http://www.twitch.tv/bungie

Im on watching and the chat stream is giving me a headache. But I like seeing people with no jellyhorns cry about it. Tough decisions.

CC

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I'm already in trouble with the missus for eating up so much of our data plan this month on my phone. I'm relying on you guys to post a lot of updates until I can get home and watch the replay.

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Such as being able to cancel out your first loss, or your first win counts double.

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Kill the entire team to win the round. Rounds are not games.

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But can also be bought

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I like there are visual and audio indicators when enemies die and when they are revived. You always know how many you're facing.

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We get the same longer-each-time mechanic (the more you die, the longer it takes before you're revivable), but actual revives seem to be significantly faster than existing PvP (Skirmish, Salvage) revives or PvE (any event) revives.

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The faster revives might be because of armor bonuses though. I know one of them is wearing Light Beyond Nemesis which makes revives faster.

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unless they fall in love... then it gets weird.

If you capture it you win.

He blew up the exploding cube next to the special ammo before grabbing it - really smart. I have to remember to do that. (I've gotten Hazard Pay a few times from accidentally shooting that cube while someone was picking up ammo, and I'm sure I've died that way too.)

I'm excited to give it a try, but it sure sounds like something I will not enjoy.
I enjoy intense competitive multiplayer, but with Destiny PvP I never quite feel "in control" of what's going on the way I do with Halo or Titanfall. Too many variables, perhaps. It often takes me the first half of a match to get a feel for how my team (and the enemy team) is playing, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc. ToO sounds too punishing for me.

Dat gear though.... WANT :D

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He said Etheric Light comes from Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner - I hope that's not all. :(

Looks great.

One thing though:

Golden Gun is going to be so OP :-p

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He said Etheric Light comes from Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner - I hope that's not all. :(

Last time they said Prison of Elders as well.

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If this demo was not altered to show stuff off then it should be pretty common. TripleWreck got drops in 2 out of 3 games.

If this demo was not altered to show stuff off then it should be pretty common. TripleWreck got drops in 2 out of 3 games.

Heh. I would be REALLY surprised if it hadn't been tweaked for this. :)

(I was also intrigued by the auto rifle purchased at the end of the matches; it was fully leveled (green circles) right out of the box. Standard - or just for today? (It still needs resources to pull it all the way to the end, I guess, but no experience.)

Golden Gun is still probably better, but facing a team of warlocks that can all revive would be super annoying. It looks like supers are only good for one maybe two rounds though, so unless it's a super close match, the super shouldn't determine who wins the enchilada.

This looks like a lot of fun, but also extremely frustrating for guys like me who don't have amazing kdr's. Seems like I often get above 1.0 now, but I still have LOTS of bad matches.

Bungies twitter said that loot should drop more often at the end of all crucibal matches in HoW

edit:
@Bungie: A little birdie named @lars_bakken tells us that ALL Crucible modes will be much more generous once House of Wolves drops.

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He said Etheric Light comes from Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner - I hope that's not all. :(

Last time they said Prison of Elders as well.

As well as there being a chance of it dropping in Weekly Activities

(I was also intrigued by the auto rifle purchased at the end of the matches; it was fully leveled (green circles) right out of the box. Standard - or just for today? (It still needs resources to pull it all the way to the end, I guess, but no experience.)

I suspect that's a dev environment thing, but maybe they're changing it up!

It seems odd that after each round your teams don't swap spawns to make it more equal.

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I agree. I, too, don't think I'll find the Trials of Osiris all that fun. I'm an ok Crucible player as it, but I'm pretty realistic about my skills. I don't have the same magically dextrous thumbs some of you, and some of my opponents seem to have. I get the feeling I'm gonna get ToO invites and fail each time.

I was watching and trying to work at the same time, I saw at least once revive after a whole team was down and it put an extra 30 seconds on the timer.

In my opinion warlocks are going to dominate this thing.

CC

The House of Wolves page has pictures of the new Crucible maps (including the Phobos map!) and more!

