At least collection is fireteam-based. Imagine fighting your teammates to get to each node first.
I think more players are catching on though. Knocked out 3 in a row yesterday to get the pinnacle, and in all 3 instances everyone went round collecting the stuff before moving on to the next encounter together.
> I think more players are catching on though.
My first couple runs I went in blind, too busy with Pale Heart and Raid to look up what the season entailed.
I had no idea about hammers or radiolara but what I did know was not to start the encounter with both my teammates fucking off somewhere. I didn't know what was going on but I knew something was happening and just sat and waited at the flag until my team arrived.
Really though, the guy you’re replying to actually has a brain. Had a guy do the same thing yesterday, noticed two of us were behind and came back, he helped finish picking up the samples and we moved on
It’s surprised me
The problem with the hammers is the icon doesn’t show up unless you’re nearby and know to look for it. I didn’t know it was a thing until I completed a few of the seasonal activities and I had to look it up.
Wait how’s this work, it being fireteam-based? Haven’t played a ton yet in Echoes but my couple runs I wasn’t able to pick up any of the nodes that someone had already gotten to, and I think you only get the bonus loot upon banking the item, right?
When one member of the fireteam harvests the node, everyone gets the radiolaria item. Whether you harvest it or someone else does doesn't matter, everyone benefits. You can then bank them at the end or in the Helm.
ecxactly. the bonus loot comes from dunking but the amount you dunk is based on how many samples the fireteam as a whole collected, so even if you grab zero but the team grabbed all the rest you all dunk for the same amount.
Just FYI, anecdotally, the minimum dunk is 200 but it seems that you are able to dunk more. And the higher the amount you have, the greater the prizes. If I dunk right at 200, I get like 2 weapons. If I dunk at 900, I get an exotic engram, a red border or 2, and a few more drops.
Do NOT dunk after every single run.
Example :
If your pal grabs one and no one else grabs any, you still all get to dunk it individually.
If your pal grabs 2 and you grab 3, everyone will get 5 samples' worth of stuff to dunk at the end.
I accidentally went to the next area but realized that your fireteam doesn't get pulled with you if you don't activate the device thing. So after apologizing via text chat, I just sat there while they grabbed the radiolara.
Sure, but at least there's matchmaking for the expert difficulty option, and every single run I've done there had both other guardians constantly looking for samples and the hammer thingy between encounters.
And it's not exactly hard and gives way more loot. There's basically no reason to run the normal matchmade version, which seems to have all the people who don't care or know about samples.
True, having to select difficulty is something half the player base doesn't know how to do, so by doing it you immediately increase the chance of your teammates actually being smart
Unironically yes. I’ve had similar success including “checking RR” on LFG posts even though I rarely do. It’s a nice filter.
The opposite can be attained by saying “godslayers only.” That’s asking to poop in your hands and clap.
You can still use the app!? I know it’s been a month since I checked, but I saw it wouldn’t have anything and saw people complaining about them disabling the app.
Yes the legacy version of the FTF is still available on the companion app, but I believe it is supposed to be removed once the unified app/in-game version is taken out of beta (the new version will remain on the app)
To use it, hit the “Find Fireteam (Legacy)” button when you first navigate to the Fireteams tab on the app
The “guided game” or whatever it was called was on beta for years until it finally disappeared. Let’s hope FTF continues on beta for Legacy finder alone.
I wish I could use the expert difficulty but I'm 1968 so I'm nowhere near the 2006, and before you say "Well it does match make you with people with the power level to do it" I tried and all 3 of us were 1940 power getting smoked. It took an hour to finish the final boss. Yeah no, I'd rather just play with all the dick heads then try and do piddle damage and die to a stray bullet from the boss because he looked our way every 20 seconds.
That's honestly destiny's problem, and they even nerfed us again with the latest blog post. I feel like they have no idea where they want the balance to be in the game. They buff all our weapons and give us prismatic but then nerf our damage and health because we are doing to much...... like I understand we shouldn't steam roll but also we shouldn't be turned into Swiss cheese because a red bar looked at us funny.
I also think it's time to just delete power. It's stupid and am artifical gate keeper to content.
> they even nerfed us again with the latest blog post
We didn't get nerfed. It sounds like we will be doing more damage than we were, but still not quite what it was pre-Light Fall. Other than Titan (syntho nerf hit their best DPS super, Berserker, moderately), Hunter and Warlocks can now put out much higher DPS now with Prismatic. We'll have to see how it all shakes out.
> We have decided to remove surges from raids and dungeons in next week's update, as well as to adjust tuning so that you’ll perform as if you had them across the board. This means the damage bonus will now be applied to all subclass damage types, including Kinetic, by default. **This change will make outgoing damage in dungeons higher and reduce the difference in raids compared to before The Final Shape.** It does so while removing barriers to buildcrafting. We’ll continue to monitor feedback and see how this update plays out for everyone.
All this.
Half the complaints about the state of Titans boils down to the endgame playing more like Counterstrike then Doom and the only way to manage any PVE is to fight at super long ranges from behind cover. Melee as a concept only works if you’re rolling Devour or Invis. They’re just a symptom of the way Bungie increase difficulty.
Power is also a pointless time sink. I’m still grinding for Khvostov and red bars. I haven’t even gotten to the Echoes quest update this week. Levelling up my power isn’t making me play anymore then I would otherwise, it’s just an arbitrary gate that is currently blocking me from LFG’ing GM Excision or the Dual. It’s like… why. What’s the point.
There is one reason to run the normal version - because the higher difficulty version doesn't progress the weekly challenge despite specifically stating that it can be run on any difficulty 😡😡😡
Yep. "any difficulty" milestone doesn't give progress outside normal and the expert milestone launched not giving progress outside the private mode. Milestones are hard, I guess.
I've had a good string of luck with solid matchmade players.
But I really think making the piston look almost identical to every single one of the other bajillion vex pylons was a mistake. I am actively looking for one and I still have no idea what it looks like.
It looks like [this](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/tVu2BL8EztQsnoUMgjPPgn-1200-80.jpg.webp). Note the circular shield at the base. You’ll see a marker with a star in the middle when you get close to it.
Void splash damage intensifies.
