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Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


same, except the fighting lion

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Mill Village
Jul 27, 2007

I finally got the Telesto catalyst. It’s really fun in Battlegrounds.

GuardianOfAsgaard
Feb 1, 2012

Their steel shines red
With enemy blood
It sings of victory
Granted by the Gods

Mill Village posted:

I finally got the Telesto catalyst. It’s really fun in Battlegrounds.

Where's it dropping now?

Mill Village
Jul 27, 2007

GuardianOfAsgaard posted:

Where's it dropping now?

Legend or Master Lost Sectors. It took me like 10 runs to get it on Legend. No idea if it’s easier to get on Master.

J.A.B.C.
Jul 2, 2007

There's no need to rush to be an adult.


Okay, kinda coming around to Ticuu's Divination. It's pretty fun.

The biggest tip in Crucible is to be patient. Tag enemies with the scatter shot, and wait for them to poke out while you're aiming down. I've caught more than a few people off-guard and gotten a couple of double-kills just with the explosion from people peeking too early.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY
Using Ticuu in PVE makes this game start to feel like Warframe when you tag a whole bunch of enemies and then cook them off with matched-shield explosions. Some of the segments on Europa in particular whey're they're bottled up in a tunnel you can wipe entire waves with a few well-placed shots.

Good poo poo.

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Ticuu is good clean fun.

Now if the catalyst quest would just get fixed...

Bideo James
Oct 21, 2020

you'll have to ask someone else about the size of her cans
Ticuu + Overload Bow + The final mod slot that does bonus damage on precision shots is real nice

Sniper Kinetic
Ticuu
Newest LFR

is letting me solo legend lost sectors in about 5-7 minutes

Alkarl
Aug 26, 2011

Bonus EXP: 300
MVP: Ike
New Ally: Petrine, Greil, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Petrine, Greil, Mordecai, Lethe, Ranulf, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, Soldier, MPID_BLACKKNIGHT, Greil, Ike, Greil, Ike, Black Knight, Greil, Ike
I know its not 'good', but man. Blocking an invaders rocket with Lament with Stronghold equipped in Gambit feels hilariously good. Extra points if they panic magdump into you as you slowly advance and then one shot them with your chainsaw.

May not be meta, but its satisfying and fun.

Oxyclean
Sep 23, 2007


Bideo James posted:

Ticuu + Overload Bow + The final mod slot that does bonus damage on precision shots is real nice

Sniper Kinetic
Ticuu
Newest LFR

is letting me solo legend lost sectors in about 5-7 minutes

Is legend or master higher?

Either way, I think I need to get this set up. Only lost sector I could manage last season was the easier tier of the bunker with the friendly frames.

XBenedict
May 23, 2006

YOUR LIPS SAY 0, BUT YOUR EYES SAY 1.

Alkarl posted:

I know its not 'good', but man. Blocking an invaders rocket with Lament with Stronghold equipped in Gambit feels hilariously good. Extra points if they panic magdump into you as you slowly advance and then one shot them with your chainsaw.

May not be meta, but its satisfying and fun.

Meta is boring. You do you.

Mesadoram
Nov 4, 2009

Serious Business
Symmetry in Gambit will not stop being my favorite.

20 stacks? Ok, time to gently caress some players up.

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Champions. Are they always 90% barrier champs like they are in Battlegrounds? Really not interested in sinking 6 points of mod slots on non-LL-capped/non-exotic arms into letting snipers pierce, and lmao the scout rifles I've been having drop, no thanks. Carried the Hand Cannon mod for Unstoppable but I think I've only had one spawn total. (only LL 1268 or something like that, I don't do the high tier lost sectors currently)

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


barrier is definitely the more common champ type but also much easier to deal with, just dump heavy ammo on it if you don't want to roll a counter for it

IMO always take stagger if you're pubbing, an unmanaged unstoppable champ is too much of a pain in the rear end not to

Scrub-Niggurath
Nov 27, 2007

SkyeAuroline posted:

Champions. Are they always 90% barrier champs like they are in Battlegrounds? Really not interested in sinking 6 points of mod slots on non-LL-capped/non-exotic arms into letting snipers pierce, and lmao the scout rifles I've been having drop, no thanks. Carried the Hand Cannon mod for Unstoppable but I think I've only had one spawn total. (only LL 1268 or something like that, I don't do the high tier lost sectors currently)

