f13.net

Live gameplay stream on right now: https://www.twitch.tv/bungie

Edit: Stream over, didn't actually show any live gameplay, though people at the event are getting the play the game now.

Story explanation of why you have to start over from scratch.

I had no idea they never added clans to Destiny but they will be in 2.

PC version will be on the Blizzard games network formerly known as Battle.net.

Beta this summer (they didn't say if that includes PC).

Edit 2: Capture of stream (while it lasts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njsBWKymo7I

Actual start of presentation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njsBWKymo7I&t=3265s

Came here when the part about Blizzard providing backbone/login support hit my news feed.

I've never played Destiny, as I'm terrible at FPS games on the console and completely wrote it off. Though I do recall a number of friends saying they enjoyed the game.

I guess I'll watch the development of this. Would be nice to have something proper to replace The Division tanking.

I'm pretty bad at FPSs too and I found the single player fairly easy to get into. It's basically sci-fi FPS WoW, I'm surprised you never tried it.

The story could be better and I wish they'd knock the price down so I can snag the last expansion. I had a fun time with what I played of it though. My dad is 66 and played it every damn day for about a year or so. He's terrible, but still managed to do most of the content because people have helped him get through.

One of the guys on my friends list is a retired Vietnam vet. He was kinda crappy but still came through in a pinch for nightfalls and other strike activities. We carry him a lot, but he knows when to get the fuck out of dodge and swoop in to rez our asses if we go down. The coop bits of the game with the exceptions of the hard mode and challenge mode raids have never been that hard if you weren't a total moron. With the addition of the guided content, I'm thinking it'll be even easier for people to get into D2.

Needless to say, Day 1.

Skill Up put together what I think is a nice "final version" review of Destiny 1. As someone who didn't give the game a vast amount of attention (mostly just read headlines about updates and plights), they did a good job of summing up the flaws of the vanilla and first couple DLCs, and how they atoned in subsequent patches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNyMbmjOtW4

As someone who 'did' put in a lot of time on The Division, I'm pretty sure this will indeed be up my alley. Think they'll let PC and console players cross-platform together?  :grin:

Edit: Amazon Prime members get a 20% discount at checkout for the pre-order. Sold. Pre-order and try the beta on the cheap, cancel if you don't like it  :awesome_for_real:

Well shit. PC has to wait until October to play :(.

Guess I'll just swing around in the Secret World until then.

By October we'll know if it's remotely good. The trailer during the Sony conference was terrible.

It seems like they blew their load on the event they held last month. There's wasn't anything "new"; they just put something together to show off the PS4 exclusive stuffs.

The game's now available for pre-order through the Blizzard Store/client. In Blizzard fashion, there's the standard and digital deluxe versions. Just so weird seeing a non-Blizzard game in the Bliz store  :uhrr:

Here you go, have a 4k 60FPS gameplay trailer from nVidia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LsvPVk5eH4

 :drill: :drill: :drill:

Is that for the PC?  Why are they using a controller?

Dunno. Maybe Bungie doesn't know how to use a mouse/keyboard?  :awesome_for_real:

Anyways, here's a bigger, longer, and now with mouse usage video on PC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArPP6_QXqyQ

Jason and Alex pioneered M&KB on the Mac back in the day. Of course, only Jason is still there at this point, but some of the old school Bungie folk remember. I hope.

This looks like The Division with a sci-fi skin, and I guess first person mode.

When the Division launched I thought the same about it towards Destiny.

I was pretty ambivalent about Destiny at launch, but I occasionally play it now. I'll likely check out Destiny 2 and wait on the EA similar game to see how they launch.

Looks like Destiny to me.  Should I play The Division?

No.

+1. Maybe if they hadn't tried to reinvent the wheel for the billionth time in regards to loot and patched their buggy shit quicker, it'd be fine. But no, don't invest.

I think there is some mis-quoting going on, but I interpret the comments as "Do not play The Division."

Yes, sorry, I failed at clicking the right button.

I think my strategy is to just wait enthusiastically to see if Anthem is better than Destiny2

Then wind up buying which ever one my friends do.

Anthem is pretty, I'll give them that. I fear though that they're going to do the same exact bullshit that Bungie, Massive, et al have done with their shooter/looter games; re-invent the fucking wheel by making loot (good or bad) hard to get and hard to min-max. Massive took over a year to figure it out, same as Bungie and even Blizzard with D3. But even with the road well-paved by their predecessors, Bioware will try to do something stupid once again because "this time it'll be different, WE PROMISE. TRUST US!".  :uhrr:

Destiny, from what I've read and followed, seems to be in a good place right now. Bungie's just taking the old working systems and applying more polish and constructive user feedback for Destiny 2. That's where my money's at right now.

I agree, betting on Version 2 is smarter than Version 1.  Greater chance of lessons learned.

If nothing else, I might get the remaining Destiny expansions on super-sale.

Fuck min-maxing just plat the fucking game and enjoy the ride.

Getting a platinum trophy usually requires some degree of min-maxing.

only time I've ever given a shit about getting a platinum trophy was Horizon.

Think you meant to say "play."

Yeah, less than nimble fingers on a phone after two martinis.

My buddy swears by D1. I tried the beta for 2 for about 5 minutes on my XBone. Pretty, but I will never be able to get past thumb aiming like a chimp. I may pick it up for PC if it looks good enough.

Apparently people are hating that they can't rove around with a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and a tactical nuke (or something OP) all at the same time anymore; you're now confined to one bad-ass weapon and two "lesser" weapons.

What counts as what weapon type? Before they had 3 categories: Primary (Scout/Pulse/Auto Rifle or Hand Cannon), Special (Shotgun, Sniper, Fusion, Pistol) and Heavy (Rocket launcher, Gatling Gun). If they combined Special and Heavy into 1 category and only allow one of that, plus 2 primary, that would be pretty stupid.

That's exactly what happened.

http://kotaku.com/bungie-promises-destiny-2-pve-improvements-to-grumbling-1797128738

Oh look... an MMO struggling to balance PvE and PvP.  How novel.  :why_so_serious:

That's pretty stupid.

I think they can make it work with tweaking some numbers for health but it did feel not ideal in beta on the pve strike currently.

