Destiny 2 Catch-All

I've moved twice since the last time I used my PC mic, and I can't find the damn thing anywhere. Guess it's time to buy a new one!

I may be getting into Destiny. I blame Bubblefuzz.

Edit: Activision stepping away from the game has also made me more interested in playing it.

I'm really enjoying it so far! Completed the pre-expansion campaign yesterday, starting in on expansion 1. Tried to start a multi-player mission (don't remember what they're called now) that appeared to have some matchmaking built in, but never did end up with anyone else on my team. I'm guessing that I'll have more luck with that when I reach max level - or do I need to just learn how to use the companion app to plan fireteam stuff?

Hm, do you recall exactly what it was you were doing?

One or two of the regular story missions have sections where you pass through public spaces where you get matched temporarily with other players doing the mission at the same time. For those, yeah, you'd probably be alone, but you should be fine either way -- they're generally tuned to be soloed.

If you were doing strikes, that would be a bit unexpected. Strikes are this game’s equivalent of a WoW five person dungeon — content with more crafted, complex encounter design, meant to always be done with a full three person team and take maybe 15 or 20 minutes — and the matchmaking system should almost always provide teammates, especially if you are running them through the playlist. Even at lower power levels, too — a few months ago I was running them with a friend who was new to the game, and the matchmaking always found us a third. Maybe if you were using the map icon to launch a specific instance a lower level there could be trouble though?

Anyway, if matchmaking does fail you again, the companion app should be your absolute last resort.

Head to the GWJ Destiny Discord first, for sure — even if you’re looking for company for low level stuff, the way this game handles level scaling and endgame pursuits means that it will at least be fun and potentially be rewarding even for max level players to help you out, so it really doesn’t hurt to ask. And if no one is on our Discord server, there are other Discord servers that are FAR more useful than any of the official tools.

Oh man, remember the days of outside of game LFG's for Destiny 1? It's crazy how poorly implemented the social features were in the dark days of Destiny. It really has come a long way, though it's still not ideal.

Ok, so what I did was from the destinations map, clicked on Vanguard, Vanguard Strikes, Launch. It did the searching for players thing and then dumped me into the strike solo. Maybe it was a fluke, I'll try it again when I have time.

As for discord, my new mic should be delivered later this week

Huh, crazy. Yeah, I suppose maybe at this point the lowest power playlists aren't very populated. Bummer.

Even without a mic, though, jump on Discord. Providing voice comms is only a part of it -- much more than that, we use it as a more functional, easier to use clan/guild chat and info sharing hub for the game. Even without a mic you'll be able to quickly ping other players who have opted into platform specific groups to organize impromptu grouping and set up groups where you can either have unidirectional voice chat or just use in game text chat once you've formed a fireteam. And beyond that, we've got some useful FAQs and a server full of people happy to answer any other questions you might have about the game.

Well, just tried again and it worked. Got dumped into the middle of a strike already in progress, but them's the breaks I suppose

Serengeti wrote:

Ok, so what I did was from the destinations map, clicked on Vanguard, Vanguard Strikes, Launch. It did the searching for players thing and then dumped me into the strike solo. Maybe it was a fluke, I'll try it again when I have time.

As for discord, my new mic should be delivered later this week :-)

There are at least 2 different buckets for matchmaking strikes. I am not totally sure how it breaks them up but I believe it has to do with story progress but may just be power level. I know this from playing with my son who has only just finished the first campaign. We almost never get a third for strikes and I do not get progress on my weeklies.

Heya, I'm coming very late to this as a new player (never saw Destiny 1, and have only played D2 the base game through the story, then I put it down a while and forgot most everything and am now picking it up again).

I'm having trouble getting the big picture stuff straight on progression, currencies, and so forth. Can anyone point me somewhere that demystifies stuff, or run down the highlights?

Examples of stuff I'm unclear on:

  • I get the impression that exotics are basically things you unlock, not things you use for a while and then outlive, or lose. So in the late game, you choose whichever you like the bonuses of and either "reacquire" or "infuse" it to get it up to your level. Is that generally the idea?
  • Where I am, "reacquire" and "infuse" seem to bring items up to roughly the same level, but the former is much cheaper. Is the difference that reacquire just brings an item up to some baseline, whereas infusing can keep being done subsequently, as long as you have higher items to infuse with?
  • How many expansions are there? The shop shows "forsaken" and a seasonal pass, but the game UI shows stuff being gated behind other things (warmind, season of the XYZ, etc.). Are those past expansions that got folded into other things, or what?
  • I tried PvP and mostly just got one-shotted. I gather it ignores player levels, but does gear matter? Or is it just other people having specs/gear bonuses that are optimized for pvp?
  • What is the current "PvE thing people at max level do", and can I see it with the base game or am I gated out of it? I've done some "strikes", but there didn't seem to be many others doing it, and it's hard to tell if it's obsolete content or not.

