New Destiny 2 game model.
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I did, but I was instant lvl 20 from the very start, I used to play Destiny 2 on the ps4 not linked any accounts to retrive old characters if thats possible?
I just found it odd I was lvl 20 from a new save / character.
Yea, it just seems to take away the sense of progression as you start on 750 light also. kinda makes me not want to play it, Ive been searching the net but cant seem to find anything on it.
You'd think they would give you a choice if you wanted to start from scratch or start at lvl 20 750 light.
It was confusing to start like this - as a new player on the free version it's been nothing but confusion. I feel I've missed out on most of it and don't know what I'm doing in the most part. I'm getting used to it now but could have been far easier.
M.
M.
Soldato
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- Close to Swindon, but not Swindon
Even as a long term player, with some of the changes introduced via patches/dlc, it can be just as confusing
The whole game, and it's lore, is completely and utterly opaque. Every location has a bewildering array of things you have to collect and things you have to do with them, none of which is properly explained. And they all have stupid completely unmemorable names to make it even more difficult.
On top of that, some things you collect which can start a quest result in a quest in your quest log. Some result in a thing in your inventory which you have to do something with to start a quest.
When you're actually on a quest, half the time the pointers for what you actually have to do and where don't exist. Sometimes even the description doesn't actually tell you the full story (like some bounties which have to be performed on a particular planet, but don't tell you so.)
It's like a world record attempt in baffling the users. I read a suggestion for new players the other day - the easiest way to get a handle on everything was to watch a youtube video explaining it all. A 4 hour long video!
Aside from all this though, it's a fun game to play. The combat mechanics are good, the gunplay feels weighty, as a Hunter it's always hilarious watching your Titan and Warlock friends with their stupid jumping methods plummeting to their deaths again. And you do slowly get to grips with what you're expected to do. It's better as a group though, if only because then there's 3 of you to try to remember the next thing you have to do when the game itself refuses to tell you.
As for the level 20 thing (I don't even recall it talking about levels - just power) it's easiest just to think of power 750 as level 1. That's where everyone starts now. It doesn't make any difference - it's just another weird attempt at confusing everyone.
On top of that, some things you collect which can start a quest result in a quest in your quest log. Some result in a thing in your inventory which you have to do something with to start a quest.
When you're actually on a quest, half the time the pointers for what you actually have to do and where don't exist. Sometimes even the description doesn't actually tell you the full story (like some bounties which have to be performed on a particular planet, but don't tell you so.)
It's like a world record attempt in baffling the users. I read a suggestion for new players the other day - the easiest way to get a handle on everything was to watch a youtube video explaining it all. A 4 hour long video!
Aside from all this though, it's a fun game to play. The combat mechanics are good, the gunplay feels weighty, as a Hunter it's always hilarious watching your Titan and Warlock friends with their stupid jumping methods plummeting to their deaths again. And you do slowly get to grips with what you're expected to do. It's better as a group though, if only because then there's 3 of you to try to remember the next thing you have to do when the game itself refuses to tell you.
As for the level 20 thing (I don't even recall it talking about levels - just power) it's easiest just to think of power 750 as level 1. That's where everyone starts now. It doesn't make any difference - it's just another weird attempt at confusing everyone.
Soldato
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- 28 Oct 2011
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I found it confusing, I just want to have fun and shoot things. I found the gunplay etc enjoyable, I didn't have a clue what was going on with crafting/upgrading and questing etc It should be a 15-30 minute 'mission' and the next 'mission' lined up and ready to go when you are, but no, as with all these game it seems I have to wade my way through mental treacle running hither and thither to NPC's for opaque instructions.
Why does every game have to be so needlessly complicated?
Dunno whether i'll bother going back or not, if I want complexity and having to think everything through I'll play a Paradox title, just let me log in and shoot things for an hour FFS. How I yearm for all MOH style SP campaigns of yore, I don't care about loot and cosmetics and crafting this and that and upgrading endlessly with different weapons, it;s as boring as hell. In the old days as the game got harder they'd drop you a better weapon and that was that, now everything is a mess of inconvenience.
I know it's not aimed at me because I'm never going to spend as much as a simple penny in a FTP game in a million years, never have and never will don't care I'f i'm at a disadvantage or not.
Wow that got ranty fast at the end!
Why does every game have to be so needlessly complicated?
Dunno whether i'll bother going back or not, if I want complexity and having to think everything through I'll play a Paradox title, just let me log in and shoot things for an hour FFS. How I yearm for all MOH style SP campaigns of yore, I don't care about loot and cosmetics and crafting this and that and upgrading endlessly with different weapons, it;s as boring as hell. In the old days as the game got harder they'd drop you a better weapon and that was that, now everything is a mess of inconvenience.