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That's a good point. Any other sport would do this, seems like it should have been done here. I'd be interested to know if they thought of that.

My guess is, in the code, alpha and bravo teams always spawn where they do, so they didn't want, or didn't consider rewriting code for that. If you kept the code as is, you'd have to switch teams each round, (alpha became bravo, bravo became alpha). Personally, I might have considered creating two new teams (give them whatever names you want, Charlie and Delta) and then wrote code to swap spawns with each round.

That's a good point. Any other sport would do this, seems like it should have been done here. I'd be interested to know if they thought of that.

My guess is, in the code, alpha and bravo teams always spawn where they do, so they didn't want, or didn't consider rewriting code for that. If you kept the code as is, you'd have to switch teams each round, (alpha became bravo, bravo became alpha). Personally, I might have considered creating two new teams (give them whatever names you want, Charlie and Delta) and then wrote code to swap spawns with each round.

That would be... less than great design, and it's not what they did, because they've moved spawn points for teams in Destiny before, and I'd be shocked if no one thought of them switching with each round since it's been in Halo for years.

- Deej's suit is amazing
- I'm not good enough for this
- I like the new game mode
- Apologies in advance to whoever gets conned into playing with me
- Helmets look awesome
- So does the auto rifle
- I'm 100% sure I will never own any of that gear, despite my best efforts

Overall a quality stream.

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Like I suspected, PS exclusive for HoW is a Crucible map. You can read about it on the Playstation Blog.

Remember that this will be filled with other people in the same shoes as you. You'll do fine.

"Double the engrams and marks, as well as guaranteed rewards for participating in the daily featured game."

Incorrect. They have permanently changed a spawn location which is not the same as changing spawn location on a per round basis. Regardless of what you chose to do you would need to add code creating conditionals to say in ToO spawns flop for alpha and bravo, thus breaking the current coding for alpha bravo, or you create two new team objects, as I suggested, with new behaviors and mask them to look the same as current alpha and bravo.

Bungies twitter said that loot should drop more often at the end of all crucibal matches in HoW

edit:
@Bungie: A little birdie named @lars_bakken tells us that ALL Crucible modes will be much more generous once House of Wolves drops.

According to the PlayStation Blog, drop rates have been doubled.

There's a repeating yell "Hoo!" every once and a while. Is that a map feature or a Trials feature? Reminds me of some electronic music from ~2000 (in a bad way).

Remember that this will be filled with other people in the same shoes as you. You'll do fine.

It's not just about the competition. It's about the pace. This is a MUCH less forgiving PvP mode than we've seen before. (It's the same reason the folks I play with are loathe to go into Skirmish or Salvage - mistakes bite harder.)

This is how we will get the gear. Double win seems like a no brainer. What do they cost?

I need to catch some salvage, I'm 5 caps away from my platinum trophy & I haven't seen salvage in ages...

This is how we will get the gear. Double win seems like a no brainer. What do they cost?

They cost Trials coins, which you get as drops, or by playing in featured Crucible lists.

And the double-win only works on the first win of a card, as far as I can tell.

Incorrect. They have permanently changed a spawn location which is not the same as changing spawn location on a per round basis.

I thought you were saying any change might require changing the code, which is not the case and would be bad design.

In IB, just HAVING a team of 6 is a good chance to win, but with this, with everyone teamed up, and you bearing double the weight, it's going to be hard to win if all 3 suck.

But, if unoudid wants to take me and ProbablyLast through one weekend, I'd be all right with it.

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In IB, just HAVING a team of 6 is a good chance to win, but with this, with everyone teamed up, and you bearing double the weight, it's going to be hard to win if all 3 suck.

But, if unoudid wants to take me and ProbablyLast through one weekend, I'd be all right with it.

I'll probably run ToO most weekends. I'd love to take you guys in with me.

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I have a feeling that the most important skill to have will be to work as a team. Although, clutch plays by individuals will be VERY important also. Seems like (the little bit that I've played) in salvage teamwork is more important than skill, but salvage has team-building match-making, unlike ToO where you must bring your own team.

