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Destiny |OT23| This Train is Bound for Mercury

R

Rubenov

Member
Zoba said:
who wants to join the glimmer farm weapon parts train?

basically

  • farm 25000 glimmer at gatekeepers
  • with a polyphage popped, you net 592 glimmer per lap around the vault, which takes less than a minute. so you should hit the cap in less than half an hour
  • then you buy all the jewels from brotha vance (requires 7 wins on a ticket) and dismantle them.
  • 1 jewel = 500 glimmer and dismantles into 2-3 weapon parts. assuming you buy them until you run out of glimmer, you'll have dismantled 50 jewels for 100-150 weapon parts
  • rinse and repeat until you have enough weapon parts to gamble at the gunsmith again -_-

i sound like graverobber
Click to expand...

How nice I will do this tonight. Hopefully I can get the checkpoint from someone.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
Speaking of VoC, i got a Solar Scholar yesterday, so I have a Solar and Arc one now. It's probably my favorite Scout Rifle in the game, although I'd love to roll the Vanguard or Dead Orbit ones with explosive rounds. I'd probably have more luck with those than with LGH.

Just need Fatebringer and a Solar Jewel and I'm all set for elemental primaries. Wouldn't mind a Void Summoner either.
 
K

Ken

Member
Deku Tree said:
I would like more weapons parts to re-roll for the perfect weapons with the optimal perks etc.

But then I realized the other day that I am better off working on my very average PvP skills with the huge number of very good weapons that I already have rather than grinding for even more OP weapons. This is probably more fun too.

BTW, should I buy the "increased grenade throw distance helmet" from the crucible quartermaster and the "increased hand canon reload speed and increased melee attack speed" gloves from the DO vendor for PvP purposes? Is that the best way to get all three of those perks? (It would suck to not be able to use one my my favorite exotic helmets in PvP though.)
Click to expand...

What subclass are you?
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
I never really got around to posting impressions of the House of Wolves; I was too busy playing it to do so (which in some ways is all that needs to be said). Since the Comet reveal is days away (OMG) I thought I'd do a short version of what I found notable in this expansion.

Note that I haven't played Trials of Osiris (sorry Lars!) but people seem to like it a lot? Certainly the structure and rewards wrapper around it are a huge step up and seem to have really done a lot to make a Crucible event really cool. I love the idea of the daily package for the daily Crucible event too, but that's all I've got.

Story Missions

Before the House of Wolves dropped, I made a post hoping that "not a single press button and fight scene in HoW's story missions." This was kind of my minimum bar for mission design with HoW, and I'm so glad it cleared it.

We still fight plenty of waves of enemies, but the combat loop is very different when we have a pre-arranged or developing encounter on a large battlefield, rather than defending a set location from waves of enemies. The best encounters in the HoW feel a whole lot like some of the better fights from the Halo campaigns (the battle way back where Dinklebot wakes us, and the final mission are standouts). In a game where we're often playing the same content with each character class and using different load outs, designing encounters to be tacked a variety of ways is critical. House of Wolves is the first time we've seen this approach used consistently.

Random thoughts

  • It was neat to see Fallen doing things other than waiting to fight us. Even just listening in as the big bad gave a speech, or Captains standing around a central control room, add a lot of context to the encounters.
  • There was still some points in the story where I'm not sure what was happening. In the Kings Watch sequence, I'm still not sure if we're fighting Wolves who got there first, or Kings who are aligned to them, or what. We just show up and kill everyone, which sets the Wolves back but doesn't end the Kings. Or something.
  • The last two missions are brilliant but too short. Stitched together, they could have formed a large, even epic mission. But apart, they're two small skirmishes and then a great climactic fight. My worry is Bungie sees story missions as something that should always be bite-sized, and we'll never get something as diverse and wonderful as the bigger missions in the Halo series (Assault on the Control Room, The Ark). I know Destiny is it's own thing, but there's a grandeur to the world and to the ambitions of the story that fall short when we only experience it in bite sized chunks.

Prison of Elders

I'm mostly going to talk about the matchmaking version here, but I'll touch on my experience with level 32.

