Destiny 2 - Going free to play and Shadowkeep Expansion

[Thursday]

Launching on Tuesday, and I'm very excited. Since I got a regular group for raiding and stuff earlier in the year, it's become a proper hobbyist game for me. And since the divorce from Activision, Bungie have made a lot of good moves. A few aspects of Eververse that aren't great, but it only ever affects cosmetic things, and so I've accepted these microtransactions as an inevitability, for online games like this. Also seems fair enough now Bungie are independent.

Going to sound like a shill for them here, but what's included in the Free to Play version does seem very generous. They do seem to be trying to make it so there's less barriers to people being able to play together because of not having expansions/not being able high enough power level



Meanwhile, a ton of system changes coming to make things interesting for veterans, and add more RPG style depth to things.

So anyone else still well up for this?/Anyone going to try it now there's a free version?

[Mobius]

I haven't played for a while. Stopped around when that Reckoning mode came out.

I'll probably get back into it cus there's not much else to play. Is this the expansion that adds The Moon from Destiny 1? Have they made any changes to Strikes? I dont do PvP, only PvE, and Strikes were probably my favourite part..

[The Boston Crab]

Great game, I just can't be bothered keeping up with it, same with Destiny 1. I should probably have saved myself thousands of pounds and just played Destiny though for the last ten years or whatever.

[Thursday]

I haven't played for a while. Stopped around when that Reckoning mode came out.

I'll probably get back into it cus there's not much else to play. Is this the expansion that adds The Moon from Destiny 1? Have they made any changes to Strikes? I dont do PvP, only PvE, and Strikes were probably my favourite part..

Menagerie was a great mode, they added back at the start of this season, a much better version of Reckoning really, A 6 player matchmade activity, with a minor puzzle or task to each area, but not so complicated that the absolute fucking plumbs you get matched with won't know what to do/ if they don't it doesn't matter much anyway. Although it will have limited life to it.

I don't think much is changing about strikes, that is an area that could improve a lot really, but I think all the technical changes should at least make running them more rewarding/interesting. And there'll be some new strikes of course.

I'd well recommend doing the dungeon from Forsaken, and there's going to be a new one in this expansion as well, I know we failed to get 6 people to do raid's in the past, but this is essentially a smaller/simpler raid style activity for 3 people. Because of the whole dreaming city curse cycle thing, it was only available 3 weeks, but it's going to be available any time now. 

[H-O-W-L]

Never played it, worth a crack if I didn't even touch Dongdiddly 1?

[Mobius]

Thanks for the info mate. Yeah I loved that 3 man dungeon from The Dreaming City, and the whole Dreaming City in general.

I quit for The Division 2 which turned out to be a complete pile of shit. Fuck it, redownloading Destiny 2 now. I miss my Jotunn..

Never played it, worth a crack if I didn't even touch Dongdiddly 1?

If you've never played it before, god there's so much content. It's a really good game, the gameplay and shooting is very satisfying. As with any game like this you reach a point where you're redoing content, grinding for stuff and some people aren't into that.

[Thursday]

Yeah, the thing is, the endgame grind, IS the game for a lot of people, the main campaign is just a preamble, and that's not for everyone. But if nothing else you're getting a solid FPS campaign from the devs that made Halo, and a lot of post-game activities for free. Although... it'll cost a ton of hard drive space.  You really don't need to have played the first game, the story is mostly bollocks, although like a lot of games it has interesting "lore" to be discovered later on.

[BeardFaceMan]

I was amazed at the lack of matchmaking options, making you go to LFG sites (if you know about them) and the like to find teams. That really is appalling for a multiplayer game, to force you to go offline and put the game down to look for people to play it with. I can sorta, maybe understand it for the raids where you need mics and clear communication (the option should still be there though), but have they at least got matchmaking for the Nightfall strikes yet?

[Thursday]

GET SOME MATES THEN LOOSER!

Nightfalls, sort of have a thing for it, never used it, although it doesn't seem to be very good. I agree they should have proper in game LFG, but there's not that many activities that require you to make pre-made groups though is there?

