Destiny: Iron Banner 2.0

[mannon]

Hey I like it. Instead of selling a better buff each day sell all 7 right up front and players pick their own schedule. Nice. Some form of escalation might still help to keep people interested in starting IB late as opposed to early, but that is way better right there. I would say keep it minor, maybe just increase the number of tokens you can collect for losses. Really I don't think it's about keeping people interested in IB as there are plenty who will start on Tuesday and play the entire week, no matter what. I think the point is to temp people who haven't played IB all week into still joining in on the last day, because, why the hell not?

Aren't the buffs 12 hours instead of a full 24 as well? This would mean you could cram in more buffs on a single day as well and actually use all 7 in just 4 days if you were REALLY into it. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I'm also thinking maybe tokens should have tiers. Like your first 5 tokens are gold tokens worth 40 rep, but then you can get silver ones that are worth 20, so there's still ssssoooommething to gain from a losing game after the 5. You could even have 10 rep tokens. I think there should always be some encouragement to play loosing games rather than bouncing to orbit, no matter how many you've lost. (If you just afk in a corner the game should autokick you, though.)

[iw5000]

Yeah, the five game cap still happened to many players. And then it was auto-quit right away for them if they were losing the next game. Which as I mentioned before, was a nice loophole one could exploit, taking their place in games. I got at least ten games in this past weekend, where I only played like a minute. Yes, I got a loss. But I also got 40pts to carry forward. Not a huge deal, but maybe saved me 2 to 3 hours?

I like your token idea. Let players decide when they want the buffs. Great idea!!!

[wittyscorpion]

Did 1 giant binge gaming session: 5:30 pm to 5:10am PT, for 11 hours and 40 minutes, and finally reached rank 5 (started at rank 1.5 at the beginning of the session). (Closing) thoughts on Iron Banner:

1) For me personally, Destiny Crucible and IB are really fun. It has my preferred level of TTK and evasive movements. Titanfall pilot vs. pilot are great, but gunfights are still a bit too heavy on the shooting aspect, during which movements are general not a big factor. AW can have some really fun gunfight moments, but in general its TTK is still way too quick for me. For 99% of the encounters I have no time to react when the enemy initiated the gun flight.

2) Loot wise the best item I got is the exotic gauntlet No Backup Plan from a legendary engram, too bad I already bought it. I also got a legendary machine gun that is supposed to be really good, and 3-4 pieces of legendary armor that most likely will be dismantled for shards. Also, lots of shaders (none of them look good on Hunter though), and a few coins & MoL;

3) Control is really fun, especially when you play with friends. Having even 1 person to talk to can significantly increase the level of enjoyment;

4) The team chat feature is solid. After everybody got off and I had to play solo, I opted into the "team chat channel" by default and was able to hook up with another player that did the same. One complaint though: while when playing solo the game will opt me in automatically, when playing with a fireteam both of us had to change from fire team chat to game team chat at the start of every game if we want to pick up another player. That's tedious and as a result we did not bother after 1 try. Ideally they should make the opt-in option available at the fire team level;

[iw5000]

I did have a lot of fun when we played. And agree, even having one person to play with makes all the difference in the world. I think yesterday, you and I (and Heb later), we won like six of seven doing that. Good times.

I will say this. After playing Control all I did the past seven days....in many respects it plays a lot more like the good old spawn trapping CoD days than CoD-AW does right now. Can't believe I am saying that. In some respects, Destiny plays more CoD'ish than CoD does now. :-( And with that, there are also viable weapon choices, other than Bal, Bal, and more Bal.

[hebbnh]

Last night was a lot of fun for sure, teamed up with Witty, Dumien, Sleezy, Kakashi, and Croft. We rolled a bunch of lobbies pretty hard. Like 20K to 10K stuff. Those were really good. We had some close games as well that we pulled out last second and a couple bad losses that were kind of inexplicable, where one guy on the other team was basically unkillable with a red bar connection. That wasn't so great, but whatever. I ended up being on until 2 AM here -- fun times! THebb and I will be grinding out the last bit of rep we still need tonight -- you guys should join if you don't have anything better to do! Then I'll have to farm glimmer for a while so I can actually buy the gear I need, but after that, hard raid maybe?

