#gear in the game and changes to how supers work is to make raiding a better experience

[arcenergy]

i also acknowledge that im 1% of the community considering 

but even then i feel like most destiny players at least do a raid maybe one a month, if not that then a dungeon and also some harder strikes . am i right?? when tumblr gives me the options for polls i might poll this bcos ive been in the sweaty raiding scene since 2020 so idek what it’s like anymore 

[obeymeluv]

Signs they Love You

Back for my 1 post a week to prove school hasn’t totally killed me! When I get a semester break, I’ll post more often. In the mean time, feel free to leave me chats or PMs for stuff you want to see! :) Something nice and sappy for an okay Saturday

These turned out really long so I only did Lucifer, Mammon, Levi, and Satan. I have to get back to studying :/. Maybe I’ll have part 2 next week?

Lucifer

You wouldn’t be able to notice it because his pride wouldn’t allow you to. One of the brothers (or, to Lucifer’s extreme mortification, Lord Diavolo) would have to tell you

He’s not sure if it’s just the appreciation of you not being as totally chaotic as his brothers or genuine human naivete that has somehow worn off on him, but he loves you

Will be outed by sappy, soft stares that last 2 seconds too long.

Asmo and Satan are the first to notice and he LOATHES that

If he’s tasked with waking you up that morning, his knock will be firm but his voice will be gentle. Almost persuasive or commiserating

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by school workload, he may have a private conference with the teacher and grant you a minor extension. Will you know it was him? No. Is he happy to see you brighten up and refill with hope just a bit? Definitely. Is it worth the teasing from Lord Diavolo? ...Sure.

If he responds to texts in the wee hours of the morning when he’s still pouring over paperwork, he likes you.

Anyone who knows him can see how his eyes soften when someone else talks about you. There’s a fond slowness to his actions, how he glides his hand imperceptibly over his chest as if to feel where that emotion is coming from. Boy is whipped.

Should Lord Diavolo invite him out for a meeting, he will bring you back something small. Something he thought you’d like. Beel is upset. Levi yells “SIMP!” from the second floor and prepares for Armageddon.

Actually reminds you about assignments if you’re not already up on it yourself. Your success is his joy.

Is very keen on if/when you burn the candle too long and has a sixth sense for bad sleeping habits. Will put you on a stricter schedule for your own health

It may take almost all of the brothers to do it (or just help from Diavolo) but if he gets drunk on Demonus you’re getting a whole BOOK about why he likes you. He almost charms your memory away but everyone practically dog-piles on him not to because he needs to deal with his feelings.

You’re the only one he won’t chase out of his study when he’s doing paperwork. He’ll even set up a little fire if you like the fireplace.

How he confesses: tries to take you on a fancy date to Ristorante Six. Does not know that Lord Diavolo and Barbatos know about this (damn time-travelling butler!) and basically crash the date just to encourage him. Just long enough to encourage him.

Kind of an, “So you chose this idea, Lucifer? Admirable! I’m sure your date will be amazing! Enjoy your evening!” as Diavolo walks back to his table.

Does Lucifer deny it? Look and see how red his face is. If you’re really not sure, ask Diavolo. He will gladly yell, “I cannot lie!” across the restaurant.

Mammon

For all his talk, when he really, really decides he likes you, he doesn’t know what to say.

He can console himself with how obvious it is and how you made the best choice, but he has to show it! What to do?

Mammon’s kind of confused about it because he doesn’t really change how he behaves. You didn’t catch on already?! C’mon, human!

What, does he have to spell it out for you? Do an interview with Majolish?

His first tactic is to just be around you. Be subtle, and maybe cuddle a bit more than usual. Things to show he’s kittenish and at your mercy. Comfortable with you.

You don’t seem to be getting the hint so he throws the net a little wider by trying to find things you like or that you’ve been talking about. They mysteriously show up at your door.

It sends the others on a gossip train about who your admire could be and when they list off everyone BUT him, he wants to slam his head on the table.

Feeling tired? Coffee! Backpack heavy? Silly human, the BEST man can help you with that, OBVIOUSLY! Mammon jumps at the chance to do any little thing for you because he cares. His actions always speak louder than words.

Feeling kind of defeated and embarrassed, Mammon will go talk to the flock of crows that meander around the House of Lamentation’s yard when he really needs them.

For the next few days you’re accosted in the nicest way, birds chirping at you and dropping off various shiny things

You collect them, finally showing them to Mammon and he’s embarrassed that his representative animal has taken to courting you on his behalf.

He calls them to him, embarrassed and ready to rant or fall into the ground never to be seen again, when they start talking. Repeating all the things he’s practiced saying.

“Hey baby,”, “Hey human,” “Love you!”, “Silly! Silly!”, “Dummy, no, dummy!”, “My human.”

It’s broken and confusing, six or seven bird children cawing in your face and bobbing, but you get it.  

Levi

Levi’s not the best at expressing himself but it counts, right? As much as he hates to admit he’s some kind of shy tsundere, you know what that is, right? He doesn’t have to say it?

Yes. Yes he does. His brothers are getting too chummy with you and you don’t understand his signals. Time for Plan B.

If you get invited to stand in line for a midnight release, he hopes you take it. Then it’s just you two hanging out in line? What’s this? He brought snacks? Totally not for the two of you BUT you an have some if you’re hungry. It’s whatever

When he’s not doing boss raids and playing with online friends, he’ll ask if you want to play something with him. A Player 1 needs a Player 2, you know?

I headcanon that Levi knows how to play some unusual instruments like the kalimba or a real ocarina. I could see him making you a song on one of those. Or just playing it because you inspire him. He’s very good with a harp and will play it when he’s in the mood.

Boy also likes to draw and paint. Especially loves watercolors. Would it be weird if he gave you a painting of you as a mermaid? Just you and the ocean. Beautiful.

Was there a really cute plush or knickknack you liked? Levi has his ways, regardless of how rare or limited edition it is. It will be yours. 

He has a hard time understanding a passing comment of interest versus a genuine want because he genuinely wants everything he’s interested in, so if you hear a whisper about him almost securing something, stop and look it up. Make sure it’s not super expensive!!

Probably outed by Belphegor, who feels like Levi’s broadcasting all of his stress, frustration, and hope through his dreams. (”His dreams are weird. Just different ways of asking them out, and if he messes up it restarts like a simulation. My brain hurts.” he says to Beel)

 You’re allowed to come into his super-restricted bedroom haven when everything’s too much. It’s very exclusive since the Mammon incident. Be happy.

Might go swimming in his big tank and pick a seashell or rock to make a necklace out of. He hopes you like it.

If he’s not outed by Belphie, some of his online friends made a game demo they wanted him to try. They specified it was two player so he asked you to join in. While he’s in the middle of bragging about how he knows people, knows developers, he totally misses the dating-sim like dialogue and the big reveal.

Doesn’t really kick in until he realize the characters look like you two. You’re busy saying ‘Yes’ to “Do you like me?” as Levi absolutely threatens to rip them apart six ways to Sunday. Almost in full demon mode, too.

Everything falls out of his brain and quiets in his throat when he realizes the characters are kissing and ‘THEY SAID YES!’ flashes on the screen.

“Y-You like me?”

“Yep.”

It was that easy all along. Levi thinks he’s going to faint.  

Satan

Becomes aware of it pretty quick but ignores it for a looong time

Is it rude or foolish of him to assume you would also like him back?

Run away into books. A solid plan. If you don’t think about it, it’s not an issue

Oh, but it is an issue when you fall asleep after a mutual day of reading, forced in by bad weather. He finds his heart fluttering in a painful squeeze as he quietly whispers all the things he dare not say when you’re awake

It’s nervous poetry, and it’s beautiful

Satan tries to get himself back on track, to focus on reading, and he gets frustrated when he’s stuck on the same page almost an hour later

When you’re on the brain he just can’t do anything else

How does one show their affection? He’s swimming in books for a new reason now, as voracious as ever

He brews you a pot of Melancholy Coffee and is a bit disappointed you don’t know the meaning behind the bitterness. Wants to break the pot when Lucifer jokes about how it tastes exceptionally bitter to him as well.

Okay, so coffee didn’t work. What else do people do when they show their affections?

Asmo suggests a ‘not a date’ date and Satan sighs inside. Sounds like a lot of work and effort. It’s not that you’re not worth it, but he has a feeling that everyone will know and look at him the whole time.

Tries anyways. You guys go to a beautiful nature conservatory and take a tour of the plants and some indigenous animals

You’re starting to realize it now, he can tell. Satan tries to answer your question without saying it while you’re at school. You walk together, he offers to carry some of your books, and always requests that he be your project partner

Nearly there. If there was a single defining moment for him, he’d want it to be classic. He shows up at your door with a rose and asks you to go on a moonlit walk.

Mammon’s poking fun about how cheesy and cliche it is, Asmo’s gearing up to shut Mammon’s stupid mouth, and Satan just whisks you out the door with an aggravated sigh.

No matter what side of the house you’re on, Asmo throws up the biggest, gaudiest handmade sign that’s like ‘CUTEST COUPLE! 10/10!’

[lizzy-frizzle]

I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

[nyanyanolio]

Why Is Division 2 so much easier to pick back up than other looters shooters?

Something that occurred to me about 3 weeks ago when I finally booted Div2 back up just to do the Keener mission is that; the moment that it was over, I just kept playing naturally. I didn't just wrap things up and move on, I'm now eagerly waiting for the next season to start on Tuesday.

Sometimes when I pick Destiny 2 back up (which I've also done recently) it can be really hard to get back into the swing of things (luckily not this time). But all 3 times that I've re-engaged with Div2, it just felt natural and like I knew what my options were for my next goal. I think I can sum up why in a really simple phrase, but first I'm going to do some comparisons with Destiny 2 and Outriders (sorry Borderlands but I just don't connect with that franchise anymore)

Outriders is a weird game in this space because of not being a live service game with nonstop content updates. That being said the farmable content in the endgame is pretty unique and the linearity of the game makes sure that you basically always know what's next as long as you have your desired gear loadout equipped.

Speaking of loadout, let's talk about loot. The weapons in Outriders roll with Stat bonuses just like the weapons in Division 2, but especially on legendaries they receive Destiny-esque abilities. The armor on the other hand is much more unique; basically just acting as the platform by which you build your characters stats and abilities. I think the mod system beneath the gear and the ability to upgrade gear to its full potential makes coming back after a break feel good while still making new drops immediately feel rewarding,  especially as power levels rise rapidly towards the end of the expeditions. 

I haven't had the pleasure of trying to farm in Outriders since the big legendary drop rate update which was a long time ago at this point, but knowing PCF are still taking care of players even when there's no new content is reassuring that the next time I do pick it up I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Destiny 2 on the other hand has a completely different set of problems that all seem to rhyme with too many options. When returning to Destiny the game immediately throws you into the introduction part of the newest seasonal activity and makes you finish before continuing into the parts of the game you remember, which have probably changed since the last time you played.

In some ways this is great because that means all players are acquainted with how the season works, but once you're set free there's still no real direction and lots of options. PvP has the classic appeal of unending gameplay but I would need another whole article to talk about every option for where to grind good drops for armor, weapons, and especially mods. The Vanguard and Gambit playlists are the same ever but are basically just farming grounds so especially if you don't have the season pass, all the good endgame activities are mixed in with the rest of the weekly missions.

Fortunately, Destiny has an amazing community to help make guides for new players but the game typically expects you to know what you want to do. The punishment for not knowing what you want to accomplish is being lost in a sea of great content where the only activities you will suffer in being Trials, Iron Banana, and Master/Grandmaster nightfall. Especially late in the season we vastly overpower the raids which means when we wait for new expansions there's no endgame activities blocked by power level unless you're a new player who hasn't even passed the soft cap.

Unless you have a predetermined goal or are comfortable having only 1 thing to do, Destiny 2 and Outriders can be really rough to get back into after taking a break. Even WoW and FF14 have mainline campaigns to catch you back up with current content but you also retain the freedom the just go back into hard grinding the same progression paths as always bar some story quests for unlocking new raids. Division 2 knows its place and leans headfirst into saying "here are the raids, and here's a story based seasonal format that makes great use of the world's farming content.

Unfortunately Division 2 hasn't received a second expansion yet, but it was cleared for development earlier this year. That being said I think the game deserved some air, the repeating seasons from year 2 are nice for those of us who were late to pick up Warlords, and there's certainly a market for games with an end like Outriders.

While we aren't sure about the idea of Division 3, I think there's a lot of hope. The current Division formula is super friendly to returning and new players while allowing long time players to flaunt their max SHD levels and raid weapons. I'm predicting a surprisingly large amount of communal interest in Division whenever we hear about and gain access to the second expansion, and I honestly think a Division 3 would genuinely stand toe to toe with Destiny 2 if they wanted it to. (WoW vs FF14 analogies galore)

[whmguidetoffxiv]

A White Mage's Guide: Tomestones and the House of Splendors

If You're sub-50, you won't have to worry too much about this yet. But for those of you just cresting that beautiful 5-0, you've probably heard about and been confunded by Tomestones. What are they? Why do they keep changing? Who's this Rowena person everyone's terrified of?

Well, look no further.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Bane of your existence.

Rowena runs the House of Splendors, and end-game, high-end shop from which you buy gear, weaponry, items, and so forth. however, Rowena doesn't deal in gil; instead, she deals in those enigmatic tomestones that you'll start collecting once you've reached level 50.

These are Tomestones; they're accessed by clicking Ctrl+C to open your currencies window, under 'battle'. These are collected automatically when you run dungeons after reaching level 50. Tomestones of Poetics, the base level, are earned with any post 50 dungeon or roulettes run under level 80. The next three are on a roatation; the second one (under poetics) is the 2nd-high end; you earn it at level 80 by running roulettes or level 80 dungeons. The Third is the Highest tier you can currently get; it's earned the same way as the previous, but you're capped at earning 450 of them per week. Each set of tomestones can purchase a different set of gear or items.

Notice that I never gave them names? Well, that's because they rotate out whenever a post-MSQ patch is released. (Or rather, every other one.) The 'discontinued' tomestone you see was the previous 2nd-high end. So when a new patch hits, a new tomestone is released. The high-end becomes the 2nd-high end, and the 2nd-high end is discontinued and its purchaseables switch to poetics. If you happen to have any of the discontinued ones, you can trade them in for an item that will give you an equivalent you can spend.

Rowena's got her claws in almost every corner of Eorzea and beyond. Practically speaking, it means she's not hard to find. She's got representatives in every major city, and in certain end-game areas for each expansion pack. They're represented by a blue bag on the map for the sundries girls, usually near the aetherytes. The full suites of the House of Splendors are going to be in the endgame areas.

The Girls in Gridania, Ul'Dah, and Limsa, and Mor donuts Dhona will all sell level 50 gear, regardless of what class or you currently are. The girl in Ishgard and Idyllshire will sell level 60 gear, and so on. The sundries girls will only sell items you can buy with tomestones, and there's a reason this is important.

