• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Destiny 2 Shadowkeep (OT4) Free Stuff For Everybody!

VertigoOA

Banned
I don’t even know if there’s a reason to run the old school nightfall.

Nightfall: the ordeal is actually a different mode that has matchmaking for its first two of 5 difficulty tiers.

When you hover over regular nightfall it lists nothing as rewards. However I’ve heard it’s still worth playing? In no rush to see for myself because I’ll do anything to avoid playing strikes. Same goes for all old pinnacle activities like raids and menagerie; they’re all giving stat rolls and mods that people are loving.

Strikes are the worst content in the game IMHO. I’d much rather play and enjoy gambit more. Crucible is mybread and butter tho...

Anything other than strikes. Every other pve activity is more enjoyable except for the Blind Well. The Ordeal playlist is a huge improvement tho
 
Last edited:

PhoenixTank

Member
I’d really like a Nightfall run however that’s too late for me as I’m in Europe. 😐
I'm in the EU and need to do a 50K+ Nightfall so just shout if you want company. Matchmaking does exist too as pointed out, but I think we'd get the Nightfall engram by grouping up.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
I don’t even know if there’s a reason to run the old school nightfall.

Nightfall: the ordeal is actually a different mode that has matchmaking for its first two of 5 difficulty tiers.

When you hover over regular nightfall it lists nothing as rewards. However I’ve heard it’s still worth playing? In no rush to see for myself because I’ll do anything to avoid playing strikes. Same goes for all old pinnacle activities like raids and menagerie; they’re all giving stat rolls and mods that people are loving.

Strikes are the worst content in the game IMHO. I’d much rather play and enjoy gambit more. Crucible is mybread and butter tho...

Anything other than strikes. Every other pve activity is more enjoyable except for the Blind Well. The Ordeal playlist is a huge improvement tho
Strikes are my favorite lol.
 

Dthomp

Member
Strikes are my favorite lol.

I'm indifferent towards strikes. Loved them in D1, likely due to strike specific loot and better pacing of the strikes. D2 the last two expansions have started to make them a little too long IMO, they will never be at the bottom of my list as long as Gambit exists.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
I'm indifferent towards strikes. Loved them in D1, likely due to strike specific loot and better pacing of the strikes. D2 the last two expansions have started to make them a little too long IMO, they will never be at the bottom of my list as long as Gambit exists.
I really like gambit too haha.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
I don’t get the gambit hate. I feel like anything that has a semblance of competition gets shit on.

I dunno. My stance on that will always be ... get good.

I love gambit personally. Funnest and most efficient way to test if a pve buikd is any good.

Although, playing gambit with out The Recluse with a major spec mod puts you at a disadvantage. Why? Because it mows down everything and increases your movement speeds
 
Last edited:

Dthomp

Member
I don't consider there to be a bad mode besides the campaign lol

The biggest issue I have with the campaign in D2 is that they take the effort to design usually a fun first level, and then it's like they put the C team on the rest of the story missions and they all end up feeling to similar. It's really a shame they don't value the story more in the greater scheme of this game cause there is so much good lore that you have to dig for that if you had come up during missions or even audio transmissions (no need to animate then, just VO) that would add so much to the game. Stack some unique rewards behind a story playlist like we had in ROI and you're set to re-experience good times. There was nothing more boring then having to play 3 of those a week in D2 for 1 drop (that usually wasn't even an upgrade). Sometimes I think they forget that sometimes folks just want to get on by themselves and shoot shit and just unwind. Not everything needs to be uber comp sweatfest PVP filled, and realize there is an in between crowd that usually gets the shaft when it comes to Destiny.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
The campaign missions are better than you remember. Enjoy them more than strikes. The set pieces are different and many you don’t ever see again in the game.

The daily story mission playlists have never been worth playing.

It should be just like strikes in the playlist. Make it as difficult as possible and force 3-man teams for it.

The problem is that your initial experience then are a walk in the park. I usually enjoy them more on my second playthru as I go thru it quicker and underleveled.