Barrier is very common but the real reason to run anti barrier rounds is that it lets you ignore a lot of super annoying stuff in PvE that aren’t on champions (phalanx shields, knight conjured shields, taken vandal domes, probably something else I’m forgetting)

e: hobgoblin invulnerability was what I couldn’t remember

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Kith posted:

barrier is definitely the more common champ type but also much easier to deal with, just dump heavy ammo on it if you don't want to roll a counter for it

IMO always take stagger if you're pubbing, an unmanaged unstoppable champ is too much of a pain in the rear end not to

Yeah 90% of the time I'm doing pub stuff, and the other 10% tends to be Gambit or Crucible anyway for the clan bounties' sake. Haven't done Prophecy in a while now...

PERMACAV 50
Jul 24, 2007

because we are cat

SkyeAuroline posted:

Champions. Are they always 90% barrier champs like they are in Battlegrounds? Really not interested in sinking 6 points of mod slots on non-LL-capped/non-exotic arms into letting snipers pierce, and lmao the scout rifles I've been having drop, no thanks. Carried the Hand Cannon mod for Unstoppable but I think I've only had one spawn total. (only LL 1268 or something like that, I don't do the high tier lost sectors currently)

Lament has inherent anti-barrier, and you do have the option of running DSC for a Trustee, which is solar and always full auto. Mine has been getting a workout in the battlegrounds.

There are always unstoppable guys in the battlegrounds, pubbies have probably been burning them down while you were otherwise occupied.

edit:

Scrub-Niggurath posted:

Barrier is very common but the real reason to run anti barrier rounds is that it lets you ignore a lot of super annoying stuff in PvE that aren’t on champions (phalanx shields, knight conjured shields, taken vandal domes, probably something else I’m forgetting)

e: hobgoblin invulnerability was what I couldn’t remember

This too; I have either a Night Watch in kinetic or a Trustee in energy at almost all times, I have no time for anyone’s shield bs (also: hydra shields!!)

PERMACAV 50 fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Feb 22, 2021

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

PERMACAV 50 posted:

Lament has inherent anti-barrier, and you do have the option of running DSC for a Trustee, which is solar and always full auto. Mine has been getting a workout in the battlegrounds.

There are always unstoppable guys in the battlegrounds, pubbies have probably been burning them down while you were otherwise occupied.
I should finally get Beyond Light finished so I can go get the Lament, huh. I've been using exotics in the other slots a ton but if I can ever find a decent primary-ammo energy weapon (Bottom Dollar is about all I've got that's good and at my full LL; I've apparently been lucky enough I get one nearly every day I play Gambit) I could at least free that slot up. Yet another thing to put on the pile for the short sessions I can manage.
or just continue using my absolute mountain of False Promises, where the hell are all these Vex milk guns coming from

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Doesn't Eriana's vow have innate shield piercing?

I am finding the limitation of only scouts being a cheap shield piercing option really tough so far. IMHO there should always be two of each type.

Also the armour piercing rounds mod should either be renamed or start actually piercing itself some loving armour.

Majere
Oct 22, 2005
Yes, Eriana's Vow has innate anti-barrier rounds. And no, it does not stack with seasonal anti-champ mods like unstoppable handcannon rounds.

Synthwave Crusader
Feb 13, 2011

Anti-champion specials were a good addition and I hope next season we get Unstoppable Rockets.

heated game moment
Oct 30, 2003

Lipstick Apathy
Dead Mans Tale with anti barrier is very strong in pve based on my experience using it in the LLS. I was less impressed by anti-barrier sniper but haven’t played with it much.

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS
Anti-barrier sniper is real good on Cloudstrike, because the lightning storm has anti-barrier properties too.

Discospawn
Mar 3, 2007

Speaking of Strikes/champions, is there a reason why GM Nightfalls are still not released until the middle of the season? It feels like they should've made them available at the season's start since they added the Adept system to GM Nightfalls, but strangely they aren't even mentioned on the seasonal calendar or Bungie's season info web page.

Obviously most players won't be able to grind out enough normal + artifact Light Levels to be able to participate with something like that in Week 1, but that doesn't seem like a reason to delay it for so long.

Hobnob
Feb 23, 2006

Ursa Adorandum
Revved-up Lament is anti-barrier too, though if you're close enough for sword most barrier champions can be taken out quick enough with Falling Guillotine anyway. (Unless you're significantly below par light-level).

