Hey DBO

I've been in the process of a move for the past few weeks. As a result, I didn't have internet, and it will be a few weeks before the movers show up with my TV at my new place. My PS4 is sitting at my friends' apartment so my playtime is limited.

On Monday, I hopped on Destiny for the first time in roughly 20 days. Here are some of my thoughts.

• HoW: I got a chance to binge on the content back in May when it came out. Overall I like it a lot, particularly the story missions and the Queen's Bounties. Has anyone flip-flopped on their opinion? Those who liked it now don't, or vice versa?

I love it. I mean story could still be better but definitely an improvement and the added content like Trials of Osiris is dope.

[*]Keys: Does each guardian get one key for the first Queen's Bounty fulfilled per week? I may be wrong, but I think only my first guardian got a key this week. So, is it the first bounty key reward per player, or per character?

One key per character each week. So if you do 1 Petra mission on each character you will get 3 keys that week.

[*]Keys, con't: I finally got my first key drop from a small PoE chest.
[*]Expansion II weapons: What are people's favorite weapons from this expansion? I find myself running out of vault & character weapon space as well as weapon parts, so I want to start breaking stuff down. I'm looking for picks on HMGs, ARs, FRs, and shotguns mainly. If you want to give me some re-roll perk advice I'd take that too--I'm mostly a PVE guy.
[*]Limited Time: When I booted back up, I was surprised at the wealth of options facing me. Iron Banner, Bounties, Queen Bounties, PoE, Nightfall, Weekly Strikes, Raids... If you have limited time per week, what are the activities you prioritize? I like running the Nightfall for a variety of reasons (fun, possible exotic rewards, burns, XP bonus) but beyond that there are tons of choices.
[*]The Notorious Red Bull Quest: Is this content available now, or is it unlocked when TTK gets released? I was a little confused since the codes are available now.
[*]Seattle: I live in Seattle now! I got a place in Ballard. I brought the southeast heat with me, apparently. If any Seattle DBO'ers ever want to hang out, let me know.
[*]PAX2015: I am not attending PAX this year but I am hereby requesting to be included in any sweet HBO/DBO/Secret Bungie events taking place at PAX 2015.
[/list]

Look forward to seeing you back!

Hey DBO

I've been in the process of a move for the past few weeks. As a result, I didn't have internet, and it will be a few weeks before the movers show up with my TV at my new place. My PS4 is sitting at my friends' apartment so my playtime is limited.

On Monday, I hopped on Destiny for the first time in roughly 20 days. Here are some of my thoughts.

• HoW: I got a chance to binge on the content back in May when it came out. Overall I like it a lot, particularly the story missions and the Queen's Bounties. Has anyone flip-flopped on their opinion? Those who liked it now don't, or vice versa?
  
• Keys: Does each guardian get one key for the first Queen's Bounty fulfilled per week? I may be wrong, but I think only my first guardian got a key this week. So, is it the first bounty key reward per player, or per character?
  
• Keys, con't: I finally got my first key drop from a small PoE chest.
  
• Expansion II weapons: What are people's favorite weapons from this expansion? I find myself running out of vault & character weapon space as well as weapon parts, so I want to start breaking stuff down. I'm looking for picks on HMGs, ARs, FRs, and shotguns mainly. If you want to give me some re-roll perk advice I'd take that too--I'm mostly a PVE guy.
  
• Limited Time: When I booted back up, I was surprised at the wealth of options facing me. Iron Banner, Bounties, Queen Bounties, PoE, Nightfall, Weekly Strikes, Raids... If you have limited time per week, what are the activities you prioritize? I like running the Nightfall for a variety of reasons (fun, possible exotic rewards, burns, XP bonus) but beyond that there are tons of choices.
  
• The Notorious Red Bull Quest: Is this content available now, or is it unlocked when TTK gets released? I was a little confused since the codes are available now.
  
• Seattle: I live in Seattle now! I got a place in Ballard. I brought the southeast heat with me, apparently. If any Seattle DBO'ers ever want to hang out, let me know.
  
