Destiny 2

[J.T.]

19 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Oh yeah - I will play enough comp to get bonus Glory

Lot of good it will do me as I just pendulum back and forth on Fabled I

I've been bouncing back and forth between Fabled II and Fabled III.

[RIPPA]

I am still pissed at myself because last week right before the reset I was a hair's breath away from Fabled II

I should have not played and let the bonus Glory carry me over.

Instead - like a dummy - I played another match and lost

[J.T.]

13 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I am still pissed at myself because last week right before the reset I was a hair's breath away from Fabled II

I should have not played and let the bonus Glory carry me over.

Instead - like a dummy - I played another match and lost

I don't grind Glory like most hardcores do.  I play from 3 to 5 matches max and try to end with a win and I am good with maintaining a Fabled ranking since that's all I need for Pinnacle Weapon quests to auto complete once I'm done with the minutiae bullshit.

I'd love to burn straight through Luna's or Mountaintop, but I know that the quest chase would just frustrate the shit out of me when I eventually hit the losing streak skid.  I'll get more serious about chasing Legendary Glory when it's time to grind for a Not Forgotten.

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Speaking of burning through Luna's,  I'll probably binge on Survival next week since it's the last week of the season and all ranks will reset anyway the following Tuesday. 

Wins & Losses or maintaining Fabled won't really matter since I'm not really close to finishing Mountaintop or Luna's.  I'll just get in those HC kills before the Last Word nerf hits and then start climbing the Solar kills hill at the start of next season.

Edited February 25, 2020 by J.T.

[Eivion]

Empyrean Foundation mission is complete. There is a minor cut scene when you go to the beacon at the tower. Season of Worthy and the return of Trials have been announced officially. Looks like Saint will be running Trials. D1 Trials armor will return along with 3 stages used from then.

As someone who never played Trials in D1 I can't really say I'm excited. I just hope whatever is there is enough to shut up endgame PvP players for a long while. Looking at how LL comes into play I'm guessing I will only be trying it at the beginning of each season.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Eivion

[RIPPA]

Whats weird is that when I played last night I didn’t get the cut scene and it was still showing the we were in stage 6

But people were already talking about it being done so I guess I will see if it pops for me this morning 

[J.T.]

5 hours ago, Eivion said:

Empyrean Foundation mission is complete. There is a minor cut scene when you go to the beacon at the tower. Season of Worthy and the return of Trials have been announced officially. Looks like Saint will be running Trials. D1 Trials armor will return along with 3 stages used from then.

As someone who never played Trials in D1 I can't really say I'm excited. I just hope whatever is there is enough to shut up endgame PvP players for a long while. Looking at how LL comes into play I'm guessing I will only be trying it at the beginning of each season.

I'll be happy to see Trials return just because it's lore and it will gives hardcore sweats something to do on the weekend other than pester me in Survival Freelance.

I probably won't participate because weapon meta in D2 is far more pervasive and it's not my idea of fun to get smoked by teams of elite snipers all armed with Pinnacle / Ritual Weapons except for the one Jotunn guy who is assigned to clean up open picks.  They're also pretty much giving kill lobby peeps a brand new revenue stream, since there will probably be big business in selling Flawless runs.

And yep, we made it.  The Foundation is built and now I have to figure out what to do with the 10K widgets I have in my inventory.  I suppose I could keep donating to clear more Timestop bounties since I have yet to get a roll I like for the Martyr's or the Pyroclastic Flow, but that shit is kinda tedious.

I enabled my Savior title last night and attempted to record the cutscene, but I think I missed the intro so I may have to scrap the video.

Last night was pretty interesting.  A no mic 950 Ordeal Nightfall 100K run turned into a Master Nightmare Hunt which turned into a Pit of Heresy run.  I've cleared all of the normal Pinnacle Gear stuff including the Heroic Sundial, so I can dial it back a bit for the rest of the week.  I'll chase HC kills in Survival and get in some Gambit Prime, but I probably won't bother with the Crucible rotator list or the vendor challenges on the Moon.

