Dungeon Duos Contest *Win Dungeon Keys!* (Destiny)
I was kind of hesitant to do this given that next week is when our Flawless DSC runs start in earnest, so the scheduling may be an issue... But a recent Bungie Tweet confirmed that the new Dungeon comes out next week, so I couldn't resist!
When Duality came out, a number of issues meant that F000CH and I had to tackle it alone, blind, and woefully underleveled... And it was awesome! It quickly became our favorite dungeon, and though it kicked our butts initially, the feeling of success was one that not even Raids have scratched for me in a while, so for this contest, we wanted others to share in our misery memorable experience!
What's the contest? Simple! Grab a single teammate, and when the new Dungeon drops with the new season, tackle it together! That's it! Your goal is to beat it before the reset on Tuesday. While I would love for all teams to tackle it as blind as possible, I know real life and scheduling can make that difficult, so your goal is simply to coordinate with your teammate to Beat the Dungeon by the weekly reset. Make sure that if you sign up, you expect to be reasonably available at your teammate's times!
All teams should post their completions on this thread. All eligible teams will be put into a reward raffle, and the winners will both get a dungeon key bundle for next Year's Dungeons!
But that's not all! I'd love to hear how everyone's experiences in this contest went! Post your favorite stories, clips, screens, whatever! Our favorite one could win a bonus prize!
Sign up on:
The Official Fireteam Builder Event!
Official Korny Rules apply. Contest may cause side effects such as Ragequitting, side-eyeing teammate, sweaty palms, weak knees, and vomit on sweaters. Prize winners suffering from regional issues will be notified and solutions will be found. Member FDIC NPFO LOL
Mostly non-spoilery thoughts on the new Dungeon.
I'm not 100% sure what Bungie's thought process must have been when working this dungeon, as it feels like thematically, they gave up with the shtick (Wild West) after the first great section (That tumbleweed!), then realized that they didn't actually have as much time or budget as they wanted, and then they rushed the rest of it out. This feels very evident by the sole mechanic found throughout the entire run.
That said, I'm not exactly sure that's a bad thing, necessarily. I ran the dungeon three times today, First as a blind duo with F000CH (which took us just over three hours), then we ran as a group of three (which took us a bit over two, and then I ran it with two blind people who were significantly underleveled (Under two hours), and... I felt like I enjoyed it more each time, rather than it feeling as tedious as the limited mechanics would naturally lead one to feel on quickly repeated runs.
It's not a bad thing to have an "easier" dungeon than Duality was, especially on a season that feels Dead on Arrival, so I'm kind of eager to get back into it and start figuring out the best build going in.
Some notes:
-The collectables feel like an afterthought, especially with how little they tie into the Dungeon. At least Duality's helped us get into Calus's inner thoughts on different aspects of his reign. Eramis is by far the least interesting antagonist in Destiny, and the more they try to give her dialogue, the shallower she seems. It's weird. I wish she had been a well-written tragic villain, as opposed to the always-complaining, miserable misanthrope. Ah well. At least there are only a small batch of easily-findable (save for that first one, lol) ones to collect.
-Tex Mechanica weapons are all interesting additions to the sandbox, but I haven't found one that I would add permanently to my loadout yet. Maybe when I get F000CH's roll on that sidearm...
-Some lead designer at Bungie really hates hammer Titans. It felt so good to run a Warlock again (especially as our vastly Superior jump really shines in this Dungeon), and I'm terrified of running this Dungeon with a hammer. Far, far too many places to launch it into the sunset (Shane! Come baaack!).
-Man, DIM is kind of essential to enjoy Destiny now, isn't it? I was grinding my teeth without it today...
Mostly non-spoilery thoughts on the new Dungeon.
Some notes:
-The collectables feel like an afterthought, especially with how little they tie into the Dungeon. At least Duality's helped us get into Calus's inner thoughts on different aspects of his reign. Eramis is by far the least interesting antagonist in Destiny, and the more they try to give her dialogue, the shallower she seems. It's weird. I wish she had been a well-written tragic villain, as opposed to the always-complaining, miserable misanthrope. Ah well. At least there are only a small batch of easily-findable (save for that first one, lol) ones to collect.
-Tex Mechanica weapons are all interesting additions to the sandbox, but I haven't found one that I would add permanently to my loadout yet. Maybe when I get F000CH's roll on that sidearm...
-Some lead designer at Bungie really hates hammer Titans. It felt so good to run a Warlock again (especially as our vastly Superior jump really shines in this Dungeon), and I'm terrified of running this Dungeon with a hammer. Far, far too many places to launch it into the sunset (Shane! Come baaack!).
- Eramis is a caricature of bitterness because stasis, I suppose. And as a stasis wielder (or wielded) voice, Eramis often strikes me more a personification of the ability than any actual character. Lots of talk, little on answers. Really good at slowing things down.
