Destiny: have a bit more fun when farming planet materials

[wittyscorpion]

One unpleasant thing that Bungie is forcing us to do is planet material farming. A legendary or exotic weapon requires 72 counts of materials to complete the upgrade, while armors have similar requirement (80?). As a result, after level 26 a significant amount of our play time are devoted to running in circles to look for materials or chests. It is boring, time consuming, and there is simply no way around it.

Since this is unavoidable, let's discuss how to have a bit more fun while doing this unpleasant chore.

I'll offer my 2 cents first:

1) Farming location

I like to find loops that not only have rich offerings of materials & chests, but also have a lot of enemies spawning at all times, for example:

a) Rocketyard on Earth;
b) Anchor of Light on Moon;
c) Ishita Commons on Venus;
d) Buried City on Mars;

2) Have fun with ability chaining

One thing I like to do is to let my abilities feed each other so I can keep using them, without need of any bullets . For this purpose, my most favorite subclass is Titan Striker. Usually it is the least used class among players, due to the fact that Defender is much stronger for PvE, while Hunter (both subclasses) and Voidwalker are arguably better options for PvP. However, Striker is great at chaining abilities together:

Energy Drain -> Grenade cooldown
Grenade & Super can have Energy Drain effect
Energy Drain kills -> Super cooldown

These, along with Titan chest Armamentarium, as well as armor talents like melee damage -> grenade cooldown, can give you a pretty fast ability chain for killing minions. It is pretty fun, try it out

3) Challenge yourself on weapon usage

Make a goal like "crit only": then use Scout Rifle/Hand Cannon/Slow RoF MG to go for crits. One great way to have high success rate is to quick scope, i.e.: ADS to snap the aim onto enemy's crit spot, fire once, immediately let go of the aim, then repeat. By doing this, the aim assist is doing most of the work and you can just crit after crit.

Any other ideas? Feel free to share!

[psychlon]

Chests, chests, and more... chests. You gotta find them all, all over again and then again and again. It's like eastern, just instead of eggs you gotta find chests. I usually do only the "kill" patrol quests, travel all the possible locations and go to the next map. In this case you have a change of scenery once in a while and get to know the maps down in and out. Something I didn't know was that you can go visit most (all) the places you see during strikes scaled to their original level.

[mannon]

I mix resource farming into my patrol routine which I tend to do fairly often so thus far I've not actually run out, but it has heavily favored Earth and the Moon. I try whenever possible to get resources while doing other things so I don't have to farm so much. So I'm always on the lookout for them in public spaces. (It seems to me that all resources and non-golden chests are located in public spaces and none in the private spaces beyond the point that people vanish in front of you when going in.

Definitely hit those chests. I think you get as many resources from chests as you do from the resource nodes themselves. (Personally I kind of preferred the way it was in beta where you only got resources from the resource nodes and chests were always glimmer and loot. I think mebbe Bungie changed it because they didn't want so many chests to be glimmer and no loot which kinda feels like a hollow reward, plus it gives us more of the resource, but then it seems like the nodes used to give more... I'm not sure.)

Also, listen. Both chests and resource nodes give off a high pitched background sound. This sound can at least alert you to their presence in a given area or even help you zero in on the location. It's especially useful for locations that are on rooftops or otherwise difficult to spot. The sound isn't very loud, but then that means if you do hear it the chest or resource is close. Visit all the places you would expect them and listen, be sure to check up high.

Also, get up high, and look around. You can spot resources and chests from quite a distance since they tend to stand out from the background. In some places getting up high can give you a clear view of many spawn locations. For example if you get up high in the moth yards you can spot spinmetal all around. Also at Archer's Line on the moon get up on top of the big rail line. First off on the flat walkways on either side chests can spawn in spots along the entire length, plus from up there you can spot helium in most of the entire area.

Be thorough. Clearly you want to be quick, but also check everything. And just because you got a chest doesn't mean that entire area is totally clear. Just last night I was in the Steppes in Cosmodrome underneath in the area where the map room is. I heard a chest and found it, then found another chest literally right around the corner from the first one. I don't know if it simply happened to spawn there after I got the first chest, but I was very surprised to see them right next to each other like that. I do recall in beta that it seemed like chest spawns were clustered and only one in the cluster would spawn a chest until that one was found, but I don't know if it was ever verified. If true then these chests were either somehow different clusters despite being physically right next to each other, or else the second chest somehow spawned immediately after I opened the first one.