Like I get that it’s intentional, because Destiny players typically give zero fucks about the campaign and just want to sink their teeth into endgame... but still.

I really liked shadowkeep’s narrative and atmosphere. And I enjoy the ongoing narrative developing week after week since it happens as you neck deep into endgame content... so you’re engaged in it. Forsaken is probably the barometer tho on what players from an expansion on day one however.

There will always be a divide however. Like if all you did was “beat” the day one campaign ... just know... I don’t take your opinion on the game seriously... because you haven’t played it lol
 
Last edited:
After I beat a campaign 3 times on all 3 chars I never touch daily heroic story missions, I sometimes do heroic adventures on the flashpoint because they're a pretty quick way to get a powerful but doing what is it 3 story missions for a powerful? Uh, no thanks lol. Strikes in D2 aren't as good as in D1 but still far preferable to ever re-playing a story mission, even the ones with neat set pieces are mind numbingly easy. The solstice of heroes had some neat revisions of old story missions and that was fine and I did fully level 2 armors if I recall right? Maybe all 3? Not this most recent Solstice.

With the D2 vanilla campaign I beat it 8 times, tho, because I double dipped and got the PS2 version before it went free on PS+ or free to play, and felt foolish and I also had 2 characters deleted in D2. So, I'm thoroughly sick of the Red War campaign. I think the missions could be more fun if there was more challenge, less hand holding and less cinematics/dialogue, though I know you can skip them. I wish they approached their campaigns more like strikes with the dialogue only to add context to what you're doing. What is the point of cut-scenes in a game series where you replay content over and over? They'll be totally forgotten as everything else in the game gets drilled into our memories like "whether we wanted it or not... we're in a war with the Cabal on Mars". Never mind that the writing and dialogue are terribad, as bad as D1 was for writing it's somehow worse in this game. The story at least goes to interesting and ridiculous places with Forsaken but still some awful writing and it was a joke thinking I cared about Cayde as a character just because he's the only one with a personality. Sorry, my dudes, I've played games with actual stories before, this shit doesn't pass muster, this shit makes the Star Wars prequels look like masterpieces.

In an eventual D3 I want to see more cool endgame content, I want 6 man strikes that are super hard but a middle ground between Raids and Nightfalls. I want bigger strikes with multiple bosses, I want MUCH bigger raids, stuff like Last Wish or King's Fall should be the SMALLEST raids. I want raids with teamwork required but I want there to be hero moments as well, I want there to be chances for individuals to shine not just everyone working in perfect sync. I want them to phase out less endgame content as well, like how Last Wish became the only raid that gives out powerful gear. One of my favorite times in the game was Taken King, not just because it was the best DLC but because the Prison of Elders STILL gave powerfuls, so you had 2 DLCs worth of endgame content each week that was relevant.
 

Dthomp

Member
Hit 950 on my 3rd character tonight, so frees up time to do other things and help others with stuff. So if anybody here on PS4 (or PC, I can spread the word in our discord) needs help with anything post up here if you aren't in the discord and I'm sure we can get you some help with your stuff.
 

Dthomp

Member
Got Banner coming up this week, I'll try to organize some time like Kadey1up used to do round here. Maybe that craphole will be more tolerable if we're all suffering together Tesseract Tesseract
 

Bigrx1

Banned
What did I all miss in the previous 7 seasons? A lot of story content or is it mostly just non-story gameplay stuff? Also I'm assuming each season had a batch of triumps that I can no longer obtain so I technically cannot get as high a triumph score as a day 1 person?
 
Shadowkeep campaign... first mission felt like they tried really hard... next mission they didn't... then after that it was like "go do random shit" which is lol. I'm guessing there won't be another interesting story mission until the end? Did the Nightfall at 920 tonight while at power level 910 with another GAFer. So, enjoy the engram, hoes.
 