Short version: it's a lot more than I expected, yet it could also be so much more.

Less short version: A mode that spans four arenas, has environmental hazards, objectives in the mix (destroy stationary targets, defend stationary targets, destroy moving target), multiple bosses and rotating combat modifiers is, on paper, pretty awesome. In practice it's mostly pretty good. Gonna bust out the bullet points for this one.

The good

  • Incorporating most or all of the arenas into a single PoE run is a smart design decision; I thought each game would focus on one, when it was announced.
  • Mixing objectives into the rounds is great, and mostly works well. It's good to see Bungie starting to ask more of their matchmaking playerbase than just killing stuff and reviving fireteam members. They found a good balance.
  • Lots of modifiers in the mix.
  • The rewards are pretty good; the matchmade version offers much better rewards than a strike, which is appropriate given the time commit. And the way it's delivered - the treasure room - is wonderful. I hope we see a lot more of stuff like it, and Mercury, in future expansions.
  • It's fun! Mostly. More on that in a sec.

Stuff that could be better

  • The pacing seems off. The early waves are cleared very fast, and there's a pretty long pause between each. With 12 waves across the four arenas, and a trip back to the airlock after each, there's a lot of downtime in each run. If each arena were extended to ~80-90 enemies, from the current ~60, and the rounds cut from four down to three (three arenas and a boss, rather than four and then a boss), I think the pacing would be better and allow for a more natural combat:downtime ratio. This would allow for better internal pacing to each wave as well; right now some of them are over before they really seem to get started. Two shorter waves and a more intense miniboss wave would make each arena more satisfying to clear.
  • Environmental hazards - the stasis mines - should affect enemies as well. That would enable a whole new angle for strategy, enabling players to use hazards to our advantage. It feels cheap as is.
  • The modifiers are not being used to full advantage yet. Deploying one at a time usually only tweaks things - just something to be aware of rather than making an arena play differently. There should be some thought put into pairing complimentary modifiers, rather than doling out one at a time. (Brawler and Lightswitch come to mind). They are almost a non-factor as is - in the matchmaking version. There's the opposite problem with the challenge modes.
  • Limiting the arenas to one enemy faction at a time is a huge missed opportunity. Most of the best fights in the game are between factions, such as the Skywatch megabattle. A group of Vex Minotaurs spawning into a heavy Fallen round at random, or an incursion of Hive, would really shake things up.

The bad

  • I've played the level 32 challenge mode four times, clearing it twice. The speed with which it toggles from "this is fun" to "this is total bullshit" can be jarring. I'm all for challenge, but pairing a stationary target defense objective with a burn is really not fun at all and strikes me as very poor design: make players a near-stationary target when enemies have a 3x damage boost to them. Burns should NOT be on mine dismantling modes.
  • There are two ways Bungie brings out the adds with bosses: send out a wave when the boss reaches a certain health threshold, and spawn them in constantly. PoE uses the latter, and it should really use the former. For all the grief Omnigul's boss fight gets (which is mostly justified), the ebb and flow of the battle is one of the best things about it. The constant barrage of adds gets wearying, fast, in PoE boss fights.
  • While I appreciate new boss mechanics, the two I've encountered so far were both highly problematic. "the floor is lava" is a great idea. "If you get shot while hopping around, then you die" is poor execution. I got to the Vex boss once (pre-nerf) and it was just awful; having the stasis fields actually kill players is far too punitive, especially when the boss and adds are dangerous enough as it is. I get that they wanted another mechanic in the mix with the Eye, but all that does is make it so only a single strategy will work (turtle up so the one with the buff can jailbreak). Bungie is still learning how to make very hard stuff also be very fun.

Closing thoughts

What I didn't expect about House of Wolves was just how cohesive the whole package is. The wolf pack patrols tie to Petra's bounties (which are smartly set on weekly rotation), which provide treasure keys to get the goods in Prison of Elders. They also serve to push more players into public spaces, and which have enabled some of the most entertaining emergent battles I've had in Destiny: players and events coming together in unexpected and unplanned ways for a fun battle.

