Destiny

Apologies for the rant, as this will be a bit ranty.

I really hate RNG. Like, it's punch the RNG person in the nads for the misery they've inflicted on me the past 2 weekends kinda dislike of RNG.

I also hate trials, like, if trials was shot from a cannon, into the sun, I'd stand, staring at the sun, T-posing, until the sweet waft of burning trials slides up my nostrils.

Now Bungo have got this idea in their silly little brain eggs that they should totally put really good PvE weapons in the most PvP of PvP modes. See also Reed's Regret.

This season it's the Cataphract GL3. This is the only big boy (heavy) grenade launcher that can roll with Bait and Switch, which is rather good at the ol' DPS increase.

So picture the scene, last week it was double crucible, so I decided on Friday "I'm gonna cause myself emotional pain and subject my very bad at PvP self to trials and nab myself a nice Baity Nade launcher, with spike, ALH or Envious assassin, and go about my weekend.

Did this happen? Sadly, and predictably, no. Fast forward to this weekend, it's Double Trials fun, so off I go, getting mullered left, right and center, getting the occasional win, very few close games, mostly 0-5, sometimes 5-0, always pain. I keep racking up that trials faction, going up the ranks, grabbing each and every engram and focussing a Cataphract.

I hit reset 5, FIVE (5) times, after using every engram to focus a Cataphract, so that's at least 80, and got quite a few (though never 7 in a row) from wins, I didn't count, but easily over 100. Until I got this niceness right here.

I really, really, really don't think that over 100 attempts at getting a weapon is really the fun and engaging activity that Bungie envisioned. Crafting is the best thing to happen in Destiny 2, at least you know you're working towards getting the roll you want, and not at the mercy of a number generating hate machine. Paul Tassi at Forbes can do one with his dislike of crafting, I'd take getting guns easier so I can use them rather than grinding something I really don't like for hours at a chance of something decent.

Thank you for your time. I really hate trials. I also probably hate Destiny.

I'll be back playing tomorrow.

Now that they're enabled again I can show off

TL;DR:

• Nightfall Weapon this week is the new Solar Bow
• Trials weapon this week is the new Strand Heavy GL.
• Some changes to weapons in Checkmate Crucible
• Gunsmith weapon focusing is coming in Season 23.
  • Allows focusing engrams into specific foundries.
  • Hakke, Omolon, Veist, and Suros are up first.
  • Other foundries coming later.
  • Older weapons moving out of the loot pool and Banshee's rotation
  • Two foundries available each day.
  • Focusing costs 3 engrams and 5,000 glimmer.

Just playing normally doing nothing special has happened back to back now.

Edit: Validated game files and still happens guess will uninstall/reinstall later

Edit2: looks like a reinstall fixed it

Big Items (IMO):

• Armor Drops in Crota's End have been redistributed
  • Abyss: helmet, gauntlets, and chest armor
  • Oversoul Throne Bridge: gauntlets, chest armor, and leg armor
  • Ir Yut: chest armor, leg armor, and class item
  • Crota, Son of Oryx: leg armor, class item, and helmet
• There was never a third chest in Crota's End (lol)
• Mars Battleground enemy density reduced on higher difficulties.
• Weavewalk is now fixed(maybe?)

Not 100% sure about the map but can confirm that Saint has Iggy in the focusing tab.

EDIT: Map is either Jav or Pacifica

Gives some background about how the crafting bug was fixed and why it was more difficult than "push button to fix".

Looks like we're getting semi-fixed recoil patterns? I don't think they explain this very well. IMO in a game like Destiny that has such heavy aim assist and bullet magnetism I'm not sure how much a difference this will make.

Thorn finally gets a catalyst in Season 23:

• Bonus Range and Stability.
• Dealing a Final Blow or absorbing a Remnant grants additional range and adds increased mobility and handling.

Some YouTube videos on the Pale Heart location and each of the new supers+aspects coming in TFS.

