Destiny 2: Datto's First Impressions of Season of the Splicer

So, Splicer Season. A couple of days later. I said I felt like Season 14 was going to feel an awful lot like Season 13 because of how good Season 13 ended up being compared to previous

season

s and because Bungie probably knew it was going to be good. received, thus modeling

season

14 after season 13. So far, that's pretty accurate. So, let's talk about it. Spoilers for everything. Before we get into anything though, we obviously have to discuss the launch issues. This was definitely one of the weaker releases in terms of playability. There were tons of molasses bugs for the

first

2 hours and after those were fixed, it seemed like only certain people could log into the game without it crashing non-stop.

If you were able to get into the game like I was, then everything went perfectly well after the molasses bugs went away. But if you couldn't, then you literally won't be able to play and as of this writing, you still can't play, although a patch is coming very soon. Guilty? Too many friends on your friends list. Yes, if you have 40 or more people playing Destiny on your friends list at the same time and you try to load Destiny, your game crashes, causing thousands of people to purge that random guy you met in CS:GO 6 years ago who He hasn't played.

I haven't been seen online in 2 years. But also, people were deleting people they actually knew just to connect, and while it's technically a workaround, it's actually not THE solution people were looking for. Bungie is still working on a fix, but it's very unfortunate that it happened. They obviously don't want launch problems, no one does, so they put the brakes on the launch, which sucks. Forward. Story content. Bungie made fantastic strides in storytelling last season and I don't expect this season to falter in that regard. The main story of this season revolves around Mithrax and his splicing abilities which we need to defend ourselves against the Vex who have put the city into a permanent night state, while also bringing fallen refugees into the city from House Light.

There's a LOT of politics at play here, Lakshmi-2 is back, Ikora is back, Saint is angry, Crow is... still on the field. This is what I was waiting for with Destiny. Finally. Characters that come together. Future War Cult has visions of House Light betraying us. Saint REALLY doesn't like the Fallen, understandable given his history with the Fallen. Politics, drama, conflicts, decisions that must be made. Story progression. Lots of dialogue, exposition. Who is going to be right? Who is wrong? Where do we go from here? I really don't know what more you could want on the story side besides more and maybe a little more cohesion with previous seasons.

I hope Bungie continues his great work on this side of the game and look forward to seeing how things turn out week to week. The story component of the game has gone from an afterthought to one of the main things I look forward to week after week. The Fallen section of the HELM looks great, I love all the Fallen chilling around town, especially the ones trying to figure out the vending machine. And I thought using the Plague of the Past space as a little camp for them was awesome. Let's move on to the seasonal game cycle.

Bungie has more or less taken the Battlegrounds loop and made it a little more fluid. In Battlegrounds, you needed to collect gold, turn it into a medallion, THEN run Battlegrounds, hit a chest, and THEN you got a charge to use on the decoder. This time, you farm some Ether, create a key, and THAT is your charge. Use that charge in Override and get enough data to use in the decoder to focus some engrams. BUT, you must also use this currency to upgrade the Splicer Servitor. BUT, unlike last season, you can infinitely farm Decrypted Data, the currency you use to upgrade Splicer Servitor.

There was a bit of give and take at the beginning of the season, I'm definitely having a hard time upgrading versus focusing engrams because this season's weapons are getting A LOT of praise and I want to start getting some rolls. Later in the season, after I've fully upgraded, it won't be a big deal and I appreciate that I can choose to do these upgrades if I want instead of having to wait. Both methods have their merit. The gameplay loop also maintains a similar ratio of seasonal content to main content compared to Season 13, requiring you to play the core for Ether and the seasonal to get the rewards.

As for Override itself, I really enjoy the theme of the experience. A long time ago, I remember expressing to some Bungie developers how cool it would be if public events were a little bigger than they are, referencing the ability to enter a Vex portal to fight them, kill a boss . before leaving. And 6 years later, this has finally become a reality. That said, it does feel a bit like the Season 11 event, killing a lot of enemies and dipping motes into a tower, albeit with a couple of extra steps to change things up a bit. The side portal during the

first

part was a nice addition, although sometimes people treat it like the Invader role in Gambit, where no one is really sure who is going to enter, but they are pretty sure it won't be them, whereas At other times, you are lucky to have a stay outside.

The platforming section in the second half is a nice touch, but the final boss leaves a little to be desired personally. He just becomes a chaotic crowd and nothing much happens. Enemy density was the phrase of season 13, so how do we look for season 14? Are things dense enough in Override? You know, they're close. I think there's barely enough to go around in the first part of the activity, especially when it's split evenly between the local teams and the portal teams, although I wouldn't mind seeing more enemies spawn. The boss room definitely doesn't have enough of it though, minus the Finalizer waves, but they're not very exciting to fight against.

I think that's part of why the boss meeting doesn't really excite me. Certain attacks still suffer from painfully low enemy density, Arms Dealer and Inverted Spire come to mind, but unfortunately due to the way many of these were built, with a lot more running than shooting, I don't see this being fixed. . I don't want to take away from the PvP community, but the raid playlist still needs some livening up if I want to continue working on Ether or any other seasonal activities that come after. For any possible new attacks that arise in Witch Queen, focus on shooting more than running.

