Mechanations

As the game ages, things like for-pay level boosters become inevitable, I think. Without them, the wall new players have to scale is just too high. And I think it's llikely we'll soon have shaders, emblems, ships, and sparrows available in exchange for silver. They're all cosmetic and have no bearing on your ability to, as aprettycooldude might say, kill mans. But I don't think all that means we'll stop paying for expansions. I admit I don't really understand what Bungie meant about ETC purchases supporting the "world events" team or whatever, but I don't think you can replace a few (hundred?) thousand people paying for a season pass or an expansion with surely fewer people shelling out $10 for emotes and whatever else.

I almost certainly can't play this weekend, so don't plan around me. Sorry if that creates problems.

Oh, there's nothing to apologize for. To me, the tone was, "OK, we've figured out a little bit, now let's act on it." I don't think anyone was throwing shade on/at anyone else, and I don't think anyone felt criticized. I was thinking primarily of the section where...

I actively play on both platforms (Xbox One with a couple friends, PS4 with y'all Wizard Squad), and other than the exclusive stuff, the experience is identical. There are enough people playing on Xbox One that you're matched for strikes/Crucible/whatever quickly enough, and there are enough people running around the public areas that most public events, Court of Oryx things, and Taken patrols aren't a problem. The main reason to go with the PS4 version, in my estimation, is access to this community. Almost everyone here is on PS4, and that gives you a group of very cool people to do raids and stuff with*. If you have a big enough group of friends on Xbox One, or are willing to roll the dice on an LFG situation, that may not be as important to you. None of the exclusive stuff I've experienced is worth choosing one platform over the other. *I was pretty slow to figure out some raid stuff Saturday, and I didn't get yelled at once. [Edited way late to correct a spelling error and word omission.]

We (video games, aprettycooldude, and me) discovered last night that the Undying Mind strike is a good way to complete those subclass quests. Lots of majors, lots of orbs.

Excellent. I'm in, and I'll be happy to rotate out if we have more than three people who want to do some strikin'.

I would like that. Took me three pub strikes to finish up the defender one (get 30 warded kills across the entire fireteam), which, like, come on. And doing the more demanding ones would be pretty tough without some coordination.

It was Super Good Times. That was only my fourth VoG run of any sort, and I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. And I got a Gjallarhorn, which would have been more exciting if I hadn't just bought it the day before. It shall become the game's most rare and powerful exotic shard. I had a good time with aprettycooldude and Mike Danger running PoE32 Friday night, too. We used JonCole's super-good Super Good Advice advice to break Quodron's shield more effectively (shots against the shield don't count as having hit their target, and thus mostly get returned to your magazine). And the resulting armor core allowed me to finally hit 34, albeit in the ugliest way possible (my titan now has a giant paperclip safety pin hanging off her shoulder).

Still three slots available for our VoG HM run tomorrow. Come shoot your new Gjallerhorn at things that aren't Atheon! (Because rocket launchers are not allowed in that shield thing.) I made the mistake of looking at the replies to a Bungie tweet the other day. Something about Husk of the Pit dropping again. Like 80 percent were something akin to "Give me a Gjallerhorn." So I'm glad everyone who cares now has the opportunity to own one. But I kind of like the idea of certain things (or in the case of the Lighthouse, places) being super rare. Not because I want to have something few other people have, but because it makes those random drops into stories you tell your friends (or Instagram videos). I don't know. I guess that's not very egalitarian of me.

No insight, but speculation. I don't see them taking people who are level 30+ now and setting them back to 20, if only for political concerns. It seems relatively straightforward to take a character's light number (168 possible now, which of course maps to 34; 150 = 32 "and a half") and convert that to some quantity of XP. But what happens if I have gear that gets me to 34 but I'm wearing different, lesser gear when the conversion happens? Do I get converted to 33 and miss out on a whole level's worth of XP?

Plus you got depression? The shader and emblem consoles are an interesting addition. I get limiting storage space for weapons and armor, because then you force people to curate an arsenal for their play style. But shaders and emblems are things you rent, essentially. Stick 'em in a library and let people check them out.

Was it Vulpes or DJ (or someone else) who was joking during a VoG run the other day about making "We've woken the Hive!" the alarm tone on his phone? Better get that done before Dinklage's version disappears forever.

I haven't read any further than the headline yet, but GI does say legendary weapons will be left behind: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/08/04/destinys-year-one-legendary-weapons-staying-behind-in-year-two-9432.aspx EDIT: ... meaning maybe exotics will continue to be valid weapon choices.

