Yeah, I don't think it's the worst thing that Trials is delayed. Two weeks instead of just 1 is unfortunate though. Launching it alongside the raid would be good timing imo. Give everyone a bit of a chance to gear up and the like.
I think in general having the first week just be "Do the campaign and fart around looking at the new stuff" is a fine idea.
There's apparently a bug where you can get infinite Warlock super (w/Stasis, I think), that's why they cancelled Trials. I think it would have been a glorious shitshow and I'm sad that it's off.
Given the Warlock Stasis super already seemed pretty broken in PvP, I can see why they locked it down.
At this point I'm not sure Bungie can/wants to release new supers without them being horribly OP. Or at least some of them. It's like Forsaken all over again in the Crucible anyway.
I've played pretty sporadically / missed a bunch of shit, and now have the option of grabbing a few exotics from the kiosk.
If I wanted one 'boss killer' weapon, what should I go for? Probably never gonna raid much, so it's mostly just for a bit of Nightfall and fucking around generally.
I finally completed the primary campaign last night. I had limited playtime, and also took my time rather than rushing it. I liked the campaign itself! But it definitely highlighted some ludonarrative dissonance stuff even more so than other campaigns.
On Darkness:
Yeah, I agree with folks who felt like "don't be corrupted by the Darkness!" was a bit weaksauce when we have no examples of our PC ever coming close to it. It's a trope they have tried to hit a lot in Destiny (the whole Shin Malphur arc of Year 2 with Last Word/Thorn/Lumina tried to really hit this but flopped a bit), but it seemed like it was handled better in Forsaken and Shadowkeep than here. I think the only scene that came close to trying to do something interesting with it was when Eramis freezes the Guardian and your Ghost, and you cannot escape unless you like, take of your glasses, let your hair down, and embrace the Darkness. But there didn't seem to be any real tone to that scene of any danger or seduction - just "oh shit she's got us, wait nope she doesn't we're cool."
Ghost throughout the campaign and after is all "I'm worried" but there is no example yet to be worried about. Drifter/Eris/Stranger all seem totally fine rather than having some brewing internal conflict or corruption, and it's not like your Guardian lashes out in anger or experiences any real temptation or consequences. Ghost could have been a good way to do that - leaving him frozen and at risk, or at least a conduit for the Darkness when you are doing the Commune sections seemed like an easy step that didn't require a cutscene. Just like, create any sort of conflict here. But nah, PC Guardian remains the totes best at all things I guess.
On Eramis/Variks
I felt this went pretty well, actually. Eramis had enough mid-campaign interaction with you that I felt her presence throughout. Variks continuing to try and talk his way through shit worked - although I wonder about any future brewing conflict between him and Mithrax (Variks as seeming to move to Kell of Kells but then is now deferential to Eramis and then Mithrax and yeah that's his gag to be the Vizier or whatever). Still, I wanted more conflict/betrayal/loyalty stuff from Variks/Eramis, in that there is hints to their longer relationship and goals, but it became black and white immediately.
And I like that we learned a bit more about Fallen society and the Whirlwind. Though it seemed like a retcon or new info that Eramis and Variks have been around since their own collapse, making them super fucking old.
The first two Lieutenants were great. But I don't even know what happened to the second two. One of them ran off to deal with dangling plot threads that may come to fruition in the Raid, I guess. The other went and became a Lost Sector boss? Way less neat, feel bad they drew the short straw.
So yeah, this was definitely stronger than the Darkness plotline, but still had a bit of weakness.
As for Gameplay itself, Titan Stasis definitely still feels weak, though I'm interested to see how it changes with actual build exploration.
I somewhat wonder how much of the lack of new weapons is driven by pipeline issues (I imagine most of it - they don't have the resource bandwidth). On the other hand, I was wondering today how much of it could be analytics/data. People talk about the Shadowkeep weapons or how many new things came out with X expansion/season or whatever. And maybe this is just my personal experience but…. It seems like for both PVE and PVP people get their meta defined, and at least pre-Sunsetting, there wasn't reason to explore beyond that. I wonder if they looked at some data that said "most of the weapons we make are ignored in favor of X, Y, and Z" and determined it was wasteful.
I don't agree that it would be the right choice, per se. But people compare the lack of weapons, when I tend to also think I've avoided probably 80% of the new weapon content ever produced that isn't Exotics. I barely played with anything new in Year 3 (laugh at Vex Offensive, Season of Dawn weapons). So it could feel like throwing good money after bad.
It's been implied for awhile now in the Lore that Fallen live a long time if they get enough Ether (they might even live forever so long as they keep getting it) and that the current Fallen are basically only a few generations after the whirlwind for the youngest ones and maybe not even a single generation for the older ones. The older generation is all about trying to restore what they once had, the younger generations are basically fully embracing being pirates and thieves and are disconnected from pre-whirlwind Fallen culture.
