[Aptorian]

Ooohh, looks sexy.

[Khellendros]

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in...

That trailer just hits all the right spots - Osiris, Saint-14, timey-wimey business, cool-looking new guns, expansion of Mercury (and sparrows on Mercury!). Another case of 'maybe this time' with the story then, though I expect to be ultimately disappointed again

Pretty sure that's a different voice actor for Osiris.

[Malankazooie]

Starts tomorrow Wednesday @ 10 am pacific time. Not sure how that translates to the UK (add 7/8/9 hours?).

https://twitter.com/...939888699891712

[EDIT] "tomorrow" is probably already here for you guys across the Atlantic.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 04 December 2019 - 12:16 AM

[Khellendros]

Yeah, it's like 5/6pm here. I've got to get my Perfect Paradox out of the vault, see if the lore might give a clue as to what might happen (I'm pretty sure it had lore attached) - that was actually a pretty good quest in what was otherwise the dire Curse of Osiris, the moment you make it to Saint-14's tomb feels poignant, and the piles and piles of Vex parts all around were a great touch.

[Malankazooie]

I'll have to watch a summary of what was covered tonight (or later) sometime. But I did grab this image.

[Khellendros]

Malankazooie, on 04 December 2019 - 07:16 PM, said:

I'll have to watch a summary of what was covered tonight (or later) sometime. But I did grab this image.

Oof, the stream does not seem to have get a lot of positive coverage, with the feeling that next season is going to be pretty shallow in terms of content. The new pve activitiy, Sundial, looks better than Vex Offensive, but even so there's just a feeling of 'meh' about it.

[Malankazooie]

Khellendros, on 04 December 2019 - 11:23 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 04 December 2019 - 07:16 PM, said:

I'll have to watch a summary of what was covered tonight (or later) sometime. But I did grab this image.

Oof, the stream does not seem to have get a lot of positive coverage, with the feeling that next season is going to be pretty shallow in terms of content. The new pve activitiy, Sundial, looks better than Vex Offensive, but even so there's just a feeling of 'meh' about it.

That doesn't sound good. I'm expecting to be locked out of a lot of it anyway, but still it would be nice to keep the overall install base kinetic with new material. Makes completing quest steps that require social participation less of a wait and a headache to accomplish.

[Malankazooie]

Finally completed the "Nascent Dawn" quest. That step to find all those sleeper nodes was a grindy pain in the ass. I had to keep farming the lost sector on Mars to get the resonate stems - 4 required to generate the override frequency. And then traveling all over Mars to locate sleeper nodes. AND! I had duplicate visits at least four times I can recall. Having to go back into that cave, down to the Alton Dynamo complex under ground multiple times was just cruel.

Then I had a step to get 15 javelin multikills. I thought I was screwed because I no longer had any of those keys to unlock the javelins during Escalation Protocol, and the Warsat public event is damn near impossible when other players either grab the javelins before you or go all Titan mass killing machine and prevent the multiple kills requirement. But then, a quest step to replay the "Will of Thousands" mission became available. I don't think this was tied to the Nascent Dawn quest, but I played it and it provides javelins at various stages, so was able to rack up the multi kills. Since it was the mission and not the Strike, I was able to do it solo, from the very beginning, and not have to fight other guardians for the javelins.

The rest of the quest steps were pretty straight forward and not so grindy to accomplish. I completed Nascent Dawn and have the Polaris Lance and the accompanying exotic catalyst now. Maybe I'm suffering from recency bias, but the Polaris Lance is my favorite exotic weapon I've played with so far. I'm sure there are exotics out there that are beasts that I haven't even scratched the surface on how to attain.

Looking over my quest page, I have a Small Gift that smells faintly of mint. Not sure what to do with it. I might have to do some internet searching to help me out.

Also, if you complete the 7th and final level of Escalation Protocol on Mars you need a key to open the chest? What is in there?

[Aptorian]

If you beat the last boss in the escalation protocol you get one of the legendary weapons. The shotgun is supposedly amazing.