The whole package is just so much more cohesive than anything in either the base game or (especially) The Dark Below, as modes support one another, objectives mingle and existing ideas (public events) get tied into the activities in a new way. The disparate parts of Destiny feel a lot less disparate with the House of Wolves.

And with HoW in the mix, there's officially a lot to do in Destiny. I now have to actively triage the list of things I can do each week and day: rather than check down the usual list (daily/weekly/nightfall/raid maybe?) , I pick and choose what activities I have time for, or what I'm in the mood for. This will increasingly be the future of Destiny, as Comet is going to expand the game far more than either of the first two DLC's did.

When Destiny shipped, it felt like a flawed platform with a solid base from which a better game could be built. With the House of Wolves I feel like Destiny is starting to near the potential we saw in the game at launch.

Best of all, it's clear Bungie is in this for the long haul. The level of polish, from the UI to new features and tweaks (that last update was both timely and smartly designed) mean that Destiny will be a moving target for a long time. I've never seen a game evolve this much since launch, and in less than a year to boot. A couple years from now this game is going to be positively bonkers.

(I didn't touch on the strike (it's great), or the Reef (it's also great), or a bunch of other things (the Cabal waves in PoE), but that's all I had time to crank out over lunch.)
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
I think it was Daemul who said you hate scouts but love pulse rifles? I'm the opposite. I absolutely cannot stand the Pulse Rifles in this game. In my conscious, the higher pitched a weapon sound effect is, the faster it should fire. So it throws me off when Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles and even Auto Rifles (except Suros) fire very slowly. The Red Death was my first exotic and I didn't like using it because it used to fire very slowly. The high fire rate weapons tend to have terrible impact or small magazines, so it defeats the point of using them. Hand Cannons on the other hand have deeper tones, so they can get away with slower fire rates.

Maybe I'm just too used to TLW. Everything else is too slow.
 
X

xplicitone

Member
Kor of Memory said:
That's great, but you're going to have ammo problems pretty soon, most likely. Also incredibly situational.

It takes 3 of you to melt a L35 Captain with the same weapon, but I can 3HKO a 35Captain with my own shotgun and safe a lot more ammo.
Click to expand...

I should fix that. We melted many captains with it without getting in close range with them :p but yea, i mean shotguns are situational too. That's what's good about PoE, every round is basically a different loadout.
 
T

The Mango Sentinel

Member
Kor of Memory said:
That sounds like a terrible reason to need a weapon type. Something to pick off with when you've run out of other options?

Every other special weapon can be used primarily (and pretty much should be) assuming you have the ammo for it.
Click to expand...
I'm talking strictly pvp. Say I killed someone with The Last Word and I have 3 shots left in the magazine and someone comes around the corner and is backpedaling and I pop them with the last 3 shots but don't kill them, this is where Vestian Dynasty comes in. I don't use it all the time but there are situations where it was great. On the flipside there were a lot of times when I wished I would've had a shotgun.

Yeah I wasn't talking about using it as an option when I actually run dry on other ammo, lol.
 
K

Ken

Member
Deku Tree said:
I usually run Titan Striker or Hunter Gunslinger or Warlock Voidwalker in PvP.

Was thinking generally since I have Crucible marks to spend and all the perks are the same on the armor for each class.
Click to expand...

Hunters have a nice handcannon reload glove from the Vanguard with I/D (and I think melee speed up) called Sanction Six. Just pair that with Symbiote head for the Ashes to Assets. I'd probably prioritize Ashes to Assets > HC reload > grenade throw, and then Rain Blows for PvP.

For Warlock...the current FWC arms are scout reload up. I have an old Astrolord Glove with HC reload so not really sure the options there.
 
W

WheelHoss1

Member
Zoba said:
who wants to join the glimmer farm weapon parts train?

basically

  • farm 25000 glimmer at gatekeepers
  • with a polyphage popped, you net 592 glimmer per lap around the vault, which takes less than a minute. so you should hit the cap in less than half an hour
  • then you buy all the jewels from brotha vance (requires 7 wins on a ticket) and dismantle them.
  • 1 jewel = 500 glimmer and dismantles into 2-3 weapon parts. assuming you buy them until you run out of glimmer, you'll have dismantled 50 jewels for 100-150 weapon parts
  • rinse and repeat until you have enough weapon parts to gamble at the gunsmith again -_-

i sound like graverobber
Click to expand...

