• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Destiny |OT22| Game of Thorns

Status
Not open for further replies.

E92 M3

Member
I think a big problem that will affect a range of people (Ghaleon included) is that the Prison of Elders bosses aren't all equally difficult. Valus Trau'ug I can see being a huge clusterfuck of a fight at 34 (it already was at 32). Qodron, as many have said here, is a very difficult fight and a huuuge spike from what we had last week. Personally, I really love the fight, and I think it was a smart implementation of mechanics into a fight that I wish they did more often. Lastly, as previously mentioned, Urrox was pretty damn easy for a first week's taste at 34. I don't think many of us had a problem at all with him, even at 33. On top of all this, we've still got 2 more bosses we haven't seen (datamined-- though I would love to see more). This fluctuation in difficulty is really throwing people for a loop in these initial weeks. Last week it was, with some effort, very doable to finish PoE 34 as a group of 33s. It gave us an expectation that it was going to be like this and this week proves it is very much not the case. People who are still 33s could very well have a very hard time finishing the PoE 34's with reasonable time that several of us have done multiple times last week to get a character to 34. I wouldn't say it's a simple problem, but it is a notable one.

Secondly, I wish the progression was slower. This isn't a common or likable opinion, especially here I think, but they're handing out etheric light in way too many places way too fast. I think it's a byproduct of having multiple characters and just sharing loot between the characters but that really throws progression balancing in a really crazy loop. From what Ghaleon has said, I take it he's not running everything three times a week to get three times the loot so like many of us are to boost a single character ahead. But many of us are doing just that and many of us have accelerated our characters because we could get one to 34 on day one and quickly get groups to do 35 and it snowballed into this week (including Trials that handed them out in spades to many of us). Now some of us, me included, have all 34s with a bucket of Etheric Light with which we have no idea what to do. I really don't like that. We shouldn't be at this point in less than 2 weeks.

This mostly boils down to me expecting Monthly-Sub style MMO content in an MMO-like game that doesn't have a subscription. I want a slow burn progression that makes me work for it. I want a raid that takes (up to) weeks of practice and headbanging to finish completely. I want to spend a month hitting max level with the new expansion. I don't want to exhaust all the content there is in 2 weeks. This is a $15 DLC addon to a $60 game, though, and that's where we're at. The problem is they talk as if it is a slow burn and as if we have a quality-of-life system that they need to balance. There's hardly any quality-of-life to worry about when we will exhaust all there is in 2 weeks and then bail after 3 or 4. This thread will slow down to a crawl again like it did after TDB because of just that, though. Again, it comes back to us approaching the game as if it was a subscription-style MMO when it is just a $15 addon. I would prefer the former in this case, clearly, but it isn't and it bothers me. I want it to be but it isn't and I treat it like it is but it doesn't really play by those rules.

I really do hope they have a plan to trickle in more content until Destiny 2/Comet/The Taken King/whateverthehellitis because they have the systems in place now to do so. Prison of Elders is a great modular way to add in small bits of new content. Make a new boss fight over a few weeks and throw it in the game. Spread out Trials cause holy shit is it overload with the amount of progression/loot you can get from it if you can get 9-0s. Make Etheric Light untradable between characters (this isn't a solution at this point, the damage is done, but I want the equivalent of this in the future).


My least favorite part of Destiny is racing to the max level and leveling up weapons. I love to just have things done so I can play the game and mess around with different builds. Secondly, Bungie nailed the rewards for trials; if it wasn't for the awesome loot I would not have even bothered playing. To go alongside with the awesome chest, Mercury is a beautiful environment of its own. I'd say the best in the game.

Bungie needs to do something like that for PVE.

Overall, I'd like to say that you are vastly overestimating the general public. DO NOT look at popular online communities as a barometer of how Destiny is played. We are a very core group.
 

rNilla

Member
I started doing something last night I never thought I would.... I started to upgrade the no land beyond.... what am i doing?

I was doing that and finished earlier today!

tumblr_inline_nbnfhbtTFM1s48wv3.gif
 

Hyun Sai

Member
Overall, I'd like to say that you are vastly overestimating the general public. DO NOT look at popular online communities as a barometer of how Destiny is played. We are a very core group.

