Unlabelled Destiny - Daily Discussion - Free Talk Friday!

3/10/2018 05:09:00 am
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Destiny - Daily Discussion - Free Talk Friday!

Daily Discussion - Free Talk Friday!

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 05:00 AM PST

Hello Guardians! Today is Free Talk Friday!

Talk about whatever you'd like! Your comments need not be related to Destiny. You can post memes, twitch streams, wallpapers, or personal stories about your life. We will still be enforcing Rule 1 (reddiquette/civility) in this thread.

You can find the full Daily Thread schedule here.

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[D2] Xûr Megathread [2018-03-09]

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:02 AM PST

Agent of the Nine, Xûr

Description:

Xûr comes and goes freely, his strange curios too valuable to risk.

Location:

Nessus

Exotic Gear:

Name Type Cost
Nezarec's Sin Warlock Helmet 23 LS
The Dragon's Shadow Hunter Chest Armor 23 LS
Hallowfire Heart Titan Chest Armor 23 LS
Coldheart Trace Rifle 29 LS

Curios:

Name Type Cost
Three of Coins Consumable 31 LS

What's a Xûr?

Xûr, Agent of the Nine is a strange vendor who randomly appears in a Public Sector in each of the four Worlds, depending on planetary alignments and Bungie's whim. Xur sells Exotic equipment and only takes Legendary Shards in exchange for them.

TL;DR: He's the Santa Claus of Destiny and every weekend is Christmas. Sometimes he brings you what you want, sometimes he brings you coal. Mostly it's coal.

When does Xûr visit?

Xûr visits every Friday at 17:00 UTC and departs at reset. If you would like to see all the live conversions of Time Zones, please follow this link here.

Sort comments by New to join the conversation!

Data provided by DestinyTracker

submitted by /u/DTG_Bot
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New Forbes Articles is so depressing :(

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 02:22 AM PST

LINK I still play it every day on PC but all of this is so true :(

submitted by /u/MattGalvatron
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Compilation of all sandbox questions Josh H (and Kevin) answered on Twitter.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 05:19 AM PST

Didn't see anyone doing this and Twitter doesn't have an UX team, so here we go. Full doc with sources can be found here.

Q. I noticed a lot of damage increases on pulses, scouts, etc mentioned PvE but not PvP. Is the goal for decreasing TTK based on buffing our abilities and power ammo spawns?

Any Base Damage or Precision Damage buffs is in both PvE and PvP. Bonus PvE damage goes on top of that.

Q. I see PvE wise, loads of weapons are getting a damage boost. Is this a flat 10%? Or is this being individually tuned for each weapon class and if so, possible to give us a rough idea?

Changes per weapon. Think the average is currently sitting at 15%.

Q. With the extra second of invis, I can see it being used preemptively instead of as an escape more, like in D1. Will Graviton Forfeit extend that duration even further?

Yep, Graviton remains unchanged.

Q. With changes it feels like NS gets hit hard. Knucklehead and Gemini no longer viable in comp/Trials, aim assist in invis gone & smoke nades in comp/trials less potent as can't scramble radar. Are they being buffed elsewhere to compensate?

Not at this time. However, I run NS in 90% of playtest, including Comp, and I was still able to be very effective. You'll likely want to investigate other Exotics to use in competitive. I've been having a lot of fun with Foetracer in comp playtests.

Q. What setup did you run as NS? Foetracer I know you mentioned, what about the subclass?

Spike, Triple, reload dodge and mostly top path. I actually think bottom path may be the way to go but I'm more comfortable with top at the moment.

Q. So is Foe Tracer now useless in comp? with no radar now in comp doesn't that reduce it's usefulness considerably tbh I don't PvP much I'm just curious since I main a Hunter.

Foetracer is GREAT in comp. [But], I think you're thinking about knucklehead, in which case, yes... Switch to Foetracer recommended.

Q. Really, cause i love knuckelhead. I dont find the foetracer bonus to helpful though. Thats my opinion though

Right but if knucklehead doesn't help in comp and foetracer marks targets... Knucklehead will still be great in quickplay!.

Q. Will we still have the call outs displayed still even tho radar is displayed. Call outs will be useful to know which part of the map a player is located with out radar.

Yup

Q. Your road map is looking good so far however instead of removing the radar in comp/ trials I propose you limit the range of radar as a whole for all pvp playlist. I believe the radar's range is the problem removing it altogether feels counter intuitive. (Followup comment by another user: They keep throwing away baby and bathwater)

We played like that for a while. It feels broken when you see someone closer to you than you'd expect but your tracker is telling you no one is there. That being said, like I said in the TWAB, these changes are a step forward and not the end. Let's play it live and go from there.

Q. The solution to that problem is fixing the radar. If I can see a player in there within a double jump distance from me, they should appear on radar. If they don't, that is a bug, not an enhancement request

I feel like we're saying the same thing. We felt like we didn't have enough room to do both. Shrink range enough to allow flanking and now the radar feels broken... Extend the radar enough to feel right and now you struggle to flank...

Q. If time to kill doesnt change i and many many others wont come back [SIC]

I think you should try 1.1.4 for a bit first and then talk to us more about what you think knowing how those changes play. I'm not saying you'll change your mind only that you'll have more context.

Q. Aim assist and invisibility explanation is confusing. Does this mean that Aim Assist is re-enabled after the dodge ends, but before the invis ends?

Sorry you guys, I tried to write that multiple times multiple ways but clearly didn't get it perfect... but yes, [aim assist is re-enabled after the dodge ends, but before invis ends] is what happening.

You break tracking and aim assist briefly when you initiate a dodge. That's unchanged. But invisibility and tracking is reenabled during invisibility. You're easier to shoot and tracking grenades and the like will seek you out.

Q. Would you mind giving us some more insight as to why the sniper flinch bug will take another 2 months to release? You could win over the hearts of many players/creators by prioritizing that.

Happily. It was a big, nasty bug that forced our artist to go through and do work on every sniper in the game. So huge amount of work AND it means every sniper in the game has to get retested. Once we figured it out we just didn't have the time to complete it for 1.1.4.

Trust me, we tried and everyone except Father Time himself wanted it. But, we do have it going through testing in 1.2.0 as you saw in the video and we're very excited to get it out to you.

(response to another tweet asking about this issue) It was a big bug that required a bunch of time to fix AND requires a bunch of time to test. Just couldn't get it ready to go out for 1.1.4.

Q. Any info on why super recharge times are going to be faster instead of giving more super energy per kill? I think the latter would raise the skill gap, I liked the D1 super system much more for this reason.

It was a big global change for PvE and PvP. We felt like it was just too long in general. That being said, we actually did bump up those amounts some too and I'm glad you mentioned it because I need to make sure I put it into patchnotes.

Q. Looks fun, but I really think we need four weapon slots. Way too much going on in the Power Ammo slot.

Give it a go when it's out. Like I said, we're not (ever) done working to make it as good as it can be.

Q. So the video showcased alone as a god, which has no sniper bounce I believe. Is that still a thing? all my options have that little spin and reticle bounce; is that going to remain as an intended design mechanic because it's incredibly frustrating Double so when you have no ability to get alone as a god or the NM sniper that have QuickDraw and no bounce.

Yea, the incoming (1.2.0) fix touches ALL snipers.

Q. Ability cool downs up to 2x faster AND stack (3 times currently) ???!! Or diminishing returns?

Triple stack gives you 2x. 1.33x, 1.67x, 2x

Q. I'm curious and I hope I'm not out of line. What went into the decision to not allow the explosive rounds to keep the damage they have in PvE? We love our overpoweredness.

They will deal the same damage overall in PvE, the ratio of what causes it has been tweaked.

Q. I okay. So it's still a buff but the damage is mostly from the bullet and not the explosive impact. Leads me to this question. You specify pve damage buffs. So just so people don't speculate. This means the damage buff, when specified, is only in PvE?

