Destiny – Page 61

The Banner Falls

April 5, 2016 by Belghast

Plans Change

When I left work I had every intent to go home and play Iron Banner on the Titan all night long, in the hopes of getting some really awesome drops. That didn’t exactly happen, but I did end up playing Iron Banner up until the point when I decided to go to bed a little early. The change however was that I ended up playing on my Hunter. There is a clear pecking order between my Destiny characters. The Titan gets all the really good stuff… the Hunter gets the next tier of stuff… and the Warlock survives on scraps from the other two. Since I had already gotten the Titan to Rank 5, I was curious just how fast I could get the Hunter up there in levels. I had heard there was some sort of an alt bonus, that helped to push your second and third characters up faster, as well as now having access to both the rank 5 shader and emblem which also increase reputation gain. I made significant progress and after a half dozen matches I was sitting at Rank 3 staring down the barrel of Rank 4. Had I stayed up a little later I might have been able to hit Rank 5 all in one night. The big part was that I simply did not have the skill or the time to be able to complete the “brown” bounties on the Hunter since they take a lot of repeated effort. In theory next Iron Banner I might work on the daily bounties for both the Titan and the Hunter each day, and by the end of the week I should have enough progress to turn in those weekly bounties.

The huge positive however is that thanks to the gear that managed to drop while running matches, I can now hit 302 on the Hunter. In total I managed to pick up both a chest piece at 306 and a set of arms at 285… the later I will probably push up whenever the infusion changes happen. I really like the Iron Banner armor look, and I have a feeling that before long that is what my characters will be decked out in. However the upcoming taken look stuff, will probably be what I put on my Hunter since of the three looks that is the one I like the best. Honestly of the Taken gear the only one that I really don’t like is the Titan, and that is largely because of the dumb helmet. The horns on that helmet look like the radar array off of a cruise ship or something. This gets into a complaint I have with Destiny as a whole. It is MMOish but only sorta… and the thing I wish it offered was a true cosmetic system where you could actually customize your appearance without changing your gear. That is one of the things I like the most about The Division is the ability to change my look and have it largely be independent of what I happen to be wearing. Sure there your only options are various pieces of clothing, but in Destiny you could create some really unique armor sets. However I guess with the lossless infusion system, it will make customizing your appearance significantly easier.

Ponytail Titan

Tonight is yet another Rookie Raid and it has become that night of the week that I really look forward to. There is of course a certain amount of trepidation as well, namely when it comes to the damned jumping puzzles. As I have said before Destiny manages to trip my vertigo worse than any game since Mirrors Edge. However I push through it in order to be able to get the tasty drops. This go around what I am really hoping for is to be able to walk out of the raid with the machine gun. I realize that I just put a bunch of effort into pushing up my Bretomart’s Stand to make it raid viable… but I just keep hearing that the raid machine gun is pretty much better in every way. You get hooked on guns with the Cocoon perk, and knowing that whenever you swap weapons there will never be an awkward situation where you have to reload. This would definitely make dps time in the light bubble on Oryx more efficient since you could swap weapons and pour shots into him while waiting on the machine gun to load itself. Cosmetically I am going with a sort of White Knight meets Hive Knight look, and I dig it… even though I kinda wish I had the rest of the Iron Banner gear. When the infusion changes go in I will likely be swapping over to the Iron Camelot shoulders that I picked up from Saladin. I am hoping next go round he brings boots so I can finish out the appearance.

The only regret from this past week is that I didn’t actually connect with any of my friends to talk them into helping me finish my sword quest. It is not like I can actually use it in the raid, since on several of the fights I actually need to use an exotic primary. However it would just be nice to know that I am done with it. I also missed another opportunity for the Black Spindle, because I believe that was last Friday night. I was so focused on Iron Banner that I didn’t even notice until I got an email from another friend asking if I was around to make attempts on it. I have a bit of a mental block now about that mission, since I have failed so many times at it. The other side project that I would love to work on is finding someone to recruit, so that I can get those sweet sweet recruit a friend bonus items. I absolutely want a Tron Sparrow, but unfortunately I can’t just do the World of Warcraft thing and set up a second account. A lot of the achievement steps require you to be doing stuff together. I’ve wondered for awhile now what it would take to get my friend Vernie hooked on this game… because I think he would absolutely like it. The only problem is he is a die-hard keyboard and mouse guy… just like I was before the siren song of Destiny. The thing is… all the joy I used to have playing PC shooters when we would do LAN games after work… I am having with Destiny.