Well said.

None of my friends of my regular group are 34 and got zero Etheric Light, so it's not really good to judge speed clearing content based on Neogaf community.
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
My least favorite part of Destiny is racing to the max level and leveling up weapons. I love to just have things done so I can play the game and mess around with different builds. Secondly, Bungie nailed the rewards for trials; if it wasn't for the awesome loot I would not have even bothered playing. To go alongside with the awesome chest, Mercury is a beautiful environment of its own. I'd say the best in the game.

Bungie needs to do something like that for PVE.

Overall, I'd like to say that you are vastly overestimating the general public. DO NOT look at popular online communities as a barometer of how Destiny is played. We are a very core group.

Absolutely agree. I just wish we had PoE matchmaking. Raids I'll still be grumpy about but I understand. PoE and Nightfall, not so much.
 

X-Frame

Member
I just discovered the Destiny Item Manager, wow this is functionality that should be in game or at the very least in Bungie.net.

If only I used Chrome however.
 
Absolutely agree. I just wish we had PoE matchmaking. Raids I'll still be grumpy about but I understand. PoE and Nightfall, not so much.

Some randoms invited me to do the 32 PoE last night, it took over an hour because they didn't know what they were doing, kept making the same mistakes even after I told them what to do. Matchmaking for stuff like that would be very frustrating.
 

E92 M3

Member
Well said.

None of my friends of my regular group are 34 and got zero Etheric Light, so it's not really good to judge speed clearing content based on Neogaf community.

Yeah, we are an outlier for sure. And that's why I KNOW that we are not getting more vault space for a long time :(. I really need more vault space and a way to save all the aesthetic items.

Absolutely agree. I just wish we had PoE matchmaking. Raids I'll still be grumpy about but I understand. PoE and Nightfall, not so much.

Trust me, just basing of weekly heroic matchmaking you don't want it for NF and higher level POE. It'll end up being a huge hassle.
 
I just discovered the Destiny Item Manager, wow this is functionality that should be in game or at the very least in Bungie.net.

If only I used Chrome however.

Use loadouts or tower ghost for your phone. Creating loadouts that you can move instantly is game changing. I prefer tower ghost.
 

Kyne

Member
ToO has definitely instilled more confidence in my ability to lead a party. I used to just hop on IB trains back in the day but I'll definitely be hosting them this time around.

It's gonna be great. I haven't felt a sensation like this since I lead guilds back in the Ragnarok Online days.
 

Hyun Sai

Member
Absolutely agree. I just wish we had PoE matchmaking. Raids I'll still be grumpy about but I understand. PoE and Nightfall, not so much.

That can be tricky. Even a 32 PoE with a random group can be some hell of a moment.

I would definitely NEVER do matchmaking for 34 and 35
 

Shito

Member
Some randoms invited me to do the 32 PoE last night, it took over an hour because they didn't know what they were doing, kept making the same mistakes even after I told them what to do. Matchmaking for stuff like that would be very frustrating.
Kinda like the weekly, really, it would be hit or miss, but still a possibility.
I understand why it would be frustrating, though: we tried to do the 32 this week with my gf and another friend, and after 2 hours couldn't get passed the arc burn round because they kept dying / would be a tad bit too slow to kill things. After they decided to call it quit and go to bed, I got two gaffers here to do it and we easily got it done in 30 minutes, with just a stupid wipe on that arc burn round.
PoE is not difficult, but far from easy for a lot of people...
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
Some randoms invited me to do the 32 PoE last night, it took over an hour because they didn't know what they were doing, kept making the same mistakes even after I told them what to do. Matchmaking for stuff like that would be very frustrating.

Yeah, we are an outlier for sure. And that's why I KNOW that we are not getting more vault space for a long time :(. I really need more vault space and a way to save all the aesthetic items.



Trust me, just basing of weekly heroic matchmaking you don't want it for NF and higher level POE. It'll end up being a huge hassle.

