Fan Cut | D2Y3 AkA "Once More unto the Breach" (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, September 07, 2019, 14:27 (1911 days ago)

Gatekeeper

Another day, another chance for INSANEdrive to send forth words like locust upon a field of grain, deeply delayed as this action may be. This particular swarm of text is all thanks to Creative Director Luke Smith, who provided us a triple set of “Directors Cut” thoughts for the Upcoming Year 3 for Destiny 2, and perhaps beyond. It is from these posts that I reply to, intermingled with my own experiences and current … at this point pet peeves… for all things Destiny The Game.

I’ve done this, exhaustively written my thoughts once again for… … I don’t know. The joy of discussion? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For the joy at minimum to publicly talk at myself? Heh, sure. I mean, it’s not like my posts often get any replies anyway. How do you reply to perspectives that may not be your own? If you understand, then there is nothing to say. If you don't, you have to care enough to want to. So why is it I once again find myself screaming into a hole, and hoping someone outside it will find it worth consuming? Of my questions and answers, I hope it interesting.

I know(?) that my stuff can sometimes not be, how to put this… considered light reading. That some of my past tomes of text have overloaded the requirements of a readers interpretations. That in some cases my experiments to create better understanding have created opposite intended results. I tell ya I didn’t think I was going to do this again, thought admittedly it is far smaller. Not quite a Megapost.

I thank you dear reader for joining me now and even more for once again, as this child mind learns how to speak by doing. I find my self, in awareness, joined by company elegantiarum. Be it through madness, love, or pain; Destiny The Game has inadvertently made writers out of some of us. We got Lukes informal... I'll call it “flow of mind” write up from beyond the veil. We got Ragashingos well edited retellings (and more), which helps condense and make public friendly the vast hidden story within Destiny Lore. Or... be it my thoughts towards a moments subject, presented at times in an exhaustively through fashion. A perhaps obtuse mix of seriousness, just plain silliness (which intermittently doesn’t translate well), and sometimes a recklessly experimental nature in writing all sparked upon the hopes of… well. That’s been established. Are you not entertained? Do you seek a different understanding from your own? Do I know or do I simply think I know?

Eh.

Right… so, now that we’re all warmed up, how shall I start this Destiny text proper? I guess some praise is in order. This “experiment” Luke has made is a very important one, and I’m glad someone – a LEAD! A DIRECTOR someone – decided to take the risk. Finally. The game industry in whole, as it has been for a while, enjoys a constant perceptual puerile childishness between fan and studio alike. A lot of angst and nonsense that has been built up, fears of promises made that could never be fulfilled or long sleepless nights at the office. Overtime paid with food at the cost of passion. That’s just studio side lite, I’m not even going to mention the bull some “fans” pull. All in all there is just so much needless shit.

(I wonder what the exact number of Wars & "wars" have been started because of a misunderstanding.)

So for Luke, who in the past has... let’s just say fucked up in the communication area, to take this risk and just… talk. Like… get this folks… a human. No PR shit nor empty verse. Just “here is what we are doing and why”. Subject Number One – The Annual Pass was hard on our team and we want to fix that. DID YOU SEE THAT FOLKS! THE FIRST THING MENTIONED… was the team.

Bra-VO.

On my feet. Slapping muh hands together.

Bra.VO.

Let’s make this a trend and lead by example yes? This world could use a few selfless adults in the room. Or if that is too much grandeur, at least the action of one. It’s about the whole. It’s about Destiny. And… I imagine this to be a bit cathartic. Or maybe that's a hope. There is nothing this industry would love to do more but talk a love of games with their fans. …

It’s a start.

On the flip side, I shouldn’t be happy. I shouldn’t be surprised. Why do I feel the need to jump to my feet and clap my hands in a room where only I hear them, yet am compelled all the same. Oh bother.

