[Megathread] Destiny

[Coldkil]

I always find that weird because there's so many damned guns in the game, even just desirable ones that you can still hunt for even when you're out of milestones for the week.

I've been 305 for a week now and there's still plenty of crap I want that I don't have. Light level is not the only thing to hunt, unless for some reason its the only thing you care about.

Yes, there are a lot of items, but they all get melted into the same cauldron of infusion. Some of them are just plain inferior, there are a lot of reputations that give you basically cosmetics only.

The item hunt imho is completely screwed. No sense of progression excluding the once in a week power jump. Maybe i just lucked out and got everything i feel comfortable with in a short time?

However there's an awful lot to improve in the itemization and loot. More specific drops, more game changing drops, more customization to players - like an active way to farm desired modifiers to attach to the weapon of choice. Current system is very very baseline imho.

[Endus]

Yes, there are a lot of items, but they all get melted into the same cauldron of infusion. Some of them are just plain inferior, there are a lot of reputations that give you basically cosmetics only.

The item hunt imho is completely screwed. No sense of progression excluding the once in a week power jump. Maybe i just lucked out and got everything i feel comfortable with in a short time?

However there's an awful lot to improve in the itemization and loot. More specific drops, more game changing drops, more customization to players - like an active way to farm desired modifiers to attach to the weapon of choice. Current system is very very baseline imho.

I've got about 100 weapons in my Vault, mostly non-exotics (exotics I might use and which have a decent level I keep around, otherwise I shard 'em since I can pull them from the Collection any time). There's weapons I don't have, still. Not many, admittedly, and some of the repeatable content I've cleared out and gotten everything by now.

I posted my Hunter up-thread, but I've also decided I don't like the "wasteland warrior" look, which doesn't fit outside of the EDZ, so I'm now farming up alternate gear appearances.

It's not really that different than it was in WoW, where you'd get your power jump once per week with the raid, and then go back to puttering around doing whatever. There's at least a lot of different paths to Powerful Gear, in Destiny 2.

There's also alts, for that matter.

I am hopeful that they introduce some additional complexity with the expansions, in terms of systems. Not just new gear, but for a launch game, I've seen much worse. The Division was a comparable game, for instance, with less PvE content, loot that was much more randomized (so 90% of it was garbage, and not just "I've outgrown using that" but actual low stat rolls, more like Diablo than Destiny), and I enjoyed The Division, even if it didn't really come into its own until a few expansions in.

[Kathandira]

I've got about 100 weapons in my Vault, mostly non-exotics (exotics I might use and which have a decent level I keep around, otherwise I shard 'em since I can pull them from the Collection any time). There's weapons I don't have, still. Not many, admittedly, and some of the repeatable content I've cleared out and gotten everything by now.

I posted my Hunter up-thread, but I've also decided I don't like the "wasteland warrior" look, which doesn't fit outside of the EDZ, so I'm now farming up alternate gear appearances.

It's not really that different than it was in WoW, where you'd get your power jump once per week with the raid, and then go back to puttering around doing whatever. There's at least a lot of different paths to Powerful Gear, in Destiny 2.

There's also alts, for that matter.

I am hopeful that they introduce some additional complexity with the expansions, in terms of systems. Not just new gear, but for a launch game, I've seen much worse. The Division was a comparable game, for instance, with less PvE content, loot that was much more randomized (so 90% of it was garbage, and not just "I've outgrown using that" but actual low stat rolls, more like Diablo than Destiny), and I enjoyed The Division, even if it didn't really come into its own until a few expansions in.

The reality of just about any loot system is that eventually the Best in Slot items will be well known to the community, and anything that is not in the top 3 for each slot will basically be worthless. If you have 40 Primary weapons in the game, and only 3 of them are really worth it, that is 37 items that are just getting trashed once you get them.

Sadly, I have no solution for this.

[Endus]

The reality of just about any loot system is that eventually the Best in Slot items will be well known to the community, and anything that is not in the top 3 for each slot will basically be worthless. If you have 40 Primary weapons in the game, and only 3 of them are really worth it, that is 37 items that are just getting trashed once you get them.

Sadly, I have no solution for this.

Actually, I think Destiny's done a fine job in that regard; there AREN'T really 3 "best" weapons. Each class has value (for the most part), and while there's standouts in each class, it's a lot more than 3 options.

You might have a "top 3 weapons for max damage on Calus", but that's gonna be different than the top 3 for clearing swarms, for PvP, for solo content, etc.

