Destiny 2: The Witch Queen out now

Mafro wrote:
Hexx wrote:pinching that

Am I reading this right about the story for this new season:

Rasputin has been offed just like that after all that buildup since Warmind?

Yep
It’s in the opening cutscene. It’s not even really explained they just turn him off somehow...

So played Freeplay to try season....and that's fine?

The intro mission is fine (although the cutscene with Bray is hilarious)

The public event is nice - but it's a public event. Next to Vex Min/Sundial it feels very slight

And Umbral Engrams and targeting loot is nice...but why? I could find a group for dungeon but friends aren't here. But everything is doing the same content, same bounties, in same places to level up to get to as strong as you were before. And getting the same mods from the artifact to be forced to use certain weapons...

Not enough to put me off September, but it feels like the worst of Y3

I cracked and bought the season pass. TBH the exotic is probably worth the price alone (lol no) and it's the most fun I've had with a new weapon in aaaages. Which means Bungie will no doubt nerf it next week.

The loop is...short. And...a bit boring. I'm going to try and do the dungeon with some randos, see how that goes.

Tafdolphin wrote:I cracked and bought the season pass. TBH the exotic is probably worth the price alone (lol no) and it's the most fun I've had with a new weapon in aaaages. Which means Bungie will no doubt nerf it next week.

The loop is...short. And...a bit boring. I'm going to try and do the dungeon with some randos, see how that goes.

Taf ffs

Is that exotic the bugged grenade launcher that everyone is using to kill bosses in seconds or is that something else?

Yeah which exotic?

Mafro wrote:Taf ffs

Yeah, the grenade launcher... Witherhoard. It has a ridiculously powerful AoE effect that basically turns encounters into The Floor Is Lava. It's excellent fun.

The season loop is pretty satisfying, and I like that I can narrow down what I get from the new Umbral Engrams (including stuff from previous seasons, which is excellent). The new public event is probably the best they've done but...it's just Gambit. Fun but... Gambit.

But still. It was enough to get me back into the game. Just done this week's story mission (the first after the intro) and yeah, it was pretty good. More Savathun stuff.

EDIT: Also, the Seasonal weapons look great. One of the two swords is straight up Cloud's Buster sword

I bought the season pass like an idiot as well. Just when I thought I was out, and all that. Regretted it after about 2 hours, but the umbral engram mechanic seems good, but they waffle on and make stuff sound more complicated than it is.

Yeah I think the seasonal loop this season is okay. Pretty low key and there's no much pressure to no-life it, which I know some of the fanbase won't like. But for players like me, who took a break during Worthy and most of Dawn, who felt the need to want to get back in to the game, it's a gentle, fun reintroduction, serving as a tease for the autumn expansion both in a gameplay sense and in terms of plot.

To be honest, I think that both this year's seasonal model doesn't quite work and the playerbase expect tooucn from it for £8. It was always going to be content that required grind and that reused existing assets.

I feel like the playerbase for Destiny just want an ever-changing list of everything and anything. They asked for grind and something to chase all year round. These seasons give them that but then they say they want new story missions and stuff. We used to get them with the two paid DLC drops with the likes of The Dark Below/House of Wolves and Osiris/Warmind. People used to say that there was too much time between them. I just feel like it's never going to be a game that satisfies everyone all over the time and is something you play constantly all year round.

So for me, at the moment I'm just dabbling and enjoying the gunplay again. The grind loop is diverting enough to have something to aim for and progress. There's the dungeon to work towards as well. I think if you looked at the whole four seasons, this and Dawn probably did enough for £8. It's hard to judge of course, as they have had to provide stuff for non-pass members too. So the dungeon is good value... but they made it free too, rather unexpectedly.

As I said, overall, the three seasons last year were better, though individually slightly more and stretched the content out over a little longer. The Gambit season wasn't great, but it was made up by the okay Forge one and the great Menagerie one. As well as two Raid Lairs.