This Directors Cut also provided a preliminary reaction from the fan base. A glimpse for Bungie to see behind the fan base multi-million man curtain is always nice, not that much will change towards the initial launch in response from any of the reactions before Shadowkeep. If they aren't done polishing already (and twice so on the date of this being published), they are in bug finding mode. Which means no more tweaks unless its to fix a bug, which of course is what all this is about. First we got SLOW Destiny 2. Than we got GO FAST Destiny 2. This is about the hopes of “Just Right” Destiny 2.

5 Years in, has Bungie FINALLY learned enough to get it right – and KEEP it?

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Keymaster

This next year of Destiny, of “Year 3”, of Variant 2, is of course a real make or brake for Bungie. They know how we talk out here in the wilds, and now they are on their own. They need to bring about kit to hold back the hoards. Fortunately all signs point to a potential of permutational content to at least satiate our ravenous appetites for, possibly, a quarter of the year. “Armor 2.0”, Seasonal Artifact Perks, Seasonal Activitys, and a bakeing into the game an ability to publicly test things for both PvP & PvE. These are the sorts of things that were described at least from the very texts that sparked this one that once again bring hope.

It is once again a hopeful time of reinventing what this game it meant to be. To that end, nothing implies the hopes and dreams of the Bungie Team more then this quote below. The key to all the rest;

We [at Bungie] want Destiny 2 to be an amazing action MMO, in a single, evolving world, that you can play anytime, anywhere with your friends.

I'm going to keep referencing that. All the time. Until its true. And then, I'm going to keep referencing it until it's good enough.*

*It's a set of aspirational goals that can help guide the team to create better experiences for players who love Destiny. And it's a simple way to describe how we're thinking about the game to all of you. And even when it's true, there will always be work left to do. And we're committed to it.

If Luke feels there is a need to call back this verse again and again until it is right, and then do it again for at least all of year three, than so should we. This is the stated, declared, written goal for Destiny forward, until changed or redirected. I’m not sure if we’ve ever had it so black and white before.

A rhetorical question for consideration; Is Destiny still a game we want to play? Do we even know what that is?...well… unless you are Cody. “Machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded” indeed. :P

For myself, well… here I never thought I would play an MMO. Thought the same thing about Halo, it’s a long story, and I guess it all depends on DBO. Can’t MMO with out people right? Of all the crap I’ve written about Destiny, there are some pearls from my very first – and frankly best – Megapost that I find my self referencing parts of every now and again. I’ll finish with that as I go to the next topic. It’s from… sheesh… “Chapter 6”, “Chapter 9”, and “Chapter 10” of my MEGAPOST. I think, despite them being now out of original context, bringing these verses together summarizes my thoughts on this well enough.

Being a fan of something is a tumultuous thing. Being a fan generally changes an outlook. Changes how a person would react. It changes what would be worth said fans time and effort. Being a fan changes who a person is, in a number of ways, because being fan is a relationship with... whatever. As imaginary as it may be, it is a relationship with whatever can garner the term of fandom. For the sake of this post, of course, this is of Bungie.

You see Destiny can have its bouts of fun, but not because of Destiny. Of what do I mean? Well a miserable experience can be tempered and ultimately changed into a better experience with friends, but a great experience can be made even greater with friends. The opposite can also be true, but in such a case it is less about the design of the game and more the people who you play with.

We are playing Destiny because our friends are playing Destiny and we enjoy playing Destiny with our friends. That was what Halo multiplayer from the VERY beginning was all about. That is where the fun lies. We made our fun, and we did it with our friends. That is why, I think, for the last year people playing Destiny have been going "This game sucks but I can't stop playing."

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Questions of Power

In all three of these Director's Cut writings, power is mentioned in some form or the other. This, I probably don’t need to say, is for good reason. Power in all the game forms are a key part of the whole gameplay. Of the fun. Be it the power of weapon play, or the Light/Power system that’s been so essential since Taken King, or even the ever shifting sands of super abilities and their exotics; there is a great responsibility in trying to find a balance where it all feels fun and fair. Which of course is the main issue. It’s all a weighting problem. Again, we are two out of the three in this bear triplet story, so hopefully this third iteration can be the charm. Can be just right.

