Can y’all explain to me why you’re trying to block stuff?
This is weird.
I’ve set Windows Firewall to block both TCP and UDP, both incoming and outgoing connections, for both local and remote ports. Before I was blocking:1935, 3097, 3478-3480
So this time I added to the rules the range 62000-65535
Trying the vanguard strike playlists. The first time matchmaking worked fine. So I made a change to the rules, before I had them applying only to Destiny .exe, so I changed them to be for all programs.
Trying again, same playlists. I got two times into a strike solo. This happens, though, and it’s not enough to verify that the rules are working. Many times that I tried to run a strike solo, at some point during the mission I got players joining anyway. In all cases I got a full party before reaching the final boss. So ending up in a strike solo doesn’t guarantee that you’re acually solo till the end.
The third time, though, I got in with other two players. So the rules, again, aren’t quite working. Or not perfectly.
What’s weird is that then I went to the Tower. This is usually the ultimate check, because I’ve never been able to be in the Tower instance completely solo …Instead this time I was. I moved to EDZ, still solo. Back to the Tower… and it took a reeeeally long time on the loading screen. I seem to have spawned with a large crowd of other players all at once. Maybe a server hiccup.
Anyway, it’s still not reliable, and as I said what usually happens is you get to spawn solo, but eventually other players get dumped in at a later point. So it’s not a good solution.
The best explanation for this I was given is that blocking ports puts you in a sort of “closed NAT” status that the game somewhat recognizes. But the result of this is that you get matchmade with other players that also have a closed NAT. Being this group of players less numerous it means that matchmaking fails more frequently, but not that it’s avoidable.
In any case, the only behavior I observed is that the game connects on port 7500, then opens an instance for missions or open areas at port 30.000. That’s all. I’ve never seen direct connections to other players, and I don’t know if this is due to the move to Steam.
Basically to be able to explore and check out the cool areas and play at your own pace.
If you haven’t played enough to know this, when you’re playing a Strike, you’re matched together with two other players, and whenever any of the players hit certain checkpoints, the other two players are teleported to that area if they are more than a certain distance away. So when I play a Strike, I’m always being teleported to the next checkpoint by one of the players. There’s no way to avoid that except to play with only people you know, or what these guys are doing, which I didn’t know about until now, effectively making it single player.
Huh, alright.
Forsaken was good, but Shadowkeep is a crap imo. Its just content reused from D1 to keep players happy while Bungie figures out a better way to make the game popular for the masses. I don’t think they have reached the ‘pinnacle’ popularity they want… ie Fortnite and LoL territory, and they never will. At best they have the WoW Raid type players which maxes out at dlc dollars every three months per player which isn’t the same as microtransaction subs from millions. The sad thing is, Destiny has some of the best gunplay and feel of any shooter, but its wasted, IMO on a really outdated mmo dlc/sub model dangling out one raid per 3 months. But i get it, its expensive to make these games, so they max the profits in any way possible.
There’s a reason why they’re all sucking up to Beijing … there’s a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow and it doesn’t need to be a great game. just addictive and popular enough to drain players wallets.
…That was intense. My hands were shaking at the end.
The very first time I was able to run a strike fully solo, and win it.
As you can see it doesn’t quite work well as someone else was still able to join me. But thankfully this happened right AFTER I killed the boss at the end. He arrived after I opened the pot of loot.
Strikes usually take 10 to 20 minutes. Doing this solo took me an hour. I wasted quite some time getting lost in the caves outside, they seem to lead to nothing at all. Though I skipped the other enemies on the surface outside.
I also died only two or three times, and that’s good because there are quite lenghthy sections to repeat. I had to play very, very conservatively at the last boss to win. The fight took a very long time, but it was done on the first try.
Done at 767 power (including 3-4 from artifact), the Khvostov, Sunshot and a standard grenade launcher. All three at 750 power.
This is the game at its best for me, besides some nitpicks about encounter design. I wish all the game was playable at a similar difficulty.
I bounced off the original and Forsaken but Shadowkeep is what finally got it to stick with my friends and I. Being a game developer must suck in a lot of ways. :)
If you manage to equip a telesto somehow, you’ll drop down further in itemlevel as the gun is disabled (or was).
Which results in this:
i.e. challenge mode :)
Yeah, if you look up I already tested all of this. I can go down to 98 power, not just 600 :)
But as I also tested, they didn’t implement any level scaling. So everything is immune to damage from 749 going down. At least Warmind content and up. For all other content there’s no level scaling either. So you can damage everything even at 0 power.
There are some strikes that you can do fine at 98 power, but then everything turns to immune with the last boss.
Summary: all legacy content has no scaling. Hence your power level doesn’t matter.
I’m trying to stick with this as it’s what my coop group is currently binging, but I’m having a mediocre time because a lot of activities are locked behind quest chains, and the quest system is somewhat convoluted. e.g. “get some number of final blows against this enemy type doing this activity in this region with this weapon type doing this damage type.”
To clarify, that’s not the quest, that’s just the bounty-requirement needed to fulfill the challenge-requirement to make progress in the quest.
I jumped back in to check this out when they made the move to Steam (transferred my characters from Battle.net). I still really have no clue what’s going on in terms of the plethora of stuff they throw at you (literally, stuff; the inventory type screens are nearly impenetrable). The second to second dakka dakka though is great. Gunplay is one thing Bungie gets 100% right. It’s still a hoot to do public events and solo quests simply because running and gunning rocks.
