Random Thoughts, Part III. (Clangrams, Nightfall, etc).

Just some things I've seen around or been thinking about.

Raid/Trials Clangrams

I listened to a podcast yesterday that posited that Raid and Trials clangrams only drop weapons and no armor. The small amount of anecdotal evidence I have supports this (everyone I've talked to got a weapon from the Raid clangram on PS4).

There's been a lot of debate about whether you should get Raid/Trials gear for just being in a clan. I fall on the side of "Yes, definitely!" I love feeling like I'm contributing something to everyone else in the clan when I accomplish something, and I can't imagine there won't be some Prestige/Flawless only rewards, not too mention the shaders and emblems.

I can see that maybe getting only weapons would be a decent compromise (I feel like the armor sets are more for showing off than the weapons are, especially now that it doesn't really matter which armor set you run). It also means that folks won't be left out of getting possibly top-tier weapons and being left even further behind, which I think is probably a smart play.

It bums me out a little that some folks are rallying so hard against this system, when I think it's probably one of the smartest things Bungie has done in D2. I guess it comes down to whether you want to help other players or put down other players because you did something they can't, and I don't like that attitude.

Nightfall Timers/Modifiers/etc

I see lots of folks really complaining about the new Nightfalls, especially the timers. I just want to say I like them, and it's much more preferable way to add difficulty than bullet sponge enemies that you are just forced to hide from and slowly snipe away, which seemed to be the way a bunch of people did D1 Nightfalls. I like that Nightfalls don't take 40 minutes now (Archon Priest, seriously, fuck that guy). I also like that it encourages the player to be more aggressive to get more time (either by killing or by just being quick and efficient).

I really liked the Prism modifier quite a bit. Makes for a fun experience that requires the player to switch things up constantly, and I like that.

Raid Keys and Shennanigans

Raid keys disappear. I thought it was figured out that it was caused by creating a new character if you had raid keys. That's clearly not the case. We earned an Engine key last night at Pleasure Gardens. Chaos had to leave for the 30 minutes, so the rest of us screwed around for a while. We killed all the Watchers to open the chest door in the Engine room, but the chest didn't spawn at all. We went to orbit and came back, and by this time Chaos had rejoined us. We got the chest to spawn correctly, only to find out that Chaos and I had lost our keys. They just disappeared. So, I guess just use your keys immediately if you don't want to lose them.

We also had the first fight in the standard room glitch out. We killed the major that spawns the standard but the standard never spawned in. We had to leave the room and then go back to restart the fight to get it to work correctly.

Random stuff

-I'm coming back around on set weapon rolls. After playing for another week, there's more variety there than I thought. I still feel like something is missing, but I'm not sure what.

-I wish there were more daily activities. Other than the raid, I usually finish all the weeklies in a day or two, and then go back to feeling like I'm "stuck" for lack of a better word. I liked the daily heroics from D1. Ikora's Meditations are sort of like that, but not quite. The Challenges sort of fill that roll, I guess.

-I wish Flashpoints were a bit more fleshed out, somehow. Going to a Destination and doing 3 Public Events just feels like a bit of a let-down after the way they talked about it. Not complaining, really, just wish there was a bit more too it.

-I've come around on having Xur on the map. I thought it was a bit lame, but I've come to appreciate the way they've done it, and how smart of a decision it was. Finding Xur was fun for a few weeks in D1, and then it was just always something I either googled or just saw posted here. They've done a neat thing by having him on the map and in Destinations. Unlike in D1, where I would often just hop on to go to Xur and then log back off (something which is totally possible), having him out on location encourages more gameplay. It took me thirty minutes to get to him the first time I went to him. I got distracted by a public event and a high value target, and then a chest, and then another public event . . .

-I wish I could just use shaders on exotic weapons.

-I miss matching elemental types actually making a difference.

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-I miss matching elemental types actually making a difference.

It's still pretty useful. That shield burst you get when you take one down with a matching element does quite a bit of damage. I always target the shielded enemy first now, if I've got a matching elemental weapon. It's often enough to take down a handful of unshielded enemies nearby. I've even had the explosion chain to another shielded enemy and cause their shield to burst as well.

-Disciple

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Really? Maybe I just don't pay enough attention--I have never noticed it being that effective. I'll have to try and pay more attention to that when I play tonight.

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Yea it's totally effective, and fun.

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Nice post.

