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Destiny 2 |OT2| Leviathan Wakes (Spoiler Tag ALL Raid Discussion)

lt519

Member
Raid group made it to the final boss tonight, we're probably 9 total hours in doing the whole thing blind and a bit of exploring. I think it has been a lot of fun, the mechanics are very unforgiving while you are trying to figure it out. The baths give you a little time but most other challenges are basically instawipes. We haven't even come close to figuring out the final boss because we are wiping so fast.

That being said now that we have the mechanics down any given encounter is only taking 1-2 tries.
 

traveler

Not Wario
Re:balance and buffing vs. nerfing talk, I've posted various forms of this over the thread, but I really do feel it bears repeating:

Buffing EVERYTHING else is a substantially higher amount of work, though. The delivery time for a patch doing that would be considerably later than one tuning a single outlier. It also gives you 20 - 100 opportunities to get the balance wrong on any particular change whereas nerfing a single out of line weapon only exposes one element of risk. Furthermore, bringing all weapons in line through buffs, even if you do pull it off and can do so in a reasonable amount of time, is not equivalent to bringing weapons in line through nerfs or a combination of buffs and nerfs as it lowers both PVP and PVE TTK. I already think PVP ttk is way too low, but I recognize that Destiny's pvp just isn't my style of game, so naturally I'd prefer that they not buff everything and make that even more present.

Ideally, Bungie has a firm expectation of the TTK a player with any given archetype at each range. Each weapon should be judged according to those expectations and tuned accordingly. If MIDA is in line with those expectations, then, yes, buffs elsewhere are what they should look at. If not, however, it needs to be brought down. Most games will call for both nerfs and buffs over their lifespan- it's pretty rare for the developers to be wrong consistently on one side of the line.

I will say I do think Bungie should separate PVP and PVE balance. Yes, it can be confusing and it's nowhere near as elegant, but just look at the history of games like this. Sooner or later, every dev comes around to the fact that you just can't meet the needs of both without frequently killing the viability of weapons in one or the other.
 

Iorv3th

Member
Raid final area music question.

at one or two sections I think it's after the first damage phase when you are clearing out mobs again it sounds like Doom music snuck it's way into that raid. Sounds identical to Doom music. Am I the only one that noticed that?
 
Anyone doing nightfall (lol) and want a terrible 296 Warlock? Send Sniffynose an invite on PSN! I might even talk if provoked enough!

I'll also do Calus if needed, he's ezpz (with Mic as bonus)
 
If I have to choose between how D1 ended and this, I'll always choose this.

D1 ended the way it did because they couldn't balance weapons due to the way they were created. Doing things like changing effective range at hip fire were multiplicative when in ADS.. meaning that there was no way to make minor adjustments. They built the weapons differently this time around.

I can't speak to PvP balance right now (I haven't played Crucible), but in D1 Bungie nerfed the hell out of weapons in part just because they were popular (per Bungie's explanations in the BWU). Including guns that the game straight up gave everyone early on, so most of the population just had it. Which is the situation now with MIDA.

The patch where they nerfed MIDA by removing high impact rounds drove me away from the game for six months. If they do whack it for PvP, I hope it doesn't affect PvE. That's how they destroyed the sandbox last time around.

Saying Bungie nerfed weapons because they were popular is reductive. What was said was that when a particular weapon becomes overwhelmingly popular over other weapons, that's a good indication that the weapon needs to be looked at. Once they looked at the weapon they would then decide if it needed adjustments and decide the best course after that.

Of course, this was plagued by the problem I just mentioned above. So it became more about rotating the meta at that point (something that Blizzard used to do with WoW until they revamped their entire skills list from the ground up).

MIDA without HCR will still be a great gun in PvP and still be the high-mid tier scout it is in PvE (even with HCR it's outshined in PvE by several other scouts). Balance is much better out of the gate this time. But that doesn't mean it's perfect and it definitely doesn't mean that adjustments shouldn't be made.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
Man I went from playing this every day to not really wanting to touch it at all real quick.

It sure is fun when it's new, then you realize the end game is just a nightfall and raid.

No real guns to grind for, not many exciting exotics, PVP is okay with no real progression, no reason to do strikes.