Shadowkeep campaign... first mission felt like they tried really hard... next mission they didn't... then after that it was like "go do random shit" which is lol. I'm guessing there won't be another interesting story mission until the end? Did the Nightfall at 920 tonight while at power level 910 with another GAFer. So, enjoy the engram, hoes.

haha, the 920 run was fun. I think right now it's also the best way to farm stuff once you can run it smoothly without much dying. let me know when you want to do it again ^^
 

s34ab

Banned
I believe ships can only be obtained by either eververse engrams and some quests/triumphs unlock them I believe. They usually release a ship for special events so Halloween event should have one. Can't remember the last time I got a ship from strikes or crucible, don't think they drop from there anymore.

Damn. It also makes me miss the old end-of-game screen where you got to see what everybody else earned as a reward.

I complained about this in year 1, that Leviathan doesn't have its own ship you can earn. They started adding more ways to get ships and sparrows, like Escalation Protocol has a ship and a sparrow but MOSTLY it's Eververse stuff, which you should never feel compelled to shell out real cash for, you can accumulate bright dust over time by playing the game and completing bounties and will be able to afford a ship without real cash eventually. I think the only other way is your Seasonal upgrades but I'm not sure if the best ones are all for people who own Shadowkeep without checking.

I really don't like buying (either with real life cash, or in-game currency) things like that. It feels wrong to me for some reason. I only like using things I earn.
 
Last edited:

PhoenixTank

Member
By the way, if you ever have quests or bounties that need to be done in modes that force fireteams/matchmaking but you'd rather not bother anyone with it or want to do solo on your own time, you can force solo in the PC version as well, like you can on PS4 (by changing the system time back a few years). The method is different though - download this file (make sure to preserve the .ps1 extension, if you're copying and pasting or something), and while in orbit, load it in PowerShell (right-click, Run with PowerShell) and leave it open. Voila, you're now playing Destiny 2 all by your lonesome in all modes. When you're done, just tab over to PowerShell and hit any key to close it, and you're back playing as intended.
Thanks for this - quoting for a bit of visibility as this just saved me hours to get Wendigo. Likely to use it again for other strike quests.
There is a reddit post discussing this method and explaining what needs to be done manually, too.
 
putting the call out for anyone who's never done a raid to be lead through one of the older raids, on PS4 this means any free to play raid, on PC pretty much any raid, even attempting Garden but Garden I've never done so I'd be just as lost as you, but if you need a chill raid guide that doesn't stress you out I'm down to do it, I've cleared Leviathan over 60 times, 20 on Eater of Worlds and not sure for the others but enough times on Last Wish to have my 1K voices

I'm even willing to do D1 raids on PS4 but it's been years since I did those
 
Last edited:

Chiggs

Gold Member
putting the call out for anyone who's never done a raid to be lead through one of the older raids, on PS4 this means any free to play raid, on PC pretty much any raid, even attempting Garden but Garden I've never done so I'd be just as lost as you, but if you need a chill raid guide that doesn't stress you out I'm down to do it, I've cleared Leviathan over 60 times, 20 on Eater of Worlds and not sure for the others but enough times on Last Wish to have my 1K voices

I'm even willing to do D1 raids on PS4 but it's been years since I did those

I'd love to do a raid. PC version here (all expansions).

Username: Ch1ggs.
 

MastAndo

Member
Thanks for this - quoting for a bit of visibility as this just saved me hours to get Wendigo. Likely to use it again for other strike quests.
There is a reddit post discussing this method and explaining what needs to be done manually, too.
Any tips for the Wendigo grind? I'm chipping away at it, venturing off from the strikes to kill adds in whatever area I'm loaded into, but man, what a slog. Is there a particular strike/planet that is best for doing this solo?
 

Dthomp

Member
Any tips for the Wendigo grind? I'm chipping away at it, venturing off from the strikes to kill adds in whatever area I'm loaded into, but man, what a slog. Is there a particular strike/planet that is best for doing this solo?

