Destiny [PS3,X360,PS4,XO]

[RenegadeRocks]

I'm still trying to figure out the new system. But yes, your level 34 character still starts at level 34. Your Light level increases with your gear and their defense (and attack?) ratings, and your character level will increase with XP when TKK releases. Almost everything contributes to your Light level, including ghost shells and class items.

Ok, so just 6 levels to go. Better to start with a new character , boost to 25 and play like a new campaign. The level 34 guy will anyways be overpowered for the new campaign and make it feel lackluster. I will make a new Titan and play, thats the class I don't have.

Evrything contributing to light level simply throws away the whole lore of only some armour being infued with light from the traveller, legendary and exotic. THey shouldn't throw away the lore. The Mobile phone like kiosks already feel out of place and so do the toy-like brightlt painted guns. Universe consistence needs to be honored for prolonged player investment, IMO.

 

[DrJay24]

I can't figure out what "level" does now. The light number seems to indicate your power, both armor and damage. So what does level do? I went from 31 to 34 in a few hours of low level exploring, then it capped. I'm guessing you can't go over 34 until the expansion. I was happy to see that uncompleted bounties for gun were just rewarded. I had given up on the Thorn, but the patch just gave it to me.

 

[djskribbles]

From what I understand, your character level basically gives you access to higher level gear/weapons. Higher level gear/weapons will have higher attack/defense ratings which will increase your light level. So really, it's not much different from before. It's all explained here:

 

[DrJay24]

Perfect, thanks.

Edit: So now I leveled from 31 to 34, I'm a "weak" 34 since I got my level in the new way relative to a year one level 34 who has the gear to give him more light. Kind of weird that we could have the same gun but I will do much less damage because his light is higher. In a sense nothing has changed.

They should have just separated out attack and defense like every other RPG and not combined them. If If two people are the same level and have the same gun, they should do the same damage. They had a screwed up light level and now they have a slightly less wacky light number.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I can't figure out what "level" does now. The light number seems to indicate your power, both armor and damage. So what does level do? I went from 31 to 34 in a few hours of low level exploring, then it capped. I'm guessing you can't go over 34 until the expansion. I was happy to see that uncompleted bounties for gun were just rewarded. I had given up on the Thorn, but the patch just gave it to me.

Same here, I have a Thorn bounty and an elder cipher pending. Waiting to collect my two new exotics soon.


Btw, does anyone know what the new version of Hawkmoon is like? What has changed? Same for Last word.
Also, I wish they had actually improved and carried hardlight to year two too, that gun looks and sounds so good while firing that it deserves a good revamp !

 

[Rangers]

Ok, so just 6 levels to go. Better to start with a new character , boost to 25 and play like a new campaign. The level 34 guy will anyways be overpowered for the new campaign and make it feel lackluster. I will make a new Titan and play, thats the class I don't have.

Evrything contributing to light level simply throws away the whole lore of only some armour being infued with light from the traveller, legendary and exotic. THey shouldn't throw away the lore. The Mobile phone like kiosks already feel out of place and so do the toy-like brightlt painted guns. Universe consistence needs to be honored for prolonged player investment, IMO.

They did it for a simple reason, they had research showing a large percent of players simply stopped playing when they reached level 20. They were confused what to do from there.

I remember ages ago progressing from light level 20>30 was quite confusing, there were seemingly so many different systems to learn of how to best progress at each point. But I kind of liked it, but I can see how an average joe would be really confused. Once again we see some dumbing down, for better or worse.

Also, I wish they had actually improved and carried hardlight to year two too, that gun looks and sounds so good while firing that it deserves a good revamp

Well Hard Light was one of the great PVP hopes because it has a perk that damage doesn't fall off. AR's were getting a strong near range buff in return for stronger damage fall off. So on paper Hard Light looked like it could be a top tier gun in 2.0.

So far in practice in 2.0 I think Hard Light is only "ok" though.

Also I'm still confused but I think there's at least the possibility all yr1 exotics will eventually come to yr2. Just not all will be there right away. But again I'm unclear if that's confirmed true.