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

Whats weird is that when I played last night I didn’t get the cut scene and it was still showing the we were in stage 6

But people were already talking about it being done so I guess I will see if it pops for me this morning 

Trials can go pound sand until I see how the new patch affects weapon meta, but props for them for bringing back the badass cadence from the Forsaken splash screen to herald the Trials intro.

All of the gamer girls on the Reddits seem to be swooning over designer, Eric Smith.  I can see why since he's a good lookin' dude.  They picked the right guy to stick in front of a camera.

And yeah, those maps...   Personally, I fucking hated Cauldron, but Exodus Blue and Anomaly were my jams.  I hope those maps won't be Trials exclusives, but they may very well be.

I've already given up on the idea of pushing myself to complete the Triumph Seal for Worthy since it doesn't take clairvoyance to figure out that a Flawless Trials run might be one of the criteria.  Hopefully Bungie will think of the casuals and PvP haters and make two seals for next season:  one for Trials and another for regular seasonal activity.

I also have this cold sensation in my soul because I think that Bungie is dumb enough to link a Ritual Weapon quest exclusively to Trials play and that scares the shit out of me.

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

Okay - got everything this morning

Last night I played mostly Survival (though I did futz around in the EDZ a little)

My new thing of hatred in Survival

Had a match where me and my teammate each finished with 20 kills. Third guy... 3 kills.

We lose 4-3 (especially infuriating because one of my teammates cost us the match by whiffing on his Nova Bomb)

Anyway - I loaded up the next match and the turd "I only got 3 kills" is on the other team. Of course -NOW he fucking knows how to shoot straight.

Thank God we won that match or that probably would have been the end of my destiny days

[RIPPA]

God they are so going to break the fucking game

[J.T.]

6 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Okay - got everything this morning

Last night I played mostly Survival (though I did futz around in the EDZ a little)

My new thing of hatred in Survival

Had a match where me and my teammate each finished with 20 kills. Third guy... 3 kills.

We lose 4-3 (especially infuriating because one of my teammates cost us the match by whiffing on his Nova Bomb)

Anyway - I loaded up the next match and the turd "I only got 3 kills" is on the other team. Of course -NOW he fucking knows how to shoot straight.

Thank God we won that match or that probably would have been the end of my destiny days

Rule #10143957 of Destiny PvP:  The dude that sucked the most while on your team will be a beast if he's on the enemy team.

And we'd all better start getting gud with Chaperone since slug throwers were one of the few weapon sub-classes not to get nerfed in the new sandbox changes.

Just now, RIPPA said:

God they are so going to break the fucking game.

Yeah, I am of the opinion that Trials was better off dead because it's revival and what it will bring to the sandbox doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about game balance, especially around Iron Banner time when teams rocking Flawless gear invade the player pool.

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

It was also interesting to see the weapon that the testers were using in the Trials matches.  I clearly saw Spare Rations and an RTK amongst other weapons so the meta is taking shape already.

[RIPPA]

To be fair - since they are "testing everything" and they were - in theory - testers - all weapons need to be used at some point

So I wouldn't just be all "Well clearly everyone will be using RTK!"

[RIPPA]

Also - if Season of the Worthy is literally just "Hey Trials is Back!" I am going to be pissed

[J.T.]

3 hours ago, RIPPA said:

To be fair - since they are "testing everything" and they were - in theory - testers - all weapons need to be used at some point

So I wouldn't just be all "Well clearly everyone will be using RTK!"

That's true to a certain extent.  All weapons classes will need to work as designed in the new sandbox, but certainly there will be a concerted effort to test how current meta and perceived future meta will function in Trials.  We've given them a shit ton of analytics.  They know what weapons we'll gravitate to in the new sandbox.

I think the Trials meta will be mostly:

• Slug throwers, especially Chaperone, since that weapon sub-class won't be getting nerfed with pellet shotguns.
• Revoker because of the ammo regeneration perk.  It won't be the second coming of Icebreaker, but an extra sniper shot can be the difference between winning and losing.
• Auto Rifles because of the buff and Hard Light because there is no damage falloff.
• Le Monarque since it can fucking helth debuff an entire team if they are standing too close to the poor asshole that gets hit.  Hunters will pair Le Monarque up with Oathkeepers to be extra toxic.