Yes, on top of any base damage boosts.

Q. Enjoyed reading the update! I'm excited to try them myself. Will we possibly get a static ability cool down buff? Or will it stay tied to mods? Dawnblade tuning sounds hella fun.

Possible, yes. Not planned at this time though.

Q. Mida will still be very good in trials. High cal, very consistent. Its a good weapon without its exotic perks. But it won't be " exotic " it will be just a normal good gun.

It'll work like normal in Quickplay

Q. If you don't bring up TTK inline with movement this will lead to people being able to easily disengage and run away due to how long it takes to kill a player. However, the increased super and ability times may improve gameplay. Who knows, it's a change so we'll have to wait and see when it's live.

Playtests have been really good and it's definitely changed things. It's a lot of moving parts all at once. However, like I said, we're not claiming to be finished. This just felt right the right amount of change to put forth and let you all in to re-evaluate it with us.

Q. The nerf to aim assist on dodge for hunter seems haaaarsh. Especially considering how potent all other class abilities are for Titan and Warlock.

To be clear, Dodge is unchanged... Invisibiltiy was nerfed.

Q. When compared to a rocket, which is an easy 1 hit kill on up to several enemies, a sniper and a shotgun will always be overlooked. Always. It's an easy decision.

I'm not going to imply I can predict the future, but I can say that in combination with with ammo changes there have been significantly less rockets in playtests.

Q. Just wondering why no fusion rifle changes? Do y'all think they're good as is? I have no problem in PvP, but they seem a little weak in PvE compared to the other power weapons. Cheers, can't wait to try the changes!

We bumped up linear fusion to make them much better. Standard fusions are left unchanged for now.

Q. We've heard a lot about weapons archetypes cooldowns and exotic weapons but nothing about exotic armor, any way you can tell us about some of the changes happening? They're just as important to the builds everyone wants to create.

We're definitely looking at Exotic Armor. I'm confident the day will come where we share information like we did with weapons.

Q. any way to confirm if some of the changes on console will be felt by controller users on PC? (such as handcannon accuracy, aim assist etc)

Yea, those changes should all manifest on PC with controllers.

Kevin Y:

Q. To clarify gents, is the time to kill remaining the same whilst movement speed is increasing? Wasn't quite clear in the update

Some weapons are being brought up to be more viable and competitive. We're modeling our ideal TTK to that around Precision Auto Rifles. In current D2 most of our TTK and pace is defined by weapons due to lack of variety in gameplay. This means we have a fixed (static) TTK which is on the slow side. We're actively going to change that. Heavy, Ability Mod/Perks, Movement, and weapons are being brought up to make sure the game is fast and spicy and at the level we believe players would expect from Destiny.

I look forward to you trying 1.1.4 & getting your feedback further. I know you're concerned about movement trumping TTK & I understand where you are coming from. In our playtests we (and external participants) felt that disengaging is not as prevalent as it reads on paper. <3

Q. Also Colony is rife atm, but its ammo supplies are being raised w/ power ammo frequency right?

Colony stays at 4 shots per pull! We feel it's good enough as is.

Q. Gotcha, but doesn't that still mean more potential ammo as power ammo spawns more often and blocks can be picked from enemies/teammates? Not trying to be combative here at all btw, just worried that Colony spam might be even worse!

Yep but with this patch we wanted to establish a new base line and balance around that instead of holding onto preconceived notions of the previous build. We're open to tuning this based on feedback though.

Josh H followup comment:

"We definitely had people running Colony in playtests but with the buffs to movement speed, snipers and shotguns it felt like there were more counters available overall. We didnt wanna crush it into the ground for no reason. Again, we'd rather balance around cool things."

EXTRA STUFF FROM DMG:

As seen in the video, you have to hold to pick up Heavy ammo off of defeated enemies.

"Yep. If you want that ammo, you have to actively pick it up. Noticed this in playtests, had less instances of someone dying as they realized they had picked up power. Adding that barrier, the conscious decision to pick it up, led to me actually getting a bit more power ammo more often. Sometimes players ignore it entirely, as they're focusing on a kill or getting to a portion of the map to trigger a super."

EDIT: Formatting. EDIT 2. More formatting. Edit 3: I give up with bolding, lol. EDIT 4:

Josh can't be stopped.

FINAL EDIT: It's been 7 hours and this is the last update to the post. The Doc above is constantly updated with new social media posts, though.

submitted by /u/Entricia
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IMO, the salt is not necessarily that we aren't open to trying new sandboxes and reevaluating, it's that the updates are half a year apart.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:23 AM PST

Title. I think that the negative response that typically comes with these TWABs and updates is not that the community is so against certain changes being playtested in-game, it's that significant updates to the game and the sandbox come infrequently. It puts such tremendous weight on each of them to "perfect" the game play, as we don't know how long we'll be playing with that build until there's another update.

In other terms, I personally am really excited to play Trials without radar. I haven't been able to go flawless in D2, and we've tried plenty. I remember Spooky Trials fondly, but I do remember the camping as well, and that did suck some games. It was a blast for that weekend, though.

I like the idea of making competitive feel different from casual with no radar, too.

Point being, I think this change feels permanent to many, even if it's not. If, in a month, the community was out and out hating it, it should be switched back. I think many fear it won't be.

And look, I know Destiny is a complex game and it takes a long time to work out bugs and playtest things, so we shouldn't expecting a sandbox update every week or two, but I think the community as a whole would react far less dramatically if each season brought a new sandbox update.

Seasons should change the game. It's a built in break, and, honestly, I think they would ideally happen quarterly. Just my opinion as someone who knows jack-all about game development but knows it gets boring playing with the same guns for six months.

Edit: words.

submitted by /u/Shifter331
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[Towerthought] You can tell if someone is a D1 Veteran by the way they call the purple bricks. Heavy for D1, Power for D2

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:52 AM PST

Bungie, please put a true grind, Grimoire and Dead Ghosts in D2

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:59 AM PST

I realized while playing Banner and getting upset about completing challenges is that it's mostly for cosmetic gear. Wtf is this a fashion show?

I also finally finished up my third character (it was painful). D2 is gorgeous game, and I found myself just exploring the different areas out of curiosity. There's SOME MANY hidden places you could place Dead Ghosts.

It made me realize that during Destiny's off time, in the first three years, I loved looking at the grimoire and trying to complete as much as possible. It was an addition to complete and collect everything. I miss that feeling.

We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. I hope that D2 can make a comeback

submitted by /u/Meloyski
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Destiny 2: Datto's Thoughts on the "Go Fast" Sandbox Update & Buffs

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:44 AM PST

I want maps I paid for to be in Iron Banner

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 08:26 AM PST

fuck the complainers who didn't buy the DLC, I want the new maps in rotation of events. I'm tired of playing the same maps over and over and over and over and sometimes 3x in a row.

edit: best solution as many people point out would be to give maps for free each season, which I totally agree with

edit 2: must be a slow news day if i'm on the front page

submitted by /u/lucious4202
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I love the grind for sweet looking ornaments, would it be possible to have that same grind for weapons?

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:11 AM PST

I would love it if vendors had objectives to complete to get weapons or other cool things.

submitted by /u/noob35746
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Many people told Bungie during the Beta that PVP was not fun. That was 9 months ago

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 10:51 AM PST

I don't understand why suddenly, 6 months after release and 9 months after the first impressions about PVP were that it was too slow and team shotty, Bungie finally agrees.

Here's the other worrying thing, they are basically just telling us to TRUST THEM that because they're enjoying the play-tests that this new shit must be really fun.

Guess what else you guys thought was fun in play-testing? D2 pvp the way it launched.

