Destiny 2 [PS4/XBONE/PC] (Sept. 6, 2017)

[Serra]

First, random rolls are gone and people need to accept that. Given the structure of the game, I cannot imagine they'll change that aspect significantly. Personally, I don't agree with that change, but I imagine I have one of the top five D1 playtimes on BG (possibly the most, but I don't want to think about that..), so my opinions on this are clearly skewed towards the extreme ends of even the hardcore playerbase. Ever since they announced non-random rolled gear they've said they need to address making your third, fourth, tenth drop worthwhile, and they still have to do that. Honestly, I have a hard time thinking of a way to make subsequent drops worth keeping (they could add a cosmetic feature unlocked for dismantling ten Better Devils, but I think most players wouldn't accept that). Second, there is loot worth chasing, the problem is it is significantly easier to obtain than D1. Instead of spending months grinding for armor pieces in hopes of getting the stat spread I want, I can go to a specific planet, farm tokens, and have a reasonable chance of getting pieces of gear with the correct stat. At the end of the day, both these issues are built into the changes they made going from D1 to D2 and I can't see them changing them at this point in the game.

All that said, in their seasons video a few weeks back, I think they touched on how they're going to approach getting people interested in content going forward -- season-locked cosmetics that unlock based on your achievements. For instance, let's say you unlock the season 2 helmet ornament for FWC gear by earning thirty packages during a single faction rally. Is it the best option? Maybe, maybe not. I'm personally okay with this, but I also play competitive Overwatch for those sweet gold weapon skins.. I think a lot of people are going to bitch about it just being cosmetics, but I also think a lot of people have forgotten how things were in D1 (fun fact, the only difference between the weapons and armor from hard and normal were cosmetic from TTK onwards).

On that note, if you're saying weekly lockouts on progression are keeping you from playing D2, your memory of D1 is off. Let's look back at D1's progression:
Vanilla D1: The only way to hit max light was to run VoG which only gave drops once a week (eventually they changed it so IB also provided LL30 gear, but not initially).
TDB: The only way to hit max light was CE or IB.
HoW: Etheric Light allowed you to take any piece of gear to max light, but those only dropped from endgame activities (PoE and Trials) which were again locked to once a week.
TTK: Apart from a few exceptions (I think CoO dropped artifacts), reaching max light again required participating in endgame content which was locked to once a week rewards (NF, KF, and Trials).
April Update: Along with fixing the infusion system, this was the first time that you could hit max light from any activity.
RoI: Same as above, any activity could be used to reach max light.
AoT: Same as above, but pretty sure everyone who cared was at or near max light by this point..

So it wasn't till over halfway through TTK that they allowed players to do whatever they wanted to reach max light.

[6souls]

I almost miss leveling gear. Logging on just to grind for shaders and emotes have sucked the fun out for me. I still log in for the weekly and Xur, though. I will be around for at least the next two expansions.

[Takiwaki]

Huh. I think it could have branded in a different way to be more cohesive, a lot of miscommunication I've seen as to what the raid content actually is.

Nah its pretty clear what they are doing from the stream, calling it a lair is what I was really referencing, Calus is the only boss at the moment. The next raid will have only one boss also, but smaller in scale to the current raid.

[Fiendishone]

[Karbuncle]

First, random rolls are gone and people need to accept that. Given the structure of the game, I cannot imagine they'll change that aspect significantly. Personally, I don't agree with that change, but I imagine I have one of the top five D1 playtimes on BG (possibly the most, but I don't want to think about that..), so my opinions on this are clearly skewed towards the extreme ends of even the hardcore playerbase. Ever since they announced non-random rolled gear they've said they need to address making your third, fourth, tenth drop worthwhile, and they still have to do that. Honestly, I have a hard time thinking of a way to make subsequent drops worth keeping (they could add a cosmetic feature unlocked for dismantling ten Better Devils, but I think most players wouldn't accept that). Second, there is loot worth chasing, the problem is it is significantly easier to obtain than D1. Instead of spending months grinding for armor pieces in hopes of getting the stat spread I want, I can go to a specific planet, farm tokens, and have a reasonable chance of getting pieces of gear with the correct stat. At the end of the day, both these issues are built into the changes they made going from D1 to D2 and I can't see them changing them at this point in the game.

All that said, in their seasons video a few weeks back, I think they touched on how they're going to approach getting people interested in content going forward -- season-locked cosmetics that unlock based on your achievements. For instance, let's say you unlock the season 2 helmet ornament for FWC gear by earning thirty packages during a single faction rally. Is it the best option? Maybe, maybe not. I'm personally okay with this, but I also play competitive Overwatch for those sweet gold weapon skins.. I think a lot of people are going to bitch about it just being cosmetics, but I also think a lot of people have forgotten how things were in D1 (fun fact, the only difference between the weapons and armor from hard and normal were cosmetic from TTK onwards).

Same in a way, I Played D1 until the final year, the only content I missed was the final raid with the Fallen. It was very off and on through those years but I did most of the content it had to offer, and I find replayability in many things. I've had this conversation before though I appreciate your point of view.