I don't know how much of this was intended all along and how much was just trying to make the way they talk about the Fallen match with the timeline they had set down earlier which apparently they'd never thought too hard about.
Speaking of exotics, I pulled one of my last season exotic engrams from the progression track last night. It dropped as Lion Rampants instead of one of the new ones. So something different is going on there. They might have fixed the exotic loot polls so previous season engrams don't have current season exotics.
People doing Last Wish are reporting 3 Spoils per encounter. You'll have to do 80 encounters to get a previous raid exotic you missed unless the new raid / VoG gives more due to being new.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
People doing Last Wish are reporting 3 Spoils per encounter. You'll have to do 80 encounters to get a previous raid exotic you missed unless the new raid / VoG gives more due to being new.
wouldn't be surprised if they add mods to increase the amount you get too.
New Lore Up, it's all very good, if you don't like the idea of Saint-14 and Osiris being A Thing then I've got bad news for you.
Ok, I got two important questions for Bungie now.
1) Did this start before or after the Sundial. I need a timeline here, please!
2) Can we make Saint and Osiris the new spokespeople of Crimson Days? I'm sorry, Shaxx, but Mara's just not good for you and if she was, she'd be around to celebrate the holiday.
Hope everyone bought Heir Apparent in the last 3 days, because the hotfix just took it out of the kiosk.
Heir Apperant was not intended to be available through the kiosk. Current plan is to have this exotic available during a future event for players to earn. Stay tuned for announcements of availability.
GJ Bungie, way to read the room on how little loot the game has right now.
+1
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Hope everyone bought Heir Apparent in the last 3 days, because the hotfix just took it out of the kiosk.
Heir Apperant was not intended to be available through the kiosk. Current plan is to have this exotic available during a future event for players to earn. Stay tuned for announcements of availability.
GJ Bungie, way to read the room on how little loot the game has right now.
This shit drives me crazy. You screwed up, leave it in for everyone else so they can enjoy it too. Change your quest to give the catalyst instead.
Hope everyone bought Heir Apparent in the last 3 days, because the hotfix just took it out of the kiosk.
Heir Apperant was not intended to be available through the kiosk. Current plan is to have this exotic available during a future event for players to earn. Stay tuned for announcements of availability.
GJ Bungie, way to read the room on how little loot the game has right now.
This shit drives me crazy. You screwed up, leave it in for everyone else so they can enjoy it too. Change your quest to give the catalyst instead.
That assumes a catalyst exists.
Bugs are bugs. Shit happens. Given it seems like we're gonna ally with the cabal in some fashion in the near future, Heir Apparent being available from a quest tied to that makes sense.
Speaking of exotics, I pulled one of my last season exotic engrams from the progression track last night. It dropped as Lion Rampants instead of one of the new ones. So something different is going on there. They might have fixed the exotic loot polls so previous season engrams don't have current season exotics.
There are no new exotics in Xur's engrams (this week, presumably), so don't use any saved up ones, or ciphers.
Speaking of exotics, I pulled one of my last season exotic engrams from the progression track last night. It dropped as Lion Rampants instead of one of the new ones. So something different is going on there. They might have fixed the exotic loot polls so previous season engrams don't have current season exotics.
There are no new exotics in Xur's engrams (this week, presumably), so don't use any saved up ones, or ciphers.
I did some poking around and it looks like the new exotics might only be from the new super lost sector thingies that you apparently unlock at some point. They aren't in the regular exotic loot pool. Which would explain a lot.
Also given you can earn a new Exotic Cypher every week, I think it's probably still worth blowing one on getting a new roll anyway.
Exotics purchased from Xur come out based on the level of the character buying them.
Ergo, if you have alts you want to help power-level you can buy them the currently offered exotics one your highest level character and it will give the lower level ones a huge bump in levels.
I'd been kind of lukewarm on Stasis until I unlocked the first Aspect last night for Shadebinder, and now hoo boy, I can see what they're going for. I'll put it in spoilers in case people want to be surprised by these (I think this one may have been in a ViDoc or something, but not sure):
It's the Iceflare Bolts Aspect, which basically turns your Stasis effect (grenade or melee) into basically a Sunshot on steroids. Anything you shatter explodes like normal, but also sounds out waves of Stasis to freeze other mobs, which can also be shattered which also sends out waves... you get the idea. There's some sort of upper limit that triggers a 5 second cooldown, but whatever it is and whatever triggers it, it's very generous. I was running around with Monte Carlo and just ice-staffing groups and then blowing them all up and it's very, very rewarding. I'm curious how it would work with the new Warlock plague gauntlet things, where you've stasis and poison spreading and exploding. I hope the other classes' Aspects are similarly rewarding, because until then it all just felt so Vanilla-D2 where your abilities came once in a blue moon and didn't really tick the "Power Fantasy" box, imo.