This year has delivered a grind and stuff to chase, withitle chunks of story (though bar Saint's return it's all felt a bit subplotty up to now).

I don't think it's been a failure as, like I said, if you get 10-20 hours of play out of the season, a couple of new exotics and some exclusive content, then that's *probably* worth £8, considering £10 gets you a sub to FFXIV or ESO Plus (the latter does give you temporary access to most DLC though).

Unfortunately I don't think you can expect that much from an £8 season. There's a small margin for error too - if the dungeon had been paid exclusive, you'd be looking at the pass being a lot more tempting. If there's a raid lair in a season, it tends to be worth it. The individual Hitman 1 levels used to go for... around £13 I think? You'd pay £8 for a Destiny raid, easily. Even the slightly smaller raid lairs/dungeons, when coupled with the other seasonal stuff, easily support the price tag.

i wonder how Y4 will go. If they charge the same and do the same model, then it's probably going to be similar stuff served up between the big expansions. You can tell though, that the game is now really a battle between their budget, their development time and their man power, trying to serve up content and serve it up quickly, whilst also running the game and working on the year-long DLC. You can tell they are stretched a lot thinner post-Activision.

Parksey wrote:I wonder how Y4 will go. If they charge the same and do the same model, then it's probably going to be similar stuff served up between the big expansions. You can tell though, that the game is now really a battle between their budget, their development time and their man power, trying to serve up content and serve it up quickly, whilst also running the game and working on the year-long DLC. You can tell they are stretched a lot thinner post-Activision.

I haven't been keeping track 100% but I think they've said they'll be revising how they work seasons. The first season pass, Black Armoury etc, worked pretty well but I imagine Bungie can't sustain that level of content (brand new activity including new mechanics and locations, new weapons, new armour) now they've lost the support of Activision's helper studios like Vicarious Vision. It will indeed be interesting to see how they manage it next year, especially since they've committed to reducing FOMO.

Playing a bit more, I actually am enjoying this. Like Parksey says it's just more Destiny but...Destiny at its core is a strawberry floating great shooter. It also helps that the Nightfall this week is one of the game's best looking locations.

Yeah the grenade launch is great fun but I think I'm out.

Logged in, did the same content feeling very weak (to be fair it was my choice to hunt new gear during upgrade rather than just infuse old builds) to do the story mission (the last section was different fights with minor dialogue changes too).

And I'm done. I was grinding bounties to use guns/gears/abilities I didn't want, to level up to get mods so I can use weapons I might not want to stagger enemies (relearing for the 4th time an ability).

The gunplay is still absolutely solid, but the loop just isn't for me right now. Not enough to put off September though

holy gooseberry fool, my bae exotic handcannon Hawkmoon is coming back?! WHEN?

Mafro wrote:holy gooseberry fool, my bae exotic handcannon Hawkmoon is coming back?! WHEN?

Fall expansion, so September. BUT...they've already confirmed it won't have the same exotic perks, so no more random power bullet or Holding Aces.

Tafdolphin wrote:
Mafro wrote:holy gooseberry fool, my bae exotic handcannon Hawkmoon is coming back?! WHEN?

Fall expansion, so September. BUT...they've already confirmed it won't have the same exotic perks, so no more random power bullet or Holding Aces.

Didnt they it won't have the Aace in the Chamber perk (if that's the official name of it) but they are looking at having some sort of random element to it to mimic the feel of the original.

But yes, if you're a big D1 Hawkmoon fan, it's probably not going to be quite the same.

Was Hawkmoon early/launch D1? I got the game around November 2014 but only really got into it just before House of Wolves came out. I missed the loot cave, Vex Mythoclast and a lot of other stuff.

I never understood the hatred the developers had for loot caves.
Some people just don't have the time to grind for stuff in the normal way and if those people want to spend time at a loot cave I have no idea who they're harming. The loot caves were pretty friendly and people got in line for them and they didn't get in anyone's way.

