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[nyanyanolio]

My Season of the Lost Experience [Part 1 // Contains Spoilers]

Oh Destiny 2, I just can't seem to stay away for too long. About 3 weeks before Season of the Lost Launched, I returned from a hiatus I started towards the end of the Season of the Hunt while I was sweating my brains out in Apex Legends. Now that I have no more brains I have returned to Destiny 2 to catch up and get ready for Witch Queen in February.

For whatever reason, I was not overly enthused with Beyond Light as an expansion. In fact I would say as a single offering of content it was very underwhelming and I think it got swept away by the seasonal content very quickly. The Lore was amazing but otherwise I think it says a lot that I returned to the game during the end of Season of the Splicer at power level 1245.

That being said, I really enjoyed the Season of the Splicer content and quickly binged all of it in those 3 weeks. I actually still grind the corrupted missions and seasonal activities for pulse rifle drops because those are very good this season in pve. Officially starting the season at exactly 1300 power felt really good, and I didn't mind the power grind at all while I had a rather hectic beginning of the season with some discord friends.

The Seasonal content that we got this time around in the form of Astral Alignment and the Shattered Realm which provide some of the most fun repeatable content I've seen from bungie in quite some time. I really love the Sundial-esque style as it helps each run feel just different enough that I don't hate myself by the time I get to the bosses which are awesome for how low tier content they cap off.

Shattered Realm on the other hand is a really interesting little activity in the ascendant plane that has players basically solving mysteries and using buffs provided by the seasonal vendor upgrades to explore the Ley Lines of said ascendant plane. I have absolutely loved the final boss encounters in this activity as we guide Mara Sov's tech witches back to her throne world where we have Savathün, again providing some really fun mechanics for 1-3 players.

Speaking of bosses, it's actually really fun to make them not exist this season with some interested seasonal weapon mods and a lot of buffs that went live with the season making for a large pool of Meta builds right now. The one I play with myself is focusing on the Particle Deconstruction Artifact mod which turns all fusion and linear fusion rifles into boss melting toys. Alongside my Outbreak Perfected, No Time to Explain, or Monte Carlo and my favorite Falling Guillotine, I have been having a blast playing with fusion rifles that allow me to really abuse my favorite exotic armor piece; Verity's Brow.

Gameplay aside, the story has been really fun this season playing off of the 2 most royal characters in the game, Savathün and Mara Sov. Savathün corrupted Mara's brother once before and it feels like she's going to try and corrupt Crow in some way now. Obviously the massive reveal at the start of the Season that Savathün has been osiris this whole time was rewarding for some observant players but honestly my favorite part has been watching the queens both lose Crow.

Crow finally knows that he was Uldren in his past life and has thus fled to work on other assignments for Ikora, but his back and forth experience with Savathün and Mara was really interesting especially with how badly it paints Mara not just as Uldren's sister but also his queen. This was the last big event before the ritual event that will conclude this season's story which will presumably launch just before or just after the 30th year Bungie Anniversary event as we lead up to Witch Queen.

Alternatively I've actually been diving back into Beyond Light Lore instead of the most juicy Lost content by completing Deep Stone Crypt for the very first time with some community members from the Work to Game discord which I help coordinate. It took us 2 attempts across 2 Wednesday nights to complete with a mostly new group including Brian from Work to Game got his first clear with us and that's been a blast to do and find Lore collectibles and such along the way. I Will probably talk about that first successful DSC run later to compare with whatever raid I do next.

Here we are at the end of yet another year of Destiny, with yet another great season as the game continues steadily upwards in player count. Right now I think my favorite thing to do in game is alternate farming Lost and Splicer content, getting a lot of the best rewards this year has had on offer while I gear up for Witch Queen.

Between fun content and a huge wave of buffs and some great new seasonal mods, the weapon metas have felt great. I haven't even mentioned the Trials of Osiris changes that happened this season but it's currently on hiatus again anyway so it doesn't really matter that it's awesome. I'm really glad that we have so much time until Witch Queen drops because I will have more time to try new builds in so much different content.