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 24, 2014 13:40:15 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Last night was a lot of fun for sure, teamed up with Witty, Dumien, Sleezy, Kakashi, and Croft. We rolled a bunch of lobbies pretty hard. Like 20K to 10K stuff. Those were really good. We had some close games as well that we pulled out last second and a couple bad losses that were kind of inexplicable, where one guy on the other team was basically unkillable with a red bar connection. That wasn't so great, but whatever. I ended up being on until 2 AM here -- fun times! THebb and I will be grinding out the last bit of rep we still need tonight -- you guys should join if you don't have anything better to do! Then I'll have to farm glimmer for a while so I can actually buy the gear I need, but after that, hard raid maybe?

For tonight: I would like to help you guys with IB grind, but by the time I get on you guys are probably done already. I am still debating whether to grind the glimmer and buy the legendary weapons. However, Raid is definitely takes precedence over that. Let me move the discussion of planning for tonight to our LFG thread.

[tooros]

I have to say being forced into pvp has been pretty fun. I know I said I was punishing myself earlier but, as long as I wasn't alone, it was a blast. I'll be up for more in the future. I'm intrigued to see what 'normal' pvp is like post IB.

[malgato]

I need to finish off IB tonight, so I will be on. And I need massive amounts of glimmer.

[mannon]

Same here. I'm down to around 900, but I only need to buy boots so it should be doable. I figure an hour to get rank 3 and an hour or two farming glimmer, depending how well it goes.

[wittyscorpion]

Just curious: would glimmer farming work with groups? i.e.: can all participants get the glimmer from the same enemies?

Seems to me from the past experience that all players who did "significant" damage against an enemy will get the glimmers? Still, probably an activity best be done solo...

Mal: I can party up with you on IB if Raid does not happen tonight, or you are still doing it after our Raid (I assume that you won't be able to make it).

[wings]

Nov 24, 2014 14:52:12 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Just curious: would glimmer farming work with groups? i.e.: can all participants get the glimmer from the same enemies?

Seems to me from the past experience that all players who did "significant" damage against an enemy will get the glimmers?

Depends on your proximity to the Guardian, enemy and whether you have done damage to them judging by the free Glimmer I get from someone nearby on Patrol.

[mannon]

I know points will reset, but I wonder if the banner buff items (icon, shader, and class armor item) will retain their buffs in the next IB. Could give players of this one a significant bonus right from the start.

[iw5000]

that would be nice if it did. But if doesn't, at least one can keep their 'Gold Shader' uniform. Looks awesome!!!

[wittyscorpion]

Warlock raid gears with gold shader looks great, especially in game (the picture does not do enough justice). Sadly the same can't be said for my Hunter with Symbiote helmet.

[wittyscorpion]

FYI: Bungie twitter has officially confirmed that 1am PT tomorrow morning is the time when Lord Saladin will leave the tower.

[wings]

Nov 24, 2014 15:59:29 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Warlock raid gears with gold shader looks great, especially in game (the picture does not do enough justice). Sadly the same can't be said for my Hunter with Symbiote helmet.

Yeah I basically got my Warlock to rank 5 for the bond and the shader, since the shader makes my Hunter and Titan worse.

[mannon]

I really wish that the event NPC's would stick around for a few days when an event finishes to give people time to actually make their purchases, especially if they want to play IB right up to the end. It's really kinda crappy that they piss off right away like that and probably robs a lot of people of what they earned.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 24, 2014 16:10:28 GMT -5 wings said:

Nov 24, 2014 15:59:29 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Warlock raid gears with gold shader looks great, especially in game (the picture does not do enough justice). Sadly the same can't be said for my Hunter with Symbiote helmet.

Yeah I basically got my Warlock to rank 5 for the bond and the shader, since the shader makes my Hunter and Titan worse.

While the bond is a Warlock specific grind, the shader should be cross character, right?

I am planning to rob the hunter from his hard earned shader and give them to his better looking brothers.

[wings]

Nov 24, 2014 16:41:20 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Nov 24, 2014 16:10:28 GMT -5 wings said:

Yeah I basically got my Warlock to rank 5 for the bond and the shader, since the shader makes my Hunter and Titan worse.

