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Xur Week Twelve: 12/1/17

December 1, 2017 by Belghast

Destiny 2

This is potentially the last of these Xur reviews that I will be doing on this blog. It is not out of a lack of interest, but more than next week with the Curse of Osiris the reset time is changing and with it when Xur arrives. Right now Xur shows up in the middle of the night and as a result by the time I shower, get ready and sit down to blog is available for me to talk some shit about what he just brought. Starting next Tuesday however that reset time will shift from 5 am my time to 11 am … long after I have already been at work for a significant amount of time. This is a boon for the career YouTube types so they don’t have to wake up quite so early, but not really for me so alas this is probably the end of my recent Friday feature. The flash point zone this week is the EDZ which means Xur is hanging out near the Winding Cove drop zone. There is technically a cave that allows you access to the ledge he is on… but I never can remember where the entrance is and just end up jumping up the rocks to the right of where he is at.

Sweet Business is a really cool sounding weapon that winds up being a horrible idea. Maybe I am being a bit unfair but in truth I have never been able to get much out of this gun. Firstly it requires some wind up time while firing before it arrives at its final rate of fire and as such true damage potential. The perk payday in theory helps with the wind up because you can fire it from the hip relatively well and as such start firing ahead of when you are actually needing to deal damage to a target especially in the crucible. The magazine size of 99 seems really awesome… but given how fast this fires you will be empty and suffering the pretty horrible reload speed before long. Where the gun really lacks however is in the total ammunition you can carry. Payload might help your magazine but it doesn’t actually seem to help your pool of ammo and when I attempt to run something using this weapon I find myself always starved for kinetic ammo. Definitely pick it up if you do not already have the weapon, but I am not a huge fan of it.

Do you want to punch things? Do you want to punch all the things? Then these might be the gauntlets for you. In the grand scheme of things they probably are not that good, but are pretty fun to at least play with while running around doing planetary content. The biotic enhancements per does two things really, firstly it greatly increases the range of your punch allowing you to hit targets at roughly the distance warlocks can. On top of that it gives you a version of surrounded where the damage your punches deal increases based on the number of targets around you. This is insanely fun against boss type encounters with a lot of minions and would potentially pair nicely with either the Sentinel or Striker trees that allow you to gain health regen on kills. Definitely a pick up if you do not already have it… and in truth I am even going to log into the PS4 and buy this since it is the only Titan exotic I am lacking there.

Arc Bolt is one of those grenades that only seems to work in really ideal conditions. This chest is all about making that grenade be able to chain a little further, giving you some wiggle room on what those ideal conditions actually are. The problem is… there are WAY better hunter exotics than this one and in truth until Arc Bolt gets some sort of a rework it isn’t exactly worth building an item loadout around. The positive however is this version does come pre-slotted with an arc grenade recharge mod so at least they realized the only edge case anyone would ever want to use this item. It’s worth picking up for unlocking but not really much more than that.

Do you like Nova Bombs? Do you want to always be Nova Bombing? Me too… sadly this helmet won’t actually let you do that thing. The perk Actual Grandeur in theory grants you super energy on Nova Bomb kills. The rate that I have seen is that if you are able to Nova Bomb and kill five targets, it will take your super bar roughly to the halfway point. So sure this does a decent job of regeneration but it also falls drastically short of the dream of being some sort of Evil Ryu throwing void fireballs. In my experience if you are dedicated to Voidwalker you are far better off with Nezerac’s Sin or even the Eye of Another World. Once again, pick it up for the unlock because Bungie occasionally balances exotics to make them better and you might as well have it in your collection.

Destiny 1

This week Xur is hanging out at the Reef and offering a few items, including a Helm I never managed to get on my Titan. This week he is offering.

Legacy Primary Engram – 31 Strange Coins
Eternal Warrior – Titan Helm – 13 Strange Coins
Young Ahamkara’s Spine – Hunter Arms – 13 Strange Coins
The Stag – Warlock Helm – 13 Strange Coins
Monte Carlo – Primary Auto Rifle – 23 Strange Coins
Monte Carlo with Royal Flush Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust
Trespasser with Crucible Assassin Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust

