Destiny: Iron Banner 2.0

[wittyscorpion]

I am with iw5000 on this one, as I said earlier in my wall of text:

1) Yes, BS deaths from Super are unpleasant. The main issue here is not because Supers are cheap (Titan drop is pretty easy to get also), but because they are OSKs and break momentum in an unnatural manner. Both TF and AW have a much better design in this regard. In TF: Titans counter each other and are very exciting fights themselves, I can even go so far as saying "funner" than Pilot vs. Pilot; In AW: strong scorestreaks are hard to come by especially with tactical loitering significantly reduced, and easy to get to low-end scorestreaks and/or support streaks are not as powerful. Best of all, everything can be countered;

This can be mitigated to limited degree, by playing the following way:

My current method of mitigation: a) don't stand close to my teammates; b) when capping flags, be mindful of red blobs on my radar and get out of the way ahead of the time; and c) combine a) and b): let my teammates be the first line defense facing the read blobs and I stay behind to reap the rewards ;

In my earlier wall of text, this is the only glaring issue that I don't like about Destiny. For other complaints, I think the game is on par or slight better than AW, my personal taste wise (for more details, read my wall )

[markopolo]

But let's also be honest: Comparing COD's and Destiny's PVP/MP experience isn't worth the time, is it?

Even if it's horrible horrible horrible, COD's MP is the bread and butter of the franchise and will always be the "gold standard" of the FPS genre and the reason why people buy the game. Like we pretty much concluded in the "Which FPS will knock off COD in November"... the answer isn't another franchise; it's the next game in the COD franchise. Regardless of what the issue(s) that COD MP has, it's like pizza or oral intercourse: even if it's bad, it's still good and we want more and forget about the bad once we get the good.

Maybe it's just me, but unless the gear is that much better than what is available in PVE, I have no desire to play Crucible or PVP in Destiny... to me, that's not what the game is about. I might try it if I get bored, but I didn't buy Destiny for the PVE and I don't think many people did. I think Destiny PVE was a nice change until COD:AW came out... but now that it has, people who want the PVP experience have gone to COD.

Again... my opinion and I could be wrong, having never played Crucible...

[mannon]

You're guaranteed a couple, but only a couple. If you want more you earn them by filling up your super meter from kills. It's almost exactly like Titanfall only it displays a meter filling up instead of a timer that you subtract time from. So yeah, you're guaranteed some of them no matter how you play, but you also earn them. Just like TF I think that only makes it more fare. You're still encouraged to go out and earn them, but not to sit back and camp for them, and if you're not very good you aren't just shut out of the fun. (That's actually always been something that bothered me in CoD, because even when I do play really well and run a 2+ KDR I'm just not the kind of player that often gets long killstreaks. So I've almost always been shut out of the really nice KS's short of a care package. At least in TF and Destiny I don't have to worry about that.)

[mannon]

Eh, Crucible's fun sometimes, but it's definitely not what Destiny is about.

[iw5000]

the momentum comment up there is a good way of putting it.

Here's the thing. The supers don't suddenly level the playing field. A good player is still going to go 24-10, while a bad player is still going to go 8-20. Having the super is not a game changer. But it does create (at least to me) this annoying "FVCK" moment every minute or so in the game. When an opponent comes flying in with this super and my only recourse is to jump away. I think there had to be a better way of handling this, rather than giving everyone 2 to 3 of these every game.

At least make people do something, anything, to earn it. Like in a control match, maybe 'x' number of points and caps? Doesn't have to be a CoD killstreak style, but maybe a support style basis?

[iw5000]

Nov 17, 2014 13:02:01 GMT -5 markopolo said:

But let's also be honest: Comparing COD's and Destiny's PVP/MP experience isn't worth the time, is it?

No, it's not. But someone asked, so I answered.

I also agree. I went five plus weeks without playing Crucible. Destiny is a great game without it. It's not needed.

[markopolo]

Nov 17, 2014 13:10:12 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Nov 17, 2014 13:02:01 GMT -5 markopolo said:

But let's also be honest: Comparing COD's and Destiny's PVP/MP experience isn't worth the time, is it?

No, it's not. But someone asked, so I answered.

I also agree. I went five plus weeks without playing Crucible. Destiny is a great game without it. It's not needed.

Sorry; I thought we were. My mistake

[mannon]

Maybe there is a better way. I just don't see it as terribly egregious. Honestly I don't feel any better being pwned by some KS in CoD than a Super in Destiny no matter how hard they had to work to get it. Cheap kill is cheap and one is as bad or as good as the other IMO. Six of one and half a dozen of the other... In fact I kind of like that you don't have to earn every single super with skill alone as that shuts out some players and makes the game less fun for them. I'd prefer not to the pwned by a cheap attack, but whateves. At least Destiny also has fewer "lol I spawned behind joo" deaths. ;p (CoD's still a better MP game, though. Enjoyed me some AW last night.)