Iron Banner Results

April 4, 2016 by Belghast

Evaluating Guardians

I spent quite a bit of time this weekend looking at this screen or one very similar. As I stated the other day, this is my first time really doing the Iron Banner weekend content, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. The only sadness that I feel is that it seems like I am deeply leaning into the game as many of my clan mates are leaning out. I did however get to run a few matches with the Axioma clan crew, but unfortunately I had someone come to the door and had to run quickly to go answer it leaving them somewhat stranded with some dead weight. The biggest take away from the weekend is that I am not nearly as bad at PVP as I always thought I was. There were several maps where I lead the score count, which is a pretty cool feeling. I rarely if ever however have the best KDR. I am super objective based and there are many times I will bum rush an objective just to keep the opposite team from having time to secure it. It feels like maybe the rest of the folks in Iron Banner are not necessarily doing this. I saw an awful lot of deathmatching in areas that were nowhere near objectives and since the name of the game was control… it felt like I spent a lot of time trying to make up for team mates that clearly had no interest in actually playing the “game”.

As the weekend went on I felt like I learned a lot. I fell for far fewer “traps” where people were trying to bait me into attacking and ending up getting picked off easily. I also started to learn the maps significantly better. There are still a few that are the bane of my existence… namely the Firebase Delphi, and the Dreadnaught map are ones that no matter how many times I play them I just feel like I struggle. Then there are maps like Widows Court and Bannerfall that I always seem to do really well on, but I guess this makes sense as there were always maps I did better on in Enemy Territory or Soldier of Fortune 2. I mention those games because in many ways playing Crucible and Iron Banner reminds me of all the time I spent playing shooters during the late 90s and early 2000s… and it has been shocking how fast certain aspects of it has begun to feel “natural”. I’ve been wondering if I had done myself a disservice all of these years by not playing PVP in MMOs and now I am starting to realize that it is just a different experience. MMO PVP just does not feel anywhere near as fluid as Destiny, and because of that I am doubting if I will feel anywhere near as good. That said I do absolutely intend to take some time and give World of Warcraft battlegrounds and Rift PVP another chance.

Spoils of War

Yesterday afternoon I managed to hit rank 5 with the Iron Banner and in doing so got quite the cache of goodies. I of course bought the cosmetic rewards first… because I kinda have a thing for emblems and shaders. Based on all the various emblems that I saw during the event, I am wondering if they alternate between designs or something? As far as the shaders go both were thoroughly obnoxious and I doubt I will use either, but I still had to pick them up regardless. The weapon I was most interested in this go round was Finnala’s Peril the Hand Cannon because I am really hoping that with the April changes we see some quality of life improvements to that type of weapon in general. Though if there is any evidence by the number of times I was killed by a Hand Cannon this weekend, I would say they are mostly doing okay. Other than that I have always liked the look of the Iron Banner Titan gear, so any of that I could pick up would make me happy. At some point I would absolutely love to be rocking a full set of the gear so that I look like the tank that I always thought I was. I still have one full day to try and get some drops, and I have a feeling that tonight I will be upstairs on the PS4 doing just that.

The gallery shows off some of the drops I managed to get through the weekend. In total I have gotten three different versions of the chest piece, and the one that I am showing off in the above image is not actually the highest level version I got. I am now trying to level up a 309 light version to be my primary chest piece. Similarly I have seen I believe three of the Hand Cannon drops but sadly most of them are pretty crappy stat wise. I did manage to get one that was worth holding onto, but hopefully tonight I might see some with better rolls. From my Rank 5 package I managed to get a really awesome 312 helmet and a 310 Ghost Shell… then about fifteen minutes later got a 320 version of the same shell. So all in all I managed to get at least three pieces of gear that I will be holding onto and making part of my permanent set. As far as purchases, I picked up the Iron Camelot shoulders, and Bretomart’s Stand Machine Gun. I kinda went back and forth on the Machine Gun as to whether or not to purchase it. Comparing it to the Legendary machine gun that I had been using, I actually thought it was a little better and have now infused it up to usable levels. I gotta say I really enjoyed Iron Banner this week and I have a feeling that I will be trying to do this next time it comes around. Sure it took up a lot of my time, but I really enjoyed that time spent. I can also already tell that once Iron Banner is over… I will be back to playing a lot of Crucible.

AggroChat #101 – Unicorns and Predictability

May 21, 2019April 3, 2016 by AggroChat

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, and Tamrielo talk about stuff and are not chipmunks!