Bungie Mostly Gets It

November 30, 2017 by Belghast

Yesterday I made a post talking about some of my frustrations and some of the frustrations of the community at large. In lieu of giving the final Bungie Curse of Osiris reveal live stream, they opted to instead give us an extremely dense blog post paired with a podcast episode expanding on the theme. As a programmer by trade I am generally slow to assign malice to the actions of game developers, especially when said problems get patched out of the game. There have been so many times in my own life that I have thought something was going to be a really good idea, and in the end it only served to hurt my user base. As a result I haven’t really talked about the whole XP gain issue because it didn’t really directly effect me. I essentially told myself there were three reasonable bright engrams that I could get per character and past that I didn’t attempt to go out into the wilds and grind for more. I didn’t even really have time to participate in the Clarion Call event that was happening over the Thanksgiving weekend because family and reasons. Also as a programmer I read yesterdays post as a game company attempting to peel back the curtain and show the players the mess that is hidden behind it. I more or less accept their explanations and I figured this was something I should state up front before I dig too far into the specific issues. I highly suggest you read both the blog and listen to the podcast because hearing the voices of Luke Smith, Mark Noseworthy and Eric Osbourne explain why things are the way they are… really drills home the point that they did mean the best. None of them are really polished orators and there is emotion in those voices that helps to add accent marks to the commentary.

One of the biggest announcements is that there is a brand new tier of weapons coming. Yesterday I talked about the whole static roll thing and mostly how I was bracing for the return of randomized stats. In truth I was preparing for the worst because I actually like static rolls on gear because it lets me know directly what I am shooting for, and not always wondering if there is a better roll around the corner. I feel like they sort of shot down the middle and landed in a happy place that I can accept as reasonable. Masterworks will be legendary weapons that roll with an extra mode that provides some amount of randomized stats. The above image is lifted from the Bungie blog post and shows a Uriel’s Gift with a bonus 10 to reload speed and also shows that they are starting to track how many kills you have made with a specific masterwork weapon. They announced a couple of things about this that make them more reasonable… firstly you can re-roll the stat node until you get the one you actually wanted. Secondly you can break down masterwork weapons that you do not want to get upgrade materials to turn your normal legendary weapons into masterworks themselves. Functionally this gives players what they said they wanted… in the ability to get different versions of weapons but also makes it sane and rational for those of us who actually liked fixed rolls in being able to upgrade our existing stash to the new version. Also it allows us to slowly work our way to perfecting the roll with whatever combo we were wanting on it by re-rolling that node.

Another big announcement is that they are adding duplicate protection for exotics, so that the game will by nature favor giving you exotics that you do not already have over exotics that you have seen over and over again. This has been a major point of frustration for a lot of players, myself included… in that we keep getting the same exotic items over and over when there are still a bunch on the list that we have never seen. I hit a streak of six prospectors in a row awhile back, and anything to blunt that would be much appreciated. They also announced the return of Three of Coins in a modified form of just providing a 4 hour buff that gives you an increased chance at exotic drop rates. I had a love/hate relationship with Three of Coins, and to some extent I like Xur serving more of a purpose each week than just presenting you with exotics you have already seen him sell numerous times. Lastly while on the Xur front they announced that he would begin selling an additional item called a Fated Engram which decodes into an exotic item that you have not already unlocked on that character. The above image shows that this costs 97 shards… which is a hefty price but by the time you need this you are probably going to be swimming in them.

Another thing that I was extremely excited to see is that Banshee-44 will start just straight up selling a limited number of mods each week for a combination of Mod Components and Legendary Shards. Now at first this doesn’t seem a amazing because it is not like we are swimming in Mod Components, however they are attempting to create a bridge for that too. The biggest problem I have with the mod system is that in theory I need to hold onto every single blue mod in the hope that I get three of them to turn in for the purple variant. As a result I regularly have no room left for mods because the 50 slot inventory is just inadequate. Now they are going to make it so with blue mods you can break them down for gunsmith materials but they will also have a chance of dropping a mod component at the same time. While saving them up for a guaranteed mod is nice… I will absolutely start breaking down every blue i get because I just don’t have the room. They did state that eventually he will sell Kinetic Damage mods which in truth are the only ones we really have a hard time chasing. Side notes… apparently Master Rahool will start straight up selling Legendary Engrams to help those chasing Masterwork weapons, and Benedict will redeem raid tokens before you get your first clear. Additionally faction merchants will only now beckon you… if you have enough tokens to turn in for a faction package. So no more every icon in the tower blinking at once.

Functionally everything I have talked about is coming in either the December 5th update or December 12th. I am going to attempt to list out the various things appearing in each, but I am certain to miss stuff so again I highly suggest you read the blog post and listen to the podcast for yourself.