I do have my reservations. I’ll start with “Power” Level first.

(Director's Cut - Part II)

...figuring out if Power should be prestigious or not...

I've never been a fan of this "Light/Power" system. I shall withhold the history lesson, and just say it came about because Destiny 1 was in some inverse Halo 2 scenario. The plane took off, but they were still learning to fly it and figuring out how to get luggage into it while still in the air. 5 Years Later through the declared life of 10 years public, it's not young a game anymore. Destiny has way more content, and more responsibilities. Yet, Destiny STILL, as it was in Year 1 Destiny 1, needs to get out of its own darned way. I do get the impression that, after all the total weeks information, its safe to say they are in some way aware that Destiny has mechanisms that are a cumbersome ouroboros, with all this talk of “free-to-play” and how all the previous expansions bogged down and scared the new blood. Clearly they have given it a look, but oh do they realize (or is it just me?) how deep the rabbit hole goes. I have in my default to wonder if they are going to evolve light, which sounds like it is something that has been proposed, if they are going to change how light/power works by working smart or working hard. In other words… how painful will the trial and error be for the end user?

For example, Luke says they have a Powerful sources problem (Director's Cut - Part I). I disagree. They have a method problem. Power as it is now in Destiny is something you chink out, like working in a mine. You go where the best strain of light is, and it seems the same shall be true more or less in Shadowkeep as well. You pick away at the strike or the gambit, or adventure of the week and you get a RNG 1 to 5 bump of light. You play it out intill you get a drop of worth. Pick. Pick. Pick.

You don’t get to play the game as you want if you care about your power level, and you will have to care or if you want to play the events that require you to care about your light level … power level… whatever… apologies if I’m causing confusion here. Anyway, this lack of autonomy to build your light sucks, as the game is playing you, not the other way around. One point of contention for example is the launch rush of getting ready for the new raid. It may be a temporary thing, but that doesn’t make it SUCK any less. With this gripe, there is also the caveat. There are some interesting modifications being reintroduced or tested in Shadowkeep. Not only is light uncapped in Shadowkeep, but they are dipping into past experiences, and bringing back a Destiny 1 Method where Power at a certain point is prestigious. I wonder what Luke and Team have in mind?

(Director's Cut - Part II)

In addition to curating the list of powerful sources, Shadowkeep will also introduce pinnacle powerful sources. These sources are the only way to earn gear drops above power 950 in Season 8.

Here's the thinking: Pinnacle reward sites can award players Power above 950. This is a way of reclaiming a little bit of the character Power prestige that the initial D1 Power climb created. If you inspect a player and see their gear is 960, you know they’ve done a bunch of pinnacle activities. It’s worth mentioning that as you raise your Power via pinnacle activities, other powerful reward sites will continue to drop powerful sidegrades.

I’m OK with this. If you do care about your light level, there is… I could probably word this better but for the sake of time… there is meaning to it. That was part of the sell, people see your kit and go “OH where did you get that” sort of thing. That game rule MEANING changes the perspectace. I must admit, my memories of Destiny 1 by now are growing continually rustier, but I don’t recall having an issue with this particular bit of Destiny 1 game play. I guess we’ll find out either way.

Has anyone here ever come across a small indie game called Skyrim? I think it was something you could play off a microwave or something? It wasn't successful and no one played it, even though it was a fairly pretty game. They had a system in this game where the more you played *whatever* the better you got at it. This system, this general idea I think would kick ass in Destiny. You don’t need to ratio 1 to 1 this idea, you can play with it and still find some very interesting ideas and concepts that to me sound VERY fun. And perhaps they will eventually get to the point where we get something like that, with their hopes for Experience Points

Eventually. Some day.