While the bond is a Warlock specific grind, the shader should be cross character, right?

I am planning to rob the hunter from his hard earned shader and give them to his better looking brothers.

Correct. Shaders are not character specific.

[wittyscorpion]

FYI based on info from Reddit: looks like the buff also works on weapon XP as well. So when turning in your bounties today, make sure that you equip the weapons that you want to upgrade the most to fully take advantage of the buff, make it the most well spent MoL of your playing history

[malgato]

Well, I did what I could, and ended up 50 rep points shy of rank 5. I'd like to thank the multiple level 20 guys that I was teamed with for really helping out with guaranteeing losses. And a special shout out to the fun guy that brought a level 16.

Iron Banner was fun, but I can think of a few improvements for next time...

[malgato]

Oh, and another thing... I finally maxed out on Crucible marks for a week, but didn't get the achievement. Wtf.

[mannon]

It was occasionally frustrating, in fact nearly every session I started out really frustrated and annoyed, but by the end of the night I was happy again. I had so much fun, especially last night when I got my groove and was kicking ass. I even brought The Devil You Know out to play and did okay with it. (It wasn't even fully upgraded.) Previously I couldn't manage with anything but an auto rifle. I also started learning the ins and outs of my shiny new exotic shotgun... which REALLY needs some upgrades, but was fun.

[iw5000]

Nov 25, 2014 11:09:33 GMT -5 malgato said:

Well, I did what I could, and ended up 50 rep points shy of rank 5. I'd like to thank the multiple level 20 guys that I was teamed with for really helping out with guaranteeing losses. And a special shout out to the fun guy that brought a level 16.

Iron Banner was fun, but I can think of a few improvements for next time...

Just 50? Good lord that sucks. Did all you need was like one more game?

[hebbnh]

Nov 25, 2014 11:29:13 GMT -5 malgato said:

Oh, and another thing... I finally maxed out on Crucible marks for a week, but didn't get the achievement. Wtf.

I bet it pops next time you log in.  I've had quite a few 'chieves not unlock when they should have, only to show up after logging out and back in again.

[iw5000]

Tossing this out there. I ended up getting the Perun's Fire fusion rifle. That hurt as it was 11,000 plus glimmer. More grinding.

On the surface it looks the same as the Light/Beware (LB), but it's not. The Perun is a faster re-charging fusion. One step up from the LB. I think the Perun will actually be a very good Crucible/IB gun. It's still going to 0ne-hit kill the same as the LB for crucible settings... but the faster recharge rate will make a huge difference. If you use a fusion in the Crucible like a shotgun, then you know what I mean. Fast recharge is key. A fusion beats a shotty most times.

[thebb22]

50 points?! Did you play all the way to the deadline? That really sucks...especially if your teams were that terrible.

[malgato]

Nov 25, 2014 11:42:47 GMT -5 thebb22 said:

50 points?! Did you play all the way to the deadline? That really sucks...especially if your teams were that terrible.

Yes, played right to the end. And yes, one more win would have done it.

[wittyscorpion]

A few comments:

1) the achievements don't pop up right away, they show up later at a random time. I was farming glimmers last night and out of blue I suddenly started seeing achievements popping up, like 5 of them! They are all from my Sunday 12 hour binge IB run: 25 Titan/Warlock/Hunter killed, max crucible marks, etc.

2) I was told Perun's Fire is a better Crucible Fusion Rifle than Light/Beware (which is my main FR of the choice during IB. I could have used Plan-C, but I need to void damage for my Thorn bounty), that's what inspired me to do the glimmer farming. I got the glimmer to buy it while the night was still young, so I went on for a bit longer and got the Scout Rifle as well. Probably a bit silly because stats wise it looks almost identical to Proxima Centaury II that I already have, but I don't always have the opportunity to buy a weapon with just glimmers

3) I was about to try the re-forge, but chickened out at the last second because the weapons have solid stuff on them and I don't want to risk getting a worse version.

[qupie]

I was under the impression that the decreased charge time upgrade actually lowers your damage in crusible. I tried it a few times and hated it. Might have been placebo but I don't think so