Equip Fighting Lion, kill EVERYTHING! I just played strikes using FL and some sort of legendary grenade launcher til I was done. So many people just run by shit, especially in the longer strikes, use those to get easy kills. Strikes like the Corrupted, either of the Mercury ones in the Infinite Forest, the one on the moon Scarlett Keep. Just keep using Grenade Launchers, you'll get there
 

MastAndo

Member
Equip Fighting Lion, kill EVERYTHING! I just played strikes using FL and some sort of legendary grenade launcher til I was done. So many people just run by shit, especially in the longer strikes, use those to get easy kills. Strikes like the Corrupted, either of the Mercury ones in the Infinite Forest, the one on the moon Scarlett Keep. Just keep using Grenade Launchers, you'll get there
Yeah, I've been using Fighting Lion (got the catalyst for it during this grind) and it's been great, but I was at just 29% for points earned after finishing the first two parts of the quest. I'm at 61% now, but it's just been real slow going. I'll just keep at it.
 

PhoenixTank

Member
Any tips for the Wendigo grind? I'm chipping away at it, venturing off from the strikes to kill adds in whatever area I'm loaded into, but man, what a slog. Is there a particular strike/planet that is best for doing this solo?
I mostly needed the kills and multikills, so detouring to do the Blind Well on "The Corrupted" Strike got me most of the way. I have a feeling the Solstice event (the requirements) contributed a lot to my Wendigo points.
 

MastAndo

Member
So I'm thinking I'll give the Recluse grind a shot, with the ranking changes in Comp Crucible making it more reasonable (or so I've heard). I was never much of an SMG guy, but I'm really digging the Huckleberry in Shadowkeep, so having something seemingly better in legendary (and energy) form sounds good to me. Then again, I know the Recluse got a bit of a nerf, while the Huckleberry did not.

Anyway, are there any other quests I should pick up before I start that I could finish during or shortly after grinding to Fabled rank in Comp? Admittedly, I was pretty trash on PS4 (1.0 K/D) when I actually played the mode in the earlier D2 days, and considering I'm a controller guy playing on PC. I expect to get stomped, but whatever...
 

manfestival

Member
Guild too small on PC. There is realistically like 5 of us with maybe 1 of us(not I) always on. Feels bad man but thanks for the guild engrams lol
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Thorn is amazing again. Shooting animation tweaks on console improved it much. It already has good range and the range fall-off damage for handcanons doesn’t really matter as the damage over time effect for hits makes up for it.

Thorn was always solid. I was doing great with it in the last sandbox regardless. Pair with one eyed mask titan. This allows for an incredibly aggressive play style as one eyed mask marks targets that damage, gives a buff to damage on that target, encouraging you to proactively chase people down... as does thorn. Kills create a green orb that you chase down to increase the weapons damage.

The one-hit standard melee punch build for bottom tree striker titan is broken as hell too. It’s because of the artifact.

Also, 100% likely to happen... the darkness artifact from the end of the campaign is our artifact for next season... dark guardians?

Sky burners oath is the sleeper busted op weapon.... iron banner will be insane tomorrow.

Beware of skyburners oath. Its the hip fire auto tracking bullets. Scouts got buffed and now this shit is OP as fuck. Went against a 6 stack of players using it last night and it was the most painful pvp experience I’ve ever had. All of them were “Unbroken” crucible elite no less.

Lord of Wolves’ Iron Banner terrorization wasn’t too infuriating as people made it out to be. Prometheus Lens laser tag was fun when it happened.

However dealing with skyburners should be the most frustrating of them all.

I hate 6v6. It’s trash. Far, far prefer the smaller team sizes. Sucks that 4v4 is always stuck on rotation with one game mode a week.
 
Last edited:

Dthomp

Member
Ironically, my game never lagged once. I had no idea what everyone was talking about. Was it only when you teleported?

Some from teleport, just a bunch overall. Too many things on screen I think was really slowing people down.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Some from teleport, just a bunch overall. Too many things on screen I think was really slowing people down.

Slowdown is definitely a thing with the new content. It could be connection issues as they’re having tons of difficulties.

There’s also a lot of funny bugs, like npcs just collapsing and falling down stairs in the tower with hilariously rag doll-like physics. I got killed the red keep strike and by body was floating and spinning 360s for about 10 secs.

It could be ironed out if it’s server issues but the cpus of these consoles are definitely showing their age.

