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Competitive Budget Deck Masterpost (January 2021)
i'm starting to feel like modern Yugioh is a clown car, and every time the banlist apprehends the first few clowns that lead the format, 4-5 more step out to take their place. we didn't even have Linkross in handcuffs yet before VFD took the wheel and Vanity's Ruler got into the passenger seat. happy new year
This post will give recommendations for decks that can generally do well while generally remaining in the $50 to $150 price range.
Estimated pricing includes a sample completed main deck and some or all of an extra deck, but no side.
Pricing is based mainly on singles and you can easily save a lot of money by buying cores for most of these lists all at once.
Decks were chosen usually based on having some degree of success in recent TCG formats.
These deck choices and rankings are heavily based on online tournaments such as Konami's Remote Duel Invitationals, LCS, and other assorted online events.
Performance on DuelingBook's ranked ladder also slightly factors in to the placement of these decks, with data taken from Ygoscope.
Many decklists will include some middle-range power cards that might drive the price point up, which can be cut for players on an extreme budget. For instance, a set of Ash is $25-30 currently, but Ash is included in many of these lists as a generic staple that players might already own.
Conversely, decklists are oftentimes easily upgraded by adding power cards such as Forbidden Droplet and Triple Tactics Talent.
Decks are grouped into four "tiers" and listed alphabetically by tier. Decklists are built prioritizing simplicity and effectiveness on a budget. Not all of them are perfect, but this post is not an F. Unless there is a particularly offensive deckbuilding error that you want to point out, please don't use this thread to nitpick at the sample decklists. Don't feel obligated to stick to the sample lists either; you should experiment and play cards that feel comfortable and/or optimal to you. Feel free to leave suggestions for budget players, whether it's a budget tech choice for one of the decks on this list or whether it's a different deck that you think can compete in the coming months. [Last updated: 23 Jan 2021] Previous version: October 2020 Post
S Tier
The best bang for your buck. Decks in this category have the capacity to top premier events, though they're almost always supplemented with expensive power cards.
New Ritual-based combo deck from Genesis Impact that has a lot of recursion from the Graveyard, boasting a strong grind game as well as potent turn 1 boards that can win the game outright.
The level 1 Drytron cards tribute other Drytron cards or Ritual cards in hand/field, so this deck abuses Cyber Angel Benten's lack of a once per turn clause to gain a ton of resources and search a lot of power LIGHT Fairy cards, such as Herald of Orange Light and Vanity's Ruler.
Drytron Nova is an automatic 3-of inclusion in every competitive version of this deck, but also currently sits at around $40 each in NA. Novas are a massive boost in consistency, though the deck is honestly still playable without it, and is quite cheap otherwise. With even one copy of Nova, you should look to also include three copies of Drytron Fafnir (their Field Spell) which can search Nova as well.
The absence of Nova + Fafnir from the main leaves a lot of space to be filled. There are many ways you can go about this.
The sample list plays a small Pre-Prep engine with Herald of Perfection. It's very simple to play, especially if you're unfamiliar with the deck, and helps raise your overall ceiling - athough optimized competitive builds have generally moved away from Pre-Prep.
Another viable Ritual engine is the Megalith engine, which provides numerous options. These variants generally also suffer from consistency issues, made worse by the lack of Novas in the budget version. Less consistent access to Alpha means less consistent usage of extra Ritual monsters.
You could play cards that search Drytron monsters in an attempt to patch up consistency. Examples include Where Arf Thou, or normal summons that fetch Drytrons such as Cyber Dragon Core (getting Emergency) and Mathematician. Also viable is Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin, which is an interesting tech in Drytron that helps you beat handtraps like Droll & Lock Bird.
Finally, you can always just play more handtraps or generic power cards.
This deck is a relatively new deck, and is getting support in Lightning Overdrive, which might indicate that it's relatively safe from the next banlist. However, there's no telling what Konami will do, so don't take my word as gospel.
Combo deck with an extra deck toolbox, using Synchro and Xyz monsters to break boards or to win the game with True King of All Calamities and their recurring boss monster, Shenshen. The Virtual World monsters have a shared restriction which means that Link monsters are usually not played in this deck at all.
Most of the main deck VW monsters can dump other VW cards from Deck to GY, and their continuous spell Qinglong is a searcher in the GY. Combined with Virtual World Mai-Hime - Lulu's ability to search for VW cards as well, the deck is consistent at doing the same combos and executing its gameplan almost every game, as most combinations of 2 Virtual World cards result in some type of combo.
