One-Off Destiny Questions

[wittyscorpion]

All "class" armor items, including Warlock bond, Hunter cloaks, and Titan Marks, are cosmetic.

However, as hebbnh pointed out, sometimes they do carry benefits. Faction class items will let you earn faction specific reputations instead of Vanguard & Crucible (?) reps, and event (e.g.: Iron Banner) specific class items can provide event specific benefits.

[malgato]

If I wear a faction item Crucible, does that mean I only earn faction rep and not any Crucible rep? Does it affect accumulation of marks?

[n1gh7]

Correct, if you are wearing a faction class item at the time of rewarding of vanguard or crucible rep, the rep will go to your faction and not vanguard or crucible. The marks earned will still go to vanguard or crucible depending on how they were earned. At faction vendors however you can only spend crucible marks. Because of this, it is easier to buy stuff from the vanguard vendors secondarily if something that you want is not avaliable from your faction vendor.

[mannon]

Yeah and Warlocks got ripped on the bonds since they're so small you barely see them. Hunters get the best class item there with the cloaks, especially the long ones.

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 9, 2014 12:54:41 GMT -5 mannon said:

Yeah and Warlocks got ripped on the bonds since they're so small you barely see them. Hunters get the best class item there with the cloaks, especially the long ones.

Hunter definitely gets the points in terms of coolness from class items.

IMHO Titan Marks look pretty lame. They remind me of diapers . Warlock bond on the other hand, although not easily noticeable, can look pretty cool and stylish.

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 9, 2014 12:51:52 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Correct, if you are wearing a faction class item at the time of rewarding of vanguard or crucible rep, the rep will go to your faction and not vanguard or crucible. The marks earned will still go to vanguard or crucible depending on how they were earned. At faction vendors however you can only spend crucible marks. Because of this, it is easier to buy stuff from the vanguard vendors secondarily if something that you want is not avaliable from your faction vendor.

I am wondering whether this is an advantage. By doing the faction thing, both PvP and PvE reps are going towards your faction rank, while the standard way separate them into Vanguard ranks and Crucible ranks. By choosing the faction route, I guess maybe you can rank faster? Does anybody know what rep numbers are needed to reach ranks of the factions?

[markopolo]

Oct 9, 2014 13:43:30 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Oct 9, 2014 12:54:41 GMT -5 mannon said:

Yeah and Warlocks got ripped on the bonds since they're so small you barely see them. Hunters get the best class item there with the cloaks, especially the long ones.

Hunter definitely gets the points in terms of coolness from class items.

IMHO Titan Marks look pretty lame. They remind me of diapers . Warlock bond on the other hand, although not easily noticeable, can look pretty cool and stylish.

I got a glowing blue one....

drives da pretty grrlz crazy, gives dem da hot flashz

[wittyscorpion]

Question: anybody know whether the Bladedancer's crouching -> invisible ability has a cooldown? If yes (which it seems to be from my experience), how long?

If nobody knows, I'll do a quick test the next time I play the game, most likely not until some time next week though.

[TheHawkNY]

Oct 9, 2014 13:49:35 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Oct 9, 2014 12:51:52 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Correct, if you are wearing a faction class item at the time of rewarding of vanguard or crucible rep, the rep will go to your faction and not vanguard or crucible. The marks earned will still go to vanguard or crucible depending on how they were earned. At faction vendors however you can only spend crucible marks. Because of this, it is easier to buy stuff from the vanguard vendors secondarily if something that you want is not avaliable from your faction vendor.

I am wondering whether this is an advantage. By doing the faction thing, both PvP and PvE reps are going towards your faction rank, while the standard way separate them into Vanguard ranks and Crucible ranks. By choosing the faction route, I guess maybe you can rank faster? Does anybody know what rep numbers are needed to reach ranks of the factions?

You can rank faster by choosing a faction. However, it's not a wise thing to do.

Your selection is much more limited than if you rank up Crucible and Vanguard. That cool helmet you wanted to buy from the faction when you started leveling? By the time you finish, you don't need a helmet, you have a legendary helmet, you need to buy leg armor to replace the rare armor you have, and neither of the choices you have are good.