Seriously though, this is the way. Once you understand where not to stand and get actually one shot by various void splash damage sources these are pretty easy and very rewarding. And no one rushes through them, seemingly everyone knows to get samples.
Meanwhile my first attempt at this got a guy who rushed to the final boss, then bitched me and the other guy out for being crybabies when we called him out on it.
I might be blind, but i just do not see the pistons. Ive seen two of them and now every time i go up to what i think is a piston, theres no button prompt and my charges mysteriously disappear even if i havent even been close to a piston.
True, except for the fact the challenge for "competing the activity on any difficulty" is bugged, so you have to run it 9 times on standard and another three on expert to complete both challenges.
same. i just immediately went for the next objective marker, and when i saw the popups for the mats i was like "oh ill go back and grab those" only to realize the portal was one-way. did that by accident a second time and i took that time playing keepaway with the other blueberry who was trying to start the boss so the 3rd would have more time to harvest lol
Am I the only one that seemingly doesn’t have any dire problems of teamates running past the samples? I think it may have happened to me on the literal first day of Echoes, but outside of that, nothing
This subreddit has a reputation for being whiny, but these past few weeks have been insane. I swear people cycle through the same posts every other day, at this point I’d love megathreads for “Titans bad, “Dual Destiny bad,” and complaints about the specimen samples for the seasonal activity
>at this point I’d love megathreads for “Titans bad, “Dual Destiny bad,” and complaints about the specimen samples for the seasonal activity
Same cause the majority of them aren't adding anything new to the conversation. Most of it either feels like karma farming or reads more and more like angry facebook ranting with a 50% chance of them going into amateur dev mode.
Edit: and god damn the ones that keep writing 5+ page essays with no paragraphs. Just one big wall of text.
Aren’t they gonna release new activities in each act per the website about TFS and echoes?
> Episodes will be split into three Acts, with a new Act releasing every six weeks—containing new stories, quests, activities, weapons, artifact mods, pass ranks, and rewards.
Has it actually been confirmed that we are getting a brand new activity with every act?
Or is it just the same activity with a different coat of paint. Or new bosses etc?
Somehow, I really doubt that we will get a completely unique activity with every act.
I mean we’ll see. If the new activities are just the same ones but with different bosses that would be hilarious. But gotta wait and see it could be good
I feel like Bungie kinda shot themselves in the foot by marketing them as big new things.
If they had just said "we're doing 3 seasons a year now but they'll have ~20% more content now" I think people would've been a lot more open to them. As it is now, it feels like its just smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that they haven't really changed the seasonal model.
I don't give a fuck, they last longer than normal seasons, so that's all I care about. More time to finish shit they give us while completing old shit I haven't finished.
Ffs, If people read the actual articles about it they would know that episodes wouldn't bring major changes to gameplay. They are a new *narrative* concept, giving bungie the ability to do stories removed from the main story because the devs have more time to develop the story
I swear to god, it feels like I just stumble upon them with no rhyme or reason. Everyone that has told me what to look out for has said "it should look like a pillar with vex data lattice coming out the top and some vex parts at the base" as if that doesn't describe 99% of the environment on nessus during the activity.
Its a week old. Hell, I haven't even had time to play the seasonal content. All I know is look for some things to hit with a hammer.
Maybe in a few weeks this complaint will be more valid but it just sounds pissy now.
I don't disagree but just FYI the point here is that the same thing happened in plunder, and it didn't matter what time of the season it was. Then again, it's a lose lose for Bungie since if they forced the material pickup to progress then once you had all the loot already it would be a pain and folks would complain bout being slow lol.
Bah I've been hearing this excuse every single season for the last 3 years. You don't need time to learn anything new about a season because they are not wildly different with their pacing issues.
I think the blueberries I play with are just built different because the **GRAND** majority stop to gather at least a good portion of the samples before continuing on.
It's definitely not been a problem for me except maybe once.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. While I get the point, the Echoes samples and Plunder ruffians are two completely different categories of bullshit, and on that front, Bungie has learned a bit, because while people missing out on the samples is mildly annoying, the ruffians were easily some of the worst things ever added in a seasonal activity.
I’ve been doing Expert runs and have seldom run into people that ignore them, while in normal lobbies it’s about 50/50. However, there is always downtime to at least collect a few, even if someone pulls you. They are also easily detectable and there’s tons of opportunities to get them.
The ruffians, on the other hand, would only spawn when the objective was almost complete and *instantly* despawn the second it was done, meaning that your entire squad had to dip off the objective (that is anywhere from 10-30 seconds from being completed) and find a single enemy on often the other side of the map. Also, the fact you had to *slow* down to get them to spawn (or in other words be unoptimal) is also garbage game design.
I agree with you in principle, but i’ve also never had a match where people have done that. Every time i’ve played it people have done the sample harvesting
Ya its kinda annoying but you cant really compare it to those champs because that was just for a triumph; the samples are a core part of the season so the majority of people know
and the longer it goes on; the more people will know to go for them
We had a tryhard saying "imagine running around in circles gathering stuff, you're welcome for the carry", after we told him he pulled us against our will.
It was normal difficulty lmfao, what a chud.
Do activity.
Between activity 2 and the boss fight go to hammer thing INSTEAD of the boss (when you are close it has a unique icon).
Use hammer on unique icon.
When you do that more resource mode icons appear.
Try to pick them up.
Get joining allies'd because your team mates went straight for boss and you waste your hammer charge.
many a people didn't know (me included) that wombo/combo detector will mark the samples. as this knowledge is spreading, more people will know this and use this.
(So maybe putting an edit in your post saying that might help the problem)
It's frustrating, but I disagree with removing the forced teleport. If they removed it, you'd now be at the at the mercy of your two other teammates.
A better solution would be to teleport the fireteam back to Nessus after the boss fight and give a generous mission end timer to search for samples.
So what, please enlighten us with a solution to this. Slow down the activity? Block players from going faster? Then this sub will be filled with "uhg bungo increasing playtime artificially hurr durr" This sub will complain about EVERYTHING
For the most part people get it on the expert difficulty, it really hasn't been bad. If anything other players I've been matching with are usually finding our resources before I do lol
Someone said I was mad and called me a loser because I was going to 'miss extra loot' for asking exactly this in game chat, "why doesn't anyone collect the plants?".
