Bungie Mostly Gets It

Bungie Mostly Gets It

Yesterday I made a post talking about some of my frustrations and some of the frustrations of the community at large.  In lieu of giving the final Bungie Curse of Osiris reveal live stream, they opted to instead give us an extremely dense blog post paired with a podcast episode expanding on the theme.  As a programmer by trade I am generally slow to assign malice to the actions of game developers, especially when said problems get patched out of the game.  There have been so many times in my own life that I have thought something was going to be a really good idea, and in the end it only served to hurt my user base.  As a result I haven’t really talked about the whole XP gain issue because it didn’t really directly effect me.  I essentially told myself there were three reasonable bright engrams that I could get per character and past that I didn’t attempt to go out into the wilds and grind for more.  I didn’t even really have time to participate in the Clarion Call event that was happening over the Thanksgiving weekend because family and reasons.  Also as a programmer I read yesterdays post as a game company attempting to peel back the curtain and show the players the mess that is hidden behind it.  I more or less accept their explanations and I figured this was something I should state up front before I dig too far into the specific issues.  I highly suggest you read both the blog and listen to the podcast because hearing the voices of Luke Smith, Mark Noseworthy and Eric Osbourne explain why things are the way they are…  really drills home the point that they did mean the best.  None of them are really polished orators and there is emotion in those voices that helps to add accent marks to the commentary.

Bungie Mostly Gets It

One of the biggest announcements is that there is a brand new tier of weapons coming.  Yesterday I talked about the whole static roll thing and mostly how I was bracing for the return of randomized stats.  In truth I was preparing for the worst because I actually like static rolls on gear because it lets me know directly what I am shooting for, and not always wondering if there is a better roll around the corner.  I feel like they sort of shot down the middle and landed in a happy place that I can accept as reasonable.  Masterworks will be legendary weapons that roll with an extra mode that provides some amount of randomized stats.  The above image is lifted from the Bungie blog post and shows a Uriel’s Gift with a bonus 10 to reload speed and also shows that they are starting to track how many kills you have made with a specific masterwork weapon.  They announced a couple of things about this that make them more reasonable…  firstly you can re-roll the stat node until you get the one you actually wanted.  Secondly you can break down masterwork weapons that you do not want to get upgrade materials to turn your normal legendary weapons into masterworks themselves.  Functionally this gives players what they said they wanted… in the ability to get different versions of weapons but also makes it sane and rational for those of us who actually liked fixed rolls in being able to upgrade our existing stash to the new version.  Also it allows us to slowly work our way to perfecting the roll with whatever combo we were wanting on it by re-rolling that node.

Bungie Mostly Gets It

Another big announcement is that they are adding duplicate protection for exotics, so that the game will by nature favor giving you exotics that you do not already have over exotics that you have seen over and over again.  This has been a major point of frustration for a lot of players, myself included…  in that we keep getting the same exotic items over and over when there are still a bunch on the list that we have never seen.  I hit a streak of six prospectors in a row awhile back, and anything to blunt that would be much appreciated.  They also announced the return of Three of Coins in a modified form of just providing a 4 hour buff that gives you an increased chance at exotic drop rates.  I had a love/hate relationship with Three of Coins, and to some extent I like Xur serving more of a purpose each week than just presenting you with exotics you have already seen him sell numerous times.  Lastly while on the Xur front they announced that he would begin selling an additional item called a Fated Engram which decodes into an exotic item that you have not already unlocked on that character.  The above image shows that this costs 97 shards… which is a hefty price but by the time you need this you are probably going to be swimming in them.