You can only buy faction armor and weapons with Crucible marks. Given that Crucible and Vanguard marks are both capped at 100 per week, this cuts down on the amount you can buy significantly. It will take you two weeks to earn enough to buy most faction items. It also means you'll need to play somewhere between 34-50 games of Crucible per week to earn those 100 marks - that translates to roughly 1-1.5 hours of crucible every single day. Given the general consensus of feelings on PvE vs. PvP in Destiny, it's something to consider.

[iw5000]

keep in mind, even if you get 100 crucible marks, you still need to be Crucible Level Two ....to buy equipment, and Level Three for guns. I have around 100 Crucible marks right now, and am still not at level 1. I think I have like 60 to 70 PvP games played. It seems like it takes a full 20 min to cycle one game of control (3 to 4 min loading, 15 to play actual game)

At least for me, it seemed like my Vanguard Rep point levels rose faster, than my Crucible Rep point levels.

[hebbnh]

Something to keep in mind, and I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere on here before, is to make sure to do the Nightfall strike ASAP each Tuesday because completing it grants a 20% increase to XP and repuation earned until the next weekly reset. Not a huge bonus, but it does make the rep/rank grind a little less time consuming.

[mannon]

How are marks handled between characters? Is the cap per character? Can they be transferred from one to another or are marks character bound like bounties?

[wings]

Oct 9, 2014 15:21:22 GMT -5 mannon said:

How are marks handled between characters? Is the cap per character? Can they be transferred from one to another or are marks character bound like bounties?

100 marks per character per week, 200 in total and are non-transferrable.

[n1gh7]

Oct 9, 2014 13:49:35 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Oct 9, 2014 12:51:52 GMT -5 n1gh7 said:

Correct, if you are wearing a faction class item at the time of rewarding of vanguard or crucible rep, the rep will go to your faction and not vanguard or crucible. The marks earned will still go to vanguard or crucible depending on how they were earned. At faction vendors however you can only spend crucible marks. Because of this, it is easier to buy stuff from the vanguard vendors secondarily if something that you want is not avaliable from your faction vendor.

I am wondering whether this is an advantage. By doing the faction thing, both PvP and PvE reps are going towards your faction rank, while the standard way separate them into Vanguard ranks and Crucible ranks. By choosing the faction route, I guess maybe you can rank faster? Does anybody know what rep numbers are needed to reach ranks of the factions?

The rep numbers for vanguard, crucible, and faction ranks are all the same. Rank 1 needs 1500 rep. Rank 2 needs 2500 more. And rank 3 needs 2500 more. By combining vanguard and crucible rep you would rank a faction faster (obviously).

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 9, 2014 15:17:38 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Something to keep in mind, and I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere on here before, is to make sure to do the Nightfall strike ASAP each Tuesday because completing it grants a 20% increase to XP and repuation earned until the next weekly reset. Not a huge bonus, but it does make the rep/rank grind a little less time consuming.

I am aware of that, but if I understand correctly it is completely out of my reach until I get to at least level 26(?), and it's not wise to attempt this thing solo probably even when I am level 28.

I should have more time playing games next week and can party with friends, but even with that I don't expect to be able to get there for at least another 2-3 weeks.

[n1gh7]

Oct 9, 2014 14:15:03 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

Oct 9, 2014 13:49:35 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

I am wondering whether this is an advantage. By doing the faction thing, both PvP and PvE reps are going towards your faction rank, while the standard way separate them into Vanguard ranks and Crucible ranks. By choosing the faction route, I guess maybe you can rank faster? Does anybody know what rep numbers are needed to reach ranks of the factions?

You can rank faster by choosing a faction. However, it's not a wise thing to do.

Your selection is much more limited than if you rank up Crucible and Vanguard. That cool helmet you wanted to buy from the faction when you started leveling? By the time you finish, you don't need a helmet, you have a legendary helmet, you need to buy leg armor to replace the rare armor you have, and neither of the choices you have are good.

You can only buy faction armor and weapons with Crucible marks. Given that Crucible and Vanguard marks are both capped at 100 per week, this cuts down on the amount you can buy significantly. It will take you two weeks to earn enough to buy most faction items. It also means you'll need to play somewhere between 34-50 games of Crucible per week to earn those 100 marks - that translates to roughly 1-1.5 hours of crucible every single day. Given the general consensus of feelings on PvE vs. PvP in Destiny, it's something to consider.