The House of Splendors deals in a LOT more than just tomestones. You'll find random items from raids, fates, and events that you may not know what to do with. Chances are, you can spend them at the House of Splendors. Odin's Mantle, for example; you get it from a Fate that spawns randomly in any of the Black Shroud areas. You can trade it in Mor Dhona for gear, a sword, or a barding. However, you can only do this in Mor Dhona; each end-game area will deal with different 'rare' items you can only gather in that particular expansion.

The items you are most likely to collect come from the 8-man raids that were introduced in Heavensward. You'll get one for completing any of the raids, but the item will differ depending on which of the 12 in the raid series you do. You can trade these in at the Splendors house in the relevant area (which I'm avoiding naming all of them for spoilers reasons) to get a different selection of high-end gear from the normal tomestones. There's a different selection of items that you get from the savage version of the raids that will let you purchase the augmented item (which is dyeable).

It's important to note that, unless you're a glamour fiend, you don't need to save any of these special 'raid' commodities until you reach the current end-game. (As of This writing, that would be Shadowbringers Post-game.) Whatever the high-end Poetics armor/weapons are will always be the 'top' gear over anything else available. A recent patch even removed the normal versions of these poetics gears; you can only purchase the augmented ones now. So for ARR, that would be the Augmented Ironworks gear, for Heavensward it's the Augmented Shire Gear, and so on.

This being said, the Augmented gear will usually last 5-6 levels into the next leveling segment; if you play your cards right (and only do certain roulettes) you can make the armor last until it's time to buy the next set. (We don't recommend this for progressing through MSQ, though; usually the level 65-67 dungeons purposefully have a skill/damage boost to prevent people from coasting through on lower-leveled gear. This tip is more for leveling subsequent classes)

I do want to add this, just to explain how tomestones work once you DO reach the endgame. In addition to straight armor and gear, you can buy items. You can use these to buy crafted armors and glamor sets. I have an example of a piece of armor you can use the highlighted material to get. Again, unless you're a glamour fiend you won't be messing with these too much until the endgame. whatever the 'top' tier of armor is changes with the patch, alternating between crafted gear and gear available from tomestones or raids. Unless you want to be a savage/ultimate tier raider, you won't miss much if your gear lags a bit behind.

Crafters and Gatherers aren't excluded from this, either! The House of Splendors has a separate set of currencies for each that can be used to buy equally high-end gear and tools. These are called scrips. They break down in a similar way to the tomestones, and rotate out, though on a less frequent basis.

Editor's note: The Skybuilders scrips are from a separate event called the Firmament Restoration and are not associated with the House of Splendors in any way.

Earning Scrips is a different process from earning Tomestones, one that you don't even fully start until you reach Heavensward. To earn scrips, you need to complete turn-ins similar to your Grand Company. Unlike the GC, though, the 'collectablity' of the item dictates how much XP or Scrips you get in exchange. (Functionally, the rarity replaces the 'HQ' meter when you're crafting.) These 'collectibles' are separate recipes within your crafting menu.

90% of Crafting/Gathering scrips is going to be the same as tomestones; earn currency, trade for loot. There are, however, two extra things to know about Scrips. The first is that there used to be a LOT more items you could trade in for scrips. As the game expands these processes tend to get streamlined. To prevent old players getting completely screwed over after a 2-year break, there is a vendor in Idyllshire that will trade a lot of these items for Blue tokens. You can get these with Yellow Scrips too, and this is the other extra thing to know.

Crafters can learn 'expert recipes' and gatherers can learn about 'unhidden' nodes, but only through books purchased through the House of Splendors. Crafters purchase their books with scrips, but Gatherers need to use the blue gatherer's tokens. They aren't super necessary for progression, but they DO allow you to gather rare items for that high-end crafted gear, and are worth grinding out.

Probably the best thing you can buy with your scrips if you're still leveling a crafter or gatherer is the manuals; these are one-use items that provide a 2-hour buff to your XP gain as that class, up until a certain point. After that, you can buy materia, orch rolls, and lots of other sundry little goodies. Or materia.

And... that should be everything! Best of luck with your dealings with Rowena, and see you around Eorzea!

[the-delta-42]

Rule of Precinct One Vol. 2

Rules of Precinct One Vol. 2

1. Detective Wilde has been authorized for use with all firearm ballistics, don’t ask how, we’re trying to figure that out ourselves.

2. Detective Wilde has been banned from use of all non-firearm weapons; we are running out of tail splints.

3. Detective Wilde is now required to wear a tail guard on duty, we really don’t need to go to hospital to get the damned thing reattached.

4. Do not underestimate Detective Wilde's ability to harm his own tail, seriously, don’t.

5. Detective Wilde is to stop stealing balls from the sports cupboard, we can’t get his wife to retrieve the balls every time.

6. Detective Wilde and Detective Hopps-Wilde are no longer allowed to take the nightshift together, I’m sure you can figure out why.

7. Whoever took the donuts from Clawhauser, well done, he’s supposed to be on a diet.

8. Do not make Box or Funny jokes with Detective Hopps-Wilde, we don’t need to find out that a Rabbit can actually go savage.

9. No stating Detective Wilde’s full name, there is a reason he dropped the John.

10. No asking why Detective Wilde’s father calls him Junior, at all.

11. Never, EVER suggest, imply, or otherwise insinuate that Officer Wilde is capable, or indeed, talented, at cheating at cards, in front of Officer Hoops. This will not end well.

12. Do not attempt to play cards with Officer Wilde. This includes Black Jack, Three Card Monty, and All forms of Poker

13. Amendment to the above: Cheat, Go Fish, and Snap are not excluded from this, on account of not traditionally being betting games. You may think that will prevent you from losing money. This will not prevent you from losing money.

14. A reminder to all Officers, Officers Schneider and Wilde are not to be in the same room together especially if they're both armed.

15. Whenever Detective Wilde is entering the station don't yell out "The British are coming!" Officer Fangmeyer is still recovering from broken ribs.

16. Reminder to all officers, trying to scare Detective’s Wilde and Hopps is generally a bad idea.

17. Reminder to all Officers, posting photos of new equipment on Furbook is now banned.

18. Don't EVER put a muzzle on Detective Wilde's office desk. Whoever did it, I hope you’re happy that he has to now spend a week in therapy. Seriously, we don’t need one of our best Detectives going into shock.

19. Do not, under any circumstance, show Detective Hopps anything Creepypasta related. The last time she saw Jeff the Kitty, she refused to let go of Detective Wilde until he passed out.

20. No one is allowed to use the Ion Cannon in storage. We don’t know what it does or why it’s there.

21. To all officers, stop trying to setup Chief Bogo with another mammal. Last time we had to rescue him from a cross dressing tiger and his friends.

22. Clawhauser is to stop playing matchmaker. It did well with Hopps and Wilde but not so good with others. See previous rule for proof.

23. Detective Wilde is not allowed to pick the movies on Movie Friday anymore. Many are still in trauma counselling.

24. Detective Wilde is not allowed to sing Happy, it caused every Officers in the station to break out dancing.

25. No one is allowed to play the Police Story Movie Series in the station, except on Movie Friday.

26. No one is to play the British Grenadiers within Detective Wilde's hearing distance, he may be an excellent singer, but it does get annoying.

27. All Officer patrolling the slums must wear a stab proof vest. We don’t need another incident where Detective Hopps-Wilde nearly became a Widow.

28. FOR THE LOVE OF ASLAN DON'T PLAY WITH Detective WILDE'S POISON CONTAINER FROM THE SAS.

29. Who played with Detective Wilde's EMP Grenades again? All the Police Cruiser's electronics are fried.

30. All Narcotics Operations are to be jointly operated with the ZDEA, not go out and do an Anti-Drug War with the Cartel, Detective Wilde was spotted wearing Combat Gear with an M4 during one of the Raids.

31. No matter what, Detective Wilde is not to be disturb during his investigation unless it's important.

32. Stop telling the Rookies that Detective Wilde is James Bond.

33. Who gave Wilde military grade super glue?! He somehow glued his tail to the ceiling of the station and it took a long time to get him down!

34. We all know you like Guns N Rodents, Detective Hopps, but whenever you're entering the Rainforest District don't play "Welcome to the Jungle" through the sirens. Same goes for any officers.

35. If you have a backstage pass to a Gazelle concert, make sure to hide it from Chief Bogo and Clawhauser. Officers Delgato and Wolford were nearly trampled to death last time.

36. Only Detective Wilde is allowed to use the Ion Cannon, it seems that he knows what it does and how to handle it. He also has yet to shoot his tail off with it.

37. Reminder to all Officers, Detective Wilde is only allowed to use a Baton in non-lethal situations.

38. Even though Wilde is British doesn't mean he's a stereotype, even if he does like drinking tea.

39. No one is to bet a Schneider vs Wilde fight, Schneider involved the GSG9 and Wilde involved the SAS.

40. No trying arrest a badger because he "stepped on your tail" this means you, Wilde.

41. Whoever keeps putting up bunny/fox adoption papers, please stop. Detective Wilde and Detective Hopps-Wilde become unavailable for the rest of the day when this happens.

42. Reminder to all Officers to not allow any more male bunnies to be in sight of Detective Wilde or Detective Hopps. We don't need another flirting incident.

43. It is now banned to arrest the driver of the ice-cream truck and "confiscate" all of the truck's merchandise because he wouldn't stop. (We're looking at you Officers Fangmeyer, Wilde, and Schneider.)

44. Whoever put up pictures of Detective Hopps getting changed around the station, be aware that none of us will subdue him when Detective Wilde finds you; he WILL find you.

45. Do not even joke that there is someone named Shere Kahn here to see Wilde about his time in the secret service. Last time this happened Detective Wilde disappeared for two weeks and Detective Hopps-Wilde was crying her eyes out.

46. Detective Wilde is to take home all of his personal gear immediately. We can't keep replacing every computer and electronic device in the precinct every time someone uses an EMP grenade.

47. Detective Wilde is no longer allowed to bring personal equipment to work without permission. A Stinger missile launcher isn't police gear.

48. Detective Wilde is allowed to use the ion cannon. He somehow knows how to use it.

49. Do not ask Detective Wilde about his time in the secret service. Last time this happened Detective Wilde freaked out and disappeared for a week, you know I’m starting to see a pattern here.

50. To all Officers, stop baiting Clawhauser to doing your paperwork through the use of donuts and cereals. Be responsible for your own work and Clawhauser is on a diet!

51. No one is to ever label fox repellent as Genuine Zooisiana hot sauce EVER again, Hopps is still crying in my office and Wilde is still being treated for the blindness that was caused by it.

52. Remember kids, fire hot. Someone should probably make a note on that.

53. Attention officers, attention, remember to work the shaft. Wilde we know this was you.

54. If it wasn’t clear before it is now, By no means are Wilde and Hopps allowed in the copy room together and apparently I need a new secretary.

55. Do not use the mini-gun. Half of our officers are still in the hospital.

56. Do not prank Officer Hopps with anything ghost related. Wilde took an hour to literally drag her out of her home because she believed there was a ghost at the station.

57. Reminder to all officers, do not pull pranks that involve any hot sauce or Ghost Peppers. Some of our officers still have ice packs on their tongue.

58. Don't ask why Wilde has the British Flag and a London Metropolitan Police Bobby Helmet on his desk.

59. New Patrol Cars maybe bulletproof, but that doesn't mean it's a target for target practice.

60. All Officers must use the code 10-8 if you’re on duty.

61. All detectives must have their badges on the at all times, I really don’t want another incident where the Mayor mistook Detective Wilde for some shady business man.

62. I don't care how, but Detective Wilde is forever banned from using TASERS so stop giving him TASERS. We really don’t want another ‘king’ incident again do we?

63. Yes, Detective Wilde, we get that you are a Doctor Who fan, especially Sir John Hurt.

64. We don’t need the constant thing of The United Kingdom leaving the EU, Detective Wilde is still trying to deal with the other British Citizens here who have started to break out in riots. This is quite possibly the first time Detective Wilde has used any standard Police equipment properly.

65. Please do not mention Gazelle in front of either Detective Hopps-Wilde or Clawhauser, it took us three hours to get them both to shut up.

66. Officer Cody, there are no contingency orders that tell you to kill/subdue any of the Detectives on the force.

67. Alright, which one of you lot petitioned for Detective Wilde to be removed from the Force?

68. Please, who ever brought the little Vixen into the precinct, bring her again, she’s adorable.

69. Alright, who gave Wilde (Both of them) Coffee? They’ve locked themselves in their Office and frankly I believe that you can all here them from where you are.

70. Detective Wilde, please call your mother, this is the seventeenth time she’s called in at the front desk. PS. We now know your actual first name.

71. Please refrain from commenting that Detective Wilde acts like Conan from the Anime Detective Conan when he finally solves a case.

72. Who created a real Phantom Thief, who is based off Magic Kaito 1412?

73. Could someone please explain to Detective Hopps-Wilde what the previous rule is?

74. Reminder to all Officers, Detective Wilde is an Authorized Firearms Officer, and his Unmarked Squad Car is a moving armoury.

75. Kevlar Vests are now Standard issue and must worn at all times.

76. This a warning to all racists Officers, you are outnumbered 100 to 1 and Wilde has a Pranking/Torture arsenal.

77. Detective Wilde: you may be a detective now, but that does not give you an excuse to dress up like Furlock Holmes on the job. That bubble-blowing Meerkatz pipe is simply ridiculous.

78. To all feline officers of Precinct One: having roaring contests at the station is expressly forbidden.

79. Officer McHorn: from now on when your office door is jammed please wait for a locksmith instead of charging at it with your horn. According to the contractor that was a supporting wall you nearly destroyed.

80. To whoever pumped helium into the chief's office before he passed out the morning assignments, your commanding officer is not amused.

81. To whoever told Detective Hopps-Wilde about Detective Wilde's Playbunny magazines, he has sworn vengeance.

82. Just because the chief is a Buffalo that does not mean that he is angered by the colour red like a bull gets. The fact that Bogo automatically gets aggravated at the sight of Detective Wilde (Wilde's fur being red and all) is purely a coincidence.

83. The hoses on armoured police vehicles are not to be used as showers. I don't care how clean you may get or how funny it is to see bald patches on Detective Wilde's fur we cannot afford the clean-up from flooding the garage... for the fifth time this month

84. When Detective Wilde warns you about someone conning you, listen to him. The ZPD budget is still recovering after the whole fake Gazelle autograph incident.

85. To the practical joker who subscribed Chief Bogo to the Gazelle Gossip magazine, the joke is on you: he's already a subscriber

86. No one is to mention the word "neuter" in the building. It took the whole day to find the male felines, lupines, and the vulpine.

