I hate this game, it’s my favorite.
I just wanted to gather some of my thoughts and feelings about this first week of Edge of Fate Season 27. These are all
just personal subjective opinion and experiences which I have no intention of swaying people to agree with me on. We all
play the game very differently and it is obviously never going to be perfect for every single player.
As I’m writing this, I realize that I generally lean way more towards the elitest-side of the community in my opinions
despite being a lowly casual. I suspect this might get me into some trouble [nervous “haha”] but, again, we all play
a different version of the game to satisfy what we need to personally enjoy ourselves.
I took a bit of a break generally from the game (around four months) leading up to EoF and returned about three weeks
ahead of release. Mostly due to a large work project but also, I was enjoying Tarkov at the time. While I usually try
to complete Titles and as much content as possible, S26 was the first season in quite a while where I had to tell
myself, it’s okay to not finish these.
But I’m back now and I’m extremely excited to see if some of these changes shift how I want to play the game. I
mostly enjoy challenging PvE content but I also enjoy and play PvP.
Overall:
- I absolutely applaud Bungie for trying all the new things within the game. Everything new will require refinement
or potentially redesign. We want Destiny 3? I think this is what it looks like.
- I finished the main campaign story and have done almost none of the side content on Kepler. I attempted the raid
day 1 on Contest, got my ass beat but had a fantastic time. I have completed the raid on Normal and am still having
a fantastic time.
- Regarding the new power grind, I’m divided and need some more time with it. I love the customization in difficulty
in such a granular way and I like that there are goals to meet which usually drive me to play more. But I’m currently
under 200 power and The Portal activities are locked to “Easy” experiences until I unlock the Advanced tiers. This
just isn’t very fun to me and has actually slowed my drive.
- There is a very high probability that I’m just doing it wrong and maybe I should be finishing stuff on Kepler
first. I just fear that hitting 200 power will result in the same problem until the next threshold is reached.
Campaign:
- I’m very intrigued with the story and its implications on the coming years of the game narrative.
- It took me about 50% of the campaign to start feeling that intrigue so I may have missed some early context, mostly
around The Archon and the reason we’re on Kepler to begin with.
- Campaign abilities, while not my favorite part, were new and initially interesting but I’m okay with them being only
used for Kepler. As I said above, I’m glad they tried new things. I am guessing this will just be confined to the
expansion as stand-alone gimmicks and we’ll see something entirely new again with Renegades that will be equally
polarizing. Keep trying new things.
PS5 audio issues:
- Known issue to Bungie, immediately was very disorienting on day one of the campaign.
- Extremely frustrating to have to abstain from specific mechanics out of respect for the fireteam where I couldn’t
be as efficient, very specifically the raid Wyvern timer but who knows how many other missing audio cues would have
helped me to perform more effectively.
- Just wanted to complain, audio is incredibly important to me.
The Raid:
- Overall, and especially for the final boss, it feels very good to have mechanics that reward efficient execution
with faster, consistent paths to damage. In addition, efficient management of the damage extension mechanics allow
for very manageable two phases and extremely safe three phases
- Contest aside (I’m curious and following the discussion on potential power delta discrepancies), the normal raid
was very fun and engaging and not (yet) a mindless experience. You will die, you will fail mechanics, and you will
wipe your team.
- At first, I was shocked to see Tier 1 gear dropping from the Raid (and even more shocked to hear that included
Contest). But I am definitely okay with lower tiers dropping to incentivize trying to increase difficulty with the
feats themselves. I would also be okay with Tier 2 as the base level for drops in a raid.
- The final boss animations…
Loadout swapping during the raid:
opinions
- I actually welcome swaps as a game mechanic and part of the skill ceiling. “Menu play” doesn’t bother me, I’m a nerd
and have external spreadsheets for the most general of gameplay.
- The point is to spend as little time in menus during combat as possible; loadouts allow for that. The time I spend
in menus is during the build crafting and refining between encounter attempts.
- Most of us are doing this anyway
- A personal peeve, fireteam members “menu play” in fashion menus when I would rather just go right back in to combat
for another attempt at an encounter as fast as possible.
- If contest was NOT designed around loadout swaps, the players already doing it would still do it and
- Why are we convinced console players are at a disadvantage for loadout swaps? I play PS5 and have absolutely zero
issue swapping, even mid super animation. If people aren’t aware, push D-pad left and it puts the cursor over the
top-left slot. I generally leave my top three or four open to be used for the current encounter requiring swaps.
- Loadout swaps were absolutely not needed after contest. I’m curious to see how quickly they become required
again in custom feat versions of the raid.
Conclusion
I’m sure there’s more I want to say but we can probably stop there for now.
I have spent 4x the time in the raid this weekend compared to the time I’ve spent playing the core game. I’m going to
spend more time with it and my opinions may change. Either way, I hope everyone is finding something to enjoy today.
Thanks for reading.
– JoshUndefined