Suffice to say, once the questline is offered to you (comes from the Stranger post story), I'd recommend mainlining it until the you unlock an Aspect.
The thing about yoinking Heir Apparent away for a future reward is that it's not good enough to be an event's whole reward. Not because of the gun's quality but because a massive amount of people earned it the first time or just bought it. It will be fine if they add an additional reward for lifers to that event (a catalyst, a skin, or both) but just being like "the Exotic is Heir Apparent for this event!" will mega flop and I hope they're smart enough to know that. It's like the quest they did for Riskrunner, after it being widely available for over a year. Or the new quest for Chaperone that's there now for some reason...
My thoughts, having cleared the main story last night.
-The temptation angle was a flop, and the villain was good in theory but boring in practice. Probably the worst moment was when Eramis correctly pointed out that Variks is a HORRIBLE savior for the Fallen race in that he actively profited off bloodsport done to them in the Prison of Elders and now he's moralizing? Variks had no defense at all, then went "You're a MONSTER!" which is the most generic reply I could have possibly imagined. The lore is some of the best its ever been, the in-game writing is dipping back to D2 vanilla levels. I'm shaken a bit by this vast gulf.
-Europa is pretty in places. I don't know if it's as varied as it could be. There's basically desolate ice and Clovis Bray labs and that's it. A third "biome" would be kind of nice. Cosmodrome is nostalgic. I love the two Lost Sectors, but am displeased that there's TWO in such a vast zone.
-Why the hell did they preview the exciting trio of Stranger/Drifter/Eris and then... only the Stranger talks? What the hell WAS that? The other two just sit at a campfire and stare at it the entire campaign. How was there more interesting dialogue and interaction during public events and weekly quests last season than there is in a big $ paid expansion? Is this Covid trubbs, or is Bungie just unforgivably cheap? This pisses me off, honestly.
-Wow, the campaign loot game sucks. Variks gives you Long Shadow as a quest reward at one point, and I was just like... bitch are you for real? It was really "fun" to get my seasonal armor and Exotic and have them hideously too weak to use in the campaign in 10 seconds, as well. I eventually just started wasting my upgrade materials to avoid using blue armor AND blue guns. Blue armor is annoying enough, considering how miserly the stats are on it. I had completely forgotten what mobility 2 plays like... yikes. Duality is a fun gun to shoot, the new shotgun and pulse rifle seem pretty good.
-Warlock Darkness Super I have mixed feelings about. The basic loop of projectile, then immediately shatter gets boring, but the effects and chain explosions are pretty fun. The starter grenade is boring and bad for damage, I want them to give me new ones. Forcing Empowering Rift on me when my stats are shit was annoying, give me my real rift now, please.
I'd been kind of lukewarm on Stasis until I unlocked the first Aspect last night for Shadebinder, and now hoo boy, I can see what they're going for. I'll put it in spoilers in case people want to be surprised by these (I think this one may have been in a ViDoc or something, but not sure):
It's the Iceflare Bolts Aspect, which basically turns your Stasis effect (grenade or melee) into basically a Sunshot on steroids. Anything you shatter explodes like normal, but also sounds out waves of Stasis to freeze other mobs, which can also be shattered which also sends out waves... you get the idea. There's some sort of upper limit that triggers a 5 second cooldown, but whatever it is and whatever triggers it, it's very generous. I was running around with Monte Carlo and just ice-staffing groups and then blowing them all up and it's very, very rewarding. I'm curious how it would work with the new Warlock plague gauntlet things, where you've stasis and poison spreading and exploding. I hope the other classes' Aspects are similarly rewarding, because until then it all just felt so Vanilla-D2 where your abilities came once in a blue moon and didn't really tick the "Power Fantasy" box, imo.
Suffice to say, once the questline is offered to you (comes from the Stranger post story), I'd recommend mainlining it until the you unlock an Aspect.
Wait until you unlock some fragments for it. Right now I've got
One fragment that gives me super whenever I kill a frozen enemy and another fragment that gives me back grenade energy when I explode a stasis crystal.
So it goes like this, throw out grenade, freeze some dudes, kill them (generate 1/16 super) follow the wave to kill the next frozen dude, rinse/repeat, leaving me at like half super. Then shoot my stasis crystals to get my grenade back in ~10 seconds. Do it all over. Use Super.
I can only imagine how crazy these subclasses will be once we've got a second aspect and they are completely modded up.