Eh, hopefully they do some meaningful updates sooner rather than later.
 
Man I went from playing this every day to not really wanting to touch it at all real quick.

It sure is fun when it's new, then you realize the end game is just a nightfall and raid.

No real guns to grind for, not many exciting exotics, PVP is okay with no real progression, no reason to do strikes.

Eh, hopefully they do some meaningful updates sooner rather than later.

Well, expansion 1 has a whole new planet. It's already better sounding than d1 expansions, imo.
 

Acorn

Member
Man I went from playing this every day to not really wanting to touch it at all real quick.

It sure is fun when it's new, then you realize the end game is just a nightfall and raid.

No real guns to grind for, not many exciting exotics, PVP is okay with no real progression, no reason to do strikes.

Eh, hopefully they do some meaningful updates sooner rather than later.
Trying to arrange a group to raid with is a pain in the ass. Sapped my desire to play tbh, I get that regular groups won't have this issue but it's real fucking annoying to have to round up 5 people. Or having to hope you post quick enough to make a raid group here.

It's more difficult than anything in the bloody game lol
 

traveler

Not Wario

I think the biggest issue is that they simply cannot create content of this level of detail at a rate rapid enough to support it. I said this well in advance of D2's release and I still don't see how Bungie can hope to get a handle on something Blizzard is just NOW starting to get right over 10 years after WoW launched, and that's not even mentioning the considerably higher effort involved in creating Destiny content vs. WoW content.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Ideally, Bungie would have had a bigger headstart on getting the franchise started before D1 even came out and had a bigger pipeline in place to keep the franchise going smooth for their 10 year plan.

We're now in the midst of that plan, however, so I don't how they can turn on a dime and get that pipeline going.

Edit: this is all assuming you view the need for an endgame as a problem. As Datto states at the end of the video, Bungie's goal may very well be that players don't have a grind; that they actually FINISH the game and call it quits till the next batch of content. Personally, I love the latter and have no problem with it, but if you want a grind, I do see the problem above being a critical stumbling block.
 

Jaraghan

Member
Man I went from playing this every day to not really wanting to touch it at all real quick.

It sure is fun when it's new, then you realize the end game is just a nightfall and raid.

No real guns to grind for, not many exciting exotics, PVP is okay with no real progression, no reason to do strikes.

Eh, hopefully they do some meaningful updates sooner rather than later.
This is exactly me. Trying LFG for the raid was too annoying, and the nightfall timer bugs me. I'm 304 and I don't have a reason to come back until hard mode I guess.
 
The fact that there's going to be expansions shouldn't really be used to deflect criticisms over the game's lack of content/end game. Thats no excuse.
That's like saying SF5 didn't have a roster problem since there was an expansion with more characters coming.
 

Haines

Banned
I need help.

Ive hit the end game, and i dont really understand infusion, or weapon mods,

I played nightfalls and raids in d1 but yet to do any in this since i have the same group i used to play with.

Anyone willing to help me out on psn?

Not now, but generally after 8pm est time
 
if anyone has a group on XB1, that could lead me to victory in trials. I never got to play it in destiny 1, and I've tried it with my regular group, but they aren't really up to snuff. My gamertag is devon the dude. Also looking for folks to run the raid with sometime. I'm on right now, for probably 2 hours, up for anything really.
 

shermas

Member
This is exactly me. Trying LFG for the raid was too annoying, and the nightfall timer bugs me. I'm 304 and I don't have a reason to come back until hard mode I guess.

I've been saying this since launch, too..

Where are the gunsmith bounties? Where's the exotic class item quest? Why can't we even have a strike streak booster? I even miss grimoire grinding.

Leave the milestones for the casuals, so there's still the sense of accomplishment. Let us 1% message board nerds grind for something.
 
I think the biggest issue is that they simply cannot create content of this level of detail at a rate rapid enough to support it. I said this well in advance of D2's release and I still don't see how Bungie can hope to get a handle on something Blizzard is just NOW starting to get right over 10 years after WoW launched, and that's not even mentioning the considerably higher effort involved in creating Destiny content vs. WoW content.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Ideally, Bungie would have had a bigger headstart on getting the franchise started before D1 even came out and had a bigger pipeline in place to keep the franchise going smooth for their 10 year plan.