Check out the super videos because they do a better job of showcasing the supers+aspects in action:

• Warlocks get Sunsinger w/o self res.
• Arc Hunters get to be a PVP menace.
• Void Titans get the Uno Reverse card.

Destiny 2 was barely playable at all yesterday after weekly reset, thanks to a number of error codes being spat at players during login or travel. By evening, I couldn’t play at all, loading into empty activities that would promptly kick me out after a minute or two.

Bungie has now confirmed that these instability issues have nothing to do with the recent weapon superbug that they are in the middle of fixing, where some perks have been disabled as they press toward a larger solution. Bungie has in fact revealed these current attacks on Destiny 2 are the result of outside DDoSing. Here’s what the BungieHelp account said late yesterday:

"Over the past couple of days, we've seen a spike in error codes and disconnects. The team has confirmed that these error codes are not related to the planned fixes rolling out for the recent crafting issue and are instead a result of DDoS attacks. While we typically don't confirm…"

In the tweet, Bungie says that this has happened before, but normally they would not comment on it, as that can just aid and embolden the perpetrators. This time, they’re doing it because they didn’t want people to assume it was because of the ongoing major bug fix.

There have indeed been instances in the past when Destiny 2 was suffering from huge server issues where I was told it was in fact a DDoS attack, but Bungie couldn’t say anything due to the reasons above. But it’s a frustrating situation given that of course, the wider community will assume it’s Bungie’s fault (and I mean, sometimes it is just normal server problems) instead of an active attack. Though now in the future perhaps there will be a little more room for interpretation, given that this has happened before, it’s happening now, and it will happen again.

Bungie has been incredibly litigious as of late when it comes to people impacting the game or its community. They have sued and won judgements against several large-scale cheatmakers. They went after someone who issued false YouTube takedown notices. They were awarded a judgement against someone who terrorized their former community manager and his wife.

It stands to reason they may take similar action against a DDoSer, but finding them may be a tall order. They are doing way, way more active damage to the game than some of these other cases, but it’s notoriously difficult to hunt someone like this down. It has happened in the past, but rarely, if ever, for something like going after a video game’s servers. I’m sure Bungie would absolutely seek damages or criminal charges here, if it were possible. We’ll see what happens.

For now, the game seems to be working okay as of this morning, but it’s unclear if the attacks have ceased altogether. My heart goes out to every “fix things” team at Bungie between these attacks and the ongoing bug fixes for the wildest glitch in game history. Hell of a week (Lemon, it’s Wednesday).

Strangely no mention of fixing the crafting bug in the patch notes.

Bungie did post earlier today on Twitter that if you try to do the bug after this patch you'll get booted to orbit and that bugged weapons will be reset to their default state.

No Rollback. Crafted Weapons will be disabled in 24 hrs. Bugged weapons will be reset after that.

You will not get banned for doing it as Bungie doesn't issue bans for in-game exploits. You will be banned for any sort of hacking, external cheats, network tampering, etc.

Destiny 2 has one of the worst — and most hilarious — bugs in its history right now, allowing players to create guns with perks that are game-breaking in activities or PvP. Players can put shotgun frames on auto rifles, resulting in a weapon that obliterates someone in PvP in milliseconds due to the hugely reduced time to kill. Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, says it’s working on a fix.

Lean into it Bungie...let that shit run wild for a few weeks.

Pretty stacked exotics and legendary armor for everyone this week.

Lmao I got it with the after contest mode bug

TL;DR for what I think are big items.

• Trials matches can now drop non-adept weapons
• New Ritual Armor set available now. See TWID for picture.
• Hive portal at the HELM is fixed.
• Fixed and issue that allowed multiple Banner of War effects to stack. (?)
• Fixed unintentional champion effects on Malfeseance and Le Monarque
• Anti champion artifact perks now properly overcharge their respective weapons.
• Adjusted Kinetic Tremors to take 14 bullets to trigger on SMGs. (lame)
• Fixed the infinite power shot bug on Tessellation.