The thing about yoinking Heir Apparent away for a future reward is that it's not good enough to be an event's whole reward. Not because of the gun's quality but because a massive amount of people earned it the first time or just bought it. It will be fine if they add an additional reward for lifers to that event (a catalyst, a skin, or both) but just being like "the Exotic is Heir Apparent for this event!" will mega flop and I hope they're smart enough to know that. It's like the quest they did for Riskrunner, after it being widely available for over a year. Or the new quest for Chaperone that's there now for some reason...
My thoughts, having cleared the main story last night.
-The temptation angle was a flop, and the villain was good in theory but boring in practice. Probably the worst moment was when Eramis correctly pointed out that Variks is a HORRIBLE savior for the Fallen race in that he actively profited off bloodsport done to them in the Prison of Elders and now he's moralizing? Variks had no defense at all, then went "You're a MONSTER!" which is the most generic reply I could have possibly imagined. The lore is some of the best its ever been, the in-game writing is dipping back to D2 vanilla levels. I'm shaken a bit by this vast gulf.
-Europa is pretty in places. I don't know if it's as varied as it could be. There's basically desolate ice and Clovis Bray labs and that's it. A third "biome" would be kind of nice. Cosmodrome is nostalgic. I love the two Lost Sectors, but am displeased that there's TWO in such a vast zone.
-Why the hell did they preview the exciting trio of Stranger/Drifter/Eris and then... only the Stranger talks? What the hell WAS that? The other two just sit at a campfire and stare at it the entire campaign. How was there more interesting dialogue and interaction during public events and weekly quests last season than there is in a big $ paid expansion? Is this Covid trubbs, or is Bungie just unforgivably cheap? This pisses me off, honestly.
-Wow, the campaign loot game sucks. Variks gives you Long Shadow as a quest reward at one point, and I was just like... bitch are you for real? It was really "fun" to get my seasonal armor and Exotic and have them hideously too weak to use in the campaign in 10 seconds, as well. I eventually just started wasting my upgrade materials to avoid using blue armor AND blue guns. Blue armor is annoying enough, considering how miserly the stats are on it. I had completely forgotten what mobility 2 plays like... yikes. Duality is a fun gun to shoot, the new shotgun and pulse rifle seem pretty good.
-Warlock Darkness Super I have mixed feelings about. The basic loop of projectile, then immediately shatter gets boring, but the effects and chain explosions are pretty fun. The starter grenade is boring and bad for damage, I want them to give me new ones. Forcing Empowering Rift on me when my stats are shit was annoying, give me my real rift now, please.
Not sure this is really a spoiler, but I guess just in case:
Eris and Drifter do talk. You have to walk over and press the interact button. Any time you have a quest item to go talk to the Stranger you can also talk to the other two to get some more dialog. Mostly it's about how annoying Drifter is.
I thought they were making Heir Apparent a quest reward, not an event reward.
The thing about yoinking Heir Apparent away for a future reward is that it's not good enough to be an event's whole reward. Not because of the gun's quality but because a massive amount of people earned it the first time or just bought it. It will be fine if they add an additional reward for lifers to that event (a catalyst, a skin, or both) but just being like "the Exotic is Heir Apparent for this event!" will mega flop and I hope they're smart enough to know that. It's like the quest they did for Riskrunner, after it being widely available for over a year. Or the new quest for Chaperone that's there now for some reason...
My thoughts, having cleared the main story last night.
-The temptation angle was a flop, and the villain was good in theory but boring in practice. Probably the worst moment was when Eramis correctly pointed out that Variks is a HORRIBLE savior for the Fallen race in that he actively profited off bloodsport done to them in the Prison of Elders and now he's moralizing? Variks had no defense at all, then went "You're a MONSTER!" which is the most generic reply I could have possibly imagined. The lore is some of the best its ever been, the in-game writing is dipping back to D2 vanilla levels. I'm shaken a bit by this vast gulf.
-Europa is pretty in places. I don't know if it's as varied as it could be. There's basically desolate ice and Clovis Bray labs and that's it. A third "biome" would be kind of nice. Cosmodrome is nostalgic. I love the two Lost Sectors, but am displeased that there's TWO in such a vast zone.
-Why the hell did they preview the exciting trio of Stranger/Drifter/Eris and then... only the Stranger talks? What the hell WAS that? The other two just sit at a campfire and stare at it the entire campaign. How was there more interesting dialogue and interaction during public events and weekly quests last season than there is in a big $ paid expansion? Is this Covid trubbs, or is Bungie just unforgivably cheap? This pisses me off, honestly.