I was fine with the strike and the TTK for the most part in PVP as well. The weapon decision is a little dumb though. I get why they did it, but it's still dumb.

is it really that hard to just implement completely different rulesets for PVP and PVE

You want coders to do double work for single pay? You evil, rotten, spoiled gamebaby.  :why_so_serious:

I'm thinking back to what it would be like if I had to choose between carrying a shotgun or a rocket launcher during a Crota run.  Me no like.

Totally. I'm really pissed about that. Sniping the boomers on the ledges and then switching to rockets to DPS Crota wouldn't be possible with the new setup.

Maybe I'd buy an excuse related to team diversity, but the encounters would have to accommodate that.  I'd still have to figure out if I was Shotgun Dude or Icebreaker Lady.

Has anyone else been seeing that you can swap between your console of choice, and PC, seemingly at will? So, for instance, you can do most of the content on PC, then swap over to PS4 for raids if most of your friends are on that platform.

At least, that's what I'm being told. I'm still trying to decide if essentially buying the game twice would really be worthwhile in order to play on both platforms.

Seems like a lot of work to make that happen. For all that effort, you think they'd just let console and PC co-exist, a la FFXIV.

It's a little bit different for shooters.  M&K is vastly superior to a controller.  They'd have to either place some kind of handicap on M&K players or give an advantage for controllers to make things fair in pvp.  I can't think of a shooter game that allows cross platform play.  The only one that comes to mind was that shitty Shadowrun game, and that didn't work out very well.

Or they could just allow consoles, which are essentially homogenized PCs these days, to be able to plug in a mouse and keyboard.

At least that's what I'd do. Not my fault scrubs don't want to learn to use a M&K; I've baked the support in. Get gud  :why_so_serious:

I would play my PS4 so much more if they allowed that. The funny thing is, at least on PS3, you can plug a keyboard in to type stuff in but not to play games.

PS4 doesn't even support bluetooth headsets, so I'm not going to even think about keyboards.  I was happy to see that there was a HOTAS compatible with the PS4.

My bluetooth keyboard connects to my PS4. I believe it is text typing only, no controls.

Anyone in the Beta yet?  Impressions?

Edit:  Derp.  The beta did open today.  The today you can pre-load the game for Tuesday's Beta.  Fucking hype machine

It's pretty goddamn smooth.

I pre-ordered back in...(looks up in the thread)...May, and I got my code a week later to punch in Bungie.net.

Haven't heard or received anything since then, so I logged into Bungie again. Found that I could finally link my Blizzard account to Bungie, and I found a section on Bungie's site that let me generate a code for Blizzard so I could pre-load.

HYPE  :drill:

If you still haven't pre-purchased yet, and want to play on PC, you can get 18% off at Greenman Gaming.

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/destiny-2-pc/

It's my understanding the early access goes live at 1PM EST today.

Beta for pre-purchase starts today, open beta on tuesday.

I'm in, but I'm already dismayed that inverting my Y-axis isn't working.

/ragequit  :awesome_for_real:

Edit: Fixed it.

So is the single-player stuff actually better than the original?

also is it mostly still just bullet sponges and bullshit missions?

Edit: Also, is the loot actually like, really random this time?

Having never played Destiny 1, I can see how someone who's never played can get overwhelmed at the start, esp. if the starter mission that the beta starts you off with is the very first thing new players will do. There was no tutorial, tooltips, or anything that explained how to utilize class skills, superpowers, etc. One minor hand-holding when it came to picking up a new weapon, but that was it. Pretty standard FPS fare though.

In regards to random loot, yeah, no: http://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2s-weapons-and-armor-wont-have-random-rolls/

Then its dead to me.

Dead to me too. Why are they so fucking stupid?

Devs haven't learned that PvE and PvP don't mix.  STOP TRYING TO BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE! 

I'm out as well.

I think I may be out as well. It's pretty as fuck, but that's not helping me see past the basic gameplay.

Bah. I tried it and while it's well done I got bored immediately. At least The Division had a cool New York (and just that).
Anyway, this makes me miss Hellgate London.

Combat movement felt really slow, nothing special about the gun play, enemies didn't feel interesting and the area design was linear. Biggest problem I had during the starter mission was that with everything glowing it was hard to know what to interact with, I ended up stuck because I had no clue there was a double jump and having to stand at the right spot to blow up generators.

Only positive thing I could say about the game is that its not a cover shooter.

Soooooooo ... Anthem, AHOY !!!

(at least until all BioWare's disappointing design choices emerge)

This was pretty boring and bland. Not a great way to introduce someone new to the game.

I guess I'd play if a friend absolutely loved it or something, but right now I don't see a reason. I'd rather go back to Warframe or The Division.

I don't see how this is any better than Warframe, esp. with the upcoming open world expansion.

For the 1% who care, a hour and half video of the story behind Destiny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2avSq-82oI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2avSq-82oI)

Too long for me to get through and I am left wondering why create such a convoluted complicated story for what  is NOT a role playing game. Somewhere near the half way point it starts talking about a big battle for a walled city. Why does a breach in the wall matter in a world with flight and space craft?

I like the first game well enough that I'm not going to brush this one off from a "beta" (demo) that was pretty light on content.  They even didn't let you play with half the game's systems.

The PC version isn't out for a few months anyways so I'll have plenty of time to see the console review before buying it.

The one saving grace for me is they really know how to use Nathan Fillion for marketing purposes.

https://youtu.be/LSxElWwWVFE

I feel like its worth reiterating that Bungie has never been a good developer. They pretty much suck ass.

Destiny works best on consoles because it has Bungie's extremely good console controls. Gunplay in Destiny 1 on PS4 felt great and I had a lot of fun with it.

There was not matchmaking for anything but strikes however and the hardest difficulty stuff was mostly just really boring exploit-encouraging nonsense. Oh ha, everything nearly one-shots you- time to farm up weapons that let you trivialize encounters, or stand in corners with your whole party and shoot through doors or exploit the AI in such and such a way, or whatever. No one ever gets difficulty right in the end.

Yeah, I just went back and looked at all the games they ever made.  Myth I and II are the only games they made that I can say I legitimately really liked.  Halo multiplayer with a ton of people in the room was fun back in the day for the same reason Golden Eye was, but the game its self was pretty meh.

