I played some Crucible today.

My initial impressions are that it's great! I played some Freelance Competitive--solo queues only in 3v3 Survival. I ended up with some really dunce teammates (why in that actual hell would you just stand out in the open when every single person on the enemy team is carrying either a Revoker or a Beloved? Seriously, these people were braindead). Still got a few wins though. I love 3v3 Survival. It feels really great--I can't wait to go in with a fireteam.

I also played some Clash and some Control. It's mostly the same, but the super game is much better. I took out a Striker Titan--by myself! He was just charging from across the map and I shot him to death. That wouldn't have been possible last week. Supers are easier to kill and don't happen as often, and it's great.

I'm not sure about Heavy spawn yet. I haven't really noticed it, to be honest. I haven't been killed by heavies a whole lot, although I've certainly picked it up much more than I would have previously. I used to leave the Heavy for someone else--I always ended up wasting it. Now I can actually grab some, which is cool. I was worried it'd be awful with the whole other team getting it, but I haven't seen many teams coordinate well so everyone can grab it. I have seen that Heavy spawn is more heavily contested now, though.

Overall, I really like the changes. I'm eager to play a whole lot more. I want to try Elimination in Crucible Labs, too!

I'm barely into it but so far, I like it. It's a shock going up against enemies that don't immediately melt. I'm having to strategize, seek cover and plan my attacks which is fun. The battle against Omnigul was really fun and took me about 10 minutes because I was taking it super safe.

I enjoy how the quests are to collected specific pieces of armor, it's a good way to earn some powerful stuff instead of earning engrams.

The new triumph system is good the way they segment the progress.

It seems like everything loads faster, is it just me? The login screen, the pursuits panel, character window, it all just seems faster.

Can someone explain to me these unstable essence orbs you can pick up from hive, and why enemies have white orbs appear over their head during battle?

Also, does glimmer no longer deposit into your account from killing baddies? I've noticed glimmer laying on the ground that I have to pick up. Is this a new perk or something? Wassup.

Where I’m at:

I’ve completed the Shadowkeep campaign on 2 characters, and I’m half-way through it with my 3rd Character. All 3 characters are now in the 910-920 light range.

Campaign:

I really enjoyed the Shadowkeep campaign. This feels to me like the best job they’ve done at weaving a story between traditional campaign missions, a new location, patrol activities, strikes, and loot acquisition. The story missions themselves are some of the best that Bungie has made since the Halo days, IMO. I do also like the fact that the campaign isn’t particularly long.

That said, I’m finding the post-campaign situation a bit barren. I won’t get into spoilers here, but I was hoping for a Taken King or RoI situation where you complete the main story and then all these new subquests open up and spiderweb you around the new location. But unless I’m missing something, it just kinda ends once the campaign is over. You can continue to grind out more of the moon weapons, and there are collectables to hunt, but aside from that it’s looking like 2 of my characters are already pretty much done. I know we’ve got more stuff coming shortly with the Vex and the new raid, so it’s too early to say anything about whether or not there’s “enough to do”, but upon finishing the story, at that specific moment, I did find it a bit anticlimactic to realize there wasn’t a bunch more to see and do, at least for now.

The moon itself is great. Love it.

Finishers feel like something that should have been in the game since day 1. They just fit right in.

Hand cannons on console are great now (most of them... trying to fire Nation if Beasts feels like riding a bucking bronco right now).

Crucible:

Not much to say here yet, except that I played 13 games of the solo-que comp playlist and lost 11 of them... I don’t know what’s going on with matchmaking but in almost every single game I was matched with teammates who had no business getting matched against our opponents, or I was the one who was drastically outclassed by the other team. Hopefully it’s just a bit of bad luck. I love the 3v3 game mode, aside from the heavy ammo spawning every damn round. It blows my mind that anyone at Bungie would think “you know what comp needs? MORE HEAVY AMMO”. But whatever, lol. Also, that damn Pinnacle Scout Rifle is going to ruin my stats this season. Trying to get kills with scout rifles (to earn the gun) is like playing with 1 arm tied behind my back. And no, I wasn’t using a scout rifle during my comp matches, in case you’re wondering ;)

Outside of the mods to generate ammo (and the only one I have appears to just give you more primary ammo) I'm wondering why I'd waste the time it takes (let alone the bit of super) to do one?

The new moon lost sectors are great. They seem bigger and more complicated than most lost sectors to date, and (at least the first run through, when I was seriously underleveled) quite challenging. (I guess that's no longer true; my first run through Logistics took quite a while, because I was 30 or 40 levels below enemies, and playing cat-and-mouse was FUN. I ran through it last night so I could pick up the NASA emblem, and I was mostly annoyed that I had to hunt down every enemy to get doors to open. Still... the original sentiment - that they're bigger and more complicated, and that's good - still stands.)

Just before signing off last night, I decided to try and complete the Deathbringer quest (I wasn't sure if it was solo-able, but I figured I'd give it a shot, at least I'd have an idea of what needed doing if I needed to go back in with a fireteam). It was SUPER-satisfying to nail that one; it's almost the perfect combination of "damn, this is too hard" and "wait, lemme give that one more try, I think if I did X I might be able to get past Y". (Also, the gun is... crazy.)

Overall - I'm loving the nostalgia, especially since there are just enough changes that the memories are actually triggered more strongly. (Temple of Crota used to require a little bit of fancy flying to take a sparrow in; there was a rock ledge you had to fly up. At the start, we all walked. By the time we were done with D1, everyone was just hitting the edge perfectly and flying over. I come back... and someone has taken a bulldozer to the ledge. The LACK of a ledge actually brings back stronger memories than if it had still been there.)