[Kathandira]

Actually, I think Destiny's done a fine job in that regard; there AREN'T really 3 "best" weapons. Each class has value (for the most part), and while there's standouts in each class, it's a lot more than 3 options.

You might have a "top 3 weapons for max damage on Calus", but that's gonna be different than the top 3 for clearing swarms, for PvP, for solo content, etc.

From the stats i've seen, the top 3 are Origin Story, Better Devils, and Mida Multi-Tool. There are second best for each of these. Such as The Forward Path, Midnight Coup, Nameless Midnight. These would could be used until you get the actual top 3, but are not better than them.

The point remains though. Even with 6 viable weapons, if there are 40 primaries, you still have 34 weapons which will go unused for the most part.

[kaelleria]

The reality of just about any loot system is that eventually the Best in Slot items will be well known to the community, and anything that is not in the top 3 for each slot will basically be worthless. If you have 40 Primary weapons in the game, and only 3 of them are really worth it, that is 37 items that are just getting trashed once you get them.

Sadly, I have no solution for this.

So the difference between Destiny and other loot based games and to a lesser extent even WoW is that it takes much longer to reach a point where you stop improving your character meaningfully. Destiny you have a very small amount of things you can do to improve yourself per week. This isn't helped by the terrible social systems that make it harder for people to actually do things together.

Take all the woes Diablo 3 had over the years... You had giant brick walls almost immediately at endgame. Now there's still that brickwall, but its much further in character progression. Cosmetics are great, but they aren't the be all end all that Destiny has tried to make it.

[Endus]

From the stats i've seen, the top 3 are Origin Story, Better Devils, and Mida Multi-Tool. There are second best for each of these. Such as The Forward Path, Midnight Coup, Nameless Midnight. These would could be used until you get the actual top 3, but are not better than them.

The point remains though. Even with 6 viable weapons, if there are 40 primaries, you still have 34 weapons which will go unused for the most part.

You're looking at Kinetics exclusively, and seemingly, just PvP. Nameless Midnight is arguably the best overall kinetic for raid content, and definitely better than the Multi-tool there. Antiope-D is top-shelf in PvP as well.

There's also a lot of sidegrades; Scathelocke is a competitive auto rifle alternative to Origin Story (each has advantages over the other). True Prophecy is arguably a better handcannon in PvE than Better Devils, if you can hit headshots consistently (according to damage breakdowns I've seen). And this isn't an exclusive list. It also focuses exclusively on Kinetics, which are far more limited in number than Energy and Power Weapons (and those have correspondingly greater numbers of solid entries).

[Kathandira]

You're looking at Kinetics exclusively, and seemingly, just PvP. Nameless Midnight is arguably the best overall kinetic for raid content, and definitely better than the Multi-tool there. Antiope-D is top-shelf in PvP as well.

There's also a lot of sidegrades; Scathelocke is a competitive auto rifle alternative to Origin Story (each has advantages over the other). True Prophecy is arguably a better handcannon in PvE than Better Devils, if you can hit headshots consistently (according to damage breakdowns I've seen). And this isn't an exclusive list. It also focuses exclusively on Kinetics, which are far more limited in number than Energy and Power Weapons (and those have correspondingly greater numbers of solid entries).

Sorry, but literal numbers back up my claim.

The point isn't so much about which weapons are best, it's about the fact that in just about any loot based game, there will be trash loot that will not get used. There is the best, and the rest get sharded. There needs to be a new way of looking at loot in order to make it feel engaging.

My idea would be to have the game offer supplementary weapons as random drops, but have clearly built best in slot weapons stored behind quests. The harder the quest, the better the weapon. It would for 1, allow a bit of certainty in getting the best weapons. And 2, a bit more engagement in actually acquiring them. Turning in tokens in hopes to randomly get the best weapon for the needed slot doesn't feel all that great when 90% of the time you are getting repeat weapons which will just be sharded for materials. There needs to be a feeling of accomplishment behind getting a great weapon.

You can hear it from those who used to get upset that Xur would offer a great exotic after many months of people fighting to get it as a random drop. They felt slighted that they had to "Work for their exotic" while others just simply bought it with shards. Well, if they like the idea of working for it, put in a way for it to be worked towards. Not just hoped for.

[Endus]

Sorry, but literal numbers back up my claim.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheG...s_a_pve_beast/

Just as a case-in-point as to how the numbers really, really don't back your claims.

Here's info about weapon use in the last round of Trials; https://trials.report/

If we shift it over to PC-only, then on the top 10 list of weapons used, the top Kinetics are Better Devils, Mida Multi-tool, Vigilance Wing, The Old Fashioned, and Antiope-D. 5 kinetics in the top 10 weapons by kill rate, and you only mentioned two of them.