Bungie Mostly Gets It

Another thing that I was extremely excited to see is that Banshee-44 will start just straight up selling a limited number of mods each week for a combination of Mod Components and Legendary Shards.  Now at first this doesn’t seem a amazing because it is not like we are swimming in Mod Components, however they are attempting to create a bridge for that too.  The biggest problem I have with the mod system is that in theory I need to hold onto every single blue mod in the hope that I get three of them to turn in for the purple variant.  As a result I regularly have no room left for mods because the 50 slot inventory is just inadequate.  Now they are going to make it so with blue mods you can break them down for gunsmith materials but they will also have a chance of dropping a mod component at the same time.  While saving them up for a guaranteed mod is nice… I will absolutely start breaking down every blue i get because I just don’t have the room.  They did state that eventually he will sell Kinetic Damage mods which in truth are the only ones we really have a hard time chasing.  Side notes… apparently Master Rahool will start straight up selling Legendary Engrams to help those chasing Masterwork weapons, and Benedict will redeem raid tokens before you get your first clear.  Additionally faction merchants will only now beckon you…  if you have enough tokens to turn in for a faction package.  So no more every icon in the tower blinking at once.

Functionally everything I have talked about is coming in either the December 5th update or December 12th.  I am going to attempt to list out the various things appearing in each, but I am certain to miss stuff so again I highly suggest you read the blog post and listen to the podcast for yourself.

December 5th

  • Armor Ornaments
  • Gunsmith Selling Mods
  • Blue Mods Occasionally Dropping Mod Components
  • Master Rahool sells Legendary Engrams
  • Benedict allows immediate raid token turn-in
  • Reputation Token Economy changes – way more tokens per activity but slightly higher turn in amounts
  • Cayde’s Treasure Map Minimum Payout
  • … and of course the Curse of Osiris storyline and related stuff

December 12th

  • Masterwork Weapons
  • Selection of Faction Armor/Weapons Purchasable for Legendary Shards
  • Xur Changes – Fated Engram + Three of Coins
  • Zavala/Shaxx sell Gift consumables that give interesting bonuses
  • No More Empty World Chests
  • Vendors leave you alone until ready to turn a package in

 

All of this sounds great to be honest.  The problem is we rarely get one of these posts like this.  All the player base really wants is to know what is coming down the pipe and roughly when they can expect it.  This is true for Bungie and Destiny but also equally true for World of Warcraft or any persistent game that receives a constant slow trickle of content.  Sure dates may not be final and they can shift and slip… but it is still nice to know what exactly we are waiting on.  I can only hope that this is the beginning of them giving us more information in greater detail… but in truth I feel like this is triage to stave off the angry pitchfork mob.  As players we get deeply invested in these games, and to hear them talk about it as a Hobby is a step in the right direction.  I would love to see one of these posts each time there is a content drop brewing just to let us know what folks are thinking and how they plan on addressing the concerns of the community.  Deej and Cosmo both do excellent jobs of giving us information…  when they are allowed to.  Most of the frustrations with online games in general come from a feeling of not knowing what is going on in this thing that we are spending so much of our time doing.  If we got a monthly post that outlined the timeline of what they were thinking about doing during that month…  I feel like we would be in a much better state and more willing to give the benefit of the doubt.  However this is a double edged sword and they talk about it a bit in the podcast.  They have been so gun shy to say anything because they don’t want an idea they had to turn into a promise when they maybe don’t even know if it is possible yet.  In the end…  its a tricky situation but I think the combination blog post and podcast were the right decision to make at this time.  I’m pretty excited about a bunch of the quality of life changes, and ready to tear into the new content next Tuesday.  My sodium levels have lowered greatly.

 

 

 

Accidental Achievement

Accidental Achievement

Whoops. I accidentally got the Mountacular achievement, for getting 250 mounts. How was it an accident? Well, over the weekend I crafted a few of the jewelcrafting panther mounts that I was still missing. Today I happened to swap over to my paladin alt, and was greeted with the achievement when I logged in. I guess those panthers, on top of the original paladin mount and the one from the argent tournament were enough to push me over 250 once I logged on. What a happy surprise!

The felfire hawk reward is quite pretty, I love the color. I figured Wrath-era players might get a chuckle out of me posing here. Back before flying was enabled over old Dalaran, you could stay mounted if you could land in just the right spot on the well. That combined with the prime real estate in front of the bank made it a hot spot for showing off. Anyway, getting this mount was a fun distraction that really brightened my day!