I copied Datto's Synthoceps build for this aspect. Banner of War+Into the Fray makes you basically invincible.

Shader is Carbon Blood on everything except for the mark which is Midnight Smith.

Lemmy.world keeps throwing errors on multiple pic uploads so I might do a few more of these that I made this season.

Crota's End Weapons are in the API and on light.gg now. I haven't used any yet but thought it might be cool to share our ideas for how to craft them.

I think the origin trait is a little iffy on these guns since basically all of them except the shotgun are longer range weapons so I'm not really taking that into account. It makes the gun create Thrall explosions on kill after a melee kill.

Here's mine:

Abyss Defiant (360 RPM Solar AR):

• Probably Arrowhead for the barrel to get it to 100 recoil direction.
• Dealer's choice on Ricochet or High Cal rounds.
• PVE:
  • Really interested to Heal Clip on a Primary. Probably would combine this with Incandescent for maximum Solar synergy.
  • Reconstruction/Target Lock is also solid.
  • Sword Logic is new so I'm interested to see how it would stack against the other damage perks. Probably combine with Subsistence.
• PVP:
  • Zen Moment or Enlightened Action in the first column. Target Lock or EOTS in the second column.

Oversoul Edict (Rapid Fire Arc PR):

• Rapid Fire PRs basically need Arrowhead and a Counterbalance Mod to combat their piss poor recoil. Especially if you plan to use it in PVP.
• Again High Cal or Ricochet on the Mag.
• PVE:
  • I'm looking at Demolitionist/Voltshot but there's a few other combos.
• PVP:
  • Keep Away/Headseeker and Keep Away/Moving Target seem like good options.
• This gun has stiff competition with Horror's Least though. IDK if I'd personally use it for PVP but I know Horror's Least was very hard to get.

Fang of Ir Yut (Rapid Fire Strand Scout):

• I believe this is the first craftable rapid fire scout in the primary slot?
• Even so I think it's the weakest of the bunch because of it's competition.
• Same for Barrel and Mag as the PR above.
• PVE:
  • Scouts kinda suck in PVE right now. I'd probably go Rewind Rounds with Hatchling or Precision Instrument.
• PVP:
  • I'd much rather use this in PVP but with Randy's existing it's hard to justify it.
  • I'd probably go Rapid Hit/Kill Clip.

Swordbreaker (Lightweight Strand Shotgun):

• I'm not really sure how to set up shotguns these days with Barrels. Smoothbore?
• Mag is either Assault Mag or Accurized.
• In PVE I'm probably going Threat Detector/Surrounded to combo with the origin trait.
• PVP I'm going Slideshot/Opening Shot. I'm curious to see how it stacks against Wastelander which is incredible in PVP.

Song of Ir Yut (Adaptive Frame Arc MG)

• Finally some good fucking food.
• This is only the second craftable Adaptive Frame MG and first Arc.
• I think Barrel is dealer's choice. I personally am going for higher handling w/ Fluted Barrel for better gun feel.
• PVE:
  • Voltshot all day. This thing should be VERY good at add clear. Probably combo with Demolitionist or Feeding Frenzy.
  • Now the question is does Rewind Rounds proc Voltshot when it loads additional rounds? If so then that is the clear choice.
  • You could also do Reconstruction/Bait and Switch which might be good this season on Overloads but IDK.
• PVP:
  • Zen Moment/Target Lock seems like the obvious choice.

RIP

Oh what a ride.

We only made it past bridge. Let alone the lantern phase took forever. Maybe because we were messing around with swords getting up some serious speed.

Bridge was a thing to figure out. I don't know if there was that buff back then. I only mastered the raid 8 times on OG Destiny.

So we're still out clearing on normal with the final encounter, which is doable. Gonna dig ourselves in tonight.

Though the chest after the bridge phase wasn't in the room. Did we miss something?

What are your thoughts? Did you make it within contest-mode or no?