• PAX2015: I am not attending PAX this year but I am hereby requesting to be included in any sweet HBO/DBO/Secret Bungie events taking place at PAX 2015.

I want to see the answers to some of these questions, too. (I feel like I've played the HOW content the least of any Destiny content.)

Look forward to seeing you in Seattle.

*HoW: I got a chance to binge on the content back in May when it came out. Overall I like it a lot, particularly the story missions and the Queen's Bounties. Has anyone flip-flopped on their opinion? Those who liked it now don't, or vice versa?

I love it. I'd play PoE most nights if people would play with me.

*Keys: Does each guardian get one key for the first Queen's Bounty fulfilled per week? I may be wrong, but I think only my first guardian got a key this week. So, is it the first bounty key reward per player, or per character?

Key for every guardian every week that completes a Queen's Bounty.

*Keys, con't: I finally got my first key drop from a small PoE chest.
*Expansion II weapons: What are people's favorite weapons from this expansion? I find myself running out of vault & character weapon space as well as weapon parts, so I want to start breaking stuff down. I'm looking for picks on HMGs, ARs, FRs, and shotguns mainly. If you want to give me some re-roll perk advice I'd take that too--I'm mostly a PVE guy.

I use my Vestian Dynasty A LOT, and I use Party Crasher +1 for my shotgun of choice in Crucible, but it's slow fire rate is most of the time poor for PvE. BTRD is my HMG of choice from HoW.

*Limited Time: When I booted back up, I was surprised at the wealth of options facing me. Iron Banner, Bounties, Queen Bounties, PoE, Nightfall, Weekly Strikes, Raids... If you have limited time per week, what are the activities you prioritize? I like running the Nightfall for a variety of reasons (fun, possible exotic rewards, burns, XP bonus) but beyond that there are tons of choices.

For the first few weeks I prioritized PoE to get etheric light. Plus if you can run the 35 every week you can get a bounty to choose one of the 3 new exotic weapons (they do not drop any other way). The bounty does drop from the 34, but at a much lower rate.

*The Notorious Red Bull Quest: Is this content available now, or is it unlocked when TTK gets released? I was a little confused since the codes are available now.

Won't be available until TTK

*Seattle: I live in Seattle now! I got a place in Ballard. I brought the southeast heat with me, apparently. If any Seattle DBO'ers ever want to hang out, let me know.
*PAX2015: I am not attending PAX this year but I am hereby requesting to be included in any sweet HBO/DBO/Secret Bungie events taking place at PAX 2015.
[/list]

I initially did not like Prison of Elders. Now, I actually do. It's pretty easy, kind of chaotic, and fun, especially when you have six dudes doing two different POEs in the same party. I'm more likely to do a POE now than a hard mode raid.

I also was afraid Bungle gave the players too much of what they wanted: treasure keys, changeable loot and stuff like that. Luckily, all the new stuff blows chunks, so it evens out and you throw it away anyway. I'm all right with it.

[*]Seattle: I live in Seattle now!

Welcome!

I got a place in Ballard. I brought the southeast heat with me, apparently. If any Seattle DBO'ers ever want to hang out, let me know.

Wait wait wait. *I* live in Ballard, strange internet folk are allowed to live in the same city as me, not in my neighborhood.

You did pick a good neighborhood though :)

Welcome back!

• HoW: I got a chance to binge on the content back in May when it came out. Overall I like it a lot, particularly the story missions and the Queen's Bounties. Has anyone flip-flopped on their opinion? Those who liked it now don't, or vice versa?

Mine have, to an extent. I'll try to keep this as brief as I can :)

When HoW first launched, I was very impressed by all the changes and updates Bungie made to the upgrade system, exchanging materials and currencies, re-rolling weapons, etc. Lots of nice "quality of life" improvements. I still think this stuff is fantastic, for the most part.