87. NO VIXENS IN SIGHT OF DETECTIVE HOPPS-WILDE OR DETECTIVE WILDE!

88. Do NOT ask Judy's parents if they had vasectomy yet.

89. NEVER underestimate Detective Hopps-Wilde. We have now learned she can beat anybody to a pulp in a sparring match, including Chief Bogo.

90. Reminder to all officers: just because Wilde is a designated firearms officer, doesn’t mean he's a sniper. Also, don't request for any weapons for the armoury, we can't have a Barrett m107 .50 or an M240, we also can't have AT4's.

91. Detective Wilde is only allowed to sing at Karaoke Saturdays.

92. Please don't disturb Detective Wilde, both of them, when they are explaining their deductions.

93. Reminder to all Racists Officers Detective Wilde is armed for a reason.

94. The new Helicopters are for police work not Romantic Flights.

95. Detective Wilde is not Sherlock Holmes.

96. All officer in Precinct 1 must sign a pact to eat Clawhauser's donut everyday at least once. He was supposed to be 'weight reduced' to normal level of fitness.

97. To any officer out there who using police superbike as patrol vehicle, DO NOT give Detective Wilde and Detective Hopps YOUR SUPERBIKE KEY.

98. To any officer who think bringing Clawhauser's family to 'Bring Your Family To Work' day, DON'T. We can't have Clawhauser being scolded for being 'fat'. It reduces Clawhauser's work productivity. And there's a reason why he doesn't live with his family again.

99. - All officer must not pushes Chief Bogo to give you case. When there is no case, there is no case. I'm watching you, Hopps.

100. For the last time, who brings laser to Precinct 1? The productivity of Precinct 1 dropped to zero just because all officer chased after it.

101. ALRIGHT, WHO BROUGHT THE LASER HERE?

102. To all officers, Officer Moon Moon is to be supervised by at least one officer at all times. He's a new recruit and a walking hazard when left unsupervised. Just ask Grizzoli in the infirmary.

103. No more bringing of pets in the precinct, especially spiders. The giant huntsman spider Officer Fangton brought is still on the loose and a third of the force won't come in until it has been caught.

104. Detective Wilde, do not take advantage of Officer Moon Moon's gullibility. The poor guy lost his first pay check when you tricked him into playing cards with you.

105. If anyone, only Detective Wilde is allowed to refer to Detective Hopps-Wilde as "cute". Anyone else risks her fury.

106. WHY ARE THERE ZOMBIES IN THE PRECINCT?!

107. Whoever dressed up as those zombies, your commanding officer is not pleased.

108. NEVER say that you hate pop-star Gazelle in front of Clawhauser. Even though he is not physically fit, he is still a cheetah.

109. To whoever put the nude photo of gazelle in chief’s paperwork you have parking duty for a month. And I'm looking at you Wilde.

110. No one is to mention Detective Wilde’s ex-wife. It was hard enough to explain to Detective Hopps-Wilde.

111. Detective Garfield we don't care how much of a jerk you think your partner Lieut. Nirmal is, so stop spamming HR with requests to get him transferred to Abu Dhabi.

112. While we are on the subject of Detective Garfield, no one's to tell him when the cafeteria is serving Italian, last time he found out he barricade himself in there and by the time we broke down the door half the food was gone.

113. No Detective Wilde, you did not learn everything you need to know in kindergarten.

114. Notice to the motor pool, for now on all porcupine officers are on permanent motorcycle duty as we can afford to keep fixing car seats every time they come back from patrol.

115. Will you all stop harassing officer Bellwether, he had nothing to do with his insane cousin’s anti-predator plot.

116. Okay apparently you idiots disregarded the last note and now officer Bellwether got himself transferred to Los Santos, claiming he'd rather be shot than harass, so I hope you all enjoy the mandatory week long species tolerance seminar.

117. Don't let Detective Hopps-Wilde drink any form of energy drink (besides coffee). She already has plenty of energy, and doesn't need more.

118. Officer Mchorn is injured at the moment and Officer Moon Moon needs a new partner. Again, don't leave Moon Moon unsupervised.

119. To the one dressed as a Ninja, Detective Wilde and the rest of the Authorized Firearms Unit are hunting you.

120. Will someone catch that Phantom Thief!

121. Reminder to all Officers, if a Military tank got stolen like San Francisco, please do not ask Wilde for Anti-Tank Weapons.

122. Please do not use the Riot Armor to be RoboCop.

123. No, we will not add attack helicopters to our arsenal.

124. Whoever keeps playing those Hyena Gomez CDs please stop, her shrieking gives half the station a headache.

125. To whoever rigged up the riot tank speakers to play 'let the bodies hit the floor' whenever the water cannon is fired, the Chief is willing to overlook this offense if you help setup his home theatre system.

126. If some whacked job manages to steal a tank like that time in San Dingo, don't go asking detective wilde for a rocket launcher, besides that's what the secondary tank full of industrial adhesive attached to the riot tanks water cannon is for.

127. Lieut. Nokiayama the precincts head corner would like to remind everyone that just because he's a raccoon dog, he doesn't have mystical powers like in Japanese mythology, so please stop trying to grab his crotch thinking it will bring you good luck, he has his ancestor’s katana and he knows how to use it.

128. Do not ask Detective Wilde about his family. He does not want talk about. He had a break down last week. If this rule is broken you will be punished by the chief.

129. To all officers, firearms are supposed to be used in emergency situations only, not in trying to kill the giant huntsman spider Officer Fangton lost. It was last seen in the armoury.

130. Do not tempt Officer Schneider with beer, Detective Wilde with tea, and Hopps with carrots. They will find out where you live.

[nemrut]

Epic 7 Heroes: Fighter Maya and Last Rider Krau

Gonna talk about two heroes I have been using quite a bit this last two weeks or so.

I have had Fighter Maya for quite a while and been using her in GW a lot. And for most of the time, I had her with counter gear as her role was limited to just being bait for single target dark units in GW. If you have her and a healer, the enemy Dark Corvus, ML Ravi, ML Ken and other similar units basically can’t get past her while you can slowly but surely chip them off one by one. However, she has gotten buffed since then and now she has a lot more utility and I have recently changed from counter gear to speed gear with an eye for more crit chance, crit dmg and speed. In turn, she lost a bit of def, which is regrettable but at least now she gets to have turns.

She also is useful in the boss challenge event, for pve, especially against Dark Mercedes. Saw on reddit how someone used her there. Since her S3 does 300% more dmg against units which have only 30% of their HP left, that is easier to exploit against bosses. She can hit ridiculously high numbers if she has atk buff, Mercedes is def broken and below 30% HP and F.Maya manages to land a crit, making it easier to get a higher score.

But with this build she also has more utility in PVP. She can go against Arby relatively well. Since she now gets another turn if she kills a unit with her S3, that can be used against Arby to kill him and upon his revive you can either kill him again if F.Maya is strong enough or at least provoke him and stop him from wiping your team. F.Maya also has rather strong modifiers in terms of how her def stat is used to calculate the amount of damage she does. I wish I could give mine better gear in that regard but alas, that is not the case.

She wants a lot of molas though. Mine has her S2 maxed and 4 skill ups in her S1 and 3-4 in her S3. She is a useful tank with surprisingly good single target dmg so she needs the extra dmg from her skill ups.

As for artifacts, well, I have long since used Elbris on her and am hesitant to change it but by now, am thinking about switching to Noble Oath. The increase in def seems to be just better value for her, especially since I have horrible proc luck for Elbris. That said, Elbris can save live. If F.Maya counter attacks at the right time and provokes an enemy, that is just great.

So yeah, useful in pvp and some pve and her S3 is really fun to use. A bit unfortunate in the design area but hey, it is an anime gacha game.

It was a surprise that I got him but I am really glad I did. He is also surprisingly strong. His barrier is okay, like I don’t think it is that strong or effective but it is definitely nice to have. What is great is his S3 and how against the right teams, he cycles a lot of CDs for it. Like, against an SSB or a counter Dizzy he can basically use his S3 every two turns if he is lucky with his artifact procs. He does a solid amount of dmg penetrating aoe dmg, he is tanky enough to sustain a bit of dmg and with a healer and another dmg mitigating tank that means he should survive long enough to fire his S3 once or twice per match, even more in some arena fights. The immunity he grants is super useful and his S1 speed buff is just really useful.

Speed and immunity is the best and probably even only way to build him barring some sick rolls on an outstanding resistance set where on top of high HP, DEF and Speed, he also somehow has really high ER but that’s unrealistic for me at least. He wants a lot of HP since his dmg is based on his health and he wants a lot of speed to 1. cycle more rounds and fire off his S3 faster and 2. to start relatively early in the match in order to apply the immunity buff. He also wants a good amount of DEF for obvious reasons. He doesn’t need crit chance and crit dmg since his S3 can’t crit and his S1 is not there for dmg, not really. ER is useful, of course, but since he gives himself immunity it is not that important.

He wants his S3 maxed and I have a few molas in his S2 but not convinced he wants any there tbh. His shield is only there for one turn and appears only after the strongest enemy aoe has already struck your team. He also doesn’t need any molas in his S1. Sure, it doesn’t hurt but it is not necessary and there are heroes where it would be far better value to invest the molas in at that point.

As far as artifacts go, he has several options. I was torn between Hilag Lance, Steadfast Gatekeeper and Prophetic Candlestick. The first two because as mentioned earlier, he likes CR pushes but in the end, I decided to go with the candlestick simply because it offered the most chances to get what he wanted the CR pushes more and that is to run down the CD of his S3 as fast as possible. Now with every aoe attack he has a chance of losing 2 CD turns.

He works really well in arena and rta, is useful in RTA and I even used him in hell raid against the bees and he was solid there. Worth building and I am very happy with him

[korkrunchcereal]

WoW Q and A

(Red shirt guy asked the first question) Heritage armor for allied races is neat, not as interesting as heritage armor for regular races. Will there be a change to it with the leveling changes? Can still get your heritage armor as allied race. Just have to reach max level.

Did the Jailer in the Maw see the legion as a threat? Explains why Sylvanas worked with Varian? As we go into the Shadowlands we’ll find out Sylvanas’ motives, her relationship with the Jailer and when it started. Hint: It started during Edge of Night (her short story from after Wrath). Sylvanas helped Varian to bide her time so not everyone would attack her.

New progression of covenant abilities + Legendaries affecting PvP. How does it affect world and instanced PvP? knobs can be turned to affect and work with PvP. Covenants shouldnt be “whats better a mage or a warlock?” Active abilities + Soulbinds and trait trees. Starting point is should work in PvP, but can turn off if need be. War mode enabled in Shadowlands.

How will flying work in Shadowlands? Same as it’s been in every expansion. If its a little annoying for everyone its probably better than alternatives.   

How will pathfinding work in past expansions with the level changing and scaling? No answer yet. 

In WoW classic, will we receive a toggle for the HD models? Current plan is no.

Will legendaries ever be transmoggable? Short answer: Yes. Can’t say when, but very soon. Tmog your sulfuras, thunderfuries and others.

What is the creative process to choose an expansion theme, specifically Shadowlands? Begin process of brainstorming 2 expansions ahead. Sets some of the plot points that are now unfolding. Weekly meetings to brainstorm. The world/environment is something to consider. Where do we want to go next? Often story will twist and turn to get us there. Example of WoD from MoP: “Wouldn’t it be awesome to go there? Let’s find a way to get there.” Sometimes it’s not quite the time. Legion was an idea after MoP, but decided to do it after WoD. Digging up old ideas they discarded / had for past expansions for Shadowlands. 

Have you ever named an expansion before developing it? All future expansions have code names. Legion was a placeholder name, decided to just keep it.

Free Hong Kong shouted on the stream and asked in question. 

The Jailer’s identity? Not someone we know, but he’s a mysterious new figure of a cosmic importance. His conspiracies, things he wants to do etc. driving the core of the story. He’s the centerpiece villain.

With Heart of Azeroth scrapped, what happens to the tier 4 HoA cosmetics? Not going to deplete it like artifacts. As you move into the Shadowlands, they’ll weaken and won’t have the effects is current plan.

 Other customization options?  More than 40 additional customization options for blood elves. Examples shown at Blizzcon, such as human, are just a small selection.

Any more realm merges/connections? Yes it’s planned. 

New expac comes out, we get the Soundtrack. New patches add new zones and new music that’s not on the Soundtrack. Considered releasing additional digital tracks for the added music? Short answer: Working on it. Before Shadowlands, capturing the BfA music that came out post launch.

Lorewise, who won Stromgarde and Darkshore? Alliance won both of them. 

With Faction war dying down, will faction borders loosen. Raid with friends cross faction? Alliance and Horde separation mechanically is a pillar that makes Warcraft Warcraft. That division is part of why we have the “For the Horde/For the Alliance” shouts. Uniting is not in the cards right now.

Eye of N’zoth: Do you get anything for having it post 8.3? Be yourself, see what follows. 

Classics based on BC, WotLK etc. Is that something being considered? Got to be careful how it proceeds. 

What happened to AU Draenor, and the Lightbound like Yrel? Will we see them again post Mag’har recruitment? That AU Draenor is still out there and the light still has a place on it. It’s something they’re keeping in the back pocket. Shadowlands is first step exploring the large concepts of cosmology. 

Is Chronicles canon? Whose point of view was this written from? Titans PoV is the narrative. Things hinted in chronicles expanded in Shadowlands. 

If Shadowlands is where the dead go, what happens when we die in the Shadowlands? The experience is very different for the Corpse Run. Different screen effect, experience etc. Spirit healers are the Kyrian covenant. Watchers in the mortal realm to watch for souls and decide if they’re ready to die. Player Character is tethered by the need of Azeroth so don’t perma die (yet).

How much of the tower do you envision being part of max level gameplay? Most of your end game? Varies from player to player. Some will casually do it, others will super grind it. still deciding if you can “win”, aka maximum value/maximum height.

With mechagnomes wearing armor “leglessly”, will there be playable races with more/less than 2 legs? If it’s appropriate to the story / expansion, “maybe”. 

Tier sets not coming back next expansion? It depends. 16 armor sets for the covenants (Cloth, leather, mail, Plate x4). Class themed armor coming back at some point post Shadowlands launch. People started going so fast with getting tier that it made getting it almost like a prison. Set bonuses is something they want to embrace, but not in the form of a box you tick. Satisfaction in getting gear in Shadowlands will come from things like Legendaries, smaller tier sets etc. 

[thesevenseraphs]

SEASONS IN DESTINY 2'S THIRD YEAR

Hey everyone,

A couple of weeks ago, I did a (too?) many-word retrospective [Part I, Part II, Part III] on the last six months or so of Destiny 2. This covered what we think worked well, what didn’t work as well as we’d hoped, and some of our thinking on where Destiny 2 is heading. You’ll see some of this manifesting in what’s coming this fall:

A Rise of Iron–sized expansion, Shadowkeep, where we’ll explore how the Moon has evolved since we were there last. (See how vague I’m being? It’s because I don’t want to SPOIL. There are many, many sleeps to go.)