I'm currently working on a video for a second channel about the importance of Final Patches in MMO expansions for a second channel, and it's literally because of how good this season is on top of how well FF14 has prepared its players for the launch of End Walker next week. I'm so glad that I came back for this season and I'm also glad that I got my rest, but this season has so many great options for available content and meaningful rewards.

[nyanyanolio]

Why Is Division 2 so much easier to pick back up than other looters shooters?

Something that occurred to me about 3 weeks ago when I finally booted Div2 back up just to do the Keener mission is that; the moment that it was over, I just kept playing naturally. I didn't just wrap things up and move on, I'm now eagerly waiting for the next season to start on Tuesday.

Sometimes when I pick Destiny 2 back up (which I've also done recently) it can be really hard to get back into the swing of things (luckily not this time). But all 3 times that I've re-engaged with Div2, it just felt natural and like I knew what my options were for my next goal. I think I can sum up why in a really simple phrase, but first I'm going to do some comparisons with Destiny 2 and Outriders (sorry Borderlands but I just don't connect with that franchise anymore)

Outriders is a weird game in this space because of not being a live service game with nonstop content updates. That being said the farmable content in the endgame is pretty unique and the linearity of the game makes sure that you basically always know what's next as long as you have your desired gear loadout equipped.

Speaking of loadout, let's talk about loot. The weapons in Outriders roll with Stat bonuses just like the weapons in Division 2, but especially on legendaries they receive Destiny-esque abilities. The armor on the other hand is much more unique; basically just acting as the platform by which you build your characters stats and abilities. I think the mod system beneath the gear and the ability to upgrade gear to its full potential makes coming back after a break feel good while still making new drops immediately feel rewarding,  especially as power levels rise rapidly towards the end of the expeditions. 

I haven't had the pleasure of trying to farm in Outriders since the big legendary drop rate update which was a long time ago at this point, but knowing PCF are still taking care of players even when there's no new content is reassuring that the next time I do pick it up I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Destiny 2 on the other hand has a completely different set of problems that all seem to rhyme with too many options. When returning to Destiny the game immediately throws you into the introduction part of the newest seasonal activity and makes you finish before continuing into the parts of the game you remember, which have probably changed since the last time you played.

In some ways this is great because that means all players are acquainted with how the season works, but once you're set free there's still no real direction and lots of options. PvP has the classic appeal of unending gameplay but I would need another whole article to talk about every option for where to grind good drops for armor, weapons, and especially mods. The Vanguard and Gambit playlists are the same ever but are basically just farming grounds so especially if you don't have the season pass, all the good endgame activities are mixed in with the rest of the weekly missions.

Fortunately, Destiny has an amazing community to help make guides for new players but the game typically expects you to know what you want to do. The punishment for not knowing what you want to accomplish is being lost in a sea of great content where the only activities you will suffer in being Trials, Iron Banana, and Master/Grandmaster nightfall. Especially late in the season we vastly overpower the raids which means when we wait for new expansions there's no endgame activities blocked by power level unless you're a new player who hasn't even passed the soft cap.

Unless you have a predetermined goal or are comfortable having only 1 thing to do, Destiny 2 and Outriders can be really rough to get back into after taking a break. Even WoW and FF14 have mainline campaigns to catch you back up with current content but you also retain the freedom the just go back into hard grinding the same progression paths as always bar some story quests for unlocking new raids. Division 2 knows its place and leans headfirst into saying "here are the raids, and here's a story based seasonal format that makes great use of the world's farming content.

Unfortunately Division 2 hasn't received a second expansion yet, but it was cleared for development earlier this year. That being said I think the game deserved some air, the repeating seasons from year 2 are nice for those of us who were late to pick up Warlords, and there's certainly a market for games with an end like Outriders.