Playing through the new content during the first week was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I really enjoyed the new story missions, and I thought the Queen's bounties were a great addition to patrol mode. I was extremely disappointed with Prison of Elders, and still am. Although I do think the level 35 boss fight against Skolas is great... I just don't enjoy the rest of the game mode leading up to it. So that was a downer for me, since I have always primarily been a PvE player. But then I tried Trials of Osiris, and was blown away by how fun and intense it can be. It was the first time I felt like I really clicked with PvP in Destiny. Finally, while not part of House of Wolves, being able to run Crota hard mode as a level 34 drastically changes the raid. It is still challenging and exciting, but way less frustrating than it was as a 32. So there was some new life in that raid for me.

So overall, you could say my feelings about House of Wolves were very positive.
Since then, things have shifted a bit for me. There are some minor specific reasons, but I think bigger issue for me is that House of Wolves has drastically transformed the "loop" of Destiny's end game into something that just doesn't click with me.

For all of Destiny's faults at launch, I fell into an end-game loop that I found deeply compelling and loads of fun. It all centered around the Raid(s). I worked my way up to the point where I felt ready to tackle Vault of Glass. I ran the raid (which is still my favorite activity in Destiny in terms of the pure gameplay experience), and came out with a couple great new pieces of gear. When I went to do some bounties & strikes so I could level this gear up, I discovered that these weapons helped breath new life into the existing content. They allowed me to change the way I approached missions, made me feel powerful in new and exciting ways. Then, armed with my new toys and experience from my previous run, I'd go back into the raid and see if I could do a little better. I'd learn some new tricks, discover new strategies, have even more fun than the first time. At the end, I'd leave with a couple more new pieces of gear, which I'd then take back into the daily and weekly missions, etc. This cycle repeated beautifully for me, for months. Of course there were frustrating moments, problems for Bungie to address, but I loved the core loop. I wasn't just chasing new loot to say "I have it"... I was collecting new ways to experience the same old game. New tools to open up new strategic possibilities.

Then House of Wolves came along, and changed all of that.

The first major problem for me is Prison of Elders. I'm a huge fan or Arena/survival modes, but PoE doesn't deliver what I was hoping for. And that would be fine, except that everything in House of Wolves' end game hinges on it (with the exception of Trials of Osiris). To get the new gear, you need to play PoE. I don't particularly enjoy PoE, but I don't mind some mindless action with friends if it means I can get some cool new gear and hopefully continue breathing new life into the game that way. Except the majority of the new gear in House of Wolves is mediocre. The Queen's weapons are nothing special, and neither are the fallen-themed weapons. The new exotics seem pretty cool, but there is only 1 way to earn them: playing A LOT of PoE. Suddenly I'm left feeling like I don't have an end-game activity I enjoy, AND the drive to chase new gear (so that I can have new ways to play) is also largely diminished.

The other change that I'm starting to feel may have backfired a bit is the ability to re-roll any new vendor gear you acquire. It didn't take long for me to come across a couple new weapons with the base stats I wanted, and re-roll them until I got my ideal perk combos. The final little issue in this realm is that our vault space is still quite limited... with the new weapons being so lackluster, I'm hesitant do shard my old favorites. But I'm out of room, so that's what I would have to do if I wanted to collect anything new.

So now the desire to chase new gear is pretty much gone completely. Not the end of the world, but another big hit to what made Destiny so much fun to replay for me.

There is still lots of stuff in Destiny that I love doing... but its all the same stuff I've been doing for 9 months now, and it's feeling old to me. That is not a fault of House of Wolves, but it is a problem I had hoped HoW would address by adding new things I wanted to do. As I said before, I think Trials of Osiris is fantastic, so that's a big win in my books. I just wish there was something on the PvE side that I enjoyed as much as the raids and the gear that came with them.

[*]Seattle: I live in Seattle now! I got a place in Ballard. I brought the southeast heat with me, apparently. If any Seattle DBO'ers ever want to hang out, let me know.

Good pick.

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