December 5th

Armor Ornaments
Gunsmith Selling Mods
Blue Mods Occasionally Dropping Mod Components
Master Rahool sells Legendary Engrams
Benedict allows immediate raid token turn-in
Reputation Token Economy changes – way more tokens per activity but slightly higher turn in amounts
Cayde’s Treasure Map Minimum Payout
… and of course the Curse of Osiris storyline and related stuff

December 12th

Masterwork Weapons
Selection of Faction Armor/Weapons Purchasable for Legendary Shards
Xur Changes – Fated Engram + Three of Coins
Zavala/Shaxx sell Gift consumables that give interesting bonuses
No More Empty World Chests
Vendors leave you alone until ready to turn a package in

All of this sounds great to be honest. The problem is we rarely get one of these posts like this. All the player base really wants is to know what is coming down the pipe and roughly when they can expect it. This is true for Bungie and Destiny but also equally true for World of Warcraft or any persistent game that receives a constant slow trickle of content. Sure dates may not be final and they can shift and slip… but it is still nice to know what exactly we are waiting on. I can only hope that this is the beginning of them giving us more information in greater detail… but in truth I feel like this is triage to stave off the angry pitchfork mob. As players we get deeply invested in these games, and to hear them talk about it as a Hobby is a step in the right direction. I would love to see one of these posts each time there is a content drop brewing just to let us know what folks are thinking and how they plan on addressing the concerns of the community. Deej and Cosmo both do excellent jobs of giving us information… when they are allowed to. Most of the frustrations with online games in general come from a feeling of not knowing what is going on in this thing that we are spending so much of our time doing. If we got a monthly post that outlined the timeline of what they were thinking about doing during that month… I feel like we would be in a much better state and more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. However this is a double edged sword and they talk about it a bit in the podcast. They have been so gun shy to say anything because they don’t want an idea they had to turn into a promise when they maybe don’t even know if it is possible yet. In the end… its a tricky situation but I think the combination blog post and podcast were the right decision to make at this time. I’m pretty excited about a bunch of the quality of life changes, and ready to tear into the new content next Tuesday. My sodium levels have lowered greatly.

Seasonal Swan Song

November 28, 2017 by Belghast

I talked a bit about progress in Destiny 2 in yesterdays post but I didn’t really want to get too deep into it figuring I would talk more at length today. Last week I managed to knock out a bunch of accomplishments, not the least of which was hitting 305 light finally on the Titan. Granted I realize this is all going to be in vain starting next week as the level cap itself is raising and I assume as well that means the light level with it. Last week was Iron Banner, the second for console players but the very first for those of us choosing to primary the PC version. Now on the PS4 I managed to complete a full set of Iron Banner armor on my Titan and my goal was of course to do the same for the PC. I consider myself extremely lucky because I managed to get the full set after turning in thirteen packages. There are folks I know who have been grinding away at this all week long and are still missing pieces of armor. In addition to this I managed to pick up all of the weapons but three… sidearm, fusion rifle and submachinegun. Of those the only one that I would have actually used is the Fusion Rifle, but even there I have several options that I like already including Merciless if I am willing to give up my exotic slot and Main Ingredient if I am not. The most important weapons for me were getting the Pulse Rifle, Auto Rifle and Hand Cannon all of which will see use. The scout rifle might, but I need to spend some more time playing with it.

The other thing going on is the fact that this week is effectively the last chance to do anything in Season 1. Now I am not entirely certain what this means from a player perspective other than the fact that we know a bunch of new stuff is going to happen. All of the Eververse items are changing out apparently, so that only makes the fact that they have apparently been throttling our xp gain towards bright engrams all the more shitty. In truth I have gotten the few items that I care about… namely the Ramen bowl emote and Bandwagon ship. On top of that I managed to pull three of the exotic ships total and two of the exotic sparrows. All in all I feel like I made out pretty well for season 1, but what I am really curious about is whether or not all of package loot is changing as well. There are a number of weapons that I have not managed to get that I really walk… namely the Curtain Call rocket launcher, Jiangshi AR4 auto rifle and Halfdan-D auto rifle. I would not mind getting a Morrigan-D rocket launcher either considering I believe it is the only one with tracking still intact. Finally I really want to complete the hunter set from Io on the off chance that maybe those are changing out as well. Granted I don’t know any of this, but I know in Destiny 1 they started re-rolling the weapons so that is a possibility here as well I would guess.