Just hoping when next gen comes next fall that I won’t have to buy it again and it carries over... well it may on Xbox but Sony? Yea right.
 

Ivory Blood

Member
Finally made a go at Recluse, with a friend, and it was surpisingly easy - 5 or so hours, and it's done. Glory just keeps on climbing - like 200 for a single win, and you lose only 10 or so for failing. So everyone that wanted that gun - do it, now is the time.
 

Dthomp

Member
Finally made a go at Recluse, with a friend, and it was surpisingly easy - 5 or so hours, and it's done. Glory just keeps on climbing - like 200 for a single win, and you lose only 10 or so for failing. So everyone that wanted that gun - do it, now is the time.

Want even easier? Wait til tomorrow when all the sweaty teams go into Iron Banner to pub stomp with their 6 stacks so that they can look good to their internet friends. The Comp pool should be pretty low key this week.
 

MastAndo

Member
Want even easier? Wait til tomorrow when all the sweaty teams go into Iron Banner to pub stomp with their 6 stacks so that they can look good to their internet friends. The Comp pool should be pretty low key this week.
L17WH3Y.gif


That makes sense. I'll try a few solo comp. matches tonight just to feel it out, and figure out a load-out that'll get me by before really going at it later in the week.

I hear AR's are actually viable in PvP right now, which is cool. SUROS Regime was the ish back in D1.
 

Arkage

Banned
Have to say, I am pretty pleased with Shadowkeep. Even moreso than Forsaken I think. Largely because they increased the number of milestones, so upgrading light is significantly faster. I remember in Forsaken going up by 5 in a week and feeling accomplished: here it was around 10+, much better, and that's without me even doing the pvp stuff. Seems like alts will be faster to level as well.

I like the season leveling rewards. Like the streamlined upgrade system for weapons.

I don't like the 5x nightfall adventure thing milestone. Pretty dumb. I did get some decent drops so can't complain too much but ehh..... should randomize the strike if it's at the low end (750).

Hard to say how long my enjoyment will last or if it's honeymoon, but I'll play to at least get up to raid LL and run it once or twice. I always ran raids with PUGs but hopefully something can happen in clan, though I'm PC side so there's less members. I ran literally all raids in D1 but have fallen off for D2. Never got around to Spire of Stars, Last Wish, Scourge of the Past or Crown of Sorrow. Hope to change some of that but we'll see.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Is it better than forsaken? In some ways.

The story is better. First major plot development since d1 vanilla. Post-campaign developing narrative is more exciting as well.

The atmosphere is a bit too dark but I dig it. Forsaken was as well.

I’m reading some people vastly enjoy the new raid over last wish... big claim ... will see for myself this weekend.

Vex invasions are better than the blind well. The patrol version is a nice use of the escalation protocol gimmick. The loot generosity is very nice as well.

We did get weapon changes with forsaken too but I’d say the armor rework and artifact do a bit more than even that did.

But yea it can actually be better than forsaken during its launch window. We shall see how it rolls out.
 

MastAndo

Member
So getting to Fabled for the Recluse quest was like...not bad at all? I just went 12-8 in Survival solo comp (Freelance) and that was it. The matches don't take too long either. I feel like I could have been done in under 3 hours, but I hit a snag with losses at the end there when I was just about at 2100. I went on a 4-game streak in the middle so that helped. The skill based match making seems to be on point, as only a few times did I feel like I was put in a match with players clearly better than me - even with my mediocre skills, playing with a controller on PC to boot.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize the quest is a two-parter and also requires a certain number of Crucible wins, which is currenly only at 34% for me. Ugh...I think I read it's 3.5% for each comp win (which mathematically makes sense) and 1% for quickplay, but is it correct that it's 5% for Iron Banner wins? I never really played much IB, but the timing is convenient, so I'm gonna have to give it a go even though I'm pretty underleveled.
 
Last edited:

small_law

Member
I really only have two gripes. First, they seriously need to introduce new weapons to the vendors and world drop loot pool. Considering that a number of weapons from the first year of Destiny 2 were reintroduced in Forsaken with random rolls, some of this stuff is 2 years old. I don't think the Bungie needs to refresh things every season, but after 2 years of seeing Does Not Compute drop from Shaxx, I think complaining about it is justifiable.