I know I'm in the minority as this game really sells, but I didn't sit through the bumbling mess that was D1 for the first year or so to have a hard reset shoved in my face with new and exciting flaws and blunders for them to "Work out" for the next two years until Destiny 3. This isn't a brand new game or IP and its reusing buttloads of assets, this argument has been said before but I don't care how long it took D1 to do anything, D2 had a foundation to work with, thats the difference.

Kinks will need to be worked out, since they changed a lot of the ways we farm... So no, I'm not holding on to some hope they're going to flush the game and give us a Diablo 2 FPS, I'm only holding on to hope the systems they come up with are enough to "fix" the game for someone like me. I haven't touched a Strike since a week after launch, they're pointless garbage, the only time I even enter a strike was for the weekly Engrams for Nightfall. Theres just glaring gameplay issues that make a lot of content not worth running at all, something I'd expect in Y1 of De1, but this is Year 3. I'll have no more excuses.

On that note, if you're saying weekly lockouts on progression are keeping you from playing D2, your memory of D1 is off. Let's look back at D1's progression:
Vanilla D1: The only way to hit max light was to run VoG which only gave drops once a week (eventually they changed it so IB also provided LL30 gear, but not initially).
TDB: The only way to hit max light was CE or IB.
HoW: Etheric Light allowed you to take any piece of gear to max light, but those only dropped from endgame activities (PoE and Trials) which were again locked to once a week.
TTK: Apart from a few exceptions (I think CoO dropped artifacts), reaching max light again required participating in endgame content which was locked to once a week rewards (NF, KF, and Trials).
April Update: Along with fixing the infusion system, this was the first time that you could hit max light from any activity.
RoI: Same as above, any activity could be used to reach max light.
AoT: Same as above, but pretty sure everyone who cared was at or near max light by this point..

So it wasn't till over halfway through TTK that they allowed players to do whatever they wanted to reach max light.

I admit to having "quit"(see: took a break) while VoG was still the big thing, when your Light level was still like, an extension of your max level before they did the "Light Level" as we know it today. I came back for a time during Krota thingy and stayed for a long whie, that era revitalized the game for me and being able to play with BG'ers helped too. Came back big during TTK and Year 2 beginning. Without sounding too snarky here, It may have also been less noticeable as reaching the level cap was a side effect of farming for the best gear, where as in De2 reaching the level cap is basically the only goal as unless you've just been living under a rock you'll have everything you want by the time you hit 300... I know I did and I barely did content outside of Powerful Engram weeklies... and I had every single exotic except Darcii, both weapons and armor for my Hunter.

Side note: D2's "Loot rains from everywhere" system just feels like its more suited for RNG drops, not static. Dumbing down itemization somehow even further didn't help either.

I also really miss Prison of Elders...

Spoiler: show

Doesn't-Need-to-be-said-but-I-know-someone-will-strawman-it Disclaimer: I'm not claiming in any way shape or form De1's loot system was the pinnacle of the series or should have been released "as is" as De2.

[Obsidian]

While I don't miss random rolls much (although static rolls has its own set of problems, the primary one being that there's only one gun in each weapon class worth using), I think setting up cosmetics as the "end game" is pretty asinine in a game with no glamour/transmog system and where visible gear directly affects your stats.

[Greedouw]

^^ This

Where the hell is the glamour system?

[Myrrh_Quetz]

Can I just say. Jesus fucking christ can people not do Gauntlet recently.

[Serra]

I know I'm in the minority as this game really sells, but I didn't sit through the bumbling mess that was D1 for the first year or so to have a hard reset shoved in my face with new and exciting flaws and blunders for them to "Work out" for the next two years until Destiny 3. This isn't a brand new game or IP and its reusing buttloads of assets, this argument has been said before but I don't care how long it took D1 to do anything, D2 had a foundation to work with, thats the difference.

Kinks will need to be worked out, since they changed a lot of the ways we farm... So no, I'm not holding on to some hope they're going to flush the game and give us a Diablo 2 FPS, I'm only holding on to hope the systems they come up with are enough to "fix" the game for someone like me. I haven't touched a Strike since a week after launch, they're pointless garbage, the only time I even enter a strike was for the weekly Engrams for Nightfall. Theres just glaring gameplay issues that make a lot of content not worth running at all, something I'd expect in Y1 of De1, but this is Year 3. I'll have no more excuses.

I've been critical of the hard reset from the day it was announced because it feel like they lied about one of their original promises. That said, the reason we're having these loot problems is because they looked at the problems after three years and decided a hard reset was the solution to fix many of the problems with the system. Again, I don't really agree with that decision, but this is the game we live in. It took them three years to make that change, so now that they've created a new system, there are bound to be new issues with the new system. This isn't meant to be an excuse for Bungie, but to say, "it's year four, they should have worked out the problems" is ignoring the fact that the changes they made are in response to other problems.