While we aren't sure about the idea of Division 3, I think there's a lot of hope. The current Division formula is super friendly to returning and new players while allowing long time players to flaunt their max SHD levels and raid weapons. I'm predicting a surprisingly large amount of communal interest in Division whenever we hear about and gain access to the second expansion, and I honestly think a Division 3 would genuinely stand toe to toe with Destiny 2 if they wanted it to. (WoW vs FF14 analogies galore)

[nyanyanolio]

[Destiny 2] The great thing about SotW

Season of the Worthy has been a weird one. Many people are saying that this could be the weakest season we've ever had and they're probably not wrong. However; I absolutely loved this season because I never felt guilty about taking time off to catch up on other games, even restarting my FF14 sub. I think that the Seraph Towers at their core were a really cool activity and I thought it was really cool when they got updated to be harder in the middle of Guardian Games. I thought the Daily Bunker Busters were a great way to start any play session and the rotation from planet to planet kept the game play as fresh as possible all season.

The only seasonal content that did not evolve in some way over time were the Legendary Lost Sectors. Ever Since the start of the season, they have rotated through the same three lost sectors per planet, and I'm fairly confident that Bungie is looking to revamp what Lost Sectors are/can be in future content releases. Given how LSS's came out (especially the Moon Ones) I think we are on track to get better and better Lost Sectors or solo oriented challenging content as time goes on.

All that being said, I think that Season of the Worthy might actually be my favorite Season of the year so far! The TL;DR is that I just loved having a bunch of smaller solo content pieces that actually fit really well into a well paced  grind I could enjoy every day. More than any other season, I think that SotW was just… MORE Destiny… just not the bits of content that I think most veteran players still expect in a content drop for Destiny. Perhaps it's arbitrary, but Spring is notorious for having the lowest numbers during a year in the world of Destiny, so when paired with content focused on passive/daily game play things should be expected to get a little stale.

Like I mentioned earlier, I've restarted my FF14 subscription (I've been meaning to get back into the story for a while now, very excited) as well as I've done a lot of work with my WoW UI and geared up my Monk. All the while I never felt guilty about not playing Destiny 2 not because there was nothing to do, but because I knew that when I felt the urge to progress again I could hop back into it at a moment's notice. I hit the 1000 power cap the day before the IO bunker opened and finished the Season Pass multiple weeks before the Guardian Games even started.

I think that more people need to accept that it's okay to take breaks. The FF14 community celebrates the fact that they can take breaks, but Square is more than okay delaying patches until they are ready for the public. WoW players don;t celebrate much of anything, but they do at least always wonder if it's a good time to return, which means they've subconsciously accepted that they have to take breaks (assuming they aren't already taking one). And any MMO player knows well that droughts happen and that MMOs don't always occupy as much time as fully as we would like. Truly tragic.

Whether people take breaks or not, I do want to highlight something I haven't heard about a whole lot this season that I actually really appreciated; the Seasonal Artifact. I’m sure I cant be the only one who has been in love with some of the mods available but especially when the season first started, the expedited leveling from the artifact itself was actually really helpful in reaching 980 as fast as possible. I have seen some people gripe about the increased amount of leveling this season, but between the 6 powerful drops we could get from Rasputin, the weekly powerful drops from towers and bunkers, and the artifact; I think leveling was very well paced. I understand that some people were upset towers were scaled a bit higher than expected, but with the normal power cap only going up 40 for most players I think it's a really good use of the pinnacle system to shorten the seasonal grind by 10 levels for most players.

As I've mentioned in my last post, I have absolutely loved the Warmind cells and having such a large variety of cool mechanics to play with is amazing. Combined with some artifact mods, I've crafted a great play style for myself and I'll be sad to see Inferno Whip go next season. I'm really interested to see how next season feels when our Worthy armor gives us access to both Dawn and Redacted mods.