[markopolo]

Because I love the cosmodrome public events so much, one of the things I like to do is give myself a self imposed quota for doing the next one. For example: the mothyards event begins at 0:00 and the next event is the devil walker at the Divide. Usually, the mothyards event takes about 5 min and I have about 10 minutes to get to the divide, which is more than enough time. So, before I allow myself to leave the mothyards, I have to find 5 spinmetal. Then I book it to the divide, and before I can enter the event, I have to find another 5 spinmetal... if I don't, I don't do the next event.
This doesn't work for the 0:30 mothyards to 0:36 Forgotten Coast event, but all the others ones do well (the 45-55 event rarely happens) with this.... so, with discipine, you can get a decent amount of spin metal.

I find farming easier on the Moon, as there are a boatloads of little caves and crevasses where chests hide....

[wittyscorpion]

The 4 locations I mentioned in my OP are all pretty decent. I am sure that there are better routes, but they succeed as being simple. No need to memorize the route, just go around in clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion and check corners & rooms. There are a huge number of minions in the middle to shoot (with the exception of buried city), and they are great for making the activities much less boring...

[markopolo]

Nov 10, 2014 14:01:42 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

The 4 locations I mentioned in my OP are all pretty decent. I am sure that there are better routes, but they succeed as being simple. No need to memorize the route, just go around in clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion and check corners & rooms. There are a huge number of minions in the middle to shoot (with the exception of buried city), and they are great for making the activities much less boring...

Indeed

[wittyscorpion]

I just finished my inventory of legendary/exotic weapons, and here are what the material farming tasks are like:

1) As somebody who only serious started playing this game a month ago (around 10/15), I now have ~30 legendary/exotic. That might sound like good news, except it sucks when it comes to farming;

2) I still yet to acquire many of the exotic and raid weapons. Let's say I only upgrade the best ones, I am still staring at 30-40 of them overall;

3) Each cost 72 material to fully upgrade. So conservatively speaking let's say I need 2000 total materials to upgrade them all;

4) Let's assume a rate of 4 materials per minute, which is quite fast considering I also want to have fun while picking up stuff. How much time would I spend? 2000 / 4 / 60 = 8+ hours.

To put it bluntly: Bungie has made us slaves of this farming crap...

[mannon]

Bungie never said you had to acquire and upgrade every legendary and exotic in the game. I'm sure they expect most people will only bother with the ones they actually use and only change when there's a clear upgrade.

GL though. That does sound like a lot of grinding. Be nice if they'd dump a boatload of resources on us for doing the raid on hard or something.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 10, 2014 17:30:21 GMT -5 mannon said:

Bungie never said you had to acquire and upgrade every legendary and exotic in the game. I'm sure they expect most people will only bother with the ones they actually use and only change when there's a clear upgrade.

GL though. That does sound like a lot of grinding. Be nice if they'd dump a boatload of resources on us for doing the raid on hard or something.

I am definitely not going to acquire and upgrade every legendary for sure . Otherwise I might as well make Destiny my job...

But I do want to do that for all exotics, especially after Bungie beef up the weaker ones in the near future. I also plan to do that for all Raid weapons, which are pretty much exotics without taking the exotic spots. That's where the 2000 number comes from.

I also want to eventually acquire all exotic armor pieces, but probably won't have the stomach to upgrade them all as that would have been crazy . I am staring at 10-12 unique pieces per character, so 30+ overall. That's another 2000+ materials if I want them all upgraded...

Bungie did mention this in last week's update:

New economies to equip you with upgrade materials

I sincerely hope that this means much "funner" ways to earn planet materials...

[wings]

You will be pleased to know I exchanged 1,000 materials to the Crucible Quartermaster today, and I have 200 ready for him tomorrow. I don't see the need to fully upgrade all weapons so I only upgrade my most used ones.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 10, 2014 17:50:32 GMT -5 wings said:

You will be pleased to know I exchanged 1,000 materials to the Crucible Quartermaster today, and I have 200 ready for him tomorrow. I don't see the need to fully upgrade all weapons so I only upgrade my most used ones.

Sounds like Destiny is already your full time job

I only have so much time to play games, and I am staring at Titanfall / Destiny / AW / Halo, and potentially AC Unity & GTA V. Don't have the time to run around in circles...

I enjoy playing with different weapons though. Many of them start as "meh" but become interesting once you are more than half way past the upgrade tree. I think what I'll do is to upgrade less desired weapons to the level right before the last 4 damage upgrades, which cost 64 planet materials + AE. Only the cool ones will get these...