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS

Discospawn posted:

Speaking of Strikes/champions, is there a reason why GM Nightfalls are still not released until the middle of the season? It feels like they should've made them available at the season's start since they added the Adept system to GM Nightfalls, but strangely they aren't even mentioned on the seasonal calendar or Bungie's season info web page.

Obviously most players won't be able to grind out enough normal + artifact Light Levels to be able to participate with something like that in Week 1, but that doesn't seem like a reason to delay it for so long.

It's literally so that people can take their time to get ready for it to get levels and good rolls of weapons to match the new seasonal mods and not stress out about it. Trials happens right away because PvP nerds are by nature that competitive.

ohhyeah
Mar 24, 2016
Don’t sleep on Royal Chase being a solid scout rifle, and easy to get if you had last seasons pass. I have one with auto-loading holster that’s nice to have available.

RBX
Jan 2, 2011

From playing Trials for the pity engram the past two weeks it would be a playable mode if light levels didn't matter and if it had matchmaking like literally every other video game ever made. There's no loving way dudes two shotting me and me doing gently caress all damage back is competitive or fun. Why do I have to grind PVE to be able to do PVP poo poo. Matchmaking is common sense but the community is scared to death of what other games deal with normally.

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS
Matchmaking is pointless for trials unless your intention is to have people to beat up with your premade team. But you'll just end up against hyper competitive stacks later in your card anyway.

Coldforge
Oct 29, 2002

I knew it would be bad.
I didn't know it would be so stupid.

Eej posted:

Matchmaking is pointless for trials unless your intention is to have people to beat up with your premade team. But you'll just end up against hyper competitive stacks later in your card anyway.

Is this ever not the intention in PVP modes? :thunk:

Spanish Manlove
Aug 31, 2008

HAILGAYSATAN

Eej posted:

Matchmaking is pointless for trials unless your intention is to have people to beat up with your premade team. But you'll just end up against hyper competitive stacks later in your card anyway.

mercenary mode trials, gently caress it why not

J.A.B.C.
Jul 2, 2007

There's no need to rush to be an adult.


RBX posted:

From playing Trials for the pity engram the past two weeks it would be a playable mode if light levels didn't matter and if it had matchmaking like literally every other video game ever made. There's no loving way dudes two shotting me and me doing gently caress all damage back is competitive or fun. Why do I have to grind PVE to be able to do PVP poo poo. Matchmaking is common sense but the community is scared to death of what other games deal with normally.

Because for some reason Bungie has pretty much abandoned PvP as a mainstay of the game.

Comparing what they added and took away, the PvP side of the house has been woefully underserved. I think the only thing they added were new Trials Adept weapons with the last season, and made some Stasis balances that don't seem to be enough for a vast majority of the player base. It's one of the larger points on the 'Complain About Destiny' scorecard for a lot of folks, but PvP has been in a pretty terrible place for most of D2, and especially after the Steam migration and the return of Trials.

A lack of variety, an abundance of cheats/hacks, a stagnating standard loot pool and the loss of new content when compared to PvE has put PvP in a real bad spot as of late.

Just find some people on the discord to play your matches for your pity engram and get out. It's what most of us do.

Discospawn
Mar 3, 2007

Trials is a fundamentally flawed game mode because of its emphasis on streaks.

Trials With Skill-Based Matchmaking
If you enable skill-based matchmaking (with a large player population and perfectly accurate MMR calculation), every match would be a 50/50 shot of winning for both sides. Assuming they could implement this, teams would get the following odds for the reward tiers for each card attempt (assuming players use the Mercy card to forgive a loss and only reset their card when their card has failed):
3-Win - 77% (virtually guaranteed)
5-Win - 50% (still good enough odds to reset your card a few times to go for)
7-Win - 27% (definitely harder to achieve, especially because you may fail a card after 6 wins, which means you've played 10 full games before deciding whether to reset and try again)
Flawless - 3.5% (Unjustifiable in terms of time/effort vs. rewards. Like the lottery, there will be some teams that achieve it, but it's not a good investment. As a result, Flawless rewards would not go to the highest skilled players, but simply the luckiest or those who played the game an absurd amount.)

