melmer

Destiny

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I basically don't use Bungie for stats, I use DestinyTracker which pulls from Bungie's APIs and puts things into a better context.

 

Here's your Tracker page, I think I'm the first person to try to pull your stats so they're updating everything and ranking you among the DestinyTracker community right now - http://destinytracker.com/destiny/player/ps/xXZeusthecatXx

 

Thanks! And holy shit that's a lot of stats. 

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Their TrueSkill calculation is meant to be a kind of cumulative measure that isn't so directly influenced by the averages of stats. So if you play a million games but your K/D is low because the first half of your playtime you were garbage, you'd still have a high TrueSkill because you put in a lot of time, you have a lot of wins, etc. The formula is secret to prevent gaming of the stat, but the point is that if you play PvP somewhat regularly, you win fairly often, and so on your rank will continue to go up.

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Looks like I get to try to remember my PowerUp Rewards password later today! (Spoiler: I will give up and just reset it again, like I do every four months when GI finally has Sweet Deets)

 

Edit: Oh man, Year One legendaries getting left behind. Time to steer clear of r/destinythegame for the foreseeable future.

 

In fact, here are the Greatest Hits

 

- Nolan North is re-recording the whole game. Dinklage is 100% gone, so only people who have played prior to TTK will know the true joy of Dinklebot. Somehow, I think Mr. Dinklage won't really care. Guy was in Pixels, after all. The script is staying the same.

 

- New level cap of 40. GI's a little sketchy exactly on how this works - it seems like Light Levels are gone, and level 40 is just *level 40* instead of the "level 20 but now use your gear." The direct quote is "In my hands-on time, my existing level 34 guardians transitioned seamlessly into the new system, and leveling during subsequent story missions was smooth and engaging." but there are no specifics on how that seamless transition went.

 

- Your purples are worthless. Exotics will continue to evolve, but unless vault space increases, you better start killing your nostalgia and shard that Shadow Price.

 

- Storytelling! More cinematics! More explanations of subclasses (maybe unlock quests)! More cool gun stories!

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Whoa there are a lot of bombs dropping. The death of Dinklebot, obsolescence of old guns, and a straight up xp-based levelling system instead of the gear-based light level one. Bananas!

 

Edit: Legendaries are specifically mentioned as being left behind, so it's likely exotics will make the jump to Year 2. Probably the right move overall.

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I think I'd rather they let me use my old weapons and force me to reroll them but I guess they had to do something since some guns were just a little to much. Looking at you long range shotguns. Also not sure how I feel about them going to a straight leveling system, I kind of like how the more abstract light system made it feel less like a traditional grind. Even though it clearly was.

 

All in all these are the changes I expected in Destiny 2 not this expansion and I'm maybe a little disappointed in that? I like how weird and janky this game is and how interesting that makes it and I feel like this maybe takes some of that away. But I guess I'll see in September.

 

I guess this also explains why they haven't been working on bugfixes and balance changes like you'd expect. They were too busy working on getting this into the game.

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Okay, wow, these are all some pretty major changes. A part of me is a little sad that all of these great weapons I've been collecting will become obsolete almost immediately. But the other part of me is excited that I can start with a fresh slate on day one with everyone else. I didn't start playing till this last February and feel like I've been playing catch up ever since. Pros and cons I guess.

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I'm happy that the old weapons are going, because otherwise in three years time we'd still be using Fatebringer. They need to reset the weapons or we'd never stop using them. Plus, now they know what the community looks for, they can be alot smarter in designing weapons. My only concern is how that'll work in the Crucible, since attack stats don't matter there. I hope they can completely clean the slate so that you don't get destroyed by some arsehole who's held onto his Matador (That arsehole will be me.)

