Destiny 2 - Lightfall 2/28/23

[d-dave]

So it's time for me to hype up my favorite game, time suck, whatever you want to call it!

First off, the ViDoc

If you've been paying attention to the weekly updates, they've released a ton of information about system changes to D2 under lightfall.  Basically, they are trying to again streamline things.  From crafting, to UI changes (in game Build Maker!!!) there's a lot of quality stuff coming to D2 in a couple of weeks.

This looks like it will be an intense story, part 1 of the finale for the Light and Dark saga.  I'm so pumped, and I can't wait to take my crayon eating Titan and punch the witness in the face repeatedly!

Strand looks like an amazing ability.  It's going to be a nightmare in PVP (good thing I just swore it off after last Iron Banner).  I can't wait to play with using strand as a way to hook on to other players and NPCs.  The strand punch looks amazing as well.  

So I'm pretty stoked!  I've been super busy with life stuff from work to my dog in the hospital so this is going to be a very welcome distraction!

Oh, and because it's a big deal for a potato like me, I solo'd the legendary Seraph Shield.  Afterwards, I realized it wasn't that hard.  But that's a pretty cool thing for me since I've never been a good player at all.

[lightsout]

So I'm playing. I am behind though. Stopped playing at some point during Shadowkeep (completed that campaign, obviously). Pre-ordered Beyond Light because I didn't realize how 2020 was gonna go for my life and long story short, I never got around to playing it. So I'm playing through it now. Basically gonna blaze through it and grind for artifacts for stasis as much as I can while getting through Witch Queen. 

God I love this game

[d-dave]

Welcome back

Yes, get through Beyond Light (not terrible) but the grind for the Stasis shards is going to be annoying at this point in the game.  Witch Queen is incredible!  Best story, super fun!  I'm curious how the campaign will feel with the new mod system.

I'm 2 missions into Lightfall - but I've been a little spoiled by the rest of my media.  Apparently I'm one of the few people who didn't take several days off to grind the campaign!  I love the locale.  It's really beautiful, and it changes between night and day times.  Strand is cool in the missions (because you have a turbo boost for ability timers), but it kind of falls flat outside of it because of the long cool downs and not much in the way of neutral gameplay.

The gameplay is still fantastic.  The look and feel of the game is still great, but I'm not hearing great things about the story for LF.  I'm usually more forgiving as a fanboy, but even the other fanboys are like "yeap...missed that one!"

So I'll see how it goes.

[lightsout]

About halfway through Lightfall and I gotta say, I'm digging the story. Is it a bit bare early? Yes. I know the who, what, when and where but the why is sort of...disjointed? Idk. I both like and hate how they're introducing Strand. Stasis was brought in a little better imo.

But the theme so far, of seeing the true nature of both the Light and the Darkness, I really like that 

[d-dave]

18 hours ago, lightsout said:

About halfway through Lightfall and I gotta say, I'm digging the story. Is it a bit bare early? Yes. I know the who, what, when and where but the why is sort of...disjointed? Idk. I both like and hate how they're introducing Strand. Stasis was brought in a little better imo.

But the theme so far, of seeing the true nature of both the Light and the Darkness, I really like that 

I'm conflicted somewhat on the main story.  I finished it up last week then started some of the post campaign stuff.  I feel like reviewers like IGN needed to play that in order to get more context. 

The game play of the campaign was really fun.  But there were a LOT of important details left out.  Many will get filled in over time, but I wish that had been part of the main campaign.

Strand is a LOT of fun to play.  On my titan, I am working on a woven mail build and it's very FUN!  Synthcepts for the win!!!

[lightsout]

3 hours ago, d-dave said:

I'm conflicted somewhat on the main story.  I finished it up last week then started some of the post campaign stuff.  I feel like reviewers like IGN needed to play that in order to get more context. 

The game play of the campaign was really fun.  But there were a LOT of important details left out.  Many will get filled in over time, but I wish that had been part of the main campaign.

Strand is a LOT of fun to play.  On my titan, I am working on a woven mail build and it's very FUN!  Synthcepts for the win!!!