We're now in the midst of that plan, however, so I don't how they can turn on a dime and get that pipeline going.

Edit: this is all assuming you view the need for an endgame as a problem. As Datto states at the end of the video, Bungie's goal may very well be that players don't have a grind; that they actually FINISH the game and call it quits till the next batch of content. Personally, I love the latter and have no problem with it, but if you want a grind, I do see the problem above being a critical stumbling block.

I mean the realistic answer is all games like this will inevitably have lulls in content. Even subscription MMOs have times when nothing new is coming out.

Inevitably, if you speed through the content, you'll hit a wall and a grind with diminishing returns.

it's only been a month, with Iron Banner around the corner. I'm fine with what we have atm, but hope the Live Team has some surprises coming.
 

traveler

Not Wario
I mean the realistic answer is all games like this will inevitably have lulls in content. Even subscription MMOs have times when nothing new is coming out.

Inevitably, if you speed through the content, you'll hit a wall and a grind with diminishing returns.

it's only been a month, with Iron Banner around the corner. I'm fine with what we have atm, but hope the Live Team has some surprises coming.

Absolutely. And that lull certainly hits sooner for hardcore players.

That said, there's clearly a difference between something like WoW:Legion, which has generally left players very satisfied with its content rollout and D2, which is much lighter on the content side of things. I think Destiny still has a long ways to go if the hope is to hit that level of content for it.
 

shermas

Member
Part of the problem in the gaf community, I think, is that we heard 'so much content' in D2 compared to D1. When that additional content ends up being Lost Sectors and Adventures, that's a problem for a rabid player.

Even if strike specific gear didn't have OP perks, it would still allow us to chase something. Just additional shaders, ships, reskinned guns (Bungie's wheelhouse), ghosts.. Cosmetic items would be better than nothing.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
I mean the realistic answer is all games like this will inevitably have lulls in content. Even subscription MMOs have times when nothing new is coming out.

Inevitably, if you speed through the content, you'll hit a wall and a grind with diminishing returns.

it's only been a month, with Iron Banner around the corner. I'm fine with what we have atm, but hope the Live Team has some surprises coming.

The problem with Destiny is that it's always had really shit end game. Age of Triumph was the only update that gave players a bunch to do, and it was terrific. Now thats been taken away and we actually have less end game content than D1 vanilla, with no heroic strikes.

Destiny could be so much more if they actually invested in fun high end content. It doesn't have to be difficult, just something to do thats aimed toward geared players.
 
I'm looking for a Xbox One team to help me through the raid. Almost 290 but I'm notoriously late at doing the raids so I'd love a guide and get it done proper. I'd be willing to do it tonight but tomorrow works.

Keep me in mind. I'm down to finally finish it myself.

if anyone has a group on XB1, that could lead me to victory in trials. I never got to play it in destiny 1, and I've tried it with my regular group, but they aren't really up to snuff. My gamertag is devon the dude. Also looking for folks to run the raid with sometime. I'm on right now, for probably 2 hours, up for anything really.

Same to you.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Saying Bungie nerfed weapons because they were popular is reductive. What was said was that when a particular weapon becomes overwhelmingly popular over other weapons, that's a good indication that the weapon needs to be looked at. Once they looked at the weapon they would then decide if it needed adjustments and decide the best course after that.
It's not reductive - it's literally what they did. Some weapons are given out early and/or made accessible to everyone early on. Those are going to get more use than weapons that are harder to get, regardless of their utility. I can't recall if it was once or a few times, but on the update I'm thinking of, Bungie *only* used usage and popularity to justify nerfing weapons. Specially, my favorite and most used PvE weapons.

I agree with what you said in general, and as a process it makes sense. But it's not always what Bungie did, especially in the back half of Destiny 1's run when they got really aggressive about whacking down popular PvP guns.

Of course, this was plagued by the problem I just mentioned above. So it became more about rotating the meta at that point (something that Blizzard used to do with WoW until they revamped their entire skills list from the ground up).

