Tag: Bungie
Best of 2021 Awards – Best Multiplayer
Best Multiplayer – Halo Infinite Tom: I’d never been a big Halo guy because I’m a PC snob and it was alright, but I didn’t get the big deal. Infinite made ME the guy that wouldn’t shut up about Halo when I was playing Halo, when I was planning to play Halo, and whether I […]
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What is the Power Cap for The Witch Queen expansion in Destiny 2?
The Witch Queen expansion in Destiny 2 is almost here. We’re a little less than a month away from launch, and players are getting antsy....
The post What is the Power Cap for The Witch Queen expansion in Destiny 2? appeared first on ISK Mogul Adventures. Written by .
Iron Banter: This Week In Destiny 2 – Readying For Raid Day And A Merciful Respite From Blue Engrams
Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it's story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what's going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what's drawing our attention across the solar system.
A little less than five weeks remain before the launch of The Witch Queen in Destiny 2, meaning we're now in the clean-up portion of the Season of the Lost. It's a chill time, at least, when players get to finish up seals like Moments of Triumph or farm Grandmaster Nightfalls for a bit. I still haven't seen a lightning round in Dares of Eternity. Whatever.
The real draw of the next few weeks (other than the final culmination of the Season of the Lost happening in there somewhere) is the trickle of information about everything that'll come with the next expansion. We've gotten a few teases in the form of trailers, and we're getting new tidbits in each This Week at Bungie blog that comes out along the way. This week, we found out about the new Power level cap coming with the Witch Queen, as well as the launch of its new raid. The date on that one is 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on March 5. We're planning to stream our Day One attempt at clearing the raid when it goes live, so stay tuned for more information on that.
As for the Power cap, it's jumping up another 200 levels to 1560. The new Power floor is 1350, a touch higher than it is now, and all players who jump into the game will find themselves at that level--even if they're new to Destiny 2 or they've lapsed for a while. So the good news is, you don't need to do any grinding right now to get in position for The Witch Queen. However, you are going to need to play the new story campaign and the activities of the expansion in order to get ready for the raid.
All that said, get ready for blue gear drops to matter again--you'll need them to push up to the new Soft Power cap of 1500. After that, you'll need to pursue "Powerful" gear drops from specific activities to climb up to 1550. To get to the final Hard Power cap of 1560, the highest number your gear can attain, you'll need to chase "Pinnacle" gear drops from endgame activities. If Beyond Light and the Deep Stone Crypt are any indications, expect to need to hit around 1530 to be ready for the raid.
Speaking of blue drops though, Bungie also announced it's making some changes to gear drops in The Witch Queen, while also altering the economy some. It's a bunch of quality-of-life changes that sound excellent.
Blue Blues
There are a lot of little things being altered about the gear economy in The Witch Queen, but my favorite is a reduction in Rare weapon and armor drops--the ones that are colored blue. Those drops occupy a very specific place in Destiny 2's gear grind: They're only really necessary when you're leveling up with a new expansion. When The Witch Queen drops and everyone starts at Power level 1350, every piece of gear they pick up will be of a higher level, and equipping that gear is how you raise your character's overall Power. Blue drops, the most common in the game, will come fast and furious as you kill enemies out in the world. They'll allow you to boost yourself up to 1500.
Once you hit 1500, though, only purple Legendary drops matter--Prime Engrams and Powerful gear rewards are what you need to increase your overall level toward 1550, and those are only Legendary. Blues only ever drop at your current level once you've hit the Soft cap, which means that for anybody who's playing the game regularly, blues become items you instantly dismantle for their parts.
So Bungie is reducing the number of blue drops players have to contend with--although, since blues are necessary for leveling, they're not going away entirely. Once you hit the Soft Power cap, though, you'll stop receiving blue drops from playlist activities like Strikes and Gambit and Crucible matches. Instead, you'll only receive Legendary drops, or a smattering of the materials you'd otherwise get from breaking down blue gear, essentially saving you the step of deleting all those useless weapons and armor pieces yourself.
This is a thing that I've been waiting for, personally--I'm a person whose inventory is constantly full, and blue drops often find their way to the Postmaster, where lost items and inventory overflow wind up, as a result. And I don't clean out my Postmaster, because I need that space since my Vault is perpetually full. So when a bunch of stupid blue drops wind up in my mailbox, they crowd out the other gear I've been holding there, hoping to hang onto (or that I still haven't decided if I want to keep or not). When your mailbox is full, the oldest items in it get deleted first. Thus, stupid blue drops I'm just going to delete anyway literally rob me of guns I want. (Yes, I know this is the fault of my own disorganization and inability to stop hoarding items--I don't care.)
So anything that gets rid of extra blue drops is awesome. In fact, it'd be great if we could just eliminate them altogether once you're at the Soft cap, if you ask me. Barring that, anything that reduces the amount of inventory management I have to do at any given time just to play the game is a positive change. I'd love to see Bungie do more quality-of-life stuff like this, automating the deletions I'm going to make anyway. Just give me the Glimmer, that's all I really want.
There's other unnecessary stuff being knocked out of the economy, too. Gunsmith Materials and Telemetry are gone in The Witch Queen, another boon to my bloated inventory. Instead, the Gunsmith vendor will function like other vendors in the Tower--you'll gain reputation points by doing their thing (in this case, smashing apart guns, I guess), and earn rewards when you do enough of that.
The reputation system as it stands isn't perfect, necessarily (it takes way too many Strikes to get stuff from Zavala, for one), but if you ask me, these systems are better than having tens of obtuse currencies that have limited uses and are scattered throughout the game. In fact, anything Destiny 2 can do to cut back on the number of crystals, tokens, prisms, cores, materials, and bones and worms that are their dollars, would be great. They feel like stop-gap solutions for introducing new mechanics, but they always needlessly complicate the game. There's plenty to keep in mind already. We don't need to feed piles of gun parts to a robot in the Tower to get more guns.
So I'm all for anything that streamlines Destiny 2. Of course, that's an ongoing process and the feeling I get is that it's a lot easier to complicate the game to make it work a little better than it is to de-complicate it. But there have been positive steps of late, and this is another one. Anything that lets me gather less junk while I'm trying to shoot people.
It's been a light week, so that's it for me. Don't forget to visit Xur and grab his high-stat ST0MP-EE5 and Phoenix Protocol, because he has some pretty solid rolls this week. And as always, feel free to leave your own impressions about Destiny 2's upcoming changes, and anything else, in the comments below.
The 10 Best Free Xbox One Games
The Xbox One has been around for more than eight years, and during that time it has amassed a sizeable collection of free-to-play games across several different genres. If you can't afford (or just don't want to) spend cash on a game or you're just not sure if you're going to like the latest hit, free-to-play games on Xbox One are a great option. And if you're holding out to buy an Xbox Series X, having all that extra cash is a big help. We've rounded up the best free Xbox One games so you can have a great time without breaking or even touching the bank. Don't even think about a bank, in fact--unless you start buying microtransactions in any of these games, of course.
Apex Legends
It's fitting that Apex Legends--a spin-off of the criminally underappreciated Titanfall and Titanfall 2--would also happen to be one of the best free-to-play games on Xbox One. Set in the same universe as the Titanfall games but with a hero-based battle royale spin, Apex Legends draws just as much inspiration from Call of Duty and Overwatch as it does from Titanfall. With an emphasis on the different playable characters' unique roles, team composition is an important part of success, and both the maps' verticality and plethora of gear you can pick up add an element of strategy not seen in some other online shooters.
See our Apex Legends review.
Halo Infinite (multiplayer)
Microsoft went to a different release model with Halo Infinite than past games, opting to make the campaign a premium experience while offering the multiplayer for free across Xbox consoles, PC, and the cloud. This change has led to a few rough edges--the progression system needs some work--but Halo Infinite's multiplayer is also the best competitive mode in the series since Halo: Reach. Fantastic map design, a good mix of old and new weapons, and a focus on the simple "shoot the other team" gameplay that made the original games work is key to its success. Oh, and you can put cat ears on your Spartan, if you want.
See our Halo Infinite multiplayer review.
Fortnite
Could there possibly be a list of the best free-to-play games without Fortnite? The most popular video game on the planet--and one that has remained on top for several years--Fortnite's success story is odd in that it began its life without having its signature battle royale mode at all. Since that pivot, however, it's grown into a juggernaut, complete with in-game concerts, crossovers, with just about every major franchise you can think of, and a bizarre in-universe lore that has made way for massive changes to the battle royale map. With cross-play support, you can play it with friends on just about any system, too.
Rocket League
Free now after previously costing 20 bucks for years, Rocket League seems like it was conceived by a seven-year-old who wasn't paying attention during class. Essentially a big game of soccer but with rocket-powered cars in place of the players, the hectic sport sees vehicles zipping across the pitch and through the air as they attempt to knock the giant ball into their opponents' goal while defending their own. While a simple enough premise in theory, Rocket League is very difficult to master, with the best players maintaining expert control as they knock a ball into the net.
PUBG: Battlegrounds
The battle royale game that kicked off a massive trend across the industry--though it wasn't the first game in the genre--PUBG: Battlegrounds (formerly PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) doesn't have all the bells and whistles of its competitors. There's no building structures and there aren't character classes. Instead, it takes a slightly more realistic approach to the concept, dropping you on a gritty island as you scavenge for weapons, ammunition, armor, and medical gear. Stealth and escape are often the best tactics in PUBG: Battlegrounds, as it only takes a few shots to send you to an early grave.
See our full PUBG: Battlegrounds review.
Warframe
Sure, Destiny has certainly improved a lot over the years, but there was a point when a free-to-play game was pretty much eating Bungie's lunch. Warframe combines multiplayer action, third-person combat, and extensive character customization together, and the game will also be getting a cross-play feature in 2022. This way, all your friends can squad up and take on its tough cooperative challenges--all for free--even if one person is on an Xbox One while another is playing on a Nintendo Switch.
See our full Warframe review.
Splitgate
"Halo meets Portal" might sound like an idea that someone only thought of for a few seconds before tossing it in the trash, but somehow, Splitgate takes that crossover concept and turns it into one of the most compelling multiplayer shooters around today--free or otherwise. By giving you the ability to create portals on the map and shoot through them, the basic gameplay loop of shooting, finding cover, and shooting again has been flipped on its head. Nowhere is safe, because an enemy 50 yards away is also, potentially, right next to you. The strategies you use in just about every other shooter won't work in Splitgate, and that's what makes it so successful.
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis
Phantasy Star has been one of the most compelling RPG series for decades, beginning as a Final Fantasy competitor that instantly differentiated itself with sci-fi elements. With the updated MMO Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, it continues to impress through gorgeous environments and flashy combat. For action fans who may not usually be interested in the skill-bar-based combat of some other online role-playing games, New Genesis is a great alternative, and with six different classes available, you can find one to fit your own play style.
Dauntless
Monster Hunter, but free? Not exactly, but that's basically the elevator pitch for Dauntless. Just like in Capcom's series, you'll be teaming up with other players as you venture out into the unknown and take down mon… er, "Behemoths," though the game's style take it in a more science-fiction direction than Monster Hunter ever has. Because of cross-play support, you can play it on Xbox One with friends across PlayStation, PC, and even Nintendo Switch, and special modes like Escalation will challenge your boss-killing ability in a marathon of combat.
See our full Dauntless review.
Call of Duty: Warzone
Call of Duty first entered the battle royale scene with Black Ops 4's Blackout mode, but it was perfected in the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. Expanding the universe of several of the series' games, including Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War, Warzone manages to seamlessly fit the twitchy Call of Duty shooting into a battle royale while also offering plenty of reasons for players to keep coming back. One of the biggest is the new Pacific map, which features a radically different layout and color scheme than its European predecessor.
See our full Call of Duty: Warzone review.
The new Destiny 2 power floor is 1350, everyone will be adjusted to it on February 22
The soft cap is 1500, after that powerful drops are needed for 1550, with raids granting 1560 Bungie has finally...