Now here's the rest of the bullshit. When questioned about why we were only getting 4v4 modes in Destiny 2, they gave us a whole long list of explanations for why years of development and testing proved that it was the best way forward for the game. They could build maps around it, build game modes around it, build the whole sandbox around it really. Nobody needed rumble or 6's anymore, FOURS ARE BETTER.

And now without any explanation as to why their years of research and testing failed them, they're just bringing all the other shit back.

So should we give them credit and be impressed that these clowns are finally ready to fix their mistakes? Or just assume that they probably still fucked it up since they have no clue what fun looks like, take no responsibility or ownership for their mistakes, and will ignore all meaningful feedback towards their work until they absolutely can't ignore it any longer?

I know what I'm betting on.

submitted by /u/ryno21
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Now that Fortracer is going to be godly in competitive crucible, can you at least give it a makeover? Its arguably the ugliest helmet ever created in this franchise history.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:24 AM PST

Excuse me waiter [satire post on Bungie's balancing philosophy]

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:49 AM PST

Me: Excuse me waiter, my Chicken is cold. The flavor is delicious, but I just can't eat cold chicken. Can you please just warm it up for me?

Waiter: Absolutely monsieur, what a terrible incident. I hear what you are saying and I will make sure our kitchen fixes this for you ASAP. In the meantime, here is some butter without bread to keep you happy.

[waiter comes back an hour later]

Waiter: The cook heard your complaint about the chicken. He believes what you really wanted was a Tomato soup.

...

This is the communication we just got.

submitted by /u/porkins86
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Where the Destiny Sandbox Went Wrong

Posted: 08 Mar 2018 02:18 PM PST

There's been a lot of complaining about Destiny 2's sandbox, with lots of suggestions, like buff primaries and Time To Kill (TTK), but usually people aren't taking the time to justify them, or be specific, so I wanted to break it down to really understand what the problems are, what caused them, and how to approach fixing them. This is primarily coming from a PvP perspective, but some of the ideas I'll get to later have PvE effects.

This is very long, but I'll try to bold some parts to make it easier to skim.

It's 3 basic parts. First, what should we aim for? Second, what went wrong? Third, recommendations for how to approach fixing it.

I had a balancing simulator planned, to illustrate one point, but I wanted to get this out before this week's TWAB, since they're talking about the sandbox, but my code's not done.

Incidentally, I think a lot of my video clips are potato quality because I didn't wait long enough for YouTube to process before trying to convert to image. I'll update them later.

What Should We Aim For?

Peak Destiny: Year 1, House of Wolves

I believe House of Wolves was Peak Destiny because this was the most balanced Destiny ever was.

Yes, I understand Thorn and TLW beat the crap out of every other primary, but balance is bigger than primaries. You had a big toolbox in Destiny that includes movement, positioning, primaries, specials, heavy, grenades, melees, supers, add-on effects from your skill tree, and team play. You can't balance any of those in a vacuum. Dropping the power of top primaries drops the overall power of primaries in the grand scheme of things, and this is where things started to go south.

Nerfing Thorn and The Last Word was the turning point, causing a death spiral of other nerfs because of the power vacuum left behind. It was the last time primaries were appropriately balanced against special weapons and their one shot kills.

During House of Wolves, you felt powerful. You were getting shot by Thorn, but you were shooting people with Thorn, and sometimes that was a 2 tap kill, and that gave you a lot of agency. You could be outnumbered, getting rushed by 3 people, but if your shot was on point, and you could juke just a little bit better, you could come out on top, even if you didn't have anything else, regardless of what kind of ammo the other team had. Strong primaries were key to keeping special weapons in check. Special weapons kept supers and abilities in check, and everything was just a little bit worse than heavy and supers, if you knew what you were doing.

But even heavy and supers weren't so strong that you were helpless. Smart positioning, good movement, one shot kill specials, and grenades could all stop a super or heavy threat with a little bit of skill.

I've always maintained that an "ammo economy" is a crutch in game design. The more it matters, the more you have fundamental flaws in your design. A special ammo sniper shouldn't just be better than your primary. It should be situationally useful, giving you a small advantage in certain scenarios. When you strike that balance properly, it really doesn't matter how much ammo you have. Everything has its uses.

As a side note, I think HoW's reforging was great for people who didn't want to grind forever, but wanted to play competitively.

When Thorn and TLW were nerfed, it broke a key balancing dynamic, which was ...

2 tap vs. 3 tap

People liked to complain that Thorn, Hawkmoon and TLW could kill you in 2 shots, and that was too strong. This is probably the consensus, but I disagree and I have specific reasoning.

I think that 2 shot potential is actually really important in a game where you're fighting against weapons that can kill you in 1 shot, and no amount of futzing with ammo or tweaking specials is going to fix that fundamental 1 shot vs 3 shot imbalance.

Consider dueling from cover, where the duelists are peeking appropriately, taking a shot and ducking back in. One guy has a sniper, the other has his primary, and we're not concerned about damage drop off.

If the primary can kill in 2 shots, the sniper has a small advantage, because if they trade fire, but he hits a headshot, he wins. If he misses, but the other guy hit a headshot, he's forced to make a choice. He can risk a trade, or he can run away. If he hit a body shot, maybe he's far ahead enough on damage that he's got a small edge, if he's got a good slide shot or something and thinks he can make the other guy miss his head with his primary.

When Thorn could 2 tap you from across the map, a sniper was only better if you could land a headshot on your first shot. Otherwise, you may as well have used your easier to use primary. That's why nobody cared how much sniper ammo you had during the Thorn meta (except for people dumping ammo for their final round Efrideet's Spears).

This is the decision flow for the sniper against a 2 tap primary:

https://i.imgur.com/sKy611u.png

If the primary can only kill in 3 shots, the sniper has a huge advantage. He can take 2 potentially fatal shot attempts completely for free, and if he can hit anywhere on the body on the first shot, he's already won if the primary guy is stupid enough to stay.

This is the decision flow for the sniper against a 3 tap primary:

https://i.imgur.com/fCWw5hb.png

The difference between 2 tap and 3 tap is that with 3 tap primaries, it's ALWAYS better to start with a sniper. You don't have a small situational advantage. You have a huge advantage that you'd be an idiot not to exploit. When that's the case, special ammo economy becomes a concern, and that's a red flag for a designer. When everything is appropriately balanced, ammo shouldn't be such an advantage that it matters much.

Likewise, a shotgun user has more freedom to charge you from further away, and a fusion user has more freedom to charge up their rifle out in the open.

When 2 tap potential was taken away from Destiny 1 during year 2, what happened? Special weapons were unchecked, and everyone complained about getting sniped, so they nerfed snipers. Then everyone complained about shotguns, so they nerfed shotguns, and that wasn't enough, so special ammo got nerfed, and everyone used Universal Remote and Ice Breaker, and then those got nerfed, and then everyone used machine guns, and those got nerfed, and then special again, and then everyone used sidearms, and those got nerfed ...

Destiny 2 is like if you fast forwarded along that trajectory, and you end up with a game that's not fun at all.

Why isn't it fun?

PotaToss's theory of fun in games:

Fun is proportional to the number of ways I can crap on people who do exactly what I expect them to do.

If I know some idiot is going to sit in one spot, I should be able to blow him up if my grenade aim is good enough. I should be able to jump or slide around the corner at him and blow him away with primary. I should be able to peek and snipe him. I should be able to advance on him behind cover and then rush in and blast him with a shotgun, or jump over his head and punch him to death, or kill him with a shoulder charge, or have my teammate shoot him in the ass while he looks at me. He should be at my mercy.

The more options you have, and the more you can string together these options to crap on a predictable team, the more fun you're having, I guarantee it. When people talk about "hero moments", this is what they're talking about. You made the right reads, you took the right actions, you executed well, and you got to poop on their whole team as a reward.

The removal of highly available one hit kills (OHK) in D2, and the long TTK when you don't have access to a OHK, have destroyed your individual agency, and with it, your potential to have fun.