(Director's Cut - Part II)

We’ve also had a long-standing challenge in Destiny of making XP matter

Yes Luke, there are in fact other games then WOW. Please don’t turn Destiny into a WOW clone.

I majorly digress, where was I? Right! The Skyrim thing. I was going to say… imagine using a weapon you enjoy using and the more you use it the more “powerful” your character gets because skill or whatever. That would be nice, having fun and the game rewarding the fun by opening up new opportunities for even MORE fun. Yeah? Right? No I’m not talking about the original gun concept in Destiny 1, why do you ask? That system was per weapon. This system is light, but hey it could be something else too. Just play the game, and the game rewards you with more game. That's the jest right!? Than again… that does KIND OF sound like the seasonal artifact. Hmmm.

I guess we’ll find out either way.

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Answers of Competency

Fun what ifs aside, there are other aspects of Power that are discussed. There is a whole deal with Supers in Year 2 to Year 3 that I simply must speak of. So I’ll start this as blunt as I can and state I LOVE me some Supers. LOVE LOVE LOVE Supers. I mean look, I'm spamming this post with a few of 'em. Some I tend to love more than others; Arcstrider Tree > Arc > Void > Solar > Dawnblade Tree. Just to make sure, when you see ">" in this case it means "is greater then". You can remember that because the arrow (or whatever it is) is hungry, and wants the larger thing. I was taught that in grade school, and I STILL REMEMBER IT! Anywho... I as a hard core Warlock main love me some Arcstrider. In fact a fair number of them I have a gosh darn blast with every single time. Get this though, it’s hard for me to say right now that supers are overpowered* as in damage output. Yes you read that right, and the reason for that is a logical one. They are supers! They are supposed to be unfathomably powerful! They are the pure expression of the Travelers Light! You know that GIANT BALL floating above the Last City? Power of life and death and quantum who knows what. THAT THING. THAT… casual conversation starter. Supers should be super, and some fans it seemed basically want Guardians to become Jubilee, and I mean… not cool man. Not cool. To see all this talk about taking the teeth out of supers, that I’ll have less time to play and cast that feeling of power just makes me a little bit sad. Some of my most memorable moments have been done with Supers, and so this is really touchy for me.

Bungie… be gentile. >_<

Oh… the whole fist doc?

(Director's Cut - Part I)

The other significant set of changes we made to the game during this time were taking down the Super Snowball exotics. With as powerful as Destiny Supers have become (they are - on the whole - dramatically more powerful than Destiny 1's Supers), using your Super to recover your Super is an amplification to player power that the challenge and difficulty game can't keep up with. But, we're going to talk about Supers much later on.

(Director's Cut - Part III)

We want the game to be an awesome power fantasy where challenge can push back on its players. As we discussed in Part I, the game started to bend in Year 2 under the weight of this Power and Destiny’s imperative that it ride the line between action game and RPG.

…

Part III: Supers Everywhere
Masterworked guns. Super mods. Orbs everywhere.

Right now, for a pretty decent player running Super mods, the time it takes to gain a Super is under two minutes in PvP. If you compare the duration and damage of roaming Supers in Destiny 2 to roaming Supers in Destiny 1, you’ll see they’re more powerful now than ever before. We didn’t even have roaming Arc Titans in Destiny 1, but every time I play PvP, I get killed by one twice in the same Super. Similar to the way that deep down, we all know the damage-dealing capabilities of Guardians has gotten out of control, we know the Supers have too. Destiny 2 was overly restrictive at launch, but now the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. We’ll start bringing this back toward center in Shadowkeep.

On a livestream a couple months ago, I mentioned that we’re lowering roaming Super damage resistance. And we are. Seeing someone pop a Super should not instinctively make us want to run away, give up, or float off the map. We want Super kills to feel earned, and we want players on the business end of a Super to feel like they can make a big play and put down that Striker Titan. Being able to challenge someone in their Super is important, and right now, many of the Supers are very, very hard to challenge.