-Wow, the campaign loot game sucks. Variks gives you Long Shadow as a quest reward at one point, and I was just like... bitch are you for real? It was really "fun" to get my seasonal armor and Exotic and have them hideously too weak to use in the campaign in 10 seconds, as well. I eventually just started wasting my upgrade materials to avoid using blue armor AND blue guns. Blue armor is annoying enough, considering how miserly the stats are on it. I had completely forgotten what mobility 2 plays like... yikes. Duality is a fun gun to shoot, the new shotgun and pulse rifle seem pretty good.
-Warlock Darkness Super I have mixed feelings about. The basic loop of projectile, then immediately shatter gets boring, but the effects and chain explosions are pretty fun. The starter grenade is boring and bad for damage, I want them to give me new ones. Forcing Empowering Rift on me when my stats are shit was annoying, give me my real rift now, please.
To your spoiler
Europa does also have the cool Well of Infinitude vex areas. The Glassway is neat, but it's in a strike. There's big open ice areas, broken industrial areas, Bray Exoscience robo labs, and the vex caves.
More than the Stranger talks! But you have to prompt them. While Eris and Drifter are sitting there you can talk to them and get some dialogue every time you go back. But they don't chime up on their own this is true.
Warlock Stasis stuff was really weird to me at first, but it's growing on me quite a bit. Looking forward to playing with it in PvP and getting more aspects and stuff for it.
I'd been kind of lukewarm on Stasis until I unlocked the first Aspect last night for Shadebinder, and now hoo boy, I can see what they're going for. I'll put it in spoilers in case people want to be surprised by these (I think this one may have been in a ViDoc or something, but not sure):
It's the Iceflare Bolts Aspect, which basically turns your Stasis effect (grenade or melee) into basically a Sunshot on steroids. Anything you shatter explodes like normal, but also sounds out waves of Stasis to freeze other mobs, which can also be shattered which also sends out waves... you get the idea. There's some sort of upper limit that triggers a 5 second cooldown, but whatever it is and whatever triggers it, it's very generous. I was running around with Monte Carlo and just ice-staffing groups and then blowing them all up and it's very, very rewarding. I'm curious how it would work with the new Warlock plague gauntlet things, where you've stasis and poison spreading and exploding. I hope the other classes' Aspects are similarly rewarding, because until then it all just felt so Vanilla-D2 where your abilities came once in a blue moon and didn't really tick the "Power Fantasy" box, imo.
Suffice to say, once the questline is offered to you (comes from the Stranger post story), I'd recommend mainlining it until the you unlock an Aspect.
Wait until you unlock some fragments for it. Right now I've got
One fragment that gives me super whenever I kill a frozen enemy and another fragment that gives me back grenade energy when I explode a stasis crystal.
So it goes like this, throw out grenade, freeze some dudes, kill them (generate 1/16 super) follow the wave to kill the next frozen dude, rinse/repeat, leaving me at like half super. Then shoot my stasis crystals to get my grenade back in ~10 seconds. Do it all over. Use Super.
I can only imagine how crazy these subclasses will be once we've got a second aspect and they are completely modded up.
Yeah, those are my next quests I'm going to work on today. I feel like it's a good system in that it lets them iterate on classes each season, but I'm guessing by two or three seasons in there will be the "must haves" like Viking Funeral or Transfusion and other things will be left in the dust. I'm also guessing the solution will be "sunsetting," haha.
I started the New Light quest chain last night as I was headed for what I expected to be another boss fight and didn't want to go in 25 levels below par again. It's pretty good! I like that they changed the intro story to actually introduce you to some of the characters and lore. They even tell you why the Fallen are 'fallen' and make a reference to the Sword Logic. Shaw Han kind of looks like he should be a Fortnight character more than a Guardian, but aside from that it seems solid so far. I'm curious to see how it resolves and if they do anything to bridge the tonal gap between the New Light "Rookie Guardian that Shaw Han likes" to the Normal Story "God-Killer, one-Guardian Army of the Light" dialog.
Edit: Has there been any lore why Nessus was spared? Or where Calus went? Looking at the Destinations tab, it really is the odd duck.
lore? no. but is one of the only strikes with a Fallen boss* so it had to stay.
*pretty sure they patched Warden of None to count but i know it didn't for a long while.
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
I'm already over the levelling in this game again. My powerfuls from challenges/quests have been (in order)
Exotic Quest Heavy
Strikes: Heavy (+2)
Variks: Heavy (-1)
Gambit: Arms (+3)
Zavala: Arms (+0)
Gunsmith: Arms (+0)
I feel like this happens to me every expansion and it sucks. Prime engram drops are the only thing that has saved me. With normal luck, I'd be probably be somewhat above 1210 base (1216+ with artifact). As is I'm sitting at 1207 and running out of powerfuls to get.