Overhauls to key game systems such as armor that give you more choices on how you play and look.

Evolution of game difficulty systems, starting with changes to Nightfall strikes. (You may have seen a preview last week at gamescom; more on that down the road.)

Features that make it easier to play with friends, such as New Light* (more below) and Cross Save. (I see all of you new-to-PC players. Thanks to the PC community for welcoming them!)

We’re simultaneously deepening the parts of Destiny 2 we know and love, but also removing the prohibitive stuff from before that made Destiny 2 hard to play with your friends.

This is a real high-wire act. We want Destiny to be a game where every blueberry could become someone who calls the Tower home.

My hands have had a week off from typing, so let’s talk about seasonal philosophy and how Seasons are shifting to fit with how we tell stories and move the world forward in the vision of Destiny 2 as a single, evolving world.

I mentioned in the Director’s Cut, Part III that we want Destiny to be a world that has narrative momentum, and a key part of that will be how Seasons support Year 3. Back in June, we mentioned that one of the ways we’re making it easier for friends to play together is to offer everything à la carte. We’re going to do just that with each Season. You and your friends can choose what you want to play, and the world will change every Season.

Year 3 will have four fully supported Seasons of content (last year’s Annual Pass had only three!), but this year, you can opt in to each Season for 10 bucks—you won’t have to pay up front for an entire year of content, like with the Forsaken Annual Pass. (FYI, the first season in this new vision, Season of the Undying, is included with Shadowkeep, but if you just want to experience Season of the Undying, you can grab that à la carte without needing Shadowkeep.)

THE WORLD OF DESTINY 2 CHANGES EVERY SEASON With each new Season in Destiny, we want players to feel like they—as a community—are contributing to Destiny’s evolving world. Each Season in Destiny has to ride the line between delivering self-contained, Season-long world arcs and making the handoff to the next season. Together, Seasons move the Destiny universe forward.

In Season of the Undying, the portal to the Black Garden that was opened as a part of JacketQuest has awoken the Vex, and they are now pouring out across the surface of the Moon. Working with Ikora, players will [Do Some Stuff, Go Somewhere, Fight Some Things, and Solve a Problem aka REDACTED]. By the end of the Season, the portals will close, the world state will change, and the Seasonal activity connected to it will go away.

Yet something remains. This will be just in time for [REDACTED] to kick off the start of Season Nine—Season of Dawn.

Everyone who plays Destiny will be able to see how the world is different and changing during the Season. Those with the Season Pass will be able to play a seasonal matchmade activity within the Black Garden for that extra level of sweet gear (this is similar to the old Annual Pass access), but the goal is that everyone will be involved in how the world changes.

And at the end of the Season, your collective actions will have caused the world state to change and the Seasonal Activity connected to those events will also go away.

Doing this allows us to evolve the world—narratively, but potentially physically as well. It is not possible to keep Destiny frozen in place to allow all activities to live forever while also changing the world in meaningful ways. This strategy lets our team be agile and innovative. We believe that Destiny will grow even better when the world state can change, and that the best Destiny stories are the ones where “you had to be there when….”

But while events and activities in the world will come and go as the world evolves, weapons critical to the meta will not be locked in each Season for new players or for players who missed that Season. Legendaries and Exotics you need to stay competitive will be re-earnable in the future, although not always immediately after the Season ends. We’ll be talking more about that later—this is one area where, with the new seasonal model, we expect our plans to evolve across the Seasons to meet the needs of the Destiny community.

And while we’re on the subject of gear and weapons, I want to talk about some other additions we’re making to your chase to create whatever-your-perfect-Guardian-is.

Reward Philosophy in D2Y3 As we dug into how to deepen the customization of your Guardians, we wanted a reward system that could: standardize some of the reward mechanisms each Season, provide clear value in its rewards, make the value of a paid Season super clear, and allow players predictable progression via XP.

We all love the chase—that perfect roll!—but we all play differently. Year 3 will add more transparency and predictability while still giving you the RNG option for the unexpected gear or roll you didn’t know you loved until you got it.

We’re adding two new predictable reward pursuits in Season of the Undying.

Seasonal Artifact Our first addition is the new Seasonal Artifact, which is free to all players. This will allow you to further customize your Guardian’s build every Season by unlocking additional mods to socket in your Armor 2.0 gear. Earning XP just by playing will level up your Artifact, letting you unlock the next mod you want for your characters.

While leveling up and unlocking mods, you will also increase the Power of the Artifact, which will continue increasing until the end of the Season (yes, it is uncapped). Artifact Power adds directly to your overall Power and is account-wide. We are both excited, and a little terrified, to see how high players will manage to raise their Artifact Power during the Season.

We want the Artifact to let us experiment more freely with our sandbox. During the last five years of Destiny, we’ve really wrestled with (and continue to wrestle with) obsolescence and permanence in player Power. So, when we were coming up with something new in the Seasonal Artifact, we wanted to figure out how we could have a system that allowed players to create build-altering powers yet not need to commit indefinitely to whatever they made and have it live on forever.

We want to date new builds, not get them hitched into the forever combat ecosystem.

It doesn’t have to be forever anymore. The Artifact can spotlight some different ways to play each Season and introduce new types of perks, while we (and you!) can experiment more boldly with new combinations and expressions of Power. We want to use the Artifact as a mechanic to allow the game to shift some each Season. In an action game like Destiny, part of the fun can be discovering new ways to play.

Here’s an example from my own play: I earned Wendigo this season. I did it naturally, by grinding a ton of strikes (although I was pretty tempted to go farm Blind Well with a group to make it go faster). I ended up using Fighting Lion a bunch in these strikes to get my grenade kills (omg why don’t the guys at the end of “The Hollowed Lair” count?!). What I found was that I really liked using Grenade Launchers, but I hadn’t really given them a spot in my routine PvE loadout (I don’t have Mountaintop). But as I was playing with Fighting Lion, I was getting better at using breech-loaded Grenade Launchers and at timing my detonations, et cetera.

So, while I was on WendigoQuest, I ended up developing an appreciation for an archetype I’d largely overlooked, and I developed some new skills (OK, “skills”) while earning Wendigo.

Seasonal Artifacts and Seasonal mods will go away at the end of each Season. And the new Season will bring a new Artifact, new mods, and a new pursuit for Power. This way, we can try bolder balance choices each Season with the sandbox, and if we get it a little wrong, we’ll be more likely to let it ride for the whole Season without nerfing your new favorite OP build.

Seasonal XP Progression The second predictable reward chase we’re adding to Seasons are Season Pass Ranks. Some of you might have spotted this on the August 14 armor stream, but we didn’t provide any context. Without context, it’s really easy to find yourself on the jumping-to-conclusions mat. (This is totally human; we all do it. I certainly do. It’s OK.)

Let’s talk about these ranks.

We want to make sure that each Season has multiple, complementary reward sources, because we all play Destiny differently, and we want to be able to customize our Guardians the way we want to. We will continue to have RNG rewards as a part of our activities, and we also want to add a direct track of rewards each Season that you can progress every evening. The best weapons and armor will still live in the treasure chests of our toughest monsters and villains, but we hope now there will be fewer nights where players feel like they logged into Destiny and got nothing done.

The Internet is talking a lot about different builds in games. Season Ranks are kind of like a build for playing a season of Destiny. Grabbing bounties, doing strikes, completing weekly challenges—these are straightforward ways to unlock Season Pass Ranks when you don’t have the time to arrange a raid group, or check Google for the right strategies to solve a problem, or gamble against RNG (where it feels like the house always wins). The ranks help our friends in the community who have families and/or full time jobs, or who are deep in finals territory at college. Sometimes you just want to log in, grab some bounties, shoot some aliens (or Guardians), earn XP, and chill with your friends.

That’s why we’ve added 100 ranks to earn each Season, with Free and Premium track rewards, plus a UX design that’s intuitive and familiar if you play other games. Unlike those other games, you’ll make progress by earning XP doing the things you’re already doing in Destiny—defeating monsters and completing bounties and activities. This is about a new additive layer of predictable rewards for just playing the game.

Here’s a look at the Season Pass UI:

It’s All Part of the Season

With every Season Pass, you will get everything you’d expect from a Destiny Season (new activities, rewards, a storyline, et cetera), not just the new Season Rank UI and the reward tracks. Like I alluded to way back in the first Director’s Cut, we need more sustainable ways to deliver rewards, and the Season Rank UI is a big step in us getting there.

So now, with all this context, let’s look at what you Season Pass owners get in Season of the Undying (which, again, is included with Shadowkeep):

Season Pass owners get access to a new seasonal activity, the Vex Offensive, which includes:

Four Legendary Weapon drops

Additional weekly and daily bounties

Additional weekly challenges with powerful rewards

A new weapon quest for an Exotic Bow, Leviathan’s Breath

Exclusive to Season Pass owners

A new Exotic Hand Cannon, Eriana’s Vow

Awarded on Rank 35 of the free track

Awarded on Rank 1 of the premium track

Three seasonal Legendary armor sets (one for each class)

Collect a complete set during the first 25 ranks of the free track

NOTE: This is a change from the Annual Pass, where you were required to purchase gear from the Season.

On the premium track you get all three sets on Rank 1

These also drop within the Vex Offensive seasonal activity

If you want versions with higher stat tiers, you’ll need to play Vex Offensive to earn them

Some additional premium track rewards:

Three universal ornament armor sets (one for each class)

An Exotic weapon ornament for Eriana’s Vow

Two Legendary weapon ornaments

A new finisher

An Exotic emote

An Exotic ship

Progression, or How Differently You All Play Destiny For many of us, Destiny 2 is a regular hobby, but how that hobby fits in with our lives is different. We have players who play every day, we have players who have 10–15 hours a week, and we have players who log in for whatever time they can spare. Every season, Destiny 2 will change, and the community working on changing the world together means that we want all of our community to be able to be a part of it.

Some other games let players buy every rank when a new Season begins. In Destiny, we want your time spent playing the game to matter; we want the first players who unlock a bunch of the sweet stuff to have unlocked it through play, not pay. Some players are going to work super hard trying reach rank 100 as quickly as possible. We think that’s great.

But again, all of you play Destiny 2 differently, and when we say we want the whole community to be part of how the world changes every season, we keep coming back to giving players the choice of how they want to spend their time. Based on how a lot of you play, 100 ranks is going to be cleared in the season, but not all of you will have the time.

To solve for how our community plays Destiny, we’re planning to allow Season Ranks to be purchased as a catch-up mechanic late in the season. We’re going to wait to see how players engage with Season Ranks and make sure it’s tuned well before determining exactly when we unlock the ability.

Season of the Undying runs for 10 weeks, and we’re currently thinking of enabling this somewhere in the last 2–4 weeks of the Season. We know that sometimes life gets in the way, and you just want to get the last few rewards before the season ends and everything resets. In the same way that we’ve been doing seasonal catch-up for Power, we think providing a late-in-the-season rank catch up makes sense. This initial version is our starting point, and the way we’ve designed Seasons moving forward means that we’re going to be able to have the flexibility to tune how this works once we see how Season of the Undying goes.

I see you: “Did Bungie just raise the XP needed to get a rank to some ridiculous level so that players have to buy ranks at the end of the season?” The answer to that question is NO. For example, in our internal team tests, playing strikes in a fairly relaxed manner (18 minutes per strike play time) with full stacks of bounties can get a Seasonal Rank in less than one hour. Every week, Guardians also get rest XP bonuses (per account), where their first three ranks are at triple XP. Playing strikes with full stacks of bounties and rest XP should get 10 ranks in around 8 hours. And knowing you, we’ll all see even better ways you’ll min-max your time to clear your ranks.

Our goal in tuning this is for our most committed Destiny players, who start on week 1, to reach Rank 100 simply by doing the things they already love spending their time on. If that’s not happening, we have the freedom and ability to adjust. We want Destiny to be your home however you want to play and hit 100. You may never want or need to buy a rank. We just want our community to be able to play together as easily as possible and narratively be part of the Destiny world as it changes.

Your Seasonal Rank also goes away at the end of the Season—a new Season of ranks and rewards will take its place. And like our Seasonal Activities, we don’t want important gameplay-focused rewards to be inaccessible to players who missed a season, so any Legendary or Exotic weapons introduced in a Season Pass will be attainable in future Seasons. Those coveted rewards won’t be available immediately, but it won’t take longer than six months either. More details on that soon.

*New Light, Removing Barriers for Friends, and $0 We’ve talked a lot about what you get if you buy the Season Pass, but let’s talk about what you get with Destiny 2 for spending nothing. This fall, new friends playing Destiny 2 for the first time are coming, and we’re going to make Destiny a great experience for everyone. At its core, what makes Destiny 2 special and a place we all come back to is the community, the friendships, and the memories made along the way. Destiny is best if you can convince your friends to play, and we think a $0 price tag is another way to make that easier. The default version of Destiny 2 this fall will be New Light, and on top of all of D2Y1 available for free with New Light, we’re going to make sure there’s plenty of new, free content in Season of the Undying. Here’s some of what all players (even without the season pass) can access on October 1:

Alt: All Destiny 2 players, whether you’re coming in with New Light or are all-in on Shadowkeep and Season of the Undying, will have access to the following:

Patrolling the Moon destination

The opening mission of Shadowkeep  

Two new strikes

Crucible Updates

Two returning PvP maps from the D1 era—Widow’s Court and Twilight Gap

Elimination in Crucible Labs

Armor 2.0 build customization

Eye of the Gate Lord Seasonal Artifact

New finishers

Two new pinnacle weapons: one for Gambit and one for Crucible

Free Seasonal Rank rewards, which include:

New Exotic weapon—Eriana’s Vow

Three Legendary armor sets (1 per class)

Two Legendary weapons

Best of Year 2 Bright Engrams

Glimmer and upgrade modules

The Legendary armor and weapons that come with the free Seasonal Ranks are like sampler platters for the Season Pass. If you want to find the best stat rolls for that armor, you will need to play the Seasonal activity and get the drops. But players who just want to collect all of the armor can earn the base version from the free track.

Eriana’s Vow, the new Exotic on our Seasonal track also drops on the free track (but you get it earlier if you have the Season Pass). We have also added a lot of rewards on the free track that are nice quality-of-life rewards for players, like upgrade modules, which are free Infusions.

How This Could’ve Worked Last Year This has been a pretty dense dump of information (thankfully it has more pictures than the Director’s Cuts did). I wanted to wrap this up by looking at how a season of content done in the style of Year 3 might’ve worked with some Year 2 content we all remember.

Let’s re-imagine the Season of the Forge in Year X of Bizzaro-Destiny

(begin Wayne’s World do-loo-loo-loo)

A week before the Season begins, all players receive a note in their mailbox. It simply reads: “I have returned from the stars. Meet me on Dec. 4 at 10:15 AM PST. —Ada” Once this note has been given out, a small countdown timer appears on the Traveler. When the timer reaches 0, players in the Tower see a ship unlike any they’ve ever seen land between Zavala and Lord Shaxx. A figure transmats out and walks through the Tower, opening a door that had long been shut. Players follow the character through the Tower and the figure lowers her hood and greets players, “I am Ada, and we have work to do.”