That's assuming all of the MMR systems are perfect, a perfectly accurate rank with no manipulation of the MMR being possible. This would be impossible to implement, as most MMR calculations will look at winning streaks as a sign that your MMR needs to be dramatically increased, which directly conflicts with Trials' core reward mechanic. Looking at Bungie's history with competitive PvP & skill ranking, there would likely be even more fundamental problems with trying to implement this IRL (especially with the consideration that Individual MMR and Team MMR can be very different things).

It's a poor design because with this ideal skill-based system you would have these intense, closely matched PvP games that go back-and-forth and really motivate players to improve over time and play their best each game, and it wouldn't matter with regards to a player's success in achieving the rewards. Players would instead realize that it was just as efficient to play halfheartedly and grind out games and/or hope you get lucky (assuming your MMR would somehow update instantly to reflect your unengaged playstyle).

Trials Without Skill-Based Matchmaking
So instead of trying to deal with any of that, you have the current Trials game mode. The issues have already been made apparent, where players/teams below a certain skill level have a dramatically lower chance of winning each match against the average Trials team. You can re-do those same calculations above, with the assumption that your team only has a 25% shot of winning a given match (a category of players who might be more than 25% of the player population since being even slightly below the average skill level might dramatically lower your win percentage):
3-Win - 24% (An average of 4 resets required to achieve. 4 resets can be anywhere from 19-30 games assuming you only reset once your card is ruined)
5-Win - 5% (average of 20 runs required, from 85-165 games )
7-Win - .76% (that's a point 76 percentage chance, so that's never going to happen in a single weekend)
Flawless - .04% (you get the point)

Obviously, as players below this threshold of skill level recognize the unrewarding nature of the game, they stop participating in it. This means that the player base gets smaller, but the same problem remains where a significant portion of population will now have their winrates drop to 25%, causing the cycle we've seen since Trials was introduced.

In conclusion, Trials can get hosed.

Discospawn fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Feb 22, 2021

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS
The player base (on Reddit) loves the idea of Trials even if they have never punched a flawless card in their life so that's just the way it's going to be forever.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Really not looking forward to week 8 when I'm expected to somehow get 7 wins. Even if I manage to scrape a win, I'm just going to feel bad about the person I beat - if they're worse at PvP than me, that's going to be a soul crushing grind of a weekend.

Or week 6 asking to do a GM nightfall. I am going to need to be carried so hard I will be loving embarrassed for whoever has to drag me through. And even then that's not a test of skill, that's a test of being able to use LFG or one of those completion services Facebook leeps trying to advertise to me.

My enthusiasm for the season system has just plummeted after those two discoveries, along with realising how little dust the challenges are actually worth.

I'm basically only playing now to see what bright dust stuff is in eververse, and even that is pretty pointless since I tend to use the same ship, sparrow and emotes I have for the last year or so. I think Excessive Elbow is the only new one I've been even remotely excited about.

I think I'm paid up for the next two seasons, but I'm starting to feel like I might quit anyway. I wonder how much 'gently caress it, I've paid for it now' is boosting their emgagement figures though.

SUNKOS
Jun 4, 2016


J.A.B.C. posted:

Comparing what they added and took away, the PvP side of the house has been woefully underserved. I think the only thing they added were new Trials Adept weapons with the last season, and made some Stasis balances that don't seem to be enough for a vast majority of the player base. It's one of the larger points on the 'Complain About Destiny' scorecard for a lot of folks, but PvP has been in a pretty terrible place for most of D2, and especially after the Steam migration and the return of Trials.

It took way too long, but at least Bungie eventually listened and changed it from 4v4 to 6v6 and although the implementation is not perfect and let down by a lack of commitment to PvP, at least they brought back Trials as well.

At the end of the day however, both of these were cases of "Why the hell wasn't it like this at launch?" and their anti-support with vaulting so much content when PvP desperately needs more has been nuts since multiplayer is what kept D1 alive and what gave Bungie their prestige as a development studio in the first place with the Halo games. Hopefully with the shakeup and new hires we might see a realigning of priorities.

RBX
Jan 2, 2011

Eej posted:

Matchmaking is pointless for trials unless your intention is to have people to beat up with your premade team. But you'll just end up against hyper competitive stacks later in your card anyway.

Honestly who gives a gently caress. Oh no I lost. At least I didn't have to go out my way outside the game to do it. I can just chill quietly by myself and lose until I get my engram. Every game has stacks. I've beaten many a stack in many a game. People are so scared of just losing in this game for some reason.



Discospawn posted:

Trials is a fundamentally flawed game mode because of its emphasis on streaks.