Peter Crisp wrote:I never understood the hatred the developers had for loot caves.
Some people just don't have the time to grind for stuff in the normal way and if those people want to spend time at a loot cave I have no idea who they're harming. The loot caves were pretty friendly and people got in line for them and they didn't get in anyone's way.

The problem is, it's not just "the people who don't have time to grind" that end up taking the unintentional shortcuts like the loot cave, it's everyone. When presented with a quicker, easier way to level up, everyone from no-lifers to casual dabblers. It's like a river course correcting to take the easiest route.

This week you has it with the AFK forge farmers. Again, people said "but what if I don't have time to play the game", which is fair enough, but a lot of the player base go and do it. Why go and play a strike, nightfall, gambit etc when you can go to sleep?

In an ideal world, you could say "well, the game should be fun enough for them to want to play it" and I'd agree but people always go for the most efficient routes, even if that includes glitches and bugs.

Fair enough.
I tried the loot cave for a while in D1 and found it tedious so stopped.

Parksey wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:
Mafro wrote:holy gooseberry fool, my bae exotic handcannon Hawkmoon is coming back?! WHEN?

Fall expansion, so September. BUT...they've already confirmed it won't have the same exotic perks, so no more random power bullet or Holding Aces.

Didnt they it won't have the Aace in the Chamber perk (if that's the official name of it) but they are looking at having some sort of random element to it to mimic the feel of the original.

But yes, if you're a big D1 Hawkmoon fan, it's probably not going to be quite the same.

Was Hawkmoon early/launch D1? I got the game around November 2014 but only really got into it just before House of Wolves came out. I missed the loot cave, Vex Mythoclast and a lot of other stuff.

Hawkmoon was there from the start but it was one of those PS4 timed-exclusive exotics so the Xbox version didn't get it until TTK came out.

Have they said if they'll separate Next gen players into different lobbies so they don't have an advantage with the higher framerate?

Parksey wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:
Mafro wrote:holy gooseberry fool, my bae exotic handcannon Hawkmoon is coming back?! WHEN?

Fall expansion, so September. BUT...they've already confirmed it won't have the same exotic perks, so no more random power bullet or Holding Aces.

Didnt they it won't have the Aace in the Chamber perk (if that's the official name of it) but they are looking at having some sort of random element to it to mimic the feel of the original.

But yes, if you're a big D1 Hawkmoon fan, it's probably not going to be quite the same.

Was Hawkmoon early/launch D1? I got the game around November 2014 but only really got into it just before House of Wolves came out. I missed the loot cave, Vex Mythoclast and a lot of other stuff.

Yup. But if you watch Datto's vids he's pointed out the damage-based perks for exotics are pretty much extinct now, with Bungie seemingly moving away from them. This would mean the "one random bullet is much more powerful" is probably not coming back.

I'm really enjoying this new season. On the surface it's nothing much, but the loop is really satisfying, the seasonal weapons excellent (Cold Denial and False Promises are now my go-to pulse and auto rifles) and the Shadowkeep-esque weekly lore mission fun. Honestly, it's worth going back just to get the new Trinity Ghoul catalyst which turns the damn thing into the best add clear in the game (and that includes Supers, amazingly enough. It's insane fun).

How have I not got that catalyst yet? I want it so I can go level it up in Gambit and get Hush, which is one of the few Pinnacle/Ritual weapons I haven't gotten yet (still need bloody multi kills for the Mountaintop).

I read that the catalyst was meant to drop early on from your first "proper" activity, so Gambit, Crucible or a Strike, but I'm rank 25 now too and haven't seen it.

But yeah, I'm really enjoying the gameplay loop too. It helps having taken two and a half seasons off. Hopefully just as I start to tail off a little bit, the Moments of Triumph will kick off (which is is traditionally when I usually go back to the game before The Taken King/Rise of Iron/Forsaken/Shadowkeep come along and give it a shot in the arm). There's the Solstice thing too.

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen out now

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