The Season Pass in the Director is updated, the rewards are revealed, and now Ada and players begin a Season-long experience of refining forges in the world, completing bounties, finding materials, working on Black Armory armor sets, and taking on the new raid, Scourge of the Past. In a twist, Datto and his group are the first to finish.

As players work together to forge weapons early in the track, smithing and building new ones, the room around Ada begins to change. The schematic data from players’ work is resulting in new weapons and mods for players to create. These weapons and mods don’t all require playing the Seasonal activity—some of them are found in new encounters within strikes, some of them are forged in Last Wish (like the Alchemy Lab in Blackwing Lair).

As the player community plays, meta objectives are revealed. Once a certain number of players have unlocked ranks on the Pass, cinematics unlock for everyone to watch. We see the Drifter and Ada arguing over something pitting the two against each other, the scene ends with Drifter raising an eyebrow at a set of gun schematics behind Ada.

As the Season winds to a close, the Drifter begins to summon players to him. He’s having a new space built in the Tower, and the first people he asks for help are those who’ve earned the title of Dredgen. Now players begin to gather materials and donate them to fund the Drifter’s new scam. The Drifter won’t stop talking about the gun schematics he saw behind Ada.

Very late in the Season, players notice Ada’s room looks like it’s being packed up. She’s leaving. The schematics that sat behind her are missing. Over the course of a few weeks, she packs her equipment and, in an event similar to her arrival, she vanishes. Ada, her wares, and her forges are gone.

Banshee-44 reminds players that even though Ada is gone, she left him the schematics for her weapons and armor, and he’ll be rotating them through over time.

And the Drifter asks you to visit him, saying he’s got a surprise…

(end Wayne’s World do-loo-loo-loo)

And while today, the “Let’s Pretend” section above is very much a work of fiction, we are working to build the technology that would make something like this possible and help make our Season Pass feel uniquely Destiny.

Wrap-Up Season Passes in Year 3 will in some ways feel very new and in other ways feel pretty similar to the Forsaken Annual Pass experience. Our intent is that the Season Pass mechanics—as we’re aligning everything with a single, evolving world and how we’re moving the Destiny story meaningfully forward—are additive to the core Destiny experience (we’re still going to have things like Holiday events, dungeons and secret missions, and all kinds of stuff that we hope surprises you!). It’s an evolution and an experiment, and hopefully what you’ve seen lately is that we’re going to keep being agile and continuing to make the best decisions for the game along with you. We’re excited to see where our unified seasonal philosophy will let us take the Destiny universe over the next year.

(Also, thanks for all of the comments and responses to the Director’s Cuts—I have some deleted scenes and ideas on how the format could evolve when it returns next year!)

See you soon, Luke Smith

[gearprideproject]

Gear Chapter 4

Welcome to pure fluff with a bit of foreshadowing. I don't think there's really anything here but if I missed something let me know! Love you guys!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Femi was nervous as hell. She was about to engage in the most important mission of her life- and she wasn’t even part of Gear! 

She was about to propose to Blair. 

Everybody else was keeping Blair busy with mountains of paperwork and wild goose chases until Femi was ready, so she would have a good few hours to prepare. 

First, she had to secure a location- easily done! She had Wren setting up lights at a gazebo in the park, because it had to be done at dusk. The gazebo had been reserved for them a few months back- Blair had simply thought it was for their anniversary and had forgotten it since. 

Then, the flowers. Femi was currently on her way to pick up a bouquet of plumerias, as well as some rose arrangements to decorate the gazebo with. The roses were red, black, and purple- some of Blair’s favorite colors. The plumerias were white and pink- a couple of Femi’s favorites, so they each had something they liked. 

Before the trip to the gazebo, there would be dinner at a fancy restaurant- Femi had to plan a year in advance, so once the date was set, it couldn’t be changed. Besides, it was Femi’s turn to host date night anyway, so she could say the fancy restaurant was her treat. 

And then came the ring. Femi has browsed jewelry websites for ages before she found the right one- it was made of a black metal, with skull embellishments right beneath the dark red garnet- the main jewel. There were other, smaller garnets around the edges. 

Finally, would be the hardest part- how on earth was she gonna make the transition from the restaurant to the park? It was the night of, and Femi still couldn’t figure it out, when a spark of inspiration hit her- she could say that she had seen a few flowers in the park near a gazebo in the park. 

While Femi was panicking and getting everything together, Carlos was picking Blair’s outfit for the night. He knew Femi was proposing, and that Wren would be in the background recording to make sure everyone in Gear knew that it happened. Luckily for him, his sister had all but forced him into fashion, though he would never admit it. For that night, he picked for her a black, a-line dress that had sheer, lace decorated sleeves. The skirt of it reached down to about mid-calf, so she would be able to look good without looking scandalous. He then got to work on Femi’s look. 

While Carlos was raiding the boss’ closet, Zephyr was making sure that Blair was busy. He’d been having her do inventory with him, because she also needed to know exactly how much was needed of each product- they’d used a lot of stuff in their raid against the Dragonfly Syndicate a few weeks back, and their people were coming back oftentimes with cuts and bruises. The fight over turf was astonishing after a gang was wiped out, honestly. Plus, last time she’d ordered for stuff without doing inventory with him, she’d ordered nowhere near enough- only stuff to treat one person from a non-fatal bullet wound. So, as recompense, she was doing inventory with him. 

Others had also helped with keeping her busy today- from armory inventory to a wild goose chase for some eggnog- not something easily found in the middle of March- she was starting to get ticked. 

“Okay guys. We have done literally everything. We did inventory, we checked on the injured, we went down and talked to the prisoners. We have an outline for the next raid, we have probably overstocked our warehouse with everything. We found eggnog in march. We even got nutmeg to go with it. We are NOT going to get ice cream. You are going to tell me why you want a ridiculous amount of sugary food. The last time we brought in this much half of you guys went into a sugar coma and the other half went crazy. I refuse to let that happen AGAIN. Tell me what is going on RIGHT. NOW.”

Everyone froze up. Blair looked pissed. To be fair they knew they could only stall blair for so long on their own. Thankfully zephyr returned at that moment with a mountain of paperwork for blair to go through.

“Hey blair! I found a ton of paperwork that you have to do! It's super important!”

“Zephyr.” blair stared him down with a cool tone. “Where is carlos? And wren? Ans femi? Why have you been keeping me busy with meaningless tasks all day zephyr?”

Zephyr was paralyzed with fear. He knew that blair was scary but damn did he wish he was not on distraction duty today.

“W-well u-um y-you s-see….”

“Yes?” blairs cold gaze tore through him “something you would like to share?”

“I ... yeah….. Um… I found this paperwork…. And well…. You know… it needs to get done?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a terrible liar?”

“No?”

“Well you are. Give me those. I'll have them done in ten minutes. There will be NO ICE CREAM. Am I UNDERSTOOD?”

“Yes ma’am!” everyone replied. Blair grabbed the stack from zephyr before stalking to her office. True to her word she was done in ten minutes. She grinned at zephyr before she said, “play your stalling games all you’d like. It's obvious you guys are up to something. If you need me then don’t bother looking. Just page me alright?” Zephyr looked at her before nodding. Blair grinned before she left.  

Blair was not seen for the next three hours. Everyone was panicking because where could she be? If she finds out about the surprise then everything is doomed! They checked everywhere but it was as if she had vanished!

 Soon enough It was about time for blair to get ready for their date so zephyr paged her. Soon after she reappeared but no one knew where she had been. Zephyr sent her off to ‘go be presentable’ and that ‘carlos already got everything all laid out so just go and be pretty’. Blair found this mildly insulting but she just grinned evilly at him and continued on. Sure enough there was an outfit laid out for her, so she got herself presentable and went to find her girlfriend. Soon blair and femi meet up and it was off to their date!

Naturally they went to the restaurant first. It was a typically high end place that was made for the atmosphere of love. After a candlelit dinner they went on a leisurely walk around the square. Femi was able to get them to the park by talking about the flowers that they had, 

“There were so many pretty flowers and it was all alone, i’m sure it would look amazing under the stars! We just have to go see it blair!” femi exclaimed

“Alright darling” blair said with a slight chuckle. “Whatever makes you happy.”

Noone had missed that blair was now determined to keep femi safe and happy, especially after the incident. Noone would touch her flower again.

“We’re here! Look blair, isn't it pretty?” femi turned to look at blair the light shining in her eyes making her look ethereal. Sometimes blair secretly wondered if femi has any heavenly blood in her, although if she did it would make this a lot more complicated.

“Yeah. very pretty femi.” blair said, although it was clear her attention was not directed at the gazebo.

“Come on blair let's check it out!” femi declared before grabbing blair’s arm and tugging her over. Blair looked at the flowers, is that plumeria? She wondered, but when she turned around she saw femi down on one knee.

“Blair, you’ve been… amazing, throughout the entirety of the time I’ve known you. You are beautiful, and graceful, and so, so kind. You are perfect in every way that I see, and it- you, always make me happy. I love you so much, and never want to be away from you. So that’s why,” she pulled the ring box out of her purse, blushing and smiling, “I ask you, here and now,” Femi opens the ring box, revealing the semi-ornate, black & garnet ring. The smile on her face is a nervous one, and her hands are shaking as she asks, “Will… will you marry me?” blair looks at femi for a whole ten seconds before bursting into one of her rare smiles.

“You beat me to it you beautiful person you. But yeah. I can’t imagine living eternity with anyone else.” 

“Yes! Oh, I was so worried you wouldn’t like it! Wait… did you say I beat you to it?”

“Yeah. I already got a ring and everything but you made the first move… again. One day I'll make the first move.”

“Can I see the ring???” femi asked enthusiastically

“Of course you can it's yours.” replied blair before she pulled out of nowhere a small black ring box. Inside was a beautifully crafted gold rose with a white diamond in the middle.

“Oh blair… it's perfect! I love you so much! Gosh you are just so beautiful i could kiss you here and now!”

“Okay” and they slipped the rings on each other as they fell into a kiss. Back at gear everyone was super glad they had set up the cameras because they got to see this beautiful moment unfold. Everyone was talking about the wedding and just couldn’t wait until that day came. Others, were not so forgiving.

“So femi, you think you can just marry my daughter without permission? Well think again. I wonder why she loves you so much, after all you are just a sad little human. I suppose we will just have to wait and see.”

[dib-shit]

“What if they were all Friends!” Invader Zim AU

This is a headcannon/fic idea that’s been in my head for a very very long time and I want to at least put out something for, even if just a long drabble.

I really really like the idea of Zim and Dib developing a sort of squad with the others. Like when they hit high school, things start changing for the better overall. This is what I was thinking of when I made the Eric Andre “what if they were all friends” post (hence the title, which I want to change at some point).

tl;dr throughout high school, Dib, Zim, Gaz, Gretchen, Tak, Skoodge, Tenn, and Keef all become sorta friends and do dumb shit together. Tak and Tenn have been in a relationship, Dib and Gretchen eventually start a relationship too, and it’s complicated between Skoodge and Zim for a while. Zim finds out the truth about his mission (of course), Dib finds out he is a clone, Tak gets rejected from the empire, and they all bond through that. 

I’m totally open to talking about this and answering any asks that are sent btw lol

Freshman year: things are mostly the same between Zim and Dib, but Gretchen starts making an effort to talk to Dib every now and then. She wants him to feel like he’s not alone, even if she’s not sure if she believes him about anything. Skoodge occasionally is out and about with Zim, but doesn’t go to Skool. Keef and Gretchen have been good friends for a couple of years at this point. Keef for sure still has a crush on Zim but knows it’s not mutual and has learned to be more respectful of personal space (he also doesn’t know Zim is an alien so of course thinks Zim is the same age as the other students).

Sophomore year: Dib and Gretchen almost have a sort of friendship going on. Zim and Dib still constantly piss each other off but it’s become more of a game for the both of them. At this point Dib has given up trying to expose Zim just tries to keep him from destroying everything. Gaz is in Highschool now too and mostly tries to ignore the others but will occasionally step in if things go to far. Gretchen has a lot of internal conflict as she starts noticing little things that point to Dib not being crazy after all. She keeps quiet in order to avoid the two of them getting bullied more (also why they aren’t super open about the friendship). A certain event results in Gretchen very clearly seeing Zim without his disguise and telling Dib she kinda figured Zim was an alien for a while now. She stops caring about the bullying risk and they finally develop a proper friendship.

Summer after Sophomore year: Dib and Gretchen hang out a lot, and Dib starts to get to know Keef better (now that he knows how to behave a bit better). Gaz gets to know Gretchen a little bit when she visits the Membrane’s house. Some time around here is when Zim gets the “your mission is a fraud™” message that happens in every fic. He stays in all the time as Skoodge runs the errands. He runs into Gretchen at one point when trying to get to the library, and they visit there every now and then. Dib at some point goes through his Dad’s old research and comes across the fact that he’s a clone, and so is Gaz. Gaz has known for a while, and tries to calm Down down when he gets upset. Both of them have very low thoughts of Professor Membrane now, and they start building a better sibling relationship upon realizing they basically only have each other. 

Dib goes to check on Zim, and starts to piece together what happened. Dib starts to assume Zim has given up and tries to leave him alone, knowing that getting brutal truth sucks ass. But then Zim just shows up with this massive machine that actually has the ability to destroy the planet (along with himself, Skoodge, and Gir). Skoodge can’t get to him, with Zim thinking Skoodge betrayed him with the whole mission fraud thing. Dib manages to get to the top where Zim is, and talk some sense into him. He tells Zim it doesn’t matter what the Tallests think, it matters what Zim thinks of himself. Some really corny sappy stuff about 

“hey man, I just finally realized my dad is shit and I’m a failed clone cuz I’m not what he wanted me to be. I know what it’s like. I don’t think you actually want to do this. You’re going to end up killing yourself and those you care about, even if you won’t admit it. Skoodge cares about you. Pretty sure Gir cares. And I also don’t want to see you die you price of shit. I’ve always thought you were a threat, you don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

Anyway, Zim comes down, and everyone is relieved. Since then, Zim and Dib don’t really fight anymore, and don’t really talk until Skool comes back.

Junior Year: Skoodge is now a student so that Zim has some emotional support (but he won’t admit that’s the reason) when at Skool. Things are quiet for a while until a really old plan Zim had to destroy the Skool (involving the boiler room) starts activating. Zim at first doesn’t care, after some convincing he joins Dib in an effort to stop it. Gretchen and Skoodge get the idea to start getting them to work together more, and they do just that. They form a “team” to deal with dumb shit that happens frequently (which was usually left to Dib to take care of). Zim and Dib fight a lot, but not like before, and they at least tolerate each other’s presence. Gaz sits with them at lunch but mostly keeps to herself.