This past week was my first experience with Iron Banner. I'd been avoiding it because I'm at best indifferent to PvP, and I'd been assuming I'd just get annihilated. But the promise of Etheric Light drew me in, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Got my Xbox Titan up to rank 5 and hauled some OK loot back to the vault. For me, a K/D over 1 is doing alright, and I managed that in most of my games. Had a couple where I led the team in kills and K/D. Even completed the "10 kills without dying" bounty a couple times. With TTK approaching, I find myself in the absurd position of playing the same game on two platforms and needing to maintain both. I have a couple friends on the Xbox side with whom I play about once a week, schedules permitting. I'm sure they'll both buy TTK and we'll keep playing into Year 2, but any large-team or high-level stuff is mostly out of our reach. On the Playstation side I have all of you, and thus at least the option of running hard-mode raids and stuff like that. But I also have several hundred fewer hours worth of accumulated weaponry and materials. Seems silly to buy TTK twice, but I'm not ready to abandon either side.

Are either of the weapons Lord Saladin is selling (Efrideet's Spear and Timur's Lash) worth buying?

It was indeed. Between the aborted Hard Mode run and this one, I got Fatebringer, Atheon's Epilogue, and Praedyth's Revenge. Pretty good haul.

High-level players can always get something from the story areas, most of which are public areas that can be starting points for strikes and other activities. You were probably in the Cosmodrome and on the Moon, where there are regular enemy spawns that can get people some useful endgame stuff. Most activities cover the same ground over and over again, with a new room or two sprinkled around. Strikes and raids get off the beaten path, but if you play up to the level cap, you'll become very familiar with those, too (though now it's possible to hit the level cap without ever doing a raid). That's why some people get excited (and then bent out of shape) when new expansions come out. The Taken King is reportedly going to add another patrol area (on the level of the Cosmodrome, Moon, Venus, etc.). If you stick with a Titan, the first skills you'll have access to will be best for close-quarters combat. Once you hit level 15 you'll unlock the other subclass, which is more of a defensive/support thing. Every class has its finer points, which other people can speak to better than I can, but in my opinion, Warlocks are the most unlike other console games' offerings. One Warlock subclass gives you a ranged super, the other allows you to spam the other cooldown skills (grenade and melee) and revive yourself after dying. Each subclass has an elemental association, which makes them more useful against enemies shielded by the same element, and in high-level strike situations when certain modifiers are active. Until The Taken King comes out, each class covers only two of the three elemental types, so there's not really a "right" choice to be made there. Every class is equally able to solo the story stuff. PvP class selection seems to be matter of personal preference, but if you like precision over AoE stuff, you might prefer a Hunter. Fireteam composition seems to matter the most in raid situations.

I've done that a bunch to satisfy Eris Morn bounties and never seen one drop. But I imagine you're right: If I put as much time into running that mission as I did sitting around waiting for Blades to emerge from their caves back in the TDB days, I'd probably end up with one. I imagine Destiny will never be like WoW, where the world changes radically and there's no way to experience the game as it was before. But it's interesting to think about how people who pick up the game post-HoW will likely never hit rank 4 with Eris, or transmogrify a Husk of the Pit into a Necrochasm.

I don't use any of my exotics-via-bounties very much. Invective is useful for generating special weapon ammo in a pinch, but don't we all have like a million synths for that now? Jon has said he sometimes uses Bad Juju in PvP. But Thorn is probably the most useful bounty exotic, as documented on previous pages of this thread. I eventually completed all of the five exotic weapon bounties on the Xbox side before moving to buying a second home in PS4 land. I've yet to see the SGA or Pocket Infinity bounties even offered on PS4. And I seem to have missed the boat on Husk of the Pit/Eidolon Ally/Necrochasm. As a compulsive collector of useless digital stuff, that makes me kind of sad.

Yeah, it was good times. And I ended up with a not-well-earned piece of etheric light. I'm certainly interested in running PoE. I haven't even run 28 yet, so I'll need to get that out of the way before I can do anything else. Maybe I'll set something up on the100.

No problem at all. Cussed and another Thumb and I ran Xyor, the Nightfall, and the weekly. Nightfall was a little bumpy, thanks to some pesky captains and my poorly timed bubble shields. No great drops, but it was good fun. I don't know what the Scholar is but yay! (And do you really use Bad Juju regularly?)

Monday or Tuesday night works for me. How about 9p ET Monday? And if anyone has any weekly stuff to clean up then, I'd be happy to tag along.

I could definitely do 9 PT/12 ET on Saturday.

I can't do tonight, but otherwise I'm free pretty much any evening after 9 ET.

I've been sitting on the final stage of that bounty for a couple weeks. If you want some help taking down Xyor, let me know.