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Tag: MMO

  • Destiny Iron Banner – Mediocrity Perseveres

    I had more PvP success in Destiny last night, this time playing in the Iron Banner tournament. Between this video and the last one I posted, it may seem that I’m trying to say I’m good at the Crucible. I’m not. I’m very often nearly the worst on the team, but sometimes things come together and I can do well and help the team to victory. Here, I had a nice shotgun that made a difference.

    I’m doing the Iron Banner with my Hunter because I need that fancy Hunter cloak with the Wolf head! It’s amazing how much fancy fashion-forward gear is for the Hunters. I already have Taniks’ cloak (which is great, because it doesn’t have a hood), and I think the Flayer capes look pretty cool too! I don’t know of anything quite as fancy for my Warlock or Titan.

    I’m also posting this video because I like the map. They’ve made an abandoned town in Europe a battleground, so it is familiar and looks good. I thought it used to say that it was in the “European Exclusion Zone” or something like that in the intro screen rather than just putting “Widow’s Court” twice at different font sizes. In any case, here’s a video of me not playing particularly well, yet coming out on top in a very close match.

  • Destiny Crucible Success

    I finally did well in the Crucible Rift mode, which I tend not to like. I also finished the crucible kills required towards my Exotic Sword questline. Because I was so happy with my results, I’m posting my first ever Destiny video.

  • Yes, Damn It, Destiny: The Taken King is Good!

    Destiny’s The Taken King expansion has revitalized the game and addicted me again, hence the “damn it” in the title. I was doing so well at enjoying other games and going days or even a week without launching Destiny. But now that The Taken King has come out, it’s an obsession just like Destiny was at launch. That isn’t to say that TTK is perfect – far from it. There are annoyances and a few glitches, flaws, and problems, but the smoothness of the game play and the fun missions (mostly) overcome them.

    The first thing about TTK is that it is even more MMO-like than before. As Yahtzee said about World of Warcraft when he reviewed it, “It’s all about the numbers!” In TTK, the level cap was increased, but the level is pretty meaningless. I went from level 35 to 40 in seconds by turning in some bounties with one of the Red Bull XP boosts active. No, the only thing that matters is the light level of your gear, much like in other MMOs. The goal of this was to render obsolete all of our year 1 gear, so Ice Breaker, Thorn, Vex Mythoclast, and Gjallarhorn. There are year 2 variants of some of the old Exotics, but not the favorites I listed above. Bungie’s goal, I think, was to get more diversity in loadouts. Even the Exotics now have different perks and stat rolls when you get them, so if you and I both have Helm of Saint-14, they will be different, either slightly or significantly, though the primary perk will stay the same (and, generally, yours will be better, because RNGesus hates me). So now everyone will be dressed differently and have different gear. Until we get raid gear, that is. Since raid gear is the only way to get the highest light level stuff (310), everyone who has raid gear will wear it. Now, it is possible to sacrifice your raid gear by using it to infuse other stuff, thus raising the other gear’s light level, but it will be a while before many people have enough raid gear to use it like that. I have no raid gear, having not done the raid (because my light level is too low and I’m not that good). Oh yeah, and we can have swords now, and they are awesome!

    There are lots and lots more missions in TTK, and even some of the old ones have been updated. I’ve killed Oryx on all my characters, yet I haven’t finished all the missions available. They weren’t kidding when they said TTK added more content than the original game. So there’s lots more to do and most of it is fun. And there are hidden side-quests and goodies that are a delightful addition to the game.

    There are a few missions that are just crazy hard, and some of the Heroic Strikes are just stupid hard. I’ve had other players bail at the start of some strikes and at the nearly unkillable boss after wiping a few times on others. That isn’t much fun. That’s probably the thing that will break my addiction and get me back to playing other games. On Friday night, for example, I ran into a mission I couldn’t solo (nor could others who are better than I am), then found a strike where the other guys bailed at the end. I was ready to give up at that point and shut down the PS4, but instead I found a couple of friends who helped me with both and it rebounded into a good evening rather than a depressing one.

    So, yes, The Taken King is good, damn it, and I can’t wait to play more.

  • Gave Destiny another try. Why, oh why did I try?

    Because one of my friends wanted to help me try to get Fatebringer, a great handcannon only available from the Templar in the Venus raid, I gave Destiny another shot. I recruited another friend who has yet to get a Gjallarhorn rocket launcher, so she hoped to get it from the Gorgon maze chest. As usual, it was a night of disappointment for all.