 

[Rangers]

Had a blast playing rift with some of my buddies. I have some concerns (ie spark spawning at the same spot every time) but it's something different and very fun. Our first 6-7 matches were very lopsided... we forced the other team to submit with the new mercy rule at least 4 times. Then matches started getting more competitive. Ended up winning 15/16 matches.

Also refreshing seeing so many other weapons being used. In one lobby almost everyone was using a different weapon. I myself experimented with various weapons (whatever I had on my character at the time) and I actually did quite well with VoC. Rarely used scout rifles pre-patch so I dunno if it's the small buff or it was always good. Also played around with Summoner and Messenger (ToO AR and PR respectively) and I found myself doing better with VoC and Hawkmoon (which is still quite good). Want to try Monte Carlo, Hardlight and Suros but have to level them up again.

Was also surprised to see so many things changed, even little things like the game icon, the intro, the music, the way super kills and headshot kills are highlighted in crucible... lot of changes to the game.

edit: Oh, and since Hammer Forged was nerfed, old Felwinter shotguns now have lower range than HoW shotguns. And speaking of shotguns, I barely noticed a difference in crucible. And blink doesn't feel that different either. Arcbolt grenades, while weaker, are still pretty good IMO.

Yeah, the shotgun and blink nerfs dont seem bad.

A lot of stuff is just people wildly trying out new weapons, bringing back old ones (like Suros, Vanquisher). Then you throw todays weapon testing in where everybody and their brother is using the test weapons, it's weird.

Basically I'm looking for things to settle down.

Seems like a new top tier contender is the Strangers Rifle. But again I'd say it's too early to call. It'll take a bit before the PVP data monsters on reddit sort everything out.

So far I definitely feel like my precious Mida is at least as relatively good as before, probably improved relatively by some amount, so that's nice. I dont play TOO and there's no IB right now, so I dont worry much about no confirmed Yr2 version yet.

My k/d was .75, went down a bit, I think I'm not going to worry about it too much I expect it to go down because of weapon testing, the new maps, new modes etc.

Also I've all along been playing a lot of clash and control, which I found out are the easiest game types. I'm sure I'll challenge myself with more Rumble and Skirmish eventually. So that's another reason I'm not looking for my k/d to keep climbing. I could keep the same k/d and be a much better player in those other game types.

I rather hate testing the weapons in crucible though, the way I do it is just try to power through and get my ten kills ASAP, not even using other guns, not even going for heavy ammo etc (otherwise I feel like it would take me forever, as I might barely ever switch to a Fusion Rifle normally, especially as I've never used them in crucible). It's pretty boring and causes my k/d to suffer. Dont like it really. Dont want to be forced out of my comfort zone. And it looks like we're going to have to do this day after day

So far for the overall meta if anything I feel like maybe it's pulse and scout on top, with HC's ad AR's a bit below, but all pretty close together? Feels weird. I almost feel like no top tier standouts isn't natural. Like it's chaos LOL. But I'm sure something will rise up, I think that's impossible to avoid, I guess the thing to strive for is a smaller delta between everything.

 

[djskribbles]

In my limited testing, I would still have HCs up there. HCs, PRs and SRs all feel solid and pretty balanced. Depending on the situation, one might excel vs the others. ARs still feel a bit weak IMO but I have only tested The Summoner (which is a Vanquisher/Shadow Price/Grim Citizen type of AR). I really want to try Monte Carlo and Hardlight and Suros as well.

My favorite loadout during my 16 matches of rift was:
VoC
Matador (or sniper on ranged maps)
Gjallarhorn
Mind you I was mostly defending the spark runner rather than running the spark myself. And on the topic of running the spark, you get massive amounts of points for capturing, and it creates a big splash damage effect when you do, killing all nearby enemies.

I think they nerfed shotguns, blink and arcbolt grenades just enough so they're not completely OP anymore, but I have yet to try the other crucible modes. Rift is very hectic, especially since they're played on new maps.

Overall, crucible feels a lot more balanced now and I welcome the changes even though a lot of the things that were nerfed were things that I used.

 

[Rangers]

I hate the new maps so far, most of them seem ill suited for my playstyle/Mida. They're all very cluttered and confusing to me. Although there was one map I ran a 2.0 with Mida.