I know it's not aimed at me because I'm never going to spend as much as a simple penny in a FTP game in a million years, never have and never will don't care I'f i'm at a disadvantage or not.
Wow that got ranty fast at the end!
The new start level or level "0" is light level 750. I'd recommend making a new chracter, start off with The Red War campaign and do your weeklies. The sequential order of D2’s story is the following: The Red War > Curse of Osiris > Warmind > Forsaken > Shadowkeep.
90% of those campaign are solo or co-op if you have a friend. 10% has matchmaking included but you won’t always be matchmade.
You’ll earn gear from these missions as well as currencies and new questlines. These questlines end up introducing you to characters in the Tower. Think of questlines as an “individual challenge” to complete. Then you might notice that there are these bounties you can take from these characters. These two are basically the same, except questlines are usually longer and more difficult while bounties are easier. The completion of a bounty, tied specifically to that character, will give you tokens.
These vendor tokens can be given back to these characters in exchange for specific vendor gear. Zavala has strike-related gear, Shaxx has Crucible-related gear, Devrim Kay (Planetary Earth vendor) has Earth-related gear, etc.
The planets that you can visit hosts a few activities as well. All of them come with public events, lost sectors, and adventures. The completion of these activities will also reward you with gear and currencies. Public events are the more social, open world, natural co-op experience. Lost sectors are these tiny, mini-dungeons you can do which does not auto-matchmake you with. Adventures are more like side stories regarding the planet.
So everything nets you gear and you will most likely come to a point, “Oh my God, I have too much gear and what do all these numbers and variables even mean?” In this game, that 750 number you see, that’s your power level / light level (interchangeable, same meaning). That’s how strong you are and that dictates how much damage you can do and how much damage you can take. So, some activities will be more difficult, which recommends you to be a higher light level. You don’t have to be, but it’s recommended. The way you gain higher light is by doing these activities. You’ll get weapons and armor. The thing is, your entire loadout (weapons + armor) all have to increase in order to become higher light. Let’s say you have a primary, special, and power weapon at 760. Then all your armor is 760, except your helmet which is at 759. Your overall light level will be 759 because of that helmet. So if you’re thinking of dismantling that 765 helmet you get in your next activity because it looks horrific, just keep it for the sake of having higher light.
At some point, you will reach a light level where no activities are giving you higher light leveled gear. That’s because you’ve reached “the soft cap”. At this moment in the game, soft cap is at 900 LL. From there, you’ll need to choose activities that will give you “Powerful Gear”. You can see who/what can give you these by looking at your Destinations tab. As an example, you can obtain Powerful Gear in the Vanguard Strikes playlist. You do this by following and completing the challenge it states there. It will most likely be “Match the elemental burn and complete 3 strikes by doing so.”
What's the Elemental Burn? Well, the character you made, whether it’s a Titan, Hunter, or Warlock, all come with the same elemental subclass. This encompasses Solar, Void, and Arc. So when you select that Strike playlist, right before you hit “Join”, there will be these 3 circles that fade in on the left side. Each circle is a modifier that dictates how the gameplay will be like for that activity. The first circle is typically an elemental burn. So if it’s arc, choose an arc subclass and you’ll work towards obtaining that Powerful Gear. You’ll also do more damage. Read those modifiers as you can try to spec your loadout accordingly and complete this activity efficiently.
Now you might realize, if I’m doing strikes, and that bald headed blue vendor Vuzuvela guy gives bounties for doing these strikes, I can synergize my time efficiently to get more loot. Exactly. Do that. More loot and less time.
But there’s a wall for how much Powers Gear you can get, within a week. Take a look at what activities you can do, and when you complete them accordingly, and don’t see anymore activities that can get you Powerful Gear - congratulations, you’ll have to wait for the weekly reset.
Weekly reset is every Tuesday @ 10:00AM (PDT). New modifiers and new areas will get you Powerful Gear. The grind to max LL (950) is the objective. Once you’re there, you’re a powerful Guardian. Take a look at your Triumphs and Collections tab, you’ll see what you’ve earned and completed. You’ll see some Seals as well, which give you a labeled nameplate to show off your achievement in this game.
But the real kicker and endgame content is optimizing the loadout you want. You’ll see the following items in your armor: Resilience, Recovery, and Mobility. These are perks that dictate your survivability. More resilience is more health, more recovery is faster health regeneration, and mobility is not faster sprint speed. Mobility is actually how tight your turn speed is and how high your jump can go. Then you have these: Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. These are the perks that dictate your ability cooldowns. Higher discipline means your grenade will be available sooner, higher intellect means your super will regenerate faster, and higher strength means your melee will be available sooner. With armor 2.0 introduced, you can hunt for the gear you really want.
This covers all the gameplay need to knows.