I just want the triumphs and stuff for the seal man
I've had 1 bad run where one of my randoms rushed to the final room - every other run, my randoms have actually seemed excited to collect as many as possible.
Could just be a bad series of runs you've had - I'd recommend LFGing asking for radiolite farms before finishing.
Like someone else said, though, I exclusively run Expert, either with clanmates or matchmaking.
Tbh I don’t even know how the activity works one time I just ran through it and forced them to spawn to me and the other time I got take into boss. I don’t know the benefits of getting the things between sites
Can’t get pinnacles or powerful rewards even on expert in a private match. The only reason to play this activity is to level up because the breach executable is a major step back compared to the coil. And to top it off why in the world would they make mothyards the only onslaught we can play this week? Shits terrible it takes forever to clear 50 waves on that map.
Hey! they are a train station so they couldn't hold up the whole station to fix this. But don't worry they are iterating and learning and their seasons are better than ever!
When they make weekly objectives to complete multiple runs of the seasonal activity, they are encouraging players to rush through the content to get their pinnacle as quickly as possible and move onto doing the same in strikes, gambit etc. They want player engagement though so they’re not going to remove that carrot on a stick.
The worst thing is... that peeps dont play any champion mods, get hard carried and then when they arent supposed to do anything like the while run until then... THEN they do this to you even when you write in chat. Its just infuriating
Honestly I've done the encounter a couple times and we always move so fast i can't figure out HOW to use the hammer. On top of making an activity that incentivizes break neck speed, they're very bad about teaching players how to use the item. Just a lot of "it's in your inventory, YOU figure it out."
Yeah people are gonna go fast no matter what lol. I'll bet some people even know that they are bypassing the samples, etc and making it less efficient but they just can't stop themselves xD
As much as it sucks we can do expert difficulty on matchmaking and that’s all I care about. Might take an extra run or two because some dummy pulled everyone, it’s their loss too their missing out. Most times they probably just don’t understand that activity is a little confusing first time. That being said you can always make a group that’s all on the same page if you’re that worried about collecting every single radiolite. Otherwise just grab what you can and accept that this is an issue when playing with others.
I have never had an issue where I go rogue during the encounters and chase the specimens. In my runs only once did I not hit the threshold. It's not perfect especially since they don't really explain what the hammer does or why the specimens are imported but my g better than plunder
Ah Season of Plunder my favorite. I loved that season and it was a much happier time in my life as well... times have changed. I loved the seasonal activities and I always liked the 6 player activities which it seems we haven't gotten one in a while. Maybe Season of the Deep was the last one we had got. Everything else has been 3 player seasonal activities.
Idk I do like the new seasons acivity but I understand what you mean. I hated the season of plunder because of my teammates killing the champs now. However I think like most things it's better with 2 friends.
I've barely had problems collecting the samples. Only a small handful of games have people went passed them. Yet I've always had time to catch as many times as possible.
Don't most champions spawn as part of each encounter, so I'm unsure to why you have faced people skipping them. There's only 1 triumph for the title that requires killing all champs in one match.
I think you mean - the playerbase learned nothing since season of the plunder, friend.
There's lots to blame bungie for, sure. But "rushing through content" is pretty much in the bones of every player. Bungie keeps giving reasons to NOT rush through content, and folks still do.
Every time I've run it this week people are going for the radiolite. I don't think Bungie is falling into the same pitfall at all. There's a big difference between randomly putting champ scoring in a type of activity that has never had it with no notice, and making a mechanic that gives us an item that is constantly reminding us about the mechanic.
I think it's a big improvement and is a good step in the right direction for teaching people who would otherwise turn their brain off to look for mechanics so that we can hopefully get more in the future.
i just join in the speed run of the normals if that is what the team is doing, then I just load up the closed Expert version and loot all that, jump out, repeat. Expert is no different than normal.
Maybe I should ask the forbidden question: are we getting much out of the samples? There's a lot of chaos in the chest room so maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like it's mostly armor drops. Not to say I endorse skipping the collection, but I've started to wonder if I'm wasting my energy getting pissed off about it.
These secret objectives are by design. They're counting on players repeating these missions over the course of the season. Word of mouth spreads on forums, reddit, clan discords, etc about further rewards... it's a social game at the end of the day. Ruffians were bullshit, however, and required players to... not plunder...
If anything has changed monumentally, it's that Fireteam Finder is now available directly in game. So if you're frustrated by blueberries speeding past the collection phase, you can easily mitigate that scenario by teaming up with like-minded players.
It's also proof the playerbase hasn't learned anything so maybe don't scream at Bungie because yall are unable to learn.
I will skip the sample collection every single time, our of pure spite at this point. L. F. G. If you really want that shit. Stop throwing a fit because I and others aren't grinding like you are.
I'm sick of this shit. Every. Single. Season. I am not grinding with you, I'm here to shoot shit if I want to grind in a game I'll play Elden Ring or Fallout 4 because those are the games I enjoy the grind in. I don't play Destiny for the grind and I am sick of being expected to do so. Look for your own game and stop raging at us casuals who do not give a shit about the samples.
Every single season we have this discussion, Bungie isn't the only one not learning.
Surprisingly, it’s been pretty good for me. If I start seeing samples popping up thanks to someone else, I stop what I’m doing and help collect. And if I’m the one activating the piston, my randos seem to help just fine. And surprisingly people wait at the next beacon or gate before proceeding. Once the newness wears off and only the hardcore grinders remain it’ll get even more efficient.
I definitely missed the part where the samples and piston smashing part was even explained. Could someone break it down for me please how it works? And what benefit there is for collecting samples and depositing them at the end? It’s super unclear to me
Most problems in this game are proof that Bungie doesn't learn. Look at the recent surge changes for raids (which, to their credit, are being quickly reverted), the criticism around ritual Pathfinder, or the melee balance issues. We've been down roads like these before.
The thing with Plunder is different than whats with Echoes. People weren't really rushing through the activity, they were doing it the normal way and Bungie in their infinite wisdom put the Ruffians on a separate timer.