[Khellendros]

The chest contains a piece of escalation protocol armour, and from next week you will no longer require any key to open it. The EP bosses rotate weekly and each one has a chance of dropping a specific EP weapon (shotgun, smg, sniper rifle) - you don’t need anything for that other than good luck. The shotgun is by far the best of the three and used to be the best gun in the game before it was nerfed. It has a perk where if you hit an enemy with a melee first then your shotgun does way more damage for a few seconds. It’s auto-fire so can unload a ton of damage very quickly.

The mint gift is for the cat statues in the Dreaming City. There’s nine hidden in various places, and you get an emblem if you feed all of them.

[Malankazooie]

Damn, I've had access to that chest on a number of occasions for beating the final boss in EP. That final boss is a beast, but if you have the team assembled you can get him eventually. I've been on the side of time running out too and EP ending without defeating him. But yeah, I guess I need to get the key to open that chest at the end. I've seen other players open that chest and was thinking I would get something because I was right there watching them open it, now I know why I didn't get anything.... *shakesfist

Yeah, I did an internet search and found someone has put together a map with the locations of all the cat statues. I traveled to the statute closest to the travel point on the Dreaming City map. He was a hard bugger to get to because he was down a cliff side, in a cave, so had to use my float maneuverability skills to get down to the cave opening. Gave him the mint and received the "Reverie Dawn Boots". I'm guessing if you give the minty gift to all the cats you will eventually assemble of full "Reverie Dawn" set?

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 09 December 2019 - 04:43 AM

[Khellendros]

Malankazooie, on 09 December 2019 - 04:42 AM, said:

Damn, I've had access to that chest on a number of occasions for beating the final boss in EP. That final boss is a beast, but if you have the team assembled you can get him eventually. I've been on the side of time running out too and EP ending without defeating him. But yeah, I guess I need to get the key to open that chest at the end. I've seen other players open that chest and was thinking I would get something because I was right there watching them open it, now I know why I didn't get anything.... *shakesfist

Yeah, I did an internet search and found someone has put together a map with the locations of all the cat statues. I traveled to the statute closest to the travel point on the Dreaming City map. He was a hard bugger to get to because he was down a cliff side, in a cave, so had to use my float maneuverability skills to get down to the cave opening. Gave him the mint and received the "Reverie Dawn Boots". I'm guessing if you give the minty gift to all the cats you will eventually assemble of full "Reverie Dawn" set?

No, you get random Dreaming City loot, so you could get weapons too. The cats are more hidden bonus secrets than anything else.

If EP ends without you managing to defeat the boss, you can start it up again immediately and it will begin on the penultimate wave (Wave 6?) before the boss rather than going all the way back to Wave 1.

[Khellendros]

Finished off the season pass yesterday. Managed to finish the three seasonal quests. Have not managed to reset my valor rank five times for Redrix's Broadsword (am very close to a fourth reset but no way I'll be able to go around again one more time). Have not managed to get 100 precision hand cannon kills in comp for Luna's Howl), mainly because I stopped playing comp after I went over Fabled rank (got to around 40 or so). Have not got around to completing the Deathbringer, Leviathan's Breath, and that weird LMG quest. Have only done a couple of runs of Altars of Sorrow, and haven't got the Rocket Launcher from that yet. Have not even touched the new dungeon as yet. Managed to get Exit Strategy from Gambit, but not close to either Randy's from Crucible or Edgewise from strikes (although I did get 39 kills in Momentum Control yesterday from just standing in the same spot and one-shotting with scout or sniper anyone who came into view!).

Basically, looking back on Shadowkeep, I spent most of my time grinding out really boring seasonal objectives because those had to be finished before this coming reset, and not doing almost any of the actual fun quest-y stuff. This is something to seriously consider when thinking about whether it's worth continuing to play this game.

[Malankazooie]

Khellendros, on 02 December 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

I picked Vanguard as well, for the simple reason that you can only get all of the lore associated with that quest line if you pick the Vanguard.