One thing from me:

-I'm coming back around on set weapon rolls. After playing for another week, there's more variety there than I thought. I still feel like something is missing, but I'm not sure what.

I'm thinking some of it is just the amount of stuff is a bit small at the moment. By the end of D1 I had like five "seasons" of weapons at my disposal. Just in heavy Pulse Rifles alone I had

Fair and Square
Three Little Words
Lyudmila-d
Spare Change .25
Parthian Shot

Right now in D2 I have just

Disrespectful Stare
Eystine-D

Multiply that out by all the different weapon classes and there is something of a hole there. Or it kinda feels like it. But I expect that situation to get better and better over time. Maybe a little better as soon as next week with the Factions returning.

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You may be right. It's hard not to compare launch D2 with Year 3 Destiny 1, in terms of amount of content, and that's not necessarily a fair comparison.

I hope the factions bring some cool stuff.

Before we know it, December will be here with the first expansion!

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Had this beauty drop from a rank up package with the gunsmith

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Had this beauty drop from a rank up package with the gunsmith

Yeah, that packs a punch. I also have the Dead Orbit hand cannon, and the FWC Auto Rifle. Haven't seen much else faction-wise besides the Dead Orbit pulse rifle, but I'm assuming there are a couple more at least...

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I've only seen those 4 getting reported as dropping. And I ahven't heard of any source but Cayde Chests.

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Man, I have like 8 different scout rifles and I've yet to take the time to figure out which one(s) are actually good.

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The Flashpoint reward is simple, and I agree that it would be nice if there was more to it. Perhaps with more smaller rewards. However, the destination itself is more active during the Flashpoint thatn during its off week. Public events seem more frequent. There are more roaming bosses. One of the Public Events has an extra mini-boss when you trigger the Heroic Modifier, one (as far as I can tell) doubles the bosses on the Heroic trigger. If you then go patrol one of the other places they feel distinctly less active.

And matching element types makes a different difference now. The shield "pop" withc matched elements is reall beneficial. It damages the target as well as any localized enemies, including other targets with matched shields. Yesterday on Nessus doing a Vex Conflux Public Event, after triggering the Heroic, and a single Void fusion rifle burst into a Minotaur and the chaining shield pops cleared out an entire wave of Vex. How do you feel about the Prism modifier, though?

Also, totally agree on pretty much everything else you said. But definitely about the clangrams. A lot of people just think it is a way to get people to use clans. And I think that is right. But it isn't bad. The Trials/Raid ones also drop at Cosmeitc Power (10) just like gear from Eververse. I just don't understand people wanting to be toxic about loot.

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Nightfall Timers/Modifiers/etc

I see lots of folks really complaining about the new Nightfalls, especially the timers. I just want to say I like them, and it's much more preferable way to add difficulty than bullet sponge enemies that you are just forced to hide from and slowly snipe away, which seemed to be the way a bunch of people did D1 Nightfalls. I like that Nightfalls don't take 40 minutes now (Archon Priest, seriously, fuck that guy). I also like that it encourages the player to be more aggressive to get more time (either by killing or by just being quick and efficient).

Except at the recommended power (240) bosses and many other yellow bars still are just bullet-sponges. Look at the shanks in this week's nightfall which are somehow both exploding AND resilient.

As for the length-- what's the functional difference between a Nightfall that takes 40 minutes and results in success or two Nightfalls that take 30 minutes, both ending in failure?

I would much, MUCH prefer a return to the old system where wiping kicks you to orbit. That's a frustrating but comprehensible and predictable failure that is within player control while taking usual actions within the game. It also means that if you're not high enough leveled, or good enough to do the encounter, you find out as soon as it happens and you can either restart if you choose, or go do something else. The new system encourages players to waste time because it lets you start the boss fight even if the remaining time is not enough to actually kill the boss-- and on top of that, this week's boss teleports away not at 50% health, or 30% health, or even 25% health, but apparently at 10% health-- and stays away for up to 20 seconds!

An arbitrary timer that just ENDS a fight in progress with no possible explanation, with the timer modified by equally silly arbitrary actions-- one of which is the LITERAL definition of "jumping through hoops" is just terrible.

I'd be all for kicking players to orbit for losing, and even for giving an extra reward for finishing before a timer expires, but in a game that has mostly removed the bullshit from the previous title, this is a bit of new bullshit I can do without.