Since you mentioned strikes, let me put out a question: what was the incentive to run strikes? If I remember, strikes were the best way to level with TTK -- but that's been replaced by running public events, which take all of five minutes? I think they added the equivalent of powerful rewards to the strike playlist with the Dawning in year three, and lots of people started running them to get an Icebreaker, but after reaching max light, I imagine most people ran strikes for the random rolls for PvP (and possibly fake-bringer). I think the reason people aren't running strikes is because there is no long-term incentive and their time is better spent elsewhere. So how do you make strikes worthwhile again? I can think of two ways, with the caveat that both are terrible/unlikely. One, return to random rolls (not happening), or two, reduce the chances of drops.

While I don't miss random rolls much (although static rolls has its own set of problems, the primary one being that there's only one gun in each weapon class worth using), I think setting up cosmetics as the "end game" is pretty asinine in a game with no glamour/transmog system and where visible gear directly affects your stats.

My problem with random roll is that, for a lot of weapons, it feels like they randomly rolled each weapon to get the existing rolls rather than taking the time to weigh the perks on each weapon. The best example being Old Fashioned -- a gun with one perk that causes you to lose the ammo in your clip when you reload, and a second perk that incentivizes you to reload after every kill. A whole lot of wut there..

[Kaslo]

Honestly the only reason to run strikes was the chance at strike specific gear

[Obsidian]

My problem with random roll is that, for a lot of weapons, it feels like they randomly rolled each weapon to get the existing rolls rather than taking the time to weigh the perks on each weapon. The best example being Old Fashioned -- a gun with one perk that causes you to lose the ammo in your clip when you reload, and a second perk that incentivizes you to reload after every kill. A whole lot of wut there..

I was wary of static rolls from the get-go because looking at Destiny 1's history with static weapon rolls, pretty much everything between the VOG weapons to the Wrath weapons were complete garbage with few exceptions. Whether they hand pick them or just pull them out of the blender doesn't matter to me; way too many guns suck, which is the same people Destiny 1 had despite having random rolls.

I was (and still am) extremely skeptical of the hard reset because it felt like a major cop-out. The excuse was to allow for system-wide changes and improvements that legacy gear would prohibit, but the emblem system is unchanged, the emote system is unchanged, Sparrows basically unchanged... but none of that came forward with us for no legitimate reason. The game is still 30 FPS, it's still P2P, matchmaking is still terrible (if you're a solo player don't even bother). And to top it all off, they're drip-feeding us back all the Exotics we earned for the third or fourth time, most of which are completely unmodified. So to me, the real reason we were forced to leave our gear behind was to let Bungie feed it back to us yet again to pad the game. Three years and they only came up with four unique Legendary armor sets to split between like 10 different vendors? Come on now.

I bought D2 against my better judgment hoping for core system improvements and it feels like they spent three years working on particle effects for the engine and not much else.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

I mean, if you're so unhappy with the game, as you've said, time and time again, you do have the option to stop playing.

[Mythe_Seraph]

So when does this raid extension drop and do I have to pay for it

[Obsidian]

I mean, if you're so unhappy with the game, as you've said, time and time again, you do have the option to stop playing.

I have. I get on to help with the raid or Trials when asked.

Edit: December 5th, and yes. $15 or $20, I forget.

[Karbuncle]

I mean, if you're so unhappy with the game, as you've said, time and time again, you do have the option to stop playing.

I’m one of those weird folks who has hope for a franchise he enjoyed and also wants to enjoy again.

Have, however, stopped playing. Haven’t logged in for a few weeks now, before hard mode raid and challenges came out. I just really wanted to like this game more than I did. and I still may. I yell because I care.

[Greedouw]

Got bored and made a hunter. First exotic I open gives me a 305 Orpheus Rig.

Fuck yes.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

I’m one of those weird folks who has hope for a franchise he enjoyed and also wants to enjoy again.

Have, however, stopped playing. Haven’t logged in for a few weeks now, before hard mode raid and challenges came out. I just really wanted to like this game more than I did. and I still may. I yell because I care.

Should log on and raid with a BG crew. The game is more enjoyable when you play with peeps.

Like, I’m not a huge fan of D2 right now either but I love raiding with BGers. Despite my rage against some people too. The sole reason I even play this game is because of Co-op. But, that’s just me.

[Karbuncle]

Should log on and raid with a BG crew. The game is more enjoyable when you play with peeps.

Like, I’m not a huge fan of D2 right now either but I love raiding with BGers. Despite my rage against some people too. The sole reason I even play this game is because of Co-op. But, that’s just me.

Do you guys have a big PC crowd by chance?

[Serra]

Weekly Update:
https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/46481

Nothing to really report, IB (clash) next week, last chance to get the season 1 emblem.

[Tokitoki]

Do you guys have a big PC crowd by chance?

I haven't been on much because wife and I are in the process of a move, so my weekends are shot, but I get on for an hour/hour and a half during the week and 4 hours or so on Mondays. I usually see at least 2-4 other BG people on, but I wouldn't say we have a large crowd. I think most of them are console guys.

I would like to start running the Raid/Nightfall when things calm down on my end (hopefully after Thanksgiving) because I'm at 292 power and about to do my exotics on Warlock before moving to hunter. I should be at 295 or so after the exotic quests I think, and near 300 after Tuesday reset.