Gaming Destiny & Destiny 2

The actual theory is that:

Spoiler

Ana's sister Elsie somehow went on to be the Stranger.

I liked the story a lot actually. It was definitely short, but I enjoyed the encounters. The deeper lore hidden throughout among the quests after the story is complete is definitely intriguing also, with plenty of mysteries and ciphers ready for the unraveling.

My main points of issue with the story are:

Spoiler

1. The abrupt cut after Zavala is first met in the Mindlab area, about to deliver exposition about Xol, but then he just...doesn't.
2. And again toward the end of the story when you are "frozen" in place by Xol as it talks to you. It feels like this was queuing up some exploration of the Darkness/Deep but in the end it just didn't go anywhere.
3. This is a complaint from the ultra lore-nerd in me: Rasputin's presence on Earth being just a personality fragment. This WAS presented in D1 Year 1 Grimoire as a possibility, but I had always thought him being based on Earth was cooler. At any rate, this is just an old preconception I need to let go of, not a detractor from the story told.

 

I'm sorry we're soooooo critical of the game, BLemelisk.

 

You're allowed to be, but that's all that is ever posted. It just feels very dismal.

 

It's one of the most annoying things about Bungie storytelling. In particular with Destiny, a rich world that deserves rich ingame storyteling besides what appears in grimoire, flavor texts or loretabs. Proper exposition by NPCs without it being voices over comm should be a thing more frequently. But they prefer to take the lazy approach to it, as always. And it certainly feels extremely lazy when juggling a legendary hunter, Rasputin - an entity we've been dealing since day 1 of D1 but have still not properly interacted with - and two Hive gods all within a two-hour campaign.

 

I definitely agree it was maybe too much to handle for the story length we had. Like a Call of Duty storyline that had just too much going on in too many directions. I was a sucker for the action sequences though.

I think a big step in the right direction for lore (which can really sum up the post-release development of D2 - "steps in the right direction") is the inclusion of the Concierge AI terminals where you can just prompt it continually for its information on the story of the game.

As an aside, I probably have become too attached to the grimoire since the beginning. Fortunately a lot is written vaguely enough for retcons to fit in, like the Rasputin card that says "maybe he's an autonomous shell, maybe he changed in the Collapse, maybe..."

 

This is why I don't like the raid lairs; in D1, the story bosses would appear in the raid as the final encounter. As Datto said, Ghaul was suppose to be the biggest threat we've ever faced and was beaten, quite easily, within the campaign.

 

New raid lair is 370.

 

Great. That means I won't be getting into it for at least a week or three.

 

Not like I actually raid anyway but I’m quite curious to hear if it’s any good or atleast better then the dumb follow the leader Leviathan I’ve seen on YouTube.

 

Well, it's in the Leviathan. Again. So that right there diminishes the fun factor by about 40%.

 

Wait...WHAT? For real? Why not on Mars?

 

Still not sure why I can’t edit a post here in games.

But yeah that shows how much out of the loop I am with raids. I just went in the screen and saw all 3 were on that ship. This entire time Curse has been out I assumed that 2nd was on Mercury. Lol. That has to feel frustrating I’d think. I know that ship eats worlds so it’s big but come on..

My son did mission 1 and loved it.

 

One positive I have about warmind:

The endgame doesn't **** around. I like hunting for the exotic masterworks (the grind for them is really punishing, which I enjoy) and the sleeper nodes are subjected to RNG - you cannot farm all 40 them in an hour. You will get several duplicates.

But, the campaign still bugs. Hate it was sort and the final two missions were just the strikes. Yeah, it was lore rich, but it took massive liberties with apparent established parts of the canon.

Will I come back in September? Probably not. Bungie needs to do A LOT more to win me over and spend £30 on a large DLC.

 

From what I've read, the first raid run was brutal. The first team to complete it took almost 8 hours to do so and only 11 groups completed it. Apparently many folks went in considerably underpowered. But that combined with some extremely complex mechanics are making folks immediately compare it with King's Fall.

Well, hint fully got. I'm not going in until I'm close to 370. Trick will be, of course, finding a good team that can carry my ass thru it.

 

Was KF well liked?

 

Yes. Kings Fall was a masterpiece and the community loved it.

Raids are at their best when everyone is underpowered by a significant margin and delta kicks in (enemies deal additional 10% damage, for every 10 levels you're below the recommended level); for a stand WoW raid, it usually takes 10+ hours for the first world completion. Final Fantasy XIV online use to be quiet brutal for first time completion and could take a day to complete; updates now delay a new raid by a week - to ensure delta isn't too brutal.

Vault of Glass was 14 hours I believe.

 

Only 16 unique teams have completed the raid so far.

Lowest since VOG

 

Warlock on 341. Did 3 rounds of Protocol with randoms in area and we didn’t get to round 2.

That **** was f ing fun though imo!

 

So, out of morbid curiosity, I've started grinding out my Valor ranks in PVP. Kinda reminds of OG Iron Banner in D1; PVP does shower you in WAY more loot, that it is actually quite insulting compared to strikes.

 

Hit Valor Heroic rank (lvl 2)

Some advice:

• You're at the mercy of matchmaking. I got matched with teams for a few games, which sent me on a five game winning streak, and that was worth a 100 points.
• Yes. Even winning several matches (I think 12), I still took me 6 hours to get 350 points.
  
• Most of the time you'll get bad team matches and will lose. A lot.
• 1 match is 10 points. So, if you need 50 points to level up then you need to play 5 games.
• Patience is the key. Valor is about endurance. YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY A LOT OF GAMES.
• Speaking of endurance. Clash s l o w s you down so much. Clash matches will go full 10 minutes.
• Be aggressive as Hell in Supremacy and Control. You can finish these modes in under 7 minutes.
• PVP is a great exotic farm btw. I've got 5 in 6 hours of playing.
• Final point: Valor requires many, many hours of commitment. Curious to see how many will be rank 3 in a months time.

 

Gonna do some here shortly and see the new maps.

I can’t to Lvl 2 in protocol.

 

You'll need to be mid level 360s to stand a chance.

 

I tried to follow Datto's vid on that final raid encounter and pretty much said to myself "nope, **** that and **** you Bungo". It seems that the mechanical difficulty of the encounter was dialed up to 15 just as an overblown reaction to comments that the current raids are too easy. I don't find them so easy, but I do find the whole Callus and Leviathan thing boring by being removed from the main story and because, yeah, I'm sick of the ****** Cabal at this point.

 

What is the difference between glory and valor?

Hopefully one isn’t only Trials.

 

Valor is the Quickplay playlist ranking. It also applies to the current weekly playlist (this week is Rumble, so, yeah, unless you're a god solo player, don't try to increase your Valor ranking there.

Glory is for the Competitive playlist only. Trials gameplay does not qualify for Glory since that playlist already has its own reward system. Since I only solo queue. I probably won't even bother with that unless I somehow manage to latch myself to really gud sweats that want to grind for that gun.