Doing that Gunslinger 50 kills with GG/Nades/Melee in crucible quest...so far I have 4 kills (all GG) in 2 matches. This might take forever. The gunslinger nades are awful. GG I have to get practice with although it seems statistically the best super in the game. It basically boils down to GG kills since I rarely melee lately either, and yeah it could take me a while, and supers are re genning slow because of the re calibrated systems too...

People just sleep to death on Mida, I see everything BUT Mida in crucible...it's like people just dont want to use it cause they're all blink shotgun/AR/Thorn/Nova Bomb/fist of Havoc/anything annoying 14 year old mouthbreathers. They just wanna use whatever feels cheap and lowest common denominator.

I've been seeing a lot of Bad Juju/Hard Light the last few games.

 

[djskribbles]

Knowing the maps helps a lot in PVP so give it some time. I did OK in my 16 rift matches (average 1.42 K/D) but feel like I could have done better if I had known the maps. It's especially hard to learn the maps since Rift is so chaotic. I'm looking forward to trying these maps in a 3v3 mode.

 

[DrJay24]

What is rift?

 

[djskribbles]

It's kind of like capture the flag. Each team has a rift at their base, and throughout the match, a spark charges at a specific location on the map. Once the spark is charged, the goal is for one player on your team to pick up the spark and destroy the enemy's rift at their base.

Since the spark is at the same spot every time (usually in the middle of the map), things get pretty chaotic.

 

[BRiT]

Sounds like Halo grift ball, minus the hammers.

 

[Rangers]

Ok nevermind I found out you can do the gunslinger kills in PVE. It just said they had to be GG/Melee/grenade, but it has to be throwing knife for melee is what I didn't know. Because for bladedancer all melee counts. But gunslinger I just went and started melleeing stuff and it didn't register.

Also Cayde 6 gave me a cloak that I dismantled cause it's blue and later read on reddit you shouldn't dismantle It has higher defense value or whatever. Guess I'll just get it on one of my other characters.

Anyways but I think I like Gunslinger in PVP...according to stats somewhere the Gunslinger has the highest k/d of any class in the game. Weirdly though, the bladedancer has the most super kills. So I'm wondering what about Gunslinger makes it able to overcome a worse Super to be better than bladedancer...I'm thinking maybe because bladedancers like me usually spec for agility, and maybe it's just better to spec for armor? Another thing is maybe a lot of bladdeancer run radiant dance machines and I've heard complaints those make it hard to aim for some people?

Anyways yeah liking gunslinger...the super is kinda better to me because you dont have to physically run down enemies. Also I kind of dislike blink...I run it because you're supposed to but I dont actually like it. I think moving around and jumping is more sure with gunslinger for me.

Just played a salvage game to see if the grimoire card is no longer bugged (it was before) and and sure enough it's fixed. I've already noticed it seems a ton of grimoire is fixed. For example introduction to strikes used to only credit strikes chosen from a planet map, but now weeklies and stuff are counting (possibly even as many people as you're matchmade with and dont leave before the rewards screen? Because I think I got 2-3 credited completions per strike, and I believe it used to be that a 3 man fireteam counted as 3 completions.) I think even things like the Ogre kills card are "fixed" to some degree or other (used to have to be red bar ogre, and I think even then nightfall/weekly didn't count etc)

So anyways I'm glad I didn't grind strikes or anything, now that they're fixed I'll just pick it up naturally.

I've started using sidearm whenever patrolling/grinding something else to grind out that grimoire. If I dont consciously do it I'll never get that one. Whereas shotguns it may take forever but I'll eventually get that one normally.

My Grimoire score is currently 3350. In my defense, I've never grinded hard for any grimoire. In the last few months I've started checking what I'm close to and nab it if I'm real close, that's about it. Also two big other caveats, not being on PS4 denies Xboxers a certain amount of grimoire, and also a biggie is that I've never run a Titan or Warlock. That leaves quite a few grimoire points on the table right there. After TTK settles out I might start a Titan or something but we'll see.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

They did it for a simple reason, they had research showing a large percent of players simply stopped playing when they reached level 20. They were confused what to do from there.

