What makes a Guardian… a Guardian? We take our first breath with no memory of who we were before – yet we are inexorably drawn to the Light. We fight, we die… and we live again. We know that we were chosen for a reason by something greater than ourselves. For as deep and wide as humanity’s rivers have run, it has now been reduced to a precious few, needing something to believe in… and a place to call home. This is what we have been called to – the future that we fight for. The future we will protect.
Shaped by the fires of each new battle, we are forged and sharpened into what we must become for the fight ahead.
What we have built is only the beginning – a symbol of what we can achieve, of who we are and our great purpose here. But the day may come when we will be tested. When all we hold dear is threatened. And then, we will see what each of us is truly made of.
Destiny 2: Penny Arcade G&T Saves the Universe and Everything in It, No, Seriously, I Know It Looks like We’re Losing but Everything Is Under Control, We Promise is an online multiplayer action role-playing sci-fi-fantasy first-person shooter for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC and the second title in Bungie and Activision’s ten-year, zillion-dollar Destiny franchise. It’s MMO-like – think gear collection (and dress-up), skill trees and specs, party play, raiding, and PvP – with rock-solid gunplay and wondrous, gorgeous worlds to explore. Beyond all of that, it’s also home to the best damn community in gaming:
Pax Arcadia, our systems-spanning network of clans.
A Little History: Our Story So Far
In Year One of Destiny, the Wise and Noble Guardians of PA traveled through space and time in defense of Human, Awoken, and Exo, rising to meet every challenge and ultimately emerging from a year's worth of adventures bearing the spoils of war and the bounty of exotic weapons, sturdy and stylish armor, fortune, and fame. Through our bravery and dedication, we defended The Tower from all who would see it leveled to the ground. Our legend reached the farthest battlefields of the Crucible. We earned the favor of the Queen and protected her Reef from enemies seeking to tear it apart.
At times, our successes seemed inevitable, almost routine. We traveled backward and forward through time; we crushed our foes underfoot in encounter after encounter; we destroyed the heart of a god - more than once. We plumbed the depths of the Dark Below, face-to-hideous-face with Crota, Hive Prince and Son of Oryx. In time, he fell like the rest. We took his wretched, cursed husk and held it aloft as a trophy.
In Year Two, we braved the Dreadnaught, a terrifying frontier, and we beat back the Taken, a twisted menace. We competed against our fellow Guardians in brutal bloodsport, sharpening ourselves into efficient, highly coordinated soldiers of the Light. We returned to the Prison of Elders and tore through its denizens, leaving our mark on its every arena. We remained relentless, undeterred, in the face of overwhelming odds, and together we struck down Oryx, the Taken King. He refused to tolerate our insolence; we refused to tolerate his existence.
In Year Three, Fallen mutants, scavenging the tombs of the Golden Age, unleashed a plague of unimaginable corruption on our world. Grotesque new foes bore down upon the walls of the Last City, challenging us to adapt or perish. Lord Saladin called us to take up the mantle of the Iron Lords, and we obliged. We honored their legacy by rediscovering their history and celebrating a noble, long-buried tradition.
Now, as we enter a new era, our greatest-ever threat emerges from the Darkness to meet us: Dominus Ghaul, leader of the Cabal’s Red Legion. Ghaul believes that the Traveler erred in bestowing the Light upon us; as we begin our journey in Destiny 2, he and his forces will assail the Tower, corrupt the Traveler, and scatter us to the wilds, beyond the relative safety of our city’s walls. For the first time ever, we will enter a world without Light.
But we will enter it together, Guardians.
And it will not be dark for long.Clan Update (April 10, 2018): We have three separate clan pages on Bungie.net (complete with general chat wall and LFG channels!) for PlayStation, Xbox and PC Arcadians. To join up on your specific platform, please PM
@GMaster7 (PS4),
@ObiFett (Xbox) or
@SniperGuy (PC) and let us know your PSN/Xbox/Battle.net ID and your Bungie.net ID - and add yourself to the bottom of the Mega-Roster (linked below) for your platform of choice. Then, use the below links to send a join request to your platform's clan on Bungie.net. We're looking for players who will be active in-game and here in the thread, so general policy is to keep an eye on inactivity through
this excellent tool developed by our very own
@Muffinatron (Holy-Promethium) - and to make room for active players when possible. Because we're at war with Bungie's 100-person cap, membership is restricted to forumers.