Sounds brilliant. If only I didn't suck at Trials . . .
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
EL CUCO said:
Deku, I bought and ascended my quick HC reload gauntlets from the vendor. No regrets.
Click to expand...

Good advice!

Ken said:
Hunters have a nice handcannon reload glove from the Vanguard with I/D (and I think melee speed up) called Sanction Six. Just pair that with Symbiote head for the Ashes to Assets. I'd probably prioritize Ashes to Assets > HC reload > grenade throw, and then Rain Blows for PvP.

For Warlock...the current FWC arms are scout reload up. I have an old Astrolord Glove with HC reload so not really sure the options there.
Click to expand...

Also good advice! Thanks! I forgot to look at the vanguard. I will check them out too.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
GhaleonEB said:
I never really got around to posting impressions of the House of Wolves; I was too busy playing it to do so (which in some ways is all that needs to be said). Since the Comet reveal is days away (OMG) I thought I'd do a short version of what I found notable in this expansion.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the write up. I feel the same way about a lot of your points, especially regarding the story and cohesiveness of the whole package. PoE is a neat idea but I still expected a lot more as far as presentation and challenge goes. Despite being different every week, it's gotten somewhat stale to me. I think it's just the general claustrophobia of being confined to a dark room with adds on all sides and not much happening as far as map traversal unless you're fighting Skolas.

On that note, Skolas void burn is one of the better encounters in the game. It's held back only by the holes with the entire PoE design and of course Destiny's enemy behavior in general. But it's the main activity in PoE that I've enjoyed.

If nothing else, hopefully Bungie has figured out a new way to design encounters for the next Raids.
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
Zoba said:
I think it was Daemul who said you hate scouts but love pulse rifles? I'm the opposite. I absolutely cannot stand the Pulse Rifles in this game. In my conscious, the higher pitched a weapon sound effect is, the faster it should fire. So it throws me off when Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles and even Auto Rifles (except Suros) fire very slowly. The Red Death was my first exotic and I didn't like using it because it used to fire very slowly. The high fire rate weapons tend to have terrible impact or small magazines, so it defeats the point of using them. Hand Cannons on the other hand have deeper tones, so they can get away with slower fire rates.

Maybe I'm just too used to TLW. Everything else is too slow.
Click to expand...

Dead orbit Scout rifle comes from the vendor with Full Auto and Explosive rounds and reduced melee and grenade cool downs from solo kills. It is fantastic.

I would like to have a Void Scholar but I haven't been doing much ToO.
 
E

EJRobinson90

Member
Just went to Mercury 3 times, one with TearsOfBlood and Blazeuk and twice with Blazeuk and Grimlock.
GG guys, we all did our share of carrying! Grimlock even picked up a Gjallarhorn.
Think he sharded it in front of the chest
 
M

Misterthirsty

Member
Frenden said:
I play a shitload of Hunter and Warlock PvP, but nearly never Titan. Best exotic for Crucible?

I'm guessing Armamentatium? Any other fun builds?

I assume most folks are too smart to run into a St. 14 bubble.
Click to expand...
I'm not the greatest pvper but I like using skullfort with red death, then select the perk that gives you a chance to instantly recharge melee ability. Basically any kill you get can regen health. Have the rest of your gear all int and disc since melee will be recharged on death and a chance for recharge when you punch or shoulder someone.


Might not be the best build out there but shoulder charging is always fun.
 
L

LTWood12

Member
What's the average amount of time it takes to go 9-0 this week on a card (assuming 9 matches w/ all the buffs)? Trying to plan around some real life commitments for this evening.
 