Halo 1 is one of those games that manages to be fun in spite of itself.  The maps in the single-player alone would have sunk a lesser game.  The horrible, endlessly-repeating-the-same-100ft-of-room-and-tunnel single player maps.  I remember somebody quipping "the main security measure against releasing the Flood was that anyone searching for them would just get bored and go home."

I remember spending most of my time in Halo 1 "gun-running" a la the early Counter-Strike betas cause of the weird ammo system.

I am hearing mostly-good reports.  Might get this sooner instead of later.

I caved and spent the weekend playing. Finished the story which was good but a tad short. Finishing the story opens up a bunch of post-game activities so there is still plenty of game left - it's also the only way to get a sparrow so I felt the NEED to grind through the story. Fast travel is ok, but there are some really long traverses between travel points that you need a sparrow.

It's pretty much a continuation of Destiny 1, which I am torn on. All the baddies are the same... same factions, same weapons, same tactics (though the Fallen melee are a bit more aggressive).That was nice to see all the familiar factions and how they fit and how to beat them.

But on the other hand, it is exactly the same as the last game... nothing new in terms of big bads. Basically just Destiny 1 with new maps and slightly different grind focus. I liked Destiny 1 well enough that I am not dissatisfied, but paying $60 for what amounts to a new map and voice packs for the first game is a tad groan-worthy.

A cool feature I really liked is when you start the game fresh, it loads in your accomplishments from Destiny 1, recaps what you did, when you did, and who you were with - pretty cool to see when I beat the story, raided, etc. Was a bit taken aback when I noticed this was back in 2014... FFS, 3 years already?

 :geezer:

Finished the story on two characters and am now running through the worlds after the red war. There's a lot of shit to do that wasn't there in the first game.

Guys, this game is a lot of FUN. The shooting just feels good, even with a controller.

The premier game for handicapped systems?

Pretty much feel I got most of what this can offer out of warframe already, and if I wanted to a PvP shooter it would probably be over-watch.

Yeah, no.

lol?

Gotta say, I'm liking this better than the first. I lost one of the guys who went into Destiny 1 (stupid ass is having a kid... I mean come on). So now I have to do strikes with strangers. The horror!

Even with a controller, the shooting just feels a lot tighter. And Destiny 1 was still pretty darn good for that.

I still have a PC version on pre-order as well, because...why not?  :awesome_for_real:

With the upcoming Plains of Eidolon expansion for Warframe, I fail to see how Destiny 2 is better in any significant way.

https://www.warframe.com/news/tennocon-announcement-recap

Still no. Warframe’s shooting is still sloppier and bolting on some open-world shit isn’t going to help that.

I didn't find Destiny 2's shooting any better or worse than what I've played in Warframe, at least on the PC (might be different on console).  It's not like D2 is revolutionizing the FPS genre.  Besides, Warframe's expansion should bring it closer to what D2 has to offer WRT MMO like features.

I played Warframe on PC and PS4.  Destiny 1 & 2 shooting is better.  Obviously there is room for opinion here.  Destiny isn't breaking new ground as a game, but the rooty-tooty-point-n-shooty is the best I've played.

I should probably mention that I favor the bow in Warframe.  Also Destiny swordplay is kinda ass.

I've been seeing a lot of negative reviews/videos about Destiny 2.  This one sums most of them up.  I hope it's not the case because I am looking forward to playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=276&v=Hv-GVirXDoQ

Debating on cancelling my preorder as well. Got kinda burned with the Division, and I'd really like to avoid a repeat. Still, it's hard to filter the reviews between people who played "just Destiny 1 Vanilla, no expansions" and the die-hard, been-with-it-forever reviews. The latter seem to be more disappointed with D2 because it's basically more of the same that they've already played and they don't understand why they had to buy a whole new game, while the former seem to enjoy the changes (even if the changes been around since The Taken King), but still feel unfulfilled.

I'm sure as someone who's never played it at all, I'll enjoy it for a time once it releases on PC (the PC port may also explain why sales for D2 are slumping compared to D1; #MasterRace folks are holding out for the better experience). And maybe by the time I get to the end-game and max out they'll have more content and address the issues they're having. Again, I've never played, but stuff like the change to shaders being a consumable and not a one-time-unlock-for-life (https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/7/16270446/destiny-2-shaders-consumable-microtransactions-bright-engrams) is just :uhrr: to me.

I might get it in a few years. Right now it sounds like a worse game than Destiny with expansions except for a more cinematic single player campaign.

Main impression I got is that it is just a destiny 1 refresh. Same mobs, classes, mechanics... just kicks everyone down to level 1, invalidates all the old content (but reuses some maps) and introduces a new bad (who will be dead by the end of the story). Still hasn't really solved how to make a shooter MMO with minimal class synergies not be repetitive shooting at bullet sponge enemies in the end game.

I cannot get over the armour though. A devoid of style combination of gridiron player, medieval knight and fridge.

I enjoyed this I Hate Everything (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqyco2NYBOs) commentary (from someone who played 60 days of destiny 1, so clearly did not hate that).

Bungie took the wrong cues from the wrong players and whiffed on this one.

D1 was significantly more fun and natural feeling than this one was. The story wasn't as laid out for you, but you had a lot more choices, activity-wise. The decision to change PVP dramatically and to allow those changes to hold sway over PVE was dumb. 4-on-4 is dumb, the absolute necessity in the current meta to stay grouped because 1 person versus 2 or more usually ends that single player's run rather quickly takes some of the fun out of being able run and gun with different weapon/skill combos. Everyone in Trials is using a fucking MIDA multi-tool because you're not competitive if you're not using it. The raid is the least fun, most mechanic heavy, least forgiving raid they've come up with so far. Worse than Hard Mode King's Fall. The margins for error if you don't have the right class/skill mixture are non-existent.

It's a mess.

I heard they fucked the raid up. A lot of people I know were frustrated with it. Everything else is pretty much Destiny 1 as far as I can tell outside of the loot-grind feeling a lot longer because only specific activities will give you gear notably above your current power level.