In terms of what you can play with friends, it gets sort of weird. Planetary destinations? 3-man squad but you can have up to 9 players in an instance together. This can be really fun for public events such as Escalation Protocol on Mars. Strikes? 3-man squad. Raids? 6. Crucible? Max of 3-4-6, depending on which mode.
90% of those campaign are solo or co-op if you have a friend. 10% has matchmaking included but you won’t always be matchmade.
You’ll earn gear from these missions as well as currencies and new questlines. These questlines end up introducing you to characters in the Tower. Think of questlines as an “individual challenge” to complete. Then you might notice that there are these bounties you can take from these characters. These two are basically the same, except questlines are usually longer and more difficult while bounties are easier. The completion of a bounty, tied specifically to that character, will give you tokens.
These vendor tokens can be given back to these characters in exchange for specific vendor gear. Zavala has strike-related gear, Shaxx has Crucible-related gear, Devrim Kay (Planetary Earth vendor) has Earth-related gear, etc.
The planets that you can visit hosts a few activities as well. All of them come with public events, lost sectors, and adventures. The completion of these activities will also reward you with gear and currencies. Public events are the more social, open world, natural co-op experience. Lost sectors are these tiny, mini-dungeons you can do which does not auto-matchmake you with. Adventures are more like side stories regarding the planet.
So everything nets you gear and you will most likely come to a point, “Oh my God, I have too much gear and what do all these numbers and variables even mean?” In this game, that 750 number you see, that’s your power level / light level (interchangeable, same meaning). That’s how strong you are and that dictates how much damage you can do and how much damage you can take. So, some activities will be more difficult, which recommends you to be a higher light level. You don’t have to be, but it’s recommended. The way you gain higher light is by doing these activities. You’ll get weapons and armor. The thing is, your entire loadout (weapons + armor) all have to increase in order to become higher light. Let’s say you have a primary, special, and power weapon at 760. Then all your armor is 760, except your helmet which is at 759. Your overall light level will be 759 because of that helmet. So if you’re thinking of dismantling that 765 helmet you get in your next activity because it looks horrific, just keep it for the sake of having higher light.
At some point, you will reach a light level where no activities are giving you higher light leveled gear. That’s because you’ve reached “the soft cap”. At this moment in the game, soft cap is at 900 LL. From there, you’ll need to choose activities that will give you “Powerful Gear”. You can see who/what can give you these by looking at your Destinations tab. As an example, you can obtain Powerful Gear in the Vanguard Strikes playlist. You do this by following and completing the challenge it states there. It will most likely be “Match the elemental burn and complete 3 strikes by doing so.”
What's the Elemental Burn? Well, the character you made, whether it’s a Titan, Hunter, or Warlock, all come with the same elemental subclass. This encompasses Solar, Void, and Arc. So when you select that Strike playlist, right before you hit “Join”, there will be these 3 circles that fade in on the left side. Each circle is a modifier that dictates how the gameplay will be like for that activity. The first circle is typically an elemental burn. So if it’s arc, choose an arc subclass and you’ll work towards obtaining that Powerful Gear. You’ll also do more damage. Read those modifiers as you can try to spec your loadout accordingly and complete this activity efficiently.
Now you might realize, if I’m doing strikes, and that bald headed blue vendor Vuzuvela guy gives bounties for doing these strikes, I can synergize my time efficiently to get more loot. Exactly. Do that. More loot and less time.
But there’s a wall for how much Powers Gear you can get, within a week. Take a look at what activities you can do, and when you complete them accordingly, and don’t see anymore activities that can get you Powerful Gear - congratulations, you’ll have to wait for the weekly reset.
Weekly reset is every Tuesday @ 10:00AM (PDT). New modifiers and new areas will get you Powerful Gear. The grind to max LL (950) is the objective. Once you’re there, you’re a powerful Guardian. Take a look at your Triumphs and Collections tab, you’ll see what you’ve earned and completed. You’ll see some Seals as well, which give you a labeled nameplate to show off your achievement in this game.
But the real kicker and endgame content is optimizing the loadout you want. You’ll see the following items in your armor: Resilience, Recovery, and Mobility. These are perks that dictate your survivability. More resilience is more health, more recovery is faster health regeneration, and mobility is not faster sprint speed. Mobility is actually how tight your turn speed is and how high your jump can go. Then you have these: Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. These are the perks that dictate your ability cooldowns. Higher discipline means your grenade will be available sooner, higher intellect means your super will regenerate faster, and higher strength means your melee will be available sooner. With armor 2.0 introduced, you can hunt for the gear you really want.
This covers all the gameplay need to knows.
In terms of what you can play with friends, it gets sort of weird. Planetary destinations? 3-man squad but you can have up to 9 players in an instance together. This can be really fun for public events such as Escalation Protocol on Mars. Strikes? 3-man squad. Raids? 6. Crucible? Max of 3-4-6, depending on which mode.
