Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

according to grimoire,
jupiter
saturn
mercury
will come eventually (via DLC?)

currently already available on disc :
Mercury (Orbit screen is available, crucible area is available).
Earth Kings Watch (complete)
Earth Seraphim Vault (complete map, no enemies. Have dead ghosts)
Venus new area (complete map, blocked by Vex shield. no enemies. Have dead ghosts)
 
I got my first legendary and might light level jumped from low 22 to high 23. I still don't understand how all the various forms of currency work. I play strike missions and solo the daily mission, but my reputation and currency (marks?) is too low to buy anything. How long does it take to buy a single useful item? How long am I going to be stuck with the story gun they give you?

I like shooting stuff, but damn this game is cryptic.
 
I got my first legendary and might light level jumped from low 22 to high 23. I still don't understand how all the various forms of currency work. I play strike missions and solo the daily mission, but my reputation and currency (marks?) is too low to buy anything. How long does it take to buy a single useful item? How long am I going to be stuck with the story gun they give you?

I like shooting stuff, but damn this game is cryptic.
You need to have a vanguard and/or faction rank of at least 2 to buy armor, and 3 to buy weapons. You need to play quite a bit to level up your rank. The fastest way is probably doing bounties, which give you 50 or 100 rep towards your rank. Strikes don't give you very much rep. Neither do patrol missions, but at least patrol missions are fast and easy (albeit boring).

Now once you've achieved a rank of 2 or higher, you need to buy armor/weapons with marks... these are the currencies used to buy legendary items. You gather these either in the crucible (crucible marks) or in PVE (vanguard marks). You get vanguard marks from strikes, public events, or trading in materials like spinmetal, relic iron, spirit bloom etc.

You can also buy exotic weapons and armor from Xur who shows up at random spots every weekend. To buy items from him, you need strange coin or motes of light (you can also use motes of light to buy items from the speaker). You can get strange coin from certain strikes, random drops, as rewards.. it's pretty random.
As for motes of light, you get them from leveling up your character (and also random drops I believe). If you remember when you were <lvl 20, XP would fill up a progress bar to your next level. Well once you reach level 20, it's the progress to a mote of light instead.

Once you get your legendary or exotic items, at a certain point, you'll need certain materials to level them up further. Earlier on, you'll need things like spinmetal or other items found on the other planets; or weapon parts. Then at the last few stages, you'll need things like ascendant energy (for weapons) and ascendant shards (for armor). You don't have to obviously, but that's how you level up your characters higher than ~26 or 27.
Ascendant shards/energy are pretty hard to get because they're quite rare, but you can get them almost anywhere (in engrams, as rewards, getting gold in public events, or even in loot chests). You also get them for dismantling legendary or higher items.
 
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Ya, Vangaurd marks. I don't play PvP. My rep was like 1400/1500 in rank 0. So more bounties, ok...

Just a note - vanguard marks are not PVP. Those are crucible marks. Just to explain the system a bit, there are two main factions: Vanguard and Crucible. The Vanguard vendor is your class vendor and is PVE focused. The Crucible vendor is near the guy who gave you the crucible quest and is PVP focused. I'll go over how to get marks / rep below for each.

Each faction has a basic set of equipment. The head, chest, and feet cost 65 marks each. The weapon costs 150 marks. You can earn a maximum of 100 marks each week. Up to here, the system is fairly straight forward. You do PVP for crucible rep, you do PVE for Vanguard rep/marks. Here is where it gets more complicated. There are also several sub-factions. These are factions like Dead Orbit or Future War Cult. Each of these factions have a vendor located somewhere around the city. They each sell a class item that you can wear. When you are wearing that class item, ALL your rep goes to that faction. These vendors all use Crucible marks, so I refer to them as PVP vendors. I will point out below that you actually don't need to PVP to get your weekly quota of marks. The alternative is pretty boring though. These vendors carry build specific equipment. Until you get Vanguard to level 3 (you need level 3 for the weapons), don't bother. Once you do have it at level 3, pick a reputation based on the bonuses on the gear that you want. Buy the band, and wear it around.

Now on to how to get marks.

Vanguard Marks / Rep:

The most obvious way to get these marks is via the strike matchmaking. Each run takes between 20 and 30 minutes, and at low levels you get very few marks. I honestly wouldn't bother with that if I were you until you were 24ish.

