Pro tip when farming heroic public events: you can triple dip on a lot of them by completing one, looting the chest, then fast travelling to the nearest waypoint and completing it again.
Pretty livid bubble no longer offers weapons or armor of light. I was stoaked to see bubble return but now it's just a better titan ability that takes longer to build up. Totally lame. Supers becoming just dps killing modes no matter what sub class you choose is lame.
Nameless Midnight is my shit right now. I even infused my 288 MIDA into it, I will worry about MIDA later. Nameless is like getting a Vision of Confluence week one.
I was super surprised by that. Me and a buddy were doing it when the notification popped up that it was done halfway thru. I was like "uh, we're done?" and sure enough, we were!
Okay finally have done all the Destiny 2 strikes so obviously time to rank them.
1. The Pyramidion - This area is so cool. Visually stunning. Lots of environmental traps. Holding points here is fun. Boss was super cool with fun, simple mechanics.
2. The Inverted Spire - Also super cool area and nice mix of enemies to fight. Great boss too. The drill bit always looks cool.
3. The Arms Dealer - fun strike, the nightfall made me hate it a bit more though lol
4. Savathun's song - Really cool boss at the end, love the location
5. Lake of Shadows - Pretty basic strike, final boss with the raising water is kind of a neat mechanic
6. Exodus Crash - this one just sucks. Mostly reused areas, that light portion is dumb and pointless, the boss is easily the worst by a long shot due to the invisibility and teleporting away.
The Pyramidion is phenomenal, one of the coolest environments I've seen in a game in a while. I hope there's more stuff like that in the Osiris expansion.
Just realised I've only done Inverted Spire once (yesterday) since launch day and yeah, Exodus Crash is the worst.
Nameless Midnight is my shit right now. I even infused my 288 MIDA into it, I will worry about MIDA later. Nameless is like getting a Vision of Confluence week one.
Blow up each of the three levels of vents before they close for good; all the vents on a level have a single pool of HP. The levels open top to bottom when the corresponding marked psion is killed and the evacuate event starts. You can blow multiple vents up in a single phase if you have enough firepower. The bottom vent is just one and is tiny, so you really need to have three people with power weapons covering the options.
I don't know, I'm finding the Crucible pretty fun. I do think some larger modes should be offered because why not, but the 4v4 forces a kind of play style that caters a bit more to my old ass. It's much more about positioning than it is reflexes.
Pro tip when farming heroic public events: you can triple dip on a lot of them by completing one, looting the chest, then fast travelling to the nearest waypoint and completing it again.
I'm actually kind of stunned they still don't have any option to re-customise your characters look. Such a hotly demanded feature in D1 gone completely ignored in D2. Weird.
I'm actually kind of stunned they still don't have any option to re-customise your characters look. Such a hotly demanded feature in D1 gone completely ignored in D2. Weird.
Yeah, probably the worst thing and another thing is that I remember bungie hyping up the fact to import your character to future games and literally nothing suggests people even know me in the game.
Good luck. I'm discovering that it's largely dependent on how quickly you complete your first one, and how much the RNG that determines which instance you end up in likes you.
Good luck. I'm discovering that it's largely dependent on how quickly you complete your first one, and how much the RNG that determines which instance you end up in likes you.
Impressions after finishing the story + all adventures + all chests / Lost Sectors;
+ I like all the improvements to patrol. Public Event timers being visible is great, as are the Lost Sectors, multiple drop points, Adventures, High Value Targets, Heroic Events, challenges, Flashpoint, and the seamless transition between activities without going into menus or orbit.
+ The reward structure is massively improved over vanilla Destiny. Through the region tokens, I am getting rewarded no matter what I choose to do. Legendary rewards are more frequent. I have gotten to 270 Light purely through regular play - no need to follow any guide - and even though I seem to just now have hit a speed-bump, I know that every weekly reset there are specific activities I can do to progress my Light Level and also the goal of 280 Light for the mods at the Gunsmith.