    We succeeded in beating the Templar three times after quite a while of herding cats to get a team together. While the actual Templar battle was fine, it wasn’t actually fun. More of a chore, really. And, nobody got a Fatebringer, especially not me. And nobody got an Exotic, so my friend didn’t get her Gjallarhorn.

    Now I know that the random, gambling-style loot system of Destiny doesn’t give out fancy gear like water (except when it does), but I’ve been through the Venus Raid many times (not as many as some, though) and have never been graced with a Fatebringer or a Praetorian Foil (not that I need one of those). I did manage to get one Vex Mythoclast, but only once.

    My point is that some of these tedious Raid parts are the only places to get certain stuff, though the drop rate is low, and it isn’t that much fun. And yet, once you get something, you’ll get lots more. Once I got a Gjallarhorn, I promptly got 2 more. I get and discard Dragon’s Breath and No Land Beyond way more often than makes sense. I even got a second Hawkmoon last week, though I’ve yet to get a Monte Carlo or the Ram helmet for my Warlock. So RNGesus is fickle and Destiny seems to be punishing with its reward scheme.

    I gave Destiny another try, and learned why I’d been avoiding it all over again.

  • A couple of relaxing evenings playing Destiny

    After last week’s rush to experience all the new things in Destiny’s second DLC expansion, I’ve been taking it easy this week, which means I’m more relaxed and less stressed while playing.

    For the last two nights, I’ve been playing with a friend from LOTRO (and her husband one of the evenings). We’ve just been doing bounties and patrol missions and generally killing the heck out of the roving bands of “wolves.”

    This kind of play is what makes Destiny fun for me. Sure it’s great to do the raids and such, but in those activities, there’s a lot of pressure to be good and not screw up. In the final stages of both raids, a mistake by one person can doom the whole team to have to try again. So, while those activities are fun and sometimes rewarding, they are stressful and sometimes take a long time.

    Running missions with friends, however, is pretty easy, very low stress, and generally more fun. Mistakes tend not to cause much trouble for others, so it is okay to experiment with new gear and techniques, and even to mess around a bit and just punch everything to death, for example (particularly if you’re a Titan and need to punch things).

    In short, playing Destiny with friends while doing low key, comfortable missions is Destiny at its most fun!

  • Some success in Destiny’s Iron Banner tournament

    I’m not very good at Player versus Player (PvP) gaming. The only time I was pretty good at it was back in the Unreal and Unreal Tournament days. These days, I avoid PvP, except Destiny won’t let you get away with that. First, three of the five exotic bounties (that give nifty exotic weapons: Thorn, Bad Juju, and Invective) require Crucible (PvP) play, with various restrictions in some cases (void kills, etc.). Second, the Iron Banner tournament is a great way to get armor that can help me max out my character level.

    So while I’ve managed to muddle my way through the Crucible to get 3 Thorns, 3 Invectives, and 3 Bad Jujus, I’ve never had any interest in playing Iron Banner. First, Iron Banner rank resets each time it comes around. Second, a character needs to be rank 3 before anything good is available. Finally, each armor piece or weapon is very expensive. So while I’ve been able to get enough raid gear to get my Warlock to level 32, both my Hunter and Titan are languishing at 31. I thought the solution would be to put my Titan through the Iron Banner to get the chest armor and boots that are the only armor pieces available this time.

    So I started midweek and quickly made rank 1. Then I got sick and skipped a day or two. When I returned, I made it to rank 2, but rank 3 took a while. At ranks 1 and 2, I bought the emblem and shader that boost Iron Banner reward points, so that helped, and, of course, I bought the ever-increasing  buff every day from Lord Saladin. Finally on Saturday I made it to rank 4 and could buy the armor pieces and one of the guns (the other takes rank 5, but I don’t want it anyway). The problem was/is that everything is very expensive, so I’ve been grinding out glimmer so I can afford the bits that I want. And while grinding in Destiny is pretty fun, it can get tedious, so I think the Iron Banner should give glimmer as rewards to so we don’t have to grind so much!

    So how did I do? Not great, especially when people were watching. When I was alone and randomly matched, I came in at the top of the leader board a couple of times (one for a win and one for a loss), but usually was in the middle. But when I was teamed with my raid buddies (well, they’re not really my buddies, but they sometimes let me tag along), I was consistently near or at the bottom of the list. One way to view it is that they are so good that they clearly outshined me, and to some extent, that is true, but the more reasonable explanation is that I did poorly. I don’t know if I got too aggressive, or what, but it was embarrassing.

    Even more embarrassing was that after we lost a match yesterday, I got a network error that dumped me to orbit and out of party chat, so they probably thought I rage quit. I was unable to rejoin the party chat because of a nasty little bug in the system software: if there are 2 party chats with the same name, joining the one I wanted always put me in the other one. Damn.