IHMO, this is just basically a $60 expansion pack of D1 with a full character reset. New maps and new story, but everything else is like D1. I enjoy messing around with it, but when I play I can't get comfortable with the fact this game is full price. For full price, I'd expect more gameplay changes and new mobs to justify the expense... I got my money's worth, but probably not going to continue with the destiny series.

There are a lot of new mobs. The skins may be similar but a lot of behaviors have changed. With probably the exception of the Taken and the Hive. There’s a lot of things to bitch about, but IMO, that’s not one of them.

Did I miss some new fallen or cabal models? Yeah their behavior is a bit different but nothing ground breaking. But the fallen still have the dregs, vandals, captains, and servitors. Cabal has the same psions, grunts, commanders, bosses. Some new skins but I can't recall any really NEW models. I enjoyed the familiarity but just having a hard time justifying the full price. But that's me.

It didn't take long to get to the "I didn't play Destiny 1 either" and close the video.  If you didn't like Destiny. Destiny 2 isn't a different game.

I'm having fun and I've spent more money on dumber things.  I'm not playing PvP and I haven't tried a raid.  I had to get into a group of "less responsible" players just to finish the raids in D1 so, eh.

how do you fuck up shooty shooty + loot

Flagship can also be used as a verb.

focusing on the loot.

That's both incorrect and not what happened in Destiny 2.

this is the worst possible answer of tons of possible answers

Bingo. They standardized the loot in the name of fairness to the filthy casuals and then catered the rest of the game to the worst instincts of the hardcores.

Listening to the 'hardcores' usually leads the wrong direction.  I'm looking at you, Wildstar!

I suppose there are a ton of things wrong with Destiny 2 but none of them are getting in the way of my rooty-tooty-point-and-shooty.  OK, maybe the story is, but that's not specifically a Destiny problem.  When I stop having fun, I'll do something else.  Have you all learned nothing?

I've learned that my money is valuable, and that I don't like rewarding those that haven't learned from either their mistakes or the mistakes of their predecessors/competition.

I pulled my pre-order. Waiting a year for the devs to iron shit-out seems better in this case.

I like it enough. Guess I don't see games as an investment as much as I see it as a distraction. I play it enough for it to equal what I paid for it and possibly more. Once I get bored with it, I move to the next one. I'm not looking for the next ground breaking game because I'm too old to wait for that type of nirvana to come around again.

We are not exactly short of mechanically capable "shoot the target in a 3d space game", and from what I've seen of Bungie's business practices they're fairly determined to make sure it is an investment with a season pass and paid DLC to drip feed out that content.

Since I just learned they added RMT lootboxes to Destiny 1; are they here in Destiny 2?

They are in Destiny 2 as well. But after hitting level 20, you get one every time you gain enough experience for another level.

I haven’t stopped playing. I’ll continue to play it as there are chunks of it that are a lot of fun. I’m just not gonna run weekly raids like I did with D2. Hell, even Iron Banner isn’t fun after the rewards are tapped out. Fuckin’ esports bullshit.

I have far more money that time, so don't use me as a yardstick if your situation is different.  I've already long forgotten about that $60.

The only thing that I actually find annoying about Destiny 2 is that the tints are consumable, and I somehow end up with 3 of anything and so would have to pick some armor to NOT tint.

As Surly pointed out, though, you get a lootbox of customization stuff every time you level after 20.  It isn't onerous at all.

The lootboxes are just cosmetic? That's certainly less offensive.

I've only found paintjobs and ship models.  No usable equipment.  I'm not sure you can use silver coins (the RMT currency) to buy equipment at all.

To answer the question from the Useless thread, the contents of Bright Engrams are indeed random.  Random paint jobs and other whosits.  Like teleport effects, so you can arrive on the surface the same way that the Fallen do.

Bright Engrams you get for leveling up past 20 or buying from the store contain cosmetic armor that you can then upgrade to your power level. You can also get better sparrows and better looking ships with custom graphics. About the most useful thing you can buy from Eververse are the tokens that increase drop chances. You can either buy dust from the store or break down the stuff you get from the bright engrams for dust and buy those. I usually keep 5-8 token in my inventory for the weekends when I can get on for a few hours.

Looks like the player base has dropped dramatically on PS4 since launch.  Hopefully people are just leaving the peasant version because they plan to join the Master Race next week but I'm not counting on it.

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2017-19-10-destiny-2-playerbase-has-dropped-by-over-2-million-users-since-launch

I've read that a number of PS4 players in particular are pissed that they can't access "The Tower" without crashing half of the time. They did finally fix it just last week, but still...I thought the PS4 was supposed to be the premier platform for D2 to be on?

Can attest to that. I had several occasions of zoning into a black screen and having to restart the game. Didn't really do much but annoy me...

I got my 3 characters above 300 light, went flawless a few times in Trials, and attempted the raid a few times.  As someone already mentioned the raid is less pleasant than ass cancer.  I no longer have much desire to play.  Don't get me wrong I feel like I got my money's worth and enjoyed playing it, but it's definitely very shallow at the moment.  I had originally been planning to get the PC version, but now I think I'm going to wait.  I started playing Warframe in the meantime and I'm hooked.

What is a good class to start with for pve?

Titan is basically easy mode. Roll one of them and you're probably good to go.

Perhaps it is, but Hunter is way more fun. And I have been rolling tank classes primarily in every type of game. I still love my Titan, but man Hunter is a blast.

In the raid speed run I watched they discussed that hunter was useless at end-game, I believe due to the interaction between it's super and bosses I think.

Also amusing watching reports of PC players being banned before they can load their first game for running software that has a screen overlay... which quite a number potential triggers many PC gamers use (like comms programs).

Have a buddy trying to get me to play this with him. Non-random loot seems like a non-starter for me.

My friends are already half-vanished from Destiny 2. It's more of the same- granted bungie really can design beautiful environments, the music is great, and they still basically have the best feeling control scheme for playing FPS titles with a controller but it's mostly Destiny with the hard edges sanded off and what people think is an improved treadmill is really just an even slower more obnoxious treadmill.