Etc, etc. I've looked for noob guides but couldn't find anything that gives the big picture. Thanks...

fenomas wrote:

Heya, I'm coming very late to this as a new player (never saw Destiny 1, and have only played D2 the base game through the story, then I put it down a while and forgot most everything and am now picking it up again).

I'm having trouble getting the big picture stuff straight on progression, currencies, and so forth. Can anyone point me somewhere that demystifies stuff, or run down the highlights?

Examples of stuff I'm unclear on:

  • I get the impression that exotics are basically things you unlock, not things you use for a while and then outlive, or lose. So in the late game, you choose whichever you like the bonuses of and either "reacquire" or "infuse" it to get it up to your level. Is that generally the idea?
  • Where I am, "reacquire" and "infuse" seem to bring items up to roughly the same level, but the former is much cheaper. Is the difference that reacquire just brings an item up to some baseline, whereas infusing can keep being done subsequently, as long as you have higher items to infuse with?
  • How many expansions are there? The shop shows "forsaken" and a seasonal pass, but the game UI shows stuff being gated behind other things (warmind, season of the XYZ, etc.). Are those past expansions that got folded into other things, or what?
  • I tried PvP and mostly just got one-shotted. I gather it ignores player levels, but does gear matter? Or is it just other people having specs/gear bonuses that are optimized for pvp?
  • What is the current "PvE thing people at max level do", and can I see it with the base game or am I gated out of it? I've done some "strikes", but there didn't seem to be many others doing it, and it's hard to tell if it's obsolete content or not.

Etc, etc. I've looked for noob guides but couldn't find anything that gives the big picture. Thanks...

I'll answer the best I can.

1. Exotics are just unique types of gear that will give you a bonus ability. For example the Armamentarium chest piece gives Titans 2 grenades instead of 1. The restriction is that you can only have 1 weapon and 1 armor piece that's exotic. The idea is definitely to decide which ones you like and infuse them to higher levels, though I personally always waited until I hit max light before I would infuse my favorite. The difference between reacquire and infuse is in 2.

2. Reacquiring gear can only be done on weapons and armor that do no have the 'Random Rolls' stat. In Forsaken they reintroduced randomization to items so that people had something to grind for. Getting a gone with a specific set of perks is something people like to try and get. Typically most exotics aren't random so you can reacquire any that you have found and they'll be given to you at roughly 20 light less than your maximum. If you're 380 then you'll get it around 360. That's why it costs less. Infusion is expensive in material and requires consuming a higher light level item to boost one of your own items. Any weapon can be infused into another as long as both weapons are in the same slot(primary, secondary, power) and armor pieces have to be infused into their same types(Helmet to helmet). An example of this is that you have a rocket launcher you love in the power slot but it's 350 and you pick up a grenade launcher that's 400. You tried out the grenade launcher and don't really like it. You can infuse the grenade launcher into the rocket launcher to bring it up to 400.

3. At this point if you buy forsaken you get all of the other expansion content. The "Season of the XYZ" stuff however is the new content coming out that requires the seasonal pass. Mostly what you're missing from that is end game content. I wouldn't bother with that pass unless you get to max level and just want MORE. The main two things out of the seasonal content right now is the Forges and Gambit Prime. This page has a timeline of what is coming, keep in mind that most of the stuff in the 'free' section like Crimson Days and The Dawning are holiday events that are no longer active. Link to Annual Pass

4. Most PVP is balanced so it doesn't matter your level or gear. The exception to the rule currently is Iron Banner. It happens once a week every month and essentially gives PVP players another avenue for gear and loot but it also drops the stat 'normalization' that the other modes use. Even still there is a ton of things in PVP that can one-shot a person. Almost every Power weapon, Sniper Headshots, Up close shotguns, certain ultimates, and abilities like shoulder charge. Power weapon ammo cycles and is the purple icons popping up on the screen so there's usually a fight over it.