    The ironic ending to all of it is that I was talked into doing the Crota raid in hard mode on Friday night, so I took my Titan in for the first time (both my Warlock and Hunter have finished it a few times). We had a great time and I got a raid helmet and boots, so I didn’t really need the Iron Banner gear I worked so hard to get. Oh well…

  • Destiny Flawed Raider

    So there is an achievement in Destiny called “Flawless Raider,” which is earned when all members of your fireteam complete a raid without dying. This is not a thing that I ever aspire to do, because I tend to die a lot. That being said, I have done the raids a few times. The first time I went through the Vault of Glass (the first raid), we made it all the way through, but couldn’t kill Atheon, the final boss. We tried lots of times, and I learned a whole lot, including that if I had to, I could carry the relic after being teleported, but I wasn’t the best at it.

    The issue with Destiny’s raids is that they require everyone to not screw up. In the Vault of Glass, 3 people are teleported to either a past or a future version of the vault, filled with nasty enemies. Even worse, glowing balls called Oracles spawn, and, if they are not killed quickly enough, everyone dies and it’s back to the checkpoint. So if someone dies after being teleported, it can spell doom. Those left unteleported need to kill a bunch of enemies and stand in a certain spot to open the gate to allow the others to get back. If they fail, everyone dies. Falls and enemies can kill players as well, so it is a challenge. And in hard mode, you can’t even revive a downed teammate.

    The new Raid is, if anything, worse. Instead of relying on 3 people at a time, the success depends on one sword carrier who must whack Crota with a sword. Sure, the others have to take down Crota’s shield, kill various enemies, stop pairs of Hive knights that are shooting deadly weapons down on everyone, etc. If anyone dies, there is a new mechanic called the Oversoul that everyone else must attack or else everyone dies. So if the sword carrier dies, it is very bad news, but if even one of the others dies, killing the Oversoul is tough. In general, if someone dies, we all just get wiped by the Oversoul and start again.

    So the group I sometimes play with have the Vault of Glass down to a science. Some time ago, I got invited and we finished it one normal mode. Then a few weeks ago, I went with them and finished it on hard mode  on all my characters. I ended up with a few nice goodies, but the raid armor is no longer very good, since the DLC bumped the levels up.

    Still, Crota tasked me. I tried once with a group that was mostly not the folks I play with regularly, but we tried for hours and couldn’t beat Crota. We mostly knew what to do, but always someone made a mistake and we wiped. Once or twice, we even managed to kill the Oversoul so we could continue, but that was a terrible waste of precious ammo.

    So last Thursday night, the group I sometimes play with invited me for a normal mode Crota’s End raid. We made it through and killed the bugger! Yay! And my Hunter, who didn’t have a tracking rocket launcher got the Hunger of Crota which does track, so I was happy. Finishing a raid, even in normal mode, is quite an accomplishment for me!

    Then on Friday night, the group invited me again, but for hard mode this time. My Warlock couldn’t quite get to level 32, but was close (limited only by 1 or 2 Radiant Shards), so I brought him along. Despite a few glitches, mistakes, and problems, we got it, and I got the raid scout rifle, which I like quite a bit! Then the group decided we needed to go kill Atheon in hard mode on all three of our characters. So while we needed a few tries to kill him, we took down Atheon 3 times in about an hour (from the Gatekeeper checkpoint, so we didn’t do the entire raid).

    Because of all this, I went from having exactly one primary weapon that caused elemental damage (Vision of Confluence – a great scout rifle) to 8 or so in the space of a week. I got an auto rifle and 2 pulse rifles from the Crota raid, as well as a couple of the raid auto rifles and pulse rifles from the Vault of Glass.

    That being said, I didn’t get the holy grail of guns, the Vex Mythoclast, nor have I got the Black Hammer sniper from Crota. So one of these days, I suppose I’ll have to try again to complete these raids. While Destiny’s raids are stressful and challenging, it feels great to finish them!

  • Finally arrived at Dol Amroth in LOTRO

    After a bit of questing in West Gondor, my Lore Master finally made it to the city of Dol Amroth in LOTRO. The city looks great with tremendous detailing on the stonework and the doors. Swans and statues of swans are present everywhere. The city has a number of districts, and you are given a quest by a grumpy guard to visit all of them (I say the guard is grumpy, because he didn’t have nice things to say about elves, the race of my LM). When I got to the dock area, I was given a couple of quests regarding fishing. So while I was sent off to collect fish and to fish from a pier, nobody even mentioned the Corsair ship blocking the harbor entrance, nor the Umbar fleet in the surrounding waters. Nope, far more important for me to collect crates of fish than to worry about the blockade…

    Other areas of the city have similar nuisance quests, yet there are some serious quests, as well. There is a quest line to join the city guard, which seems like a lot of work, but I’ll do it, most likely. Overall, Dol Amroth seems like it will be an okay place to stop and quest for a while.