You'll probably also see a mix of the usual Pulse Rifle / Ritual -Pinnacle PvP Weapon / Hand Cannon crap since those weapons are mostly untouched.  The only Hand Cannon receiving major changes is Last Word as if Thorn wasn't one of the more Toxic weapons in the game.

Since Power matters, I expect to see a lot of Unbrokens grinding PvE to get those valuable Pinnacle Gear upgrades.

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

People are already bitching about light levels being enabled as if Eric did not caveat "we want Trails to be as fair" with "as possible."

Trials started off as Light enabled, so I expected it to be brought back as Light enabled.  That doesn't really bother me.

The sticking point for me is artifacts.  It takes me all season to get an artifact up to +20 and I don't have the time to grind to get myself up to 1000+ light, especially with Summer coming up and games I really want to play dropping in the Fall and Holiday season.  I think that I'll probably be around 990-ish light at the end of any given season and that will still be well below 100 LL of the guys I'd expect to see in Trials every weekend.  Not good.

Not only will you be facing the sweatiest players imaginable, they'll have the advantage of LL if they devote time to buffing the levels on their artifacts.

That's why I think that it might be a good idea to disable artifacts for Trials and make the hard light cap of 970 the ceiling.  Then it's all skill vs skill and map familiarity which is about as fair as it can get.

People should be paying attention to what Luke Smith says at the beginning of the video.  He and his team practiced for HOURS to get their teamwork down solid and this guy is a Bungie developer. It's his job to be good at this game. 

Trials has never been, nor is it likely to be, an arena for casuals.  I don't think that message is translating well to the player base.

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[Eivion]

4 hours ago, J.T. said:

I also have this cold sensation in my soul because I think that Bungie is dumb enough to link a Ritual Weapon quest exclusively to Trials play and that scares the shit out of me.

Why did you have to say that? Now you have me in the same position.

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

Trials has never been, nor is it likely to be, an arena for casuals.  I don't think that message is translating well to the player base.

Somehow that doesn't surprise me. To be fair I kind of put the blame partially on the part of the playerbase (people like Datto for example) who were constantly talking about the need for Trials to return. Those who had no idea what Trials was probably just thought it was super fun activity for everyone and didn't grasp those fuckers wanted it back because they are semi-hardcore/hardcore PvP players. They want that shit back for the challenge. It was never going to be accessible for a casual who can't even run a raid, needs to be carried in Crucible, or has to straight up pay someone off to get a specific Pinnacle/Ritual weapon. There is a reason I said I would probably only try it out the first week or so of each season. I know I'm fucked otherwise even with the PvP focused weapons I've managed to scrounge up.

[RIPPA]

The news that everyone jumped on (but there is more than just this) is that basically Faction Rallies are never coming back so they are going to add the gear to the Legendary Engram pool

[Eivion]

I'm glad the gear is at least being added to the pool, but I dislike that they seemingly to want to give up on factions altogether. Personally I would have liked to have seen them re-purposed especially since they actually are part of the City government, and there is apparently more than the three we know. The rallies themselves not coming back isn't too big of an issue so much as wasting away factions in general. 

The potential change for weapons come Year 4 was the other big interesting thing mentioned there. Sounds like they may effectively retire some older weapons outside of activities like Gambit and basic Crucible with a potential power cap. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Eivion

[J.T.]

Faction Rallies could return if they put the energy into them as they did into bringing Trials back and unlike Trials, the Faction Rally is an event that the majority of the community (including free to play) could participate in.  The entire community just participated in an event to revive a game mode that only a few players will really benefit from.

I personally would've loved to have seen an entire season devoted to Faction related content to at least get those characters and concepts reintegrated into the lore.  At the very least Bungie could include the Faction leaders as support characters in future story angles.

2 hours ago, Eivion said:

Somehow that doesn't surprise me. To be fair I kind of put the blame partially on the part of the player base (people like Datto for example) who were constantly talking about the need for Trials to return. 

If you subscribe to their logic, Trials needed to return in order to give PvP an endgame event.  Frankly, a weekend without PvP sweats in D1 was always a blessing.