5. Max level people have a ton of PVE things to do now. There are a bunch of different weekly quests that reward 'powerful engrams' and those are the ones that drop at current light level or above. See in D2 there are 'soft caps' on light where you can earn and grow your light level naturally until you hit a certain point. I'm not exactly sure what it is now but in vanilla D2 that was around 280 light so you had to get those powerful engrams to have gear drop above that level. That's essentially the end game grind. Forges, Gambit Prime(which is PVE mixed with PVP), Dreaming City, Raids, Blind Well, and Escalation Protocols. There are weekly rewards for doing hard difficulty story missions, strikes, and some other things as well. These powerful engram things typically don't show up until after you hit max level(I think that's 50 now?). Certain gear pieces can only be gained from certain activities so the more you get into it the more you know what you're looking for.

Another thing to note is that unlocking exotics and equipment is account wide. For instance, my main is a warlock, and I boosted a Titan, and started a new hunter. I put The Huckleberry on both of them because for leveling up it's an amazing gun, even 20 light under my current gear. The Huckleberry has a trait that kills grant you some ammo back, so in a lot of the story missions, as long as your aim is decent, you almost never reload. Another amazing exotic is Thunderlord, which helps to melt the story bosses. So reacquiring exotics onto new characters is a major boon for them, and will help you push through the content a lot easier the second time.

There's tons of things to do up at the upper end. Enough that I got a little burned out and I've been taking a break for the past couple weeks (that and I got back into Stellaris and it's sucking the life from me). I would say that if you're enjoying the content so far you might as well pick up Forsaken to unlock Curse of Osiris and Warmind, but definitely hold out on the season pass until you're up around 615 and you feel you'll be interested in forges.

Just getting into Destiny. Is there a PS4 guild I can join?

Edit: Never mind. Found the original post of thread. Request sent but I'm guessing the clan is pretty quiet.

Edit: Thanks. In the clan now.

Thanks for the info B12n!

On the question about PvE content, what I'm mainly wondering is the endgame stuff essentially comparable to Strikes? Or is it different from anything that's accessible at L20?

"Endgame" is kind of a broader thing in this game than you might be expecting -- they intentionally design both the core leveling system and additional longer term pursuits so that you can continue playing and enjoying the entire breadth of content and activities contained in the game week after week as long as you're interested in doing so. So, everything in the game is kind of the endgame.

But, as for what you get from the expansions that you don't have in the base game:

A good chunk of the extra PvE content you get with the various expansions does fall into the mold of strikes/adventures/raids -- ie, narrative driven trips through sequential spaces with novel encounters designed to let you enjoy the combat sandbox.

You also get a number of new "patrol" zones too, of course, offering additional contexts to explore while playing with the combat in a more freeform and self directed format, although still mostly in ways analogous to what you have in the patrol zones in the base game.

The expansions also add three new activities embedded in various ways in patrol zones which are different takes on "horde modes" -- that is, wave based PvE combat scenarios with specific, directed rule sets that are a bit more involved than the public events you encounter around the world. Each have fairly novel and unique designs, giving yet more opportunities to explore the fun and variety found in the combat sandbox.

Finally, you'll also get access to the PvE/PvP hybrid mode called Gambit (and the new rule set variant called Gambit Prime). It's also a "horde mode" style wave based combat scenario, but the difference from the other three is that you compete with another team to see who can complete the activity first, and occasionally you are given opportunities to enter the other team's combat arena and disrupt their progress in person.

Yay new expansion announced and cross save coming to PS4, Xbox, PC and google.

Yup, we're all pretty thrilled about today's news over in Destiny Discord land.

(Incidentally, there are still a good chunk of us playing still -- we just don't bother talking about it here. )

Lothar wrote:

Yay new expansion announced and cross save coming to PS4, Xbox, PC and google.

I've been thinking about jumping back in to check out the new stuff for a while, but I want to play on PC and have no desire to start over. This solves that!

Psyched to cross save to PC and join the fold from PS4.

I have both PC and PS4, does this mean I can swap between the two? Sometimes I like to be on the couch.

El-Producto wrote:

I have both PC and PS4, does this mean I can swap between the two? Sometimes I like to be on the couch.

yes it does

I liked Destiny 2 but just couldn't find people to play with so stopped playing.

Double post. Quote is not edit.