On top of that, more things than ever now contribute to players getting their Supers back, so we’re doing some tuning there as well. Supers will be just as powerful, but they will be a more strategic choice. As such, we’re reducing the effectiveness of orbs on refilling the Super meter and reducing the Super energy gained from kills and assists.

This isn’t just a PvP problem. Remember that series on the Reckoning in Part I? It’s all related. Supers are still very, very powerful in the PvE game—players will just need to be slightly more specific with their timing and positioning than in the past. This kind of tuning is a pendulum: We’ve swung it hard in different directions, and we’re all hopeful that these changes will begin to find a better middle ground for Destiny 2.

I know you’ll let us know your thoughts (once you’ve played it this Fall).

*So where does the issue lie? To me the issue lies in the speed of return (which Luke mentions above), and a systematic lack (not saying there is none) of gameplay planning, especially in PVP. If we’re going off of what is mentioned involving the Reckoning…

With Reckoning in Season of the Drifter, we got a taste of what kind of content we'd need to build to challenge Protocol-wearing Warlocks. Matchmade encounters that accost you from all directions, plant snipers off in the distance, and put players in between a pincher attack of many whelps, handle it (I wanted to link a thing here, but it's definitely not T for Teen) and giant bosses (also eff you Knight Taken guy).

This is what it had to be. We were breaking encounter rules left, right, and center on the Reckoning bridge, in no small part due to players in always-active Wells of Radiance becoming invulnerable gods, holding all six infinity stones all the time.

In Reckoning, we set out to build an activity that could be relatively easy at Tier 1 and scale up to very challenging at Tier 3.

…
To summarize this: Destiny had sweet gear and in order to create challenge in the Reckoning we broke a bunch of our encounter design philosophy. That sweet gear, coupled with the encounter design meant the number of ways to viably/efficiently progress was dramatically reduced. We want Destiny to be a game where you have lots of choices with your character, build what you choose to do, and funneling those choices down to only one in Reckoning is something we don't want to repeat. There's more about damage and player power sprinkled in this update, and even more on the rest.

...where it seems to me that Supers and their exotics came first and they built around that? Is my interpretation of this right!?! I find myself boggled. I was boggled earlier in the week (when this was written) and I still kind of am. So then the biggest issue is... I hate to say it as it’s so played out by now, but if everyone is super, no one is right? I mean… I kind of had to say it. I totally totally had to say it. And I can definitely understand the fatigue. All this fast super creation is drowning out the power. It’s a shame that it came to this. I awate this updates portion with a held breath, and shall try to enjoy my supers as they are as much as I can.

[Last Second Edit - 6th of September, 2019]

There was a verse in the most recent BupDate that kind of flabbergasted me. I decided to add it here, as it is concise and relevant. It is from the section called “Reduced Super Damage Resistance". The quote is…

While we believe supers should be powerful they should not be mindless.

SO… here we go. Despite my implied tone I’m not flat out against this. I’m not arguing, nor saying this is fundamentally wrong… blah blah blah. My question is… Oh… I don’t even know how to word what I’m feeling. It’s this odd mix of perplexed dread.

I think, despite my best intentions… I have failed to describe my full thoughts. Something about all of this makes me go YES NO YES NO YES NO. Uhg… Feel free to skip this next paragraph of text.