K

Kor of Memory

Member
GhaleonEB said:
The last two missions are brilliant but too short. Stitched together, they could have formed a large, even epic mission. But apart, they're two small skirmishes and then a great climactic fight. My worry is Bungie sees story missions as something that should always be bite-sized, and we'll never get something as diverse and wonderful as the bigger missions in the Halo series (Assault on the Control Room, The Ark). I know Destiny is it's own thing, but there's a grandeur to the world and to the ambitions of the story that fall short when we only experience it in bite sized chunks.[/LIST]
Click to expand...

This isn't going to go away, I think.

Because Destiny is designed around being a game without a Pause button. Thus, everything you do in destiny needs to be short enough (or have checkpoints) that it can be completed in small sessions. Plus, there are already people that complain about the Black Garden and the Crota Crystal mission when they show up as the Daily.

Also, remember that most of the Halo levels were actually broken up into smaller sub levels.

Almost every Halo 3 level had 3 "chapters" to it. Granted these chapters were very streamlined into each other. They were all transitioned into the same way though. A little letter boxing and the chapter title at the bottom.

Halo 3 has the level The Covenant which has the chapters:
  • If you want it done right
  • Journey's End
  • Revelation

Each of those is about the size of an average Destiny level.
 
noomi

noomi

Member
EJRobinson90 said:
Just went to Mercury 3 times, one with TearsOfBlood and Blazeuk and twice with Blazeuk and Grimlock.
GG guys, we all did our share of carrying! Grimlock even picked up a Gjallarhorn.
Think he sharded it in front of the chest
Click to expand...

Nice guys, grats! Beast mode!
 
T

th3dude

Member
Things I need to do with my lonely 32 hunter tonight before the reset. I was out of town for most of last week:

  • Get a key
  • 28 PoE with said key
  • Maybe find a Gorgon checkpoint
  • Would love to join a ToO team, but again I'm only 32 with low level weapons, so probably not yet
 
K

Ken

Member
Frenden said:
I play a shitload of Hunter and Warlock PvP, but nearly never Titan. Best exotic for Crucible?

I'm guessing Armamentatium? Any other fun builds?

I assume most folks are too smart to run into a St. 14 bubble.
Click to expand...

Arma or Alpha Lupi.

I personally think Alpha Lupi is a waste of the Striker's grenades but eh.
 
GlamFM

GlamFM

Banned
EJRobinson90 said:
Just went to Mercury 3 times, one with TearsOfBlood and Blazeuk and twice with Blazeuk and Grimlock.
GG guys, we all did our share of carrying! Grimlock even picked up a Gjallarhorn.
Think he sharded it in front of the chest
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you are really done.

You still have to get me to 5. :(
 
noomi

noomi

Member
LTWood12 said:
What's the average amount of time it takes to go 9-0 this week on a card (assuming 9 matches w/ all the buffs)? Trying to plan around some real life commitments for this evening.
Click to expand...

blackflag said:
I'm interested in the answer to this too. I haven't tried ToO yet.
Click to expand...

Well that's kind of hard to say, really depends on how many good teams you fight. I've done it in 45min once, but usually it takes an hour and a half it seems.
 
K

Kor of Memory

Member
xplicitone said:
I should fix that. We melted many captains with it without getting in close range with them :p but yea, i mean shotguns are situational too. That's what's good about PoE, every round is basically a different loadout.
Click to expand...

But Sidearms and Shotguns seem to have almost the exact same range coverage. Both Sidearms have crazy damage dropoff just outside of 7 meters.

The Mango Sentinel said:
I'm talking strictly pvp. Say I killed someone with The Last Word and I have 3 shots left in the magazine and someone comes around the corner and is backpedaling and I pop them with the last 3 shots but don't kill them, this is where Vestian Dynasty comes in. I don't use it all the time but there are situations where it was great. On the flipside there were a lot of times when I wished I would've had a shotgun.

Yeah I wasn't talking about using it as an option when I actually run dry on other ammo, lol.
Click to expand...

I guess I don't see how the situation above is beneficial for a Sidearm. It seems like a shotgun would be just as good here.

Like I said. I can't tell if the weapon type needs work, or the individual weapons. I can't figure out their role, at all, and that's really whats bugging me.

It seems like everything they can do, a shotgun can do better, and more efficiently.
 