Early in Destiny 2, I was playing a Countdown match, and the other team killed all of my teammates, and were sitting, huddled together in the center of the map, blocking me off from reviving anyone, and they had shotgun ammo. I had no abilities charged, no power ammo, and wasn't going to get anything before the round timer was over. I'm a decent player, but I knew I had no chance of winning that round. I had zero ways to crap on people who were doing exactly what I expected them to do, and consistent with my theory, I was having zero fun. I ended up jumping off the side of the map, because it was hopeless. If your game is driving me to suicide, maybe that's a problem. I'm the kind of guy who always tries to kill someone using a super instead of running away, but this was pointless.

Here's what you used to be able to do to people who were predictably huddled together:

https://youtu.be/RCbo5KHdXrY

https://youtu.be/Y0dU2kKazxQ

https://youtu.be/yXPlOcx6sqQ

This is pure gaming bliss.

Lethal tools that let you punish people who are predictable are the key to fun. It didn't matter that I was vastly outnumbered, because I knew where these guys were, and what they were going to do, and they didn't know what I was going to do, and that gave me a huge advantage. This is so fundamental. If you want to make the game friendlier to noobs, you lower the execution barrier to punishing people who are predictable, so they can experience that sooner. You don't remove/weaken the tools. Raise the skill floor, instead of dropping the skill ceiling if you want to shrink the skill gap.

When you throw a lightning grenade down the hallway on Pantheon and a bunch of idiots stand in it because they're tunnel vision sniping, and they die, that's not lightning grenades being too strong. That's people being too predictable, not paying attention, and just generally playing like idiots. Don't take the fun tool away because some people play like idiots. Some portion of your population is always going to be playing like idiots, and being able to improve and get to crap on them is one of the great joys of gaming.

What Went Wrong?

Besides trying to balance primaries in a vacuum, and missing the necessity of 2 hit kills, the way the sandbox team approached balancing had some problems.

Ascending Power Creep vs Descending Power Creep

Power Creep has a traditional meaning, regarding new gear making old gear irrelevant as you expand a game, but in the context of balancing Destiny, we're talking about buffing stuff and having power slowly increase over time, which the devs have said they're fearful of (I think on an old Crucible Radio episode). They said they didn't want to have power creep up and make the game more chaotic.

That's fine, but you can develop a frame of reference, and try to adhere to it. e.g. Look at Thorn and TLW, leave them alone, and try to bring other stuff up to that level. If you overshoot it on a weapon, then you can bring it back down, but you don't mess with that frame of reference. You want to try to slowly, and deliberately expand it.

All your data exists at the top. Everyone uses Thorn and TLW, then you have a ton of data for how Thorn and TLW match up against everything else. The more data you have, the more you understand it. What you don't have is a ton of data for how everything beneath them matches up against each other, because it's not used as much, and you see those matchups much more rarely.

When you try to adjust the best stuff downward, you can't know where you're aiming. You don't have a well established frame of reference, because gameplay revolves around what's at the top. You might land on balance, but if you do, it's dumb luck.

edit: You also don't know if you're actually going to improve balance, in terms of number of viable options. You might be nerfing the top 2 weapons only to find that the 3rd best weapon is miles above the 4th best weapon.

e.g. After Thorn and TLW got nerfed, instead of 2 meta primaries, basically everyone just used Nirwen's for its 3 body shot kill.

That all aside, again, when you nerf the top primaries, you mess up the balance between primaries and everything else, like specials and heavy. You will predictably run into so many unintended consequences with this balance downward approach, and we watched this happen in the later years of D1.

Overadjusting - Small Differences Matter

Maybe not 0.04% differences, but small.

When you do nerf something, you want to take it easy. People used to lose their minds when they got a good roll on a Grasp of Malok, because it had a 0.07s advantage in time to kill over a Hawksaw. It sounds like nothing, but you could feel it if you were on the wrong end of that exchange. People did the same thing in Call of Duty, where Stopping Power felt like a mandatory perk because of hundredths of seconds differences in TTK, because of a one bullet difference.

So when we see stuff like what they did to firebolt grenades, where they dropped the damage, but also increased the activation time, and reduced the range, and the burning, it was overkill, and it went from a top tier grenade to a useless grenade, and we saw this with almost every nerf to everything else.

Hand cannons became completely unusable at range, and instead of making scouts viable, it just made people not bother engaging at range. A one bullet difference is enough to matter, so don't make me shoot three times as many bullets to kill someone.

Balance Doesn't Mean Everything is Equal

Destiny has developed a bunch of non-perks. In D1, Coccoon always came with a longer than normal reload time, making it necessary, and not actually a perk. If you like to use a varied arsenal and have very dynamic engagements, an auto reload on a stowed weapon is great.

But if you're stuck in a situation where you can't reload normally without it taking forever, and can't move freely enough that it makes sense to swap weapons, and weapons are all awful outside of their ideal ranges, then it's terrible. Auto loaders are better in D2 than they were with the King's Fall weapons, but this kind of design approach is problematic. These kinds of varied perks, when they're strong and incomparable to each other, are how you make a game that's balanced, but not boring.

One of the problems in Destiny 2 is that the focus on balance and fear of things being too strong leaves all of your weapons feeling kind of the same. You might trade a little bit of range for a little bit of stability, or a little bit of stability for a little bit faster handling, but besides Kill Clip, Explosive Rounds, and Cluster Bombs, there's very minimal impact on the guns feeling powerful.

Contrast that to Destiny 1, where a ton of guns could roll something like Firefly, which would let you clear a mob in a few precise shots, and pair that with Outlaw, and you could be shooting and killing damn near constantly, and it was super satisfying. But in the effort to keep everything balanced, Bungie removed highs like that from the game.

In Call of Duty, Stopping Power did a lot of things for you. On paper, it just reduced the number of bullets to kill someone by 1, but that means you can down 1 target and then move on to another target faster. You could kill more people with fewer bullets, so it was like a magazine size upgrade and a larger reserve ammo supply. You could kill one guy and then reposition with more agility than if you were stuck shooting for longer. It was incredibly powerful for a game that was all about positioning.

There was also a perk called Juggernaut, which was like a Destiny 2 style balance answer to it, which on paper just made you take 1 more bullet to die. It was like the logical opposite and the intuitive counter. But taking one more bullet to die doesn't have the same benefits as better bullet efficiency, and Juggernaut was a trash perk.

The real counter to Stopping Power was Cold Blooded, which took you off the radar and let you get into people's blind spots. If someone has better bullet efficiency, that only helps them if they're shooting at you, and the counter was to not be where they were looking, so they don't get a benefit from their perk.

Stopping Power was still the better perk, in that the potential rewards were greater. But the fact that it was better is what made Cold Blooded worth using. Because if one perk is so good that everyone runs it, you don't expect that guy in that corner, shooting you in the ass right after a UAV radar sweep.

Consider a game of rock paper scissors, where if you win with rock, you get $10, and if you win with paper or scissors, you win $5. Everyone is going to want to pick rock, but if everyone's picking rock, paper's a pretty good play, even though it pays half as much.

In later Call of Duty's, they removed Stopping Power, because everyone complained about having to use it, like they complained about having to use Thorn and TLW, and everyone just ended up using the thing that took you off radar, and it made the game a boring slog, because you didn't know where to look for action and everyone was too scared to move because they didn't know where anyone was. Oops. (Don't nerf the best thing)

Recommendations

Embrace OHKs

Snipers and shotguns and fusions (I guess ...) are fun and satisfying to use. They give you the quick dispatch that lets you never be at that much of a disadvantage, even if the other guy is using heavy, or a super, or if there are 4 of him. Having easy access to these weapons and their ammo mean you're never completely hopeless.