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It was fun at first, but this week's was just not fun. I think it's got a lot to do with the strike not being fun. That boss fight is second only to Wretched Eye as worst boss fight in Destiny.

And who thought it was ok to make the time extension items look like planetary material? I shot a lot of datalettuce and kept wondering why it wasn't giving me more time.

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I don't get the hate for this week's Nightfall. The first week's was much harder, the second week's was much easier. We finished with something like nearly six minutes left on our first run. And that's not bragging or some shit like that--talk to my raid partners this past week, I'm a pretty average player.

I can understand not liking the Nightfall timer, but I love it. I hated the old Nightfalls that took way to long to finish because everything was a damage sponge. Yeah, this week's boss isn't great, with his disappearing act, but he's also not really that bad, and I think the actual fight with trying to keep the shanks at bay is pretty fun.

I haven't done it, but apparently you can end the fight prematurely. When the boss goes invisible, apparently he'll climb on the walls, and if you can find him and shoot him, he'll just fall down into the pit and die.

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I don't get the hate for this week's Nightfall. The first week's was much harder, the second week's was much easier.

i actually blew through last week's. I cannot finish this week's, and my light level is 270 (whereas i was in the 250s last week).

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Nightfall Timers/Modifiers/etc

I see lots of folks really complaining about the new Nightfalls, especially the timers. I just want to say I like them, and it's much more preferable way to add difficulty than bullet sponge enemies that you are just forced to hide from and slowly snipe away, which seemed to be the way a bunch of people did D1 Nightfalls. I like that Nightfalls don't take 40 minutes now (Archon Priest, seriously, fuck that guy). I also like that it encourages the player to be more aggressive to get more time (either by killing or by just being quick and efficient).

Except at the recommended power (240) bosses and many other yellow bars still are just bullet-sponges. Look at the shanks in this week's nightfall which are somehow both exploding AND resilient.

As for the length-- what's the functional difference between a Nightfall that takes 40 minutes and results in success or two Nightfalls that take 30 minutes, both ending in failure?

I would much, MUCH prefer a return to the old system where wiping kicks you to orbit. That's a frustrating but comprehensible and predictable failure that is within player control while taking usual actions within the game. It also means that if you're not high enough leveled, or good enough to do the encounter, you find out as soon as it happens and you can either restart if you choose, or go do something else. The new system encourages players to waste time because it lets you start the boss fight even if the remaining time is not enough to actually kill the boss-- and on top of that, this week's boss teleports away not at 50% health, or 30% health, or even 25% health, but apparently at 10% health-- and stays away for up to 20 seconds!

An arbitrary timer that just ENDS a fight in progress with no possible explanation, with the timer modified by equally silly arbitrary actions-- one of which is the LITERAL definition of "jumping through hoops" is just terrible.

I'd be all for kicking players to orbit for losing, and even for giving an extra reward for finishing before a timer expires, but in a game that has mostly removed the bullshit from the previous title, this is a bit of new bullshit I can do without.

...so at 240, you can literally take 20-30 minutes, solo a handful of lost sectors and be 245. Minimum barrier to entry of the nightfall shouldn't be the baseline you are judging this against. I'm sorry, but as much as I wanted to try and understand your perspective (because I don't fully understand why you'd hate it this much), it just sounds like you're saying "I used to have fun but now I don't and I don't like it".

You are literally complaining that in the 3rd week after release the end-game content, that is supposed to be a challenge, is too hard.

Take a breath and a step back. And if you're really at 240, go do some other things and come back to the nightfall after a few more hours of regular gameplay. It's going to be okay. :D

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...so at 240, you can literally take 20-30 minutes, solo a handful of lost sectors and be 245. Minimum barrier to entry of the nightfall shouldn't be the baseline you are judging this against. I'm sorry, but as much as I wanted to try and understand your perspective (because I don't fully understand why you'd hate it this much), it just sounds like you're saying "I used to have fun but now I don't and I don't like it".

You are literally complaining that in the 3rd week after release the end-game content, that is supposed to be a challenge, is too hard.

Take a breath and a step back. And if you're really at 240, go do some other things and come back to the nightfall after a few more hours of regular gameplay. It's going to be okay. :D

But reaching the minimum requirements by no means makes it even remotely less challenging. I was 268 the first time I attempted Nightfall, and I got absolutely shredded.