+ While the lore provided may be less meaty than in Destiny 1, I like that it is actually in the game now via scan-able objects.
+ Failsafe / new characters in general.
+ Fun new exotics like Coldheart and Merciless.
+ No more leveling weapons to use them and everything now has fixed mods, removing that extra layer of RNG.
+ Removal of pointless Rare Engrams.
+ New class abilities.
- Not being able to select a specific Strike from their respective map is an odd decision. Why?
- Bungie's 'the social space will evolve over the course of the story'-talk was essentially bs.
- Obtaining subclasses through random drops was disappointing and I would've preferred a more quest-based approach for them. I also feel they missed the opportunity to add another subclass. Perhaps one based on a new element. Frost wouldn't have been too out of place with Coldheart!
- Ghosts, Sparrows, and Ships being practically exclusive to Eververse feels like a scummy move, more so than the Shader stuff.
- Why get rid of Artifacts?
- Weapon balancing; why would I ever use a side-arm (Exotics excluded)? What's the point of the Grenade Launchers that don't have the sticky mod? Where are my LMGs? Why would I ever put a Shotgun in my Heavy slot?
- Where's my Bad Juju?
- Story Quality.
More on the story:
It was better than vanilla Destiny, but that doesn't exactly mean much. It was decent, but still had quite a few moments that had me scratching my head.
I absolutely hate how they went about this Cabal invasion stuff. The Red Legion appearing out of nowhere literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TOWER was complete and utter bs. What about Rasputin? What about all the guardians around the system? The Reef? An entire army on a huge fleet of giant warships accompanied by a star-killer entered the system and was completely unnoticed by anyone right up until the moment they were literally right in front of the Tower? Really?
I also got the impression that the Red Legion was not the main Cabal Empire force, but rather a splinter / rebel group lead by Ghaul. Why would they be the first to respond to the distress call from The Taken King? They never felt like a real threat, seeing how their entire war operation was stopped / sabotaged at every level by a single Guardian. Bungie basically had to severely 'nerf' us (by disabling the traveler and having their entire fleet show up magically right at the Tower) for these Cabal to even stand a remote chance of doing anything in the first place.
Ghaul himself was also a completely uninteresting villain. He never actually did anything in the story - instead choosing to sit around in his ship just talking to the Speaker. And then when he finally does do something, it goes against everything the story built up for him during those talking-to-the-Speaker scenes.
Talking about the Speaker; Bungie basically revealed him as a fraud - which in my mind also confirms that the Traveler is indeed just a highly advanced - possibly sentient - machine. This is never brought up again in the story afterward. Why bring this up only to immediately drop it?
I also feel that the missions on Titan were pointless filler. Nothing of consequence happened there and Zavala had no reason to go there, much less stay there. What about the Iron Temple? The Reef? The Farm you end up going to anyway? The Titan portion of the story also ends abruptly with the 'oh btw I somehow know the Cabal have a star-killer aimed at our sun'.
Also abrupt was going to Io and just landing next to Ikora on a cliff immediately.
I didn't mind Cayde too much, but the bits with him and chickens felt forced, especially in the context of Bungie themselves specifically pointing out chickens in the Farm reveal before launch.
I feel like this story could have been much better if some characters / factions were swapped around and some of the gaps were filled in. Here's how I would've done it;
Start with an instance where you are patrolling in Old Russia (just re-use part of the old map for this story instance) when you are interrupted by a lone Cabal ship entering orbit. Ghost could say something like "A Cabal ship, here on Earth? That can't be good...", and then on your way to the landing spot, Ghost will receive a frantic message from Rasputin. A Cabal crew is breaching Rasputin's Vault and you follow them in. You kill them, only to discover that they have placed multiple devices either jamming, disconnecting, or severely damaging Rasputin. Right as Ghost comments on all this, Zavala hijacks the comms with a system-wide emergency broadcast; "Attention all Guardians; we have intercepted emergency Cabal communications directing any and all remaining forces in the system to return to the Cabal base on Phobos. We do not know what their purpose is, but whatever it is; it can't be good. I'm calling on any able Guardians to rally to Phobos to end this Cabal threat."