Now, progression, I have no clue. Hell, it seems they even removed the storage you had? I can’t find the storage locker thingies in the Tower anymore. Gear obviously requires some sort of play options that I haven’t figured out, probably multiplayer focused, because the gear I’ve found in the open world stuff is dreck, as to be expected. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to have in terms of the current meta, etc. None of this matters too much, as to me it’s more of a jump in and shoot stuff thing rather than a MMO type experience where I really give a shit.
The storage lockers, the vault, are somewhat obscured by the Halloween decorations. They are near the gunsmith.
Thanks! The Tower is a clusterfuck of obfuscation right now. Eh, it’s always like that I guess.
If I’m starting from zero do I need to buy forsaken and shadowkeep while they’re on sale?
I’ve gotten by without the expansions so far, so I don’t know if “need” is the right word for the expansions. That said, they do enable some new areas, equipment, and gameplay modes, so I’d say they definitely offer value. It depends on whether you think you’ll exhaust the vanilla content.
I mean, I’d be tempted if I wasn’t already trying to work through my very large backlog of things I bought during last year’s holiday sale.
If you like the gameplay, then definitely get them. They add an enormous amount of content, and most of it is really good.
Is it strictly endgame content or leveling content too?
Both. Leveling is odd in D2. Your character doesn’t level at all, he just gets better gear with increasingly higher “light scores.” It goes up fairly quickly doing any content at all, then it slows down quite a bit at the soft cap.
Most of the content is horizontal in terms of power growth. Each expansion has a host of legendary and exotic gear pieces and ways to farm them. Until you get to the very end of the endgame, most of that gear remains viable, and you have enormous latitude to choose based on playstyle. There’s a ton of fun stuff to chase.
There’s no easy way to answer these types of question because of the structural mess D2 is currently in.
In general if you enjoy the game and expect to be onboard for the longer term, then you probably need everything, maybe excluding Forsaken.
If you are just testing the waters you either go free, or buy the season pass that will give tons of materials while you play. Yet this isn’t a good idea, I’ll explain at the end…
So, the general problem is what I described in the whole thread and that has been covered even by general news, there’s no “starting from zero” because the typical progression to the content is not there anymore. You start at power level 750, and that means above ALL legacy content.
This means that all the content part of the ideal progression from zero is already “behind you”. You can do it, and there’s a good amount of stuff to go through, but it’s very, very easy, making the gameplay itself very bland, and so not even a good introduction to why people play Destiny.
At the same time, every tiny thing you do as you step in the game counts as character progress. You could even ignore all that content and you’d still progress just fine, and really fast. “Content” and progression are disconnected. Going from 750 to 900 is very fast even playing very casually. The first softcap is at 900, at that point the star map will give you icons for those activities that give powerful rewards and that make you progress from 900 to 950. Even here, none of the “content” matters, for character progress. From 950 onward progress grinds to an halt and is essentially reserved to dedicated guilds, more or less.
For all this none of the content enters the picture, at all. The only exception being the stuff you wear and use. Some exotic quests for special weapons are indeed tied to Forsaken, Shadowkeep and Season pass. So, character progress is one thing, removed from content. Item progress (or rather type, unique items) is instead partially tied to what you buy.
By default you have plenty of stuff available, but there’s “more” stuff behind the paywalls. (but, even then, much of old stuff is mechanically outdated anyway, if you care about performance)
Forsaken itself is a separate purchase. It was the best expansion and content, but this isn’t valid anymore: lots of content of Forsaken is already integrated in the free version. Then some other stuff, like a lot of the post game and some of the quest flow that made Fosaken a meaty and remarkable expansion, has been gutted entirely. It’s just not there anymore. So, after you remove the stuff that was cut, and the stuff that is part of the free game, what’s left is the shorter campaign and the exotic items still part of that purchase. When you buy Forsaken today you don’t buy the Forsaken that was and many players still recommend. The shorter campaign is still the best campaign, but it’s both made easier and much shortened compared to what it was originally.
Then there’s Shadowkeep and season pass. I don’t know exactly when, but this week the current season pass ends. All the content is gone. IF you buy Shadowkeep AFTER the current season ends, the purchase will include the next season pass, covering the next three months (don’t buy anything until this happens). The pass by itself is $10, very, very scarce of content, but gives you tons of mats that are useful if you plan to play the game instead of just visiting it.
So, you either go free, and won’t miss much. But it means you’re just visiting and aren’t exactly on board for what Destiny wants to be. Or to be up to date you’ll need Shadowkeep, that includes the Season Pass at some point this week. Forsaken being an optional purchase, for that campaign content that is still a pale version of what it was, and whatever exotic quests and content it had.
I’d probably wait a sale to get that stuff.
EDIT: When I mention the Season Pass it’s not the Season Pass you might buy with Shadowkeep, but the single, three months, “Season” that comes with Shadowkeep base version. I think there’s an optional “Season Pass” that includes the whole year.
Big issue with the Season pass, or more specicically the rewards and achievement.
Unless you have a LOT of time to spend to get them, do not even bother looking at it.
Considering I do not know how much time I have to spend on Destiny 2 for the next season I am not sure I’ll even buy the season pack, as I’ll miss out on so much of the “content” and “rewards” unless I can dedicate streamer-amount of time to it.
In addition some of their quest design is mind-boggling fucked up, like doing a strike requiring YOU to get a special kind of kill, except you’re matchmade with 2 others who are NOT trying to do that, or ALSO, so you are fighting your team mates to get quest progress instead of sharing progress anyone makes.
Shouldn’t be surprised though, bungie is known for making quests that go counter to the game mode you are playing, for some fucking reason.