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Niobe Labs, and unlocking Black Armory Lore. (Destiny)

by cheapLEY @, Monday, January 07, 2019, 21:08 (1907 days ago)

Niobe Labs hits tomorrow. I'm eager to see what sort of activity it is.

This release has done a pretty poor job of contextualizing the Forges, Ada-1, and the new raid, but that context is present in the lore pages, and it's interesting.

For anyone confused, I highly recommend hitting up Ishtar Collective and reading The Black Armory Papers. I'm sure Raga will get there in a year or two. (:

Long story short--Niobe Labs is where Ada-1 was created. It also may be key to her becoming a walking Forge herself (but also maybe not?), as she once was. And early Guardians seem like real dickheads, too.

These lore pages only drop from Gofannon Forge, and apparently at a not-great rate. I have a single page after dozens of runs through that Forge.

This may be old news, but I learned today that you can cheat it. Use Eververse armor at 10 power level to drop your average Power Level to around 250, then matchmake into Gofannon. The Forges matchmake based on power level, so you will either be placed in the Forge alone, or with similarly powered Guardians doing this cheese. Now, since you won't be ruining anyone's game, you are free to idle through the Forge. Auto-queue means you can let it run overnight, running the Forge on an endless loop. The short failure time means you won't get booted for inactivity. In the morning, you'll have some lore pages and a boatload of data lattice that you can turn into Failsafe for a shot at some Enhancement Cores.

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Or you could just read the pages without cheesing...

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 07, 2019, 21:35 (1907 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Anyway, yeah, the lore is interesting. Yes, some Guardians were idiots looking only for power and not caring who they had to hurt to get it. But it was also the early days before the Iron Lords cleaned things up, so some of that is nicely consistent.

I think what interested me more is we got what seemed to be some small amount of description of what it was like on the ground (well... if hiding deep in an advanced bunker complex counts as being on the ground) as the Darkness attacked Earth.

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Or you could just read the pages without cheesing...

by cheapLEY @, Monday, January 07, 2019, 22:02 (1907 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Between this and the Marsenna stuff, it’s nice to see at least something concrete about the Darkness attacking. I really want to know what those creatures were.

Also, I would really love to see more stuff about the first Guardians to awaken, what those first days or weeks (or years) must have been like before they figured things out.

Re: Black Armory Lore...

by Claude Errera @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 10:30 (1907 days ago) @ cheapLEY

These lore pages only drop from Gofannon Forge, and apparently at a not-great rate. I have a single page after dozens of runs through that Forge.

I'm finding they're dropping at an average of one page per 10 completions.

Which makes me wonder... does the cheat actually work? I mean... you're not actually completing the Forge... is there still a chance to get the lore on failed attempts?

(Just checked; I can get as low as LL 53. But since the recommended level for that Forge is 610, I wouldn't be able to do ANYTHING but sit there.)

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It worked.

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 10:34 (1907 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I woke up this morning with every lore page ready to unlock, and 908 datalattice in the post master.

Okay, then.

by Claude Errera @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 10:35 (1907 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I woke up this morning with every lore page ready to unlock, and 908 datalattice in the post master.

Good to know!

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Okay, then.

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 10:38 (1907 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by cheapLEY, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 10:41

I woke up this morning with every lore page ready to unlock, and 908 datalattice in the post master.


Good to know!

I didn’t count how many lore pages there were. At 1 per 10 completions, that’s a whole lot of Gofannon completions. It wouldn’t be so bad if it could be from any Forge—I’m sure I’ll have hundreds of completions across all forges soon enough. But from a specific Forge, that seems like a lot.

Edit: I didn’t have any nasty messages, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t screw a team actually looking to complete the Forge sometime during the night, for whatever that’s worth. For the first few times, I know I was with people also below 300 who were just idling, and the same is true for the round I was in when I woke up. I think chances are good that enough people are doing this right now that you’ll just get matched with folks also idling through. But I guess there is the possibility that it won’t hold true at some point in the middle of the night.

Niobe Labs?

by Oholiab @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 12:30 (1907 days ago) @ cheapLEY

What are the Niobe Labs, and how did you know they were coming tomorrow? Did I miss a TWAB?

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Niobe Labs?

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 12:54 (1907 days ago) @ Oholiab

What are the Niobe Labs, and how did you know they were coming tomorrow? Did I miss a TWAB?

It's a new place that we now know is in the EDZ and it was in that within-the-season roadmap we got just before it dropped (also showed ever forge unlock and IB).

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Community Puzzle

by squidnh3, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 13:48 (1906 days ago) @ Oholiab

Niobe Labs appears to be a complex puzzle the community is currently trying to solve. Once the first fireteam solves it, the final forge (Bergusia Forge) will open to all players, much like the first Last Wish raid completion triggered the curse cycle in the Dreaming City.