Geez, we’re just performing for the Darkness and following Sword Logic, huh.
I haven't read the extra lore yet (still working my way through Y3 stuff) but my impression from the campaign is that (no real spoilers here for further in the campaign then you are, but just in case):
this entire sequence of events was to get us to use Darkness. The Pyramid gave the power to Eramis to get us to do the same.
I started the New Light quest chain last night as I was headed for what I expected to be another boss fight and didn't want to go in 25 levels below par again. It's pretty good! I like that they changed the intro story to actually introduce you to some of the characters and lore. They even tell you why the Fallen are 'fallen' and make a reference to the Sword Logic. Shaw Han kind of looks like he should be a Fortnight character more than a Guardian, but aside from that it seems solid so far. I'm curious to see how it resolves and if they do anything to bridge the tonal gap between the New Light "Rookie Guardian that Shaw Han likes" to the Normal Story "God-Killer, one-Guardian Army of the Light" dialog.
Yeah, I did the whole thing too and it's really well done imo. Other then Shaw Han's animation being incredibly bad of course. But I think it does a good job of walking you through the basics of the game.
Also, if you are trying to level to softcap it's a really good source of drops. The way it works it basically showers you in blue and purple weapon drops.
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Dyshow am I even using this gunRegistered Userregular
Geez, we’re just performing for the Darkness and following Sword Logic, huh.
I haven't read the extra lore yet (still working my way through Y3 stuff) but my impression from the campaign is that (no real spoilers here for further in the campaign then you are, but just in case):
this entire sequence of events was to get us to use Darkness. The Pyramid gave the power to Eramis to get us to do the same.
Darkness being the biggest troll confirmed.
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
edited November 2020
I finally bought all of the expansion and am playing this again on PC, I was gonna join the SE clan but it looks like that is dead so I reapplied to Pax Arcadia.
The thing about yoinking Heir Apparent away for a future reward is that it's not good enough to be an event's whole reward. Not because of the gun's quality but because a massive amount of people earned it the first time or just bought it. It will be fine if they add an additional reward for lifers to that event (a catalyst, a skin, or both) but just being like "the Exotic is Heir Apparent for this event!" will mega flop and I hope they're smart enough to know that. It's like the quest they did for Riskrunner, after it being widely available for over a year. Or the new quest for Chaperone that's there now for some reason...
My thoughts, having cleared the main story last night.
-The temptation angle was a flop, and the villain was good in theory but boring in practice. Probably the worst moment was when Eramis correctly pointed out that Variks is a HORRIBLE savior for the Fallen race in that he actively profited off bloodsport done to them in the Prison of Elders and now he's moralizing? Variks had no defense at all, then went "You're a MONSTER!" which is the most generic reply I could have possibly imagined. The lore is some of the best its ever been, the in-game writing is dipping back to D2 vanilla levels. I'm shaken a bit by this vast gulf.
-Europa is pretty in places. I don't know if it's as varied as it could be. There's basically desolate ice and Clovis Bray labs and that's it. A third "biome" would be kind of nice. Cosmodrome is nostalgic. I love the two Lost Sectors, but am displeased that there's TWO in such a vast zone.
-Why the hell did they preview the exciting trio of Stranger/Drifter/Eris and then... only the Stranger talks? What the hell WAS that? The other two just sit at a campfire and stare at it the entire campaign. How was there more interesting dialogue and interaction during public events and weekly quests last season than there is in a big $ paid expansion? Is this Covid trubbs, or is Bungie just unforgivably cheap? This pisses me off, honestly.
-Wow, the campaign loot game sucks. Variks gives you Long Shadow as a quest reward at one point, and I was just like... bitch are you for real? It was really "fun" to get my seasonal armor and Exotic and have them hideously too weak to use in the campaign in 10 seconds, as well. I eventually just started wasting my upgrade materials to avoid using blue armor AND blue guns. Blue armor is annoying enough, considering how miserly the stats are on it. I had completely forgotten what mobility 2 plays like... yikes. Duality is a fun gun to shoot, the new shotgun and pulse rifle seem pretty good.
-Warlock Darkness Super I have mixed feelings about. The basic loop of projectile, then immediately shatter gets boring, but the effects and chain explosions are pretty fun. The starter grenade is boring and bad for damage, I want them to give me new ones. Forcing Empowering Rift on me when my stats are shit was annoying, give me my real rift now, please.
Not sure this is really a spoiler, but I guess just in case:
Eris and Drifter do talk. You have to walk over and press the interact button. Any time you have a quest item to go talk to the Stranger you can also talk to the other two to get some more dialog. Mostly it's about how annoying Drifter is.
I thought they were making Heir Apparent a quest reward, not an event reward.