Power increases are EXTREMELY incremental, way more so than Destiny 1 where I was able to climb pretty quick towards the cap before Raid gear. You can get piles and piles and piles and piles of tokens and legendary engrams while grinding out the stuff that nets "powerful gear" which is stuff with real boosts in power level. All of that shit you got with tokens and from legendary engrams? Trash, generally after you get your armor tuned to the movement/toughness/recovery levels you want. Only good for infusing your aging Exotic items. You get your "powerful gear" rewards which are typically not the slot you really need to upgrade for armor and 20000000000 shitty pulse rifles and SMG primaries or really really bad shotguns.

It's kind of a trick really- you get purps on a pretty regular basis compared to the previous game but if it's not your "powerful gear" drops, a proper weapon (Auto Rifle/Scout Rifle) to replace your shit one (Pulse Rifle) of similar power value, or something you can infuse a good Exotic with it gets ground up into scrap to turn into the gunsmith who in turn gives you garbage of the same light level right back. I'm never excited to get a legendary engram from a random drop.

Ah, they went with the WoW loot system.

"Everyone gets purpz, but they're really garbage until you do the catass "real player" content."

Do you have to raid to get the good stuff or can you get it from other content?  If you don't have to do the raids, then this system would be better.

Haven't touched the raid and I am closing in on 300 light/power/what-the-fuck-ever on all three of my characters. Only thing I have not had drop for me is the Better Devils (which is mainly from PvP engrams, but said to randomly drop rarely).

The raid is very much not required unless you absolutely want the look from the raid armor.

Nah, there's just activities that give you "powerful gear". You can see it in the "director".

Every week its:
-The Raid
-The Nightfall
-Doing Public Events/patrols on <planet>
-Earning 5000 EXP for your guild

If you're in a guild (which the game highly encourages) you get a free powerful gear engram (it's just a legendary engram with a guaranteed higher power level) for each goal your guild completes- like winning so many crucible matches, completing the nightfall or raid (even if you're not in the group that does it everyone gets stuff), etc.

Played this quite a bit this weekend.  I'm quite disappointed at how shallow this game is.  It's pretty, but shallow.

Yeah, I just don't get the hype for this.  The gun play is really good but other than that I fail to see anything special about it.  I'll plug away at it a bit more but I've gone back to playing Warframe as it's a much deeper game with a lot more stuff to do.

I haven't played too much yet, but so far the look/feel & quests on Earth were pretty meh.  Titan however looks amazing.  I really like the different areas of the planet and the quests were more interesting overall.

The fact that you don't get your sparrow right away in this one feels odd.  I think it makes the planets seem smaller and doesn't give you time to really look at everything and learn the different areas.  In the first Destiny you were always driving all over the planets, in this one the objectives seem like they are always right next to the quest giver.

I get that feeling as well.  Zones become more of a game of following the white diamond on your HUD than learning the terrain.   It's a very on-rails, theme park shooter. 

I do hope that any upcoming Star Wars MMO would utilize the Destiny combat mechanics.   I could see it applying to both laser and light saber combat.

I like this game.

The social UI makes me want to aerosolize my poop after a Taco Bell weekender and fire it at the design team. Unforgivable.

I might try this again at a later date but I've uninstalled and have gone back to Warframe.  Apart from the shooting, which is very done well, Destiny 2 doesn't offer anything that's significantly better than Warframe and falls short in many places in comparison.  It's not a bad game but I just understand all the hype for it.

I blew through the story, did some strikes, dabbled in PvP.

The story was more coherent this time, it's very pretty, and the shooting is tight.

And in a way, it's altogether unremarkable. I just feel no reason to fire the game up - it just feels bland.

I enjoyed the first few hours of Destiny 1 but couldn't stomach the expansions which when combined would cost more than a new game ! Tried the Destiny 2 beta and looked like more of the same, was a pass from me. Also their loot box practises which aren't just cosmetic items but also modify abilities can go *expletive removed* themselves.

On sale in the Blizzard Store for $40 this week. Tempting....

You can get it at Green Man Gaming right now for $35.87 US.

Curse of Osiris drops in two weeks too, so there may be reason to keep playing.

We'll see.

It looks like Bungie isn't above treating it's players like shit just like everyone else does.  They were purposefully reducing xp gains for some activities after reaching max level when players were grinding out Bright Engram xp.  They've changed it now only because they got caught.  Fuck these guys.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/11/25/destiny-2-has-been-secretly-reducing-xp-gains-and-is-stopping-after-fans-caught-on/#6bb4c5056a76

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq05MgGMVMM

So, obviously with all the experience gains uproar, and possibly dwindling (or lower than expected) populations, they decided they needed to do something drastic.. which means you now can try this for FREE with no limitation of time (but capped at level 7) on all 3 platforms!!

Additional Free Trial inclusions :
Campaign Mission on EDZ & Titan
Adventure and Explore two full worlds
PvP Multiplayer: Crucible Quickplay Playlist
Gameplay carries over to full game with purchase
Clan Functionality

https://www.destinythegame.com/free-trial

Aaaaaand downloading  :awesome_for_real:

They've also cancelled doing a live stream this week that was supposed to promo the first DLC to instead make way for a (live?) blog from the Bungie devs in an effort to clear the air about all the drama as of late.

Having fun with the trial. From a lore point, it would have been nice if they had spent a bit more time bringing new players to the series up-to-speed on the events of D1, but then I'm preaching to the wrong audience here on that point  :why_so_serious:

Is there an easy way to ensure I've picked up all potential loot/ammo from a fight? I feel like I'm missing out on stuff after a firefight jumping and shooting everywhere.

Only loot you'll get to drop are engrams - purple ones will need an extra step. Otherwise, it doesn't matter much if you miss one or one falls off the map, those will all be sent to the postal droid on the Farm/Wall.

Standard Edition on sale for US$26 on all platforms right now: https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-2-PlayStation-4-Standard/dp/B06XPNX59W?th=1

50% off the PC version 6 weeks after launch.  I should have waited.

Ah ok, I get it. Thanks :)

Follow-up on drama, Bungie pushed the pledged blog, detailing changes with dates.

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/46504

tl;dr:
- You fuckers win, we'll let you random God-roll talents and stats on legendary gear, but exotics stay stat-locked.
- We tried to be funny with XP, but we failed at coding it correctly and got caught. Mea culpa.
- We hear you on balance stuffs. We'll try and talk more with you about it and fix it in December.