I was 20+ light levels above the minimum and it felt like I was 70 below. Prism was on and they were talking about how kinetic damage is unaffected—Kinetic damage does NOTHING. They might as well have been in permanent Armor Lock. It's not fun to have hoops you have to jump through--only positioned in the heaviest of enemy encampments, either. If you run ahead and try to put more seconds on the clock, you get eviscerated--BAM, 30 second respawn. If you try to kill a majority of the enemies first, all the hoops disappear and you're left with nothing. The timer should be a push for more rewards, not just make you haul ass and get yourself killed.

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...so at 240, you can literally take 20-30 minutes, solo a handful of lost sectors and be 245. Minimum barrier to entry of the nightfall shouldn't be the baseline you are judging this against. I'm sorry, but as much as I wanted to try and understand your perspective (because I don't fully understand why you'd hate it this much), it just sounds like you're saying "I used to have fun but now I don't and I don't like it".

You are literally complaining that in the 3rd week after release the end-game content, that is supposed to be a challenge, is too hard.

Take a breath and a step back. And if you're really at 240, go do some other things and come back to the nightfall after a few more hours of regular gameplay. It's going to be okay. :D

But reaching the minimum requirements by no means makes it even remotely less challenging. I was 268 the first time I attempted Nightfall, and I got absolutely shredded.

I was 20+ light levels above the minimum and it felt like I was 70 below. Prism was on and they were talking about how kinetic damage is unaffected—Kinetic damage does NOTHING. They might as well have been in permanent Armor Lock. It's not fun to have hoops you have to jump through--only positioned in the heaviest of enemy encampments, either. If you run ahead and try to put more seconds on the clock, you get eviscerated--BAM, 30 second respawn. If you try to kill a majority of the enemies first, all the hoops disappear and you're left with nothing. The timer should be a push for more rewards, not just make you haul ass and get yourself killed.

You do know that the hoops don't activate their timer until you jump through them, right? You can clear a mojirty of the room while strategizing how you'll position yourselves, then activate the hoops and jump through while you mop up the stragglers. No need to rush in face first...

You have to play smart now. If you fail the Nightfall (and you might), you pick up on where you went wrong, and you do better. Light level and/or Prism has nothing to do with it.

We tried the 300LL strike tonight (none of us being 300), and we failed it the first time. The second time, we were a third of the way through the final boss fight before we ran out of time. We knew where we went wrong, and we plan to knock it out before we raid again.

It's all about teamwork and strategy now, and you act like that's a bad thing.

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...so at 240, you can literally take 20-30 minutes, solo a handful of lost sectors and be 245.

I really want to know what Lost Sectors you are looting then, because they are giving me a wide variety of Legendary or Blue weapons and armor at or below my current power level, which I am turning into shards.

Minimum barrier to entry of the nightfall shouldn't be the baseline you are judging this against.

They don't say "minimum". They say "recommended". Probably I would *feel* a bit better about it if it said minimum

I'm sorry, but as much as I wanted to try and understand your perspective (because I don't fully understand why you'd hate it this much), it just sounds like you're saying "I used to have fun but now I don't and I don't like it".

It used to be worth the time, whether it was 20 minutes or 60. Now it is ONLY worth the time if it is 30 or less. If it is more, it is time wasted, and there's no reason for a boss enemy I'm fighting to evaporate because of an arbitrary timer. If the game wants to kill me because I'm not good enough, if it wants to kick me to orbit because I suck, I am perfectly fine with that-- D1 did that a lot to me and it was okay, because if it happened to me it was my fault- I screwed up and died. Now it's my fault because I didn't carefully judge which enemies I should have run past instead of fighting, or spent a few seconds too many shooting a piece of Data Lattice instead of an anomaly.

For reference, my biggest beef with D1 was when they added matchmaking to all the strikes. So instead of just 2-manning a very doable strike at a reasonable pace, you have randoms forcing you to speedrun. Now everybody has to do it! I just do not find the addition of time pressure to my video game playing fun or pleasant, except as an occasional thing.

You are literally complaining that in the 3rd week after release the end-game content, that is supposed to be a challenge, is too hard.

I honestly don't feel that "do this in 30 minutes" or less is a fun, enjoyable, or legitimate challenge, except possibly as a modifier or extra reward challenge (like with Black Spindle). I'm also not sure what week it is is supposed to matter-- character power level is supposed to matter, not age. If the problem is that you're really supposed to be 280 to do 240 activities, and really supposed to be 300 to do 280 activities, then it ought to just say that.

