spectere.net
The Chatterbox => Gaming => Topic started by: Spectere on October 30, 2017, 12:30:59 PM
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So the PC version came out last week and I might have played it a tiny bit too much over this weekend (managed to get my main from 7/64 to 20/204, and then level another character from scratch to 20/204) but I've been having a ton of fun with it. Probably the best FPS I've played in years.
Not that it's flawless, of course. Bungie's shooters are traditionally floaty and slidey and this is no exception. Sliding off of ledges is shockingly easy and climbing anything is a chore. Fortunately, there's nowhere near the borderline egregious level of platforming from The Taken King. It also helps that, since this is a PC version, I have full range of motion at the start of jumps rather than having to slide my thumb over to hit X. It's also possible that they might have tightened it up again, but I still find the mechanic itself to be a bit wonky, especially the fact that you tend to literally bounce off of solid walls.
Yeah, it's weird.
There's also supposed to be a ledge grab mechanic, but I find it fickle at best. You do get a feel for the in-air movement in the game after a while, but it never feels as intuitive as, say, Quake 3 (which I consider to be the golden standard in FPS movement).
The new weapons layout caused me to raise an eyebrow at first, but I generally like it. Rather than having two slots with distinct weapon types, Bungie dedicated one slot to kinetic weapons (strong against unshielded enemies) and one to energy weapons (strong against shields) and made it so that all normal weapon types are available in each slot. So, yeah, now you can walk around with two hand cannons. Sweet.
Power weapons have also changed significantly. In the first Destiny there were only machineguns and rocket launchers. In Destiny 2, the range of power weapons has been expanded pretty dramatically. Several of the more situational weapons in Destiny have been reassigned to power weapons, such as sniper rifles, fusion rifles, and shotguns. In addition to that, other types have been added, such as grenade launchers. This makes those weapons feel far more balanced and worthwhile. Before, sniper rifles had to be balanced alongside scout rifles (and, honestly, having both felt somewhat redundant in many ways!). Now they have the freedom to make sniper rifles powerful weapons with limited ammo. Definitely a positive change.
Much of the original's extreme levels grindiness has been polished away. Subclasses can now be leveled fairly quickly, and the choices within each subclass have been stripped down to the essentials. I've played my hunter in the original game for a decent amount of time (I'd say at least 100 hours) and never fully unlocked a single subclass. I've played the second game for maybe 24 hours so far and can fully complete three subclasses, between the hunter and warlock, and that's without grinding out upgrade points (which involves doing actual scripted adventures, not playing through the same levels over and over again).
The story is presented far better, with the primary storyline being available in-game through cutscenes and voice acting rather than being trickled down to the player in grimoire cards. There are also some objects that you can find and scan in the world, as well as in items and such, that give you additional lore. It's nice to be able to actually get that information within the game rather than in their mobile app or on Reddit.
The microtransactions are a bit more heavy handed than I would have liked. They conveniently push you toward the Eververse vendor multiple times in order to give you level up rewards and such, and the fact that shaders are single-use is just...yuck. It's such a shame, as the shader system itself in Destiny 2 is much richer than the first (the first game only let you apply a shader to your entire armor set, this one lets you apply it to individual pieces of gear, including armor, your Ghost, your ship, and your sparrow).
Oh, speaking of sparrows. I miss having one in mid-game. ;_; You don't get it until you've beaten the campaign. Ugh.
So, anyone else here following their destiny? ;D
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Dammit Ian. I didn't expect you to even entertain this game for some reason.
I almost never buy games at full price unless I REALLY REALLY support the devs. I'm also kind of in boycott mode of microtransactions and publisher fuckery. I've been following Destiny 2 closely and while it still seems to be a good game regardless of the fuckery, like that retarded ass shader bullshit, I'm hesitant to support these practices.
I'm torn though because I've been a Bungie fanatic since Halo 1 and a hardcore FPS player so it's been kind of eating away at me NOT playing the game.
I just don't know....
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I don't find cosmetic items to be particularly egregious. I'm more against the ability to buy power (especially in multiplayer titles) than anything else. I also find microtransactions (again, cosmetic ones, not pay-to-win bullshit) to be a bit more acceptable when it comes to online titles, as the developer is also providing a long running service both in terms of adding content and maintaining the equipment. Neither of those two things are cheap.
Now if they were selling cheat codes in a local single-player only title then yeah, fuck that noise.
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I don't find cosmetic items to be particularly egregious. I'm more against the ability to buy power (especially in multiplayer titles) than anything else. I also find microtransactions (again, cosmetic ones, not pay-to-win bullshit) to be a bit more acceptable when it comes to online titles, as the developer is also providing a long running service both in terms of adding content and maintaining the equipment. Neither of those two things are cheap.