Trials With Skill-Based Matchmaking
If you enable skill-based matchmaking (with a large player population and perfectly accurate MMR calculation), every match would be a 50/50 shot of winning for both sides. Assuming they could implement this, teams would get the following odds for the reward tiers for each card attempt (assuming players use the Mercy card to forgive a loss and only reset their card when their card has failed):
3-Win - 77% (virtually guaranteed)
5-Win - 50% (still good enough odds to reset your card a few times to go for)
7-Win - 27% (definitely harder to achieve, especially because you may fail a card after 6 wins, which means you've played 10 full games before deciding whether to reset and try again)
Flawless - 3.5% (Unjustifiable in terms of time/effort vs. rewards. Like the lottery, there will be some teams that achieve it, but it's not a good investment. As a result, Flawless rewards would not go to the highest skilled players, but simply the luckiest or those who played the game an absurd amount.)

That's assuming all of the MMR systems are perfect, a perfectly accurate rank with no manipulation of the MMR being possible. This would be impossible to implement, as most MMR calculations will look at winning streaks as a sign that your MMR needs to be dramatically increased, which directly conflicts with Trials' core reward mechanic. Looking at Bungie's history with competitive PvP & skill ranking, there would likely be even more fundamental problems with trying to implement this IRL (especially with the consideration that Individual MMR and Team MMR can be very different things).

It's a poor design because with this ideal skill-based system you would have these intense, closely matched PvP games that go back-and-forth and really motivate players to improve over time and play their best each game, and it wouldn't matter with regards to a player's success in achieving the rewards. Players would instead realize that it was just as efficient to play halfheartedly and grind out games and/or hope you get lucky (assuming your MMR would somehow update instantly to reflect your unengaged playstyle).

Trials Without Skill-Based Matchmaking
So instead of trying to deal with any of that, you have the current Trials game mode. The issues have already been made apparent, where players/teams below a certain skill level have a dramatically lower chance of winning each match against the average Trials team. You can re-do those same calculations above, with the assumption that your team only has a 25% shot of winning a given match (a category of players who might be more than 25% of the player population since being even slightly below the average skill level might dramatically lower your win percentage):
3-Win - 24% (An average of 4 resets required to achieve. 4 resets can be anywhere from 19-30 games assuming you only reset once your card is ruined)
5-Win - 5% (average of 20 runs required, from 85-165 games )
7-Win - .76% (that's a point 76 percentage chance, so that's never going to happen in a single weekend)
Flawless - .04% (you get the point)

Obviously, as players below this threshold of skill level recognize the unrewarding nature of the game, they stop participating in it. This means that the player base gets smaller, but the same problem remains where a significant portion of population will now have their winrates drop to 25%, causing the cycle we've seen since Trials was introduced.

In conclusion, Trials can get hosed.

All of that is cool and correct but the light level bullshit makes it all moot.

McLarenF1
Jan 9, 2004

Looking to Buy a McLaren, Anyone Selling One .... Cheap?

Eej posted:

The player base (on Reddit) loves the idea of Trials even if they have never punched a flawless card in their life so that's just the way it's going to be forever.

Which subreddit are you reading? Every source I've looked at, SA, r/DestinyTheGame, r/Destiny2, and YouTube, generally hates trials and the lack of PvP support.

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS

RBX posted:

Honestly who gives a gently caress. Oh no I lost. At least I didn't have to go out my way outside the game to do it. I can just chill quietly by myself and lose until I get my engram. Every game has stacks. I've beaten many a stack in many a game. People are so scared of just losing in this game for some reason.

People are gonna be real mad when they lose at 6 because they got matchmade with a potato they had no control over

McLarenF1 posted:

Which subreddit are you reading? Every source I've looked at, SA, r/DestinyTheGame, r/Destiny2, and YouTube, generally hates trials and the lack of PvP support.

DTG has an extremely strong contingent of people who believe in the purity of the Trials experience dating back to D1 and all Bungie has to do is X, Y, Z and it'll be amazing and the best again.

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SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

McLarenF1 posted:

Which subreddit are you reading? Every source I've looked at, SA, r/DestinyTheGame, r/Destiny2, and YouTube, generally hates trials and the lack of PvP support.

Genuinely laughed when I saw that, yeah - I can't remember the last positive thread about Trials or Crucible in DTG, and I'd be struggling to think of the last unambiguously positive thread at all.

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