Hard cut to a cutscene.
You come up on Phobos in your ship when a massive Cabal fleet jumps into the system from hyperspeed, with many of their ships heading straight for Earth. Ghost comments on how bad this is. Hard cut to the Tower; Zavala gets word that a Cabal fleet entered the system and then asks Ikora to check the satellites. As Ikora is checking on the satellite feeds, they all go down one by one. THEN the Cabal arrive over the City and wreck the Tower.
Instead of this just being the Red Legion led by Ghaul, it is a vast military force; the main Empire forces, comprised of many legions, of which Ghaul's Red Legion is one. I would remove the focus on Ghaul and shift it to the Cabal Emperor as main antagonist. Ghaul's mentor would be cut out entirely. Ghaul will still be the one on the ship in the intro. The Cabal Emperor could be the one sitting around trying to talk to the Speaker to find things out, with Ghaul becoming increasingly frustrated with him over the course of the game as the Guardian slays his forces while the Emperor sits around doing nothing. When the Speaker reveals himself as a fraud, Ghaul snaps, and fights and usurps the Emperor and the legions with his loyal Red Legion. Then he claims the Light and we fight him.
Bonus suggestion; Instead of the Traveler just randomly deciding to break free, have us at least weaken the restraints during the final boss fight.
More bonus suggestions; Have anything significant take place on Titan, and maybe when we get to Io add a mission where we have to track down Ikora first.
I'll probably have some more thoughts as I play more / Crucible / Strikes, but I think that's quite enough for now. Overall I feel the game is quite the improvement over vanilla Destiny, even with the listed cons. I'll very much enjoy playing this despite feeling it could have been better.
Great post, I took a real pleasure to read, especially what you would improve with how the story is handle through gameplay and level design, great ideas!
I accidentally dismantled mine in a cleaning out dupes. I'm hoping it comes back as a drop-otherwise I'll have to pick it up in my second character's playthrough.
I accidentally dismantled mine in a cleaning out dupes. I'm hoping it comes back as a drop-otherwise I'll have to pick it up in my second character's playthrough.
Pro tip when farming heroic public events: you can triple dip on a lot of them by completing one, looting the chest, then fast travelling to the nearest waypoint and completing it again.
Okay finally have done all the Destiny 2 strikes so obviously time to rank them.
1. The Pyramidion - This area is so cool. Visually stunning. Lots of environmental traps. Holding points here is fun. Boss was super cool with fun, simple mechanics.
2. The Inverted Spire - Also super cool area and nice mix of enemies to fight. Great boss too. The drill bit always looks cool.
3. The Arms Dealer - fun strike, the nightfall made me hate it a bit more though lol
4. Savathun's song - Really cool boss at the end, love the location
5. Lake of Shadows - Pretty basic strike, final boss with the raising water is kind of a neat mechanic
6. Exodus Crash - this one just sucks. Mostly reused areas, that light portion is dumb and pointless, the boss is easily the worst by a long shot due to the invisibility and teleporting away.
Just a heads up for those who haven't done it yet.
The community has been suggesting redoing Lost Sectors 10 times for the Strum exotic quest. Don't do that. Just wait for a Glimmer extractor event. Each of the 4 fallen that spawn at each extractor counts as a powerful Fallen.
I just checked my vault and thankfully saved one. Will need to test it.
--
Also, I always wonder why Bungie releases the raid a week later when they know everyone will just rush through the content to get raid ready. Just let us enjoy everything and launch it in 2 weeks.
Just a heads up for those who haven't done it yet.
The community has been suggesting redoing Lost Sectors 10 times for the Strum exotic quest. Don't do that. Just wait for a Glimmer extractor event. Each of the 4 fallen that spawn at each extractor counts as a powerful Fallen.