MIDA without HCR will still be a great gun in PvP and still be the high-mid tier scout it is in PvE (even with HCR it's outshined in PvE by several other scouts). Balance is much better out of the gate this time. But that doesn't mean it's perfect and it definitely doesn't mean that adjustments shouldn't be made.
Obviously personal preference, but I hated using MIDA in PvE without high impact rounds. The stagger ability is critical to how I use it, chaining headshots together as enemies stagger. It felt like a pea shooter that made us move a bit faster once the high impact rounds were gone. Of course, this happened concurrently with updates that gutted snipers, which at that point were the only secondary weapon I still enjoyed using (after shotguns were rolled back to a state worse than the shipping game). So there was a cumulative effect of hitting my favorite primary and the entire class of secondary weapons that I used. (Weapons I used in part due to abandoning ones due to how severely they were nerfed.)

I should note again that I'm almost entirely a PvE player. I didn't play Crucible until many months after Destiny shipped. (True story, my first PvP game was with a couple of Bungie folks. They didn't believe me that I'd never played it until achievements started popping. :lol) I still haven't played Crucible in Destiny 2. I respect that balance is much more fragile in PvP than PvE. My overarching request is that they balance them separately, or offer mode specific perks. For instance, in the case of the MIDA, "fires high impact rounds when fighting non-guardian combatants".

My great fear is Destiny 2 goes down the same path Destiny 1 did, where the content got better and better, and the PvE sandbox worse and worse, because of PvP balancing. I'm already upset that the entire loadout system for Destiny 2 was overhauled with PvP in mind (there are so many weapons stuffed into the Power slot that I don't ever touch 90% of them). That's what I'm on this particular high horse for. :p
 

CLEEK

Member
I saw someone bitching on Reddit today about running out of things to do in the endgame. They mentioned they were 305 with all three of their characters. They must have sunk hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the game already, only 3 weeks from launch. It boggles my mind that you get the dot-within-the-dot hardcore thinking that games should be tailored to their needs alone.

Destiny 2 is head and shoulders improvement over D1 for user friendliness and progress. D1 year one was awful for the slow progress, due to grind and the RNG which more often than not was a fuck you to the player.

D2 has way more content and variety that D1 at launch, all wrapped up in a much more user friendly package. If you spend every waking hour grinding away at it, you'll hit a wall. For most players, that wall is months away from when they start playing, not a couple of weeks.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
I saw someone bitching on Reddit today about running out of things to do in the endgame. They mentioned they were 305 with all three of their characters. They must have sunk hundreds upon hundreds of hours into the game already, only 3 weeks from launch. It boggles my mind that you get the dot-within-the-dot hardcore thinking that games should be tailored to their needs alone.

Destiny 2 is head and shoulders improvement over D1 for user friendliness and progress. D1 year one was awful for the slow progress, due to grind and the RNG which more often than not was a fuck you to the player.

D2 has way more content and variety that D1 at launch, all wrapped up in a much more user friendly package. If you spend every waking hour grinding away at it, you'll hit a wall. For most players, that wall is months away from when they start playing, not a couple of weeks.

Of course there is a wall that players will hit, however you have to admit that there is less end game than even D1 had.

There will always be the people that play way, way too much, especially for Destiny, but it's pretty obvious the end game got gutted.
 
I wonder what Bungie's plan was when they hired Dinklage to be Ghost. Did they really have the money to hire him every time there was a free event and expansion? I bet Nolan North was tons cheaper and easily available at any time.
 
I know it's easier said than done , but my ideal + semi-realistic hope for D2 content roll-out would be something like this-

Month 1 - Major New Release

Month 2/3 - Old Content Remix:
- 1 remixed D1 patrol zone
- 2-3 D1 strikes/PvP maps
- several remixed D1 exotics/legendaries
- limited time events ( stuff )
- QoL improvements (better vault, prestige, etc)

Month 4 - Expansion:
- new Patrol Zone
- new story content
- new strikes/maps
- 1 remixed D1 raid
- QoL improvements

Rinse repeat. Every 3rd/4th month expands with a meatier expansion content and in between drips back D1 content that is updated for D2.
 

ocean

Banned
I know it's easier said than done , but my ideal + semi-realistic hope for D2 content roll-out would be something like this-

