Taken King: Wot I think (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 18:37 (3446 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The other issue is that it is very straightforward. Oryx threatens us, so go kill him. And you kill him. There are no revelations, real changes other than his murder, no deepening or twisting of things (except for the grimoire). It is confusing that everybody seems to know immediately that he is coming, and that his ship is at Saturn. How do we know this? Starting the game with a huge battle scene that we don't care about is silly… that should have been the middle of the game! Hear me out. Imagine the Taken attack Phobos. Nobody knows what they are, then you discover the come from Oryx. So you have to go find Oryx, since the Taken start attacking key areas. Through your missions, you discover his location on Saturn. THEN the Queen launches her attack. Perhaps Cayde thinks it's suicide and wants to try a different plan, but Zavala pushed forward. It ends in failure and you are set back. THEN Cayde goes rougue and does his thing in secret, you kill Oryx, and Zavala and Cayde make up. Wouldn't that have been… better? You could build up the battle and the Queen's 'death', you get even more character development, and it offers something a little more deep.

I sort of wondered about something like that myself. I can't say the story for TTK was "great" but it's presentation through Nathan Fillion sold it, and made it great. Your way, if done correctly, could have been better, yes.

The infusion system is interesting, and ultimately a good alternative to etheric light. I just wish that instead of getting 80% of the value, you got 100%. It's going to be a pain in the ass to get the weapons you want up to max, because you'll need to find multiple maxed weapons, as the benefits are less and less with each infusion. I think when you are within five points of the weapon you get everything, but that still means to go from 280 to 310 you'll need three maxed weapons. I fear that 300 and beyond will be ridiculously grindy, as you have no guarantee your stuff that's dropping is going to even be a higher level. Maybe the raid hard mode drops guaranteed 310s. I don't know. I'm hoping that you are never 'required' to be the max, and it simply isn't intended to be hit.

I'm loving the infusion system so far, but I'm only at 284, and my highest weapon is 293, I think. We'll see how it plays out when I have better gear and am sitting around 300.

The gunsmith tests are pure grind, and stupid. There are some quests which are pure grind and stupid. Get 50 Hadium flakes? Come on. With so much creativity elsewhere in the game, it's shameful that these exist in the game at all. Bungie has shown they can largely move beyond that, and have succeeded wonderfully.

I think the Gunsmith tests are fine. Yeah, they're not all that interesting, but they're very easy to get if you just equip whatever gun it is for patrol and do patrol things for five or ten minutes. You'll get it naturally.

The Hadium Flakes thing is alright, too, I think. I still think a lot of folks are playing Destiny stupidly. Rather than grinding through finding Hadium Flakes, just play the game and let it happen naturally. I really think this is Bungie's intention. I don't think they want anyone to get that quest and then spend the next two hours running circles in the Dreadnaught opening chests. It's one of those quests that you just keep in your inventory and complete as you play the game and do other activities.

All three of the new subclasses are very very good for PvE, largely outshining the other. Defender Titan will always be amazing, and the Gunslinger Hunter can be useful with a year 2 Celestial Nighthawk, But for most other content, the storm caller will be dishing out massive damage, the night stalker wrangling enemies, and the sunbreaker just hammering away. It would have been nice for Bungie to rework the older subclasses to make them more useful in PvE and PvP, wherever they are weak.

I've only used Nightstalker and Stormcaller, but both are tons of fun. However, I still feel like the other classes will always have their place. I will still prefer Voidwalker in PvP to Stormcaller. I can't say which is "better" because I'm not a top level player, but Nova Bombing a group of Guardians standing around Heavy Ammo or capping a Control Zone is stupid fun.