Accidental Achievement

Destiny 2 Sodium

Destiny 2 Sodium

To say the Destiny community is a little salty right now is a bit of an understatement, so as a result I am using a screenshot of the emote for today’s post.  We are in this weird situation where anyone claiming to enjoy themselves right now is being angrily labelled a Bungie shill.  The truth is my play time has decreased greatly over the last few weeks but this isn’t necessarily because I am not enjoying myself still playing the game, but instead because I have reached a point where I feel comfortable not grinding all the time towards my goal.  I am a very loot centric player when it comes to MMOs or loot driven games, and now that I have reached the top of the hill…  a lot of my drive to keep grinding disappears.  Sure there are things out there that I want to do and want to obtain…  but I have been grinding Destiny 2 since September 6th when it launched on the PS4.  I leveled a set of characters on console and then hit the PC launch with the same gusto with it happened on October 24th grinding up a brand new set of characters there.  Next Tuesday the latest batch of content will release and I am preparing myself to start the grind all over again as I attempt to top the hill and get to the next loot and level cap.  In truth I am likely just backing off a bit to give myself some breathing room right before the next rush starts.

That said there are a lot of players who have eased up on the play time and this taken with the wave of frustration circulating add up to a fairly disgruntled player base that Bungie is going to have to appease.  The core issue for me at least is that Destiny 2 has seemed to be a sequel to Destiny 1 at launch…  not Destiny 1 in the state at which it arrived during year three after the significant improvements that came with Taken King and Rise of Iron.  My working theory has always been that they started work on Destiny 2 at some point during the release cycle of Destiny 1 and never really took into account everything that happened to massively shift the game during Year 2 and Year 3.  As a result when Destiny 2 launched it felt like it was feature limited and missing a lot of the quality of life improvements that we had come to expect.  Additionally some poor decisions like shaders being consumables kept piling the frustrations and we made our way through the content. So I am going to talk about a few points this morning that either bother me or bother a lot of players.

Forced Throttling

One of the biggest personal frustrations for me is the lack of ways that I can see improvement in my character.  Like I said above I am very loot centric and my core drive in this game as with most loot driven games… is to improve my gear score.  There has always been a final slog to the goal in Destiny but in this incarnation it came way the hell too soon.  Light gain felt really good up until about 265/270 and then the bottom completely dropped out leaving you with a handful of “Powerful Gear” milestones to do each week.  I am absolutely certain that this is a mechanic that they put in place to make it so casual players could hang with the players willing to grind endlessly for gear.  The problem is for those of us who would be playing the game nonstop… it gives us no real reason to keep doing so.  It takes me about an hour per character to grind out the three easy powerful gear milestones each week (crucible call to arms, planetary flashpoint, and clan xp).  So after those three hours of gameplay…  there is really nothing else left for me to do that is going to move the needle forward.  Even now sitting at 305 light…  I would still be grinding and spending my time catching up all of my favorite weapons to the level cap.  The problem is that everything drops 5 levels below your current light level, feeling like a slap in the face each time you see another useless bauble that will never be of use to help you climb the ladder.

Skill Based Match Making

This is a topic of great contention among the PVP haves and have nots.  In Destiny 1 there used to be an algorithm that attempted to match you up with players in your same skill range, and it favored this pairing over connection quality.  With Destiny 2 they reversed this decision and seem to be basing pairings entirely on connection quality and as a result I see a lot of people with Oklahoma and Texas themed names from my digital neighborhood…  but also wind up getting thrown into some pretty horrible match ups.  The number of times I have gotten thrown into a match with a full team of ringers that then proceeds to shred my team of randoms…  honestly represents the majority of my times playing crucible.  It feels horrible to keep being ground up and spit out by a bunch of folks that are queuing together.  While tweaking the calculations for team making they really need to favor throwing randoms with other randoms and teams with other teams, because the current state of the only thing mattering is your connection really sucks.  The only positive is that I have had to get better much faster by being thrown against a wall over and over.  I am still not what you would call good, but I am passable and can usually do my Call to Arms in 4 to 5 matches and that is really all that matters to me.