The environments are fantastic, but I prefer to take a short tour in terms of distance traveled if it means I can really enjoy the gameplay experience. Speaking of weapons, Bungie has really listened to Beyond Light's feedback that the community wants more weapons. And they have, this season is packed with new and old weapons. We also have a handful of new perks, and while I can't say with 100% certainty that any of them are going to outweigh the reload speed and damage perks, at least Bungie is trying to shake things up. I'll take a look at them to see how they hold up.

Many people wonder if Hung Jury will hold up as well as it did in D1 and I'm here to crush their dreams and tell them no. And that's because in D1 the scout rifles were good. The only good explorer in D2 is Dead Man's Tale. But I guess we'll see. Speaking of weapons, part 2, the seasonal exotic. This gun has caused many people to ask me, "So am I just not using this gun correctly or is this gun not very good?" If you're using this weapon simply as a weapon you dropped by chance, in PvE anyway, no, it's not very good.

However, when combined with handgun-focused mods and a Stasis subclass, there might be a bit more hope for it, I just haven't tried it yet since I spent most of my day 2 buffing the Ritaul Composure weapon. null. , which required between 20 and 25 activities to complete. I haven't heard the best news about it either, even though it has what can be considered the only reason to USE a fusion, Reservoir Burst. However, unlike its predecessor, it is a faster-firing fusion, meaning it lacks the punch that Loaded Question had. That said, Plug.One, the current Nightfall fusion can also work with Burst and can hit a bit harder, so that's something I'd like to look into as well.

As soon as I get one to drop. I JUST got the 3 exotic boots for the season, we will talk about them soon in another video. One quick thing, apparently Sleeper Simulant was supposed to get the benefit that linear fusions got in the patch, but it didn't actually get it. This will be fixed, but not in time for the release of Vault of Glass, I just wanted to get it out there. Seasonal Mods continue to roll out in Elemental Wells, another thing we'll discuss throughout the season. I like new additions, even if you need to play with them, putting elements together to achieve the greatest effect.

I wasn't very impressed with the Elemental Wells last season and my current feeling is that the additions still won't do enough to make me want to use them due to their stricter activation conditions, but I guess we'll see. I'm really excited to start diving into seasonal artifact mods though, some of the mods here are insane. Sundering Blast stacked 2x made quick work of the overloads in the 1280 build of Nightfall, which I realize isn't saying much, but I'm looking forward to trying them all out. So? So far so good, okay? Season 13 was good, season 14 is a lot like season 13, so good season?

Well, I'd be lying if I didn't say things seemed too familiar. The upgrade network on the Splicer Servitor is... practically outstaying its welcome at this point. And since I think this season will hit similar cadences as last, that familiarity will likely lead to shorter play times since I feel like I know how the season will play out, minus the story. components. With PvP still infected with Stasis, something Bungie has only very recently acknowledged but will never go away, and with Gambit still literally being Gambit, it may be difficult to stay invested outside of Tuesdays, especially considering the state of the strike playlist.

Stagnant seems like the most generous word I can give it. Of course, we still have the weekly summit mission ahead of us, which I'm sure will be very solid and I'm looking forward to the story it will tell. SPEAKING OF PINNACLES, Jesús Datto, these transitions are crazy. Bungie has made an initially questionable move to remove pinnacles from Deep Stone Crypt, thus removing half of the reason people ran it in the first place, and the other half was weapon rolls. Instead, VoG will become the pinnacle of raid activity upon its release. Now, look, historically speaking, we've really only had one relevant foray when it comes to rewarding the highest tier loot in the game.

I understand, the only time we had multiple raids that rewarded max level items was Age of Triumph in D1, but that was more of a celebration than anything else. Originally, I had this whole big rant and don't worry, there's still a rant in this video, she's coming up. And I think the reason I initially reacted the way I did is because this is technically a new situation: a D1 raid is replacing a D2 raid as the primary raid site. And I also think part of that reaction was due to the fact that because VoG is an old raid, people assumed that both Deep Stone Crypt and Vault of Glass were going to reward pinnacles and that, to some extent, is a failure because part of the community. , we should not assume.

It's expected that when a new expansion comes out, the new raid will replace the old one, but now we have an old raid replacing a new raid, which feels a little strange. And Vault of Glass is free, while Deep Stone Crypt is paid, so we're changing a paid raid to a free one. The failure on Bungie's part is once again the lack of communication about why they chose this path, why they made the decision they did. There wasn't a single mention of Vault replacing DSC as the pinnacle raid site in any post that I can remember and if there was a mention then I apologize in advance and will gladly eat my words.

I don't know how many times I need to ask, but Bungie, for the love of God, don't say this kind of thing to the community anymore, dammit. Explain your decisions, always explain decisions, I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept. Not even a mention in the patch notes, like, come on man, this is aA bit new situation here, a little notice to clarify this would save a lot of headaches. Ultimately, I think it would be a good idea at some point to have all the raids in rotation so they can potentially all be max options, but that's been suggested for I don't know how long, so I'm holding out hope.