However this is not D1.  This is D2 where weapon meta is far more pervasive as are cheating and other detrimental practices like win trading, paid carries, and account recovery.  That right there totally makes the playing field uneven and artifact power bonuses and light disadvantage enablement will just make it worse.

The upcoming weapon nerfs may help a little, but eventually a new weapon meta will take hold and only players who have the time to grind light and reach the hard light cap will have consistent success.  It will be interesting to see how Factions gear fares in the normal PvP sandbox because you know pub stomp six-stacks of Unbrokens in Trials gear is on the horizon. 

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[Eivion]

15 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Faction Rallies could return if they put the energy into them as they did into bringing Trials back and unlike Trials, the Faction Rally is an event that the majority of the community (including free to play) could participate in.  The entire community participated in an event that only a few players will really benefit from.

Trials will be part of the free content though I have no idea why seeing that poor bastards playing for free will never be able to match decently against those who have been paying for seasons and keep their LL up.

17 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Faction Rallies could return if they put the energy into them as they did into bringing Trials back and unlike Trials, the Faction Rally is an event that the majority of the community (including free to play) could participate in.  The entire community participated in an event that only a few players will really benefit from.

This is exactly what i want for Factions. 

[J.T.]

32 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Trials will be part of the free content though I have no idea why seeing that poor bastards playing for free will never be able to match decently against those who have been paying for seasons and keep their LL up.

They won't and that's the point.  When Free Play peeps start complaining about the power balance, Bungo's counter will be "Well, maybe if you paid to play, you wouldn't be having such a hard time...."

Almost like how Microsoft tech support for Widows '98 is "You need to by a new fucking computer with Windows 10.."

32 minutes ago, Eivion said:

This is exactly what i want for Factions. 

Yeah, the news about Faction Rallies getting the shaft and seeing the effort put in to Trials development just makes me angry.  Why put the community through all of that Empyrean Foundation bullshit when you have been fucking testing Trials the entire time.... as if we didn't all know about it already?

Why put the decision of whether or not Trials returns on the backs of the entire community and then construct the event in such a manner that is sure to exclude a majority of those players?

Edited February 26, 2020 by J.T.

[Eivion]

2 minutes ago, J.T. said:

They won't and that's the point.  When Free Play peeps start complaining about the power balance, Bungo's counter will be "Well, maybe if you paid to play, you wouldn't be having such a hard time...."

Almost like how Microsoft tech support for Widows '98 is "You need to by a new fucking computer with Windows 10.."

 

That is kind of evil but smart, especially with seasons being the price they are now. 

[J.T.]

16 hours ago, Eivion said:

That is kind of evil but smart, especially with seasons being the price they are now. 

Yeah, I don't think that people get that FTP is little more than a glorified trial run in most games. 

Bungie is being extremely generous to the Free Light players, because they get to do just about everything paid players can short of some seasonal content which depending on the season, isn't that much to write home about.  

Even when Trials comes, there won't be that much incentive to upgrade to pay-for-play because the nature of Trials is to be exclusive.  Not everyone will be good enough to get to the Lighthouse and if you hate PvP, you won't really care. 

Like Rippa said, if this upcoming season is Trials centric, I'll be taking a vacation from the game for a bit.  I can always come back later and push the 970 hard light cap or whatever it will get bumped up to in three or four months. 

By that time, it'll be closer to Cyberpunk 2077 and Bloodlines 2 release dates so maybe this is what I need to wean myself off of the light grind and look into a few games I have on my List of Shame.

Edited February 27, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

So, that new Director's Cut..

Two huge takeaways.

• RIP Bright Engrams for Silver.   Looks like we're going to a system similar to the Fortnite Battle Pass where you can buy your cosmetics ala carte and there is no randomization.
•  Old Legendaries will have infusion caps.  Most likely those guns will be from current PvP and PvE meta so I should probably stop farming for a god roll Spare Rations and see what the new PvP Hand Cannon hotness will be next season..

Some people are freaking out thanks to Rick fucking Kackis's misleading clickbait splash on his latest content and assumed that infusion was going away altogether and that's not true.  You just won't be able to infuse some weapons up to the hard light cap.  It's a sandbox shakeup to force people to use other weapons and gear.

Edited February 27, 2020 by J.T.