Correct. Really what one should do is go around to all the different vendors and pick out all the items they are selling that you like. Taking into consideration all the perks and abilities of leveled up pieces. Then you can figure out what vendors to level up and what marks you'll need and focus that way. The interesting thing is that they made it so the vanguard and crucible vendors have the "missing" pieces of armor from each of the factions. Ones that match the discipline/strength/intellect ratios of the factions but have abilities/perks the factions ones don't.

Anyways, the other benefit to ranking up the different vendors is that you get a package from the postmaster each time you rank up usually with very good stuff.

[markopolo]

I keep reading things like... did ________ on hard or ______ is only available on hard or ___________ got this on hard

Question: Assuming this means difficulty level, how does one go about switching difficulty levels? I didn't know there was such a "hard" setting.

[iw5000]

Oct 10, 2014 9:24:56 GMT -5 markopolo said:

I keep reading things like... did ________ on hard or ______ is only available on hard or ___________ got this on hard

Question: Assuming this means difficulty level, how does one go about switching difficulty levels? I didn't know there was such a "hard" setting.

Certain Strike missions can different settings.

What makes it confusing is the word 'strike'. Destiny uses it to much. From my understanding:

1. There is the strike missions on each planet. These are the end Strike story mission. I believe you set difficulty here.
2. There are the Strike Missions on the far right side of the map.

[hebbnh]

Oct 10, 2014 9:24:56 GMT -5 markopolo said:

I keep reading things like... did ________ on hard or ______ is only available on hard or ___________ got this on hard

Question: Assuming this means difficulty level, how does one go about switching difficulty levels? I didn't know there was such a "hard" setting.

When you select an activity, there will be a difficulty shown toward the bottom middle of the screen, left of where the "launch" icon is to start the activity.  Hover over the difficulty level and you'll have the option to change it. There are a only a few things that have a set difficulty level that can't be changed.

[givemelight]

Okay,
I see I will need crucible and vanguard marks at some point so as to obtain better gear/weapons. I assume I earn crucible marks playing in PVP? Where are these displayed? (I've played 10-15 matches already).
Are vanguard marks only obtainable after reaching a certain character level? And how are they earned? By doing these weekly strike missions?

(As someone who doesn't have time to play during the week, my time in game so far has been limited, and I admit that I don't understand the mechanics of all the extra "monetary" systems that aren't glimmer. Example: Marks, coins, shards, etc.)

Thanks,
givemelight

[markopolo]

Oct 10, 2014 10:23:39 GMT -5 givemelight said:

Okay,
I see I will need crucible and vanguard marks at some point so as to obtain better gear/weapons. I assume I earn crucible marks playing in PVP? Where are these displayed? (I've played 10-15 matches already).
Are vanguard marks only obtainable after reaching a certain character level? And how are they earned? By doing these weekly strike missions?

(As someone who doesn't have time to play during the week, my time in game so far has been limited, and I admit that I don't understand the mechanics of all the extra "monetary" systems that aren't glimmer. Example: Marks, coins, shards, etc.)

Thanks,
givemelight

Either in your inventory on the 2nd tab with your materials, or when you go to a vender it will your ranks and marks/currency

[hebbnh]

Oct 10, 2014 10:23:39 GMT -5 givemelight said:

Okay,
I see I will need crucible and vanguard marks at some point so as to obtain better gear/weapons. I assume I earn crucible marks playing in PVP? Where are these displayed? (I've played 10-15 matches already).
Are vanguard marks only obtainable after reaching a certain character level? And how are they earned? By doing these weekly strike missions?

(As someone who doesn't have time to play during the week, my time in game so far has been limited, and I admit that I don't understand the mechanics of all the extra "monetary" systems that aren't glimmer. Example: Marks, coins, shards, etc.)

Thanks,
givemelight

Marks, both vanguard and crucible, are only obtainable after level 18.  Vanguard marks are obtained through public events, the vanguard strike playlist, weekly strikes, and daily story missions.  Crucible marks are obtained through playing in the crucible.  3 per win, 2 per loss.