Impressions after finishing the story + all adventures + all chests / Lost Sectors;
+ I like all the improvements to patrol. Public Event timers being visible is great, as are the Lost Sectors, multiple drop points, Adventures, High Value Targets, Heroic Events, challenges, Flashpoint, and the seamless transition between activities without going into menus or orbit.
+ The reward structure is massively improved over vanilla Destiny. Through the region tokens, I am getting rewarded no matter what I choose to do. Legendary rewards are more frequent. I have gotten to 270 Light purely through regular play - no need to follow any guide - and even though I seem to just now have hit a speed-bump, I know that every weekly reset there are specific activities I can do to progress my Light Level and also the goal of 280 Light for the mods at the Gunsmith.
+ While the lore provided may be less meaty than in Destiny 1, I like that it is actually in the game now via scan-able objects.
+ Failsafe / new characters in general.
+ Fun new exotics like Coldheart and Merciless.
+ No more leveling weapons to use them and everything now has fixed mods, removing that extra layer of RNG.
+ Removal of pointless Rare Engrams.
+ New class abilities.
- Not being able to select a specific Strike from their respective map is an odd decision. Why?
- Bungie's 'the social space will evolve over the course of the story'-talk was essentially bs.
- Obtaining subclasses through random drops was disappointing and I would've preferred a more quest-based approach for them. I also feel they missed the opportunity to add another subclass. Perhaps one based on a new element. Frost wouldn't have been too out of place with Coldheart!
- Ghosts, Sparrows, and Ships being practically exclusive to Eververse feels like a scummy move, more so than the Shader stuff.
- Why get rid of Artifacts?
- Weapon balancing; why would I ever use a side-arm (Exotics excluded)? What's the point of the Grenade Launchers that don't have the sticky mod? Where are my LMGs? Why would I ever put a Shotgun in my Heavy slot?
- Where's my Bad Juju?
- Story Quality.
More on the story:
It was better than vanilla Destiny, but that doesn't exactly mean much. It was decent, but still had quite a few moments that had me scratching my head.
I absolutely hate how they went about this Cabal invasion stuff. The Red Legion appearing out of nowhere literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TOWER was complete and utter bs. What about Rasputin? What about all the guardians around the system? The Reef? An entire army on a huge fleet of giant warships accompanied by a star-killer entered the system and was completely unnoticed by anyone right up until the moment they were literally right in front of the Tower? Really?
I also got the impression that the Red Legion was not the main Cabal Empire force, but rather a splinter / rebel group lead by Ghaul. Why would they be the first to respond to the distress call from The Taken King? They never felt like a real threat, seeing how their entire war operation was stopped / sabotaged at every level by a single Guardian. Bungie basically had to severely 'nerf' us (by disabling the traveler and having their entire fleet show up magically right at the Tower) for these Cabal to even stand a remote chance of doing anything in the first place.
Ghaul himself was also a completely uninteresting villain. He never actually did anything in the story - instead choosing to sit around in his ship just talking to the Speaker. And then when he finally does do something, it goes against everything the story built up for him during those talking-to-the-Speaker scenes.
Talking about the Speaker; Bungie basically revealed him as a fraud - which in my mind also confirms that the Traveler is indeed just a highly advanced - possibly sentient - machine. This is never brought up again in the story afterward. Why bring this up only to immediately drop it?
I also feel that the missions on Titan were pointless filler. Nothing of consequence happened there and Zavala had no reason to go there, much less stay there. What about the Iron Temple? The Reef? The Farm you end up going to anyway? The Titan portion of the story also ends abruptly with the 'oh btw I somehow know the Cabal have a star-killer aimed at our sun'.
Also abrupt was going to Io and just landing next to Ikora on a cliff immediately.
I didn't mind Cayde too much, but the bits with him and chickens felt forced, especially in the context of Bungie themselves specifically pointing out chickens in the Farm reveal before launch.