What ever happened to element matching? Why does everything have to be a flat value? When you start your super out of the gate… I think a touch of mindlessness is good when it is first triggered. It’s RAW PRIMAL (in a quantum sense) POWER. BOOM! Titan SLAMS the Ground. Hunter BLURS into a Stride. Warlock EXPLODES with Void Light. RAWWWW! Oh-SHI-! YOU SHOULD BE SCARED! THAT… GUARDIAN is a MONSTER as powerful as anything yet thrown at us from the DARK. And how do Guardians kill MONSTERS as powerful as anything yet thrown at us from the DARK? TEAM PLAY! DESIGN THAT SHIT! If your team isn’t being a team... they SHOULD get Rekt. Again… What ever happened to element matching? Here's a Crazy idea… uhhh Void beats Fire, Fire Beats Arc, Arc Beats Void. Why? No idea, this is just an example. I tell ya… if I get 1V1’d from someone not in their super, without heavy, I expect I’m not going to be too thrilled. More than that? Sure. That becomes Risk VS Reward. I risk getting down’d in super VS Sweet-Sweet-Multikill action. And keep in mind that explosion of light fades. The light bar shrinks. I think the longer your super is out there the less super resistance you should have. (The problem has been mostly about roaming supers, thus the only mention here is of roaming supers)

On the flip side… yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen the Infinite Shoulder Charge Titans. It’s obnoxious. It sucks. Supers should not just be a win button. That’s boring (unless it’s Arcstrider). And with that little rant out of my system… I guess I’ll end this with a question. Why does everything have to be so obtuse? What ever happened to subtly? WHERE ARE THE DESIGNERS! THE PLANNERS! THE...

I just thought of it. I just thought of the best way to describe all this. The thing that brought it out was something I asked from the thread also linked above.

Why did they think Whisper of the Worm wasn't going to end up just like Black Hammer?

It seems to me that Supers are getting a "Whisper of the Worm" Treatment that they never should of had. Apparently no one asked the question, "How do PvP players defend from this?" or something to that effect. And now... its all getting changed, when if someone had asked the right question at the right time, we would have cake and eat it too. That is probably the best I'm going to get on how perplexed I am about all of this. It all may be for the better come Shadowkeep, but I'm still just so disappointed.

MAN... I’m going to miss having more time to play with Arcstrider (and the rest). :(

[/Last Second Edit - 6th of September, 2019]

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The Pursuits tray is a Caterpillar in a Cocoon – Questlog is the Beautiful Butterfly

W-What!?!

I still have no idea what that means and I’m generally pretty good with metaphors. Likewise the UI team boggles me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious they know their stuff and when it comes for game design needs, it’s very much well done. Yet for data management through the graphic arts… mmmm hmmm. I do not envy their task.

I can’t think of a game type (whole cloth) more classically UI heavy and classically convoluted than an MMO style game. And no doubt, they are trying to fix what should have been fixed 10 years ago in other MMO games. Again, I do not envy their task. It sucks that they were hurt, and it sucks some of the fans are butt heads. Yet I repeat myself, we’re half why through the 10-cycle, and the UI still isn’t what it needs to be, both with stuff that was once in Destiny 1 brought into Destiny 2, and the new stuff they added since then such as the pursuits tab. What is their goal? If it was me… and I’ll keep saying this again and again and again… has I have intermittently... until it happens or they bring a better solution; Help me get in, get out, and play.

To that end, I present a critique of the Directors Cut exhibit A.

Look – this is an improvement. UI TEAM! WELL DONE! … but. There is a problem this *static* image. Bounties are collapsed and you have to hover the mouse over them to read what they are. You can’t view at a glance. Let me say that again; AT A GLANCE! Now if… say… you can collapse the quests and inversely open up the bounties, then hey there is no problem on this screen. If when the bounties are completed you get a yellow number at the top (or they are pushed and pinned to that top) there is no problem here. If this screen helps me get in, figure out what I’m going for, and get out... there is no problem here. Oh but I “know” there is going to be a problem here, and boy do I feel like a real ass writing that down. I don’t know their goal, so for me I’m expecting a problem. I’m not sure how else to word it, and what I’ve put down is admittedly inflammatory. Just... Time is play friends. Time is play. Are they going to design or not? I can only guess with what we’ve thus far had rolled out to public.

(Director's Cut - Part III)

Destiny 2 was built with very different goals in mind than was the much-improved version of the game we’re playing today. Some parts simply weren’t meant to last for several years. One of those parts is the displayed-damage values relative to the player’s Power level.