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 17, 2014 13:01:53 GMT -5 mannon said:

You're guaranteed a couple, but only a couple.

That's true if you are Warlock/Titan. But if you are a PvP "master race" Hunter, with your 4 shots Golden Gun (extra shot from the helm) + penetration bonus, or Bladedancer who can fly through the air relatively untouchable, you can get 4+ kills on a regular basis (say 40% of the time)

The point of the posts I started yesterday is not to convince people to like Crucible if you don't, or it is "better" than AW (because it is not), it is only to state that PvP can be quite fun, at least on par with AW, for players who prefer slower TTKs.

And let's face it: if your goal is to reach level 30, and you have no time for VoG and/or RNG is not your friend, With Iron Banner rewarding 30-light armors you'll have to play it. You might as well try to enjoy if you can (just like the thread I started on planet material farming...)

[wings]

At least the Golden Gun you are vulnerable to dying whilst using it and you can still miss. The Titan's smash is a bit easier to get a kill and you are less likely to get damage whilst activating it. I try to keep my distance on the maps but sometimes the cramped ones get voted so there are fewer alternatives. I think non-linear scorestreak system could be a solution.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 17, 2014 13:51:49 GMT -5 wings said:

At least the Golden Gun you are vulnerable to dying whilst using it and you can still miss. The Titan's smash is a bit easier to get a kill and you are less likely to get damage whilst activating it. I try to keep my distance on the maps but sometimes the cramped ones get voted so there are fewer alternatives. I think non-linear scorestreak system could be a solution.

If we are talking about solutions, then the first order of business is to let players counter Supers in a way that they have time to react when seeing a "super" man coming at them.

One idea: super is not as powerful (no longer OSK), but can be activated/deactivated based on some energy meter, and can be carried through death. This can result in some more interesting super vs. super fights...

[daftpunk]

I prefer the crucible to AW , Titanfall > Destiny > Halo > AW in my lowly opinion . I think Titanfall finally killed COD for me , maybe 7 odd years of playing COD solid has burned me out

[mannon]

I'm still enjoying AW, though the spawns get me down at times, and I'm not in love with any of the weapons I've tried yet. I would probably prefer Destiny Crucible to AW, but only due to personal preference, and lack of AW experience I think... though with experience AW could get better or worse. I was never terribly into Halo MP except for 1 & 2.

I think for multiplayer Titanfall is prolly my fav. Maybe even all time fav... hard to say. I was a hardcore TFC player back in the day. ;3 Have only dabbled in TF2.

[wittyscorpion]

Friday, I solo a couple of hours on AW Ground War. It was fun, and K/D is coming back up at a respectable pace, definitely loving the new movement system.

AW's combat sandbox design complements TF pretty well: 2 different focuses, both yield funner encounters vs. CoD Ghosts. TF definitely beats AW on map design, spawn, and networking, but that's due to TF having giant robots, cannon fodder minions, and MSFT powered dedis.

Overall, I am just enjoying the varieties right now. If I got bored with one, I'll quit the game and start another. Best of all, everything can be done through voice. No standing up, no changing disks, and not even using controllers

[mannon]

I don't care for voice. The only thing I can imagine even wanting to do with my console that wouldn't already involve a controller is maybe watching Netflix, but I still don't want to talk to my machines. Until my machines can carry on an intelligent conversation I'd just rather hit buttons and operate them in silence. I dunno... that's just me. Talking to no-one just makes me feel self conscious and weird. I don't even like phones. (I stopped ordering delivery from any place that doesn't have a website. heh)

[wittyscorpion]

Wow, looks like Bungie is not wasting any time in getting this going, Iron Banner scheduled to start tomorrow: www.bungie.net/en/event/ironbanner

I have to abandon most of my plans of ranking up weapons to 300 attack to get ready for this.

[mannon]

I don't think I have any appropriate weapons for it but I might give it a go and hope there are players even less ready than me.

[wittyscorpion]

For bros who need 30-light gear: Iron Banner will offer gloves and boots (see the pictures on the event page). So make sure that you focus on characters that need these pieces.

For me: this means Hunter. I already have the full raid set on Warlock, and gloves and boots on Titan.

[tooros]

I have NO raid gear whatsoever.
Am I correct in thinking no matter how badly I do - I could still get lucky with the post match RNG?

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 18, 2014 4:00:45 GMT -5 tooros said:

I have NO raid gear whatsoever.
Am I correct in thinking no matter how badly I do - I could still get lucky with the post match RNG?