I feel like this story could have been much better if some characters / factions were swapped around and some of the gaps were filled in. Here's how I would've done it;
Start with an instance where you are patrolling in Old Russia (just re-use part of the old map for this story instance) when you are interrupted by a lone Cabal ship entering orbit. Ghost could say something like "A Cabal ship, here on Earth? That can't be good...", and then on your way to the landing spot, Ghost will receive a frantic message from Rasputin. A Cabal crew is breaching Rasputin's Vault and you follow them in. You kill them, only to discover that they have placed multiple devices either jamming, disconnecting, or severely damaging Rasputin. Right as Ghost comments on all this, Zavala hijacks the comms with a system-wide emergency broadcast; "Attention all Guardians; we have intercepted emergency Cabal communications directing any and all remaining forces in the system to return to the Cabal base on Phobos. We do not know what their purpose is, but whatever it is; it can't be good. I'm calling on any able Guardians to rally to Phobos to end this Cabal threat."
Hard cut to a cutscene.
You come up on Phobos in your ship when a massive Cabal fleet jumps into the system from hyperspeed, with many of their ships heading straight for Earth. Ghost comments on how bad this is. Hard cut to the Tower; Zavala gets word that a Cabal fleet entered the system and then asks Ikora to check the satellites. As Ikora is checking on the satellite feeds, they all go down one by one. THEN the Cabal arrive over the City and wreck the Tower.
Instead of this just being the Red Legion led by Ghaul, it is a vast military force; the main Empire forces, comprised of many legions, of which Ghaul's Red Legion is one. I would remove the focus on Ghaul and shift it to the Cabal Emperor as main antagonist. Ghaul's mentor would be cut out entirely. Ghaul will still be the one on the ship in the intro. The Cabal Emperor could be the one sitting around trying to talk to the Speaker to find things out, with Ghaul becoming increasingly frustrated with him over the course of the game as the Guardian slays his forces while the Emperor sits around doing nothing. When the Speaker reveals himself as a fraud, Ghaul snaps, and fights and usurps the Emperor and the legions with his loyal Red Legion. Then he claims the Light and we fight him.
Bonus suggestion; Instead of the Traveler just randomly deciding to break free, have us at least weaken the restraints during the final boss fight.
More bonus suggestions; Have anything significant take place on Titan, and maybe when we get to Io add a mission where we have to track down Ikora first.
I'll probably have some more thoughts as I play more / Crucible / Strikes, but I think that's quite enough for now. Overall I feel the game is quite the improvement over vanilla Destiny, even with the listed cons. I'll very much enjoy playing this despite feeling it could have been better.
Wont respond to everything you said, but otherwise, I had the same thoughts.
Ending Spoilers below.
It would seem that they would hint at something deeper, more mature, something darker (speaker being a fraud, Gauhl wanting to Traveler to "See" him by not draining the light...though in the end, the Traveler did "see" him, but that didn't feel like what the previous scene meant, him killing his mentor...Zavala having a crisis of faith as a commander, Ikora searching for answers about her own mortality) all could have been deeper. While perhaps not needing to be in the main story (long drawn out cutscenes tend to not go over well and can mess with pacing), I would have hoped there was more fleshing out of these ideas. Maybe they will. We havent even been to reset yet.
Glad my friends and I weren't the only ones that noticed this, we quit every time it comes up. We thought we were missing some mechanic for the boss the first few times, but nope, he's just a huge, awful bullet sponge.
Okay finally have done all the Destiny 2 strikes so obviously time to rank them.
1. The Pyramidion - This area is so cool. Visually stunning. Lots of environmental traps. Holding points here is fun. Boss was super cool with fun, simple mechanics.
2. The Inverted Spire - Also super cool area and nice mix of enemies to fight. Great boss too. The drill bit always looks cool.
3. The Arms Dealer - fun strike, the nightfall made me hate it a bit more though lol
4. Savathun's song - Really cool boss at the end, love the location
5. Lake of Shadows - Pretty basic strike, final boss with the raising water is kind of a neat mechanic
6. Exodus Crash - this one just sucks. Mostly reused areas, that light portion is dumb and pointless, the boss is easily the worst by a long shot due to the invisibility and teleporting away.