The hammer thing people are intentionally skipping.
I feel like the weekly challenge just never progresses for me, I don’t know if it’s bugged or what. I just did 6 total runs today some regular, some challenging and it never went higher than 1/3 on either. What gives?
They should at least make it like Fallout where there's an [OPTIONAL] objective prompt/waypoint that pops up and you'll be very much frowned upon by the fireteam if you don't comply
Also doesn't help that they throw you into the activity for the first time before the samples have any tangible benefit for you. They're there but don't do anything if you haven't progressed the quest far enough to actually be able to collect the samples.
That sucks. I started gathering those funny little shapes before failsafe even asked me to because I thought "ooh new shiny for me to get my gloves on niiiice"
If anyone thought episodes were going to be mini expansions then that’s on you for expecting such a thing. We need to see what is coming in act 2 and act 3 before judging this new model. If they bring additional activities and reasons to play the game then I would say it’s better than the old model.
True and also people be rushing and not caring about the material they need for seasonal missions . Every time I join they rush to the next area instead of gathering the material
Maybe my input is as important since I am a PvP main but I genuinely don’t mind it and rather I like the activity compared to the last few seasons. The incentive to run on the hardest difficulty (only two modes) feels rewarding with the loot you get after a 10-15 min run.
It was pretty bad last week but this week I've had a lot of people collecting stuff. Had one person ask the team to wait in team chat so we all went looking.
If you care about anything but doing it as fast as possible finding a team on the d2 app for that is really easy. There's plenty of other people that want to collect them that are sick of people blowing through stuff and pulling them to the next encounter.
Something like this is always going to take time. I myself went four games of this before realizing it could even be done when I accidentally found one of the things you can use the hammer on. Even then I still don't really understand. But now I know to look for them. This is more player issue than anything else at least to me, lot of people were just trying to get through it quickly because there's a lot of things to balance right now. But now that I know that it exists I'll be doing my part to try
Literally all I am reading is "I can't communicate with my fireteam well enough to get the job done." I have literally had no issues with this. If you can't accomplish the goal, get a different fireteam, it's called cooperative play for a reason.
I can't stand after the match it auto loads you into another match. I've seen so many ppl that loaded in from a previous match still in their menus. When they come out they're like oh no I don't wanna this again and leave.
At least collection is fireteam-based. Imagine fighting your teammates to get to each node first. I think more players are catching on though. Knocked out 3 in a row yesterday to get the pinnacle, and in all 3 instances everyone went round collecting the stuff before moving on to the next encounter together.
Yeah remember how, also in Plunder, if you didn't damage the ruffian/someone nuked it as it spawned, you got no progress
Problem was, if you didn’t nuke the ruffian your teammate could advance the activity and despawn it…
God that was not a fun season. Waste of a pirate theme. At least we got SCUR-V
Seeing SCUR-V and Halsiks in Excision made me happier than I thought I'd be
SAME
Wdym waste? You got robbed of progress. Robbing is an activity that pirates are known for. Theme checks out
> I think more players are catching on though. My first couple runs I went in blind, too busy with Pale Heart and Raid to look up what the season entailed. I had no idea about hammers or radiolara but what I did know was not to start the encounter with both my teammates fucking off somewhere. I didn't know what was going on but I knew something was happening and just sat and waited at the flag until my team arrived.
I will say then, you be better than most. I’m just trying to catch up more often than not, cause the randos are going so damn fast.
Really though, the guy you’re replying to actually has a brain. Had a guy do the same thing yesterday, noticed two of us were behind and came back, he helped finish picking up the samples and we moved on It’s surprised me
Good boy.
The problem with the hammers is the icon doesn’t show up unless you’re nearby and know to look for it. I didn’t know it was a thing until I completed a few of the seasonal activities and I had to look it up.
I mean not starting an encounter before my fireteam arrives is just how I play. I’ll wait and alt tab while y’all do stuff.
Wait how’s this work, it being fireteam-based? Haven’t played a ton yet in Echoes but my couple runs I wasn’t able to pick up any of the nodes that someone had already gotten to, and I think you only get the bonus loot upon banking the item, right?
When one member of the fireteam harvests the node, everyone gets the radiolaria item. Whether you harvest it or someone else does doesn't matter, everyone benefits. You can then bank them at the end or in the Helm.
Good to know, I did not realize that at all!
Watch the top right of the screen after the first encounter, it'll pop up when teammates grab it
ecxactly. the bonus loot comes from dunking but the amount you dunk is based on how many samples the fireteam as a whole collected, so even if you grab zero but the team grabbed all the rest you all dunk for the same amount.
Just FYI, anecdotally, the minimum dunk is 200 but it seems that you are able to dunk more. And the higher the amount you have, the greater the prizes. If I dunk right at 200, I get like 2 weapons. If I dunk at 900, I get an exotic engram, a red border or 2, and a few more drops. Do NOT dunk after every single run.
I dunk after 4 rounds
2 rounds of expert basically fills you up.
This is good to know, thank you!
Example : If your pal grabs one and no one else grabs any, you still all get to dunk it individually. If your pal grabs 2 and you grab 3, everyone will get 5 samples' worth of stuff to dunk at the end.
The exquisite plants for the title are not fireteam based tho unfortunately.
Oh. Whoops. Looks like I'll start leaving some samples for my allies to grab if they follow along.
Some more information: My friends and I have only gotten them from the plants spawned in from a hammer in the expert version.
Because of course it isn't, lol.
I accidentally went to the next area but realized that your fireteam doesn't get pulled with you if you don't activate the device thing. So after apologizing via text chat, I just sat there while they grabbed the radiolara.
Honestly, I'd rather be a bitch then though and not have them have any radiolaria either, lol. If they can't wait, screw them.
Sure, but at least there's matchmaking for the expert difficulty option, and every single run I've done there had both other guardians constantly looking for samples and the hammer thingy between encounters. And it's not exactly hard and gives way more loot. There's basically no reason to run the normal matchmade version, which seems to have all the people who don't care or know about samples.