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 10, 2014 9:38:37 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Oct 10, 2014 9:24:56 GMT -5 markopolo said:

I keep reading things like... did ________ on hard or ______ is only available on hard or ___________ got this on hard

Question: Assuming this means difficulty level, how does one go about switching difficulty levels? I didn't know there was such a "hard" setting.

Certain Strike missions can different settings.

What makes it confusing is the word 'strike'. Destiny uses it to much. From my understanding:

1. There is the strike missions on each planet. These are the end Strike story mission. I believe you set difficulty here.
2. There are the Strike Missions on the far right side of the map.

Strike missions have a blue icon on the map. There are 6 of them: 1 on earth, 1 on moon, 2 on Venus, and 2 on Mars (of which 1 is PS exclusive).

Strikes can be played 3 ways:

1) Choose the icons on the planet map, matchmaking is enabled;
2) Play the Strike playlists (which are unlocked at level 16 or 18?), left to the icon of Crucible. It has 4 difficult levels, 18, 20, 22, 24. The higher you go, the more rewarding the victory is. Matchmaking is enabled;
3) Weekly strike missions on the left lower corner (unlocked at level 20?). It has 3 difficulty levels, rewarding 3/6/9 strange coins respectively (for the first beat every week). No matchmaking, you need to either solo or set up a fire team with 1 or 2 friends;

#3 is the most rewarding. This is why some players have 3 characters of the same class. They can go through the weekly missions at the highest difficulty 3 times, netting 27(!) strange coins per week. Then they can buy whatever they want from Xur during the Friday to Sunday sale.

I have 3 characters of different classes, at level 22/21/20. I beat the weekly on level 22 with my level 22 character solo, my attempt with 21 solo got set back by server disconnect but doable. I am guessing that attempt with level 20 solo is not wise, don't have time to do that this week any way.

[givemelight]

markopolo, hebbnh, and witty - Thank you for the explanations.
I'm only level 12 currently, and it sounds like all the fun stuff in game will begin at level 18-20. I'll get there eventually. :-D

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 10, 2014 12:11:12 GMT -5 givemelight said:

markopolo, hebbnh, and witty - Thank you for the explanations.
I'm only level 12 currently, and it sounds like all the fun stuff in game will begin at level 18-20. I'll get there eventually. :-D

I am only at low 20s. So far each stage is fun, albeit differently

1) At lower level: The fun comes from playing with increasingly interesting subclasses (through upgrade tree), against a variety of different types of enemies, through story missions and strike missions.

All of these can be done solo, because story missions are designed to get through by a single player, while Strike missions support matchmaking.

2) At level 18: you unlock Strike playlists (which supports matchmaking) as well as the ability to earn Vanguard and Crucible "Marks".

3) At level 20(?): you reach max level from XP point of view. You also unlock daily story missions and weekly strike missions. The first run of them offers significant rewards so you should consider doing them with higher priority.

These do NOT support matchmaking, and they have modifiers to make the missions more difficult. At this point you can still solo, but should start considering finding friends to play together, especially for the weekly Strike missions. They are difficult to run through if you are alone.

Starting at this point, you need armor pieces with Light to level up. See leveling discussion thread for more details.

4) As you are reach level 22, 24, 26, and 28, you will be more suited to play higher level daily and weekly missions, which will reward you more handsomely. Necessity of partying also increase dramatically as higher level missions are much more unforgiving for solo attempters. Nightfall missions in particular will be brutal, set you back all the way to orbit should you "consumed by the Darkness".

5) When you reach level 27/28, you can consider doing VoG raid. Partying no longer optional, and the best way to do this is to find experts that can lead you through. Beating VoG on normal can reward you with "Raid Gear". You need these to reach level 29 and 30.

7) At level 29/30, you can attempt doing VoG raid on hard setting, with friends at these levels.

[psychlon]

Oct 10, 2014 12:40:51 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Oct 10, 2014 12:11:12 GMT -5 givemelight said:

markopolo, hebbnh, and witty - Thank you for the explanations.
I'm only level 12 currently, and it sounds like all the fun stuff in game will begin at level 18-20. I'll get there eventually. :-D

I am only at low 20s. So far each stage is fun, albeit differently

1) At lower level: The fun comes from playing with increasingly interesting subclasses (through upgrade tree), against a variety of different types of enemies, through story missions and strike missions.