That can be tricky. Even a 32 PoE with a random group can be some hell of a moment.

I would definitely NEVER do matchmaking for 34 and 35

Lol. I consider myself thoroughly shot down :)
 

E92 M3

Member
My favorite moment from last night's ToO sessions:

All three of us killed the other team, at the same time, with our respective grenades. It was really cool.

Without a doubt Trials has become my favorite part of Destiny next to raids. Funny how looking back on my posts, I was completely apathetic. Just like how it was with Destiny itself.
 

lt519

Member
Here's a nice video, much cleaner kill than our first, against The Forever Eater PoE Level 34. The only blip we had was a Harpy jumping in front of my rocket and then us being down a man for the next detainment. But that's why you keep a Warlock around! It was only our second try on the boss and we have the entire level 34 down to under an hour. We wiped stupidly once in the Pilot Servitor fight setting us back 10-15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp_1mgAGI98
 

FyreWulff

Member
Zocano said:
Secondly, I wish the progression was slower.

Just throwing my opinion in on this tidbit, I have a feeling progression is intentionally a bit fast because they wanted you to be able to delete a character and not set yourself back too far. It also means you're never actually far behind everyone else if you start Destiny right now or come back after a hiatus.

That being said, it'd be nice if there was a bit of a super hard reward thing somewhere.
 

Kyne

Member
Lol. I consider myself thoroughly shot down :)

I've never had trouble with with weekly match making and I usually just pull a gaffer that I've never met for lvl 32 POEs. I don't think it would be a problem.

granted, I always play with my girlfriend so all we ever need is a third...
 

Rubenov

Member
I like how much love PvP is getting now after trials. Aside from a few folks in here, for months I felt like an old man yelling at clouds trying to get people to play some PvP.
 
I'd rather be forced to make new friends to play with than ever have matchmaking implemented. If it forced you to have a mic and had expansive search options then maybe it could work.
 

Deku Tree

Member
I like how much love PvP is getting now after trials. Aside from a few folks in here, for months I felt like an old man yelling at clouds trying to get people to play some PvP.

I'm gonna be grinding IB next week. If the buff is good for your other characters then I might grind it on multiple toons. Will be looking for some IB trains.

I hope they sell good IB weapons this time but they probably won't.

ToO was getting too intense for me. I'm not nearly good enough to carry on my own. I don't have a set group, and I found it hard to find a good group to play with and My life is too busy to wait around for good players to jump into my groups.
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
I've never had trouble with with weekly match making and I usually just pull a gaffer that I've never met for lvl 32 POEs. I don't think it would be a problem.

granted, I always play with my girlfriend so all we ever need is a third...

D'awww. My partner is sick of my Destiny talk! Not jealous. No. Not at all.

I'd rather be forced to make new friends to play with than ever have matchmaking implemented. If it forced you to have a mic and had expansive search options then maybe it could work.

Hehe I always have a mic and feel like such an idiot when nobody else does.

"Hello? Hello? Hello? Argh! Sorry. Thanks for the revive!"
 
When the progression system for the House of Wolves was announced, I was pretty ecstatic, along with most of the community. The idea of leveling up my favorite gear and weapons along with the new HoW toys was smart and exactly what Destiny needed to keep the sandbox relevent. Between new HoW gear and the etheric light/ascending system, I thought I'd have several paths forward for my characters.

In reality, for a PvE player such as myself, it's even more limiting than The Dark Below was. There, progression was tied to raid gear (again, just a PvE player), but a few runs on each character is what it took to get the gear. At the least, I felt somewhat in control of my own progression, even if the shard requirements were unreasonable.

Right now my only reliable path forward is to run the level 32 Prison of Elders for the armor cores, and buy what Variks has on rotation each week. Assuming I run it three times a week, I can get everyone to max level in three weeks. I've run it twice and accidentally wasted one of my cores. (Whoops.) This means I'll end up with the one set with the higher light levels, as with TDB, which is what I thought the etheric light system was designed to fix.

(After six Nightfalls, the sixth granted etheric light, which I use to bring Fatebringer up to 365. My Titan was feeling how underleveled it was in the Weekly/Nightfall. It's clear the NF won't be a reliable or predictable way to progress.)