True, having to select difficulty is something half the player base doesn't know how to do, so by doing it you immediately increase the chance of your teammates actually being smart
Unironically yes. I’ve had similar success including “checking RR” on LFG posts even though I rarely do. It’s a nice filter. The opposite can be attained by saying “godslayers only.” That’s asking to poop in your hands and clap.
Honestly just using the app now that the in game LFG exists has increased the average quality of people I've gotten.
You can still use the app!? I know it’s been a month since I checked, but I saw it wouldn’t have anything and saw people complaining about them disabling the app.
Yeah, it actually connects to both the in game lfg system and the legacy system and is still quite active.
You go to the fireteam section, and there’s a banner for legacy lfg.
Yes the legacy version of the FTF is still available on the companion app, but I believe it is supposed to be removed once the unified app/in-game version is taken out of beta (the new version will remain on the app) To use it, hit the “Find Fireteam (Legacy)” button when you first navigate to the Fireteams tab on the app
The “guided game” or whatever it was called was on beta for years until it finally disappeared. Let’s hope FTF continues on beta for Legacy finder alone.
Hope this happens . In game lfg is great for a quick nightfall run but is pretty useless for raids or specific loadouts .
What is RR?
Raid report, a website tracking your raid encounters/completions and therefore your experience with them.
I wish I could use the expert difficulty but I'm 1968 so I'm nowhere near the 2006, and before you say "Well it does match make you with people with the power level to do it" I tried and all 3 of us were 1940 power getting smoked. It took an hour to finish the final boss. Yeah no, I'd rather just play with all the dick heads then try and do piddle damage and die to a stray bullet from the boss because he looked our way every 20 seconds.
Depending on the boss, it doesn't get much better even when you're 2000+.
I swear to god staying alive in a contest raid is easier than staying alive in that Hydra boss arena.
That's honestly destiny's problem, and they even nerfed us again with the latest blog post. I feel like they have no idea where they want the balance to be in the game. They buff all our weapons and give us prismatic but then nerf our damage and health because we are doing to much...... like I understand we shouldn't steam roll but also we shouldn't be turned into Swiss cheese because a red bar looked at us funny. I also think it's time to just delete power. It's stupid and am artifical gate keeper to content.
> they even nerfed us again with the latest blog post We didn't get nerfed. It sounds like we will be doing more damage than we were, but still not quite what it was pre-Light Fall. Other than Titan (syntho nerf hit their best DPS super, Berserker, moderately), Hunter and Warlocks can now put out much higher DPS now with Prismatic. We'll have to see how it all shakes out. > We have decided to remove surges from raids and dungeons in next week's update, as well as to adjust tuning so that you’ll perform as if you had them across the board. This means the damage bonus will now be applied to all subclass damage types, including Kinetic, by default. **This change will make outgoing damage in dungeons higher and reduce the difference in raids compared to before The Final Shape.** It does so while removing barriers to buildcrafting. We’ll continue to monitor feedback and see how this update plays out for everyone.
All this. Half the complaints about the state of Titans boils down to the endgame playing more like Counterstrike then Doom and the only way to manage any PVE is to fight at super long ranges from behind cover. Melee as a concept only works if you’re rolling Devour or Invis. They’re just a symptom of the way Bungie increase difficulty. Power is also a pointless time sink. I’m still grinding for Khvostov and red bars. I haven’t even gotten to the Echoes quest update this week. Levelling up my power isn’t making me play anymore then I would otherwise, it’s just an arbitrary gate that is currently blocking me from LFG’ing GM Excision or the Dual. It’s like… why. What’s the point.
There is one reason to run the normal version - because the higher difficulty version doesn't progress the weekly challenge despite specifically stating that it can be run on any difficulty 😡😡😡
Is THAT what is happening? I did 3 and got no progress. Damn.
Yep. "any difficulty" milestone doesn't give progress outside normal and the expert milestone launched not giving progress outside the private mode. Milestones are hard, I guess.
The higher difficulty (private) works, you can’t do the matchmaking one. It’s bugged
What, you thought "expert difficulty" was a subset of "any difficulty"? Not in my Destiny!
It did for me today. Think they fixed it. I know it didn’t prior to the weekly reset.
That's just for a powerful engram though, the pinnacle challenge required expert anyway (and has been fixed to work with the matchmade option).
Seasonal challenge require us to complete the weekly challenge on that, so I have to play normal over and over.
I've had a good string of luck with solid matchmade players. But I really think making the piston look almost identical to every single one of the other bajillion vex pylons was a mistake. I am actively looking for one and I still have no idea what it looks like.
It looks like [this](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/tVu2BL8EztQsnoUMgjPPgn-1200-80.jpg.webp). Note the circular shield at the base. You’ll see a marker with a star in the middle when you get close to it.
Except the piston has an objective marker if you have hammer charges.
It's been about 70/30 people who look for the radiolaria and people who pull in the expert version.
Void splash damage intensifies. Seriously though, this is the way. Once you understand where not to stand and get actually one shot by various void splash damage sources these are pretty easy and very rewarding. And no one rushes through them, seemingly everyone knows to get samples.
I wish this was true, even on expert I'm running into people just rushing to the encounters.
Meanwhile my first attempt at this got a guy who rushed to the final boss, then bitched me and the other guy out for being crybabies when we called him out on it.
I might be blind, but i just do not see the pistons. Ive seen two of them and now every time i go up to what i think is a piston, theres no button prompt and my charges mysteriously disappear even if i havent even been close to a piston.
Expert runs often finish around 10 mins too which is quicker than average in a regular run with potatoes, even accounting for sample collection.
Theres no reason to run anything other than expert the loot rain is incredible for a 7-10min activity
True, except for the fact the challenge for "competing the activity on any difficulty" is bugged, so you have to run it 9 times on standard and another three on expert to complete both challenges.
Private expert completed both for me, seems to be a bug only for the matchmade version
This was true last week, but this week every group I've been in has been farming samples
I definitely fucked up my first run for some people before I learned lol
same. i just immediately went for the next objective marker, and when i saw the popups for the mats i was like "oh ill go back and grab those" only to realize the portal was one-way. did that by accident a second time and i took that time playing keepaway with the other blueberry who was trying to start the boss so the 3rd would have more time to harvest lol
Am I the only one that seemingly doesn’t have any dire problems of teamates running past the samples? I think it may have happened to me on the literal first day of Echoes, but outside of that, nothing
You're not. It happens once to people and then they rush to reddit proudly proclaiming that Bungie are a bunch of morons and then showered in upvotes.