Even at that price I don't know if I'm going to pull the trigger. Nothing I've read or seen seems like a substantial improvement over D1 besides "can be played with keyboard and mouse."

Save your money.  Two of my friends were diehard Destiny 1 players that swore they would be playing Destiny 2 for the next 6 months.  Both of them quit after 3 weeks.

Finished the trial content. Yeah, I'm glad I saved my $60. Assuming they pull through on what they posted in the blog, I could see picking this up with the year 1 content bundled in next year. But not now.

I pulled the trigger at $26.  Demo was fun enough to warrant that. 

Never would have gone in at $60.

Waiting is how I missed out on bitcoins.

You still have a chance! Speculators say they could hit 60k in a few years and hit a million when the market inevitably crashes!

Can I buy just part of a bitcoin?  It's like fucking Halliburton stock.

As I understand it, yes. I am not an expert nor am I going to invest, however.

Friend of mine gifted this to me when it was on sale this week, so I'm playing it. The shooty parts are good, but I can understand the complaints much more clearly now.

Aside from the new raid, the first DLC has apparently been received as well as a turd in the swimming pool would be. This video (https://youtu.be/aM6UAKW5l0Q) sums up it up well, and makes one wonder why Mercury didn't ship with the base game.

SkillUp, who did the magnificent 40 minute video review of all of Destiny 1, has officially thrown in the towel. (https://youtu.be/aEEUJ4hSwwI)

Each new planet will cost you another $30. That's why... it's the new hotness. $60 to get started and an additional $30 to keep up with the Jones'

really simple people, fuck this game and go play Escape From Tarkov

I'm re-downloading Warframe on my PS4.  :grin:

Well, late to the party. Just completed the campaign.

I skipped reading the complains here to go in with an open mind.  Playing with a friend, just finishend the campaign.

Not sure if there is enough "meat" for longterm interest, but so far it's good.

It's not a bad game.  It's just not a vast improvement over Destiny and it's certainly not worth the price they are charging.

WAY more hype than value.

If there were no history behind it, it would be a good game. Unfortunately, there's Age of Triumph Destiny and this is a step backward from that.

Thankfully bought it for $30 and already got my worth back just with the "dress up your character" gameplay part.

Although that turned out more like > 300 different shaders and colours > end up going for for wood-camouflage & black-trenchcoat tacti-cool look anyway.  :grin:

(https://i.imgur.com/Qsplgfc.png)


There is a new update (1.1.4) coming out today: Go Fast Update – Developer Commentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8zUeEUIJY)

Josh Hamerick clearly hasn't left his dude-bro phase behind.  :uhrr: Edit: Why I am so bitchy lately ? Sorry. Also, the change sound good.

Someone on reddit did a long writeup of all the changes known so far:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/86ij06/breakdown_of_patch_114_gotta_go_fast_and_all_the/

People are still playing this? :headscratch:

I was tempted by the 505 discount and then I remembered that it is still 30$ more expensive than Warframe, sooo...

Snarky comments by Mr. Snarky F13 aside, yes people still play the game. I do enjoy the game and spend quite a lot of time in it at the moment. The recent 1.1.4 changes have helped as well, gameplay feels more crisp.

If anyone feels like some pew pew (Strikes, Missions, etc), I am Calapine#2676 - EU server.

Six-on-six Iron Banner feels a tad crowded on maps tuned for four-on-four. I'll still take the crowding over the bullshit esports model they were trying to push.

The game is definitely faster, though TTK is still a tad long. I'm not rushing back into this but I'll definitely pop back in when Warmind drops to see what that feels like.

jesus, just noticed weeks later that autocorrect changed "warmind" to "warming".

This is the featured game on the Humble Monthly this month so I bought it. $12 for a $60 game felt like a good enough proposition.

That's odd, it's not on Steam.  Are they giving out Battle.net codes? So far everything in the bundle has been either on Steam or just a DRM free direct download as far as I know.  Weird.  I guess I'll find out in a month.

Yes it's a Battle.net code.

There's really no way to turn the music down? It's either full blast or silence? What the super fuck?

One of the audio options mutes music but that doesn't work for the title screen  :oh_i_see: There's more options coming with Warmind tomorrow, no idea if those help.

I subbed to Humble Bundle this month to pick this up. Got a warlock up to about level 9 yesterday. Sorta fun, in a fever dream-y kinda way. Hasn't truly grabbed me yet, though. What am I missing?

You are missing New York. I am killing time with it too and it's polished, but as I said before this feels like a less interesting The Division to me. (I know, FPS vs 3PS). Or some post-apocalyptic humour as this is also a duller Borderlands.
Such generic Science Fiction is hard to swallow these days.

If you have the Humble Monthly, you can unlock Destiny 2 now.  I also have a spare key since I bought it when it came out.  Wish I had waited until now, though. :facepalm:  If anyone wants it, send me a PM.  

You're not missing New York. As much as I love my hometown and the Division. They're not the same. Even with the expansion of the Dark Zone, I still can't see my home. (That's the New York part.) The two games on my most played list for the last two years have been Destiny and The Division. That said, the Division is an amazing game right now and arguably better than D2 but the devs have basically all but turned out the lights on it with the exception of a couple of small minor updates in wait for The Division 2, which I fear will make some of the same mistakes Bungie did with Destiny 2.

I'm confused about this though ;  I can unlock it now for 12 quid, right ?  But it seems to suggest that I'll still get billed next month ?  Or is it a 'pay your month in advance and not next month' thing ?

It's pay this month's in advance. You won't be billed twice. Either pay the 12 quid now and play it now, or it charges at the regular time of the month and the game doesn't unlock for you until the end of the month.

Agreed about The Division. I pray they build on it with sorely learned lessons for the sequel, so we don't have to wait 2 years after release for a playable game.

This game is super boring.

I was literally coming to post the same thing. Up to level 14 and bored to fucking tears.

My point was that Destiny 2 lacks personality, which The Division has in truckloads. The setting is incredibly generic super-heroish sci-fi that is hard to give a fuck. Without at least a bit of charisma, these games are just shooting galleries. Which can be fun for a while, but I think it's telling that they are all having a hard time retaining players no matter the hype or the production value. I am still looking forward to The Division 2 though.