Also worth noting that the base game will be going completely free, with what sounds like relatively consumer friendly efforts surrounding the change. Free players will have access to all patrol locations (including new ones added in Forsaken and Shadowkeep), as well as all base activities from year 1, and Forsaken/Shadowkeep/future season licenses will only be needed to access specific new activities and story content added with each expansion. More details on this and more in the video they released yesterday:

El-Producto wrote:

I have both PC and PS4, does this mean I can swap between the two? Sometimes I like to be on the couch.

Yes, although it's not quite clear yet if/how account merging might work.

Here's the image they briefly showed of the work in progress management interface, though, for whatever it's worth:

IMAGE(https://cdn.gamerant.com/wp-content/uploads/destiny-2-ps4-cross-play-confirmed.jpg.optimal.jpg)

Incidentally, this also implies some interesting things about licensing. It looks like your entitlement status for access to big expansion content (Forsaken, Shadowkeep) will be platform specific, but access to seasonal content (at least for the next year) will be tied to your single, shared Bungie account, which also seems to be a nicely consumer friendly move.

From what is alluded to on various places on bungie.net and on the new Steam product page, it sounds like you'll buy season passes from whatever platform you choose as something of a consumable, which will be burned and applied to your Bungie account on your next login, and will credit you for future seasons (up to the end of year 3) if you've already got active seasons. And, since each Shadowkeep license comes with a season pass, this probably means that players who buy the new expansion on multiple platforms will automatically be credited for two (or three, or four) seasons.

Sydhart wrote:

I liked Destiny 2 but just couldn't find people to play with so stopped playing.

You and a lot of other people too!

Between the base game being free and cross save letting people play more flexibly across platforms, though, hopefully that will become less of a problem starting with the launch of year 3.

My DLC purchases are not consistent across the PC and Xbox. Wonder how they will handle that.

TheGameguru wrote:

My DLC purchases are not consistent across the PC and Xbox. Wonder how they will handle that.

They haven't fully clarified, but reading between the lines from what they said on the stream and in a few posts on reddit, it sounds like you just won't be able to use the content/activities associated with an expansion if you're on a platform where you don't have the license. Ie, if you didn't have Forsaken on one platform, you wouldn't be able to play Gambit there or run story missions, dungeons, or raids from year 2. I would assume that the state of your character and inventory will be unaffected, though -- ie, items already earned from Forsaken content won't suddenly disappear. Maybe they'd be locked from use, but that seems unlikely given what they've said so far and changes they've already made to how things work this year.

For example, in year 2 they already untied most things that would divide player bases due to differences in purchase status. Power level increases for all players each season, and changes and content related to core year 1 activities (ie, changes to base patrol zones, PvP modes, and strike playlists) already become available to all players (so all players have things to do to keep leveling up and building their characters). That is to say, each year 2 season has brought a mix of new activities and content where some are available to all players and others are only available to owners of the season passes. Also, there are cases where players without year 2 licenses could earn year 2 gear (like from free Gambit weekends, I think?) and I believe there's no attempt to ruin the fun by locking that stuff away.

With year 3, it sounds like they're going a bit further. All year 1 content is free to all players (in fact, the recent patch already granted access to year 1 DLC to anyone who currently has the base game only), and all patrol zone content regardless of expansion or year will also be available to all players. (Presumably this means that the methods of unlocking year 2 patrol zones will be decoupled from year 2 story content.)

EDIT: Oh, sounds like Gambit will also be joining the list of completely free activities (although the recently added Gambit Prime mode might remain locked to Forsaken owners, since it was a paid part of the season pass? We'll see, I suppose.

Not sure if this was announced or not, but all vanilla D2 owners should have all the year one DLC for free now.

Just FYI.

Sydhart wrote:

I liked Destiny 2 but just couldn't find people to play with so stopped playing.

I was the same way. That new D2 announcement drove me back to give the game another try. 3 days in and I am hooked again. I will need a solid Fireteam soon.

superblack wrote:
Sydhart wrote:

I liked Destiny 2 but just couldn't find people to play with so stopped playing.

I was the same way. That new D2 announcement drove me back to give the game another try. 3 days in and I am hooked again. I will need a solid Fireteam soon.

What platform are you on?

Valmorian wrote:
superblack wrote:
Sydhart wrote:

I liked Destiny 2 but just couldn't find people to play with so stopped playing.

I was the same way. That new D2 announcement drove me back to give the game another try. 3 days in and I am hooked again. I will need a solid Fireteam soon.

What platform are you on?

Ps4