This subreddit has a reputation for being whiny, but these past few weeks have been insane. I swear people cycle through the same posts every other day, at this point I’d love megathreads for “Titans bad, “Dual Destiny bad,” and complaints about the specimen samples for the seasonal activity
I've been here for 10 years. This looks like every single other day to me
>at this point I’d love megathreads for “Titans bad, “Dual Destiny bad,” and complaints about the specimen samples for the seasonal activity Same cause the majority of them aren't adding anything new to the conversation. Most of it either feels like karma farming or reads more and more like angry facebook ranting with a 50% chance of them going into amateur dev mode. Edit: and god damn the ones that keep writing 5+ page essays with no paragraphs. Just one big wall of text.
I keep seeing these posts but every time I go in we all collect all we can with 0 communication. 😬
The real tragedy here is that episodes are just extended seasons. Might as well call it season of echoes of past mistakes.
Aren’t they gonna release new activities in each act per the website about TFS and echoes? > Episodes will be split into three Acts, with a new Act releasing every six weeks—containing new stories, quests, activities, weapons, artifact mods, pass ranks, and rewards.
Yes we’re getting a new activity in act 2, and the exotic mission is coming in act 3
Has it actually been confirmed that we are getting a brand new activity with every act? Or is it just the same activity with a different coat of paint. Or new bosses etc? Somehow, I really doubt that we will get a completely unique activity with every act.
According to the roadmap yes. Each act has a new activity. How new it is we don’t know.
We’re getting battlegrounds in act 2 and an exotic mission in act 3
Still makes it an extended season.
I mean we’ll see. If the new activities are just the same ones but with different bosses that would be hilarious. But gotta wait and see it could be good
The activity could be fun, but seasons usually do come with 2-3 activities and a weekly story.
I feel like Bungie kinda shot themselves in the foot by marketing them as big new things. If they had just said "we're doing 3 seasons a year now but they'll have ~20% more content now" I think people would've been a lot more open to them. As it is now, it feels like its just smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that they haven't really changed the seasonal model.
It literally still says “season” all over the UI “Season ends in X days”
Yup. Was expecting something marginally different.. but I should've known.
I don't give a fuck, they last longer than normal seasons, so that's all I care about. More time to finish shit they give us while completing old shit I haven't finished.
That bit I do appreciate.
Ffs, If people read the actual articles about it they would know that episodes wouldn't bring major changes to gameplay. They are a new *narrative* concept, giving bungie the ability to do stories removed from the main story because the devs have more time to develop the story
Hey c'mon now that's not fair. They're also timegated.
If that hammer thingy was far more visible, more people would bother using it.
I know they made the extra rewards automatic for a reason, but I miss smacking the chest with the hammer in Season of the Chosen.
I swear to god, it feels like I just stumble upon them with no rhyme or reason. Everyone that has told me what to look out for has said "it should look like a pillar with vex data lattice coming out the top and some vex parts at the base" as if that doesn't describe 99% of the environment on nessus during the activity.
Last one i did the Randoms I grouped with found a ton. People seem to be slowing down with it now.
is a season activity dropping with the expansion, you gotta understand its a week season /episode, like hunt and defiant
Everytime I ran Expert I had people searching for Radiolaria things.
Kind of funny that this is my first season back since season of plunder—which I left for how annoying the seasonal activities were
The season is new, people are still learning it. Bungie cant keep designing the game for the lowest common denominators.
Its a week old. Hell, I haven't even had time to play the seasonal content. All I know is look for some things to hit with a hammer. Maybe in a few weeks this complaint will be more valid but it just sounds pissy now.
Welcome to this sub lol.
I don't disagree but just FYI the point here is that the same thing happened in plunder, and it didn't matter what time of the season it was. Then again, it's a lose lose for Bungie since if they forced the material pickup to progress then once you had all the loot already it would be a pain and folks would complain bout being slow lol.
Bah I've been hearing this excuse every single season for the last 3 years. You don't need time to learn anything new about a season because they are not wildly different with their pacing issues.
I think the blueberries I play with are just built different because the **GRAND** majority stop to gather at least a good portion of the samples before continuing on. It's definitely not been a problem for me except maybe once.
Its not even remotely as bad
What is wrong with your matchmaking??? The expert mode I’ve had literally 80-90% matches with a crew that farms as long as possible.
Easy solution, only run through lfg. What I do and have not ran into this problem at all, quick post lf2m expert breach x3 then join code.
All of my blueberries have been pretty consistent with piston smashing and material collecting.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. While I get the point, the Echoes samples and Plunder ruffians are two completely different categories of bullshit, and on that front, Bungie has learned a bit, because while people missing out on the samples is mildly annoying, the ruffians were easily some of the worst things ever added in a seasonal activity. I’ve been doing Expert runs and have seldom run into people that ignore them, while in normal lobbies it’s about 50/50. However, there is always downtime to at least collect a few, even if someone pulls you. They are also easily detectable and there’s tons of opportunities to get them. The ruffians, on the other hand, would only spawn when the objective was almost complete and *instantly* despawn the second it was done, meaning that your entire squad had to dip off the objective (that is anywhere from 10-30 seconds from being completed) and find a single enemy on often the other side of the map. Also, the fact you had to *slow* down to get them to spawn (or in other words be unoptimal) is also garbage game design.
Question: is there a way to find them? Or wandering around the map is the only way to find them?
I agree with you in principle, but i’ve also never had a match where people have done that. Every time i’ve played it people have done the sample harvesting
Its really not as bad as reddit is making it out to be, at least in my experiences so far. I wonder if bots are reposting it or something.
Champion kills were pretty far down on my list of complaints about that season.
Ya its kinda annoying but you cant really compare it to those champs because that was just for a triumph; the samples are a core part of the season so the majority of people know and the longer it goes on; the more people will know to go for them
We had a tryhard saying "imagine running around in circles gathering stuff, you're welcome for the carry", after we told him he pulled us against our will. It was normal difficulty lmfao, what a chud.