    The amenities are all present, but somewhat spread out and inconvenient. The LOTRO designers made such brilliant crafting halls in Forlaw and especially Aldburg, where crafting stations, vault keeper, auctioneer, and forge/relic master existed in a small, convenient space, yet here they are spread over a wide area and in different buildings, etc. So not great for crafting, but I can always jump to Aldburg when I need crafting time.

    Dol Amroth in LOTRO’s West Gondor is a treat and looks so good it isn’t to be missed. I’m glad I made it.

  • Getting into LOTRO again

    I’ve been trying to break my Destiny addition, or at least tone it down to just a habit, so I can play other games. I bought Gat out of Hell (along with Saints Row IV) for PS4 and have played that a bit. I have many other games that need playing, too, but the pull of Destiny is too strong. Like an abusive relationship, Destiny mistreats its players and abuses them, then, occasionally, gives us a neat gun or pieces of armor, and all is forgiven. While I’m not trying to equate a game with spouse beating, I wonder if the mental processes may be a little similar, since so many of us keep coming back for more abuse with no guarantee of good rewards.

    I’ve been playing more LOTRO lately, after MONTHS away. I’ve been logging in to LOTRO once a month to pay my housing upkeep, usually a day or two after my house and kinship house gets locked because my prior payments ran out. So I’d pay to unlock the houses and then pay another month in advance, then not touch it again. Well that’s changed, and now I’m back playing.

    My highest level character, a Lore-Master, was already in Western Gondor, and, at level 99, was able to take on most of the enemies there. I still haven’t made it all the way to Dol Amroth yet, but I’m enjoying the area and all the quests and killing the Corsair invaders.

    A few days ago, I took the “swift horse” to the Dead Marches, which was pretty neat. The Dead Marshes are very well done and look great. I ran into a “warband” solo hunter guy, who promptly kicked my squishy LM butt. I saw in yesterday’s patch notes that he’s been made a little easier to kill, but I didn’t run into him last night before I left the Dead Marshes. While the Dead Marshes area is neat, and the quests are pretty good, including the flashback one involving Frodo and Sam, getting around is a terrible slog. We can’t use mounts in the Dead Marshes, so travel is slow. And there isn’t a milestone at the Gondorian guy’s camp, so we can’t zip back when our quests are done. So while I liked the Dead Marshes sequence, it’s a bit too much work for a game, and that makes it less fun than I’d like.

    Now that I’m back in West Gondor, I’ll continue on to Dol Amroth and wherever else my Middle Earth adventures take me.

     

  • Enjoyed Destiny Beta, but the Moon mission blew it!

    I played the Destiny Beta on PS4 both solo and with friends and had quite a blast. My initial thought was that while I enjoyed the game, I wasn’t excited to buy it, because the co-op missions were a little too fast paced. What I mean is that as we would clear an area, members of the team quickly moved on, so I had to follow. I would have preferred to explore at my own pace, rather than be dragged from fight to fight. I felt the same way in the Isengard 3-man instances in LOTRO – it was all just running between fights.

    Then I played more games with friends and really enjoyed the interaction and the team play, so I was considering buying the game. In fact, I was convinced I would buy it and was even scoping out the GameStop version so I could get their pre-order exclusive. And I would get the $90 package instead of the $60 one, because it included the expansions that would cost $35 separately.

    Then, on Saturday at 2PM, during the server load test, they opened up the first Moon mission. I flew to the Moon, excited to see how the low gravity and no atmosphere would affect gameplay. It didn’t! The gravity was the same as Earth’s, so I couldn’t jump super far. And the roars of the baddies and gunfire and all the other sounds carried perfectly through what should be a nonexistent atmosphere. So the gameplay was exactly like on Earth, but with different scenery. I was and still am floored at this kind of mailing it in. Surely Bungie knows about the physical characteristics of the Moon, but didn’t want to take that into account for the game.

    Admittedly, this was a Beta test, so this could change before launch, but it certainly felt reasonably polished. If they were going to change the physics on the Moon, you’d think they’d want to have tested it to see how people compensated.

    So now my interest in buying the game has waned again, mostly because of the moon, but also because I’m hearing speculation that the game will contain not too much content. I can see that the game has lots of potential, but I’m not going to make a $90 bet on that potential.