To close things out, I would like to seed in you a question. Does Destiny seem like the type of game to allow breaks? Personally, I think it does even if seasons need to become fewer and longer. Thank you for reading my ramblings and I hope you've enjoyed this season or are as hyped for next season as I am.

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I ended up trashing my RiP, Im accepting it was a bit too aspiration  and moving on to my new idea for next season! I think I'm going to try to make a video showing off my favorite aspects of the seasonal artifact before the season is over, but don't quote me on that.

You can def quote me on this tho: I’m a better writer than speaker and ill be continuing to get better at posting here consistently, I really like having a spot to put my thoughts and trying to make videos was stressing me out.

[nyanyanolio]

[Destiny 2] Charged with Warmind Cells (An Armor 2.0 Rant)

When Armor 2.0 came out with Shadowkeep, I was a little bit in the dark. I didn't get Shadowkeep until about 2 weeks prior to Season of Dawn due to financial responsibilities and therefore did not really get to interact with any of the Season of Undying Mods. Now that the IO bunker is open, it sounds like we now have full access to all that SoW will be giving us in terms of Warmind Cells mods, and they are astounding.

My favorite thing about Warmind Cells is that they provide a new layer of mechanics not only in any combat scenario but also in the Armor 2.0 system. The mods themselves are dependent on you interacting with Warmind Cells, which means you must be using Seraph Weaponry or playing with someone who is. Warmind Mods even extend the life of Charged with Light Mods because of the 3 new ways to proc Charged with Light using Warmind Cells in various ways.

The current iteration of Armor 2.0 makes seasonal armor mod slots able to use mods from the season prior as well as the season after. On one hand this means your current gear should always be able to use the next seasons' mods, but it also means that if the mechanics associated with the mods are brought forward, that previous old season's loot is viable for at least one additional season. As long as Warmind cells can be used, you can proc charged with light. As long as you have season of dawn armor, you can use both Warmind cells and charged with light.

Personally I would hope this occurs every season so that all seasonal mods get to stay in the pool for as long as possible. However I do see the problem with people still using dawn armor next winter season since we will then have 3 more sets of seasonal mods at our disposal. I really like the idea of having more eays to play, but i would really like the idea of breaks at new expansions where the first season of an xpac doesnt have mods that interact directly with the previous summer's mods. This would allow the mods of the previous xpac's seasons to still be used in all armor 2.0, bu. might curb any unforseen interactions and clutter in the mod selection menu.

Overall I love the change to armor 2.0 that made seasonal slots compatible with new seasons and one season prior. I think that it was the missing piece to the puzzle that was armor 2.0's launch eith shadowkeep that we are just now seeing as we finally have at least 2 full sets of mods to play with as we look forward to the next. Spring seasons are notorious for having low engagement and I do wonder things will be like next season for players who chose to skip out on SotW because im sure that warmind cells will be very relevant for the next 3 seasons. What do you think? Is there anything more missing from armor 2.0, or do you forsee any long term problems that Bungie is creating with the system?

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Part one of my review in progress should be going up later today with part two going up next weekend. I just got my new dynamic mic and it sounds amazing so I'm excited to focus on the sound quality and editing improvements that I'll be making over the course of these next few videos. Friendly rememinder that you can find me on YouTube, Twitch, Mixer, and Instagram at Nyanyanolio

[nyanyanolio]

The final remaining issue from the acti-split. Seasonal Disconnection.

I had a thought today about the Xpac/Seasonal split between content drops in Destiny 2. I’ve thought for a long time that perhaps there are many people who play D2 that are not experienced with MMO content cycles and the way that developers support their Xpac content. Perhaps I’m misreading that situation but given how people online seem to react to most anything Bungie does nowadays i can’t help but wonder. Overall I do think that we have a community based issue/misunderstanding but I also think that Bungie kinda feeds the wolves on this one by misrepresenting what seasons are meant to do.