Take a breath and a step back. And if you're really at 240, go do some other things and come back to the nightfall after a few more hours of regular gameplay. It's going to be okay. :D

I'm 275 and nothing but the raid, nightfall and crucible are being presented as options for leveling. I can't get into the raid, can't finish a nightfall, and I hate crucible. 240 is what Bungie says the "suggested" level for the activity is, so I figured that's when it would be playable.

I guess this is just the first time I'm experiencing the leveling speed bump people talked about in D1, but I don't remember this ever happening in the past 3 years-- literally feeling like I don't want to play because I know the time will be wasted.

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Take a breath and a step back. And if you're really at 240, go do some other things and come back to the nightfall after a few more hours of regular gameplay. It's going to be okay. :D

I'm 275 and nothing but the raid, nightfall and crucible are being presented as options for leveling. I can't get into the raid, can't finish a nightfall, and I hate crucible. 240 is what Bungie says the "suggested" level for the activity is, so I figured that's when it would be playable.

I guess this is just the first time I'm experiencing the leveling speed bump people talked about in D1, but I don't remember this ever happening in the past 3 years-- literally feeling like I don't want to play because I know the time will be wasted.

So I felt this way a bit lately, but I'm getting over it.

"Powerful rewards" will provide your biggest jump and those are usually weekly rewards. They help push past the humps, though you can get unlucky and get a streak of 1-2 slots that are all high powered with a few low level items holding you back.

Your key to better light levels is likely legendary +5 light modifiers. These can drop on any legendary engram, so until you're 280 with the gunsmith to make those, doing public events and other open world type events can help here -- any engram has the potential to have one of these, and exotics always have one. Make sure you check to see if legendary gear has one of these mods or not. If you have two 275 light pieces, one with the mod and one without, remember that one is 275 light and one is 270 + 5 light. So you can infuse the 270 piece to 275 and get it to 275 + 5 (280).

Flashpoint areas seem to have more "extra" world events, so look into those as well, they can randomly provide pretty solid rewards.

Exotics always help, they are usually 10ish LL's above my overall light. And just having them around helps bump light level rewards some. I think I've averaged an exotic every 3-4 hours of gameplay. I'd say I've seen maybe 10 exotic drops outside of quest rewards, and had my first legendary upgraded to an exotic 2 days ago.

I can't speak to crucible, I've rarely gotten anything of value, and I hope I'm an exception. About 20 matches and I think I've gotten 3 legendaries and an exotic engram, the rest were blue junk.

270-280 took me nearly 2 solid weeks, it was by far the hardest light levelling part for me. 280-290 felt very natural, and the more items I vaulted, the better the blue engrams and legendaries started to get.

Don't get discouraged, it does get better. You're in the most painful part IMO. =)

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An arbitrary timer that just ENDS a fight in progress with no possible explanation, with the timer modified by equally silly arbitrary actions-- one of which is the LITERAL definition of "jumping through hoops" is just terrible.

What if it were rolled into a different mechanic? What if your light slowly drains during the fight, and you restore it by doing the same things you do now to get time?

I'd be all for kicking players to orbit for losing, and even for giving an extra reward for finishing before a timer expires, but in a game that has mostly removed the bullshit from the previous title, this is a bit of new bullshit I can do without.

Nah. I think it's awesome. You actually have to strategize a little bit and formulate a strategy. You could beat any nightfall in Destiny 1 by sitting back with an elemental scout rifle. We got our ass handed to us the first time we tried the nightfall week 1. By the end, we beat it with 7 minutes left to get the Rat King.

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An arbitrary timer that just ENDS a fight in progress with no possible explanation, with the timer modified by equally silly arbitrary actions-- one of which is the LITERAL definition of "jumping through hoops" is just terrible.

What if it were rolled into a different mechanic? What if your light slowly drains during the fight, and you restore it by doing the same things you do now to get time?

If I wanted Handwavium I'd go to Pandora. The lack of in-game explanation isn't really the problem, it's just accentuated by the arbitrary nature of the timer. Raids that had this incorporated usually did a decent job of setting up both the nature of the timer and the countermeasures to it, but there's nothing specific about any of these strikes that suggest a timer-- unlike, say, Shield Brothers, which could conceivably just blow up the room if you fail--

I'd be all for kicking players to orbit for losing, and even for giving an extra reward for finishing before a timer expires, but in a game that has mostly removed the bullshit from the previous title, this is a bit of new bullshit I can do without.