The outcome is pretty much the same whatever you pick, you get slightly different rewards. I suppose the best bit is that the Drifter treats you slightly differently in Gambit commentary when you're playing afterward depending on which side you picked.

I went with Vanguard. The Drifter starts calling you "snitch" during gambit matches.

A new quest begins, I just completed the quest step where you have to bank 50 motes in gambit. Not sure if I'll work too diligently towards completing the rest of the quest steps though if it becomes a grindy odyssey. I'm kind of burnt out after completing the Nascent Dawn quest.

[Aptorian]

50 motes is like 2 Gambit matches. Not much of a grind compared to other quests - I'm looking at you Season 8: First Watch quest!

Curious to see what unlocks tonight. I wonder if the servers will be so swamped you can't even get online.

[Malankazooie]

Yeah, I banked almost all the required motes after one match. Could have been a dick and quit on my team after my first bank completed the quest step early on in the second match. Decided I would stick it out for the team though and we took the win. After getting enough motes for the quest step, I spent that second match around the portal and went to the other side to kill oppsing guardians. Damn, I racked up the guardian kills. I got some "infamy' doodad or some other similar recognition for killing the opposition. Back at the lineup faceoff, I blasted the other side with my sad horn emote and my popcorn munching emote. They looked on for a bit and then decided to dance for me.

The quest steps that follow (and who knows how many to complete) have me feeling ambivalent about continuing the quest. I don't know if I am energized at this current moment to spend energy doing. That will probably change on the weekend though.

[Malankazooie]

Ok, I've been meaning to get this off my chest after last weekend's grinding. If I get another legendary drop for either Misfit auto rifle or the Duke MK. 44 hand cannon; I'm going to write Bungie a stern letter to adjust their RNG algorithm so we get more variety in what legendaries drop for us. Damn, I've dismantled more of those than I can count on two hands.

[Khellendros]

Malankazooie, on 11 December 2019 - 09:03 PM, said:

Ok, I've been meaning to get this off my chest after last weekend's grinding. If I get another legendary drop for either Misfit auto rifle or the Duke MK. 44 hand cannon; I'm going to write Bungie a stern letter to adjust their RNG algorithm so we get more variety in what legendaries drop for us. Damn, I've dismantled more of those than I can count on two hands.

You’re not being particularly unlucky, there’s only a limited few weapons and gear which drop from the random world drop engrams. Though apparently they’ve expanded it slightly this season, with old Year 1 stuff that we haven’t seen in a while coming back into the game.

[Malankazooie]

Dabbled a little in The Dawning cookie making quest last night. Getting the sharp flavor ingredient was annoying. I was slicing up many enemies with my sword before finally got it to drop.

A question for you guardians though. So the step says to deliver cookies to Zavala, Lord Shaxx, Amanda Holiday and Hawthorne. But the quest says it still needs a total of 12 (I think it is). So do I just keep spamming these same recipes? Or is it somewhere revealed that other NPCs in the Tower, and on other planets, have cookies specific to them? I ask, because in trying to pick up ingredients, I have some that I don't even know what recipes they are for and for whom.

[Khellendros]

Malankazooie, on 18 December 2019 - 07:58 PM, said:

Dabbled a little in The Dawning cookie making quest last night. Getting the sharp flavor ingredient was annoying. I was slicing up many enemies with my sword before finally got it to drop.

A question for you guardians though. So the step says to deliver cookies to Zavala, Lord Shaxx, Amanda Holiday and Hawthorne. But the quest says it still needs a total of 12 (I think it is). So do I just keep spamming these same recipes? Or is it somewhere revealed that other NPCs in the Tower, and on other planets, have cookies specific to them? I ask, because in trying to pick up ingredients, I have some that I don't even know what recipes they are for and for whom.

Yeah, I think it's 12 different NPCs that you can bake cookies for. You can either experiment with the recipes...or just look them up online It's basically everyone in the Tower, all the planetary NPCs, plus I think Riven from the Last Wish raid as well.