Anything slightly complicated like Reckoning has show the foibles of throwing you into activities with people you don't know without mics. Raids would be a disaster.

[H-O-W-L]

Could I feasibly enjoy this as a lonely cunt?

[Thursday]

Campaign is all single player, then a lot of activities will have you matched with other people, but there's no need for voice chat, you have to opt-in for both PVE and PVP

[Mobius]

I was amazed at the lack of matchmaking options, making you go to LFG sites (if you know about them) and the like to find teams. That really is appalling for a multiplayer game, to force you to go offline and put the game down to look for people to play it with. I can sorta, maybe understand it for the raids where you need mics and clear communication (the option should still be there though), but have they at least got matchmaking for the Nightfall strikes yet?

Yeah this really pisses me off. Another annoying thing was how the game launches into orbit. Presumably 99% of players go straight to The Tower (social hub) to pick up quests etc, so why not spawn there. Even if you don't want to be in the tower, it's as quick to go from there to anywhere else. So much of this game is loading screens.

EDIT - Well fuck me, just logged in for the first time in months and it seems like you now spawn in The Tower?! I take back everything negative I ever said about this game.

Could I feasibly enjoy this as a lonely cunt?

Oh for sure. Most content can be soloed, other stuff is simple enough you don't need a headset. You'll be automatically matchmaked into a group, but no real teamwork is required. The end game content like larger raids needs a headset and hours of free time set aside.

[H-O-W-L]

Fuck it, I'll preload. Is there anything that the F2P version is missing besides DLC's? Am I going to be playing an XP-gimped nobrain or something, or will I basically have the same experience as retail back in 2017?

[Mobius]

From the looks of the picture in the op, everything will be free except the latest expansion Shadowkeep once it launches on Tuesday.

I just played for a few hours. I'm only around 670, didn't realise they'd raised the cap to 750. Might as well just wait for Shadowkeep because I'm sure there'll be boost items, and the servers are going down for 24 hours shortly.

[Thursday]

I think all the main campaign and raid from Forsaken won't be available, but you'll still be explore the planets.

[Thursday]

Reminder that it's now down for maintenance until it launches (6pm uk time) tomorrow, but you can download the update now.

[Mobius]

Bored of this again. They really need more loot or new loot, or reintroduce old loot. So boring to do new activities for the same old weapons and armour. RNG is the worst.

Of course there's new stuff on the Eververse, which requires real money...

Why the fuck do you have to fly to the Tower to get quests we're flying through space but we physically have to walk up to someone to get missions. Endless bloody loading screens...

I also hate quests where you'll have a few PvE steps...then you have to kill 50 people in PvP or something to progress further.

[Thursday]

Getting old armour is interesting now though because of the new system, but it could have done with a fuller refresh, or  even just updating some of the older weapons - so say for example perks that were introduced for weapons during  season of the drifter could start dropping on older weapons. But then I guess that would diminish the uniqueness of those weapons.

I appreciate they now introduce a few new sets of things every 3 months though, but I do miss having the overwhelming amount of new stuff we had last year.

[Barry Admin]

Really glad this thread was started, as I'd sworn off Bungie, but yeah, wow. What an overwhelming amount of content! An absolutely mystifiying amount of new systems and such, and the steep learning curve has really hooked me in again.

I'm loving finally recommencing my career as a guardian!

Exotics so far: Sweet Business - super fun but a bit underpowered perhaps.

Jade Rabbit, Riskrunner and Erianas whatever from quests. Looking forward to getting my Multitool back when I finish the campaign. Loved it for crucible in D1 as the radar stays on screen, and I see scout rifles have just been buffed.

Also got Tractor Cannon, and got the ornament for it last night.

FUCKING DESTINY LADS!

[Barry Admin]

"The Wardcliff Coil" just dropped too, yeooo. Thanks, Mars.

[BeardFaceMan]

Iron Banner Control this week too, my favourite. Has anyone ran any of the raids yet? I don't know if I can be arsed sitting and playing for 3 or 4 hours anymore, an hour or 2 would be better. How long does the Leviathan take?

