Shamecast: Destiny 2

By Shamus Posted Friday Jun 8, 2018

Filed under: Notices 15 comments

It’s been a while since I last streamed, hasn’t it? In case you missed it, here is the stream I did of Destiny 2 on Wednesday, minus the first two minutes where my mic was muted:


Link (YouTube)

I really don’t like the special ability of the Warlock. Also, everything cool about him vanished as soon as the tutorial ended. Cool outfit? gone. Cool face? Obscured by boring helmet. Cool shotgun? Replaced with a much more powerful but bland SMG of some sort. Technically all characters go through this aesthetic downgrade once you start the game, but it was really pronounced for my Warlock. If we do another stream, I’ll probably use a different character.

 


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15 thoughts on “Shamecast: Destiny 2

  1. IronCastKnight says:

    Warlocks don’t get fun until you unlock the lightning class and can float around zapping people like Emperor Palpatine on a Hoverboard, and after that… Well, I’m not sure I’d call it fun. As someone that’s played way more Destiny than Destiny deserved to be played, I’m solidly looking forwards to this.

  2. Shoeboxjeddy says:

    When you say “the special ability”, are you referring to the healing circle that Warlocks create on the ground? Or more like one of their super abilities?

    If the former, that’s… an outstandingly powerful move, probably the best one out of all the classes. You can either get full life and survive situations where your shield would not come back in time or switch it to pumping up damage. And unlike the Hunter ability, it helps out anyone on your team who wanders by. You can even spec it to give you a damage dealing buddy for a few seconds if you’re on the Arc subclass.

    If you mean the Super ability, which one is it you don’t like?

    Finally, yeah you’re meant to look like trash when you lose your powers. You got your ass kicked, you’re not supposed to look cool again until you’re ready to get revenge and save the day.

    1. Shamus says:

      You can see in the stream I only played until I regained my powers, so the special I have is the… flaming sword? I think? It’s just not a lot of fun compared to the other two.

      “Finally, yeah you’re meant to look like trash when you lose your powers.”

      Yeah, I get that. Explaining WHY it’s like that doesn’t make it fun though. I’m just saying my character doesn’t look cool or feel cool and so I don’t have any desire to play that character. Both of my other characters are more interesting.

      In a traditional MMO, you don’t get to look cool until you get near the level cap. In D2, you look cool at level 1, and then you have to throw that awesome-looking gear away and equip trash. For whatever reason that’s more disappointing than simply starting with the trash to begin with.

      I’m not saying the design is “wrong”. This is just my honest reaction to how it’s presented.

      1. Hector says:

        Hey Shamus, have you thought about checking out Warframe? I’d be interested in seeing you compare your experience to Destiny 2.

        1. PeteTimesSix says:

          *alt tabs from Warframe*

          I’d like to second this motion.

        2. Rob says:

          I’d love to see him make it at least to The Second Dream so we can hear his thoughts on a game that goes from basically plotless (excluding the tutorial) to having one of the best main storylines of any multiplayer title.

          Then again, that’d be consigning him to the dozens of hours of grinding copy+paste missions required to get to that questline, let alone The War Within which follows it.

          1. Hector says:

            That’s true – although if we give him some advice it’s easy enough to get through much of the grind very quickly.The tricky part is that, when you’re starting out, you just don’t have the information to efficiently progress.

            In any case, I wanted Shamus to take a look at this one just to see how similar and different it is to Destiny at the same time. It’s just crazy – the raw description or features list of the two games would sound incredibly similar. But the two developers working with different assumptions, personalities, and resources, came up with games that play so hilariously different that it sounds like the outcome of a sitcom. Doesn’t this sound just about right:

            Bungie: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
            Digital Extremes: “A game where you use shooting and melee along with space-magic powers while being guided by an electronic intelligence through the solar system battling various weird forces in an ambiguously distant future with incredible super-tech combined with surprisingly modern-day firearms (sometimes) against the background of a fallen human civilization?
            Bungie: “Exactly! Let’s meet back in a few years to compare notes!”
            [Later]
            Digital Extremes: “Wow, we were nto thinking the same thing at all.”
            Bungie: “We really should have seen this coming.”