Now if they were selling cheat codes in a local single-player only title then yeah, fuck that noise.
Well....tell me. Is it worth the full price? I may just join you after all....
Do you think Black Friday sales will have something for me if I wait? It's pretty new so I dunno. Blizzard client rarely has sales.
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For me, definitely. I loved the first game (played the shit out of it on PS4) and this one is even better. I've already gotten over 20 hours out of it without even trying.
The PC port is damn good. Spec-wise, I'm probably a bit of an outlier (I swapped my dual 980s for a 1080 Ti recently because, crazily enough, it's 50% more powerful than my old SLI setup!) and am running with everything maxed out at 4K and am hovering around 60fps very consistently. No frame drops when the action gets heavy. Loads very quickly off of an NVMe SSD (like, the ship will animate into position and then instantly descend) though, naturally, if you're in a fireteam you'll be waiting for the slowest PC of the group.
Oh, and it has adjustable FOV. Thank fuck.
As far as savings go, it is available from other stores. Green Man Gaming is currently selling it for 10% off (if you're a Humble Monthly subscriber, you'll get 10% off by purchasing it there as well). You're going to be forced to use Battle.net (I'll keep calling it that until they give it a name more interesting than "Blizzard App") to play it, but it's not exclusively sold through that. Links:
Regular: https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/destiny-2-pc (https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/destiny-2-pc)
Digital Deluxe: https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/destiny-2-pc-digital-deluxe-edition (https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/destiny-2-pc-digital-deluxe-edition)
Given how new the game is, I doubt it'll be on sale during Black Friday, but you never know.
Also, add me on Battle.net: spectere at gmail dot com (or Spectere#1344 if you prefer battletags). If you grab it we'll definitely have to play sometime! ;D
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Alright man, listen....you've talked me into it. My wife has also agreed to play it. She's going to get us both copies for my birthday tomorrow.
Last questions is about these ridiculous digital deluxe etc etc BS editions. How badly am I going to hurt getting only the standard edition?
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We will be getting it for PC btw. Maybe you can show us the ropes.
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Last questions is about these ridiculous digital deluxe etc etc BS editions. How badly am I going to hurt getting only the standard edition?
It's tough. I ended up getting the Deluxe edition because it was the same price as the standard edition with the expansion pass when I bought it. Since I know I'll be playing the game long-term I knew I'd make use of the season pass. That's really about it. The only thing you miss out on is a legendary sword when you hit the level cap, finish the campaign, or something like that, and a few little decals. I wouldn't worry about it.
One thing that is worth noting is that buying the standard edition with the expansion pass bundled is $80 from Blizzard, while buying the standard edition with the expansion pass separately is $90, the same price as the deluxe edition. So...yeah, tough call, honestly. In the first Destiny, expansions offered, in my experience, between 6-8 hours of single-player content, in addition to several endgame areas (strikes, raids, etc). If you can see yourself playing the game for any length of time, snagging the expansion pass is worthwhile.
Honestly, I wish that publishers would just stop beating around the bush and price new titles at $90 so we wouldn't have to shuffle through a bunch of different SKUs.
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Alright well we settled for standard. If we like it enough I'm sure a sale will come eventually.
Added you on Bnet. Downloading now. I'm actually more excited than I thought I would be to play it for the first time.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4455/26324171239_4cbdbd49c3_o.png)
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Shaders are single use? That's fucking pure grade A high class bullshit right there.
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I only put shaders on my ship and ghost anyway. I almost never see myself so I don't really care what my armor looks like. :P
But yeah, that design decision was a bit of a headscratcher. Not as much as Battlefront 2's initial design where you literally pay real money for in-game power on top of the purchase price (and originally there was no other alternative!) but...yeah.
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So I just figured out there is no Public/General chat or ability to whisper other players.
This is an "MMO" right?
I just can not for the life of me wrap my brain around this decision. After a quick Google I discovered (https://www.pcgamesn.com/destiny-2/destiny-2-pc-text-chat-public-channel) the devs are basically forcing all their population into a safe space devoid of negativity.
I'm sorry but I'm a grown ass man and the ignore/block feature has always been there if gamers need it.
What in the actual fuck?
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I definitely wouldn't call it an MMO. It's heavily instanced, and simply travelling to a different part of the map will fling you into a different shard so that things stay as balanced as possible. I see it more as an FPS with MMO elements.