This problem most clearly manifests to players as the frequency of “999,999” showing up in your HUD. As the post-Forsaken year continued, the curve that dictates the value of displayed damage sharpens into a hockey stick. The display values for Shadowkeep rocket off the graph and become almost vertical!

This inflation for damage is getting retooled this Fall. It will look like a UI numbers squish, but more crucially, behind the scenes we’re setting up the damage-display system to last. It’s important that you understand we are not nerfing your outgoing damage; rather, we’re refactoring the displayed number game wide.

We’ve also had something that, over the years, the team has come to call “The Immunity Wall.” This is a value where players cannot damage AI. In the game today, if you’re 50 Power below an enemy and you shoot it, you deal a big ol’ donut. Another change we’ve made for fall is that we’ve lowered (raised?) the immunity wall to 100. This means you can now deal damage to enemies you are up to 100 Power below. The at-Power (you and an enemy are the same Power) experience isn’t changing. This isn’t a nerf. This is a way for folks to take on greater challenges by fighting further below the Power curve.

This problem most clearly manifests to players as the frequency of “999,999” showing up in your HUD. As the post-Forsaken year continued, the curve that dictates the value of displayed damage sharpens into a hockey stick. The display values for Shadowkeep rocket off the graph and become almost vertical!

This inflation for damage is getting retooled this Fall. It will look like a UI numbers squish, but more crucially, behind the scenes we’re setting up the damage-display system to last. It’s important that you understand we are not nerfing your outgoing damage; rather, we’re refactoring the displayed number game wide.

If I read this right, this retooling will be happening AFTER Shadowkeep launches, as he outlines “Fall” not “Shadowkeep”. Then again… is October not fall? I find myself at crossroads. For the sake of the moment, I’m going to presume that this change is coming with Shadowkeeps launch, and IN that case… THIS IS HUGE! I don’t think we as a fan base realize how big of a deal this is. I expect, in the initial hands on play, we’re going to feel some physiological I’m-not-sure-what that changes how weapons feel, ON TOP of all the changes that are apparently occurring, EVEN THOUGH DAMAGE ISN’T (apparently) BEING NERFED! Honestly, it would have been best if Bungie patched this in BEFORE Shadowkeep... but… well. We get what we get.

(Director's Cut - Part III)

We’ve taken all the weapon damage buffs (these enhance the player’s outgoing damage) that can appear on the character and stack-ranked their damage effects (these are effects like Empowering Rift, Well of Radiance, Lumina’s buff, and top-tree Void Titan’s Weapons of Light). We’ve also overhauled the system under the hood, so the damage calculations use only the most powerful buff on a player at a given time. It’s got nuance to it, though: If you’re under the damage effect of something stronger than Well of Radiance, you will still receive the healing effect from the Well, but the damage bonus would come from the other buff (e.g., Lumina or Weapons of Light).

Final verbal nitpick with this topic here … I hope there is UI to show this. I don’t want to guess or remember what is in play. Just tell me what is in play please. Thank you. If something isn't in play (but is ticking down all the same) TELL ME. Show them both on screen and gray one of them out. Make it smaller. SOMETHING.

There are alot of moving parts, and anything that helps with consuming the whole thing is a plus. Bungie Plz.

(Director's Cut - Part I)

The [Eververse] storefront is going to get another round of enhancements this fall, too. We're going to move it to the Director, so you don't have go to the Tower and see Tess to interact with it. We're giving it some Class specific content, so if you're on your Titan looking for Titan Universal Ornaments with smaller shoulders, you'll see Titan armor on one of the store's subpages. We're also going to make it so that the pieces you've already acquired from a given set reduce the Silver price of the set. For instance, if you are 3/5 Optimacy set on your Titan, the cost to finish the set in Silver will be reduced by 60%.

