interesting part where you get a sword, and there's the other interesting part where you kinda storm the beachhead, fighting up the hill into whatshisface's ship with some great music, and that's it.

Ideas to fix this: Difficult, actually. The entire structure of this game would have to be reconfigured, but that's not feasible. I guess the only thing they can do now is add more story missions and make them more interesting. Maybe a platforming challenge or a puzzle or some interesting NPCs to interact with or some flying missions or fuckin' SOMETHING besides the same damn mission they've got here.

-Unskippable cutscenes/exposition. Its bad enough the storytelling in the game is so awful, but the fact that you can't skip it either? The fact that if you ever get disconnected, you have to sit through that again? Why? There was already a 30 second load time before I even got into the game, you can't be masking those.

Ideas to fix this: Skip button, done.

-PvP is merely competent. It has about the same amount of features you'd expect in a mid-tier shooting game like Timeshift or Singularity. There's few maps, a few bland gametypes with nothing to really call their own like UT's Assault or TF2's Payload. There's no custom games, no Forge or Theater or ranks or easy ways to invite people like Bungie's previous Halo titles, just an odd derivative mix of Halo's movement and floaty jumps and CoD's kill streaks, unpredictable weapons, and ADS.

Ideas to fix this: More modes. More maps. Custom games. Maybe a Crucible ranking system separate from the leveling stuff.

-No Map Vote. This is for PvP as well, but it may be an even bigger problem for the Strike playlist. Its very easy to start to playing the same maps and strikes again and again and there's no way to change it. I don't want to play this map, my team doesn't want to play this map, the guys on the other team who stuck around just played this so I'm sure they don't want to play this map again, either. So why can't we do anything about it?

Ideas to fix this: Map vote, duh.

-Exploration is limited and unrewarding. If you played through the story missions, there very little unbeaten paths to see here. There aren't any interesting NPCs with unique quests hiding out there, or secret levels/missions you can activate. There are mountains back there, but there's no way to get to them through a combinations of lots of invisible walls and kill zones. Public events rarely happen, and its not like its easy to run into someone and team up with them anyway. All the available quests are rudimentary, uncompelling, and have you backtracking through areas you've seen again and again so you can press square at this random object or stand outside and scout a random area. There are a very loot chests placed around the environment, but chances are you won't run into something interesting. They built a sizable, pretty environment and there's nothing to do in it. The same shit you were doing in the Beta or at level 1, you'll be doing post level 20 and the story mode complete.

Ideas to fix this:
Unique NPCs per planet with interesting missions you can do outside the story. Better quests in general, like find the Golden Vox Battlemaster hiding out in...oh God does anyone remember what any of the areas in the game are called? Some funny goofball stuff ya know, it such a self-serious game that thinks its derivative sci-fi universe is more unique and interesting than it really is, some levity missions will flesh out the world a bit I feel.

-Strike bosses are boring bullet sponges
. They have one or two attacks at the most they repeat for 5-10 minutes of shooting shooting shooting, and then waves of enemies come out to distract you from its one dimensional encounter design and hopefully give you ammo. You peak behind cover, keep hitting him with shots, then go back to cover when he's looking at you until a teammate distracts, rinse and repeat until he finally goes down. Then you get a green sniper that's worse than everything else and a blue engram that ends up being a Strange Coin.

Ideas to fix this: IDK, quite honestly. They have so much health because they got to accommodate this leveling system somehow, but the battles themselves have all the complexity of the Cyberdemon from Doom about 20 years ago, but take waaaay longer and thus makes it feel like a grind instead of really intense encounter. The Raid boss better have all sorts of moves if he's gonna take that long, I mean some real attack patterns you gotta learn, stuff he brings out when his health is at the halfway mark, or the 1/3rd rage mode that speeds things up, SOMETHING, Bungie.

Yikes, I think I'll pick up Borderlands 1 on sale right now & wait until a large price drop on this game.
 
I have enough light to try the Nightfall Strike

It's Level 28, the Sepikis Prime strike.

Modifiers:

Epic: heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers

Angry: minions of the Darkness won't flinch, even after massive damage

Lightswitch: minions of the Darkness deal much more melee damage

Arc Burn: Arc Damage from any source is greatly increased

Nightfall: If all players die, your Fireteam is returned to Orbit

Tried it solo and got immediately killed by a wizard and sent back to Orbit lol

I'll wait till I get more gear I think...
Jesus that sounds brutal

I love how it punts you into orbit... like it's saying "bitch please, gtfo!"
 
I have enough light to try the Nightfall Strike

It's Level 28, the Sepikis Prime strike.

Modifiers:

Epic: heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers

Angry: minions of the Darkness won't flinch, even after massive damage

Lightswitch: minions of the Darkness deal much more melee damage

Arc Burn: Arc Damage from any source is greatly increased

Nightfall: If all players die, your Fireteam is returned to Orbit

Tried it solo and got immediately killed by a wizard and sent back to Orbit lol

I'll wait till I get more gear I think...
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Oh my god.