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I have a feeling that the most important skill to have will be to work as a team. Although, clutch plays by individuals will be VERY important also. Seems like (the little bit that I've played) in salvage teamwork is more important than skill, but salvage has team-building match-making, unlike ToO where you must bring your own team.

Team work and communication will be key. That and Thorn/Red Death :)

Team work and communication will be key. That and Thorn/Red Death :)

You'd better believe I'll be running Thorn in ToO! I need to level up my Red Death & give it a try.

the Healing part of Red Death will become even more relevant in ToO since you'll be in limited engagements against 2-3 people most likely. It'll be the difference between life and death

So, as I understand it, you buy a passage with special ToO Coins. Does just the fireteam leader need to purchase a passage? Does each member have to buy one too? Are they a shared resource? I'm not entirely clear on how this works. Here's my best guess:

- the fireteam leader MUST have a passage to take his team to the ToO.
- each fireteam member may purchase a passage.
- wins/losses are tracked on each individual's passage, there is not a TEAM passage.

??

Sounds like I need to run some bounties & get that Red Death ready! That is ... if i actually end up playing the ToO.

I've been slowly becoming more & more interested in playing some PvP. I was completely turned off to it when I first tried it, but over many Iron Banner's I've become more familiar with how PvP works and can actually get over a 1.0 kdr most of the time now! Tho' my kdr on DTR is still below 1.0.

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Or can you matchmake to get your 3? (not that you'd often want to go in with randoms)

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Looks great.

One thing though:

Golden Gun is going to be so OP :-p

I think Invis revives might be more useful than Golden Gun, but maybe not. If you can kill two with your 4 shots, you have a very good chance of winning that round.

If you win the round with super kills and your teammates aren't around to get the orbs... what happens to orbs between rounds?

Other classes have big pluses too: Titan shield bubble & Warlock self-res.

And shoulder charge around corners.

So, as I understand it, you buy a passage with special ToO Coins. Does just the fireteam leader need to purchase a passage? Does each member have to buy one too? Are they a shared resource? I'm not entirely clear on how this works. Here's my best guess:

- the fireteam leader MUST have a passage to take his team to the ToO.
- each fireteam member may purchase a passage.
- wins/losses are tracked on each individual's passage, there is not a TEAM passage.

??

I'd be really surprised if it weren't a per-person thing. That is - you're not allowed in to the trials at all without a passage. (Your card is your own; you can change teams between games, so team leaders are pretty irrelevant from that standpoint.)

I really hope we don't have to fly to the reef, buy a token, go back to orbit, fly to the Trials.

When is the replay going to be up?!?!

hmm, wonder what happens if one person fills out there card and the other two don't--either wins or losses. are they no longer able to play together until a new card is got?

http://www.twitch.tv/bungie/b/654585251

http://www.twitch.tv/bungie/b/654585251

I'm pretty disappointed. All this fanfare and it's just slayer/deathmatch that ends a round when everyone on a team dies, with the presumably rare exception of a capture point if the game goes long enough. There are other unique things about it, but other than the limited heavy ammo and revives instead of respawns (which have shown up in other gametypes), they don't affect the gameplay, unless you count trying to put more tension and weight into it through external risks and rewards.

Someone was telling me this is to placate people who want a more competitive experience, but on top of the randomness the game normally has they're prioritizing connection over skill and using Iron Banner-style damage (taking attack rating and player level into account), so I don't think it offers much to people who want that type of game. I would think Inferno would/does cover that better than this, and an Inferno-style limited point setup along with these elements and the regular damage model would probably do even better. Even then, though, I don't think anything is going to do much to bring in or keep in the kind of players into a "pro" or "hardcore" experience unless they add the ability to have proper tournaments and cut down the randomness a lot.
I'd really like to hear from someone who is into that, though, and what they think.

Anyway, since I and a lot of others want it, and they're seemingly not doing much in the way of things to appeal to tournament-ish/pro-ish players, I don't see why they don't add more objective gametypes (like control and salvage). For that matter, I don't see why they don't do both.