If you want to participate in the puzzle, I'd suggest visiting r/raidsecrets. There appear to be some guides there about what is known so far.

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Niobe Labs Puzzle

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 17:42 (1906 days ago) @ cheapLEY

So, I'm having mixed feelings about how this has played out.

Initially, I'm disappointed. I've never thought these sorts of puzzles (the original Sleeper Simulant, Outbreak Prime, etc) are that cool. I understand that tons of people like them, and I am glad stuff like it exists. But it always ends up feeling less cool in practice than it does on paper--a small subset of the community solves the puzzle and everyone else just follows a guide.

Again, that's all fine, I think. It's undoubtedly cool for those that participate, it's just not my thing.

I think my disappointment is one of expectations. I was expecting some cool new content to play today, and instead there's a puzzle that I have no interest in participating in (and, realistically, not much of a chance of actually contributing anything even if I wanted to).

As weird as it may sound, I'd be much more excited and into this (even though I still wouldn't participate) if Niobe Labs hadn't been an announced thing on the roadmap. If it had just dropped secretly today, waiting for someone to find it and start the puzzle, it would feel so much better. Partly that's just because I wouldn't have had the expectation of new content to play when I got off work.

And don't get me wrong--there's plenty of other stuff I can do. I'm happy to wait, but it still just feels like Bungie is on an entirely different wavelength than I am when they message new content.

I'm eager to see how this pans out, though!

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My feelings exactly

by breitzen @, Kansas, Tuesday, January 08, 2019, 21:33 (1906 days ago) @ cheapLEY

- No text -

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Niobe Labs Puzzle

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 08:18 (1906 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by Korny, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 08:42

So, I'm having mixed feelings about how this has played out.

Initially, I'm disappointed. I've never thought these sorts of puzzles (the original Sleeper Simulant, Outbreak Prime, etc) are that cool. I understand that tons of people like them, and I am glad stuff like it exists. But it always ends up feeling less cool in practice than it does on paper--a small subset of the community solves the puzzle and everyone else just follows a guide.

As weird as it may sound, I'd be much more excited and into this (even though I still wouldn't participate) if Niobe Labs hadn't been an announced thing on the roadmap. If it had just dropped secretly today, waiting for someone to find it and start the puzzle, it would feel so much better.

The thing about this event is that it was made specifically for the streamers (Bungie even went so far as to link directly to their partnered streams ahead of time) this is their event... But then they made the event incredibly boring to watch, and nigh-impossible to figure out, so progress and excitment came to a screeching halt, as nobody knows what to do, and no team even wants to bother trying to do this, since the "pros" can't figure it out. It's been nearly 24 hours, with much of that just watching people shoot at symbols for a few minutes, then start over.

All for the sake of trickling out content and making streamable events.

Oddly enough, Forbes has the best take on this whole event so far:

“Community interaction” has been relegated to stream viewers shouting suggestion at creators in Twitch chat only to be told “we’ve already tried that” on repeat a thousand times.

This isn’t even a debate between casual vs. hardcore players at this point or what’s endgame content or not. This is just not a good way to roll out stuff. I do not mind the week to week schedule which stretches out releases over the course of a season as it’s a reason to look forward to each new development. But it’s something else entirely when you keep slamming into these gates time and time again, and fool me three times, which is what we’re at now, and I don’t blame those who are ready to walk away entirely. This is just not how anyone wants to see new content released, even most of the ultra-elite this is supposedly being crafted for.

I have no idea how long it will take to solve Niobe Labs, but when it happens, it’s going to be less of a “woo hoo, congrats!’ moment than it is a “good lord finally what the hell” one instead.

Even Bungie's had to step in with hints. And the ultimate prize? Probably just another Forge.

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Well they gave up

by squidnh3, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 12:29 (1906 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Bungie is opening the final forge today at 5 EST, regardless of if Niobe gets figured out.

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Lol.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 13:00 (1906 days ago) @ squidnh3

I’m all down for them trying new things, but this was dumb. I watched for a few hours last night, and it was just people trying random combinations with only the thinnest connection to trying to match clues.

This whole things feels ill conceived and poorly implemented.

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Funny is the key

by squidnh3, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 15:14 (1905 days ago) @ cheapLEY

In theory, you can see the idea behind the event as sort of a combination of ilovebees and Twitch Plays Pokemon. In practice, relying on an increasingly unhinged internet to interpret a single obscure French word and relay the instructions to sleep-deprived streamers becomes quite humorous.