I think a lot of that honestly stems from its keyboardless console roots despite what the developer is saying (really, that sounds like more of an excuse than anything else, especially considering what the official forums look like). I mean, you can join random fireteams to do strikes with full voice chat which one could argue is far easier to abuse than text (as anyone who's played games on Xbox Live can attest to). I'll bet text chat wasn't even on their radar when they were designing it and that the only reason whispering works (even being opt-in like it is) is because Battle.net supports that sort of thing more or less for free.
Hell, knowing Bungie the only reason it's on PC in the first place is because of Activision's influence. They haven't really been a Mac/PC developer in years. The only PC games that have had the Bungie logo on them since their previous acquisition by Microsoft have been Halo: CE, which was ported by Gearbox, and Halo 2, which was ported by an independent team within Microsoft Game Studios.
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I never thought of it that way. I gotta say though if that's the case where Bungie likely wouldn't even have ported it without Activision's influence, the game is INCREDIBLY well optimized. I'm running a 970 at max settings and I never drop below 60fps, nor have I experienced any studdering. They definitely did a great job porting it.
Hopefully they will change that in the future though I think it's important to be able to communicate with the community with an online game like this. It may not be an MMO necessarily but it kind of feels like one. I always enjoy making friends or even getting answers to questions through the public chat in MMO's.
Off topic from the chat, I have to say this story is straight doo doo. It's like it was written by teenagers I have positively ZERO shits to give for any of these characters, nor have I laughed at a single attempt at what they likely consider to be jokes. The Ghost companion's dialogue is face palm worthy. I think I'm pretty close to finishing the story I just got back to the farm with Nathan Fillian and Co.
It's Bungie though and having been a huge Halo 1-3 fanatic it just kind of feels like typical Bungie style I guess. Nonetheless I'm having fun and enjoying the game with my wife.
You gonna be down for some Strikes once we hit 20?
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I'm not sure if chat is ever going to work in quite the same way as an MMO. I don't think zone chat can ever feasibly going to happen. There are far fewer areas to explore than in something like WoW, so player counts per-zone will be significantly higher than in another MMO, and being an FPS it would be pretty difficult to focus on the chat messages scrolling by.
That being said, local chat (chat within a single shard) would most likely be viable, and from what I observed it would probably limit chat to be around 20-30 players (not sure what the exact cap is, but that covers the most I've seen doing a single public event, doubled to factor in stragglers). The shard transitions were fare more noticeable with Destiny 1, so it's very possible that things could have gotten less restricted as well (or they could just be doing a better job hiding it).
Obviously fireteam chat should have been implemented. As far as I can gather, that's not in there in any form. That being said, a mic is pretty much mandatory when you're actually shooting things, so...eh. Kind of on the fence as to how big of a deal that actually is.
The story is a bit of a weird thing. The problem that I see is that Bungie really flubbed when it came to rehashing the story. They simultaneously assume that you're new to the series and that you're a veteran. The problem is that the worldbuilding was done primarily in the previous game and poorly rehashed in the second. They don't really do much to get you up to speed when it comes to the world and characters, but they sure as hell make sure to tell you who the Fallen are. I dunno. Seeing as the traveler is well-established as the centerpiece of everything that happened in the first game, seeing what was happening to it was kind of an oh shit moment for me, but I can imagine your reaction being more like "what the fuck even is that thing?"
So yeah, I dunno. I personally like the story for the most part, but it might be because I like Cayde's character (he's muh robo-boi...and, really, all of the humor seems to be in that sort of style) and because I have more context. Nothing groundbreaking, but it definitely raises the stakes.
I guess it would be sort of like if you played Halo 2 without playing the original, as from what I remember it had a similar issue. "What are these rings and why do I care?" "who/what am I shooting at?", etc. Bungie just seems to just assume that everyone has played the previous title, even if such a thing can be literally impossible. I recall the Marathon series having the same issue way back in the day. It was Mac-only for the most part, but Marathon 2 did end up getting a Windows port, and since that was the only game released for Windows at the time the story was pretty much impenetrable unless you've played the previous game. They also seem to love throwing in story elements with the assumption that you'll eventually get what's going on with very mixed success.
I'm also a tiny bit annoyed that Oni never got a sequel. Grumble grumble. Where were we again?
And yeah, I'm definitely be down for doing strikes! At this time I have a level 20 hunter and warlock (I'm planning to level my titan up with one of my other friends) and am trying to decide which one I want to main.
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The story is a bit of a weird thing. The problem that I see is that Bungie really flubbed when it came to rehashing the story. They simultaneously assume that you're new to the series and that you're a veteran. The problem is that the worldbuilding was done primarily in the previous game and poorly rehashed in the second. They don't really do much to get you up to speed when it comes to the world and characters, but they sure as hell make sure to tell you who the Fallen are. I dunno. Seeing as the traveler is well-established as the centerpiece of everything that happened in the first game, seeing what was happening to it was kind of an oh shit moment for me, but I can imagine your reaction being more like "what the fuck even is that thing?"
