Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/08/destiny-2-is-destiny-too.html
…
2 Likes
I’m not a fan of multi-player games. Is there a single-player (offline) component to this?
The game is now playable without a huge investment of time.
It is not at all clear this is the case until we see how the exotic drop system stacks up. D1 had a system where you could play over a thousand hours and still not have every exotic. They fixed it with 3oC, and then nerfed it because exotics dropped too much. Then un-nerfed some because the 3oC drop rate was too low (then nerfed again when people stopped complaining, and hoped nobody would notice).
Jury is out is all I am saying. The grind up to 300 light also looks very time consuming, but I only just finished the single player campaign. So far it resembles the grind from WotM era D1: exotic engrams, faction rep, raids. Slow going!
1 Like
He wasted his Romulan ale.
1 Like
I haven’t finished the story mode but the drop rate of stuff is pretty high. I’m around 175 and level 15. I’ve suffered no frustration yet.
1 Like
Drop rate of higher gear is high at lower light levels, but will slow as you reach the max. There’s a point at which blue engrams top out (260 according to players).
D1 in its final state looked like this:
Blue, purple engrams max 385 (used to be lower, I forget what it was, they raised it for AoT)
Faction rep max 390
Raids, Nightfall, Crucible max 400
The idea is that you can quickly get to a level where a lot of high level activities are within reach (IB, Nightfall, normal mode Raids) and then you have to work really hard to grind out the last 10 or so light levels. My guess on D2:
Blue engrams max 260
Faction rep max 280
Raid, Nightfall max 300
Exotic engrams max 300
I am sure there will be a grind for max light level that’s very time consuming.
ETA: looked it up to see.
It seems that all that normal business will get you up to 260, which it seems is currently the max level for blue items. After that, vendor legendaries will get you up to 265 with the ability to push them to 270 with mods. After that, it’s all about Milestones, which you can see by opening your director and holding L2.
No info on how high you can expect exotic engrams to drop at, though.
1 Like
This system and the light level at which stuff drops is so vastly improved over Y1 Destiny. The heavy lifting from 260 to 300 is clearly for players who REALLY want to make before the raid.
I think this is pretty dialed in.
God, I’d hope so. I actually did the Loot Cave thing for a while before quitting for quite a while.
1 Like
Back in the days of the Dinklebot
1 Like
kind of? I mean, you can theoretically play all the story missions on your own. But you will still need to be connected.
The multi player aspect are when you team up with 2 other players and do a mission together. Raids and such require a few more players to do it effectively.
Its kind of a half open world. You are in an open area with a random selection of other players. Random encounters and guided mini mission/events occur there where you work alongside other players.
Thanks for the info. Doesn’t sound like a game for me.
My recent favorites are the Uncharted, Far Cry, Just Cause, and Hitman games.
1 Like
If you want a Far Cry with more rando’s from the internet dropped in with you… D2 moves in that direction, but probably not to the extent you’d like it to. Single player is way shorter in D2 than the FarCry series. Generally, the single player bang for the buck is not there, the game is more focused on coop PvE, PvP activities being the real meat of the game after you’ve finished the (maybe 10 hour) story mode.
1 Like
I love how the fans of kill-repeat shooters have been slowly edged into smarter play over the last decade or so.
I often wonder how well it would fare if half life 2 were released today, even with modern graphics.
You should avoid the most recent deus ex game, mankind divided. It looks pretty in the trailers, but the game itself was a mess.
1 Like
You need to be online to actually play, but I spent most of the first Destiny effectively in “single-player” mode. You get missions that pop up on a big map and if you haven’t already selected a team when you hit start it just drops you in alone.
There are a few that require either 3 or 6 players, and if you aren’t in a team it will find random people around the same level if possible. I don’t think any of those are required to unlock the main mission progression though.
I did a few of these without any voice chat and got pretty lucky in terms of having partners who didn’t run on ahead or get lost. One time I was the one who got lost and I could see the other two guys fighting this huge monster while I tried to find the staircase to get to the boss area, finally running into the room and firing off a single rocket as the boss died. I still got all the same rewards as the other two, so I just kind of stood around trying to look useful until the mission end screen popped up and then logged off.
Any ammo or items get duplicated for all players in the area, so you don’t have to rush over trying to grab the loot first, and you’ll get points just for showing up as long as someone gets the job done. There are tournament modes that I never looked at, but you can be pretty laid-back and ignore the multiplayer aspect most of the time.
Not quite true. Every player gets their own drops, invisible to each other for the most part. Of course with the intent of removing things to fight over.
During raids, it is possible that if you dally too long after someone opens a raid chest, it will disappear. They may have changed this now, though, but in Y2 I still was running into people who had it happen to them. Haven’t played D2 enough yet to know how it handles this.
I wish the Destiny team the best of luck, but I’m going to stay with Warframe, thanks.
Ok, I kept seeing dudes run over the same spot where I saw a drop and figured they were getting the same stuff. I guess it makes sense that if I’m level 10 and you’re level 20 you’d have higher-level gear showing up.
Either way, I managed to get through a bunch of the “strike” missions without having to actually talk to anyone or worry about being online at a certain time. Most of the time I just hung out in the “patrol” zones and teamed up with nearby players whenever a walker or something spawned.