[wings]

Nov 10, 2014 17:52:13 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Nov 10, 2014 17:50:32 GMT -5 wings said:

You will be pleased to know I exchanged 1,000 materials to the Crucible Quartermaster today, and I have 200 ready for him tomorrow. I don't see the need to fully upgrade all weapons so I only upgrade my most used ones.

Sounds like Destiny is already your full time job

I just pick them up when ever I see them and I do all the daily story missions, get gold for public events, Vanguard bounties, and then the weekly heroic and nightfall events. I did wonder about keeping them but consumables take up space in the inventory so Bungie made them intended to be spent after a while, otherwise you could have more than 200 of a specific material only using one slot in your inventory or vault. I have played a lot but you get used to knowing possible locations and a sniper rifle is handy to double check if I need confirmation on a far distant material to pick up. I usually spend about 10 hours a day or something but then I stopped playing COD so I have more time for other games.

[psychlon]

they could just make it an achievement thing... the more you collect, the more you will collect from a single node. That could go easily to 10-20 mats per node.

[markopolo]

They do have a chest bonus for kills in an area

[mannon]

Yeah there is the grimoire bonus.

[psychlon]

Nov 12, 2014 9:57:47 GMT -5 markopolo said:

They do have a chest bonus for kills in an area

yeah... well that could be extended to nodes and beefed up a bit. 

[markopolo]

Nov 12, 2014 11:13:06 GMT -5 psychlon said:

Nov 12, 2014 9:57:47 GMT -5 markopolo said:

They do have a chest bonus for kills in an area

yeah... well that could be extended to nodes and beefed up a bit. 

Completely agreed.

It'd be nice if you could also farm mats to make ascendant shards/energies.

Call them ascendant threads... make them so that 250 threads makes a shard/energy. this way, it wouldn't be too easy but it could actively be done and obtained.

Literally, I have every piece of my legendary armour ready to upgrade to max, but because I don't have zee schardz, almost all of them are stuck in the last tier.

And don't get me started on my weapons

[psychlon]

Nov 12, 2014 11:45:59 GMT -5 markopolo said:

Nov 12, 2014 11:13:06 GMT -5 psychlon said:

yeah... well that could be extended to nodes and beefed up a bit. 

Completely agreed.

It'd be nice if you could also farm mats to make ascendant shards/energies.

Call them ascendant threads... make them so that 250 threads makes a shard/energy. this way, it wouldn't be too easy but it could actively be done and obtained.

Literally, I have every piece of my legendary armour ready to upgrade to max, but because I don't have zee schardz, almost all of them are stuck in the last tier.

what about your weapons?

[markopolo]

Nov 12, 2014 13:24:57 GMT -5 psychlon said:

Nov 12, 2014 11:45:59 GMT -5 markopolo said:

Completely agreed.

It'd be nice if you could also farm mats to make ascendant shards/energies.

Call them ascendant threads... make them so that 250 threads makes a shard/energy. this way, it wouldn't be too easy but it could actively be done and obtained.

Literally, I have every piece of my legendary armour ready to upgrade to max, but because I don't have zee schardz, almost all of them are stuck in the last tier.

what about your weapons?

That I don't have enough shards/energies for those weapons too.

Most of them are blues so I know that I'm not too attached to them because as soon as I get a purple, they'll get broken down.

[mannon]

I'm actually thinking I should have saved one or two good rares for my Hunter.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 12, 2014 14:28:07 GMT -5 mannon said:

I'm actually thinking I should have saved one or two good rares for my Hunter.

If you have multiple characters like me, do not throw away rares until you have to, especially special/heavy with 224(no upgrade)/242(full upgrade) attacks.

Ideally, you want sniper rifle / fusion rifle / machine gun / rocket launcher of each damage type on every character. It will take quite a while to scavenge that many legendary/exotic.

[psychlon]

I'm focusing on having 3 element legendary snipers/ rocket launcher and lmg. Since I have to visit the planet anyway... I just swap them around characters.

[wittyscorpion]

Nov 12, 2014 14:35:06 GMT -5 psychlon said:

I'm focusing on having 3 element legendary snipers/ rocket launcher and lmg. Since I have to visit the planet anyway... I just swap them around characters.

I am still doing that when playing heavyweight stuff (Nightfall, VoG). For lighter weight activities I am striving to have each character to be self sufficient without having to make a tower trip to pick up try hard weapons.