This week we seem to have worked out the technical difficulties we had last week, and I regret to inform you that Chipmunk Belghast has left the building. Episodes 99 and 100 both had their issues and I believe those are finally behind us. Tonight we talk about both the esoteric and the tangible and lead off with a discussion about Randomized Loot versus Predictable loot… and apparently Belghast really enjoys chasing unicorns. From there we dive into a conversation about the insane grind at was getting the extra bank tab in Diablo 3 Season 5. We press forward into a discussion about Belghast aparently deciding he really likes good PVP and Grace talking about the divisiveness of the latest Wildstar world event. Kodra restarts Dark Souls and with Tam they contrast it with Bloodbourne. We talk about the latest craze that seems to be Nintendo discovering there is an internet and mobile gaming with Miitomo. Finally we talk about Adeptcon and the new Infinity Rule Book, and the Shadows Over Innistrad Magic the Gathering Expansion.

All the Topics!

Unicorns
Random Loot Drops
Predictable Loot Drops
Diablo 3 Season 5 Grind
Destny Crucible and Iron Banner
Wildstar Arcterra World Event
Dark Souls
Bloodbourne
Miitomo
New Infinity Rules Book
Shadows Over Innistrad
Magic the Gathering
Pauper Format

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Chasing Unicorns

April 2, 2016 by Belghast

Random Number Generators

For a bit now I have been trying to sort out why Destiny as a game is so damned appealing to me, and more so why it isn’t appealing to a lot of the AggroChat folks. While I am still very much enthralled by the game, the rest of the crew seems to be having that same experience with Warframe. While there are absolutely aspects of that game that I enjoy, as a whole I just find the experience less interesting. So while trying to reason out one day what the difference was… other than he design aspect and third person view. Then it finally hit me… that I really find the whole modding system in that game far less interesting than the random item rolls in Destiny. In theory Warframe is predictable and you can build each weapon to function exactly like you want it to, through the application of very specific mods. Once you have those mods and have leveled them you can then apply them to any weapon you can equip, allowing you to have a very predictable experience. The problem is I think it is that predictability that I find boring.

I’ve come to realize that I really do love chasing unicorns. What I mean by that is that for as long as I have played MMOs I have been enthralled by the random number generator aspect of loot. From the early days of Everquest, to Dark Age of Camelot and their completely random drops that came with Shrouded Isles… to even modern World of Warcraft with its chance of dropping Warforged items… I love the possibility of getting something truly amazing to drop for me. I think in many ways this is why I am so susceptible to grinding, because I know every single thing that I kill has an admittedly slim chance of dropping something truly magical like a BOE world epic. So when I play a game like Destiny I love knowing that the weapon I just got to drop for me, is a fairly unique package of stats… with randomized perks. I also love knowing that somewhere out there is a “God Roll” just perfect for my playstyle.

Imperfect Items

However the thing I appreciate the most is how I honestly enjoy using “imperfect” drops. Because while they may not work exactly the way I want them to work, there is always a way to make them function, and in doing so they give me a window into different play styles. Like I love the Rodeo perk on almost anything, but there are lots of weapons that I use without it and in each of them it has just made that gun feel more unique in the way it handles and the ways I can use it. So I love seeing what some might call a bad roll, and then trying to make it work for me. This keeps the game fresh and keeps me constantly falling in love with new weapons until I find something else that catches my attention. Through the course of playing Destiny I have played with so many different guns, and each of them had their own unique style and feel… and often times I get nostalgic when I dust them off in the bank and take them out to do bounties again. The Zarinaea-D for example I have used so many times, and each time I pick it up I get warm fuzzies over the way it handles and the way the gun sounds and looks.

The problem is I just don’t feel that in Warframe. Weapons have stats and then those stats are augmented by mods… that themselves are always going to be the same as they level up. Tam and I talked about this at length one day, and for him that is the perfect scenario… because it makes him feel like he is never using something inferior. For me however I actually kinda like knowing that there is always a slightly better version out there somewhere. I am admittedly focused on loot when I play any game, and when I reach a point of having the “best in slot” I get bored and the game starts to stagnate for me. I like situations where there are lots of “potentially right” answers to a problem, and that I can choose whichever option feels the best. Right now this is one of the problems I am having with The Division is that while I enjoy the game… the loot feels realy boring, or at least it doesn’t seem to be doing anything interesting to my game play. I’ve not picked up a weapon that completely changed how I approach combat, and that forces me to focus on this aspect or that rather than continuing to do the same thing I always seem to be doing. In the meantime however I will keep chasing those unicorns and looking for that really awesome item to drop just around the corner.