I do like that Bungie has some REAL challenges.
 
I'm finding this sub class for hunter to be really difficult in PVP. The problem is that, it often requires two hits with your weapon to kill (one strike to get rid of their shield, a second to kill). Thing is, a lot of people have Shotguns, which are one hit kill at the same range. So it's a pretty big counter. I find myself dying more than killing using this melee class.

I guess it's a balance of playing like you normally would, and only going for melee when the opportunity is up (vs focusing on melee heavily). I know there is backstab, which is great. But that requires a precise stab to the back (so you have to get lucky and come up on someone from behind. People usually are skittish and often turn around or move around a lot).
 
I'm finding this sub class for hunter to be really difficult in PVP. The problem is that, it often requires two hits with your weapon to kill (one strike to get rid of their shield, a second to kill). Thing is, a lot of people have Shotguns, which are one hit kill at the same range. So it's a pretty big counter. I find myself dying more than killing using this melee class.

I guess it's a balance of playing like you normally would, and only going for melee when the opportunity is up (vs focusing on melee heavily). I know there is backstab, which is great. But that requires a precise stab to the back (so you have to get lucky and come up on someone from behind. People usually are skittish and often turn around or move around a lot).

When you upgrade Arc Blade and get Showstopper, it's a one hit kill, at least in my experience. The timing for activating the super is critical. I usually pop it before turning a corner where I can catch two or more by surprise.
 
The more stuff like this I see, people sharing drops and such, the more it is succeeding as a loot game... and that will certainly give it some legs.

it definitely seems like the 'loot game' doesn't open up til level 20. Most of the Greens and Blues are just copypasted and palate swaps, but once you start getting to Yellows and Purples the weapons start becoming really diverse.
 
You still earn XP even though you are 20. If you want a quick way to level up a second subclass, right before the last boss is about to die in a strike mission, for example, equip the second subclass and it gets all of the XP. Same thing goes for turning in bounties. Right before you hand in the bounty in the tower have the 2nd subclass equipped and it'll get the XP bonus.

I too am a Warlock and didn't know this trick until I was already level 24. I'm leveling up Sunsinger now even though I will still primarily use Void.

Thanks, sounds like a good work around
 
From the Clan thread:

Originally Posted by Nathan_Drake

So I am thinking about starting a clan for PS4 players on GAF in NA East. Mind blowing idea right? But here is the kicker this clan will accept your application? I propose we call it the DestinyGAF Rebel Alliance. Maybe we will be accepted by the GAF Empire or maybe they will crush us like a bug. I feel we could get plenty of people from the defunct East 2 and 6 clans as well as the multitude of Guardians applying for East 7. Is this treason? No its revolution. What do you guys think? I want in a clan with fellow GAFers is that too much to ask for?

Lets do this!

http://www.bungie.net/en/Clan/Detail/246351

For PS4 NeoGaf members that cant get into a NA East.

Ban me if treasonous. Accept us if understandable!
 
When you upgrade Arc Blade and get Showstopper, it's a one hit kill, at least in my experience. The timing for activating the super is critical. I usually pop it before turning a corner where I can catch two or more by surprise.

Oh yeah, the special is one hit kill. It's awesome. I'm just saying outside of that, it's hard to do melee with it. I guess I was using the class wrong (I put a lot of emphasis on doing melee more than guns). I guess i should treat it like Gunslinger class, except for the special ability, and when I can get a good jump on someone (from behind).
 
I'm playing with 2 friends, were only 4 story missions in and I'm starting to feel like it wouldn't be a big deal if I or any of us just ran off and did our own thing and just played together when were all online. Is that accurate? We were originally worried it would be like Borderlands where one friend gets way over leveled and then makes the combat pointless for some of the group (either way to hard for half or too easy for the other half) but I'm not so sure that applies here. Seems like worse case scenario is that you'd just be playing the same missions again with your friends but it looks like thats the game anyway.
 
I had a question about 'random events'

I was doing patrols last night when a defense event came up. We got with a few other people and got 3 stars? gold tier? for the event but i don't think I really got anything (loot, xp)

What are those for?

It mentioned it as a daily event too. So was that the only time that day that event happened or came we only to it once a day? I thought I would get something really cool for it but not much.

It was pretty cool though. A giant gunship came out of nowhere and we were able to take pieces of the ship off and damage it.
 
You still earn XP even though you are 20. If you want a quick way to level up a second subclass, right before the last boss is about to die in a strike mission, for example, equip the second subclass and it gets all of the XP. Same thing goes for turning in bounties. Right before you hand in the bounty in the tower have the 2nd subclass equipped and it'll get the XP bonus.

I too am a Warlock and didn't know this trick until I was already level 24. I'm leveling up Sunsinger now even though I will still primarily use Void.

That is a good trick. Just don't die while switching!
For leveling, does the XP level everything, sub, armor and weapons?