I'd ideally go back to D1's system. I think the double primary system is really bad (see next point). Just Realm Reborn it. Short of that, just add more power ammo spawns. Getting to snipe all the time during Mayhem was super refreshing for me.

Primaries must be strong enough to compete with OHK weapons.

2 hit kill potential needs to be there. It was a little bit random with TLW and Hawkmoon, but the threat keeps special weapons honest. Remember that people still mostly fought with their primaries when blink shotgun was at peak power with shot package and stuff, and you had more special ammo than you knew what to do with.

Primaries should also be effective at all ranges, and great in one. Not crap at all ranges but the one that it's effective at.

So let scout rifles have pretty sticky aim up close, like a hand cannon does, and the downside is that they have longer zoom scopes that are harder to use up close. Don't make hand cannons take a whole mag to kill someone at long range. One extra bullet is a meaningful difference that will make it lose to a similarly skilled scout user at their ideal range. I should be at a small disadvantage outside of my range, not in "this is completely pointless" territory.

An average TTK around 0.7s seems about right for Destiny's movement.

Strengthen Abilities and Reduce Cooldowns

In most games, I can throw a grenade at a guy to force him to move, or die. If it doesn't force him to move, it serves a very weak gameplay purpose. It's not an effective tool. This is where a lot of grenades are right now in D2. Players who aren't giving up line of sight, even if their position is totally obvious shouldn't be safe, and force me into a bad position just to punish them.

In D1, I could get an incendiary grenade (my favorite) every 12 seconds on my Sunbreaker. Grenades in D1 are a tool you can use a lot, but Simmering Flames turned it into a tool that I could lean on, and that's a ton of fun. But grenades are only good against people who are being predictable, so you shouldn't worry too much about their lethality.

This is pretty specific, but my girlfriend has a thumb injury that makes it difficult for her to aim guns, but loved playing D1 because she was really good at jumping above people's heads and punching them to death. Please bring back 2 melee kills.

Strengthen Perks

Perks should be really powerful. A gun like Thorn could almost be counter played against by using Red Death, which had a healing effect that nullified a lot of the downside to Thorn's damage over time. If you could stick out a duel and kill them before you burned to death after 2 headshots, it was gamechanging for that matchup. These are the kinds of interactions that you want. Not a bunch of minimally effective perks that just make your game feel bland.

The problem in D1 wasn't that random rolls were inherently bad, but that so few of them were really good, so you had to grind a lot for interesting rolls, because a lot of the perks weren't strong enough to compete.

Final Thoughts

Destiny 1 was a game about space magic, with fast movement, a nice middle ground TTK between Call of Duty and Halo, with a lot of tension from dueling with 0 TTK weapons and abilities. 2 shot primaries were strong, but duels were still fun, because of all of the movement options you have. It really wasn't usually 2 shots.

The soul of Destiny is those hero moments, where you could die any second, but you clawed your way out and got one more kill in the middle of all of the chaos. It's fun because it's managed chaos.

Fingers crossed that writing this up was just an enormous waste of time, and the sandbox team is on the same page.

Thanks for reading.

edit: Also, thanks for the gold. Also, added a bit to the power creep section about how you might actually decrease the number of viable options by nerfing what's at the top.

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Elon Musk the Sunbreaker sends me into orbit with his Hammer Strike

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:56 AM PST

Warning: loud cackling:

To the warning track, to the wall, I am outta here!

Here is the silent, more work friendly gifv version.

I thought the "gotta go fast" update was in a few weeks. thinking emoji

submitted by /u/Sliq111
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This Week at Bungie - 3/08/2018

Posted: 08 Mar 2018 03:04 PM PST

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/46677

This week at Bungie, Lord Saladin returned to host the final 4v4 Iron Banner. New weapons are directly available from Saladin's stock, or can be earned through Iron Engrams. This isn't your last chance to earn those Season 2 ornaments, as Iron Banner will return after Destiny Update 1.1.4 is released, featuring 6v6 gameplay.

Speaking of Update 1.1.4…

**##

Gotta Go Fast**

**##

**

Last week, Cozmo asked you fine readers to set an agenda on what we'd talk about in this week's article. The overwhelming response:

Sandbox!

While we're still in the process of finishing development on 1.1.4, Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes and Design Lead Josh Hamrick are here to get a bit more granular with what's coming on March 27.

Kevin: Hey everyone, Kevin here from the Crucible team. I'm dropping by to share the details on the rest of our changes heading into Update 1.1.4. As Derek mentioned in last week's TWAB, Iron Banner, Rumble, and Mayhem are making their triumphant returns to Destiny 2 with a few twists. Iron Banner has become 6v6, Mayhem features 90% fewer nova bombs (fixed this issue found during the Dawning), and Rumble has welcomed two additional players into the fray. There is a lot to get excited about in Update 1.1.4 but something the team really wanted to do was go back and refine the core experience.

Looking at the feedback, it was clear that the community felt there were two key areas for improvement with the Crucible: "Time to Kill" and "Team Shotting". So we set our sights on re-working systems, mechanics, and values to tackle those two areas.

"Does this mean you're changing the Time to Kill?"

When we looked at the core feedback on "Time to Kill" in the Crucible, we saw that it mostly stemmed from a lack of excitement or spikes of intensity you all came to expect from a Destiny experience. This came in the form of feedback that stated the game was too slow, or the core loop was too stale. We agree, and have worked with Sandbox to increase the pace of the Crucible as a whole. Josh is going to speak to all of the Sandbox changes here in a bit, and I won't steal his thunder. So alongside all of the great changes the Sandbox team has made, we're setting our sights on making the Crucible a faster, more dynamic, and more action-packed experience on the activity side.

Let's get down to brass tacks on how we're planning to change the Crucible and the delivery of the goal stated above. Here is an overview of the changes we're bringing in 1.1.4:

  • Respawn and Revive were tuned in all game modes

  • Player respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced to 2s.

  • Player respawn timers for Survival have been reduced to 7s

  • Revive lockout time in Countdown has been reduced to 7s

  • Players no longer lose Revive Tokens on death

  • Power Ammo respawn timers were adjusted across the board

  • Power Ammo respawn timers in Iron Banner have been reduced ~50%

  • Power Ammo respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced ~30%.

  • Power Ammo respawn timers in Survival have been reduced ~40%.

  • Power Ammo respawn timers in Countdown have been reduced ~25%

  • Ammo counts have been adjusted in relation to these timers, and in relation to weapon type.

  • In almost all cases weapons either retained the same ammo count or received a buff. Swords and rockets were brought down to stay in line with the rest of the weapon offering.

  • Enemy players now drop their Power Ammo on death.

  • This brick is now networked to all players regardless of faction. Secure the power ammo to keep it from your foes or steal off your enemy's ghost, but be quick because these bricks don't stay in the world forever.

All these changes coalesce to create an experience that relies less on clumping with your team and focuses more on rewarding quick reflexes, thinking, and movement.

"But what about Competitive?"

During development of 1.1.4, we realized that while we'd reduced the "Team Shotting" in Quickplay and Iron Banner effectively, we hadn't quite done the same to Competitive. Knowing this, we looked for a change that reinforced the following goals: reduce team clumping, reward individual plays, and incentivize flanks. With those goals in mind we looked to take a big step in shifting the gameplay in Competitive and Trials: starting in 1.1.4 we've opted to remove the Tracker from all Competitive and Trials game modes.

This means more communication is required to secure victories in Competitive and Trials matches. It also means that a crispy flank with Power Ammo is all the more powerful. Subverting expectations and reading opponents is more potent in matches with no Tracker. In playtests we've already seen some clutch underdog comebacks and we can't wait to see what you all do in Competitive and Trials starting with 1.1.4. That said, we're always listening and reacting to feedback so please tell us what you think about this change and all of our 1.1.4 changes once they go live.