Month 2/3 - Old Content Remix:
- 1 remixed D1 patrol zone
- 2-3 D1 strikes/PvP maps
- several remixed D1 exotics/legendaries
- QoL improvements (better vault, etc)

Month 4 - Expansion:
- new Patrol Zone
- new story content
- new strikes/maps
- 1 remixed D1 raid
- QoL improvements

Rinse repeat. Every 3rd/4th month expands with a meatier expansion content and in between drips back D1 content that is updated for D2.
Realistic:

Month 2 (October): Iron Banner (maybe new map?) + Prestige Raid (new gear?) + Halloween event (prepare your wallet)

Month 3 (November): Some balance or QoL patch and maybe content lull

Month 4 (December): DLC expansión (strikes, maps, maybe pvp game mode, story missions, gear, Raid)
 

JoeLT

Member
Looking up the gear list and I’m honestly confused, why didn’t they just have all the gear from the first game and the new stuff? To prevent players from being annoyed about getting the same stuff again? I’m sick of picking up the exact same armour over and over. There’s no variety, it’s really jarring after just doing a Destiny Collection play through
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
Realistic:

Month 2 (October): Iron Banner (maybe new map?) + Prestige Raid (new gear?) + Halloween event (prepare your wallet)

Month 3 (November): Some balance or QoL patch and maybe content lull

Month 4 (December): DLC expansión (strikes, maps, maybe pvp game mode, story missions, gear, Raid)

We already know there is a new patrol zone in the December expansion but likely no Raid as it wasn't in the leak at all.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
I wonder what Bungie's plan was when they hired Dinklage to be Ghost. Did they really have the money to hire him every time there was a free event and expansion? I bet Nolan North was tons cheaper and easily available at any time.

Yeah, to be fair I don't think Bungie planned for the game to be played the way the players played it.

Pretty sure I remember some interviews saying they expected people to play 20 hours and then wait for a DLC or expansion. I'm very doubtful they ever expected people to be playing this as their main game every day and had to adjust to that very, very quickly.

As a side note, anyone else really prefer nolans voice unfiltered? He has a monologue at the beginning of the game with an unfiltered voice without all the beeps and bops and to me it sounded WAY better than he does in game.

https://youtu.be/xXDmX5rJC8E?t=17s
 

Acorn

Member
Yeah, to be fair I don't think Bungie planned for the game to be played the way the players played it.

Pretty sure I remember some interviews saying they expected people to play 20 hours and then wait for a DLC or expansion. I'm very doubtful they ever expected people to be playing this as their main game every day and had to adjust to that very, very quickly.

As a side note, anyone else really prefer nolans voice unfiltered? He has a monologue at the beginning of the game with an unfiltered voice without all the beeps and bops and to me it sounded WAY better than he does in game.
I dunno about that. The grind in early d1 almost compelled you to devote vast amounts of time.
 

Ramirez

Member
They need to do something with strikes. Why play them when you can just do heroic public events.

Fun, variety, and vanguard sets?

Add strike specific loot back in, but this whole notion of "I won't/can't do these activities unless they push my light" is so strange to me.
 
It definitely did, if you wanted god rolls and such. That being said, I don't think they actually expected so many people to do it until they did.
Even just getting the exotic bounties required a massive grind though. Plus getting materials for weapon perks required grindy chest farming.

Most people were so desperate even for legendaries that stuff like the loot cave became a thing.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
Because they're fun.

But they aren't effective.

D1 strikes had skeleton keys, specific loot, strike scoring, additional rewards for playing multiple strikes, etc.

Nowhere to be seen here. Worse rewards, much longer time frame.

Even just getting the exotic bounties required a massive grind though. Plus getting materials for weapon perks required grindy chest farming.

Most people were so desperate even for legendaries that stuff like the loot cave became a thing.

The exotic bounties weren't too awful, but what I'm saying is that Bungie didn't expect these people putting literally thousands of hours into the game for PVE activities.

D1 vanilla was certainly unrewarding as hell and it felt like Bungie had a totally different philosophy when it came to drops. Back then getting a legendary was a big deal, now they drop like candy. The middle ground was lost there.
 
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