There's a repeating yell "Hoo!" every once and a while. Is that a map feature or a Trials feature? Reminds me of some electronic music from ~2000 (in a bad way).

I don't think it's supposed to be a voice, and it happened when someone died, I think. It happens sometimes in PvE when you wipe, along with something I always thought sounded like an old phone ringing.

Please, sir.

Used to require a win Streak of 10 on a single entry. Guess that's changed now if you can only get up to 9 wins before booting back to Orbit. Any mention of the gun/its bounty, so far?

Last time I played Salvage with a DBO team we did something so vastly other than "fine" that I've pretty much sworn off the gametype. I'm talking something like 5 or 6 straight blowout crushing defeats. :/

I might try ToO but I'm not excited to do so. At all.

I'm had similar experiences before of just getting stomped non stop.

Grr. Cmon bungie upload it to YouTube already ._.

I'm a little unclear on how the "quitting counts as a loss" rule. It's clear that if you're in the middle of a match and quit, you loose the match and add a loss to your tally. But if you quit to orbit after completing a match, I'm hoping that won't be a loss.

Assuming your team is just good enough to keep a win streak going to hit the gold tier (7 close wins: 35 wins, 28 losses), a 7 win streak is going to take about 2.5 hours.

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Someone was telling me this is to placate people who want a more competitive experience, but on top of the randomness the game normally has they're prioritizing connection over skill and using Iron Banner-style damage (taking attack rating and player level into account), so I don't think it offers much to people who want that type of game.

When they said it would be more competitive, you could interpret it one of two ways:
1. A match will always push the limits of your skill
2. If you are skilled, it will be obvious.

You took it as the first, I took it as the second, and I think the intent is aimed at the second. Let me explain.
Case #1 is achieved by having perfect matching making based on skill level. If they matched games based on skill, and the matching system were perfect, EVERYONE would win 50% of the time. And half the time, when you lost, it would of course be due to lag :)
This system would make every game as hard as possible while still making the game winnable.

Do achieve #2, you need to do the opposite of #1. If you match based on connection, you'll get no lag, and if you're in the top 10% of teams, you should be able to beat 9 out of 10 teams that you face. Thus if you are skilled, you will actually win more. Yes, you'll end up with games where you walk all over the other team, and the other team walks all over you. But this opens competitive mode up in a way that allows you to experience the spectrum of Destiny players. Maybe you think you're only "okay", and walk into this unable to lose. Maybe you think you're hot shit and can't win a single game.

I personally like the idea as an optional game type. It should produce very different games than what we're used to. At the same time, the team play will be CRUCIAL and will make up for a fair bit of of individual skill.

Used to require a win Streak of 10 on a single entry. Guess that's changed now if you can only get up to 9 wins before booting back to Orbit. Any mention of the gun/its bounty, so far?

"Used to", as in back when it was never a bounty ever? It's worth pointing out and discussing, but afaik Bungie has never made this official, and certainly never achievable?

Yet another thing that I learned today.

There's one at 23:19. Seems completely random.

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Everyone will be playing it the first few weeks, so the "good-team ratio" will be low. Later on, the bad players will give up and the "good-team ratio" will be higher.

This is exactly how I'm imagining it to work out long term.

I figured I'd end up playing the first week pretty HAMF because it's pretty much the only map I'm reliably good at anyway.

You're right of course. It's never even been in the game proper, let alone achievable without ToO. But the bounty has been in the code forever, and the gun certainly exists, as one person received it as a gift from Bungie.

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What's the point of having exclusives now? By the 2nd expansion people will have already purchased the game on the system of their choice and invested a lot of time into it. How does having exclusives at this point drive any extra sales?

What's the point of having exclusives now? By the 2nd expansion people will have already purchased the game on the system of their choice and invested a lot of time into it. How does having exclusives at this point drive any extra sales?

I still see brand new guardians with low grimiore scores on a daily basis, so some people must still be picking it up.

What's the point of having exclusives now? By the 2nd expansion people will have already purchased the game on the system of their choice and invested a lot of time into it. How does having exclusives at this point drive any extra sales?