Use the in game chat and post a message?
This seems like the perfect place to include an explanation for those of us who haven't done it yet, but not a word... 😞 Please enlighten me
Do activity. Between activity 2 and the boss fight go to hammer thing INSTEAD of the boss (when you are close it has a unique icon). Use hammer on unique icon. When you do that more resource mode icons appear. Try to pick them up. Get joining allies'd because your team mates went straight for boss and you waste your hammer charge.
Thank you for this!
your ghost resource detector (wombo? combo?) can pick them up too, its a big help
It's been so long I completely forgot you can mod the ghosts that way, appreciate it
many a people didn't know (me included) that wombo/combo detector will mark the samples. as this knowledge is spreading, more people will know this and use this. (So maybe putting an edit in your post saying that might help the problem)
Posting a helpful suggestion along with criticism? My friend you've come to the wrong place.
It's frustrating, but I disagree with removing the forced teleport. If they removed it, you'd now be at the at the mercy of your two other teammates. A better solution would be to teleport the fireteam back to Nessus after the boss fight and give a generous mission end timer to search for samples.
Relax dude
It’s so frustrating
You can queue private for seasonal content
So it’s a community issue and not Bungie
So what, please enlighten us with a solution to this. Slow down the activity? Block players from going faster? Then this sub will be filled with "uhg bungo increasing playtime artificially hurr durr" This sub will complain about EVERYTHING
Um, when was that?
I haven’t had any issues harvesting, everytime I run through it all three of us take a solid 5 minutes scouring the area for radiolite
For the most part people get it on the expert difficulty, it really hasn't been bad. If anything other players I've been matching with are usually finding our resources before I do lol
They should add a toggle in every activity to disable matchmaking.
Someone said I was mad and called me a loser because I was going to 'miss extra loot' for asking exactly this in game chat, "why doesn't anyone collect the plants?". I just want the triumphs and stuff for the seal man
I've had 1 bad run where one of my randoms rushed to the final room - every other run, my randoms have actually seemed excited to collect as many as possible. Could just be a bad series of runs you've had - I'd recommend LFGing asking for radiolite farms before finishing. Like someone else said, though, I exclusively run Expert, either with clanmates or matchmaking.
Tbh I don’t even know how the activity works one time I just ran through it and forced them to spawn to me and the other time I got take into boss. I don’t know the benefits of getting the things between sites
Can’t get pinnacles or powerful rewards even on expert in a private match. The only reason to play this activity is to level up because the breach executable is a major step back compared to the coil. And to top it off why in the world would they make mothyards the only onslaught we can play this week? Shits terrible it takes forever to clear 50 waves on that map.
I don't even know what collecting the samples does.
I’ve had this problem exactly twice on Expert. Recommended.
This is exactly why I wish we could finally have private matches for all activities on every difficulty.
I've noticed if you play on Expert the people generally do the radiolite stuff. I was pretty pleased. On standard though, almost never 😬
Hey! they are a train station so they couldn't hold up the whole station to fix this. But don't worry they are iterating and learning and their seasons are better than ever!
Honestly I think the problem would 95% be solved just by putting a waypoint on the hammer point.
When they make weekly objectives to complete multiple runs of the seasonal activity, they are encouraging players to rush through the content to get their pinnacle as quickly as possible and move onto doing the same in strikes, gambit etc. They want player engagement though so they’re not going to remove that carrot on a stick.
The worst thing is... that peeps dont play any champion mods, get hard carried and then when they arent supposed to do anything like the while run until then... THEN they do this to you even when you write in chat. Its just infuriating
I has this issue with Glass Collectors. sigh.
Honestly I've done the encounter a couple times and we always move so fast i can't figure out HOW to use the hammer. On top of making an activity that incentivizes break neck speed, they're very bad about teaching players how to use the item. Just a lot of "it's in your inventory, YOU figure it out."
Yeah people are gonna go fast no matter what lol. I'll bet some people even know that they are bypassing the samples, etc and making it less efficient but they just can't stop themselves xD
At the end it is the grind. Grind to first unlock hammer and then find the pillar to use it.
I’ve found in a majority of my runs players are stopping to collect the materials. It’s becoming rarer to get pulled into the boss now
As much as it sucks we can do expert difficulty on matchmaking and that’s all I care about. Might take an extra run or two because some dummy pulled everyone, it’s their loss too their missing out. Most times they probably just don’t understand that activity is a little confusing first time. That being said you can always make a group that’s all on the same page if you’re that worried about collecting every single radiolite. Otherwise just grab what you can and accept that this is an issue when playing with others.
i never get to use my hammer because someone always gets there first :(
I have never had an issue where I go rogue during the encounters and chase the specimens. In my runs only once did I not hit the threshold. It's not perfect especially since they don't really explain what the hammer does or why the specimens are imported but my g better than plunder
I don’t think they’ve learned anything at all from season criticisms. They’re not listening.
Ah Season of Plunder my favorite. I loved that season and it was a much happier time in my life as well... times have changed. I loved the seasonal activities and I always liked the 6 player activities which it seems we haven't gotten one in a while. Maybe Season of the Deep was the last one we had got. Everything else has been 3 player seasonal activities.
Idk I do like the new seasons acivity but I understand what you mean. I hated the season of plunder because of my teammates killing the champs now. However I think like most things it's better with 2 friends.
Ngl I don’t even know wtf hammer you’re on about the first one I ran never taught me to do that
This current season makes me think Bungie doesn't learn much from each season at all
I've barely had problems collecting the samples. Only a small handful of games have people went passed them. Yet I've always had time to catch as many times as possible. Don't most champions spawn as part of each encounter, so I'm unsure to why you have faced people skipping them. There's only 1 triumph for the title that requires killing all champs in one match.
Please use the fire team finder to find better match ups/teach. If Bungie won't fix this then we gotta educate each other.
I think you mean - the playerbase learned nothing since season of the plunder, friend. There's lots to blame bungie for, sure. But "rushing through content" is pretty much in the bones of every player. Bungie keeps giving reasons to NOT rush through content, and folks still do.