The second is the armor system, which is just kind of batshit crazy. There's no way to organize or even see the Shadowkeep armor mods that you own beyond sub-menus. I don't mind mods being locked to particular elemental affinities, but it's a real pain in the ass to spend glimmer to swap out armor mods. At least at this stage of the leveling curve, it very much dissuades you from trying new stuff out.
 
Th
I don’t even know if there’s a reason to run the old school nightfall.

Nightfall: the ordeal is actually a different mode that has matchmaking for its first two of 5 difficulty tiers.

When you hover over regular nightfall it lists nothing as rewards. However I’ve heard it’s still worth playing? In no rush to see for myself because I’ll do anything to avoid playing strikes. Same goes for all old pinnacle activities like raids and menagerie; they’re all giving stat rolls and mods that people are loving.

Strikes are the worst content in the game IMHO. I’d much rather play and enjoy gambit more. Crucible is mybread and butter tho...

Anything other than strikes. Every other pve activity is more enjoyable except for the Blind Well. The Ordeal playlist is a huge improvement tho


This
I have no reasons anymore to play strikes, aside from doing some random bounties
No variety etc.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Great video on how range stats have changed on hand canons and pulse rifles.



I really only have two gripes. First, they seriously need to introduce new weapons to the vendors and world drop loot pool. Considering that a number of weapons from the first year of Destiny 2 were reintroduced in Forsaken with random rolls, some of this stuff is 2 years old. I don't think the Bungie needs to refresh things every season, but after 2 years of seeing Does Not Compute drop from Shaxx, I think complaining about it is justifiable.

The second is the armor system, which is just kind of batshit crazy. There's no way to organize or even see the Shadowkeep armor mods that you own beyond sub-menus. I don't mind mods being locked to particular elemental affinities, but it's a real pain in the ass to spend glimmer to swap out armor mods. At least at this stage of the leveling curve, it very much dissuades you from trying new stuff out.

I’m not too bothered by the lack of a vendor refresh at the moment. The weapon loot pool is more populated than ever and there’s more systems in play to getting gear.

Supposedly the raid weapons are all pretty great. I definitely want that handcanon and it seems virtually impossible to get a bad roll.

Glimmer is easy to come by I don’t find that dissuade me from toying with mods at all. The old system where you lost the previous installed mod... now that kept you from switching things up.

I wasn’t paying attention to the stat total on armor. Vex Offensive gear tends to drop armor with totals in the 60s per armor piece. Normal menagerie only had 502pts or something on my helmet. So while you can grind for specific affinities and pieces direct without rng... it’s shiitier armor.

Supposedly, what everyone has learned is that Year 1 Prestige Leviathan raids have the best totals. And it makes sense ... they need veteran players to Sherpa all the newcomers.

I’m sure that will change ... like today... iron banner, higher difficulties in vex offensive, the first raid challenge, etc... any of those “pinnacle activities” should have high rolls. Just need to see if that’s the case now.
 
Last edited:

Dibbs

Member
So getting to Fabled for the Recluse quest was like...not bad at all? I just went 12-8 in Survival solo comp (Freelance) and that was it. The matches don't take too long either. I feel like I could have been done in under 3 hours, but I hit a snag with losses at the end there when I was just about at 2100. I went on a 4-game streak in the middle so that helped. The skill based match making seems to be on point, as only a few times did I feel like I was put in a match with players clearly better than me - even with my mediocre skills, playing with a controller on PC to boot.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize the quest is a two-parter and also requires a certain number of Crucible wins, which is currenly only at 34% for me. Ugh...I think I read it's 3.5% for each comp win (which mathematically makes sense) and 1% for quickplay, but is it correct that it's 5% for Iron Banner wins? I never really played much IB, but the timing is convenient, so I'm gonna have to give it a go even though I'm pretty underleveled.

So the only way to get Glory is by playing Survival? Sigh.......
 
Top Bottom