      2. Shoeboxjeddy says:

        Okay, just watched the stream. A couple of comments on this. I think it would be incredibly short sighted if your Level 1 trash gear solely meant for the purpose of throwing in the garbage looked cool? There’s… 20 levels to go yet, they don’t want to blow their load right off the bat and for you to have nothing to look forward to. If you’re saying specifically that you liked THAT gear, you can get it back as appropriate level gear (purples), the Vanguard Mission vendor (Ikora) gives it out as a reward for doing stuff for her.

        The Warlock has 3 supers, I’d be shocked if you disliked all 3. The Dawnblade is an aerial specialization super. You’re meant to launch into the air and then toss flaming swords down onto your enemies. There’s a spec where the enemies detonate when you hit them and there’s one where the sword waves gain a powerful homing ability. Dawnblade is also the fastest moving Super in the game, which I think would be interesting if you’re coming from faster paced 90s shooters? My novel of a comment down below talks about the Nova Bomb Super. And the final super is basically Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, you get to float and electrocute everyone around you.

        Not trying to pester you, but I think it’d be a shame to dismiss Warlock based on a few seconds of using the supers, a misunderstanding of how the jump works, and a disliking of trash gear that’s supposed to be trash. They have cool powers and get cool looking gear! Just not in the first five seconds of gameplay….

  3. Binary Toast says:

    So Shamus, your comments about Destiny 2 and how it feels like it often wants to be a single-player game, followed by the “No collectibles, no non-combat missions, linear skill trees.” comment, reminded me of something I was thinking of suggesting you try, back during your Black Desert posts; though at that time, I had been thinking more about seeing what a sane cash-shop F2P model looks like.

    Anyway, I wanted to suggest you consider trying Star Trek Online at some point, might make for an interesting contrast to Destiny 2. Where Destiny 2 is a soft MMO with single-player tacked on, STO is basically a single-player game with an MMO tacked on.

  4. I wish I understood what other people see in Destiny 2. My character is currently level 20-something. I’ve tried my best to enjoy the game, but every time I play, I’m just miserable.

    The environments are beautiful, but utterly vacuous. They’re just pretty arenas in which to shoot things. I’m not immersed in a world that feels alive. I’m just passing through a set piece.

    I constantly get lost. There’s no visual language in the game to give me clues as to where I’m supposed to go or how I’m supposed to get there.

    I am not rewarded for exploration or interest in the story. In fact, I have no bloody clue who any of the characters are, and the game makes no attempt to help me understand.

    The dialogue is hackneyed and juvenile. It’s obviously meant to appeal to teenagers and young adults with short attention spans. That’s not me.

    Often I have voice actors dumping exposition in my ear during the middle of an intense battle! How am I supposed to follow that?!?!

    I wish D2 was better. I love shooters, but I don’t want to get a headache every time I try to play.

    1. Shoeboxjeddy says:

      Regarding the getting lost, is this during missions you’re getting lost? Or on Patrols/free roam? During missions, there’s a beacon to follow pretty much at all times. The visual language of the levels doesn’t always direct you where to go because going anywhere is a valid decision when you’re just on Patrol, the areas aren’t only for the missions.

      Regarding “being rewarded for being interested in the story”, how would you like to be rewarded? It would be nice if 2 had a Grimoire of more detailed lore information like 1 did, but I’m not sure how “I’m very interested in the story but I don’t know who the characters are” makes sense together? If you mean that you don’t know what kind of people they are, that I totally understand.

  5. PhoenixUltima says:

    For the last several days, I’ve noticed that whenever I try searching the site for my name (because I’m the sort of vain weirdo that likes to reread his old posts from time to time), it comes up with absolutely nothing. It’s not just me, either – I tried searching for DL’s name (and yes I double-checked that I spelled it correctly), and the only results that popped up were from the forums, despite him being one of the most prolific posters in the comments. I think it’s safe to say something’s broken.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I dont think that the search functionality ever included comments.But advanced google search of the site does return your name a bunch of times,so try that.

      1. PhoenixUltima says:

        …I figured it out. I was doing a site search for “site:www.shamusyoung.com”. Once I dropped the “www” part it started working just fine.