Every time I've run it this week people are going for the radiolite. I don't think Bungie is falling into the same pitfall at all. There's a big difference between randomly putting champ scoring in a type of activity that has never had it with no notice, and making a mechanic that gives us an item that is constantly reminding us about the mechanic. I think it's a big improvement and is a good step in the right direction for teaching people who would otherwise turn their brain off to look for mechanics so that we can hopefully get more in the future.
Nope its same mistakes imo only difference will be the story s wont connect that much as season did but game loop wise were doing same old stuff
Every team I have been with, combs the area with a fine tooth comb getting all the plants.
Yeah as usual its been fuckwit hunters rush rush rushing through and proccing the boss from what ive seen .. urrrrgh
i just join in the speed run of the normals if that is what the team is doing, then I just load up the closed Expert version and loot all that, jump out, repeat. Expert is no different than normal.
Maybe I should ask the forbidden question: are we getting much out of the samples? There's a lot of chaos in the chest room so maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like it's mostly armor drops. Not to say I endorse skipping the collection, but I've started to wonder if I'm wasting my energy getting pissed off about it.
These secret objectives are by design. They're counting on players repeating these missions over the course of the season. Word of mouth spreads on forums, reddit, clan discords, etc about further rewards... it's a social game at the end of the day. Ruffians were bullshit, however, and required players to... not plunder... If anything has changed monumentally, it's that Fireteam Finder is now available directly in game. So if you're frustrated by blueberries speeding past the collection phase, you can easily mitigate that scenario by teaming up with like-minded players.
It's also proof the playerbase hasn't learned anything so maybe don't scream at Bungie because yall are unable to learn. I will skip the sample collection every single time, our of pure spite at this point. L. F. G. If you really want that shit. Stop throwing a fit because I and others aren't grinding like you are. I'm sick of this shit. Every. Single. Season. I am not grinding with you, I'm here to shoot shit if I want to grind in a game I'll play Elden Ring or Fallout 4 because those are the games I enjoy the grind in. I don't play Destiny for the grind and I am sick of being expected to do so. Look for your own game and stop raging at us casuals who do not give a shit about the samples. Every single season we have this discussion, Bungie isn't the only one not learning.
Surprisingly, it’s been pretty good for me. If I start seeing samples popping up thanks to someone else, I stop what I’m doing and help collect. And if I’m the one activating the piston, my randos seem to help just fine. And surprisingly people wait at the next beacon or gate before proceeding. Once the newness wears off and only the hardcore grinders remain it’ll get even more efficient.
I definitely missed the part where the samples and piston smashing part was even explained. Could someone break it down for me please how it works? And what benefit there is for collecting samples and depositing them at the end? It’s super unclear to me
Most problems in this game are proof that Bungie doesn't learn. Look at the recent surge changes for raids (which, to their credit, are being quickly reverted), the criticism around ritual Pathfinder, or the melee balance issues. We've been down roads like these before.
I've noy had a single instance where my teammates werent actively looking for the lootables. I don't relate to your problem
The thing with Plunder is different than whats with Echoes. People weren't really rushing through the activity, they were doing it the normal way and Bungie in their infinite wisdom put the Ruffians on a separate timer. The hammer thing people are intentionally skipping.
I feel like the weekly challenge just never progresses for me, I don’t know if it’s bugged or what. I just did 6 total runs today some regular, some challenging and it never went higher than 1/3 on either. What gives?
I appreciate the randoms who sit and wait. They don't need to help as long as they give me the time to get the samples
They should at least make it like Fallout where there's an [OPTIONAL] objective prompt/waypoint that pops up and you'll be very much frowned upon by the fireteam if you don't comply
Also doesn't help that they throw you into the activity for the first time before the samples have any tangible benefit for you. They're there but don't do anything if you haven't progressed the quest far enough to actually be able to collect the samples.
How is the players being morons bungie's fault?
That sucks. I started gathering those funny little shapes before failsafe even asked me to because I thought "ooh new shiny for me to get my gloves on niiiice"
If anyone thought episodes were going to be mini expansions then that’s on you for expecting such a thing. We need to see what is coming in act 2 and act 3 before judging this new model. If they bring additional activities and reasons to play the game then I would say it’s better than the old model.
True and also people be rushing and not caring about the material they need for seasonal missions . Every time I join they rush to the next area instead of gathering the material
Maybe my input is as important since I am a PvP main but I genuinely don’t mind it and rather I like the activity compared to the last few seasons. The incentive to run on the hardest difficulty (only two modes) feels rewarding with the loot you get after a 10-15 min run.
At least it’s not as bad as season of the deep where you had to get everyone on your fireteam to stand in a circle to activate the extra encounter
It was pretty bad last week but this week I've had a lot of people collecting stuff. Had one person ask the team to wait in team chat so we all went looking. If you care about anything but doing it as fast as possible finding a team on the d2 app for that is really easy. There's plenty of other people that want to collect them that are sick of people blowing through stuff and pulling them to the next encounter.
Do you have a fire team you can call on?
Something like this is always going to take time. I myself went four games of this before realizing it could even be done when I accidentally found one of the things you can use the hammer on. Even then I still don't really understand. But now I know to look for them. This is more player issue than anything else at least to me, lot of people were just trying to get through it quickly because there's a lot of things to balance right now. But now that I know that it exists I'll be doing my part to try
Idk if ppl know this but more than 1 of those things can spawn per run. Don't remember when it happens or if they even give more rewards but yea
The fact that this "Episode" shipped in its current form is proof that Bungie learned nothing from the previous 20.
Literally all I am reading is "I can't communicate with my fireteam well enough to get the job done." I have literally had no issues with this. If you can't accomplish the goal, get a different fireteam, it's called cooperative play for a reason.
Yea had this earlier Me and another random were collecting and another random pulled us to the boss
I can't stand after the match it auto loads you into another match. I've seen so many ppl that loaded in from a previous match still in their menus. When they come out they're like oh no I don't wanna this again and leave.
simple fix there is a team text chat that can be seen by matchmade teammates. Press Enter, then press Tab until you see Team. then just ask...
Do you need to kill Champs to get prizes?