[Malankazooie]

So Bungie put out the roadmap for the new season. Runs until Aug. 24. More rinse and repeat mundanity it seems. Any of the mission/quest type activities, I'll be able to do the 1st step and then the rest will be locked, unless I purchase the Beyond Light and Season content. I didn't see anything about Battlegrounds. I think (operative word "think") that Bungie made that game state part of the Vanguard (Strike list) activities? Not 100% on that. If you guys didn't give Battlegrounds a go with the prior season, when it was introduced, you should really try it. It was a new and fun addition to the Destiny 2 content loop. If Battlegrounds are not available in the new season, that is a fumble by Bungie. I see the season will end with another live event. I'll probably catch a replay of it on YouTube if I don't remember (which is what will in all likelyhood what happens). The live events have been pretty cool.

[Malankazooie]

Aw man, so over the weekend I got on and dismantled all my shaders in my vault and inventory. That's an OG Destiny mechanic going bye bye I guess with the new transmog system. I never got into the shader thing as far as changing the color of my gear (too tedious to apply to each piece), but I'm a hoarder and I banked quite a few legendaries I believe. It hurt dismantling some of them, no doubt. Looking at the complexity in color palette and texture of some of them, damn man, I just wanted to keep those.

Anyway, I guess with this new transmog system you should dismantle all your shaders, which will give you legendary shards. Otherwise after Season of the Splicer goes live, you're SOL. I'm not a fan of this transmog system. I wouldn't use it anyway (I'll check it out to see for myself what it's about), but it's getting a lot of criticism as another way Bungie is trying to get players to spend money on cosmetic fluff. Does anyone visit Eververse? I know I don't unless I need a bright engram decoded.

[Aptorian]

What's this about shaders? My vault/character has a ton of shaders because I can never throw anything away. Are they disappearing? I always wish they'd just be unlocks instead of equippables.

I never used Everwerse except for this one cool set that made my Titan look like some kind of elder creature.

Saw Skill Up's review of Destiny's last season and it was so glowing I might actually jump back in this season. Might. That new stasis/ice magic power system just doesn't appeal to me.

Kazooie you really should front the cash for the expansion upgrade. With the amount of hours you continue to put into it, you're denying yourself a bunch of fun content.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 11 May 2021 - 09:41 AM

[Malankazooie]

From what I've read, shaders will be permanent unlocks now and rolled into the new transmog system. I'll have to check it out to see how it works, but it's suggested to dismantle all your shaders to get shards and bright dust, otherwise after the new season starts, nada. From what I understand Ada-1 will be in the Tower and that is where transmogging (is that the action version of that?) will happen. It all sounds very 'meh' to me, but I'll check it out.

I only really play about a weekend evening's worth, and only once, at the start of each season and when events (like Guardian Games) go live. I jump in and check things out, run the initial steps of any new quests/missions, come up against the paywall to continue, and then don't play again until the next season or the next event happens. I don't ever grind, because the Destiny grind is tedious and annoying. I don't Crucible or Iron Banner because they are uninspired. I get wrecked in pvp because advanced players have the weapons, attributes and gear that has a player like me (running around with just Sturm and Drang) at a huge disadvantage. When I'm on I'll play a few Strikes and Gambit (I like Gambit for some reason). There's criticism Bungie has pretty much abandoned Crucible and it's the same maps and boring game mode types and they have no plans to introduce anything new or change it up. So I would put my hours up against any forum members who have played D2 and I'm willing to bet eating my hat that most forum members who have played D2 have played more hours than me.

I might get all the expansions for the new consoles, or the next gen consoles after that, since Bungie is all in on live service and continuing Destiny 2 in that model (aw, no Destiny 3? boooo!). I haven't given it a lot of thought tbh. I like being a rebel and only rocking vanilla Destiny 2. It is sort of a comfort just to jump in, see what's new for all players and then forget about it again. Very casual and a comfort to ease into, breathe in that feeling of familiarity and settle in for an evening.

[Aptorian]

Get an Xbox with gamepass and you'll get all the the expansions for free. Think about all the money you'll save for the low, low price of 500 USD + 99USD a year.

[Malankazooie]

Uh guys? Are you aware there is a refugee crisis going on right now in Destiny?

[Malankazooie]

The latest season, "Season of the Splicer" wraps up this week. Now I am only still vanilla Destiny 2, but I have been following the on going events and story. I gotta say, as far as "live service" model, Bungie has delivered a quality experience as far as the story goes. Some of the other stuff is meh, and same hat, repetitive grind for blurgh rewards, but the story coming through with each season has been getting smarter and interesting to follow along the way. Pushing the season story into actual cut scenes and not having to look them up buried in some lore associated with an item or buried in a Triumph has been a smart pivot to make it more impactful.

[Aptorian]

Witch Queen expansion reveal slated for tomorrow. Kinda excited. I'm hoping they get creative with the new expansion. It's supposedly focused on Savathun.

I couldn't really get that interested about last year's expansion. A new map on Europa and frost powers weren't that exciting.

[Malankazooie]

Those leaked images of Savathun are interesting. I'll probably catch this Bungie event later in a breakdown by game journalists. I'm looking forward to what they have lined up though. Will I / Won't I finally purchase an expansion and leave the sad, pathetic world of the vanilla Destiny 2 player base? Stay tuned, mwuhahahaha!

[Malankazooie]

Anything interesting come out of the Witch Queen showcase and new season reveal? I'm going to have to read a synopsis later. I did catch that the expansion is supposed to be big.

[Malankazooie]

Played the opening mission steps of the newest season (Season of the Lost) before the rest of it requires purchase of the new season. Holy crap there is a reveal there that is quite intriguing, and I'm guessing is setting things in motion that will dive screaming into the Witch Queen deal that is coming early next year.