Static Rolls

In Destiny 1 weapons had a randomized set of stats and perks that could come from a list of possible perks on that weapon.  This lead to the process of grinding an activity on the hopes of getting a “god roll” weapon to drop, with whatever the community had deemed was the ideal set of stats for that weapon.  A prime example of this was my “God Roll” Haakon’s Hatchet from Year 2 Iron Banner that came with Perfect Balance, Counterbalance and Range Finder giving it an insane stability of 80 and an aim assist of 79 making it a laser beam that just melted opponents.  Similarly I had another one sitting in my vault that I never got around to dismantling that only had a stability of 58…  which makes the weapon perform drastically differently.  There are huge swaths of the Destiny community that are salty about the absence of random weapon rolls, and in truth this is one of the areas where I am extremely happy with Destiny 2.  I love knowing that when I finally get Jiangshi AR4 to drop from gunsmith… that it will be the best possible roll of that weapon without having to try for it multiple times.  I love knowing that if I suggest Better Devils to a friend, that I don’t have to specific that you need it with this perk or that perk or it is completely useless.  I have a vault full of sub par Imago Loop hand cannons in Destiny 1 because I never actually got the perfect roll, and the same goes for Eyasluna another weapon I chased hard to always came up empty.  I think primarily the salt is coming from the fact that static weapon rolls removes one more thing that people did in Destiny 1 and was not replaced with a similar grind to serve as a time sink.

Timed Nightfalls

While I have done them several times…  I just do not like the new Nightfall system with its weird timed mechanic.  The truth is there are a lot of people who just want back the way Nightfalls used to feel as being a harder version of the normal strike.  This is compounded by the fact that there are no heroic strikes to serve as a bit of a middle ground.  Personally I am just not a fan of anything on a timer because it stresses me the fuck out.  In elementary school I slipped two groups in mathematics thanks to these stupid quizzes called mad minutes… where you had to get a bunch of problems done in a minute.  I do not perform well when on a timer and as a result I either rushed through and made a lot of errors or had zero errors but took my time.  When you put me on a timer and I know I am on a timer… I am going to perform like shit.  This is in part why I rarely willfully did mythic+ dungeons in World of Warcraft because they stressed me out more than they were worth.  I will do a Nightfall, but they are mostly like swallowing a pill… and now that I have hit 305 light…  I have no real desire to keep doing them.

Strikes are Meaningless

In Destiny 1 I used to spend hours grinding the heroic strike playlist because it was a possible source of gear upgrades but also a way that I could get special unique strike specific drops.  Later on they put in the strike scoring system and it ramped the reasons to keep running the strikes as they were a great source of faction and also rewarded loot from completing the bounties.  The current state of Destiny strikes is that they are largely fun but also completely pointless after you get to 265 light.  There is nothing that you can get from them apart from Vanguard tokens that make them worth repeated running.  Similarly with Nightfall strikes, they are only worth doing once per week per character, and again this adds to the feeling that there is “nothing to do” that players are having.  Its not that there are not things to do…  its that there is a general sense of feeling like there is nothing “worth” doing.  I miss hoard chests at the end of strikes that had the possibility of dropping really interesting things.  There are still weapons in Destiny 1 that came from these chests that I never managed to get, and if I went back to the game it is the sort of thing I would work on trying for when nothing else was going on.  Basically the game as a whole feels like it is lacking stretch goals that players can accomplish reasonably while doing solo play.

Still a Great Game

As you might be able to tell from this post… I have my own issues with Destiny 2, but all of this said it is still a game that I enjoy each time I log into it.  I’ve been on a recent binge of leveling my Orc Warrior in World of Warcraft and very similarly that is a game that I have lots of problems with…  but still enjoy.  Mostly I think for me it is a sense of disappointment because after playing through Destiny 1 I have seen them do certain things better.  Similarly I know that Destiny 1 Year 1 was an awful place and to see where they went over the three years of that game, have taught me that they can in fact improve and pivot while the game is still running.  Today Bungie was supposed to do the final live stream reveal for the Curse of Osiris expansion, and they have cancelled it largely to go back to the drawing board a bit.  It seems like they are instead planning on giving us more information about the future of the game and some of the ways they plan on changing it.  My only fear is that they might over correct and do away with some of the things that I think are working well.  Static rolls are great as far as I am concerned, and I would hate to see them go.  The problem is which players should Bungie listen to and which ones should they not?  All I know is that I feel like I lack goals that are in the distance that I can keep shooting for that also support solo play time when I just can’t handle being around other players.  I’m curious to see where the game goes from here.