I don't understand why we have to run a level 34 activity to get the upgrade materials needed to get us to level 34. I don't understand why treasure keys are so extraordinarily rare. (Outside of the story progression, I got one and my daughter has received zero after two weeks of bounties.) And I really don't understand why etheric light is just dropped into the Nightfalls as a possible reward, rather than added to the second drop slot so we can progress our own gear at a moderate pace (that would also get 3 characters to level 34 in three weeks, as with Variks...but using the gear of our choice.)

I have no plans to attempt the level 34 PoE again any time soon, unless it's substantially rebalanced. Up to the boss was fine, the boss himself....nope. This is making something hard in the wrong way; it wasn't fun, it wasn't interesting, and it wasn't something I ever want to do again. I don't like the level 32 boss either, but he's a more reasonable proposition. Faced with running level 34 PoE, or slowly leveling through Variks gear, I'll take the latter.

Right now I feel less in control of my progression than I have at any point since Destiny came out. It's a very frustrating development in what is otherwise a superb expansion.
I feel your pain, Ghaleon. what I did, actually, was purchase 2 pieces of PoE armor for each character, even though they are strength attributed, and ascended my characters' exotic helmets. I went through the 34 PoE arena activity once, underleveled, and I don't mind admitting that it was not an experience that I'd like to repeat. I did, however, get that first piece of EL which I did not use on the character that just went through the arena (my titan). I used on my next character to remove the under-leveled disadvantage. I was able to run the next 34 PoE on my warlock as a 34 after ascending my boots, which made the run smoother, and made me much less squishy. After I ran it with my 'lock, I ran it with my hunter using the EL that the warlock earned. My hunter then ran it on 34, and with the last EL, I was able to ascend my titan to 34. It made going through PoE much less painful.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
I like how much love PvP is getting now after trials. Aside from a few folks in here, for months I felt like an old man yelling at clouds trying to get people to play some PvP.
Well the regular pvp is still shit. And the rewards make it. Supergalore is still the reason why I dislike pvp
 

nOoblet16

Member
Out of curiosity, can you be logged into your PSN account from two consoles at the same time?
If yes then can you log into destiny from both of them ?

I thought they were pushing IB manually because of that. Wasn't the last IB later in the day?

I thought this wasn't possibly anymore anyways? Since IB doesn't start till 10 am PST?

Yea I forgot that they push it out later in the day now...guess I can do it now.
In any case the trick still works, the weekly reset doesn't reset you IB rank if it did then the trick would never have worked in the first place since there are many weekly resets between two IB.

Because of this I came to the conclusion last time around that IB has its own reset and is decoupled from the weekly reset, so you can still do the trick at reset time which is 6PM UK time for me. I know this because I tried it last time.
 
BREEZY'S 'BREEZY' STRATEGIES!

This weeks episode: Episode 06- "Qodrons Quirky Quipu!"

Starring-You!



This map should be self explanatory. I'll explain what the different colored lines mean. So the basic strategy of this, if you don't have Gjallahorns or want to waste time waiting for synths, is pretty simple. The first thing you're going to immediately do when you enter the arena, is rush to the right side of the arena. Or where the blue dots are. There is decent coverage here, but we'll talk about that later about how it plays into the decision to choose that side, let's talk about the mechanics.



Qodrons Eye

This is the first 'Mechanic' you may see. One Goblin out of the many Qodron sends towards you, will be a yellow bar Goblin who's also shimmering Silver. This Goblin will home in on the closest Guardian-So it's paramount that you and your group rush to the right side or you might lose him before the first jail. If anyone lags behind, the Eye will go towards them and he'll take an alternate route. If you look at my drawing, the dashed silver line represents this. If one of your teammates lags near the entrance, the Eye will take the route as drawn. It is paramount to have an eye on the jailer, and to have a designated 'Jailbreaker'. Qodron throws out the first Jail about 30 seconds after the start of the fight, and then about 30-45 seconds later after that. You can immediately kill the first Qodron you see and have enough time to clear the first jail, but after that you have to stagger when you kill the eye. There is always atleast 1 eye spawned, and as soon as you kill it another appears to take it's place even while you still have the buff. So keep an Eye out!