[Aptorian]

I haven't played any content since the launch of the Beyond Light expansion last year.

I find the addition of Darkness as a frost mechanic completely uninteresting and Europa unnecessary. In addition I tried to start a new character class and was completely lost since playing a class from the beginning just seems weird with the original introduction and campaign cut out of the game.

Anyway, what with the Witch Queen reveal and the statement that this season will lead up to the Witch Queen event, I decided to jump back in.

Man, it's confusing to have been away for 18 months. There's now some kind of space station floating around earth that seems sparsely populated. Don't know if new NPCs pop in if I do some questline or if it's defunct after the last season.

Doing the Beyond Light campaign first. Was a bit shocked when an enemy just dropped the Ikalos Shotgun. That was the weapon I really wanted two years ago but could never unlock on Mars. Now a random bug person just pooped it out.

[Malankazooie]

The space station is HELM. and it featured prominently in past seasons. I only ever go there to decrypt umbral engrams.

I like that timeline feature they added with the latest season. Although it's probably more of a marketing ploy to nudge people towards paying for content (seasons & expansions). Still it's sorta neat to look at past milestones during Destiny 2.

Still only rocking with vanilla Destiny 2 bitches! (with DLC they made free - CoO + Warmind). Man, I hope with The Witch Queen they release some more.

[Malankazooie]

Jumped into the Festival of the Lost event for the spooky Halloween season. They've replaced the Haunted Forest with something called Haunted Sectors. It's been a good deal of fun. The pumpkin headed (a la Headless Horseman legend) Knights have been cool to see and battle. These haunted sectors are not easy though. All the enemies in these sectors are op (for my weak power level anyway). I rely on, and cross my fingers hoping that the fire team I get matched with has someone who is a badass and can carry my feeble ass. These pumpkin head Knights you have to summon by standing in a zone, which can be a pain in the ass as you deal with the hoard of powerful enemies. Much of the combat in this is up close, so I think shotguns and swords may be a better strategy. Anyway, one of the objectives with killing the pumpkin heads is to get lost pages to add to a book back in the tower, which has some pretty neat lore about the headless ones. I've got three, but I doubt I'll finish much more (there's a lot of them). The haunted sectors are a neat new activity, but as common with Destiny, the grind of rinse and repeat settles in eventually. There hasn't been any variety in the sector layout and design so it becomes old hat. I do recommend checking it out though (along with the tower) because they do a great job with the Halloween vibe and decorations (love the music/score in the tower). Oh yeah I got that dinosaur gun that is part of the event, it's nothing great, but easy to get though.

[Malankazooie]

Oh cool, Forsaken expansion will be free to download on December 7th. I will be able to play it until they do the vault thing on it (and remove it) when The Witch Queen comes out early 2022 sometime. So hopefully that will be plenty enough time for me to max out as much as possible the Forsaken stuff. I tend to get distracted from playing any one video game for long stretches (or even just take a brake from playing video games), so I might be pressed to see what all there is to the Fosaken DLC.

[Malankazooie]

PSA for anyone who is going to play The Witch Queen expansion: be sure to play the mission that dropped this week (for the weekly reset). The mission wraps up the current season. It's the Exorcism mission (or called something like that). It's a nice little bridge from the season that is ending to upcoming The Witch Queen DLC. You have to jump on it fast though because it will end when The Witch Queen releases next Tuesday (Feb. 22). It's a quick mission and can be completed easily during a play session. It requires a 6 member fire team and there is a glitch where a cutscene is passed by (it happened to my playthrough). If you can't play it or you miss the cutscene, you can find the full mission captured in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

I've a feeling Saint-14 is going to have a significant role in the upcoming expansion, but D2 has been really good at surprising players with where they go with story (it's something quite remarkable tbh), and it has been neat to follow along with.

[EDIT] Also, ha!, this is pretty clever - https://www.forbes.c...yself-included/

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 17 February 2022 - 09:26 PM

[Aptorian]

I'm hoping to find the time this weekend to play the prelude for the Witch Queen launch.

Hopefully the game gets a good shake up this time around. The seasons last year were great but the actual Yearly expansion didn't do anything for me. Fallen baddies and ice powers is not quite as sexy as Evil Bug Queen with Light Powers.

It just struck me that there's two games coming out within a week with Lance Reddick.

He both plays Zavala in Destiny and Sylens in Horizon. Dude's voice was made for video games.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 18 February 2022 - 11:33 AM

[Malankazooie]

[Aptorian]

Just played the exorcism mission and of course my cutscenes bugged out as well. I find that to be pretty amateurish that they built all this up for six months and their finale doesn't even play when you do the mission.

Watched the cutscene on YouTube and it was pretty underwhelmed anyway. I was expecting some kind of calamity of betrayal and double crosses but it basically just turned out as intended.

[Malankazooie]

It's definitely a clusterfuck that has people ticking boxes and being reminded about the CoO days. I am for sure keeping score and The Witch Queen better get glowing reviews for me to even entertain the notion of purchasing it. I personally have never bought any extra content/DLC/seasons etc. because of their arrogance during the early days of Destiny 2. The Witch Queen is the first content that I've been considering purchasing.

Destiny 2's Flubbed Lost Ending Shows The Perils Of Live Storytelling And Content Vaulting

Thing is, I think the missed cutscene happens regardless, because in my fireteam we made sure to all be on the same page and not do any action that would skip it.... it still happened though. It's possible that one of the members did something to trigger it though... so.

Make sure to go back to H.E.L.M. and examine / watch the radio feed on the console there (it's at the end of the video I posted to guide you). I overlooked that step until I watched the video in full. You get a Triumph when you do. Nothing earth shattering or anything... but if you're a completist like I am you gots to have it.