Heck, a big reason Origin Story isn't on that list is that Uriel's Gift is also a fantastic auto-rifle, but Energy, and people generally want a diverse weapon selection, not two auto rifles.

The numbers do not back you. At all.

[Kathandira]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheG...s_a_pve_beast/

Just as a case-in-point as to how the numbers really, really don't back your claims.

Here's info about weapon use in the last round of Trials; https://trials.report/

If we shift it over to PC-only, then on the top 10 list of weapons used, the top Kinetics are Better Devils, Mida Multi-tool, Vigilance Wing, The Old Fashioned, and Antiope-D. 5 kinetics in the top 10 weapons by kill rate, and you only mentioned two of them.

Heck, a big reason Origin Story isn't on that list is that Uriel's Gift is also a fantastic auto-rifle, but Energy, and people generally want a diverse weapon selection, not two auto rifles.

The numbers do not back you. At all.

http://db.destinytracker.com/d2/en/items/weapon

Click around. It is pretty apparent which are the most used weapons.

But as said, "The point isn't so much about which weapons are best, it's about the fact that in just about any loot based game, there will be trash loot that will not get used.....[Read rest of post]" Which is what it is about. We can argue Best in Slot, but that is not the point. The point is the loot system itself.

[kaelleria]

Two Tokens

[Kathandira]

Two Tokens

LOL! The stream I was watching had #2Tokens blaring across the chat. Was pretty hilarious.

This token system is the least exciting loot system I have ever seen.

However, the activities are getting better. I do like Heroic Adventures with modifiers. And I really liked the level design of the one they showed.

[kaelleria]

LOL! The stream I was watching had #2Tokens blaring across the chat. Was pretty hilarious.

This token system is the least exciting loot system I have ever seen.

However, the activities are getting better. I do like Heroic Adventures with modifiers. And I really liked the level design of the one they showed.

We'll still be locked behind the stupid powerful gear system. Combine that with infusing and gear is still going to feel meh.

It's a shame because the one time content has been really great, it just doesn't have any staying power. Doesn't seem like we're going to get any QoL changes either.

[Kathandira]

We'll still be locked behind the stupid powerful gear system. Combine that with infusing and gear is still going to feel meh.

It's a shame because the one time content has been really great, it just doesn't have any staying power. Doesn't seem like we're going to get any QoL changes either.

I sadly agree. All that is left is to see what the Raid Lair has to offer. Since the Leviathan is sooo big, i'm hoping for new art, and completely different encounters, and a lore based Boss.

[kaelleria]

I sadly agree. All that is left is to see what the Raid Lair has to offer. Since the Leviathan is sooo big, i'm hoping for new art, and completely different encounters, and a lore based Boss.

My clan is dead so the raid is more or less a no go for me. Heck, I didn't even get the Nightfall done last week.

[Deleted]

My clan is dead so the raid is more or less a no go for me. Heck, I didn't even get the Nightfall done last week.

Just use bungies fireteam thing, its decent to be fair, how i've done it every week since its launch on PC. All the groups i've found are really decent.

[Endus]

My clan is dead so the raid is more or less a no go for me. Heck, I didn't even get the Nightfall done last week.

The Destiny 2 reddit has a Sherpa subreddit to take newbies through raids with experienced guidance (and they verify potential sherpas), and their Discord is pretty active in trying to get groups together. I haven't raided with either, but I've used their system to jump into a quick Nightfall a couple times, no problem.

[kaelleria]

Just use bungies fireteam thing, its decent to be fair, how i've done it every week since its launch on PC. All the groups i've found are really decent.

Guided games? If you have two people in your group it doesn't work. If my fiancé plays with me we actually can't use it.

The Destiny 2 reddit has a Sherpa subreddit to take newbies through raids with experienced guidance (and they verify potential sherpas), and their Discord is pretty active in trying to get groups together. I haven't raided with either, but I've used their system to jump into a quick Nightfall a couple times, no problem.

Having to leave the game to create a group is bad design.

[Deleted]

Guided games? If you have two people in your group it doesn't work. If my fiancé plays with me we actually can't use it.

No.

https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Top...=0&d=3&lang=en

This. Im 305 though so you might have a problem if you've fell behind in light

[Kathandira]

My clan is dead so the raid is more or less a no go for me. Heck, I didn't even get the Nightfall done last week.

Mine is too, but i'm pretty confident that their activity will increase when the DLC releases. Most of them have the seasons pass, so it's a safe bet that they will be logging on at least to try it out.