Qodrons Jail
Every once in a while, Qodron will summon a jail. This jail is incredibly strong, and will resist all gunfire unless you have the Jailbreaker buff. It is paramount you designate an eye killer, so that he can break you out. Only 1 person gets the buff, but everyone gets jailed. The Jail will also do damage to you, and will kill you if you are low.



So onto the actual map. I drew two silver lines-One is full and one is dashed. If you are all on the right side, the Eye will take the full silver path. If one of you lags, the Eye will be set to the dashed line and you might lose sight of him. Now you're wondering, 'Wait why doesn't it just walk directly to us?' There is a natural slope that prevents Vex from walking up towards you. Refer to the picture again. Do you see how the silver and red lines penetrate the dome? There is a little entrance to the right side that goblins and hobgoblins, as well as the Eye itself are funneled to get to you. Refer to the mass of red dashes, that is where most Vex will huddle around, and only 1 or 2 hobgoblins will come at you at a time. Unlike the left side of the arena, which is a flat ground and goblins will happily walk over to you. The only time a Vex will get to you, is if a Harpy will accidentally fly over the slope, realize that he came in too early, and exit stage left in shame.



So why did I only draw one silver line for the Goblin? As long as you and your team are on the right side, the Eye will always take the same path, walking towards you and walking around the 'Block' and going into the entrance on the side. He will ALWAYS pass by right in front of you. However, so will some hobgoblins and goblins. most of them bunch up by the entrance to your little slice of heaven, but you should never get any goblins assaulting you directly.



The only other thing to worry about is ammo. Since little to no goblins are near you, you'll have to venture out to collect ammo from the heaps of corpses infront of you. Call out to your group for 'Clear out some adds in front' or say you're going for an ammo run, there's usually plenty if you've had one person clearing out huge groups of adds with grenades. Voidlocks are actually pretty damn great for this fight.

And that's it. I hope you enjoyed the guide. Now go get him, Rangers!

Edit-Oh yeah during the actual 'Jail' mechanic, group up to the rightmost area behind the rubble, nothing can hit you on the rightmost side.

Excellent guide. This is exactly what we did doing Qodron. I've done it 6 or 7 times so far, with groups of 33 as well. No Gjallarhorns except me, which I rarely used since I would be on eye duty and would use rockets to clear adds whenever I picked up ammo. Most of the fight I would not be shooting the boss at all. Shotgun saved for breaking the jail detains. No synths for the entire fight. And the other 2 would snipe or shoot scouts at Qodron in between helping me clear the 7 or 8 enemies that would be advancing on us. I find the fight a lot of fun and not that difficult at all once you get the timing of the mechanics down. Each of the groups I've run it with have said the fight was pretty easy as well, even the 33s. Everyone, listen to Breezy. This is how you get it done. The difficulty of the fight is entirely dependent on how on the ball your Eye killer is. They will make or break the team.

Also, 2 people can usually manage to get the jailbreak buff if you're quick. 3 if everyone is really watching. That makes getting out of the detain much easier.
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
Yea I forgot that they push it out later in the day now...guess I can do it now.
In any case the trick still works, the weekly reset doesn't reset you IB rank if it did then the trick would never have worked in the first place since there are many weekly resets between two IB.

Because of this I came to the conclusion last time around that IB has its own reset and is decoupled from the weekly reset, so you can still do the trick at reset time which is 6PM UK time for me.

Are you UK?

Sometimes thing we should have an informal list of Brits.
 

noomi

Member
Wait... so is ToO gone already? I thought it stays active until Reset time on Tuesday?

*edit*

nevermind... it's still there lol.
 

X-Frame

Member
Use loadouts or tower ghost for your phone. Creating loadouts that you can move instantly is game changing. I prefer tower ghost.

Thanks! Yeah it seems Loadouts is a better designed and native iOS app whereas Tower a Ghost is just a ported web app or something.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom