Seems pretty obvious what the big event was this week, which was the launch of Destiny 2’s Season of the Splicer and I have been *grinding*. Strong start so far with uh, a few exceptions, but we’ll get into that.
What I’m Playing: Splicer and Splicer only, for now. Yes, I know Mass Effect came out but man that is a commitment. I also don’t know if it would taint my original playthrough, if that makes sense.
What I’m Watching: Just finished Warrior on HBO Max which I highly recommend. Going through Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots season 2 which is not great so far, not nearly as good as season 1. Starting the last season of Castlevania which I hear is great.
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Here’s the recap:
Destiny
Destiny 2: The Order To Upgrade Your Splicer Gauntlet - Swear to god this was the thing everyone asked me for the most. Since I wrote this, I do recommend the platform upgrade since it just makes those segments less of a pain.
Destiny 2’s Splicer Transmog Grind Is A 180 Hour Ordeal Per Season - Turns out transmog is actually worse in practice than it was in theory, not because of the cap, but because of the Synthstrand grind.
The ‘Destiny 2’ God Roll Splicer Weapons You Should Be Farming For - Made this list for the six main Splicer weapons, all of which are good in their own ways.
Destiny 2's New Exotic Armors Are Fantastic, And One Has A Secret - Really loving all the exotic armors they made this season, and one has a special interaction.
Other Games
Report: Bethesda’s Starfield Is Xbox Exclusive, If That Was Still A Question - Jeff Grubb says he can confirm this, but so can logic and reason.
‘Mass Effect: Legendary Edition’ Is Currently The Best-Reviewed Game Of The Year - It’s only fallen a single point on Metacritic since I wrote this, so it pretty much still stands. Solid release.
The Apple Trial Has Made ‘Roblox’ Nervous Enough To Make Weirdly Specific Changes - The Apple trial has made Roblox bend over backwards to try and avoid being booted off the App Store as collateral damage.
‘Outriders’ Players Are Turning To Cheats Just To Increase The Legendary Drop Rate - To answer your question no, Outriders is not doing great.
YouTube
A controversial take that I think it’s time to disable Stasis in PvP at this point, at least in some modes
Talking about how absurd the transmog grind is going to be in practice
Talking about how Bungie is getting storytelling very very right the last few seasons because of Bungie investing in voicework and the narrative team:
In my Forbes video this week (please watch these) I talk about where Google Stadia is now and how bad things have been going:
Made this new banner for my Twitter page to remind everyone that I wrote five sci-fi books you should read.
And now it’s time for a pup in blanket heaven with a pillow that looks like her ears:
Thanks for reading!
Great articles as always. I stand by an assertion I’ve been pushing since the introduction of Stasis regarding PvP in Destiny. That is : Have two separate PvP lobbies : 1 for light based subclasses & one for Stasis. Disable subclass switching during matches. That might make people OK with the situation. Maybe not happy, but OK with it…..
After Paul's videos and generally reading up on transmog, I think I'm going to do the first 11 items for each class, presumably that does not take too much time, and then put transmog down.
It just doesn't sound like fun considering the time-gating of synth-strand drops. That just seems like the icing on the "bad idea" cake.
Bungie is listening - they're listening to people who find exploits and farm spots, and are shutting those down one at a time. The thrall-way, the PSN time trick to get into strikes solo, the casino-method for Trials, the raid spoils in the first chest in DSC .... I could go on, but people are sending a message to Bungie - we don't mind a little grind in a looter-shooter, but we don't like having our time wasted.
Bungie wants you to spend as much time as possible and makes this reward system as inefficient as possible. So, you just play more and hope RNGesus rewards you.
This trend has been going since D2: Warwind, but I think in Forsaken it started to get particularly bad. Think of the Le Monarque, Lumina, Jotunn, or Tarrabah - to name just a few - it's luck-based whether you succeed.
All that is to say that finding efficiencies is the best way forward. Sometimes it is way more efficient to play one day per week. It's still a fun game, but it's too easy to burn out on these systems. It's better to pace it, like alcohol.
See you all back in D2 soon. :)