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Funny is the key

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 18:24 (1905 days ago) @ squidnh3

I want to make it clear that I'm not shitting on Bungie. I think, on its own, it could have been a neat thing to discover. I don't hate the concept, or even how it plays out. I just don't find it particularly compelling content. And while I appreciate the idea of player actions opening up new activities (like the raid and the Dreaming City), I just don't think this was a good implementation of this concept.

I know that lots of people here already have problems with the grind of playing Destiny, I still think leaning into that on a community scale could be a cool way for the players to drive stuff like that, without it feeling like it's really just one Fireteam that unlocked it for everyone.

Imagine a community quest to rebuild the old Tower. The quest would really mainly just consist of playing the content we already have, but with the explicit goal of earning materials and resources to dump into rebuilding the Tower. When the players as a whole reach some really high number of materials, it kicks of the next step in the rebuilding process (Que Korny talking Warframe Relays or something). There'd have to be some unique stuff along the way to make that truly compelling, but, to me, that's just another reason to log in and play, with the added benefit of contributing to something cool. I also think the Factions could tie into a system like that quite nicely, and I think it would do a lot towards making Destiny really an actual live game, which, to me, is more than just a game that gets updates, but is also a game that is, at least in part, driven by and reacts to the players.

For this to work, though, Bungie would really have to change their mindset, I think, which I don't see happening. And they'd have to make a version of Destiny that just serves as a platform moving forward, and not a product with a three year shelf life.

From Reddit...

by CougRon, Auburn, WA, USA, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 15:14 (1905 days ago) @ squidnh3

This made me chuckle

by Oholiab @, Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 15:51 (1905 days ago) @ CougRon

- No text -

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They finally got it

by squidnh3, Saturday, January 12, 2019, 06:24 (1903 days ago) @ squidnh3

Looks like the final puzzle was solved. It drops an exotic ghost and an emblem. Might be fun to give it a try sometime (with the solution ready of course).

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They finally got it

by cheapLEY @, Saturday, January 12, 2019, 07:49 (1903 days ago) @ squidnh3

Looks like the final puzzle was solved. It drops an exotic ghost and an emblem. Might be fun to give it a try sometime (with the solution ready of course).

I didn’t dig into it, but I saw something about clues not being shown correctly or something?

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They finally got it

by DiscipleN2k @, Edmond, OK, Saturday, January 12, 2019, 08:26 (1903 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Looks like the final puzzle was solved. It drops an exotic ghost and an emblem. Might be fun to give it a try sometime (with the solution ready of course).


I didn’t dig into it, but I saw something about clues not being shown correctly or something?

Yeah. The last part required shooting symbols with a weapon that couldn't actually see the symbols. There was supposed to be a line about something "unseen" that somehow didn't make it into the game.

-Disciple

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They finally got it

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, January 14, 2019, 11:10 (1901 days ago) @ DiscipleN2k
edited by Kermit, Monday, January 14, 2019, 11:40

Looks like the final puzzle was solved. It drops an exotic ghost and an emblem. Might be fun to give it a try sometime (with the solution ready of course).


I didn’t dig into it, but I saw something about clues not being shown correctly or something?


Yeah. The last part required shooting symbols with a weapon that couldn't actually see the symbols. There was supposed to be a line about something "unseen" that somehow didn't make it into the game.

-Disciple

I take back my congratulatory post about "stumping the hive mind." It's a shame that a regular play space was hidden behind a flawed implementation of a puzzle. I do like the idea of puzzles that are not solved or even discovered right away, but maybe those kinds of things should be reserved for special gear.

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They finally got it

by DiscipleN2k @, Edmond, OK, Monday, January 14, 2019, 11:54 (1901 days ago) @ Kermit

Looks like the final puzzle was solved. It drops an exotic ghost and an emblem. Might be fun to give it a try sometime (with the solution ready of course).


I didn’t dig into it, but I saw something about clues not being shown correctly or something?


Yeah. The last part required shooting symbols with a weapon that couldn't actually see the symbols. There was supposed to be a line about something "unseen" that somehow didn't make it into the game.

-Disciple


I take back my congratulatory post about "stumping the hive mind." It's a shame that a regular play space was hidden behind a flawed implementation of a puzzle. I do like the idea of puzzles that are not solved or even discovered right away, but maybe those kinds of things should be reserved for special gear.

To be fair, the clue wasn't 100% necessary. I didn't follow the whole thing, but the gist I got from the wrap-up was that one of the clues they DID have showed the symbols for the three houses that made the three weapons that have been used to see and shoot the symbols so far, but the symbols were pictured with elements that didn't match those weapons. Some people watching the streams suggested using a solar weapon to shoot they symbols you could only see with the void machine gun, but some streamers thought they had already tried that and, because of the insane amount of time lost for each failure, they understandably didn't want to try something they believed someone else had already proven was wrong.

-Disciple

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