And do you have to go left to right?
Sometimes I have something that looks like it can be upgraded but won't let me.
 
I'm playing with 2 friends, were only 4 story missions in and I'm starting to feel like it wouldn't be a big deal if I or any of us just ran off and did our own thing and just played together when were all online. Is that accurate? We were originally worried it would be like Borderlands where one friend gets way over leveled and then makes the combat pointless for some of the group (either way to hard for half or too easy for the other half) but I'm not so sure that applies here. Seems like worse case scenario is that you'd just be playing the same missions again with your friends but it looks like thats the game anyway.

To a degree. The difficulty ramps up slightly on the different planets (even being Level 18 on the Level 12 moon strike was a bitch with friends), but you wouldn't be missing much.

I think it's far more fun with friends though.
 
The problem is that they need a balanced reward system to these challenges.

I really hope we get to see more Raid Gear sets and that more raids will open up over time.

Yeah, me and homeboyd did the weekly strike, sepiks prime with arc damage booster (fucking fallen use arc...)

it was insane. MAYBE at our current 21ish level it would have been possible with 3 people. We ended up getting to Sepiks Prime but there was just nowhere to hide, and when one 3 shot burst from a dreg can kill you, you kinda need to hide lol.
 
That is a good trick. Just don't die while switching!
For leveling, does the XP level everything, sub, armor and weapons?

And do you have to go left to right?
Sometimes I have something that looks like it can be upgraded but won't let me.

As far as I know, yes to all your questions..
 
So do you eventually get all upgrades for your character? Or at some point do you get a choice? Right now I'm a level 7 and they're just unlocking in order from left to right.
 
Have played quite a bit of this now, so figured I'd share my thoughts on it so far...

The highlight is definitely the core mechanics of how it plays, as you would expect from Bungie it controls and feels really good in terms of movement and gunplay. Enemy AI usually also works quite well (though there are also some issues with them getting stuck in to same cover and peek routine or running over each other when they are in number in a small space) with how they move out of the way of your grenades and attempt to back off when they have taken damage in order to recharge their shield.

The game also looks stunning thanks to it's art which helps it greatly visually speaking because technically this isn't really doing anything great, overall it's definitely showing its cross-gen roots compared to other titles already out. So it's impressive how well they compensate for those shortcomings by having a nice stylized world with great art to back it up.


Overall though it seems I'm somewhat lukewarm on this, and that comes down to what the game delivers in terms of content and in terms of structure and presentation, so I'll go over the main negatives for me so far:

- Mission structure is very repetitive, boiling down to almost the same 'go here, activate this and wait for waves of enemies to turn up'. It's a real shame that they didn't put imagination and thought into how they designed the missions, especially with multiple players in mind, for example; Having multiple points of interest on a divergent path mid mission forcing the strike-team to split up, or making a scripted sequence where one team member provides covering sniper fire while the other people move a object across a space. Even something simple like a countdown timer can help mix up how a mission plays.

- This repetitiveness carries into the enemies, despite being completely different species they all conform to almost the same setup with grunts, leaders and heavies that all play and behave pretty much the same way to each other with slightly different weakpoint locations... would have loved more imagination being put into each different race and faction, and it seems like a missed opportunity unfortunately.

- Another main complaint is the sterility of the world, they have created these lovingly crafted and beautiful setting on each planet and yet they all feel like empty backdrops that you simply move through with little to no effect of impact upon as you play. In theory the other players should be proving to the feeling of a living environment but in practice it hasn't worked for me so far, would have loved being able to interact more with the world.

- Finally, the story or the lack of it I should say... really disappointing how throwaway and how badly presented it all feels, especially considering how seriously it seems to take itself. So far nothing that has been presented in the story has made me care about any of the events or characters I have encountered which is unfortunate all things considered.


Here is to hoping that the Raid will address some of my mission structure complaints.
 
Hello all! Been lurking all throughout the beta and withdrawal thread. Just got approved and it seems like a lot of you are hanging out in the OT again. Is it safe now? Lol. I miss the positive vibe from the withdrawal thread.

Anyway, now that I'm approved I wanted to thank all of you for making the time pass quickly the withdrawal thread I've already added many of you and played with a few, if I didn't add me, PSN is above. LOVING this game, good times.
 
What information do we have about Destiny Raiding, and this first raid in particular? How large are they going to be? How many bosses? Will they be unique boss models, or recycled/upscaled enemy models from elsewhere? Have they talked about this at all?

I'm so divided on the game. I love the core gameplay and the idea of an FPS with such a sizable group PvE endgame, but I'm wondering how many legs level 20 and up really has.

I'm concerned the boss encounter design is going to be like the strikes: Take an average enemy, give them one or two special attacks, and beef their health up so high it takes forever to kill them. That's boring boss design, and doesn't do anything to elicit teamwork or problem solving from strike groups. Destiny took a whole lot from MMO endgames with regards to its progression systems, maybe they should look at their dungeon bosses as well.
 
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