Destiny 2 currently drops an annual expansion with 3.5 seasons (I’ll talk about this later) to support it. With World of Warcraft (my other main MMO) as my main example, I want to draw some parallels. World of Warcraft has set a lot of examples for MMOs, especially in the form of content drops which are based on patch numbers (BFA was 8.0-8.3//Legion was 7.0-7.3.5//Warlords was 6.0-6.3.5) and even FF14 follows almost the exact same pattern, but up to x.5.

With D2, we can say that Shadowkeep by the end will have been from 3.0-3.3.5. I include the .5 because throughout Shadowkeep we have gotten an event about 2/3 of the way through the season that wraps up the main content and provides a renewed avenue of progression to finish the season off, much like the .5 patches of WoW.

With Both D2 and WoW having at one time been published by Activision and the fact that they have in the past set unrealistic expectations or even force restarted development on Destiny releases, I think it’s reasonable to say that both games strategies may have become more aligned that originally thought (look at armor 2.0 vs the corruption armor system from 8.3). To put it simply, I think that the final remaining issue in Destiny 2 from their time with Activision is that the seasons too closely resemble previous Destiny DLC releases, specifically the D1 Xpacs.

On one hand, I think the loss of both support studios can be cited as a good reason for Bungie not being able to make seasons as substantial as they were during Forsaken. In fact they literally said as much last year in Luke Smith’s first Directors Cut series. However this just leads me to frustration that they didn’t slow the release cadence.

On the other hand, I find it insanely confusing and almost insulting as an MMO player that I have to observe so many people expressing frustration with the seasonal system as a concept. There seems to be a lot of players who are convinced each season is a new xpac instead of a patch, and in a way I think Bungie actually fuels this belief by having none of the seasons directly interact with Shadowkeep’s story and content while still framing seasonal threats as being on the same scale as an Xpac big bad (Ghaul/Riven/Pyramids).

This exact problem has been an ever increasing issue in WoW for multiple expansions now. While in WoW; things like the war campaign help bridge story gaps and maintain flow from one content patch to another, Destiny 2 only really has the lore drops on Bungie.net to do that.

I think to fix this issue, Bungie needs to make seasons much more intertwined with the story of the expansion. I think Armor 2.0′s seasonal mods are a step in that direction in terms of game play, but overall we haven’t had any additions to endgame PvE since Garden of Salvation dropped. Trials and soon Grandmaster Nightfall Ordeals are welcome additions to the game, but even Trials in on the brink because of poor loot acquisition choices and GNO’s are just more of the same strikes with even more purely negative modifiers which I think will inevitably cause the same reaction as the Prestige Leviathan where people get upset over having no choices in play style due to strict modifiers.

Moving Forward, I do have high hopes for how Bungie will handle this issue. Luke Smith’s most recent Director’s Cut post seems to communicate that Aspiration will be returning to the game in a big way, and given the very iterative nature of Destiny thus far I think this philosophy with bleed through just the next Xpac and hopefully into more connected and smoother seasons. I think the biggest improvement Bungie could make given the current structure we have is to Reduce the number of seasons per Xpac to 3 instead of 4 both to give players more breathing time between content drops and to also give Bungie the time they need to make these seasons as great as possible. Xpac based story or content beats every or some seasons would probably also be insanely helpful; very close second place.

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I’m currently finishing up Pt.1 of my Season of the Worthy Review in Progress video and it should be up this coming Saturday (April 11th) it will be covering the first 3 weeks of the season with Pt.2 coming April 25th disccussing the IO bunker and the second 3 weeks. I realised I was a bit ambitious to assume I could make content once a week so RiP videos will release the week after every 3rd week of the season. I also might take some posts like this one and turn them into videos over time as well.

[nyanyanolio]

Season of the Worthy First Impressions (RiP pt.1)

[nyanyanolio]

Starting to get better at overwatch

This will probably increase how much I play it on Wednesday and Saturday (if i ever start streaming when I’m supposed to on Saturdays ): )