The post The new Destiny 2 power floor is 1350, everyone will be adjusted to it on February 22 appeared first on Destructoid.
PSA: Bungie warns people to spend their Destiny 2 gunsmith materials soon
‘See you Thursday’ [Update: Bungie has provided more information for the Destiny 2 gunsmith shift on their weekly blog. Here’s the...
The post PSA: Bungie warns people to spend their Destiny 2 gunsmith materials soon appeared first on Destructoid.
Trials Of Osiris Rewards This Week In Destiny 2 (Jan. 21-25)
It's been a bit, but the Trials of Osiris is back this weekend in Destiny 2, giving you new chances to compete in the toughest competitive battles the game has to offer. As always, this week sees a chance to grab a different Adept version of one of Trials' unique guns. Here's what you can get for going flawless this weekend in Trials of Osiris, and the map you'll be facing players on.
Trials officially kicks off at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET Friday, so we'll update this article when it's live.
As always, Trials be available from Friday's daily reset until the weekly reset at the same time the following Tuesday. During that time, you can also pay a visit to Xur to see what Exotics he's selling. Make sure to pay a visit to Saint-14 in the Tower to pick up a Trials card, which will dictate certain bonuses (such as whether you get bonus rewards at certain milestones or if a loss will be forgiven).
Trials of Osiris is a weekend PvP mode that runs from the daily reset on Friday until the weekly reset on Tuesday, giving you four days to take part. Your goal in the Trials is for you and the other two players in your fireteam to achieve a "Flawless" run, in which you win seven matches without losing any.
Go Flawless, and you'll earn a trip to the Lighthouse and receive some special rewards, including the new Adept weapons. These have additional stat bonuses, making them among the most coveted items you can get your hands on.
Thanks to a bunch of changes to Trials this season, though, the mode is a little easier to get into than it has been. The Trials of Osiris now features matchmaking, so you can jump into matches even if you don't have a full squad of three players to take it on. Your Trials Passage, the card you purchase from Saint-14 that grants you access to the mode and tracks your wins, now does not track your losses--so you can keep playing and earning rewards even if you lose out on a Flawless run. Bungie has also adjusted Trials so that you earn rewards based on the number of rounds, rather than matches, you've won during your session, and added a reputation system that's similar to the Crucible and Gambit, making it easier to earn some of the Trials of Osiris's unique loot.
Finally, you'll earn Trials Engrams for participating in the mode, which you can cash in with Saint-14 during the weekend you receive them. Thanks to the new update, you can tune those engrams to yield specific pieces of loot, or take your chances with random drops that will expand what's available in your loot pool. So even if you're just jumping into Trials alone, there are plenty of ways you can earn great new gear.
Witch Queen to raise Destiny 2’s Power Level floor to 1350, soft cap to 1500
Powerfuls will get you up to 1550, and Pinnacles go to 1560.
The post Witch Queen to raise Destiny 2’s Power Level floor to 1350, soft cap to 1500 appeared first on Dot Esports.
Here’s everything Microsoft owns after the Activision Blizzard deal
How to get the Vidmaster title in Destiny 2
May the Starhorse’s favor grant you good luck and lightning progress.
The post How to get the Vidmaster title in Destiny 2 appeared first on Dot Esports.
Iron Banter: This Week In Destiny 2 – The Osmium Girls And Orb Outrage
Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it's story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what's going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what's drawing our attention across the solar system.
With most of the major content for the Season of the Lost out of the way, we're more or less officially in the hype period--the run-up to The Witch Queen that's going to see a deluge of details and hints before the expansion's final launch on February 22. It got going this week with a new trailer for The Witch Queen that included a deeper look at the locale and some fun hints about what might go on there.
So, hey, guess who's thinking about story possibilities--this guy [points at self].
There's a lot of room for rampant speculation, but with the new trailer, we at least have some areas on which to focus. The big thing that interests me is the broader story of Savathun and her motivations, because I think everything's about to get a lot more complicated in The Witch Queen.