N

nOoblet16

Member
Zoba said:
Appreciate the write up. I feel the same way about a lot of your points, especially regarding the story and cohesiveness of the whole package. PoE is a neat idea but I still expected a lot more as far as presentation and challenge goes. Despite being different every week, it's gotten somewhat stale to me. I think it's just the general claustrophobia of being confined to a dark room with adds on all sides and not much happening as far as map traversal unless you're fighting Skolas.

On that note, Skolas void burn is one of the better encounters in the game. It's held back only by the holes with the entire PoE design and of course Destiny's enemy behavior in general. But it's the main activity in PoE that I've enjoyed.

If nothing else, hopefully Bungie has figured out a new way to design encounters for the next Raids.
Click to expand...
It's annoying when ads just appear out of thin air in skolas fight, especially that platform with B mine is very susceptible to this.
 
X

xplicitone

Member
LTWood12 said:
What's the average amount of time it takes to go 9-0 this week on a card (assuming 9 matches w/ all the buffs)? Trying to plan around some real life commitments for this evening.
Click to expand...

I don't know but I can tell you the average time it takes to get 3 losses... whatever the average time of a single match is and multiply it by 3!
 
E

EJRobinson90

Member
noomi said:
Nice guys, grats! Beast mode!
Click to expand...

Thanks noomi! I think the competition was not that great on a Monday EU evening, but Blaze and Grim were doing a great job as well.
Favorite part was when I was last man standing, Nova Bombed 2 guys on Grim's body and then blink out of a Fist of Panic to Thorn him to dead. That match was so intense.

GlamFM said:
I'm not sure you are really done.

You still have to get me to 5. :(
Click to expand...

Aw sorry man, I had to go. Early day at uni tomorrow.
But I think some of the guys are still playing, maybe Grim is up for it?
 
O

Orthogonal

Member
Zoba said:
Speaking of VoC, i got a Solar Scholar yesterday, so I have a Solar and Arc one now. It's probably my favorite Scout Rifle in the game, although I'd love to roll the Vanguard or Dead Orbit ones with explosive rounds. I'd probably have more luck with those than with LGH.

Just need Fatebringer and a Solar Jewel and I'm all set for elemental primaries. Wouldn't mind a Void Summoner either.
Click to expand...

Wish I could reliably get more attempts at getting an elemental Scholar. VoC and Fang got me covered for 2/3 elements well enough so a Void Scholar would be a dream. I still prefer Gheleons Demise over any other scout, but the lack of an element means others out class it in several situations.

I do have a Void Jewel to hild me over until then.
 
T

The Mango Sentinel

Member
Kor of Memory said:
But Sidearms and Shotguns seem to have almost the exact same range coverage. Both Sidearms have crazy damage dropoff just outside of 7 meters.



I guess I don't see how the situation above is beneficial for a Sidearm. It seems like a shotgun would be just as good here.

Like I said. I can't tell if the weapon type needs work, or the individual weapons. I can't figure out their role, at all, and that's really whats bugging me.

It seems like everything they can do, a shotgun can do better, and more efficiently.
Click to expand...
I dunno man, I feel like the Vestian has way more range than a shotgun. I could certainly be wrong though. But the ranges that I've finished people of with the Vestian were certainly out of shotgun range. I'll certainly test it later though.
 
K

Kor of Memory

Member
The Mango Sentinel said:
I dunno man, I feel like the Vestian has way more range than a shotgun. I could certainly be wrong though. But the ranges that I've finished people of with the Vestian were certainly out of shotgun range. I'll certainly test it later though.
Click to expand...

I guess it could depend on your exposure to top tier shotguns in Destiny.

When I think of shotgun range, I'm thinking max shotgun range like Matador and Party Crasher with +Range perks.

Of course, both existing side arms have preset perks and can't be rerolled, so we don't know what kind of range these weapons could have in the future.
 
X

X-Frame

Member
Seems like Planet Destiny deleted their reddit post about The Taken King release date and new subclasses, and removed everything else like comments and tweets about it.

I guess their source freaked out and asked them to take it all down. I guess that confirms the legitimacy.
 
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