Yeah you fuckin nailed it. Especially The Traveler which I mean I guess we've kind of deciphered it's capacity and what significance it has to the guardians, but outside of that no clue what it is exactly or where it came from. I just know it holds extraordinary power. They really did a shit job on rehashing yeah. I think I'll just have to do some reading and get up to speed on everything. I have no intentions on ever playing D1.
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Yeah, you're honestly better off reading up on things. Even doing some wiki reading (http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Destiny_Wiki) should help some things make sense. There's still a lot that hasn't been explained due to the story itself being incomplete compared to even the first Halo, but there's still quite a bit there that just wasn't explained in the second game.
And yeah, I enjoyed the first game for what it was, but I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to play through it. While shooting still feels as good as ever, the RPG elements are insanely grindy compared to D2, like to the point where you can hit the level cap in WoW before you max out a single subclass in D1 (that's not even an exaggeration!). D1 feels like an old school MMO in terms of that--progression, even after the revamp that happened in The Taken King, feels glacial when you get to a certain point. D2 does literally everything better.
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I went hard this weekend. Really starting to get hooked on this game. PvP plays a lot like Halo so it took no time at all for me to get acquainted.
I'll be on tonight for sure if you want to join forces. I'm down for whatever PVE or PVP.
(http://www.ranallistudios.com/img/s6/v141/p2621317374.jpg)
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I have plans tonight (one of my other friends works nights, so Monday is really the only night we can game). Sorry! I should be free the rest of this week, though.
I've been working on other things (personal projects, Diablo 3 season 12, etc) so my gear level in D2 ain't great (216 on my warlock, I think?) but it shouldn't take me too long to catch up.
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No worries man whenever just let me know.
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You up for Nightfall? Mary and I need 1 more it's a 3 person event. We have no friends on the game so I'm struggling right now trying to find us a group for Leviathan and Nightfall.
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I don't have any gear. I haven't really been playing--it just hasn't held my interest like D1 has, and most of my friends dropped off really early. ~_~
If you guys are still playing I'll definitely reinstall it and work on that (haven't installed any b.net stuff on the new rig yet!). I'd love to do some of the three person content with a premade group.
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I don't have any gear. I haven't really been playing--it just hasn't held my interest like D1 has, and most of my friends dropped off really early. ~_~
If you guys are still playing I'll definitely reinstall it and work on that (haven't installed any b.net stuff on the new rig yet!). I'd love to do some of the three person content with a premade group.
We recently got back into it. We are really enjoying the current faction rally actually despite the bad PR. We've been playing pretty well daily. Typical evening/weekend schedule.
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Yeah, it kinda seems like ActiBlizzBungie have been just shooting themselves in the foot with a rocket launcher lately. Why do AAA publishers have this fetish for taking good games and overmonetizing them? Ugh.
But yeah, I'll try to get back into it a bit. I'm going out of town later this week, so I'll probably get it up and running next week at some point.
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What gets me is how much worse mobile games are. I want to play your game, not constantly think about how if I dropped $50 I MIGHT get something good enough to actually progress.
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Yeah, but that's the model that AAA game companies are adopting. The main difference is that in the case of AAA games, you end up spending upwards of $120 on the game (including season passes, deluxe editions, etc) and then they try to rope you into spending a ton of money on microtransaction. Most of them even use the same tiers that free mobile games do.
Battlefront II has been the worst offender, by far. If Disney hadn't stepped in and shut EA's greed machine down it would have literally been a $60+ mobile game. It was quite literally pay to win.
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Yeah they certainly getting worse. Still, most AAA games right now arent as heavily balanced around paying for a chance to progress in the game. I tried onmyoji revently and god damn that game is a cash grab. Gacha games are fucking brutal. That said I've finally decided to check out puzzle and dragons and so far i haven't hit a "grind for weeks or months or keep paying us till you get lucky" paywall yet.
Still, its fucking depressing. At least theres a ton of good indie games out there.
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I ended up hitting a pretty hard wall on P&D several weeks in. That said, that was several years ago, so things could have improved since then.
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And yet here they are putting microtransactions back in BFII lol.
Sorry we didn't get this right! We'll make sure it doesn't happen again!
(http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/LyingFingersCross_I_swear_4721.png)
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Also I just did a raid for the first time and I gotta say it was the most fun I've had in a LONG time. Having 6 people coordinating on mic to achieve the same goal in very challenging PvE setting was actually really nice. Took us 4 hours but we did it!