Sister Act
I spent the early part of the week pouring over the latest Witch Queen trailer and breaking down everything it included, scrounging for clues about the story that Bungie might be trying to tell in the next chapter of Destiny 2. (Relatedly and at the same time, Saniya Ahmed dug deep on old Mars story threads that seem like they're about to become very relevant.) It raised more questions than answers, sure, but there were a couple of tidbits that play into ongoing feelings I've been having about where The Witch Queen is headed. The main one is this:
That's a statue of Oryx, the Taken King, fighting the worm god Akka. It's a scene out of the Books of Sorrow, the Hive's creation myth, which seems at least partially true but may also include its share of lies--much like everything to do with the Hive. But I think it's more than just a cool reference to an intense lore thing (which you should absolutely read, as it's some of the best story stuff in the Destiny universe).
I've been cultivating the opinion for a while that Savathun wants to be friends. That idea was somewhat born out with the Season of the Lost, when Savathun revealed that she had been impersonating Osiris and claimed that her (admittedly evil-seeming) manipulations of events had actually been tuned toward a helpful purpose. She claims she wants to be allies, even though she can't help being super-creepy about it, and while The Witch Queen marketing seemingly paints Savathun as the villain of the expansion, the impression cultivated with trailers and hints so far does more to suggest that Savathun is guiding or pushing us in a particular direction through the course of the expansion, rather than just trying to kill us like the Hive usually do.
Let's pause for a second and acknowledge that Savathun is the Hive god of deceit, so anything could be a lie or a machination to confuse and obfuscate because she literally feeds off tricking people into believing her lies. That said, Savathun's actions over the course of more than a year have backed up the feeling that she really has switched sides and is now an active enemy of the Darkness, the evil power in the Destiny 2 universe, and the worm gods, which have empowered the Hive for eons. Her own sister, Xivu Arath, is hunting Savathun and seemingly intent on killing her in service of the Darkness. And in past seasons, Savathun has worked to keep us Guardians away from the Darkness's influence. Whatever other lies she's telling, given the events we've seen and the fights we've actually fought, that Savathun is actually fighting the Darkness seems to be a truth.
So okay, take it as proven that Savathun doesn't want to be a slave to the Darkness or the worm gods anymore. This statue then might just be a cool piece of art with which Savathun commemorates Oryx's battle against Akka. It could be a tribute to family, or a monument to the first defeat of the worm gods, since Savathun isn't a fan anymore. But it could also be something more.
There's been something of a fan theory floating around for a while that a burgeoning Hive goal is to resurrect Oryx. After all, we left a vacancy on Oryx's throne when we killed him back in Destiny 1 and nobody has filled it--something that was a major theme of Forsaken and all our visits with Toland the Shattered in the Ascendant Realm. Shadowkeep is about factions trying to rise to take over the Hive hierarchy and dissent about Hive leadership. And though Savathun might be lying to us, something she said that actually rings true in the Season of the Lost was about her dedication to family. While the Hive gods warred on each other countless times over the millennia, they always considered these attacks to be love meant to strengthen one another--to force evolution through what is essentially their religion, the Sword Logic. I think it's true that Savathun feels for her siblings even now.
So maybe this monument isn't just tribute to past deeds of Oryx or historical recollection of a worm-god ass-kicking, but some reverence for the Taken King. I think it's possible Savathun wants to bring Oryx back--through, you know, some kind of weird Destiny space magic--and if that's the case, I think Savathun wants not only to free herself from the Darkness, but Oryx too.
So that's my big fun fan theory of the moment. The truth we're going to learn about Savathun is that she wants to resurrect Oryx and release the Hive from the worms altogether. The Witch Queen expansion sees Savathun gaining the power of the Light, and while we'll stand against her, Put me on record as seeing that as another manipulation--by the Darkness this time, not Savathun herself. We'll see the error of our ways eventually.
Ultimately, I think, it won't be the forces of Light that stand against the Darkness, but the forces of life. We're already finding allies among the Eliksni and the Cabal, alien races who were our enemies for years (if not, in the story sense, centuries). We'll join with the Hive eventually too, I think, and probably the Vex. It'll be life fighting against death, with all of us living beings demanding a right to exist.