I remember ages ago progressing from light level 20>30 was quite confusing, there were seemingly so many different systems to learn of how to best progress at each point. But I kind of liked it, but I can see how an average joe would be really confused. Once again we see some dumbing down, for better or worse.

I liked it too, it was unique and had a mystery about it and made the achievement feel more substantial and made Destiny's world feel special and not like just another RPG.

Anyways, ppl who stopped playing at 20 will also stop playing at 40 now. They didn't go for endgame stuff then and If they don't go for the end game activities what difference does it make ? I know they want more people to feel they have conquered the game and leave satisfied rather than frustrated(The Diablo 3 ROS loot 2.0 revamp mantra), but they will still be ineffective in the endgame stuff, if they plunge into it, and will still feel confused and frustrated cos their level 40 will be useless while level 40 character of another guy with higher light level would wrecking havoc ! "Those" people who don't get addicted by Destiny will still be confused as ever.
Just saying. They should target their hardcore fans instead, ppl like you and Djskribbles, rather than pleasing casuals who will anyway leave within a month, no matter what.

Anyways, underlying stuff is still the same, so makes no difference, frankly. But it does kill the drive to progress when u are told u have hit the level cap. Reaching 28 to enter VOG was a huge drive ! And I stopped paying House of WOlves when I hit 34 with my two characters, as it felt like "Mission accomplished". If level 40 is so easy, it might feel like "game over" even sooner.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Rangers]

It still seems like secondary "light level" may be a big deal though.

It kind of depends on if it's actually going to be an overriding buff/nerf though. Like how a level 33 did 33% less damage to a level 34 enemy, but getting a higher attack weapon would still raise your damage within that limit.

I am not clear how it's going to work for the new light system. At least their will be more gradients since light will go 0-300 (or whatever the cap is) now.

 

[Rangers]

Man just playing around with my Aethons Epilogue on patrol, thing seems downright OP in 2.0 PVE. I didn't do any high level content with it yet, but doing to prevent vex sacrificies public event which is usually fairly challenged, it absolutely mows. In fact I never felt the need to switch to shotgun or heavy against yellow Praetorians at all, AE just mowed that much by itself. And the FS nerf doesnt hit AE too much, only takes it from 84 to 70.

It's not surprising, VOG guns are pretty much always the gold standard in their class.

Bungie nerfed all Field Scout, it now only increases ammo reserve. So quite a few of my TDB/Vanilla guns that were awesome by virtue of FS are now heavily retroactively nerfed. Feels a bit unfair.

It hit my Skolas elemental AR's (and I have like 6 of those damn things) pretty hard, because it too them from 42 ammo to 22, which is really bad for an AR even a slow firing one..

Got a Suros pack at the postmaster from preordering TTK, it has a shader and emblem, both are heavily red and easily top tier IMO. In fact I saw the emblem in PVP earlier and it jumped out a ton, I was wondering where he got it.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

My postmaster doesn't have them yet :-/

An dthe handcannon range nerf is noticeable. So is the shotgun damage nerf....although I can't tell if the lower damage is due to my light level or teh nerf.

Edit: can't get into any MP game.

 

[Rangers]

Man I've been sucking in crucible basically since 2.0 patch...not sure why. I play worse when tired naturally and I have been the last few days, maybe that's part of it. It seems to me the competition has been really strong too, so maybe the good players are coming back to try out 2.0? The new maps confuse the crap out of me too, they're all extremely dense to the point of annoyance I feel like, and dont lend themselves to longer ranges at all which I kind of need to excel with Mida. Except Bannerfall, I feel like I do sort of ok on that one, and maybe the Dreadnaught one.

My k/d is .74 and frankly falling, it was ,75. My daily kd was like .68 or something yesterday, and I played a lot too so it wasn't an anomaly. Whereas before the last few days before this week I was consistently running kd's around 1.0 for a few days. On top of that I feel like I'm on the losing team about 5/6 of clash matches lately. I switched back to bladeddancer yesterday since I was doing so bad, didn't really help.

Since I just got 100 clash wins and that grimoire, I guess I'm just going to play only control until I get that grimoire, and so on (the harder stuff like skirmish and shudder, rumble, not looking forward too). I feel like going to new possibly harder playlists combined with my crap play lately and my kd is headed south for a while. Not going to worry about it too much, just try to get better.