Instead, run patrols and do bounties. When doing the patrols, there are 2 ways to earn marks. The first is to complete bounties. You should probably try to do 5 each day. Bounties are generally 100 rep. It takes 2000 for a level. You can do up to 6 a day. These have the added benefit that you gain faction reputation while doing them. The second is to do public events. If you stay in the same area for a while, you can also participate in public events. You get marks, reputation, and other useful items for gold starring them. The biggest drawback is that this is a grind. It takes probably ~20 hours to get a faction to level 2. Note that you can also do the little missions even when you don't have the bounty for them. They give some rep for each that you do. I do them when I am trying to rep up.

Crucible marks / Rep:

Don't bother with pvp unless you like it. Seriously - waste of time. You gain more marks per hour by running in circles in patrol gathering materials and then trading them for marks. By material, I mean spin metal, ghost blooms, helium filaments, or relic iron. Basically, pick an area you like and run around visiting chest spawn points and material spawn points. Once you learn all the points for an area, you can generate a circle that will give you ~100-150 per hour. You get 5 marks per 50 material.

For reputation, once you have your vanguard rep to rank two, go to any of the pvp vendors and buy your class item. That item will allow the patrols and bounties to raise your rep. Basically, you repeat what you did for vanguard rep.

Other options:

Once you get to level 24 you can start running strikes for rep and marks. Run the highest level one. The reason I say wait until 24 is the level penalty you get for being below the mobs level. It can be frustrating at lower levels because just about everything one shots you. You also cannot damage bosses if you are 2 levels below the strike level.

You can also run pvp. This can be frustrating if you don't like it. It isn't well balanced right now. If you do run it, try to get yourself a good shotgun. Just find good places to hide and wait for things to come around the corner and then shoot them at point blank range. As a warning, better players know about this and won't let you do it. But there are generally enough people just running around the map that you can get a few kills.

Or - and I do not endorse this - just run around the map shooting at everything you see and trying to die a lot. It sounds bad and it is - because it will force your team to lose. However, you also force the game to end early and get marks faster. I've seen people stand and spin in circles while shooting so they can watch TV and still get marks. It is actually a bit annoying.

The weekly and daily are good mainly for coins. If you are doing the daily bounties and at least one public event, you should get enough coins and motes of light to buy items from Xur each weekend. That will get you exotic weapons.

I know you are probably doing a lot of this already. These are really the best way to do things though. It is a lot of grinding and not terribly fun.
 
Thanks for the info. The level 20 & 22 strikes are pretty long and low reward. I'l try bounties and patrols, which I like anyhow.
 
Thanks for the info. The level 20 & 22 strikes are pretty long and low reward. I'l try bounties and patrols, which I like anyhow.

if only we were playing together... basically when "Queens Order" mission still available, i have become a "Legendary Helper".

play with me for 30-60 minutes, guaranteed legendary helmed AND armor.

about farming reputation and marks, yes it is slooooooow to get
now im level 26 and i only able to buy ONE equipment using marks :LOL:


#renegade
yeah its started but im sux shooting people using analgue stick and the PvP narrator also have very annoying comments. i want to punch him
 
Hahahaha...yea that voice ...as if he is starved to death and forced to voice for this game lol !

BTW, I don't think we stand a chance in the iron banner. Those level 30 raiders will have gear and weapons that will obliterate everything ! But, yes, getting a kill will be that much more rewarding !
 
@renegade the iron banner is using matchmaking, so generally you will get "matched" with people your level/skill/expertise.

*to exploit the matchmaking, go play it. keep suiciding the whole match, 3 times.
now you will be matchmake with easy people

*it works before today's patch. dunno they fix it or not.
 
Hell yeah, just got a Blue Auto Rifle from Iron banner: Something I had been craving for long ! Hope I get a Legendary too !
EDIT: Also just got a Bllue shotgun with high firerate ! Woot Woot, this event has made my Crucible arsenal perfect ! I am wrecking havoc now :p! Just completed the 25 kill spread bounty too thanx to the awesome rifle !

Hell yeah ! This game is the shizz :devilish: !!!
 
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how many times you play crucible iron banned to get exotic.. man.. this bloody RNG...

i think its much better if i make a contraption to randomly move and shot and left the game overnight :/

EDIT:
found the Quickest and easiest way becoming the true Winner in Iron banner.
DONT capture objectives. Let the enemy dominate. The game will finish with 5 minute time left :)

because the reward are random, no need to work hard and make the game balanced. Balanced game = long game play.
so dont mind the Announcer say "let this defeat be a lesson, bla bla bla" :)

EDIT2:
dont try to use verticality in Crucible if still unfamiliar with the map. Bungie put numerous amounts of invisible wall on reachable areas.
 
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I'm still missing something.