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Something about this doesn't add up though. Around the time this expansion comes out, that big weapon re-balancing patch will hit that nerfs all of the currently OP guns in the game. But if the new expansion makes those guns irrelevant, why even bother with the weapon specific nerfs? For PvP I can understand why but Gjallarhorn is specifically being nerfed because of its abuse in PvE, which would presumably become a non-issue when it quickly becomes an irrelevant weapon compared to the new guns. I have to assume that means that exotics will still scale while legendaries stay left behind. Maybe they mentioned that somewhere but if they did I missed it.

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Specifically, they've said that the legendaries aren't coming forward, so they won't have an ascension system like they did for HoW. They've always said that Exotic weapons are meant to stay with you no matter what. They did rebalance some legendaries like Black Hammer, but I assume that's a product of two different teams working on these systems.

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It's been mentioned that exotics alone are scaling and carrying onwards, while legendary weapons and gear and getting left behind.

 

This makes the Black Hammer nerf weird, but everything else makes perfect sense. Other than that, the changes they've mentioned are Class Wide (e.g. "all hand cannons get a range nerf," "all auto rifles suck less"), so that's necessary to help people adjust to the new way guns will feel in TTK. I think that patch drops sometime this month, which gives us two weeks to get acclimated to the differences.

 

Edit: Also, making the "but what about my blue Galahad" joke before anyone else can.

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Yeah, as goofy as it could be, I kinda liked how you had to complete some specific in game activities to hit the level cap and in HoW there was a good variety of ways to do that instead of constantly running the raid like the in the first two expansions. As long as the new endgame activities drop cool unique gear it doesn't really matter though.

 

With Black Hammer specifically, even if it's damage is less than ideal, it's perk was still overpowered. Having a damage rating 50 less than max won't matter when you can dump infinite sniper shots into a boss' dome.

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I still have a Painted Suros CGB-47 in my vault because it was the rare auto rifle I used before I got my first legendary. My first legendary was The Comedian, and my first legendary primary was Grim Citizen III. I still have them in my vault and I'm never getting rid of them.

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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.

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I still have a Painted Suros CGB-47 in my vault because it was the rare auto rifle I used before I got my first legendary. My first legendary was The Comedian, and my first legendary primary was Grim Citizen III. I still have them in my vault and I'm never getting rid of them.

 

My first all-legendary loadout was Bad Seed Down, Invisible Hand M7, and The Swarm. I sharded the latter two, but I still have Bad Seed Down in my vault.

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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.

 

That is the greatest joke/contribution I will ever make to the Destiny Community™

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There's apparently a ton of info in the digital edition of the magazine, but I'm just going by the summaries people are posting online. It all sounds really, really cool.

 