 

Having completed the main campaign, I'm not mad about it. Maybe it's because I'm a day one Destiny guy, and to me it seems obvious that the Veil is likely a paracausal product of the Light (or a third entity in itself) but the not being told thing doesn't kill me as much as it initially did. I mean, SHOULD they have done something in the main story, specifically in one of those well-done Osiris cutscenes, that fully explains at least what the Veil is and how it came to be on Neomuna? Yes. Chase The MacGuffin is less satisfying when nothing about it is told apart from "this powers the city of Neomuna".

[lightsout]

Why does it matter that the Witness lured us into the Veil to assure regardless of whether or not Calus succeeded he'd have a way to link to the Veil? What exactly did he do to the Traveler? What in the hell actually happened because we still have the Light. This felt grander and still less impactful than what happened at the start of the Red War, somehow.

[d-dave]

10 hours ago, lightsout said:

Why does it matter that the Witness lured us into the Veil to assure regardless of whether or not Calus succeeded he'd have a way to link to the Veil? What exactly did he do to the Traveler? What in the hell actually happened because we still have the Light. This felt grander and still less impactful than what happened at the start of the Red War, somehow.

Yep.  Some people have criticized it as a preview for The Final Shape, which I get.  I wish there were more answers in the campaign.  But post campaign is starting to get more interesting.  I'm working my way through the rebuilding of the broken servers of the Cloud Striders - which is getting pretty interesting (if the game play isn't slightly repetitive).

But I have to say that I LOVE the new build system.  While it doesn't have as much flexibility as the old system, it's much easier to put together a build that works well.

[SOJA]

I actually love the expansion. Loadouts is a fuging game changer, it truly makes the game a much more enjoyable experience. 

Story is not as strong as Witch Queen but gameplay is still great and Strand is fun. 

[lightsout]

59 minutes ago, SOJA said:

I actually love the expansion. Loadouts is a fuging game changer, it truly makes the game a much more enjoyable experience. 

Story is not as strong as Witch Queen but gameplay is still great and Strand is fun. 

 

I was down on strand initially but working through the post campaign content and grinding for fragments is starting to really prove how powerful you can make your build. My warlock is turning into a machine.

 

Also I did the unthinkable and purchased silver for the Neomuna armor ornaments. The warlock one with the right shaders is just perfect.

[SOJA]

8 minutes ago, lightsout said:

 

I was down on strand initially but working through the post campaign content and grinding for fragments is starting to really prove how powerful you can make your build. My warlock is turning into a machine.

 

Also I did the unthinkable and purchased silver for the Neomuna armor ornaments. The warlock one with the right shaders is just perfect.

yea I will be honest with you all I have purchased silver multiple times and am secretly ashamed of this lmao 

[d-dave]

LOL, don't be ashamed =P

I still can't bring myself to buy the silver lol.  

So I have some thoughts on the new difficulty curve.  While I'm not a "I'll solo legendary campaign for funz" guy, I'm not a complete potato.  I have builds, synergy with weapons and exotics.  I guess I'm an "intense casual."

Last night, I was running the new Heist Battlegrounds playlist.  Well, I ran one game.  It took 30 minutes to get through it.  I was play with guys who died a lot.  Like more than 30 times between the other two players.  I kept running to rez and getting killed as well.  It seemed like one play was just "there" while the other guy and I did the encounters and rezed him (and died almost immediately after).

I don't mind doing hard stuff, well for me.  I did solo my whole exotic pulse rifle and catalysts last season.  That was pretty cool, but I think Bungie stepped too far in making us all incredibly weak.  I mean, I'm running 100 resilience with various sniper/energy mods depending on what kills me.  Heck, even with Woven Mail, I was getting flattened.

I don't think the more casual audience than me is going to keep playing if they are going to keep getting curbstomped constantly in the seasonal playlist activity.

[lightsout]

Boys, strand is dumb strong in crucible. Holy poo lol

[d-dave]

8 hours ago, lightsout said:

Boys, strand is dumb strong in crucible. Holy poo lol

I'm running the big brain:  I'm not touching crucible =P  MAYBE next iron banner...depends on the armor.  Generally I can't stand PVP in destiny since 75% of the times I'm killed, I have no idea what I could have done differently.