        Nothing’s broken, I’m just a dumb-dumb.

  6. Shoeboxjeddy says:

    Commenting while viewing the recorded version since I missed the live stream:
    -Yeah, your summary of the Traveler is essentially correct. For a long time, he’s been dormant (asleep? dead?) and passively granting the player character Guardians their powers through the Ghosts as a medium.
    -“The worst machine gun you’ll ever own”. Huh?! You later get a level appropriate version of this gun (called Origin Story) in the main campaign. It is extremely strong, tight recoil pattern, very fast reload, and decent damage per bullet. What is the complaint with it exactly? (Oh, the complaint was about range? Well, as a balancing thing, AR’s generally don’t have range in D2, to give a better spot to Pulse Rifles and Scout Rifles.)
    -Zavala can’t “lock you out” of his shield. That’s the ‘Ward of Dawn’ Super that the player can use on one of the two Titan Sentinel trees. Any character (friendly or enemy) can walk through, it only blocks bullets, missiles, grenades, etc. Good to know if you’re in a PVP match, you can rush in and attack the player who set it up. You can get killed by the missiles in this level if you don’t arrive in time though. I think the devs thought you would naturally fight nearby the friendly character at the start when you might be less confident. (Oh, looks like someone told you, ah well.)
    -Your Super there that you were unimpressed by was the ‘Nova Bomb’. It’s an incredibly hard hitting death ball that can either create a massive AoE explosion or split into mini-seeker bombs. You do have to aim it before firing though, which might have surprised you. Think of it like a large grenade, best used by jumping in the air and firing down on a group.
    -“I want to see this place before it gets destroyed!” Okay, play Destiny 1 then. That’s the Hub city we spent three years chatting with vendors and tooling around in. Seeing it get destroyed was an interesting feeling, kinda felt like watching my old dorm go up in flames or something. (Ah, you noticed by the end here.)
    -“Imagine if one of the Guardians gets wiped out by a falling golf ball.” You don’t have to imagine it. It will happen to YOU numerous times in any patrol zone where the Cabal drop like this.
    -“Grenades are terrible.” You need to actually know what your grenade does first. Every subclass gets 3 grenades to choose from (no choice is given in the opening level here). Some are seekers, some are clusters, some are traps to stick to walls, etc. And yes, the grenade itself is one of your super powers, it recharges each time you throw it. There’s even specs that give you two.
    -The animation for the “Devour” power is your Warlock SQUEEZES the grenade until it disappears. It’s a very great ability and not just for the mental picture.
    -“There’s no audio logs or environmental storytelling.” Well… there’s scannable items in certain places. They’re just generally very uninteresting. Destiny 1 had far superior short stories you unlocked by finding hidden Dead Ghosts… for some reason they didn’t bring that back.
    -“What am I doing wrong with the jumping?” Warlock jump is based on pre-committing. So if you want to glide up, you jump and then hit jump again while your direction is going up. If you want to glide forwards, then you run, jump, and jump again while your direction is forwards. If you want to land softly, start a fall, and then turn on your glide before you hit the ground to come down softly. Think of the glide based on the arc of your momentum. If you rapidly tap jump while running forwards, you’ll do a limp glide sort of forwards, which is what happens to you in the generator room. Hunter gets a very video gamey double or triple jump, like what Jak and Daxter would have.
    -“I don’t know what this is that it’s showing us.” It’s very poorly explained, but it’s a vision that you and your Ghost have about a way to get your powers back. That vision is the reason you know where to go once you meet up with Siraya and find the Farm. Once you know that, it’s fairly clear the Traveler itself is tipping you off here.
    -“Is this saying that this is what I’m GOING to get from doing this quest?” No… that’s a store. You’re spending all the Glimmer (cash) you earned on your previous characters on 5 or 6 copies of the same equipment. Not sure why you kept clicking and never read that each item is priced? You don’t have 0 dollars… you spent all the Glimmer on your account on complete crap. Luckily, Glimmer is extremely easy to earn and you’ll be flush just from one or two play sessions. (At least you enjoyed it once you figured out what had happened.)

    Hopefully this massive engorged comment comes off as commentary and not criticism? It was a fine stream.

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