I was 1400/1500 for Vangaurd Rep last night. I finished at least one bounty which was +50 rep. At the end of the night I was 1400/1500 and still rank 0. What am I missing?
 
I'm still missing something.

I was 1400/1500 for Vangaurd Rep last night. I finished at least one bounty which was +50 rep. At the end of the night I was 1400/1500 and still rank 0. What am I missing?

Hmm - are you wearing an item from any of the sub-factions? If so, your rep went to that. Also, the bounty was a grey one right? (Red are crucible and give only crucible rep. The special bounties give rep specific to the event. Queen's before gave Queen rep, Iron Banner give Iron Banner rep).
 
Hmm - are you wearing an item from any of the sub-factions? If so, your rep went to that. Also, the bounty was a grey one right? (Red are crucible and give only crucible rep. The special bounties give rep specific to the event. Queen's before gave Queen rep, Iron Banner give Iron Banner rep).

Crap... I did buy some banner thing from a guy, I had no idea what for or why. Thanks.
 
how many times you play crucible iron banned to get exotic.. man.. this bloody RNG...

i think its much better if i make a contraption to randomly move and shot and left the game overnight :/

EDIT:
found the Quickest and easiest way becoming the true Winner in Iron banner.
DONT capture objectives. Let the enemy dominate. The game will finish with 5 minute time left :)

because the reward are random, no need to work hard and make the game balanced. Balanced game = long game play.
so dont mind the Announcer say "let this defeat be a lesson, bla bla bla" :)

EDIT2:
dont try to use verticality in Crucible if still unfamiliar with the map. Bungie put numerous amounts of invisible wall on reachable areas.
Waaat :LOL: ! Why would I do that? The game is so much fun ! The last match was so well balanced. Even though I was last on my team, the match was superb as both teams had great players. And the map was the Earth one, both the Earth maps are very well designed for Control.

You seem to dislike the game a lot :p !
 
@drjay24
I think colour or emblem also affect point/rep.

@renegade
It's because the game is very weird. It's no use playing competitively, reach rank top 3, then got nothing.

Titanfall also have random card bonus but at least it always give bonus.

So far, destiny is the worse offender of effort /reward system. It's much more rewarding by gaming the system than working hard to get good gameplay performance.

Or this is common gameplay elements in mmo?
 
So far, destiny is the worse offender of effort /reward system. It's much more rewarding by gaming the system than working hard to get good gameplay performance.

It's not really gaming the system. You can work predictably towards buying everything you need. A lot of people are annoying and dont want to do that at any cost, though :p They would rather put in twice as much work feeling like they are "exploiting" something.

I will say yes, Destiny's loot is random, and a lot of people seem to have an issue with it. To me it's not entirely random, because good stuff wont drop unless you're high enough level. Some people want it completely where "you get awesome item/thing from putting in lots of work and only lots of work". I suppose this is the fairest way (and would work well for me) but I dont know that I want everything super predictable either. Probably some mix shifted away from the current level of random would be best?

Hmm, I played some strike playlist last night and got some decent rewards, actually mainly because I got a few engrams which ranked up my cryptarch which I got my good rewards from. I got two more legendary armor pieces! People said Cryptarch gives rewards through level 8, no he keeps giving them for every level actually. Actually this is one of the better ways to get loot I think and nobody talks about it. At least, as last night, it seems like one of the main side benefits (or maybe even main main benefit!) of strike playlist.

The one thing I usually put on the backburner while scurrying about doing my voluminous daily chores/other obvious stuff, is strike playlist. But, I'm starting to suspect if it has the highest rewards per unit time. Well, I will be playing it more soon to get a better feel.

The guy who makes Destiny guides on GAF just put up his latest (last?). It's interesting in crystallizing some of my own thoughts and ideas. Basically he posits level 28 can be a goal in itself, as at that level you can do everything in the game (except hard mode VoG), and there's no need to progress to 29 or 30, although you can if you want of course and it depends on your own desires. 29 definitely, as I had already figured, seems like a superflous level. You will have to sink a lot of shards into equipment you cant keep if you want to get to 30, to get to 29. He also gets into building a specific character as a goal. That's whats been bothering me lately, I dont want to sink shards into gear I'm not 100% I want to keep, and it's kind of gnawing at my brain and even becoming a detriment to the game imo. OTOH I'm 27, and want to get to 28 soon, but to do that I need to sink a few shards into equipment I may not be 100% committed too...but then there's no options except essentially to "wait" as you cant make any plans until you know what gear you may have in hand from random drops or what Xur may be selling each week...it's a bit annoying.
 
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