[Thursday]

You might be better off starting with Eater of Worlds as that's a "Raid Lair" and it's much shorter, but it's still 6 player raid mechanics. Spire of Stars is also a slightly shorter, one but that gets very tricky, better to do that when you've got a team you're comfortable with.

I don't think it's accessible in the free to play version, but Scourge of the Past is also a shorter, simpler one.

[Thursday]

By the way Xur is on Nessus today - selling Telesto which is very good in D2, and if you're doing Iron Banner, keep an eye out for Swarm of the Raven, you want it to drop with Spike Grenades. It tends to be the "meta" Boss damage weapon at the moment.

[BeardFaceMan]

I'm not good enough to worry about the meta, I just use the ones I like the feel of. Can't get enough of Graviton Lance in the Crucible. Even after coming back to this after a good break, it's still a bit overwheleming with the amount of new stuff to do, god knows what it must be like for new players.

Is it worth doing a CaB clan for this, are there enough people playing so we can get the rewards and stuff? I'm not in a clan at the moment, would be nice to have some more stuff to do to overwhelm myself with.

[Zetetic]

I might be up for that.

[The Boston Crab]

Me too. Love the game butler don't have any online mates because I'm para

[Thursday]

I'm not good enough to worry about the meta, I just use the ones I like the feel of. Can't get enough of Graviton Lance in the Crucible. Even after coming back to this after a good break, it's still a bit overwheleming with the amount of new stuff to do, god knows what it must be like for new players.

Is it worth doing a CaB clan for this, are there enough people playing so we can get the rewards and stuff? I'm not in a clan at the moment, would be nice to have some more stuff to do to overwhelm myself with.

Oh sure, that's only for twats like me, but if you were going to do raids one day it's useful to know, as loadout can help a lot.

I think in the past we've just not had enough people on one platform, and while we've got cross save now, we've still not got cross play. It seems like they might be working towards it one day, but I suspect it won't happen until next gen consoles, with Destiny 3. Maybe then there'll be framerate parity between consoles and PC.

[Barry Admin]

Can't belive you still can't remap buttons, or that they still don't have a "bumper jumper tactical" setting! I've had to remap B and the right stick button on a system level, reconfigure all my other games, and get used to the change in the Xbox menus. All because they insist they on not giving you a well-known option, or let you configure it for yourself.

They have a bumper jumper setting which remaps jump to the left shoulder button, so should really be aware that having melee on the right stick button is similarly shit for cunts.

Other than that I'm loving it, and trying not to rush too much.

Re: Levithan raid, I couldn't sleep all last week, so one night at about 2:30am I thought "fuck it, here's a group doing the 'easy raid', as a training thing, I'll jump in and get it done in an hour or 90 minutes. Nah, it's gonna take three hours or more, isn't it?"

Went to bed at half 6, everyone else having finally given up at the stage where you unwrap the boss, ie just before the boss fight. 

But it's the highs and lows I love about raiding.

Also, I really liked that "legacy" thing they have. Almost five years since I first did Vault of Glass, and it remains one of the most compelling, oblique and incredible gaming experiences I've EVER had.

[Thursday]

Is that "Eater of Worlds" which is on the Levithan, but not THE Levithan raid right?

If there's 3 cabbers on Xbox, might I suggest looking into possibly doing "The Whisper" quest and then "Zero Hour" (although I'm not sure if you'll be able to start the latter yet, and there's a bit of tedium before you can) There these timed missions, and they might take quite a few attempts, but they're very cool. Probably best just looking up the shortcut for The Whisper as well.

Problem is looking up anything spoils it a bit, but it's hard to really stumble across... although it's possible to do it for The Whisper on Io.

[Benjaminos]

I might just play Destiny 2 for the rest of my life now, I think. Amazing how much they've turned it around - I did the Leviathan raid at launch (which was ace), and then ran out of content almost immediately afterwards. No chance of that now, there's so much to do.

Currently grinding out my Breakneck auto rifle (12 more Gambit matches to go), and working through a bunch of the old exotic quests that I ignored the first time around. And my hardback Grimoire collections got delivered at the weekend, so I can read the Books of Sorrow in bed.

Destiny? Bestiny.