I mean, what if they resurrected Oryx and the Taken King was our friend? How sick would that be?
Orbs of Atrocity
In the This Week at Bungie blog post this week, the developer outlined a relatively minor change that has kicked off the outrage that the Destiny 2 community sees from time to time. Venture over to the r/destinythegame subreddit to see what I mean. It boils down to this: Guns aren't going to generate Orbs of Power through Masterwork anymore. With The Witch Queen, you'll equip certain mods to your armor, which will cause guns of a specific type to generate Orbs for you.
The ostensible reason for this particular change is to remove the requirement that players must gather Exotic catalysts for certain Exotic weapons. If you're unfamiliar, catalysts are certain items you can find or earn in Destiny 2 that equip to Exotic weapons, and once you've completed whatever their requirements are, amp up that particular gun. They also generate Orbs of Power. A bunch of catalysts are only available through random drops in certain activities, which means a lot of people don't have them, and it can take a long time to get them. Sometimes you get lucky. Often you don't. Until you do, that spiffy Exotic that you like doesn't generate Orbs. This new mod solution remedies that.
We don't have all the details about the Orb situation, it must be said, because Bungie is dropping additional details later. However, it sounds like Orbs will factor into the new weapon crafting system and that more alterations to the Orbs system altogether are likely happening.
But this is one of those things that has players pretty upset, and it's possible to see why. Currently, you can generate Orbs with all three guns in your arsenal, provided you either Masterwork them or have their catalysts if they're Exotic. And Orbs are very useful in gameplay, since they help you gain your Super faster and can give you additional benefits, like health or ability energy regeneration. When you build a current Destiny 2 loadout, you think about Orbs.
With the mod change, it sounds like instead of having three guns for Orb generation, you'll have...fewer, most likely. Each mod is tied to a certain damage type for Orb generation, so it seems like you'll have to equip a mod to make your Arc guns generate Orbs, or your Void guns, and so forth. That has players annoyed because it'll hinder the ability to swap guns on the fly. Instead of just going from Arc to Void as the situation dictates, they're seeing the need to swap mods off their helmets to make sure they're still generating Orbs, or worse, swapping the entire helmet for another one with preset mods ready to go.
I'm usually at odds with the community reaction to changes like this, because personally, how my guns generate Orbs of Power is not a thing that gets my blood up. It's a minor mechanic to me that barely affects how I play the game 99% of the time and thus I don't really care. I feel that way about a lot of things in Destiny 2, to be honest. This just isn't really that big of a deal.
And I do think a lot of these reactions are, in fact, over-reactions. Most activities in Destiny 2 just aren't that difficult and don't require that much care or attention for loadouts or build-crafting. That's by design--the game is largely accessible and you can breeze through it with some challenge but not min-maxing-level attention to detail. The places you might have to care about whether your guns generate Orbs in all situations are those highest-level activities like Raids or Grandmaster Nightfalls. In most of those cases, where the game is so hard that every piece of armor, weapon choice, and mod attachment matters, well, you're probably going to be equipment-locked anyway. You're not going to be making weapon swaps or mod adjustments. So the scenario in which you're swapping to make giant switches to your loadout to make sure you're still generating, again, Orbs of Power, is just not one I think is realistic.
Maybe the Orb change is going to make a drastic difference to how Destiny 2 plays, or maybe it'll just make things a little more annoying; it's tough to speculate at this point. We'll find out more soon as Bungie drops more details and when The Witch Queen actually drops. But I'm doubtful this is a change that anyone's really going to be thinking about in roughly two months.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Feel free to argue with me in the comments below--I'm interested in some reasonable takes about the situation, for sure, especially because while I pay some attention to build-crafting, I know there are a lot of people out there who are much more expert. That said, I'd rather talk about your Witch Queen predictions, your Hive lore deep-dive thoughts, and your Oryx friend date dream scenarios.
Destiny 2 Xur Location and Items (January 14-18): Legendary Inventory & Rewards this week
Latest Intelligence