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Cheers Rexton - a really good summary. Although it doesn't do much to reduce the feeling of unnecessary complication!
Another thing Destiny 2 is really fond of - icons with no explanation at all of what they mean. Weapons and armour have them in the top corner of their icon. Planets in destinations have various icons floating next to them. Absolutely nothing to tell you what the hell any of them mean.
Another thing Destiny 2 is really fond of - icons with no explanation at all of what they mean. Weapons and armour have them in the top corner of their icon. Planets in destinations have various icons floating next to them. Absolutely nothing to tell you what the hell any of them mean.
It is a weird one. I picked it up when it was free last year on battlenet and it took a lot of youtube and reddit to get to the point where I understood even the basics. Unless you have been playing as various systems have been introduced they are completely baffling and horribly inconsistent in implementation (see OG black armory vs Reckoning vs Menagerie in consecutive seasons with completely different systems).
However once you reach a certain threshold of knowledge it does become 2nd nature and ceases to be a barrier to the truly excellent gunplay that Destiny has. It is definitely best enjoyed with others, but I'd recommend trying to play through at least the red war campaign solo because playing the campaign with others (particularly a veteran) will make the game too easy and you'll miss learning some valuable lessons along the way.
There is a massive amount to learn if you want to know it all, but getting going on the basics does not need to be a slog and with a bit of guidance can be made relatively simple.
If anyone wants some help getting into it, I'm more than happy to help out. Steam ID is 76561197969431924.
However once you reach a certain threshold of knowledge it does become 2nd nature and ceases to be a barrier to the truly excellent gunplay that Destiny has. It is definitely best enjoyed with others, but I'd recommend trying to play through at least the red war campaign solo because playing the campaign with others (particularly a veteran) will make the game too easy and you'll miss learning some valuable lessons along the way.
There is a massive amount to learn if you want to know it all, but getting going on the basics does not need to be a slog and with a bit of guidance can be made relatively simple.
If anyone wants some help getting into it, I'm more than happy to help out. Steam ID is 76561197969431924.
It was a HUGE oversight from Bungie doing this sadly. They assumed all players would be returning vets and anyone new would only want to do the new expansion. They should have allowed 1 boost per account rather than readjust the whole light level for everyone. It's stupid. I imagine they will have learnt from this though as there has been a lot of vocal annoyance on the issue.
Talk about stupid implementation to make everything more copmplicated, here's a really obvious one that grinds my gears:
Why is half of the information I need to get at accessed by pressing F1, and the other half is accessed by holding down Tab?
It's just really weird design.
Why is half of the information I need to get at accessed by pressing F1, and the other half is accessed by holding down Tab?
It's just really weird design.
The game is just trash. I downloaded it free, played it a couple of days and then uninstalled it.
I feel sorry for anyone who actually paid money for it.
There is another FTP game similar called Warframe which imo is much better.
I feel sorry for anyone who actually paid money for it.
There is another FTP game similar called Warframe which imo is much better.
Agreed - They actually had more hand holding when it was a paid game
As a veteran player, I'm very surprised that they moved all the base game missions to a vendor completely out of the main social space area (this is Amanda Holiday, go left as you load into the Tower)
Each to their own but Destiny definitely has some amazing end game content. I'm sure Warframe does too - but imo it is just as bad, if not worse, for new player experience. I tried it and enjoyed the movement / gameplay, but it was very difficult to work out what TF was going on story / expansion wise.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Nov 2012
- Posts
- 17,953
- Location
- Close to Swindon, but not Swindon
Agreed - They actually had more hand holding when it was a paid game
As a veteran player, I'm very surprised that they moved all the base game missions to a vendor completely out of the main social space area (this is Amanda Holiday, go left as you load into the Tower)
I noticed that as well, only went there due to an old exotic questid forgotten to pickup, but there is no suggestion that's where you need to go. They should have at least advised it ingame. It was probably in the patch notes though.
Exactly - They could have just put the Red War emblem on the map in the tower, and advertised this when a new player first logs in. Then do the same for Forsaken, as TBH the story in Forsaken and Tangled Shore is better than Shadowkeep imo
No new player will (or should have to) read patch notes for a F2P game 
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Nov 2012
- Posts
- 17,953
- Location
- Close to Swindon, but not Swindon
Exactly - They could have just put the Red War emblem on the map in the tower, and advertised this when a new player first logs in. Then do the same for Forsaken, as TBH the story in Forsaken and Tangled Shore is better than Shadowkeep imo
I definitely felt that Forsaken was the better DLC for sure. Shadowkeep is great and the new content is fun, but for the story, Forsaken cannot be beaten personally.