Iron Banner just went live. I had a "chat" with Lord Saladin (He is at the area right behind the bounty bot). This is what he offers regarding armor items:

1) Reach rank 3 to buy boots with 30 light. This is great news because boots are the hardest as there is no exotic alternatives;
2) Reach rank 4 to buy gloves with 30 light;

Not sure about how RNG works. Hopefully these gears can drop as loot as well.

Meanwhile: 12 hour event standing buffs called "tempering" can be bought at 1 MoL.

Caution! I bought one just to see how it works, and to my surprise there is no trace of it in inventory (I was expecting it to be enabled from there). Also, I can't buy another one from Saladin, this is it?!

a) Does this mean that it is already active?! I certainly don't want that to happen yet because the latter it is used the more effective the buff is, and I have the entire Sunday available to play this. I might get stuck now: either don't play Iron Banner until Sunday to have the better buff but not able to take advantage of any time before that, or play Iron Banner now and get penalized due to earlier usage;

b) Can I buy more after I exhaust this one? If yes, then that's good, I'll just keep buying one after another. Otherwise (which is the most likely) it would suck.

So don't make the same mistake of buying it without knowing the definitive answers for the 2 questions above.

[tooros]

Hmmm - if the ranking is as tough to climb as the crucible ranking then I'm still going to have to rely on the RNG Gods........

[wittyscorpion]

Question 1) answered, it becomes immediately active as soon as you purchase it. You'll see the Iron Banner "wolf head" icon on your character display page, right where the "Nightfall" indicator is usually at, with a countdown timer. In other words, I just wasted 1 MoL because I won't be playing games for the next 12 hours (I have confirmed that the timer is ticking no matter whether you are in game or not. So quitting the game and/or shut down your console won't stop it).

To make things worse, I might have just lost the one and only chance of getting this buff, if it can only be purchased once throughout the entire event duration.

[wings]

What is the score for rank 3? I am doing Nightfall to help increase rank in case I do this. I tended to find Crucible bounties helped in the Crucible so I can see Iron Banner taking an age to rank up.

[psychlon]

great... I got raid boots on one character... why did they make it relevant on rank which slot you can get?

[wittyscorpion]

Trying to take advantage of the buff as much as I can, I played a few games this morning. Thoughts:

1) The lobbies have lots of level 29s. The lowest level I saw is level 22, and he did OKish (0.63 KD);
2) As a level 29 Hunter, the games don't feel that different from regular Crucible. I am sure that the level 22 can't say the same . There are moments that I won impossible gun fights, most likely because I am fighting a low level player;
3) The random loot drop is dismal. The best I have seen so far are legendary machine gun (once), legendary engrams (once), coins (3-4 times);
4) Because winning is what matters, have a team helps greatly, especially with different subclasses working well together. Defender is especially useful for capturing zones;
5) The longest losing streak I had is 4. Winning the 5th game converted all 4 losses into Iron Banner reps;

[markopolo]

The only thing I'm really looking forward too with the IB being up, is that supposedly there's a dead ghost I can awaken to get.

That's about it.

Once I start getting "bored" and become one of those posh, leetgmrz who choose to use/waste their coins on a sparrow upgrades because they have so many they don't know what to do with them... I'll start doing PVP

[wittyscorpion]

Regarding rank progression: with the buff and ~10 games I played, and 2 completed Iron Banner bounties, I passed rank 1 and now at 449/1200 towards Rank 2. Looks like Rank 3 might not be difficult to reach.

BTW, all items offered by Saladin can be bought with glimmer, so all you need is to reach the required rank.

[GodMars]

In my opinion, Iron Banner 2.0 is the best PvP has been in this game. Well, except for the fact that it's relegated to only 3 maps. That kinda stinks. But yeah, I can count the number of times on one hand that I died and didn't understand why. Far, far less horseshit than usual. Most of the games have been pretty competitive with only a couple of lopsided scores. For once I'm happy with the PvP.

[markopolo]

Good to hear that @godmars.

although I don't PVP, it is good to see that (at least to me) Bungie seems to have taken the criticism well and made positive changes... right?

[iw5000]

One can only get level 30 gloves and boots? Are we 100% sure?


That kind of sucks for me, thinking on this. I have two sets of Raid gloves and Raid boots already (already leveled) I suppose I could play to get items for my Warlock #3, but that Warlock just needs boots. It already has a max Exotic gloves. So it would seem that all the Iron Banner can do for me is get this ONE piece of gear I need. So playing thirty to forty IB Crucible games to get one piece of gear? Some boots? I don't know. That's going to be a nine to ten hour grind/effort. I am pretty sure I could do three VoG Oracle checkpoints next week at 1/3 of the time.

Tough call for me.