Oh, that would have been nice to know. I have to play through the campaign twice more to get my Hunter and Titan Ice powers, but can I just wander over and get all that dialogue in a row with the main quest done?
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I think in general having the first week just be "Do the campaign and fart around looking at the new stuff" is a fine idea.
You can see it here:
from the always reliable Cheese Forever
Given the Warlock Stasis super already seemed pretty broken in PvP, I can see why they locked it down.
At this point I'm not sure Bungie can/wants to release new supers without them being horribly OP. Or at least some of them. It's like Forsaken all over again in the Crucible anyway.
If I wanted one 'boss killer' weapon, what should I go for? Probably never gonna raid much, so it's mostly just for a bit of Nightfall and fucking around generally.
On Darkness:
Ghost throughout the campaign and after is all "I'm worried" but there is no example yet to be worried about. Drifter/Eris/Stranger all seem totally fine rather than having some brewing internal conflict or corruption, and it's not like your Guardian lashes out in anger or experiences any real temptation or consequences. Ghost could have been a good way to do that - leaving him frozen and at risk, or at least a conduit for the Darkness when you are doing the Commune sections seemed like an easy step that didn't require a cutscene. Just like, create any sort of conflict here. But nah, PC Guardian remains the totes best at all things I guess.
On Eramis/Variks
And I like that we learned a bit more about Fallen society and the Whirlwind. Though it seemed like a retcon or new info that Eramis and Variks have been around since their own collapse, making them super fucking old.
The first two Lieutenants were great. But I don't even know what happened to the second two. One of them ran off to deal with dangling plot threads that may come to fruition in the Raid, I guess. The other went and became a Lost Sector boss? Way less neat, feel bad they drew the short straw.
So yeah, this was definitely stronger than the Darkness plotline, but still had a bit of weakness.
As for Gameplay itself, Titan Stasis definitely still feels weak, though I'm interested to see how it changes with actual build exploration.
I somewhat wonder how much of the lack of new weapons is driven by pipeline issues (I imagine most of it - they don't have the resource bandwidth). On the other hand, I was wondering today how much of it could be analytics/data. People talk about the Shadowkeep weapons or how many new things came out with X expansion/season or whatever. And maybe this is just my personal experience but…. It seems like for both PVE and PVP people get their meta defined, and at least pre-Sunsetting, there wasn't reason to explore beyond that. I wonder if they looked at some data that said "most of the weapons we make are ignored in favor of X, Y, and Z" and determined it was wasteful.
I don't agree that it would be the right choice, per se. But people compare the lack of weapons, when I tend to also think I've avoided probably 80% of the new weapon content ever produced that isn't Exotics. I barely played with anything new in Year 3 (laugh at Vex Offensive, Season of Dawn weapons). So it could feel like throwing good money after bad.
It's been implied for awhile now in the Lore that Fallen live a long time if they get enough Ether (they might even live forever so long as they keep getting it) and that the current Fallen are basically only a few generations after the whirlwind for the youngest ones and maybe not even a single generation for the older ones. The older generation is all about trying to restore what they once had, the younger generations are basically fully embracing being pirates and thieves and are disconnected from pre-whirlwind Fallen culture.
I don't know how much of this was intended all along and how much was just trying to make the way they talk about the Fallen match with the timeline they had set down earlier which apparently they'd never thought too hard about.
Here's the mission to get a new Exotic Cypher from Xur. Looks simple.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
wouldn't be surprised if they add mods to increase the amount you get too.
Ok, I got two important questions for Bungie now.
1) Did this start before or after the Sundial. I need a timeline here, please!
2) Can we make Saint and Osiris the new spokespeople of Crimson Days? I'm sorry, Shaxx, but Mara's just not good for you and if she was, she'd be around to celebrate the holiday.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
GJ Bungie, way to read the room on how little loot the game has right now.
This shit drives me crazy. You screwed up, leave it in for everyone else so they can enjoy it too. Change your quest to give the catalyst instead.
That assumes a catalyst exists.
Bugs are bugs. Shit happens. Given it seems like we're gonna ally with the cabal in some fashion in the near future, Heir Apparent being available from a quest tied to that makes sense.
This just adds further support to my theory that the Speaker was Saint-14's sugardaddy.
Obviously after he disappears the Speaker starts making eyes towards us.
There are no new exotics in Xur's engrams (this week, presumably), so don't use any saved up ones, or ciphers.
I did some poking around and it looks like the new exotics might only be from the new super lost sector thingies that you apparently unlock at some point. They aren't in the regular exotic loot pool. Which would explain a lot.
Also given you can earn a new Exotic Cypher every week, I think it's probably still worth blowing one on getting a new roll anyway.