• Pax Arcadia Mega-Roster Spreadsheet
• Pax Arcadia (PS4)
• Pax Arcadia Prime (Xbox One)
• Pax-Arcadia (PC)
PC Arcadians: We also have a
clan channel within the PA Discord server!
PS4 Overflow Clans
On PS4, Pax Arcadia's waitlist has been growing pretty steadily since launch. If you're on that list and are looking to escape from no-clan purgatory and reap some weekly clan rewards, might I suggest joining either our overflow clan or the SE++ subforum's clan? There's a lot of overlap between PA and these other clans, and if you're on the waitlist, I'll still let you know if your spot comes up.
•
Pax Chardcadia (PS4 Overflow)
•
SE++ ClanFind teammates with The100.io!
If you're looking for teammates for any activity in D1 or D2, check out PA's console-specific groups on The100.io, right here:
•
Pax Arcadia - PS4 (Contact
@Celian,
@Marikir and/or
@Dajoran)
•
Pax Arcadia - Xbox One (Contact
@ObiFett,
@awsimo and/or
@dinoarus)
•
Pax Arcadia - PC (Contact
@3clipse)
Useful Links and Utilities
We will use this space to compile links to miscellaneous sites and tools as we prepare for and dive into the launch of D2. Please feel free to PM or @ me in the thread at any time if you would like to contribute a useful resource or utility to the OP.
•
Destiny Item Manager: Move items between characters and keep track of your gear and inventory.
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DestinyTracker: Track your stats, plus leaderboards, activity listings, and vendors.
•
DestinyDB: Item lists and tons of info.
Posts
Saturday Morning Cartoons, our Saturday morning PS4 raid group, is going to be short a guardian this week. If anyone here is interested, let me know.
Saturday Morning Cartoons
Event: Raid Lair 1 + Leviathan
System: PS4
Day/Time: Saturday, March 3rd, 10am/7am EST/PST
Slots Available: 1
Requirements: We're a casual group, so being a cool person is more important to us that skill or experience. If you've never run the raids before, the required light level to enter is 300, so I guess that's the only hard requirement. Otherwise, we're cool and happy to teach people the raids.
The100 Link: https://www.the100.io/gaming_sessions/1130072
As far as Iron Banner and power level advantages... that was LITERALLY the only difference between Iron Banner PVP and regular PVP. It was the whole point of the game mode.
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
From a game theoretic perspective it is basically a useless mechanic. But the real point of Iron Banner is a concentrated PVP experience by virtue of the fact that you have limited time to earn reputation to get the sweet sweet loot. Plus, the fact that it only really rewarded winning (which everyone grew to hate because again, some mechanics are just dumb, no matter the flavour they invoke within our brainmeats)
Iron Banner loot was not the POINT of Iron Banner.
EDIT: Here's some early discussions about IB in relation to power levels I could find on bungie.net:
https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/12318/7_Bungie-Weekly-Update---10242014
https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/12387/7_Bungie-Weekly-Update---11132014
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
Internally, Bungie always thought that power level differences were stupid, but it was something test audiences and eventually the community thought would be cool. Communities are stupid though so *shrug*
I mean to say that the draw for playing Iron Banner was not "Now my power differences matter" because often they didn't as the vast majority of players were already max light and it was often lamented that the difference was small even after tuning (some funny OHKs or fast kills and other things notwithstanding, for the most part). Insofar as anyone lists that at their motivation for playing Iron Banner I will engage my Willy Wonka face at the limited introspection they undertook.
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
They said as much in the GDC presentations...
[Citation Needed]
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
And that means, "Internally, Bungie always thought that power level differences were stupid" ?
Seems like a stretch
And I'm sorry you can't understand why people liked IB being affected by LL, but they did
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
I can certainly agree that people liked the idea of it but could never give a coherent justification as to why. Except for people who unabashedly admitted that they just wanted to do better based on the fact that they were higher light rather than having improved their skill. But in a skill based game and a competitive format I have nothing but gene wilder for them.
I don't care about LL, but you're misremembering this a little bit. They didn't say that power levels were something test audience and the community would be cool. They said that power levels was something the test audience absolutely hated, but then the community liked it.