I think they said before launch day that the expansion pass content would contain exclusives, didn't they?

So perhaps it drove extra sales.

What's the point of having exclusives now? By the 2nd expansion people will have already purchased the game on the system of their choice and invested a lot of time into it. How does having exclusives at this point drive any extra sales?

Like I told Rev back when he lamented the TDB exclusives: the contract was for each DLC pack until later this year. At this point it may not drive tons of sales, but it continues the trend of PS4 being the place to play, which does still matter to people who ask around or are on the fence.
I'd like for them to make Exodus Blue available to all with HoW like the TDB maps, since it's a great Control map that I'd love to see in IB, and the fact that we rarely get to play it outside of normal playlists makes me sad. Same will go for this next map. Same thing goes for exclusive strikes. It's a double-edged sword, but pre-release contracts don't disappear just because the Playstation community wants more variety for everyone... But fall will roll around soon enough.

Regardless of whether or not it still drives sales it was part of the marketing for both the game and the expansion pass, so they have to at least finish what they agreed to.

Looks like a blend of Halo 2's Turf (with fallen walker vehicle included) and Halo 3's Ghost Town - two of my favorite maps!

Also really happy the Halo 2 model of DLC maps going free after a while is coming back. That's just the best way to do it for everyone.

And we get to play on Phobos! New skybox!!!

What's the point of having exclusives now? By the 2nd expansion people will have already purchased the game on the system of their choice and invested a lot of time into it. How does having exclusives at this point drive any extra sales?

Like I told Rev back when he lamented the TDB exclusives: the contract was for each DLC pack until later this year. At this point it may not drive tons of sales, but it continues the trend of PS4 being the place to play, which does still matter to people who ask around or are on the fence.
I'd like for them to make Exodus Blue available to all with HoW like the TDB maps, since it's a great Control map that I'd love to see in IB, and the fact that we rarely get to play it outside of normal playlists makes me sad. Same will go for this next map. Same thing goes for exclusive strikes. It's a double-edged sword, but pre-release contracts don't disappear just because the Playstation community wants more variety for everyone... But fall will roll around soon enough.

That reminds me:

Why is the Iron Banner a dark below playlist? It's got no dark below maps in the rotation!

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Does special ammo reset per round? Makes a big difference regarding exotic specials versus primaries.

No, no it does not. A viable tactic seems to be grabbing the special after you've beaten the opponent team but while the round end timer is going.

Guess my PI is out. That thing is the king of one on one's too, bummer.

Golden:

Green:

Via Reddit

Just in case anyone thought this WASN'T 'shopped :)

It would be great to have some Victorian fabric options in the game though. Banana and Beard would go crazy trying to find the perfect cape to match it.

It would be great to have some Victorian fabric options in the game though. Banana and Beard would go crazy trying to find the perfect cape to match it.

Shaders with more patterns would definitely be cool. As far as I know the only ones we have now are camo looking patterns which I've never been a fan of.

The camo pattern on the Reverent shader really gets to me. It's a nearly perfect shader, and then they go and throw camo one it. It makes my warlock look dumb in many instances

The camo pattern on the Reverent shader really gets to me. It's a nearly perfect shader, and then they go and throw camo one it. It makes my warlock look dumb in many instances

Yeah this is how I feel about Thunderdevil on Hunters. It's such an awesome color and looks amazing on Titans, and then I equip it on my Hunter. Camo. On a silver shader. REALLY?

The camo pattern on the Reverent shader really gets to me. It's a nearly perfect shader, and then they go and throw camo one it. It makes my warlock look dumb in many instances

Yeah this is how I feel about Thunderdevil on Hunters. It's such an awesome color and looks amazing on Titans, and then I equip it on my Hunter. Camo. On a silver shader. REALLY?

I actually really like it on my hunter, but only when I'm wearing the correct pants.

I looked up the numbers the last time somebody asked this on the board. Their sales of PlayStation for this year are roughly on par with last year.