Exotics purchased from Xur come out based on the level of the character buying them.
Ergo, if you have alts you want to help power-level you can buy them the currently offered exotics one your highest level character and it will give the lower level ones a huge bump in levels.
I did, and it's glorious.
My thoughts, having cleared the main story last night.
-Europa is pretty in places. I don't know if it's as varied as it could be. There's basically desolate ice and Clovis Bray labs and that's it. A third "biome" would be kind of nice. Cosmodrome is nostalgic. I love the two Lost Sectors, but am displeased that there's TWO in such a vast zone.
-Why the hell did they preview the exciting trio of Stranger/Drifter/Eris and then... only the Stranger talks? What the hell WAS that? The other two just sit at a campfire and stare at it the entire campaign. How was there more interesting dialogue and interaction during public events and weekly quests last season than there is in a big $ paid expansion? Is this Covid trubbs, or is Bungie just unforgivably cheap? This pisses me off, honestly.
-Wow, the campaign loot game sucks. Variks gives you Long Shadow as a quest reward at one point, and I was just like... bitch are you for real? It was really "fun" to get my seasonal armor and Exotic and have them hideously too weak to use in the campaign in 10 seconds, as well. I eventually just started wasting my upgrade materials to avoid using blue armor AND blue guns. Blue armor is annoying enough, considering how miserly the stats are on it. I had completely forgotten what mobility 2 plays like... yikes. Duality is a fun gun to shoot, the new shotgun and pulse rifle seem pretty good.
-Warlock Darkness Super I have mixed feelings about. The basic loop of projectile, then immediately shatter gets boring, but the effects and chain explosions are pretty fun. The starter grenade is boring and bad for damage, I want them to give me new ones. Forcing Empowering Rift on me when my stats are shit was annoying, give me my real rift now, please.
Wait until you unlock some fragments for it. Right now I've got
So it goes like this, throw out grenade, freeze some dudes, kill them (generate 1/16 super) follow the wave to kill the next frozen dude, rinse/repeat, leaving me at like half super. Then shoot my stasis crystals to get my grenade back in ~10 seconds. Do it all over. Use Super.
I can only imagine how crazy these subclasses will be once we've got a second aspect and they are completely modded up.
Not sure this is really a spoiler, but I guess just in case:
I thought they were making Heir Apparent a quest reward, not an event reward.
To your spoiler
More than the Stranger talks! But you have to prompt them. While Eris and Drifter are sitting there you can talk to them and get some dialogue every time you go back. But they don't chime up on their own this is true.
Warlock Stasis stuff was really weird to me at first, but it's growing on me quite a bit. Looking forward to playing with it in PvP and getting more aspects and stuff for it.
Geez, we’re just performing for the Darkness and following Sword Logic, huh.
Yeah, those are my next quests I'm going to work on today. I feel like it's a good system in that it lets them iterate on classes each season, but I'm guessing by two or three seasons in there will be the "must haves" like Viking Funeral or Transfusion and other things will be left in the dust. I'm also guessing the solution will be "sunsetting," haha.
Edit:
Has there been any lore why Nessus was spared? Or where Calus went? Looking at the Destinations tab, it really is the odd duck.
lore? no. but is one of the only strikes with a Fallen boss* so it had to stay.
*pretty sure they patched Warden of None to count but i know it didn't for a long while.
Exotic Quest Heavy
Strikes: Heavy (+2)
Variks: Heavy (-1)
Gambit: Arms (+3)
Zavala: Arms (+0)
Gunsmith: Arms (+0)
I feel like this happens to me every expansion and it sucks. Prime engram drops are the only thing that has saved me. With normal luck, I'd be probably be somewhat above 1210 base (1216+ with artifact). As is I'm sitting at 1207 and running out of powerfuls to get.
Also the idea of whole planets just becoming giant dark orbs is pretty spooky to me. And also silly. Very silly.
Is that what happened? I thought they literally vanished.
I haven't read the extra lore yet (still working my way through Y3 stuff) but my impression from the campaign is that (no real spoilers here for further in the campaign then you are, but just in case):
Yeah, I did the whole thing too and it's really well done imo. Other then Shaw Han's animation being incredibly bad of course. But I think it does a good job of walking you through the basics of the game.
Also, if you are trying to level to softcap it's a really good source of drops. The way it works it basically showers you in blue and purple weapon drops.
Think miniature, round black holes without the gravity, less so than an orb.
The one for Mars has both of the moons orbiting it still, so that might help the bizarre mental imagery.
Darkness being the biggest troll confirmed.
Oh, that would have been nice to know. I have to play through the campaign twice more to get my Hunter and Titan Ice powers, but can I just wander over and get all that dialogue in a row with the main quest done?