Eventually, Tak crashes back on Earth, and using a new disguise she tries to navigate living in the city. She has very little supplies and Mimi is still damaged. All she has is herself and her pak, and her damaged safety pod from her former ship. (She likely spent time on foodcourtia to gain monies to fix her pod enough to get back to Earth). Gaz meets her at the mall, and figures pretty quickly it’s Tak. They bond over a mutual dislike of Dib and Zim, and eventually Tak explains that she isn’t here to take over again, she needs somewhere to stay away from the empire. Gaz helps her out, with everyone else thinking Tak is her new friend from another school or something. After getting her a place to stay and a job, Tak trusts Gaz enough to tell her about Tenn (a story for another post), and that she really misses her. Gaz sympathizes and tells her that she knows where her ship is, but she’ll have to reveal herself to the others.

When Tak is reintroduced to the “team” Dib and Zim are immediately ready for a fight, but Gaz manages to diffuse the situation, explaining that Tak is sorta in the same boat as Zim now: rejects of the empire. After some arguing, Dib eventually agrees to give Tak her ship back, and she tells him she can help him build his own in the future.

Whenever she’s not working, she’s in the ship, adjusting the long-distance communication in an attempt to reach Tenn. But it’s just static. Gaz is the only who knows that she’s trying to reach Tenn. But over time, Tak starts trying to get her mind off of it by getting involved with the team’s shenanigans.

At some point, Dib starts coming to terms with the fact that he might like Gretchen as more than a friend but is afraid to tell her thanks to his reputation. But some sorta… Event or something (idk) leads Gretchen to finally tell him that she likes him. After the initial shock (even though it should have been obvious), Dib tells her the feeling is mutual. And there we have the only straight pairing in this whole thing. Gretchen tries to make an effort to bond with Tak, giving her tips on human culture and little things she thinks she’ll like (mostly consisting of cats and the black/purple combo).

Summer before Senior year: Tak starts getting something from her communicator. It takes her a while to adjust enough to understand, but when she finally gets the sweet spot she starts crying. It’s Tenn’s voice. Tak quickly realizes it’s a recording on loop, voicing some sort of code. Dib and Gaz offer to help with the code, but Tak says only she and Tenn use it, so it’s only meant for her. The code translates to an SOS message, then gives her coordinates. The message then goes on to say that if Tak finds this, she loves her and that she’s sorry she failed. The date of the recording is a few years old by this point. Tak immediately starts packing up a bunch of supplies, and raids Gaz’s room for weapons and gear (with permission). Dib asks her what’s going on and Tak frantically only responds with “she might be alive. I’m going to get her.” While Tak is prepping her ship, Gaz explains to Dib about Tenn. Dib runs out to the ship and tells Tak that he’s coming with her to help. There’s some arguing, but he goes, and Gaz stays behind as ground control.

Long story short, Tak is a badass and they break into the prison on Meekrob and get Tenn. Tak runs towards her and they both start crying and hugging each other very tightly. Tenn says she thought Tak had died, and that she was so happy she finally got the transmission. Tak is also relieved that Tenn is alive and that they’re together again. Then they get the fuck out of there and head back to Earth, while Tak helps Tenn start putting together a human disguise.

Senior Year: Tak and Tenn aren’t bothering going to Skool, they get jobs and live in an apartment together. But they do frequent the library and try to learn about human culture. Zim is struggling with emotions now that he knows about Tak and Tenn. Skoodge on the other hand, is able to come to terms with it a little quicker since he’s known for a while now that he liked Zim. Keef has been involved with the group every now and then, but still knows nothing about like, half of them being Irken. Gretchen convinces everyone to let her tell him (mostly by saying he’ll probably finally get over his crush on Zim that way). It takes a bit of talking to get Keef to understand that Dib was right the whole time, and he is perfectly fine with it. But then Gretchen has to clarify to him that Zim is like, 150 something years old at least, and none of them know how Irken age/years translates to human age/years. Zim doesn’t even know his exact years anymore, he just neglected to keep track of time. So none of them know if the Irkens are around their age or what.*

Keef’s just like

Anyway now Keef is part of the squad. Yay.

*The confusion comes from a number of factors. Different planets have different lengths of years/days, Irkens and Humans likely have very different interpretations/handling of age, and Zim’s behavior does not help at all. The other Irkens sort of know their age, but still don’t know how it translates to human age.

I myself don’t really know how I think of their ages (i.e if they are adults or not), which is why I just avoid human/Irken romance just to be on the safe side. 

I know this was really long, but believe me when I say this is really just the surface. There’s a lot of stuff in between, like the Tallests’ having a secret relationship, stuff in the past for everyone, and possibly stuff after Senior year.

Totally open to talking about this too, like I’d be happy to answer asks if any are sent lol.

Thank you for reading!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

What is Destiny and Who is it For?

What is Destiny and who is it for?

Such a weird question for people to be asking 4 years and 4 months into the life of this franchise, and yet that’s what is happening after another complete meltdown day yesterday. I’ve written tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of words on the game on the forums over the last 4 years. I spent 2 ½ years discussing it on a podcast. This game, this franchise, have been an integral part of my life and I’ve made (and lost) friendships over it as well as experienced things I never would have dreamed possible when I first logged in back in September 2014.

It’s been a journey filled with ups and downs, not only for myself, but for the game, the company, and the community as a whole. Anyone who’s spent a modicum of time on these forums know the trials and tribulations and how the game has constantly been in a state of flux, reinventing itself as the decision makers at Bungie (and Activision) try to figure out what it is they want this game to be and what they think we want it to be.

I’m not going to recount the story for the hundredth time of how they came to make decisions they did throughout D1 and into D2 or the part the community itself played in sabotaging ourselves with the way we’ve handled giving feedback and communication on our end, but I want to look at yesterday and the meltdown that began 24 hours ago with a single tweet that ignited all the anger and resentment that has been building up within the everyday player population since Forsaken released.

I don’t know what anyone else was expecting Niobe Labs to be. Bungie had stated that it wasn’t going to be a Dungeon, but that was all the information that we had gotten ahead of time. From the way the quest chains to unlock the first 3 Forges worked and then into the 3 week break between Izanami and Niobe Labs, I was expecting another quest chain, but deeper and on a more epic scale. Where the first 3 forges had ended up being more leveling content rather than endgame, I expected Niobe and the next Forge to get into the real meat of this content release.

My friends and I were genuinely excited to log on yesterday morning and speculated how difficult whatever tasks we had to run would be in a fireteam with a random or run solo or in twos. So we log on and I fly to the tower just as soon as reset happens and before I even landed Bungie’s tweet goes out.

“Niobe Labs is waiting to be discovered with a puzzle that needs solving.

Once completed by a fireteam, Bergusia, the final forge, will be unlocked for all.

Watch the best and brightest attempt the puzzle”

And just like that I knew it was a failure and what the day would become, but what I can’t figure out is how this keeps happening and where the disconnect is between the studio and the silent majority of their player base.

I was fortunate enough to have been at the Summit. I listened to the backlash about who was invited and the speculation of what the purpose of it was. I had my own thoughts on why it was happening and from what I experienced over 3 days in Bellevue, I was really happy with the experience and thought it was exactly what I’d hoped it would be, which was step to healing the giant rift that had developed between the developers and the community over the previous year. I understood the community concerns over the presence of mostly streamers and high profile content creators, but I also knew they were integral to repairing that relationship as they have so much influence and their negative takes had been so amplified and damaging to the game on a PR level year one.

I didn’t expect a complete 180 from all the progress D2 had made in creating a game that was so accessible to everyone. A game that I had spent 850 hours playing year one and still enjoyed the hell out of. Destiny 2 year 1 was not a dead game and it didn’t suck, but that was the mantra we heard repeatedly throughout the year from players that streamed the game or were heavy content creators, including leading up to and going into the Summit.

Destiny 2 was not perfect and had a laundry list of areas it needed to improve and had been improving since launch. It needed

·         a better story and a return to lore

·         more extended endgame content with rewards to chase after the initial content was finished and just more things to do with the gear and weapons we had

·         most players felt a return to rng weapon rolls, I still contend that just more unique weapons would have been a better option as seeing our 10th Better Devils is still our 10th Better Devils regardless of the random roll

·         a return to 6v6 in Crucible and a new sandbox

·         more new cool content and less bringing back things taken away when D2 reset the franchise

·         a better mod/perk system for weapons and armor

·         better realized content like Iron Banner and Faction Rallies

·         better raid development for hard/prestige mode. These excelled in D1, but got progressively worse throughout D2

·         more accessibility and thought to solo players

And here’s the thing. Forsaken delivered on most of that in spades.

·         It has a much better story and incredibly deep lore.

·         It not only had the more expanded endgame with content like the Shattered Throne and constantly evolving Dreaming City, but a 2-3 month climb just to level to endgame to begin with. Then add in all the exotic quests and pinnacle weapons, titles, etc and there is a ton more to do.

·         Random rolls are back and they do make us look at drops again, I’m not sure how much more exciting they are, but it didn’t take anything away from the game really and has been a plus.

·         6v6 returned to QP and the new sandbox might be the best ever in my opinion.

·         There are tons of new cool things in the game from the Shattered Throne, to the Dreaming City itself, bows, new supers, and even the forges can be cool

·         The mod system is light-years better than year one and weapon perks much better. Armor still needs work and desperately needs the ability to re-roll perks, especially on exotics

·         Faction Rallies hasn’t returned, but Iron Banner has been so much better than year one and even events like Festival of the Lost and The Dawning have been incredible steps forward from what we saw in previous iterations

The only areas on the list we didn’t see things get better was with the raids and solo experience, but they tie directly into my next point. We had all that positive change and all those things to make what was already a very good base with D2 (despite the over-the-top hate), and yet Bungie also decided to add a bunch of changes that seem geared completely to the streamer crowd that significantly in some cases and completely in others, undermined all the positive changes that had been made.

·         “Meaningful infusion” requiring Masterhancement Cores was the biggest mistake. For all we needed more to do with the cool weapons and armor we had year one, once we got those cool new things to do, we couldn’t play any of it with the weapons and armor we love. So honestly what was the point and why are we playing and grinding for “sweet loot” if we can’t even freaking use it? And all the comments of “just wear lower gear and don’t infuse everything” are bullshit. I’m sorry, but constantly getting and holding onto weapons and armor in my inventory to maybe eventually be able to use or infuse is goddamn ridiculous. I don’t play this game to carry crap around in my inventory; I play to use the things I find fun.

Add in the fact that apparently it was Gothalion who championed meaningful infusion while at the Summit (must have been in his groups sessions) as well as he and Broman’s responses to infusion compliants that “we need to wear trash to appreciate good drops” and “it’s good that players get bottlenecked by infusion” and yeah, you can start to see where yesterdays tweet wouldn’t sit well with the community.

·         The leveling system and 2-3 month grind were different and not necessarily a bad thing, but combined with the constant battle to be able to infuse and use anything, along with the decisions to make regular legendaries drop way too low and to not allow us the choice to just play the content we love, be it Crucible, Strikes, Gambit, patrols, adventures, whatever, and still make progress leveling, ultimately made leveling more of a chore and less fluid than it could have been. Add in the decision to then immediately make us start leveling again as soon as we finally got to 600 and it was too much. For myself the fallout from that is I don’t play my Titan or Warlock anymore and doubt I will for a long time, if ever again. It’s too much. I hate playing when I don’t like how my character looks or feels and I have a fully leveled Hunter with weapons and armor I like and I’m done with the BS that is infusion.

·         RNG. RNG. RNG. On top of RNG. Titles were an awesome addition and something that had been suggested going back to D1. The RNG nature of the requirements really soured the experience. Getting exotics to drop is ridiculous. Some got them all in weeks and others went over a month between drops. It’s awesome we have all these cool perks on armor, but it’s almost impossible to put together sets of gear we actually want to wear with perks that work for how we want to play (Auto Rifle perks on arms that let you hold a bow drawn indefinitely isn’t ideal)

·         Freaking power-gating and the raids. D1 raids were awesome. They were challenging, but the normal modes were still incredibly accessible and seasoned raiders could take new players into any of them and teach them the mechanics and allow them to experience that content too. Then there were the hard modes with the challenges for the hardcore raiders and they were all on point and true endgame for the most hardcore. Leviathan still hit that combination pretty well although the tuning made it where the Prestige mode never got any easier even when we got full sets of drops from the raid. The Lairs then turned gimmicky to handle Prestige modes, but even that was better than what Forsaken brought. One difficulty that isn’t even really that difficult at level, but the fights are ridiculously mechanic heavy to where they take 5 time longer to explain than to actually do the encounters and the only real difficulty is in the power-gating. Power-gating which kept 99.99% of the community from being able to even beat boss #1 on release day whilst setting up the Chase for the World’s First for the big name streamers. It’s a decision that not only made raid release day, which was basically Destiny Christmas for tens of thousands of players, into a massive letdown, but it ultimately transformed Destiny raids from the true endgame they were with VoG, Crota, King’s Fall and Wrath, to mid-tier leveling content that was pointless after hitting 600 outside players grinding 1KV. We all took off work only to not be able to do shit in the raid and those complaints were met with disregard and/or disdain, but then what happened? Black Armory release day did the exact same thing. Here’s the release day for the first DLC of the year 2 season pass and “Oh sorry, you can’t play it for a couple weeks, but hey let’s go watch the streamers who can insti-level and have limitless time and resources go run it while we go back to leveling the same content we just got done leveling. Players were pissed and it was yet another embarrassing black eye for the studio that they had to address and walk back. I have tons of respect for the people who work at Bungie. I have been given tremendous opportunities by them and have friends within the studio. I feel guilty and bad in my critiques at times because I know they genuinely care about Destiny and the community, but I also hate seeing the game and the studio constantly trip over their own feet like they did yesterday and I hate that this game is being so dictated by trying to appeal to and appease such a small segment of the population. After the Last Wish and Black Armory release day failures and disappointments, how did yesterday happen? Like I said, the instant I read that tweet, I knew exactly what damage had been done and where this was going to go, so how did it get sent? How did this “event” get put into a timeline as upcoming content to play, rather than left unannounced for player to discover and dig into? Or if Bungie wanted to still announce it, why not give details stating it would be a massive (and massively difficult) community ARG to figure out how to unlock the final forge? No one went into yesterday expecting what we got, not even the streamers; and I know they’re getting a lot of heat, but honestly after all the shit-takes from them year one and the cesspool they turned the community into, I don’t feel much sympathy for the negative reactions they’re getting to this game they have apparently pressured Bungie into making Destiny now.