Seasonal Swan Song

Seasonal Swan Song

I talked a bit about progress in Destiny 2 in yesterdays post but I didn’t really want to get too deep into it figuring I would talk more at length today.  Last week I managed to knock out a bunch of accomplishments, not the least of which was hitting 305 light finally on the Titan.  Granted I realize this is all going to be in vain starting next week as the level cap itself is raising and I assume as well that means the light level with it.  Last week was Iron Banner, the second for console players but the very first for those of us choosing to primary the PC version.  Now on the PS4 I managed to complete a full set of Iron Banner armor on my Titan and my goal was of course to do the same for the PC.  I consider myself extremely lucky because I managed to get the full set after turning in thirteen packages.  There are folks I know who have been grinding away at this all week long and are still missing pieces of armor.  In addition to this I managed to pick up all of the weapons but three…  sidearm, fusion rifle and submachinegun.  Of those the only one that I would have actually used is the Fusion Rifle, but even there I have several options that I like already including Merciless if I am willing to give up my exotic slot and Main Ingredient if I am not.  The most important weapons for me were getting the Pulse Rifle, Auto Rifle and Hand Cannon all of which will see use.  The scout rifle might, but I need to spend some more time playing with it.

Seasonal Swan Song

The other thing going on is the fact that this week is effectively the last chance to do anything in Season 1.  Now I am not entirely certain what this means from a player perspective other than the fact that we know a bunch of new stuff is going to happen.  All of the Eververse items are changing out apparently, so that only makes the fact that they have apparently been throttling our xp gain towards bright engrams all the more shitty.  In truth I have gotten the few items that I care about…  namely the Ramen bowl emote and Bandwagon ship.  On top of that I managed to pull three of the exotic ships total and two of the exotic sparrows.  All in all I feel like I made out pretty well for season 1, but what I am really curious about is whether or not all of package loot is changing as well.  There are a number of weapons that I have not managed to get that I really walk…  namely the Curtain Call rocket launcher, Jiangshi AR4 auto rifle and Halfdan-D auto rifle.  I would not mind getting a Morrigan-D rocket launcher either considering I believe it is the only one with tracking still intact.  Finally I really want to complete the hunter set from Io on the off chance that maybe those are changing out as well.  Granted I don’t know any of this, but I know in Destiny 1 they started re-rolling the weapons so that is a possibility here as well I would guess.

Seasonal Swan Song

Lastly the other big change for us personally… is that our clan will be resetting from rank 6 to rank 1 next week and we will need to begin the leveling process anew.  Supposedly we will be adding a brand new clan banner standard to the mix because we maxed things out in Season 1.  Additionally the perks for each of the clan ranks will be changing out to a new set more relevant to the content we will be doing, that is at least in theory Vex based.  The only thing that concerns me is that we do not have nearly as many people actively playing right now as we did at the launch of the clan, and as a result the grind is going to go more slowly.  The calculations I had done before said that we needed about 20-25 characters reaching maximum contribution each week to keep us hitting the progression cap each week, and I think in theory we will still have at least that.  I know I will continue to keep contributing my 5000 clan XP on three different characters per week and if things get dire I have a set of characters on the PS4 on a secondary account that could add experience as well.  This whole season thing is new concept to me and I am somewhat excited to see just how different the game is from a loot perspective.  That also means that this week I need to do some significant vault purging to get ready for the introduction of new items.  I am hoping that we get some more space… because we need it across the board from vault to shader storage.  If they really want money from me…  I would throw money at the screen for more storage space.