Thank you so much for your time in reading and playing. We're proud and excited of the work we've done on 1.1.4 and look forward to meeting you on the battlefield. Next up Hamslamrick with some Sandbox goodies.

Hamrick: Hello friends! As I mentioned last time, our goal for this update is to provide individual players with more hero moments by increasing overall speed and mobility, increasing the number of supers you charge to demolish your enemies, and increasing the frequency and impact of our most montage worthy power weapons, especially in the Crucible. With Update 1.1.4 drawing ever closer, it feels like a good time to swing back by and provide some updates and additional clarity to what this patch will bring.

The first thing you should know: we are VERY excited for this update to go live. After weeks of solid play-testing, some with external participants, we feel like this is really shaping up to be an update you will be happy with. Huge shout out to everyone involved that helped the list of possible changes grow instead of shrink. Also, to those who play-tested and gave us quality actionable feedback.

Now, here's an updated version of the list of changes first detailed in the February 1 TWAB. New and/or updated entries are highlighted in bold:

  • All three glides plus Catapult and Strafe Lift have been retuned and buffed to make them faster and more unique.

  • The mobility stat range has been expanded and completely retuned as well. In short, everyone gets faster and the high end is higher.

  • The players' ground speed cap has been increased, allowing for faster total movement speed, regardless of how you may get there.

  • Arcstrider, Sentinel, and Striker all move faster, and at the same speed as one another, while in their Supers.

  • Arcstrider, as a whole, is performing well in PvP but mostly due to its neutral game perks. We've made the following changes in an effort to get the Super to be a more competitive option:

  • Faster Attack Animations.

  • Faster Dodge Animations.

  • Increased range of all attacks.

  • The previous Shoulder Charge changes are being reverted, allowing Shoulder Charge to be used as a movement mode once again.

  • Dawnblade has been improved:

  • Reduced cost for throwing swords, allowing for one additional throw

  • Increased super duration extension gained from "Everlasting Fire"

  • Removed all in-air accuracy penalties while "Swift Strike" is active

  • Reduced the Icarus Dash cooldown

  • Increased the Grenade and Melee energy "Heat Rises" gives you per kill

  • Invisibility on Dodge / Smoke Updates:

  • Invisibility on Dodge no longer breaks Aim Assist or Projectile Tracking in PvP (unchanged in PvE)

  • Dodging still breaks both Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking, but only for the duration of the actual dodge

  • Increased the duration of Invisibility on Dodge by 1 second

  • Increased the duration of Smoke Bomb Invisibility by 1 second

  • Supers recharge faster for everyone!

  • Supers now recharge 1:40 faster, a cooldown reduction of 25%.

  • Mods that reduce Grenade, Melee and Class Ability cooldowns have been buffed to allow for up to 2x faster cooldowns.

  • This is NOTreplacing Mods 2.0, which was recently delayed. More information is available below.

We've buffed several weapon archetypes (including, but not limited to, Hand Cannons, Pulse Rifles, Sniper Rifles, and Shotguns) and a few specific perks, as well. A key goal here is to make Shotguns, Snipers, and Fusion rifles more prevalent in the game.

  • Pulse Rifles

  • Increased PvE damage for all pulses

  • **Increased rate of fire for adaptive and high-impact pulses

  • **Increased base damage for adaptive, high-impact, and rapid-fire Pulses

  • **Increased precision multiplier for lightweight pulses

  • **Decreased precision multiplier for adaptive pulses

  • **This keeps precision damage close to where it is now, putting most of the buff into body shots, though it is still an increase in precision damage overall.

  • Scout Rifles

  • **Increased PvE damage for all scouts

  • **Increased base damage for High-Impact Scouts

  • Hand Cannon

  • **Increased PvE damage for all Hand Cannons

  • **Increased precision multiplier for precision hand cannons

  • **Increased hip fire accuracy on consoles

  • **Increased ADS accuracy on consoles

  • Sidearms

  • **Increased PvE damage for all sidearms

  • **Increased hip fire accuracy

  • **Increased ADS accuracy

  • **Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)

  • **Increased minimum range

  • **Added an ADS movement bonus

  • SMG

  • **Increased PvE damage for all SMG's

  • **Set Optics to 1.3x

  • **Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)

  • Linear Fusion Rifle

  • **Increased PvE damage for all linear fusions

  • **Increased precision multiplier

  • **Increased aim assist

  • **Reduced flinch multiplier

  • Shotgun

  • **Increased PvE damage for all shotguns

  • **Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)

  • **Increased aim assist for Suros precision shotguns

  • Sniper Rifle

  • **Increased PvE damage for all snipers

  • **Increased precision multiplier

  • **Increased aim assist

  • **Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)

  • Grenade Launcher

  • **Increased blast radius

  • Assault Rifles

  • **Decreased range and aim assist stats for precision autos (Uriel's Gift). Base damage is not changed.

A few weapon perks are also getting some updates:

  • High Impact Reserves

  • Increased PvE damage

  • Kill Clip

  • Increased PvE damage

  • Rampage

  • Increased PvE damage

  • Increased duration

  • Dragonfly

  • Increased damage

  • Increased radius

  • Stronger visual effects

  • Grave Robber

  • Reloads .5 magazine instead of .3

  • Timed Payload

  • Splits damage 55 Explosive / 45 Direct instead of previous split which was more direct damage

  • Explosive Rounds

  • Decreased PvE Explosive Rounds damage

  • This decrease has been compensated for with an increase in PvE damage for the base weapons - your weapons with explosive rounds will not do less damage after 1.1.4

Just like last time, we have a few additional notes to wrap things up.

Mods Rework

First, let's talk about the changes to the potency of Ability Cooldown Mods. In our last update, we mentioned that we were going to wait and buff ability cooldowns at the same time we dropped the mods rework. Over the last few weeks it has become obvious that the mod rework was going to need more time to come together due to the scope of the changes. That decision, which has already been accounted for in the last Roadmap that you saw, is ultimately going to be a win for all of us. It gives us more time to deliver something we believe will add value to the game. However, we understood we should not delay the much-needed improvements to ability cooldowns. So, while there are many, many improvements to mods planned for the future, we are going to greatly increase the output for Ability Cooldown Mods in Update 1.1.4.

Invisibility

Nightstalkers, the day of reckoning is soon upon us. Our invisible exploits may have barely been seen, but they have most certainly been felt. In 1.1.4 our ability to ninja-smoke out to avoid any and all incoming fire (and/or lightning) is going to be reduced down to pure skill alone… not that we'd ever admit to it being anything but. As one of only two items deemed nerf-worthy on the entire list of incoming Sandbox changes, we as Hunters shall deal with this as we deal with everything: we'll take it as a compliment and solid proof of our endless supply of talent, and we'll never, ever let the 'Locks and Titans hear the end of it.

  • Currently:

-Initiate Dodge or Throw Smoke

  • Dodging temporarily kills Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking (allowing you to actually Dodge things)

  • Smoke just immediately jumps to…

  • Initiate Invisibility

    • For the duration of Invisibility Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking remain disabled.

  • Dodge Finishes

  • Invisibility Expires

    • Aim Assist and Tracking are re-enabled

  • Coming Soon in 1.1.4 (PvP Only!):

  • Initiate Dodge or Throw Smoke

    • Dodging temporarily kills Aim Assist and Projectile Tracking (allowing you to actually Dodge things)
    • Smoke just immediately jumps to…

  • Initiate Invisibility

  • Dodge Finishes

    • Aim Assist and Tracking are re-enabled

  • Invisibility Expires

Note: Nothing changes for PvE except that they also get the one-second duration increase to Invisibility.

Snipers

In the last update I mentioned how a nasty bug has crept into our scopes and made it near-impossible for us to correctly tune Sniper Flinch. We have good news! That fix has been implemented and those changes will go live in the 1.2.0 update, planned for May. Sweet, sweet sniper action is on the way.