Lastly the other big change for us personally… is that our clan will be resetting from rank 6 to rank 1 next week and we will need to begin the leveling process anew. Supposedly we will be adding a brand new clan banner standard to the mix because we maxed things out in Season 1. Additionally the perks for each of the clan ranks will be changing out to a new set more relevant to the content we will be doing, that is at least in theory Vex based. The only thing that concerns me is that we do not have nearly as many people actively playing right now as we did at the launch of the clan, and as a result the grind is going to go more slowly. The calculations I had done before said that we needed about 20-25 characters reaching maximum contribution each week to keep us hitting the progression cap each week, and I think in theory we will still have at least that. I know I will continue to keep contributing my 5000 clan XP on three different characters per week and if things get dire I have a set of characters on the PS4 on a secondary account that could add experience as well. This whole season thing is new concept to me and I am somewhat excited to see just how different the game is from a loot perspective. That also means that this week I need to do some significant vault purging to get ready for the introduction of new items. I am hoping that we get some more space… because we need it across the board from vault to shader storage. If they really want money from me… I would throw money at the screen for more storage space.

Shovels and Shoveltusks

November 27, 2017 by Belghast

I declared Thursday and Friday to be part of the weekend last week and decided to take myself four days off from the blog and one week off from the podcast. I feel super chill going into what is likely going to be an exceedingly stressful week so I think it was probably a good call. Apart of having to help my folks move some furniture yesterday, I mostly had a pretty chill thanksgiving. Both Friday and Saturday my wife and I attempted to avoid the world, and the only shopping we really did was online apart from a mad dash out to Target around 9 pm on Friday. At that point the store was largely sane and wasn’t that much different than a normal trip on any other night. Throughout all of this I have found myself forsaking my normal checking of Pokemon Go in favor of the relatively newly released Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. First off I have to admit I have never played an animal crossing game before so I didn’t have much of a cultural frame of reference going into this. The experience instead reminds me a lot of a mix between the former web based casual MMO Glitch and some flavors of Stardew Valley. Whatever you end up calling it the game is extremely charming and at this point I am level 16 and have a bunch of the animals at my campsite… enough that the last three or four gave me a messaging saying there was no room. Unfortunately I have no clue how you actually determine which ones are at your camp and which ones are not… but for the moment I am rolling with it.

I’ve also seemingly hit whatever the friend cap is because when I try and add anyone it says that combined between my friends list and the few outstanding requests I have run out of room. I have no clue what this cap actually is… I estimated 200 the other day but I am guessing in truth it is closer to 100. The game is maybe bad at messaging some things but I am largely limping along without doing much in the way of research. There is a quarry mini-game that requires you to get help from five of your friends, and I wish they messaged when my friends were needing help a little better. For example if you look at the middle section of the above screenshot you will see a shovel icon out to the side of Kelsey’s name. I wish there was a way to sort these to the top of the list because they are really the ones I am most interested in given I like helping other players, because you appear to get some sort of cut of their profits. After that you attempt to guess which rocks have the most profitable stones… gold nuggets seem to be the best. I still very much feel like I don’t fully grasp a lot of things… like how the hell to make large quantities of Bells that Animal Crossing currency. Right now I have a 30,000 bells loan with the auto place and have never really gotten close to paying it off. Thankfully they don’t seem to be sending anyone to break my kneecaps because of it though, and they still allowed me to customize my RV regardless of having the loan out. I feel like maybe they don’t have the best business model. Regardless if you have not been playing this you should probably check it out because it definitely seems to be addictive as hell given the wide variety of friends that seem to be playing it on a regular basis.

I made a bunch of progress in Destiny 2 but I am likely going to wait until tomorrow to talk about that. Instead I wanted to talk a bit about the other game I played over the break… World of Warcraft. I am still working on my tiny Orc Warrior that is getting less and less tiny as each week goes by. At this point I have completed the Cataclysm content and am on the airship just about to start the invasion of Pandaria. This is something I have never actually done on the horde side given my last several characters I leveled were abusing the shit out of the pre-legion launch invasions. I’ve also not spent much time playing through Warlords of Draenor as a Horde character, so that should be interesting as well. Similarly I have never seen Legion as the Horde… all things I am interested in experiencing first hand. The biggest shock for me is just how fast Cataclysm managed to go given that I started in on Vashj’ir Saturday night and dinged level 85 well before finishing the final section of it Sunday evening. I realize that zone is in theory about the same size as two other zones combined… but I did not expect to be getting quite that much experience from it. Granted I am fully geared out in level 100 heirlooms (minus the rings because I don’t have the patience for that nonsense), but did not partake of any of the experience boosting options. The mission of the day however is to try and figure out how to get a Pandaria flying book… because I do not want to return to land based leveling if I can help it.