Also cant really figure out the new gun Meta, feels all over the place. Which I guess is good from a balance perspective. I'm just using Mida which has a lot of advantages but it feels a little lacking sometimes in brute DPS. If not I'll try Red Death, those are like my only two options and it's kinda boring.

I think I might try a Fusion rifle, I have noticed with Mida I go through long stretches of not really even using my special weapon, which seems like a missed opportunity. I'm really terrible at CQC, usually if somebody's on top of me I'm dead anyway, so maybe a FR which I could use at mid-close ranges would be more to my style and I could actually get some use out of my special? Might as well try it anyway.

Kinda dont love Party Crasher sometimes either, with shot package you have to remember to ADS which, doesn't come naturally to me, and the rate of fire is just atrocious. Also the weapon model with that stupid plug on the end is ugly, at least Matador 64 looks cool. Maybe I'll even try Found Verdict again. Kinda the same issue with my Shadow of Veils, the gun model is just ugly. It's not a big enough deal to actually effort to get a new main sniper/shotty, especially with TTK on us, but it is a slight annoyance.

Edit: Speaking of other guns, was reading some people on reddit talking about VOC (been killed a few times lately by it too) and one mentioned Badger CCL. Badger was always one of my faves in PVE. So I gave them a whirl. VoC is only doing 61 crit, so Mida will walk all over it as they're both 4 shot crits and Mida will fire a lot faster. But Badger is quite interesting indeed, it does 73 crit, it's a 3 shot kill. Looking at the reddit spreadsheet it's a .8 ttk which is tied for the best among scouts and beats Mida's .9. Further, it does 49 body, spreadsheet has it listed as a 5 shot body but IMO most of the time it's going to be a 4 shot body, and a fast ttk there as well. I was doing decent with it already in that one match. Definitely promising so far. Another advantage is the thing has max scout range too with the right barrel. That's another reason I liked it so much in PVE I considered it a mini sniper, good for when IB ran out against oracles and stuff. Now I kinda wish I'd have kept more different rolls as I remember having 3-4 of them at one time from drops, but a long time ago I sharded all but one. It also has luck in the chamber, which with a 14 mag might be decent. One thing I did notice is I think the aim assists is way less than Mida, I noticed quickly my bullets dont seem to gravitate to the enemy head nearly as much. Still, VERY promising.

Edit2 Badger CCL seems very similar to The Scholar which I haven't noticed exactly tearing up crucible. So that's kind of a buzzkill. Still, we'll see. Mida will definitely be much snappier, faster ADS time, faster ready time etc.

Edit 3: Man I've been mowing with Badger. Very noticeable increase in punch over Mida, the kills just seem to come a lot quicker. I think it just suits my long range, slow paced style well (yet paradoxically I'm a pretty awful sniper shooter, heh). I feel outgunned in long range one-on-one shootouts almost never now, which happens decently often with Mida. The higher damage really helps chalk up a lot of scrap kills on already damaged enemies as well. At the very least I think it's going to be my go to legendary when I want to run an exotic special/heavy (was just reading on reddit that Ice Breaker is pretty great in crucible 2.0). I was worried about losing aim assist but it doesn't seem to be much problem at all. The Red Dot sight I'm using gives a nice boost to stability and I'm guessing aim assist, that may be helping.

 

[shredenvain]

Man I've been sucking in crucible basically since 2.0 patch...not sure why. I play worse when tired naturally and I have been the last few days, maybe that's part of it. It seems to me the competition has been really strong too, so maybe the good players are coming back to try out 2.0? The new maps confuse the crap out of me too, they're all extremely dense to the point of annoyance I feel like, and dont lend themselves to longer ranges at all which I kind of need to excel with Mida. Except Bannerfall, I feel like I do sort of ok on that one, and maybe the Dreadnaught one.

My k/d is .74 and frankly falling, it was ,75. My daily kd was like .68 or something yesterday, and I played a lot too so it wasn't an anomaly. Whereas before the last few days before this week I was consistently running kd's around 1.0 for a few days. On top of that I feel like I'm on the losing team about 5/6 of clash matches lately. I switched back to bladeddancer yesterday since I was doing so bad, didn't really help.