·         PvP. I have no qualms saying pressured because we’re living with a Crucible that is the product of a massive high profile player campaign to keep sbmm out of QuickPlay so the top players could have a farming ground to stream 7th Columns and 50 kill games. I’ve put up the statistics of how only 7.8% of the players I face or top 10%, but in 195 games 7.8% is still 193 top 10% players and they’re in over half our games running full pinnacle meta in most cases. It makes me not want to play and none of my friends want to play it, but the streamers are happy.

So yeah, that’s why people are pissed and that’s why yesterday’s tweet went over like a lead zeppelin. Yesterday never should have played out like that and by simply communicating what the event would be or leaving it a secret to be randomly discovered would have avoided all the drama, anger and resentment. Hyping it up and then posting a link to go watch it streamed made it appear to be a set-up to boost the streamers and not actually an event for actual players.

Destiny 2 is still a great game and it would not take much to make it a great game for everyone and not just the top 10%. I really hope that Bungie is listening; paying attention and learning, and I hope that someone with decision making abilities starts advocating for the silent majority again. 

Thank you.

[aion-rsa]

New World’s Players Are the Best and Worst Thing About the Game

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New World‘s recent open beta proved to be a tremendous success with some reports suggesting that the MMO attracted over 140,000 concurrent Steam players. While it remains to be seen how many of those players will purchase and ultimately play the game when it’s released on September 28, it certainly does feel like this Amazon Game Studios project has a fantastic chance of at least launching with a sizeable player base eager to dive into what figures to be one of the most fascinating upcoming entries into a suddenly resurging genre.

Interestingly, though, that may prove to be both a blessing and a curse as New World‘s own players have proven to be the source of some of the game’s best and worst features across its various beta periods.

Now, it’s obviously impossible to give a full, fair review of New World at this point considering that the game isn’t even out yet. For that matter, it’s likely going to take months for us to be able to fairly assess the quality, state, and future of the game as MMOs are constantly evolving and therefore notoriously difficult to form thorough first impressions of. Having said all of that, it seems clear at this point that New World is going to be more dependant on its own players than just about any other game in recent memory.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

New World’s Territory and PvP Sytems Have Limitless Potential

Many New World players say that the thing that keeps them glued to the game even during these beta stages is the implication that they can lose or gain faction territories at any time and that the balance of power on the server can shift at any moment.

That feeling of a constantly changing, player-driven environment (and the battles that help determine who is in control) is clearly meant to be New World‘s biggest selling point, and the concept is certainly strong. Maybe the game isn’t yet capable of producing Game of Thrones-esque levels of subterfuge and intrigue in its land-based faction wars, but even a little time with this MMO reveals the potential of an online experience where players constantly battle for a piece of an ever-changing world.

“Potential” is the word to keep in mind as we dive a little deeper into the game, but whatever else there is to say about New World, it has to be said that this is a worthwhile core concept that could become something special at some point.

New World’s Best Moments Are Often Caused by Players Doing Unexpecting Things

You won’t constantly be running into players in New World‘s vast landscape, but the game is clearly designed to ensure that you’ll interact with other players in key hub areas and the more congested parts of the world.

It’s in those places that the magic tends to happen. From random dance parties to sneak attacks that slowly inspire factions to gather their forces, there is a degree to which chaos is one of New World‘s best elements. Yes, MMO’s are inherently social experiences, but few titles in this genre are bold enough to essentially hand the keys over to the players and let them take the wheel. Even WoW has de-emphasized some of its more social-driven elements in recent years in favor of a more streamlined experience.

As we noted above, this has the potential to be a wonderful thing. However, that player-driven design clearly contributes to one of New World‘s biggest problems at the moment.

New World Is Too Dependent on Players Not Finding Exploits and Wanting to Interact With Each Other

It doesn’t matter how much you test and polish a game. Once it’s out in the wild, you can bet that gamers will find some way to play it that you didn’t fully anticipate. This will almost certainly be the case with New World at launch, and we’re already seeing instances of “unintended” player behavior in the game’s early access periods.

That turns out to be a bigger problem in the case of New World, though, largely because of the point we alluded to above. In a game that is this dependant on player interactions, it doesn’t take much for someone to ruin the fun. A little bit of faction imbalance, a few glitch exploits, old-fashioned trolling, or even just diehards who wreck the power dynamic/global market through super optimized (exploitative?) methods can easily throw a wrench into how you would have otherwise chosen to spend your time in the game.

Again, this is true of every MMO (and most online multiplayer games) to a degree, but despite the level of freedom this game seemingly offers, you start to get the sense that there is a vaguely “intended” way to play it and that deviations from that course can result in a suboptimal experience.

New World’s PvP System Is a Long Way From Being Balanced

It’s obviously difficult to manage New World‘s chaos, but one thing that Amazon Game Studios can do is ensure that the core experience is as balanced as possible in order to limit the influence of potentially detrimental events.

That’s why New World‘s PvP balancing has to be considered one of its biggest problems at the moment. We knew that faction balance was going to be a constant work-in-progress for this game, but New World‘s open beta made it clear that Amazon still hasn’t quite figured out how the game’s PvP scaling is going to work and how they’re going to possibly keep every character-building combination balanced in a “world battle” environment. It’s bad enough when a WoW raid consists of the same few classes, but in a PvP-drive game like this, it’s downright detrimental to feel forced to play a certain build just to give yourself a better chance.

Balancing an MMO is a delicate and constant act. However, New World will not do itself any favors if it doesn’t at last smooth some of its biggest balancing issues ahead of launch.

New World’s Limited PvE Systems Still Feel Like a Mistake

In theory, the times that New World‘s players and player-driven systems are misbehaving can be countered by simply stepping away from it all and enjoying the game’s PvE content. Well…about that.

Look, it’s clear that New World is not designed to emphasize PvE play, but the state of that aspect of the game just isn’t anywhere close to where it needs to be. New World‘s long traversal times, basic quests, and unproven Expeditions (dungeons) contribute to the feeling that the time spent not engaging in PvP content is time spent spinning your tires or, at best, getting the resources/gear/progression needed to better participate in PvP.

The nature of New World‘s more active combat means that “grinding” doesn’t feel quite as slow as it does in other MMOs, but there is just very little in New World‘s PvE content that makes you genuinely excited to engage in that aspect of the game.

New World Could be a Hard Game to Return to If You Leave It

Low population counts are obviously the death of most MMOs, but, in theory, an MMO can linger through a slow period if a group of dedicated players help keep each other engaged in what content is available.

I’m not sure if New World will be able to enjoy that luxury. At present, the game is so dependant on not just the participation of engaged players but the number of players who are actively participating in its territory and faction systems. It just feels like any sharp decline in active participants is going to have immediate ramifications. If players do choose to step away, then the MMO’s persistent world and all the mechanics that go along with it (such as regular housing taxes) are going to be difficult to simply come back to.

I have no doubt that the New World team went into this game fully aware of the fact that others have tried and failed to develop similar PvP-driven MMO titles in the past. That being said, I’m very interested to see just how prepared they are for the constant tweaks, balances, and updates this game will need following its September 28 launch.

The post New World’s Players Are the Best and Worst Thing About the Game appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[exilesofembermark]

Exiles Game Dev Update | 8.22.18

“I know you took my sandwich.” - the Ranger whose importance will soon be revealed

You’ll get a better look at him below, but as we populate your Player Camp and work through the storylines and Quests for Exiles, we’re designing the key actors in the dramas that you will encounter. One is your guide, your friend, your compatriot in knowing what’s what out there in the wilderness, and he will indeed fix you with that Gaze.

Last update, we focused on the Adventure Log, enemy Abilities, the full terror of the Bear, the new Forge and the long-promised 3D traveling camp.This time, it’s the “Explore” feature in PVE, a swashbuckling boss baddie, Embermark populations and the reveal of the Houses redux! Read on…

THAT MYSTERIOUS RANGER

As mentioned, we’re developing this character to help you, inform you and play a part in the drama that goes on within this castoff continent of Embermark. If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice some details from other characters we’ve show on him, and you’ll also covet his gear. Don’t worry, we’re figuring out how to get it to you. 

His order will wield a blade such as this, but his will be... different. 

Here we are in the new player camp, with an assortment of scrolls, maps and tomes upon the Ranger’s oaken table. Don’t take the “Ranger” menu button seriously-- we’re figuring out what parts of the UI will be housed under this guy’s purview. 

THE BLIZZARD

Few Abilities in the game come with a more chilling effect than the Mage’s cornerstone Blizzard. As we crank out the VFX for this milestone’s Abilities, we get a sneak peek at where this damaging, slowing spell’s look is developing. 

And, of course, we need to see the caster’s effects too:

EXPLORE

As you Quest across the broken lands of Embermark, you will encounter an array of NPCs, make choices about everything from which political side to join to whether or not you should show mercy to a passerby. In addition, you will Explore. The twist on the typical random encounter here is that any given place on the world map where you can Explore can actually have any of the game’s PVE content available. In the below example, an Explore node of “Raiding The Realm” comes with a bunch of hidden content that the player will be served one of, after which they can replay the node to round out the exploration to the number of times available. You can imagine a node full of baddies, a lost treasure that’s super hard to “roll” or a key choice for you to make that you best not leave unchosen (lest some reputation not go the way it needs to).

DARKEYE AND HIS SYNDICATE

The Levels 1-10 experience, where players learn all of the various systems mechanics in the game, will have an assortment of foes to face on the way to freeing Wildewoods from the treachery of the Darkeye Syndicate. 

That Syndicate is led by a boss you will eventually face, and he not only dual-wields nasty swashbuckling swords, he’s hiding a blunderblaster behind him... and he WILL use it. 

He’s not going to come at you every round of combat, though. He’s mortal, after all. He’ll need to reload. 

BADDIE POPULATIONS

This is very much a work-in-progress tool, but the design team is exploring how to visually represent populations and danger and such on the map. An early experiment in this is a heat map we’ve put together to show where some of the key enemies (or simply beings) are concentrating themselves.  

It’s not data driven yet, so don’t get too caught up in where the Ethereals lie, but if you want to fiddle around with some of the thinking behind starting populations, check this out. 

QUEST INTROS

Part of the design challenge for an RPG like this-- making it fiercely mobile while satisfying the needs of a fantasy enthusiast-- is providing enough lore and setting for those who desire that flavor while making it super-fluid and quick for those who don’t.  How a player gets into an Encounter has changed a bit throughout the game’s development as we think through that challenge. 

THE DUNGEON AUTHORING TOOL

A few Updates ago, we previewed the mocks for the way dungeons in Exiles will lay out and and work. And now, we have a TOOL. 

It might not be pretty, but it’s awesome. The tool we’re putting together allows a designer to create, edit, populate and publish an Exiles dungeon to the game in real-time (as long as the NPCs, lewtz, and other assets are in the database). We’ve baked in the ability to change configurations of “rooms,” author the difficulty of bad guys, copy and paste and create multiple-run dungeons.

And no, there won’t be a dungeon called this one’s name (but I wish there were).

HOUSE BANNERS

Houses. It’s a system we’re working on to give players cooperation, competition and purpose. It’s a piece of the Exiles lore that frames up history, factionalism and ideals. 

We’ve shared a lot about this system in the past. And I’ve shared that the ongoing lore development has led to some changes. Two Houses remained largely the same. Two changed names but not details. And two changed both. 

On top of that, we’ve designed the banners to represent not just the ideals of the Houses (that your Guild will one day declare for), but some of the finer points of their cultures too. You will find in each banner multiple images or designs (notice the borders even) that tell you multiple things about each House. 

Take a look-- and plan on hearing much more about each...

(higher res version here)

ROGUE LOOT

Many in the Exiles community have been pining for the introduction of the game’s Rogue class, and I assure you-- no one is as impatient for backstabbing and guile-y hijinks than me. But we’re slowly getting into the production of our 3rd Class as we do a million other things, and the fruits of that production are starting to show. 

In the form of loot! Soon enough, you’ll be wielding daggers like this:

Medium chest-pieces like this:

And (if we can make it work) even cloaks! (which would naturally be in the Shoulders loot slot) like this: 

NEW BATTLEGROUNDS

As we dive deeper into where you’ll be battling baddies (and each other), another couple environments that we’ll use quite a bit include the spooky ruins...

...and the Bog of Boggeyness (soon to be renamed).

DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER…

We’ll keep sharing details as we head toward testing (go here to sign up for testing and be among The First), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

CONNECT WITH OTHER EXILES

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly crew with plenty of daily/weekly/sometimes-planned shenanigans.

BONUS: THE ELF LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN HIM

We’ve shared much about the Exiles version of elves (the Highs left during the Collapse, the Woods are sooooper angry about it, and the others-- well-- we’ll get to that). And though we won’t light them up in the game this way, the model is quite dramatic presented as such. 

BONUS 2: DROPPING A COSMIC SHELL ON YOUR DUMB HEAD

You’re not there yet, but you can imagine what it would be like, right?

BONUS 3: A PRE-TEXTURE ARCANE WALL

Ability: Arcane Wall. Effect: Serious blocking. 

(check out the too-big-for-Tumblr gif here)

[ivi-gw2]

Recycling old content and why must some easy things stay easy

(long post)

In the last post I explained why I think that Guild Wars 2 is in desperate need of “medium” difficulty content. In this post I’ll talk about some ideas that come to my mind.

What would I say is needed? More hard and much, much more medium content to balance things out with large amounts of easy content? More updates? Sure! But let’s go green: I would like to see older content that once was medium or that wilted, revisited and refreshed. There is already enough variety of stuff to do in GW2 - we don’t need so much new stuff, it will just make older stuff more abandoned and maybe the player base too fragmented. Also, not touching old and boring content will make it “bad” and more and more abandoned by players” - the game would benefit a lot if they’d find a way to make it new and interesting.

Also - the best solution would be to make the most change with the least possible work done - to make it economically rational. While - importantly - focusing on making what already exists in the game better. With Colin Johanson as a new (old) leader and more focus shifted at GW2, I once again have hopes that ArenaNet will stop abandoning good content shortly after shipping it. Yes, Colin means experimentation - but the focus part will, I believe, make them think about it for a bit.

So first of all - what change would make a lot of now trivial and too-easy content better and a bit harder? Buffing all mobs and encounters and nerfing all player abilities? Yes, but… it wouldn’t make the game better. Let’s say we have a low-skill player - one that is new to the game or simply hasn’t yet learned some of the game mechanics. And a high-skill player. For the high-skill player most of the game (as it is in the easy category) is braindead. But for the low skill one it is not braindead. It is a probem even ArenaNet is trying to fix; in an interview when Icebrood Saga was coming, Mike Zadorojny said that “The challenge is that the skill disparity between average players and hardcore players is extreme. We’re talking about ten times damage output. You can’t necessarily put a DPS check that the average player is going to be able to overcome without making the fight entirely trivialized for the hardcore.” Just buffing everything and nerfing all player abilities wouldn’t do much because many new players and lower skill players suddenly won’t be able to play content that was intended for everyone. Some guy who just created their first character in Queensdale, running around, would come up to the bandit who would kill him in 3 hits. For many people that would be a good learning lesson, but GW2 is a fundamentally different game (and differently marketed) from MMOs that focus mostly on hard endgame content (FFXIV or WoW, for example) and so it attracts everyone, not just people that want to be super skillful players. Just making the absolute whole of the game much harder because that would make average players’ skill closer to the raids or quality PvP experience would succeed in what it wants. But it would also deter a lot of people and, more importantly, lose a lot of players who found friends and communities, peace or happiness in simple things GW2 offered. Harder content is needed, many of the existing stuff in GW2 has to be notched up just a bit, but a lot of it has to stay in “easy” difficulty. 