Nah. I think it's awesome. You actually have to strategize a little bit and formulate a strategy. You could beat any nightfall in Destiny 1 by sitting back with an elemental scout rifle. We got our ass handed to us the first time we tried the nightfall week 1. By the end, we beat it with 7 minutes left to get the Rat King.

Tell me the strategy that gets 3 240 level players through that exercise with 5+ minutes left and I'll say the entire problem is just that I suck and I'll retract my complaint.

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An arbitrary timer that just ENDS a fight in progress with no possible explanation, with the timer modified by equally silly arbitrary actions-- one of which is the LITERAL definition of "jumping through hoops" is just terrible.

What if it were rolled into a different mechanic? What if your light slowly drains during the fight, and you restore it by doing the same things you do now to get time?

If I wanted Handwavium I'd go to Pandora. The lack of in-game explanation isn't really the problem, it's just accentuated by the arbitrary nature of the timer. Raids that had this incorporated usually did a decent job of setting up both the nature of the timer and the countermeasures to it, but there's nothing specific about any of these strikes that suggest a timer-- unlike, say, Shield Brothers, which could conceivably just blow up the room if you fail--

I'd be all for kicking players to orbit for losing, and even for giving an extra reward for finishing before a timer expires, but in a game that has mostly removed the bullshit from the previous title, this is a bit of new bullshit I can do without.

Nah. I think it's awesome. You actually have to strategize a little bit and formulate a strategy. You could beat any nightfall in Destiny 1 by sitting back with an elemental scout rifle. We got our ass handed to us the first time we tried the nightfall week 1. By the end, we beat it with 7 minutes left to get the Rat King.

Tell me the strategy that gets 3 240 level players through that exercise with 5+ minutes left and I'll say the entire problem is just that I suck and I'll retract my complaint.

1. Coordinate so everyone has an energy weapon of each type. One person should be kicking ass while the burns are active, the others using their kinetic or class abilities. This was you are always burning.

2. Run past everything you can run past. Focus fire on the major enemies you have to kill to move on.

3. Nail the boss with a high damage super matching the burn.

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1. Coordinate so everyone has an energy weapon of each type. One person should be kicking ass while the burns are active, the others using their kinetic or class abilities. This was you are always burning.

2. Run past everything you can run past. Focus fire on the major enemies you have to kill to move on.

3. Nail the boss with a high damage super matching the burn.

Yeah, that would work if there was actually a burn this week. Prism wasn't on when I ran it.

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1. Coordinate so everyone has an energy weapon of each type. One person should be kicking ass while the burns are active, the others using their kinetic or class abilities. This was you are always burning.

2. Run past everything you can run past. Focus fire on the major enemies you have to kill to move on.

3. Nail the boss with a high damage super matching the burn.

Yeah, that would work if there was actually a burn this week. Prism wasn't on when I ran it.

I thought he was asking about week 1's. My bad.

I… don't really know what to say as far as advice for this week. We just did it… I know that's not very helpful, but we didn't really do anything super special.

Week 1 > Week 3 > Week 2 in terms of difficulty IMO.

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Week 1 > Week 3 > Week 2 in terms of difficulty IMO.

I didn't think last week's was too bad aside from crap like this

And this

With the resilient explodey shanks and the boss that can say, "lol, FU" to any tether, stun, or DOT attack and just disappear for huge chunks of time, I have yet to have any success with this nightfall.

-Disciple

Edit: Oops. Just noticed the first clip was just from the strikes playlist, not the nightfall. Still had that kind of crap happening all night during the nightfall attempts, though.

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your second vid is what happened to me on the nightfall

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1. Coordinate so everyone has an energy weapon of each type. One person should be kicking ass while the burns are active, the others using their kinetic or class abilities. This was you are always burning.

This week's nightfall has no burn.

2. Run past everything you can run past. Focus fire on the major enemies you have to kill to move on.

Not fun. Being forced to run by enemies in an encounter here or there is one thing, but the timer means you're doing it nearly all the time, every week-- you literally stop to fight ONLY when the game won't let you proceed without fighting. I'm inclined to say that this just means Nightfalls are no longer for me, but again-- my only options for advancement are nightfall, crucible, and raid, and I can't get to raid level apparently without doing one of the previous two, one of which I am (apparently) still grossly under-leveled for despite the advertised power rating of 240.