Since I just got 100 clash wins and that grimoire, I guess I'm just going to play only control until I get that grimoire, and so on (the harder stuff like skirmish and shudder, rumble, not looking forward too). I feel like going to new possibly harder playlists combined with my crap play lately and my kd is headed south for a while. Not going to worry about it too much, just try to get better.

Also cant really figure out the new gun Meta, feels all over the place. Which I guess is good from a balance perspective. I'm just using Mida which has a lot of advantages but it feels a little lacking sometimes in brute DPS. If not I'll try Red Death, those are like my only two options and it's kinda boring.

I think I might try a Fusion rifle, I have noticed with Mida I go through long stretches of not really even using my special weapon, which seems like a missed opportunity. I'm really terrible at CQC, usually if somebody's on top of me I'm dead anyway, so maybe a FR which I could use at mid-close ranges would be more to my style and I could actually get some use out of my special? Might as well try it anyway.

Kinda dont love Party Crasher sometimes either, with shot package you have to remember to ADS which, doesn't come naturally to me, and the rate of fire is just atrocious. Also the weapon model with that stupid plug on the end is ugly, at least Matador 64 looks cool. Maybe I'll even try Found Verdict again. Kinda the same issue with my Shadow of Veils, the gun model is just ugly. It's not a big enough deal to actually effort to get a new main sniper/shotty, especially with TTK on us, but it is a slight annoyance.

Edit: Speaking of other guns, was reading some people on reddit talking about VOC (been killed a few times lately by it too) and one mentioned Badger CCL. Badger was always one of my faves in PVE. So I gave them a whirl. VoC is only doing 61 crit, so Mida will walk all over it as they're both 4 shot crits and Mida will fire a lot faster. But Badger is quite interesting indeed, it does 73 crit, it's a 3 shot kill. Looking at the reddit spreadsheet it's a .8 ttk which is tied for the best among scouts and beats Mida's .9. Further, it does 49 body, spreadsheet has it listed as a 5 shot body but IMO most of the time it's going to be a 4 shot body, and a fast ttk there as well. I was doing decent with it already in that one match. Definitely promising so far. Another advantage is the thing has max scout range too with the right barrel. That's another reason I liked it so much in PVE I considered it a mini sniper, good for when IB ran out against oracles and stuff. Now I kinda wish I'd have kept more different rolls as I remember having 3-4 of them at one time from drops, but a long time ago I sharded all but one. It also has luck in the chamber, which with a 14 mag might be decent. One thing I did notice is I think the aim assists is way less than Mida, I noticed quickly my bullets dont seem to gravitate to the enemy head nearly as much. Still, VERY promising.

Edit2 Badger CCL seems very similar to The Scholar which I haven't noticed exactly tearing up crucible. So that's kind of a buzzkill. Still, we'll see. Mida will definitely be much snappier, faster ADS time, faster ready time etc.

Edit 3: Man I've been mowing with Badger. Very noticeable increase in punch over Mida, the kills just seem to come a lot quicker. I think it just suits my long range, slow paced style well (yet paradoxically I'm a pretty awful sniper shooter, heh). I feel outgunned in long range one-on-one shootouts almost never now, which happens decently often with Mida. The higher damage really helps chalk up a lot of scrap kills on already damaged enemies as well. At the very least I think it's going to be my go to legendary when I want to run an exotic special/heavy (was just reading on reddit that Ice Breaker is pretty great in crucible 2.0). I was worried about losing aim assist but it doesn't seem to be much problem at all. The Red Dot sight I'm using gives a nice boost to stability and I'm guessing aim assist, that may be helping.

The Badger CCL is one of my favorite scout rifles. Ghelon's demise has very similar stats as well as the scholar.

Sadly these 3 weapons will be outclassed easily in just a few days.
I have been looking thru the armory on bungie.net and the new legendary and exotic weapons are looking pretty good. The kings fall raid weapons have some very interesting perk possibilities.
They have some random perks like pulse rifle with firefly. Also all legendary hand cannons can roll with firefly.