Narrator :  It Wasn't.

I've only played it a little and it seems decent enough. It doesn't seem like much of an upgrade over the first one, only more of the same.

"More of the same" seems to be the big criticism of this.

I've played a couple of hours of this and I thought the intro where you lose your powers was a great into... until you get them back 2 missions later. Yey I was almost interested!

I'm not actually sure why I didn't play it again, to be honest. There was nothing wrong with it as such.

It's actually (still) worse that Destiny 1 + expansions.

Second DLC has launched - Warmind

Review below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYCwVrk8N70

This game is basically a pretty version of 'Duck Hunt'.

Ages ago, when I played the first Halo, I found it soulless and mindless and boring.  Now I found myself playing something that reminded me SO strongly of Halo, I was forced to comment on it.

To which the audience said 'You know this is by the guys that did Halo, right ?'  I did not.  It surprises me how little they've learned.

The levels are boring.  The loot is boring.  The characters are boring.  The combat is boring.  The enemy AI is slightly north of 'Utterly Retarded'. 

I suspect this might be a fun game with friends.  Alas, I have none, so I think I'm just gonna put it away in it's wee box and ignore it ..... Once I've got my character all mad purp gear.

Yeah, I played endless hours of the original Halo multiplayer with friends.  We use to get 4 xboxes together and get 16 player action going.  It was amazing.

I think I spent all of 10 minutes trying to play the actual game and gave up out of boredom.

I bought this at full price and got my money's worth, but I had a regular group of six to raid with. Once we stopped playing together regularly I immediately lost the will to log in.

Leveling through the teens was definitely the worst. It gets better once you settle into a set of weapons you like and can start chasing item levels in earnest.

No.  Fuck that.

"Once you pick the torture you like its not so bad." That sounds good.

I mean yeah

If you're not raiding and if you don't want to shoot the same three aliens for hours so that you can make your numbers go up (not the numbers that matter; those get auto-scaled to wherever you are) then this game is not for you.

But the raid itself is garbage. It relies too much on mechanics and is a shitty situation to run noobs and weaker players through.

It’s like they took all the worst parts of the Destiny 1 raids and rolled them into one and said, “good luck, you fuckin’ tryhards!”

Twofer post because the Year Two reveal just dropped.

It's looking like they might have actually listened to the more sensible players instead of the tryhards.

Destiny 1 Weapon choices, random rolls on weapons, moar story. new supers.

Keeping my hype level down considering year one, but it looks promising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u4oyarcc4I

Needs moar Paul Barnett  :why_so_serious:

random rolls on weapons you say :thinking:

I'm playing the free weekend of this and nothing is grabbing me yet. I can't help but compare it to Warframe. Even as level 1 MR in Warframe I felt like the game was was fun and intriguing. At MR24 I can never wait for the next story to come out. In D2 I'm intrigued but not engaged.

Cliffs: WF seems to have more depth than D2

D2's depth is built, sadly on the memories of D1.

It's not just "seems" and Warfarm keeps adding things.

Well it took them a year but apparently they've reverted D2 back to D1* with the Forsaken expansion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DypNaZOIcqo

It'll cost you an arm and a leg to get the D1 experience in D2, though, since you need all the previous DLC to play Forsaken

* Literally, like the return of 6v6 in many/most PvP modes, shotgun and sniper as secondary weapons, and loot with random rolls. Basically it sounds like every gameplay decision they made for D2 to "improve" it they've reverted back to how it is in D1.

They're folding all the old dlc into Forsaken (I think, I don't actually play this game, don't shoot the messenger if I'm wrong). 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/10/12/destiny-2-forsaken-to-start-including-prerequisite-expansions-for-free/

Destiny 2 is free till the 18th if you want to pat yourself on the back for saving $60

https://eu.account.blizzard.com/gifts/?blzcmp=app

Bungie tells Activision to piss off and keeps Destiny in the process. (https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/01/10/bungie-splits-with-activision-and-takes-over-destiny-publishing)

Considering Kotick is still a goatfucker, this is good news. They also got a cool 100 mil in fresh funding to throw at a new game, which I'm hoping is related to Marathon.

Black Armory DLC is grindy shit that has no story line and ruined the whole Forsaken experience. Forsaken redeemed Bungie and then they went and fucked it all up again.

There are so many things that I hate about BA that makes me want to rage but instead I haven't touched the game in weeks and just don't give a shit about it anymore. Activision or no Activision, I won't spend money on Bungie games again, they keep fucking up.

As grindy as BA may be, if that was your focus, you missed a lot of good shit.

There was more to it than going from forge to forge? I'd finished CoO/WM/Forsaken on all 3 characters and had got them all to 600. The need to keep grinding more levels as part of the DLC did my head in and the cosmetics aren't worth it. If they implemented cosmetics as in Guild Wars I'd be interested.

If there is more storyline etc I'd try forges again but TBH I can't see it being worthwhile. I didn't get past the first forge because it was a case of grind some more for higher level gear so that you can do the content. It's as bad as the  Ace of Spades shit which I'm still not over - playing crucible on Aussie ping made that shit un-doable.

I'm sick of Bungie locking stuff behind grind and PVP.

It's interesting they were able to get out of their contract a year and half or so early (was supposed to last until mid-2020). Bungie must have been costing Activision a decent chunk of money.

Rise from your motherfucking grave for one last hurrah.

Tomorrow:

- 2nd expansion launches
- PC finalizes move from Battle.net to Steam
- Game is now F2P with a Fortnite-style progression system
- Levels are gone. All new players start at 700ish Power.
- Brand new players will get the OG Destiny 1 starting story, not the D2 tower-attack-Light-loss fiasco.
- Cross-saved play is now available. You can't play cross-platform, but if you've got multiple platforms to your avail, you can access your same account and hang with your appropriate homies.
EDIT: - This seemed worthy of edit: Armor system also getting overhauled or something.

Having the base system as F2P I suspect will inject some life into the platform. I'm going to give it a stab, but I'm not buying the expac unless I get really caught up in it.

I'm sitting with all 3 classes on 750 light waiting for the expansion to release.