All of these can be done solo, because story missions are designed to get through by a single player, while Strike missions support matchmaking.

2) At level 18: you unlock Strike playlists (which supports matchmaking) as well as the ability to earn Vanguard and Crucible "Marks".

3) At level 20(?): you reach max level from XP point of view. You also unlock daily story missions and weekly strike missions. The first run of them offers significant rewards so you should consider doing them with higher priority.

These do NOT support matchmaking, and they have modifiers to make the missions more difficult. At this point you can still solo, but should start considering finding friends to play together, especially for the weekly Strike missions. They are difficult to run through if you are alone.

Starting at this point, you need armor pieces with Light to level up. See leveling discussion thread for more details.

4) As you are reach level 22, 24, 26, and 28, you will be more suited to play higher level daily and weekly missions, which will reward you more handsomely. Necessity of partying also increase dramatically as higher level missions are much more unforgiving for solo attempters. Nightfall missions in particular will be brutal, set you back all the way to orbit should you "consumed by the Darkness".

5) When you reach level 27/28, you can consider doing VoG raid. Partying no longer optional, and the best way to do this is to find experts that can lead you through. Beating VoG on normal can reward you with "Raid Gear". You need these to reach level 29 and 30.

7) At level 29/30, you can attempt doing VoG raid on hard setting, with friends at these levels.

That's a great list! Thanks

Any particular reason why Destiny decided to have the weekly strike and nightfall without matchmaking enabled? Is that to get people to "talk" to each other? I did the daily story once but I assumed that anything with strike will require a group of at least 2, otherwise you will be running out of ammo and or take hours to complete. 

[wittyscorpion]

Regarding why daily/weekly don't support matchmaking:

1) IMHO one main reason is to make things harder by taking away auto respawn. In these missions dead Players no longer have the luxury of just waiting for 30 seconds and magically reappear, they must be resurrected by teammates or else stay dead. so the strategy of having an archor doing nothing but just staying alive is no longer viable.

Because of this, Random matchmaking could present an unpleasant problem: if your random teammates don't resurrect you, you can't get back into the game. Bungie probably think this is too unpleasant to allow in the game

2) Encourage players to find friends to play with is likely a very important reason as well, especially for Nightfall. Since co-op is required for Raid, they want players to self organize into fire teams when doing Nightfall, as a warm up for Raid.

IMHO, Bungie should at least make matchmaking an option and let players decide whether they want to take the risk or not. In additon, they should support lobby chat, so randomly matched teammates can communicate, and see if they like each other enough to befriend each other. That would have been a great way to make game more social. I believe that is what they are currently working on.

The current restrictions are actually forcing many players to solo through, which is actually anti social. Also, in order to complete the mission players often have to find creatively cheesy ways to play, that's not how the missions are intended to be played.

[wings]

Apparantly, going solo means the health of the enemies are lower as they increase by the number of people in te game. Kind of defeating the point. I don't mind joining randoms who sent me a message but I would rather they don't think they can waltz through it like I have seen people try to do. And that was for the Weekly Heroic on Nexus a few weeks ago. I never join game invites alone since I don't know what it is for.

[iw5000]

Oct 15, 2014 9:45:47 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

The current restrictions are actually forcing many players to solo through, which is actually anti social. Also, in order to complete the mission players often have to find creatively cheesy ways to play, that's not how the missions are intended to be played.

That ^^^

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 15, 2014 9:58:17 GMT -5 wings said:

Apparantly, going solo means the health of the enemies are lower as they increase by the number of people in the game. Kind of defeating the point

This is another reason why the game should NOT force players to solo through. The game designers' intention here is to have 3 players cooperate with each other to take out much stronger enemies. Having a player solo against weaker enemies using boring methods pretty much defeated the purpose. At the every least, they are 2 viable ways to play through and players should have been given the choice.

At this initial stage, Bungie is over protective on preventing "social experience" of the game from being unpleasant, by taking away choices from players. I hope over time they can see that this is not the correct way to "manage" players' behaviors.