3. Nail the boss with a high damage super matching the burn.

Already doing that. Did that this week and last week when there was a burn. Still missed finishing by mere seconds more than once (as well as other runs that were... not that close).

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my only options for advancement are nightfall, crucible, and raid, and I can't get to raid level apparently without doing one of the previous two, one of which I am (apparently) still grossly under-leveled for despite the advertised power rating of 240.

What's your power level? The soft cap isn't until 265. Patrol activities should be giving you good drops up until that point.

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A 'slowrun' of this week's nightfall.

Also, I was around 275 without doing Trials or the Raid. You could play the crucible and get that milestone, and public events give great gear.

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1. Coordinate so everyone has an energy weapon of each type. One person should be kicking ass while the burns are active, the others using their kinetic or class abilities. This was you are always burning.

This week's nightfall has no burn.

2. Run past everything you can run past. Focus fire on the major enemies you have to kill to move on.

Not fun. Being forced to run by enemies in an encounter here or there is one thing, but the timer means you're doing it nearly all the time, every week-- you literally stop to fight ONLY when the game won't let you proceed without fighting. I'm inclined to say that this just means Nightfalls are no longer for me, but again-- my only options for advancement are nightfall, crucible, and raid, and I can't get to raid level apparently without doing one of the previous two, one of which I am (apparently) still grossly under-leveled for despite the advertised power rating of 240.

3. Nail the boss with a high damage super matching the burn.

Already doing that. Did that this week and last week when there was a burn. Still missed finishing by mere seconds more than once (as well as other runs that were... not that close).

I have seen very good video game players do this strike as a nightfall, and I have seen guys of mediocre quality do it. It really separates the men from the boys.

I consider myself to be a top 20% Destiny player. I'm a benefit to a high level raid team with my skills, limited to running around and jumping when called for (though I am very good at these things), and never a hindrance, unless I'm bored and am impatient. That said, I can't pop in a group and immediately make something difficult trivial.

A team of 3 top 20% Destiny players could do this, I think, with coordination and aggression. A team of top 10% Destiny players could probably do it without coordination and it wouldn't be close.

The strikes go from cartoonishly easy as a top 10% player to impossible as a top 35% player, I think. The drop off seems quick and it seems massive.

In the old nightfalls, if you blow at the game, or have 12 timezones of lag, or are conservative, you could simply play conservatively, or learn from your mistakes, memorize spawns, etc, and get through a nightfall after 50 minutes. A big challenge, but manageable for everyone.

In the new nightfalls, if you suck, guess what? You're flat out NOT beating one. No amount of moving slowly or plinking guys from a distance is going to save you. You can move "slowly" and spend time killing every enemy, but to do that, your aim needs to be good. You have to move well. You have to be able to quickly adapt to mechanics and have a good intuition. You need to be able to tell if it's a good time to hide or push forward. Even if you run past all the guys, there is a skill in that, even though it's less fun, and it requires all the same killing guy skills as well in the kill guys situations.

These skills come partially with experience, but people who aren't really good at video games aren't able to do it.

I think that fellows like Datto and Cody, who are good at guiding bad players through difficult game situations, don't see the big problem here, because they're good at games. For example, in Destiny 1, Datto found hiding spots in the nightfalls that anyone could use, and take as long as he wanted. Now, he has to guide people through the timer, and he doesn't get why people can't do it, even though he has sound tips. They can't immediately aim a gun and hit a guy in the head and get the timing perfect on trigger pulls and grenades and jumps.

It's just only possible if you're either really good at games or so coordinated it ruins any fun at all.

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I liked the D1 final version of NF the best. I could go in solo and take my sweet time or team up and face slightly more difficult situations. I enjoyed the experience 95% of the time.

Speeding through a level avoiding everything to save time only to be sent to orbit by some ridiculous mob or boss is beyond stupid.

Timers may have picked up players like Cody but in the long run, it's going to prove to be a population specific killer.

I predict major changes to NF before the new year.

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I'd much MUCH rather race through a Strike and rely on good weapon choices and team coordination and fail a few times than have another guaranteed success of inching my way forward step by step to the little nook where my team can Icebreaker the Archon Priest once a minute for forty five minutes until he finally dies.

To me, the D2 way is fast paced and thrilling. The "tougher" D1 Nightfalls were like gouging my eyes out with a sewing needle.

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Random Thoughts, Part III. (Clangrams, Nightfall, etc). (Destiny)