Thoughts: *SIGH* So... basically this?

The bold enlargement, by the way, is my edit. We know Bungie. We know. Even if we don't, well that's not going to stop us. After all, it's only money. And while "Buy Now. More Saveings. Reduced Silver Price!" blah blah blah is nice for those who have no qualms about this sort of thing... uhhh. I mean... it's the play model, and it works. Doesn't mean I like it. It may have paid for an "outbreak" of content.... but... doesn't mean I like it.

In other news... Old man yells at cloud. Sigh.

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An Evolving World
(All quotes from Director's Cut - Part III)

This year will see events that last for three months and offer new rewards to chase, although at the end of that period, some of the activities will go away. For a time, the rewards will too. But we also acknowledge that part of playing Destiny is collecting all of the stuff, so in future seasons the weapons and Legendary armor associated with these seasonal activities will be added to other reward sites.

If ya’ll had FOMO before, it’s likely about to get a whole lot worse. Take note that Luke mentions that even if you miss the stuff to collect during a certain season it won’t be gone forever. For me, I’m rather mixed about this. I’ll start with story. As anyone here ever been to one of those “Who Dun it?” Murder Mystery Dinner Theaters? If you haven’t … oh… well…

Anyway, this the impression I get what I read about their ambitions, both quoted and not. Despite the cheese in my example above, I’m not claiming good nor ill. This is a very interesting idea, and I’m drawing from closest referable experience. I’ve seen some where Story will exist to motivate the next scene, and I’ve seen some where Story is the frame for character to play. I can only wonder for now what Bungie variant will be, the motivation of continual direction or character play? Or hey, it could be both or none at all. It’s all speculation at this point.

What about equipment? What about FOMO for that? In may case… well Destiny 1 taught a lot to me too. In this game the meta can change at the drop of a Patch. It sure looks like this upcoming patch will be one of those. In my vault, both back in D1 and now in D2 I have a multiple season history of master worked weapons. I don’t know how much more I can take. Unfortunately, Collections doesn’t honor Masterworked Legendarys, only Exotics. And so… My vault holds stead fast its History of D2 Static roll weapons, double stacks of Elemental weapons in types no longer attainable, and rolls I would need to get again through RNG. At this point, I can’t collect them all, and it effects my play in Destiny.

What do I think about what Luke envisions? Interesting, but troubling. There is so much that needs to be fixed first before we get there. Obviously this forthcoming patch is a step to fix a lot.

Technical limitations aside, we also don’t think making a game that grows forever is Destiny’s path forward. It’s why the second component of the vision is a single, evolving world (to clarify, that single evolving world doesn’t mean there’s only one destination on the Director—that’s not where we’re heading!).

You were there with your friends, got the gear and weapons to remember it by, made the memories, and changed alongside Destiny.

In late August, we’re going to talk more about the Annual Pass and how it’s continuing to evolve.

[6th of September, 2019]

Thanks to… life… time it took, and the time I had, to write this has resulted in seeing said late August/early September morsels with more to come. After consuming all of this, I once again quote myself.

There is so much change here that any thoughts I, or perhaps any of us, have are basically irrelevant. That's a lot of numbers to crunch. At the end of it all, How does it feel? How does it play? Is it fun.

This is long enough. I had some stuff about PVP and such, but... irrational fears and old nitpicks aside, I've pretty much said all that was troubling me that I felt needed to get out and see the world.

NO TL;DRs. No fancy conclusions. Just a fellow poking at the game he plays more of than he possibly should. Heh. A amazing action MMO. A single, evolving world. That sounds full of potential.

But Bungie, I ask with experience built in these last 5 years from such hits as Taken King & End Game Destiny 1. If Shadowkeep becomes a the hit I hope it may very well be...

Can you keep it?

Directors Cut 1 | Directors Cut 2 | Directors Cut 3 | Seasons in Destiny 2's Third Year | This Week At Bungie - 9/5/2019