Luckily, leveling up this season is only 10 levels instead of 50 AND VoG only requires 1300 at launch, so it's not like you NEED to be 1320 when VoG launches to participate. But, as we've discussed in the past, leveling up isn't exactly Destiny's strong point, nor has it been for a long time. As we have mentioned, we level for what reason? Reach a high enough level to run GM Nightfalls and get a gold title that lasts 3 weeks. Or to maximize in Tests. That's all. I don't really see the harm in both raids giving pinnacles. The grinders are going to grind, Bungie.

In my opinion, leveling in its current form doesn't have to be something restrictive, the only reason I see this move existing is simply to keep max leveling at the same speed as before, despite it being an experience very empty What would have been the problem with having 2 raids with maximum rewards? Because I really feel like we're in "fit" territory, with destruction. Part of the problem is also that leveling is functional enough to not really be a big deal and that there are other more pressing things that need attention. As a result, I don't think leveling will be addressed in any meaningful way for a while.

Sorry, this whole thing probably should have been its own video. And now we come to the most and least significant part of the season: Armor Synthesis. Avoiding the elephant in the room for the moment, the revamp of the shading system is excellent and the user interface is very nice for the customization menu. All we need now are in-game loadouts or at least some sort of marking system to keep track of our loadouts and we're golden. I'm very happy to see Armor Synthesis in the game in some form. BUT. Bungie has REALLY made armor synthesis almost as difficult as it could be without spending money.

First, let me explain the actual process: you get synth threads by killing things, once you get 150, you can buy a bounty, you complete that bounty which gives you 100 stiff synth threads, which you use on the loom to turn them into a synth weave. , which you use to unlock an ornament in your customization menu. Simple. It has been discovered that there is apparently an internal timer regarding how often you can make Synthstrand drop from enemies. That timer is 2 minutes. So every 2 minutes, you will be able to get another strand from a kill. If you remember from the previous video, I said I got 4 threads in one strike and that matches that timer pretty well.

You need 150 threads to get a reward, which means you have to play for 300 minutes, so 5 hours, minimum, to get a reward, and those 5 hours assume you do nothing else with your time except kill things. THEN you need to do the bounty itself, which will take a bit of time, especially if you are unlucky enough to get the bounty for killing 40 Vanguard champions. So, that's 50 hours to get 10 rewards for one character. 150 hours to get 30 rewards for 3 characters, PLUS the time it takes to get the rewards. You're looking at about a week of play, active play time, 168 hours of active play time, to get all your ornaments in a given season.

Or you can spend that money on Eververse. Damn, man. I can't help but just laugh at this. They literally made it the most restrictive system possible. I get that people are mad about the topper limit, I get it and I hope Bungie bends on some aspects, but oh my god. Who at Bungie thought this would work well? WHO? Well, I guess the goal wasn't for it to turn out well, the goal seems to be to get people to the point where they just give up and buy it at the store. In that case, whoever designed this will be promoted because he has clearly done his homework.

It's a good thing you gave away those 10 freebies because I don't know who will have the patience to take advantage of the 10 they'll have access to over a season. For example, not only is this limited, but even the time you can actively spend obtaining the materials in the first place is limited. I understand that this isn't something you're supposed to actively farm, it's just something that's supposed to happen in the background while you play, but that doesn't make it FEEL any less terrible when explained out loud. What's the problem with allowing people to get some decorations faster?

¿Why is it so important? You don't even have shareholders, Bungie. THERE ARE NO SHAREHOLDERS WHO CARE ABOUT AVERAGE ACTIVE PLAYER TIME. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? I'll tell you, it's money. Because if they allowed people to easily get their 10 ornaments per character per season, those people might feel satisfied enough and not be tempted to spend money on the Eververse. But if you get through the season and realize you only get 3 or 4, well, now the silver looks really shiny. And we can rationalize all this by saying that it has no impact on your actual gameplay in terms of power or anything like that.

Bravo Bungie, you really outdid yourself on this one. Do you know what's really disgusting? There is always a way for them to justify these things too. Is armor synthesis slow? Does not affect the game! Like, yeah, but also, God, I hate him. Not to mention there are a couple of shaders in the collections tab right now that say "complete VoG to purchase from the EV store", I'm sure that will work great too. We'll talk about that when the time comes in case things change. Eververse is non-negotiable for everyone. OVERALL, like I said, I think season 14 will be very similar to season 13, with all those same types of rhythms and cadences.

I think there are more good things than bad, it's just that those 1 or 2 bad things hit much harder than the other, mostly good things. The activity isn't too bad, the weapons are good, the perks are good, the story is great, VoG will probably be fun, Expunge will probably be fun. But they say familiarity breeds contempt. And I worry that there is not enough change that will lead to stagnation. I imagine Tuesdays will continue to be lively. As happens every other day, that remains to be seen. Thanks for watching, see you next time.