This is not the end…

While we are very excited to get this update into your hands, and we believe you're really going to enjoy the changes, we all know these aren't the only changes we'll need to make to address feedback. It's just the first leg of a long journey.

We hope this makes the game more fun for you all, that it begins to bring back hero moments, and makes you feel a bit more like tiny gods, but we also hope you know there is more to come and that this gets you excited to come along for the ride.

See you all again soon,
<3 Hamrick

Companions to us all

****

As Destiny 2 continues to evolve, the Bungie.net team is also hard at work processing feedback and bringing updates to the Companion experience. Today, Associate UX Designer Joey Carpenter is here to walk us through some changes that were deployed to the Companion App earlier this week.

Joey: On Wednesday, we released a utility update to the Destiny Companion App. Now you can modify the shaders, effects, mods, perks, and Masterworks of the items in your inventory on the go. All you need to do is fire up your companion app and open up the detail view of the item you want to modify.

Find the slot for the mod, perk, shader, effect, or Masterwork on your item and tap what you want to replace it with. If a change you want to perform will cost you something, the cost of the action and how much you currently have to spend will be listed for you.

This update in particular is exciting as the foundation for this work can eventually be leveraged for other advanced actions on your character and gear. Ever wanted to clear out the cruft that's built up in your inventory a bit faster? Us, too. Vendor purchasing on the go? Or perhaps it's time for clearing all of the rare items from your inventory that have accumulated throughout your play session? These are all possible scenarios that we're considering for future, to make the most of the same system we built. This work also gives us the opportunity to enable third-party developers to take advantage of this functionality, while providing a secure environment where these actions require your explicit approval. We have a bit of work to do before that's possible, but we'll keep you informed as we solidify future updates for the API, Bungie.net, and companion app.

As a heads up, this update is currently available on Android. iOS is in the process of being released, but we'll let you know as soon as it's available.

Now is prime time to head over to our mobile feedback forums to sound off on what cool new write actions you'd like to see in the future.

In the Know

Image Link Recently, we added two new members to Destiny Player Support. You may have encountered them in the #Help forum, troubleshooting issues or sharing Help articles. If you're having difficulties when attempting to play Destiny 2, they're at the ready to lend a hand.

This is their report.

EDZ Destination Emblem

Last week, we noted that players may accrue 38 Ghost scannables on the EDZ Destination Emblem. Through investigation, we have identified that Ghost scannables found at the Farm do not contribute to these emblem statistics. The issue has been escalated to the appropriate team for further investigation.

WiFi: Convenience vs. Stability

While Destiny can be played with a strong and stable WiFi connection, many players have found that using WiFi can increase the likelihood that they will lose their connection to Destiny Services.

Sources of interference for WiFi connections

WiFi is susceptible to a variety of different sources of interference.

  • The process of sending data wirelessly takes time and increases latency. This may increase the total latency of a player's network to the point where they encounter latency, packet loss, or error code disconnects from Destiny.

  • WiFi connections use one of several frequencies called channels to transmit data. If more than one WiFi network is trying to use the same channel it can create congestion that slows down network traffic. It can even cause data to be lost or the connection to be interrupted.

  • If multiple devices are connected to the same wireless network and attempting to reach the internet at the same time they can interfere with each other.

  • The distance and layout of a player's console from their WiFi source can also negatively impact signal strength and stability.

  • Some home appliances and consumer electronics, such as microwave ovens, can directly interfere with a network's WiFi signal.

If you only have WiFi available for online gameplay, visit this page of the Network Troubleshooting Guide for tips on how to strengthen your connection: Network Setup

Shiny and Chrome

Image Link

Whether you run solo or with a fireteam, the Creations page is open to all who wish to submit moments of greatness. We're constantly on the lookout for footage that inspires, and this week, we've witnessed some stellar gameplay in both PvE and PvP. Give 'em a watch, maybe you'll be inspired to take on a Raid boss solo.

Movie of the Week: Solo Argos (Phase 1) Image Link

Honorable Mention: Afterlife Image Link

Cheers to this week's winners. If you'd like a chance to receive the Lens of Fate Emblem, make sure to tag your submission with #MOTW.

Since Tuesday, we've had quite a few players asking about the top Nightfall scores recorded for the Tree of Probabilities Strike. We'll be highlighting top fireteams each week. As a note: we're aware of an issue where Lost Sectors are currently contributing points to the Nightfall scorecard, which we are aiming to resolve by Update 1.2.0. Until resolved, you may find the top scores to be… huge!

Image Link

While the Lost Sector strategy will live until May, we are actively collecting data on scores from percentiles of the player base. Score pars for emblem variants are still at 20, 40, 60, and 80k points, but expect these to be adjusted in the future. High scores achieved through creative use of Lost Sectors will not be factored in when setting these new score pars. We'll keep you informed through @Bungie on Twitter for what to expect!

F5ing the F5

We had some issues in the process of pushing the TWAB live, but we've got a clip showing off upcoming changes to snipers.

To quote Hamrick:

On that note, below you will find a video pulled from a 1.2.0 playtests that has all the 1.1.4 Sniper changes AND the new Sniper Flinch fixes in and working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpDqS-G8Xk&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for stopping by, and we'll see you online.

Cheers, -dmg04

submitted by /u/DTG_Bot
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I actually like/still enjoy Destiny 2...

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:47 AM PST

I've read quite a few articles from other websites and posts on Reddit about how disappointing the current state of the game is. I just want to express that I don't agree with the bulk of them. The game is very fun to me still and despite the drop in number of players I'm still able to do everything I want to do solo or with a fireteam. I know there are a few things that could be better but I feel as if everyone is being overly pessimistic and finding things to complain about. Convince me otherwise or share your opinion.

submitted by /u/mandohh
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Bring back milestone tracker

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:10 AM PST

Can we get the option back to select what we see when we bring up the ghost. It's so easy in D1 to check my status of a quest/milestone in the fly. Allow us to do this again!

Just little changes like that would make the QoL better in game!

submitted by /u/Therealbadboy22
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Wanted to show you my latest Destiny wood wall pieces.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 01:00 PM PST

Hand cut plywood wall pieces https://imgur.com/gallery/r6gtz

submitted by /u/markhizio
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It would be cool to be able to grind with your clan for clan ornaments.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 07:34 AM PST

So you can all rep your clan ornaments and look like a proper squad.

submitted by /u/noob35746
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Worth getting destiny 1?

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 06:29 AM PST

Hi guys. I wonder if its still worth getting destiny. I never picked it up cause i only just recently got a ps4. I played a bit of destiny 2 the free demo on pc but its kinda expensive and people say destiny 1 was better.

I can pick up the destiny 1 normal editon for 10 euro's. Is destiny 1 still active for enough for new players ? I got no real friends to play with so i am probaly playing with randoms if there are any.

submitted by /u/Coekie92
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Breakdown of Potential TTK in "Go Fast"

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 09:53 AM PST

This post is to give everyone an idea of what our realistic expectations for weapon bonuses should be when 1.1.4 arrives. This being said, there is no TL;DR.

Scout Rifles

Increased base damage for High-Impact Scouts

High-Impact Scouts currently have a base damage of 37 and a critical modifier of ~1.4x that gives us 52 to the head. If Bungie were to balance around 9 Resilience, the minimum value to shift the bodyshot threshold would be 40, reducing bodyshot TTK to 1.6 seconds and shots to kill to 5 body. This change also shifts the critical value to 56, thereby adjusting shots to kill to 2 crits 2 body with a net zero change in optimal TTK. Let's have a look at some other values:

38 body = 53-54 crit (3C1B @ 9 res for 1.2s or 5B @ 2 res for 1.6s body TTK)

39 body = 55 crit (3C1B @ 9 res for 1.2s or 5B @ 4 res for 1.6s body TTK)

If we see a base damage increase to 40, the High-Impact archetype would become substantially better than any other scout. It would have the fastest body TTK, a class-competitive optimal TTK, and have the most forgiveness of the class for all resilience levels.