Chalice was a lot of fun and I finally got into playing Crucible, finishing the Ace of Spades and falling in love with hand cannons.

I'm going to miss my furnace armor though.

By and large, Forsaken was a great expansion and moving to Steam should be great. I was sick of the Blizzard launcher.

A shame they couldn't make the expansion purchases cross platform like the characters.

Eh, gives them something to shoot for with Destiny 3  :why_so_serious:

16400 in a queue.

That's what happens when you pre-purchase the expansion. I should have realised that Bungie had no hope of handling all the free to pay players and forgot about their user base.

Back to WoW classic and Warframe for me

The launch was a shitshow. They tried to do too much at the same time.

That said, once you got in, the storyline is fucking fantastic. If you've been playing this since the first one, the echoes of your entire life as a Guardian spring out. The flexibility of the new armor is a lot better and the addition of the Vex deciding to start some shit while we're off balance is just, *chef's kiss*.

Yup - I'm slogging through the grind to 950, with 2 guardians sitting at 920+

I must admit I am rolling as much Black Armory armor as I can - I like the aesthetic and the energy rolls seem pretty good so far.

I really like the artifact leveling and also the rewards (I'm on a season pass).

I'm in my Destiny phase of "Warframe or Destiny", I'm sure it will swing back as I hate the PvP of both but it's more intrusive in Destiny.

RIP PoE and WoW classic.

I too have been enjoying this more and more over the past couple weeks. Didn't get Shadowkeep or the season pass yet, but there's so much to do with the New Light F2P I don't feel like I'm missing out. I might go all in come next season.

Oh, hey, new content roadmap.

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/49189

tl;dr: Fuck Destiny 3, here's three more DLC expansions for the next three years. Also, we're cycling old content, so if you didn't play D1, you'll get a chance, and if you haven't played D2 year 1 yet, DO IT NOW.

The content cycling is kinda wild, almost half to zones are going to be archived for some time. I like that they're apparently focused on making a Destiny living world instead of launching a new game every few years.

The one major thing that would make them AWESOME would be to make expansions populate cross platform, so I can play on PC in my den and PS4 in the living room without buying xpacs twice.

They're not quite doing that but if you cycle up generations on the same platform (PS4-PS5, for example) your account goes with it, along with any expansions you bought.

Beyond Light was pushed back to mid November, ostensibly because working from home for everyone makes shit weirder.

It's also, conveniently, right around the PS5's projected launch date.

I'm not particularly mad at them for the move. I was just hoping I'd get a week or two of the newest expansion in before America collapsed.

Also if you have Xbox Game Pass, Destiny 2 is going to be on there next month with the expansions and will also be getting the new expansion when it launches on there. XGP is a pretty good deal to begin with and at the online event they had recently they announced that every game they showed off there was coming to XGP whenever each game launches. I've been having a pretty good time with XGP on the PC so that might be your best way to get access to the expansions on your PC, and then also maybe buy them on your PS4 if you need.

Anyone playing the expansion? Seems decent so far. Getting good and sick of traveling north on Europa though. They really need to add a fast travel spot at the top of the map there.

I swore I wouldn't play Destiny 2 again... I failed.

Playing it now. Got my titan to 1206 light and I haven't finished the story, but I'm having fun. I started on my hunter but found that it was rough going as you start under capped. So I ground the titan and then remembered how good the movement/shooting is and kept running non-storyline for fun.

I miss but don't miss the removed content. I hate to say it, but I think they made a good choice, although I miss the Red War elements. Changes to gear seems solid except for the sunsetting of my beloved Black Armory weapons - I haven't found good weapons to replace them yet. Exotics feel in a good place, and  I love that you can now buy the exotics that are no longer achievable... because I was never going to grind for them.

The storyline feels good so far (as Destiny goes), between this and Rocket League, I'm finding that gaming is fun again for now (I burnt out on Warframe again)

With the exception of Cyberpunk, been playing this pretty much exclusively. Ran through the story on my Hunter main and my Warlock. Deleted my Titan and started over with the whole new player experience because I wanted to see what that was like. Kind of a mistake, because now I've got to grind through Forsaken and Shadowkeep again as well as the Beyond Light stuff.

Its always been fun and the new raid is pretty damn fun. Also, the raid exotic rocket launcher is the new Gjallarhorn and I'm loving the hell out of it in Crucible.

You know that you can do the new player experience on old character don't you? :why_so_serious:

I did it, played it through, got another risk runner and the catalyst at the end of it, then went on with the main game.

So far I've finished the season pass, just got the Big Fukkin Sword tonight and am grinding through bits and pieces. Hunter has grenades and aspects done, Titan is starting that quest line and the Warlock is still in the campaign with no stasis yet.

I do like the fact that I'm 1265 and have yet to see a raid. Actually, raiding is the one thing I haven't done in Destiny 2 ever.

I managed to solo the Exo Challenge for my sword - hated the waves of mobs until I realised that Mobius Quiver completely destroys the bodd simulcrum and Thorn and Ikelos SMG controls the mobs nicely.

I'm sure I will burn out soon, especially getting all the stasis skills on 2 more characters.

Yeah, figured out that I could do those too late. Still, played it out in my head that my Titan disappeared along with Sloane when the Darkness made the planets and moons go bye bye.

My buddy and I are always looking for a third for Nightfall stuff- are we friends on Steam? If not, send me a friend request and give me a shout in game if you ever wanna ass around. I joined my friend's guild, but they are almost all PS5 players, so not a lot of guildies around until crossplay gets here.

Had a friend from work drag my buddy and I through DSC the other night. I have no earthly idea how people going into raids blind and figure out the mechanics. What a fucking nightmare.

Lots of trial and error.

LOTS. That said, there's also always hints about the mechanics in the strikes and missions beforehand.

You underestimate how Autisic people can be when they go in over and over and looking for every single gesture of every NPC to see what signals something is about to happen.

But ya there isn't a raid on the internet designed for a group to just walk in and win.

TBF Patchwerk has a sign out front saying "You must DPS THIS high before winning."

Which, IMO, should be the benchmark fight for every raid. If you can't put out the deeps for a simple tank 'n spank, don't bother wasting your time on the rest of the raid and having to deal with "mechanics".