The context where it was brought up wasn't really about the power level itself, and doesn't give a strong indication of how they would design the Banner in the future. They were using it (different power levels in pvp) as an example of something that tested overwhelmingly negatively in the lab, but had a positive reception once out in the community, and how some things just work differently in lab environments.
It's not something I care about much. I know Bungie talked it up a bunch before the first banner, but in actual play it never seemed to matter much. I always matched up against stacks of players at the same power level and the smattering of under leveled players we spotted seemed competitive. It's like there was a reliable way to target the one occasional underleveled player in a 6 v 6 shooter.
If level mattering was the only thing that distinguished the Banner from other modes, I probably would've stopped playing it in 2014.
i will say though that there also really isn’t anything special about iron banner other than the loot
it’s just pvp, and control is an exceptionally boring game mode in D2 where everything about control that made it interesting has been stripped out of the mode
all it is now is a race in circles around the map or capping the two “good” points and camping on them
it’s pretty terrible
At least it isn't Clash.
i mean it basically is though
EDIT -- Now that I think about it, there is only like 2 or 3 whole sets of Titan armor that hasn't been a visual assault against my eyes.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I'm curious which sets you do like, because I've been dissatisfied with the way my Titan looks, but I can't decide exactly why.
I think right now I'm rocking Kerak + Insurmountable Skullfort + Mark of Optimacy with Midnight Talons. I look like a shiny knight, which is just okay.
(Destiny) Doot Doot, Shoot Brutes for New Boots, Woot Woot for Rad Suits and Phat Loots
Well that wipe to orbit thing comes from using the challenges which are consumables I think? So I think the logic chain is clear.
Now ideally this is one of those things where you convince players to constantly be aware of and use it to raise the intensity of engagement but rarely if never actually trigger the failure state of.
Most strikes it doesn't seem like a huge issue if you're playing safe (thanks lack of timer!) though a couple do seem like issues. The end of Pyramidion for example doesn't really have a way to be safe with.
yeah i can only think of a few times at the end of pyramidion or inverted spire where the whole party wasn't dead at the same time even on a good run in a nightfall
That set, the Crucible/Devistation Set, and The Io Set.
That's pretty much it. The Raid and Raid Lair sets made me audibly groan when I saw them. I can't stand the Kerak set, it looks like a vase/potted plant.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Its even worse because at the end of D1 with the raid ornaments our guardians were looking really cool.
Now I can't unsee the "vase/potted plant" - thanks for that!
(Destiny) Doot Doot, Shoot Brutes for New Boots, Woot Woot for Rad Suits and Phat Loots
What also sucks is the way the stats on armor works in d2 you end up having to look pretty stupid if you want optimal. Or at least I felt I looked dumb as hell.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I stopped caring about stats. I just wear what looks good and deal with whatever stats that gives me.
What do you mean?
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
Warlocks continue to be the most fly, don't@ me. The FWC coat and the xenos Vale coat are my personal favorites.
Also, it's funny that the LL argument is here since I thought the last Destiny thread resolved that it was promoted as important and part of the backlash against Bungie was that it was of minimal impact in D1....and that it was a big part of their advertising / perceived importance of IB at the time at the beginning.
Life is a circle, I guess? .
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
@Peen
This is way out of left field and OT, so I'll delete this if anybody complains, but...
:rotate:
(Destiny) Doot Doot, Shoot Brutes for New Boots, Woot Woot for Rad Suits and Phat Loots
Yeah. In D1 all of my characters looked badass with at least 10-12 different armor sets each that I liked. I was freaking IN LOVE with the IB armor sets.
In D2, I really hate warlocks look in general. Can't find anything I like, as everything to me is either tattered robes or a dress. Also don't like the helms, but there is no fucking way I'm looking at the abomination of a face I spent 10 seconds making 3+ years ago. There's a couple that are cool though I just gotta go grind that planet I guess.
I'm more curious as to how that found itself in your collection of pop culture references, tbh.
I saw the movie Class Act at a formative age.
Edit: I also have an affinity for remembering movies and quotes, but I can't remember song lyrics for shit. =P
(Destiny) Doot Doot, Shoot Brutes for New Boots, Woot Woot for Rad Suits and Phat Loots