To keep the archetype competitive with the rest of the class, 39 body damage seems to be the sweet spot for overall viability and balance of the class as a whole.

Pulse Rifles

  • Increased base damage for adaptive, high-impact, and rapid-fire Pulses

High-Impact

  • Increased rate of fire for high-impact pulses

Current base damage for High-Impact pulses is 16. With its current 1.6x precision multiplier, we get a crit of 26, giving us an 8 crit optimal TTK of 1.20s and a body TTK of 2.27s (vs. 9 res). Looking at other damage values:

17 body = 27-28 crit (7C1B for 1.20s and 12 body for 1.83s @ 9 res)

18 body = 29 crit (7C for ~1.00s? and 12 body for 1.83s @ 9 res).

19 body = 30-31 crit (6C1B for ~1.00s? and 11 body for ~1.66s? @ 9 res).

NOTE: Any value above 19 body will be capable of a 2-tap on a 3 resilience Guardian. I'm not sure that they would go so far as a 2 tap would end up beating out your close range weapons in TTK. With rate of fire increases added onto the above values, TTK would be even further reduced, thereby making 17 the most likely value we will see.

Adaptive

  • Decreased precision multiplier for adaptive pulses

  • This keeps precision damage close to where it is now, putting most of the buff into body shots, though it is still an increase in precision damage overall.

  • Increased rate of fire for adaptive pulses

Current base damage for Adaptive pulses is 15. With its current 1.5x precision multiplier, we get a crit of 23, giving us a 9 crit optimal TTK of 1.13s and a body TTK of 2.07s (vs. 9 res).

Increasing base damage to 16, while decreasing the precision multiplier to 1.4x, will maintain a critical damage value of 23 (22.4 actual). This change, combined with the rate of fire increase, will result in a 9 crit optimal of <1.13s (@ 9 res) and a 13 body TTK of <2.00s.

Increasing base damage to 17, while decreasing the precision multiplier to 1.4x, will grant a critical damage value of 24 (23.8 actual). This change, combined with the rate of fire increase, will result in a 7C2B optimal of <1.13s (@ 9 res) and a 12 body TTK of <1.80s.

Lightweight

  • Increased precision multiplier for lightweight pulses

The current modifier for the Lightweight archetype is ~1.4x. The current TTK for Lightweight pulses is 1.20s optimal and 1.73s body.

Increasing the precision multiplier to 1.5x results in an increase in optimal TTK against 0-1 Resilience Guardians (~1.00s), while increasing forgiveness across the board.

Increasing the precision multiplier to 1.6x results in an increase in optimal TTK against all Resilience levels (~1.00s), while decreasing forgiveness across the board, requiring more crits to hit the optimal.

Hand Cannons

  • Increased precision multiplier for precision hand cannons

The current modifier for the Precision archetype is ~1.45x. The current TTK for Precision Hand Cannons is 1.33s optimal and 2.00s body.

Increasing the Precision modifier to ~1.5x (48 critical damage) would increase the optimal TTK to ~1.00s for 0-3 Resilience Guardians, while increasing forgiveness against 4+ Resilience Guardians (3C2B).

Increasing the Precision modifier to ~1.55x (50 critical damage - 49.6 actual) would increase the optimal TTK to ~1.00s for 0-7 Resilience Guardians, while increasing forgiveness against 8+ Resilience Guardians (3C2B).

Increasing the Precision modifier to ~1.575x (51 critical damage - 50.4 actual) would increase the optimal TTK to ~1.00s for all Resilience levels, while requiring 4 crits at every level to hit the optimal TTK.

submitted by /u/brw316
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I see 1.1.4 as more of a “All Guns Matter” kind of update. Typically-unused weapons are being brought up in effectiveness so there will be guns to rival the current meta.

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 11:47 AM PST

I see only the same Uriel's Gift, Better Devils, Atalanta-D, all over the place and rarely do I even HEAR a pulse rifle other than Vigilance Wing in PvP, let alone the same Curtain call in every strike ever too. Buffing other hand cannons gives me a reason to use something other than my BD because the precision hit would equal more damage than an explosive round would. Of course all my pulse rifles will hit harder now so I can start to dig through my vaults for the good ones. SINPERS GETTING MORE AMMO, that alone means I can use it more in PvE and the precision multiplier means more damage to rival the rockets. All these and other changes are making it way more enticing to use other weapons because their damage and impact are being brought up to match or even surpass the standard "best weapons" right now.

submitted by /u/Kahiyao
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2-man x40 Handicap Prestige nightfall (The Pyramidion) - 104269 high score run

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 04:55 AM PST

Link to vid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncJdExtcGkU

Also up for a MOTW Submission here - https://www.bungie.net/en/Community/Detail?itemId=243663557

This challenge was R O U G H!

perhaps one of the hardest challenges D2 has to offer just due to the amount of precision and patience this strike requires at x40 with a full team much less a 2-man run.

Nearly everything one shots you, but more importantly the fight vs the boss is like a giant chess match....a half hour long chess match. If you peak too long, you're dead, if you're out in the open and don't god strafe, you're dead. If you don't rotate to new cover perfectly, you're dead. Even when you are already behind cover he'll sometimes kill you anyways. It's chaotic to say the least.

As you can see me and Dimitri utilized the walls as best we could and tried to stay apart from each other as much as possible in the event of stupid things like splash damage or the boss grenade just shredding through walls and killing us both.

When adds spawn we immediately focus on them and ignore the boss while trying to stay out of sight and continue to do so until all of them are dead.

Sneaky - titan (striker titan, slam and pulse nades are more consistent than sunbreaker for the boss fight since it takes a year to take down his health as well as dodging purposes)

Dimitri - Hunter (Orpheus rigs. It's good points wise but more importantly tether slows everything down to be picked off)

submitted by /u/RegisterVexOffender
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[D1] Xur Megathread [2018-03-09]

Posted: 09 Mar 2018 01:01 AM PST

Agent of the Nine, Xûr

Description:

Xûr comes and goes freely, his strange curios too valuable to risk driving him from the Tower.

Location:

Beep boop! We're searching!

Exotic Gear:

Name Type Stats Cost
Legacy Engram Leg Armor Engram 29 SC
Helm of Saint-14 Titan Helmet 39 Int // 42 Dis 13 SC
Fr0st-EE5 Hunter Leg Armor 55 Int // 56 Str 13 SC
Alchemist's Raiment Warlock Chest Armor 110 Int 13 SC
The Jade Rabbit Scout Rifle 23 SC

Curios:

Name Type Quantity Cost
Heavy Ammo Synthesis Consumable 3 1 SC
Heavy Ammo Synthesis Consumable 10 3 SC
Three of Coins Consumable 5 7 SC
Glass Needles Material 1 3 SC
Plasma Drive Vehicle Upgrade 1 23 SC
"Emerald Coil" Vehicle Upgrade 1 23 SC

Material Exchange:

Name Cost
Mote of Light Strange Coin x2
Exotic Shard Strange Coin x7

What's a Xûr?

Xûr, Agent of the Nine is a merchant within the Tower and Reef. Xûr sells exotic weapons, armor, and consumables in exchange for Strange Coins. He can be found around the Tower or Reef in different locations every weekend.

TL;DR: He's the Santa Claus of Destiny and every weekend is Christmas. Sometimes he brings you what you want, sometimes he brings you coal. Mostly it's coal.

When does Xûr visit?

Xûr visits every Friday at 9:00AM UTC and departs on Sunday at 9:00 AM UTC. If you would like to see all the live conversions of Time Zones, please follow this link here.

Sort comments by New to join the conversation!

Data provided by DestinyTracker

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