Most of core’s open world mobs and events are definitely one of those things - most of them being in lower level maps. Leaving them in the easy difficulty category won’t take anything from raids - yes, ArenaNet hasn’t focused on the raids because a small number of players play them and it would be cool to have more players that play them so we could then have more raids… but harsh up in difficulty for this kind of content isn’t the solution. Making low-skill players better and bringing them closer to playing raids is best done with small step ups in difficulty - something having enough content in all difficulties does - making easy and medium important. Only thing I would add to the open world core mobs is better telegraphs for attacks - red aoe dots on ground, arrows for charges, etc. As for LS, PoF and HoT open world mobs and events - those can stay the same, they are an appropriate level of challenge for many players.

Next up is content I believe was and still is the most played content in the game: world bosses. Huge dragon coming from the sky and hundred brave warriors rush to defeat him, epic music playing… And the dragon is dead in 2 minutes. I’ll say this right away: I love world bosses, even them being this easy. I still play them. Because I love MMO experience and I love to see a lot of other players. World bosses are Guild Wars’ 2 trademark and the defining game characteristic, and something they did the best way possible out of all the other MMOs. And while they are in no way falling in popularity, I believe they should be a bit refreshed so they move into the “medium content”. In my opinion, focus for their rework should be: small changes to make them a bit harder (most of them just a bit, few of them a lot) and teaching players some of the more difficult game mechanics. Making them harder is needed so players would organise more and make the bosses feel as an actual threat. New and low skill players aren't the issue here because most other players can carry them. A good example of teaching some difficult mechanics with a harder boss was adding the Vale Guardian event in Bloodstone Fen.

But no changes to the world bosses means no engaging (or “better”) content for experienced players. Well, then some changes that would affect only the experienced players are needed:

Much harsher dynamic level adjusting for high-level characters in lower level maps.. I already wrote in one of my previous posts: “Make me, while in top gear, have just 15% better stats than a noob in some low-level map, but let me be stronger and more able to help them with my skill creep.” I would say that it would require less work for ArenaNet, than revisiting every mob, event and skill. But I can only guess.

Harsher event scaling for larger amounts of players - currently events are scaled well mostly for single players and small groups, but big metas get too easy. Boss doing more damage and having much more HP than how it scales now could help a bit.

Keeping power-creep in check - constant skill balance changes to keep every top damage number under a certain threshold.

More work needed to get participation, scaled by players level. Low level characters could do less and have more participation while lvl 80 characters should do more to get the same. This would work even for expansion/living story/lvl 80 maps - in those cases, everyone should do just a bit more. And in my opinion that is okay because a lvl 80 player will by default do much, much more than a low-level one. Unless… they are not doing their part.

Add timers to big meta events - as they work in strikes - with more work done, you get a better reward. And make gold really hard to get. Not all world bosses should be absolutely lethal and only killable for players with super skills, but all of them should be a kind of a challenge.

Another thing that should be revisited is the personal story - the story of how we killed Zhaithan. It is the content that can’t be just pushed under a rug like dungeons were. Everybody plays it and all the new players will play it - it will define their first hours of GW2 experience. The focus of its rework should be to make it a big tutorial for many game mechanics and something that should slowly, step by step, up the player’s skill. The pacing, events in it and boss encounters are something I don’t need to say anything about because of how old and easy they feel today. New story stuff is great and shiny and made in a way that’ll take much more time to lose it’s shine. While we’re at the shiny new story - while all of GW2's story should be little by little harder, it should never get too hard. It should stay pretty low in difficulty - maybe just lower-medium difficulty tier. Because it is a showcase for new players what new stuff ArenaNet just added to the game. They shouldn’t need to play hundreds of hours of all the rest of the story before they can try out and be happy playing the new toys that they just got. Adding special achievements, making memorable encounters, special fractals or strikes with CMs is a very good solution ArenaNet made. It makes the story a bit more of a challenge for more experienced players. I would also like to see some core story’s memorable moments be turned into fractals or strikes - killing the Eye and The Claw Island come to my mind. Even HoT, PoF and LS story events could be made repeatable somehow - Mordremoth, Balthazar and Joko fights are some of my favourite ones.

Then there are dungeons, somehow tied with the personal story. With them, a lot of rework is needed. I believe they are the type of old content that can be redone from bottom up and people won’t be mad about it. Some of the stuff I don’t miss is running down iced scaffolding to light a fire or luring skelks away from orbs to get to Mossman. FotM update was a very good decision - boring or needlessly irritating parts were removed and replaced with more meaningful encounters. An art of the deal. If it gets removed and replaced with something better in the same vein - some of the stuff I won’t miss that comes to mind: underwater boss in HotW, many simply irritating mobs in Arah or the fiery tunnel in CoF. Dungeons have an immense potential to span difficulty steps from easy (story path), over medium, up to hard difficulty.

But why should we, the veteran players, go back to this, already played content - even after “the refresh” relatively easy content? More about that in upcoming posts!

Source: Balancing Guild Wars 2 difficulty is tough when top players do “ten times” more damage | PCGamesN https://www.pcgamesn.com/guild-wars-2/difficulty

[mixxxfeelings-blog]

Destiny 2: Out with the New..In with the Old?

So I’ve been a hardcore Destiny fan since its release and I will be the first to tell you it works best in bursts.

Throughout the entire franchise Bungie had always done a poor job at the simpler aspects of communication. They promised things, that depending on your interpretation of their words, were very feasible or too ambitious. At best their words came across as nebulous to much of the diehard and casual community.

In D1, The Taken King brought new life into the game when it needed it most. Now in D2 it looks like we’ve hit the same point.

A lot of players, myself included, have been running on empty trying to care about the expansions D2 delivered in the first year. Curse of Osiris had much to be desired and I’ll finish Warmind when I have the time. But after spending so much time maxing 3 characters on 2 systems I really needed a reason to do so.

So let’s talk about FORSAKEN.

                          THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN.

Quite literally we are going backwards and that’s a great thing. When D2 came out and the most devoted players had run out of content to actively do, the critiques and complaints started pouring in. If you lurked on the DestinytheGame subreddit you could see that most of the comments made comparisons to between D1 and D2 in regards to features, activities, and general quality of life changes to the franchise. Many players felt that D2 offered a more simplistic and streamlined experience in relation to D1, which left the hardcore players with little to do week after week. With Forsaken, Bungie is trying to take that criticism and run with it.

So what’s coming back? Over the course of the summer Bungie will be updating the game to reintroduce older modes and pother changes that all players (not just those who purchase Forsaken) will be able to take advantage of.

In general we can see that they will be tweaking some of the D2 systems to make them work better for players, while the roadmap doesn’t give us all the exact details. As of now the first two columns are already live, modifying players options in the Crucible, adding space to the Vault, and expanding the Masterwork system are probably the most notable changes there. 

Between now and then with update 1.2.3, we will be getting 6v6 Quickplay and Permanent Rumble, two Crucible options that players have been asking for since the first couple months of the game. In addition to that we’ll be rounding out Year 1 with Prestige Raids and Triumphs, both returning systems from D1 and an event called Solstice of Heroes, which will probably be further detailed during Bungie’s E3 event.

In the final column we have a list of the smaller additions Forsaken will be bringing. Some of these changes we examined a little more deeply than others during Bungie’s ViDoc, so for now we are gonna stay focused on those.

The first guy on the list is Gear Collections. Separate from the Vault and the Tower Kiosks, the game will now allow you to track what Weapons, Armor, and Items you have obtained during your D2 tenure.

The categories tell you how many of the items you have collected, how many there are in total, and what you need to do in order to get the ones you’re missing.

Then with Exotics (maybe more but we’ll have to wait and see) you can purchase exotic items you have unlocked, but may have dismantled during your gameplay. With the exotics and you haven’t discovered the Collection will let you know if you have top complete a particular quest or objective in order to discover it.

Other additions that weren’t individually pictured, but are interesting nonetheless are Weapon Slot Changes, Weapon Randomization, and an update to the Mod System.

With the weapon slots, Bungie is looking to bridge the gap between new and old players.

D1′s weapon setup had 3 slots, Primary (Assault Rifles, Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles), Secondary (Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Fusion Rifles, Sidearms), and Heavy (Machine Guns, Rocket Launchers, Swords).

D2′s set was a tad different with their slots being Kinetic and Energy which shared all weapon types, with the exception of Grenade Launchers, Rocket Launchers, Swords, Trace Rifles, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Fusion Rifles, and Linear Fusion Rifles. whew

Players felt that D2′s changes made players weaker all around, by sticking the game’s more powerful and situational weapon types into the weapon slot that would have the least amount of ammo drops and overall use.

With Forsaken, you can move weapons to any of the 3 slots you want, which means things are gonna get a whole lot crazier, but its gonna be a great ride for both PvE and PvP environments.

To add to that insanity, we’re getting back Radmon Rolls (Weapon Randomization), meaning that not every gun of the same make and model is identical. Bringing more of the Borderlands style of gun drops to the game. Some gun/perk combinations will work really well, some will be useless and do nothing, and others will (this is may personal favorite), will cause players to janky, different things with their loadouts

NEW STUFF INCOMING

So what do we have on the way?

New WEAPONS

New ENEMIES

New PLACES

New MODES

New RAID

NEW SUPERRRRRS

So considering this is our first look at all this content, there may not be too much to say at this point, but the visuals give us enough to be excited about.

So it’s no surprise that we’re getting new weapons, I mean that happens all the time right? But new weapon types? Not so much. But Bungie’s taking us back to 2013, when Bows were dominating the video game ecosystem.

So Bungie didn’t go into the specs of the Bow weapon type, but this is what we know or can infer right now:

Different Bows are designed for different types of engagements, most likely close range, midrange, and long distance.

Some bows have energy related abilities.

Time-to-Kill is balanced to make up for the act of drawing the bow.

Now Enemies. Because Bungie will be exploring more of the story during their E3 slot, we only know a bit about who were are gonna be fighting in Forsaken.

But if you guessed Fallen

YOU’D BE RIGHT

I bet you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.

So what they have said so far is that there has been a jail break at the Prison of Elders in The Reef, so it stands to reason that all the enemies we’ll be fighting are some topnotch Fallen.

We will be getting new Fallen enemy types and a sizeable number of Baron boss fights.

The major Barons are said to each operate in their own way, providing different types of engagements, instead of just a simply Kill List.

So where is all this going down? So obviously we’re going back to The Reef, the section of the Solar System that has appropriated the asteroid belt in Jovians (the Jupiter/Saturn area).

More specifically we have a new area to explore!

The Tangled Shore is a network of terrestrial platforms floating in the Reef, that are linked together through cables and wires. The idea itself is reminiscent of Fallen architecture, but I think it’s safe to assume the Awoken are responsible for its creation.

I would appear to be very open from the shots delivered in the ViDoc, but these could be imagine captured from cutscenes or early builds of the game that haven’t been populated. So there’s definitely more questions than answers here.

There is definitely an overwhelming Western theme in play here so maybe it just empty???

With the new Raid Bungie confirmed that there will be a new location that will house the Raid itself, which is slightly different than the previous raids, which were typically connected to the general overworld. How exactly they plan to section all that out has not been discussed, but I’m sure we’ll get more information on that moving forward.

The new raid is takes place in the Dreaming City. This is the birthplace of the Awoken, who are descendants of humans that escaped Earth’s orbit during the Collapse. As it stands we don’t have a real sense of the general timeline of those events, but it seem reasonable that the Dreaming City may provide some answers.

Bungie has said that the new raid with offer new puzzles to solve and mysteries to uncover. But that’s nothing new. What’s new: The raid will CHANGE. Bungie says that as people continue to play the raid, the environments will change so that over the course of weeks and months the raid will not be the same as it was when it premieres.

Definitely gets points for being pretty.

Time will tell what the scope of these alterations and changes will be. Players at least remember that the Infinite Garden from the Curse of Osiris expansion didn’t live up to the hype. Hopefully, the Dreaming City can.

So we’ve hit some PvE content, some PvP content, so now let’s talk about some content for PvEvP???

So at first glance this takes me back to Archon’s Forge from D1′s Rise of Iron expansion. Not surprisingly considering some of Bungie staff have looked to RoI for some inspiration, but we’ll get to that in a second.

For starters, Gambit is a mode for some PvE arena goodness. You kill enemies for motes of light which your team collects to deposit in your bank.

When you do that you end up sending a stronger enemy over to the opposing team’s arena. While that enemy is alive the other team will be unable to deposit motes, so you can gain a lead. After that you can fill up your bank, which summons an enemy for you and your team to take down, called a Primeval. Once you defeat it, you win the the round. Simple right?

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

You can also use motes to jump over to the other teams arena to kill their guardians or just generally prevent them from advancing. Bungie didn’t say what limitations there are in doing this, but I’d bet there’s a once per round limit.

Hmmmm? Is that everything? I felt like there was something I was really excited about, but after getting this far Ican’t seem to remember what...it...was...

OHYEAH

NEW SUPERS

But now I’m sad because I just remembered. Bungie didn’t show us too much on this front. But what they did say give us enough to work with I think.

So, first thing, these are not really new classes. Big difference there. And I really think what they’re doing here is more reasonable. They are creating new perk paths.

In D1, each class at a suite where you could choose what perks you wanted to pair together, but you were limited to one perk from each column (i.e. you couldn’t use two grenade type perks at the same time). The downside to that system was that you typically wouldn’t alter your perks much. At best you found the right combination for your playstyle and kinda left it at that. You couldn’t go full RPG and style your perks for different engagements as much as you might’ve wanted.

But in D2, the classes were steamlined as well. You choose from a jump type, grenade type, and melee type. Then you chose your path, which contained perks that would affect your playstyle. With a new super getting added to check class, it would be unreasonable for them to not introduce new perks, or a new path to augment it.

From what we’ve seen older supers look like they could have new abilities and new supers may be lifting parts from the super we lost going into D2. Gunslinger seems to be pairing its Throwing Knife mechanic with the old melee Super Bladedancer.

Warlocks seem to have a flashier teleport during Stormtrance and beam super not unlike what Moira from Overwatch has. And Titans get a Warhammer, which seems to blend together abilities from the new and old Sunbreaker.

GEEZ, that was more stuff than I thought to have before E3. But we got through it and I’m definitely excited to get back into one of my favorite game addictions!