- Do these legendary Tex Mechanica weapons also reload all fancy like?
- Considering the straight game breaking things folks were doing in combination with that hammer, I'm think'n this one is a mulligan, or at least a worthy venting of dev frustration.
- Thanks for the heads up. #AtLeastWeStillHaveTheBestJump
...oh and, woah woah woah, hol' up. You named the Titan hammer... Shane? When it's CLEARLY an Sjöfn?
-Man, DIM is kind of essential to enjoy Destiny now, isn't it? I was grinding my teeth without it today...
Which is exactly why I've not yet played it. There I was, I had made a build a night before, cleared out some of my secondary vault (AkA The Postmaster) and had made sure I had time to give for my blind lone wolf run. BUT, with D.I.M down I'm not even going to try. I'll just give it a go later.
It's been fun watching other folks talk about this though. It's kinda nice to see voices not my own saying the jest of what I've been rambling on about for multitudes of years now.
(Something something INSANEdrive ranting about how these API functions should be in-game and not exclusive to 3rd or 1st party apps for the Wumbo-illionth time something something. Yes I'm aware of the forth coming build system next season/expansion.)
Mostly non-spoilery thoughts on the new Dungeon.
-Man, DIM is kind of essential to enjoy Destiny now, isn't it? I was grinding my teeth without it today...
Ok legit question. What's DIM do that's so critical that the Official Companion App doesn't?
Mostly flows and UI
You can drag 'n' drop on DIM, which is the major difference. Saving loadout is a very good shiny new bonus, but being to see all 3 characters and seamlessly drag 'n' drop between them and Vault is miles ahead of what the app offers.
The search bar is also very powerful.
Mostly non-spoilery thoughts on the new Dungeon.
I'll admit to being slightly disappointed by the first run through. Don't get me wrong, it was still tons of fun, and I really love the Warmind aesthetic, so there's lots to enjoy there. However, the new dungeon is more straight-forward and linear than perhaps any of the previous ones.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. While initially amazing and sort of cool to explore and feel lost, I now hate the opening of Shattered Throne. I still don't know exactly which symbols go where, so it's always ten minutes of running in circles until I eventually find all the areas I need.
We've traded a bit of the initial wow factor for a more seamless and enjoyable long-term experience. After multiple runs, I think I'm okay with that. The new dungeon has grown on me every time I've done it (as opposed to Duality which was immediately my favorite ever thing in Destiny). I don't think I'll love the new one as much as Duality, but it's still something I'll likely never turn down the opportunity to run through. It is fun, and I really enjoy the gimmick. It was fun to figure out, straight-forward to execute, but still just that little extra thing to manage that can turn encounters from good to great. I also really enjoy the process of actually learning where all the nodes are instead of having to strictly follow the lines. Slowly memorizing the route is something that's enjoyable within Destiny in an odd way.
Unlike many others I've seen online, I also actually liked seeing the reused boss. That was an interesting boss when we first encountered it, and it works just as well a second time.
I remain a bit disappointed that dungeon gear does not really follow the theme of the dungeon. Granted, everything else this season already hits the Warmind theme hard (and it's all great), so I'm not sure what the solution is there. It just feels weird to get what feels like random gear from a dungeon.
The DIM situation.
-Man, DIM is kind of essential to enjoy Destiny now, isn't it? I was grinding my teeth without it today...
DIM is essential to my enjoyment of Destiny, there's no arguing that.
But the outrage over this weekend feels fucking ridiculous to me. Not from you, just from the community in general.
What's the solution. What game has a better solution? No loot game I know of lets you just carry unlimited gear. A vault equivalent becomes necessary at a certain point. Lots of games don't even let you transfer gear between characters, as those characters are essentially their own save files that don't interact with one another.
Warframe is the only game that handles it better in that your "characters" are just another piece of gear that you equip, so there is no worrying about moving gear around between them. But that game comes with the massive tradeoff of only being able to take one weapon in each slot into any given activity.
I've seen very little in the way of any real understanding of how good Destiny players have it than any other loot game I can think off because DIM exists at all, and I genuinely don't think it's something that will ever be solved within the game. It will always be a pain in the ass that, at the very least, requires a Tower run for the Vault. I'm not even sure it would be possible, but being able to transfer weapons between all of your characters while in the vault would be good, but what's that end up doing for load times and server calls? It already takes forever to just load my character selection menu from the server, now I have to do that every time I go to the Tower? No thanks.
Mostly flows and UI
You can drag 'n' drop on DIM, which is the major difference. Saving loadout is a very good shiny new bonus, but being to see all 3 characters and seamlessly drag 'n' drop between them and Vault is miles ahead of what the app offers.
The search bar is also very powerful.
Especially combined with tagging. With one click you can perform actions on all search results, such as move them to any character or the vault.
You can compare duplicates (or anything of a particular type) and lock or unlock items. You can create a load out prioritizing different attributes. It's extremely robust.