  • Opening Cinematic is narrated by our new Ghost (Nolan North)
  • Cinematic shows the Awoken waging war against Oryx with both Prince Uldren and the Queen involved in the fight.
  • Taken enemies wield brand new effects such as Taken Captains wearing solar shields and throwing out orbs of darkness that blind, Knights fling aoe scorch, Centurions shoot tracking rounds, Wizards summon thralls, Psions split into two, Vandals deploy defender like shields that allow them to shoot out and heal, Phalanxes shoot projectiles from the shield, and thralls teleport on the battlefield.
  • New world objects exist that can be scanned by your Ghost and give useful information and lore, can even start a dialogue between your ghost and the Vanguard, things like statues, weird worms, etc.
  • All items will offer perk customization including weapons, armor, class items, and even your ghost!
  • Crucible has improved matchmaking and a new mercy rule that will end a match early when misbalanced.
  • New system in place that allows you to sacrifice pieces of gear to empower others from the same slot, may be some kind of transmog system (very few details)
  • New quest lines, Eris Morn gives a quest that leads to the rediscovery of a forgotten weapon type.
  • New class quest lines, including quests for the new subclasses and added quest lines for the older sub classes that introduce you to them and give some back story.
  • Gunsmith has his own reputation meter now, lets you test prototype weapons in the field, with higher rep you can order a weapon once a week that will be delivered on Wednesday with a random set of perks.
  • Crucible and Vanguard Marks have been consolidated into "Legendary Marks".
  • Class armor materials have been removed, consolidated into one source that is shared between all three classes.
  • Can now pledge allegiance to a crucible faction, one at a time only. No longer requires wearing a class item. Can also turn in Motes, Weapon Parts, Armor Mats, synths, etc to gain reputation.
  • New computer console near the outfitter that allows you to pick a shader you want, and also displays all the shaders you have yet to acquire and how to get them, same system is in place for emblems.
  • Vault space is still an issue, Luke Smith is quoted saying "We are exploring options for getting stuff out of players inventories via these kiosks that we've played around the tower, but we're still working towards a solution that we're excited about."
  • At least a dozen new exotic weapons, and at least a half dozen armor exotics per class.
  • New Auto Rifle exotic shoots blasts of lightning, sniper rifle that blinds nearby enemies on a precision hit, or the new pulse rifle called "No Time To Explain" that fits the role of a high level strangers rifle that refuels bullets directly to the magazine on precision hits.
  • New exotic called Sleeper Simulant, Fusion rifle that sits in the heavy slot and acts as a rail gun, over penetrates and bounces off walls, upgrades improve the bounce count.
  • Many exotics are tied to quests, one example requires that you explore the dreadnaught and find hidden pieces throughout.
  • Vanguard Mentor gives you your new subclass quest
  • New Crucible Modes are Rift, Mayhem, and Zone Control which is just control with kills not counting towards the score.
  • New dedicated quest line that introduces players to the Crucible and the respective NPCs like Shaxx.
  • Simpler bounties have been made, with more difficult bounties being available and even fireteam based bounties for pvp. Trials now has bounties associated with it as well as new weekly bounties for the crucible which upon completion give access to a sixth weekly and challenging bounty that can reward a legendary or exotic.
  • First act of the story is 8 "Lengthy" story missions, with the second act includes additional story missions, strikes, exploration, triggered public events, weapon quests that all lead to the introduction of the new raid called "King's Fall".
  • Quests in act 2 revolve around the Taken War, includes quests line Unsealed Paradox which returns you to the Vault of Glass and reveals the fate of Praedyth.
  • Presence of "raid-light" mechanics in strikes, Bungie is hesitant to make strikes too complicated due to griefing.

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I agree that the weapon balance changes seem weird when they could have just "nerfed" several weapon classes by stats alone on entirely new weapons. Like, is nerfing shot package and rangefinder specifically really necessary when my Matador won't be viable in PvP after TTK? And couldn't they just remove high range archetype shotguns from the new offerings? Very strange.

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I agree that the weapon balance changes seem weird when they could have just "nerfed" several weapon classes by stats alone on entirely new weapons. Like, is nerfing shot package and rangefinder specifically really necessary when my Matador won't be viable in PvP after TTK? And couldn't they just remove high range archetype shotguns from the new offerings? Very strange.

 

I think that given how perks seem to work in Destiny 2.0 (which is the real loaded question we'll get into later), it's possible to assemble a longer range shotgun with the right roll. Again though, I think some of these nerfs are happening beforehand to ease players into the way the newer guns will feel. A lot of people cry for the "last hurrah" of the Gjallarhorn or whatever once TTK drops (like the gun is going to be WEAK FOREVER), but by pushing that patch out sometime this month, everyone gets a good while to get a feel for how guns are gonna play.

 

When "Vanilla" (BUNGIE OFFICIAL) dropped, everyone set to work on figuring out which gun had which function, and you had a month or so where auto rifles were overpowered beings that fit all roles. By pushing out the 1.whatever patch ahead of time, Bungie and the actual widespread playerbase get to see what is Good and what is Bad, and adjust before the new content drops.

 

But back to that real loaded question. What happens if you don't buy TTK? What the heck does Destiny look like? I'm amazed this hasn't been addressed at all. The thought, I suppose, is that anyone still playing Destiny is gonna buy it, and it's why the boxed copies from here on out come with everything bundled in. But what happens if Joe Q. Destiny decides to fire up the game again after not touching it since Dark Below dropped? What does he see?

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