Despite being one of the top decks in the format, this deck is also quite cheap. Staples aside, the most pricey card in the main is Lulu at around $18-20 each. Can you get away with fewer copies of her? Probably, but you really want to get 3 due to Desires, and her being one of the best cards in your deck.
Saw success immediately after PHRA release, even in the previous combo-infested format where Virtual World took the most representation and top cut spots at LCS 8, eventually winning the entire tournament. Post-banlist, they also took the most top cut spots and then won LCS 9, versus an entirely different playing field full of Zoodiac, Drytron, and Eldlich variants.
Recent combos using Chaofeng, Phantom of the Yang Zing to search either one of the Virtual World tuners (Lulu or Laolao) have opened up some new combo routes that make Foolish Burial Goods a lot more forgiving to play, allowing you to still end on impressive boards despite using Qinglong somewhat suboptimally. On the other hand, Chaofeng's price also spiked quite heavily after LCS 9, so you may not want to play it.
Non-budget players will first and foremost want to add Zeus to the Extra Deck, as it helps greatly with going second and also dealing with threats like Dragoon. Another common inclusion is Triple Tactics Talents, though this card is by no means mandatory in the deck, and has also seen a decline in popularity lately.
A Tier
Strong decks, but limited either by a lack of access to powerful staples or by the natural ceiling of the deck. You could still top a regional with one of these decks on a good day.
Control + backrow deck with incredible recursion and the ability to come back from almost no resources
Altergeist have seen sparse success ever since FLOD, and are a respectable budget contender. They've have had a fairly modest showing online, and saw recent success with a top 8 finish at LCS 9. That deck was a Dogmatika variant piloted by Lars Junginger, playing the recently released Artemis, the Magistus Moon Maiden to make it slightly easier to summon Ecclesia in some hands.
The Dogmatika engine is viable even on a modest budget. It's possible to simply play Dogmatika Punishment as a powerful trap capable of utilizing your extra deck, and even a single copy of Ecclesia (around $20 each right now) goes a long way for improving the power of this package. Of course, the deck is also perfectly playable as pure Altergeist.
Budget players are most hurt by a lack of Pot of Extravagance, Infinite Impermanence, and Evenly Matched. The first three of these cards have reprints, but none are quite cheap enough yet to be easily accessible on a budget.
The extra deck is extremely flexible (as Altergeist are typically played with Extravagance, anyway) and several options are simply tech cards, such as Elder Entity N'tss.
Main deck trap choices are also extremely flexible. Torrential is quite powerful against Virtual World, but this could easily be swapped out for many other cards depending on your budget, available card pool, and locals demographics.
The release of Blazing Vortex in early February also brings along an incredibly powerful staple card in Pot of Prosperity. Altergeist, along with virtually every other deck that enjoys running Pot of Extravagance currently, will appreciate Prosperity as well. Many OCG decks are choosing to play both Extrav + Prosperity in their decklists. Of course, Prosperity is also a Secret Rare, and is virtually guaranteed to be around $100, so this is not applicable on a budget.
Floaty combo/control deck with 4 maindeck Prank-Kids that all float into any other Prank-Kid when used for a Link or Fusion summon
Got a great boost in Phantom Rage with Prank-Kids Meow-Meow-Mu, a Link 1 Prank-Kid monster that makes this deck incredibly consistent and turns any single Prank monster into full combo.
Prank-Kids Place is a little pricey, currently sitting at around $17 per copy in NA. While it contributes to your overall consistency (as it's equivalent to any Prank name), you can definitely get away with cutting copies of Place if your budget is tight.
Notably took 1st place at the Canadian Remote Duel Invitational in mid-January, piloted by Hanko Chow.
This deck appreciates the inclusion of Predaplant Verte Anaconda (currently over $30 apiece in NA) which can dump Thunder Dragon Fusion to help field Battle Butler, your main win condition. It was dropped from the provided list for budget reasons, but it's a great inclusion if you have a copy already. In conjunction with cards like Link Spider, it also improves your ability to play through disruption and through Nibiru.
This deck has many characteristics of a great deck, but suffers from similar problems as Zoodiac in that it struggles to play through disruption on your normal summon, or cards like Ash negating your first Prank-Kid effect. The inclusion of Polymerization in the main deck helps to combat this, but also popular are builds that don't play Poly at all and instead just load the main deck with handtraps and powerful staples like Forbidden Droplet.
Pot of Desires is included in this example main deck to help boost consistency and overall power, but some players opt not to run it.
Link-based midrange deck with a lot of recursion and a special in-archetype technique, where 1 Link Monster is used as the entire Link material to summon another copy of that monster, granting bonus effects
The deck is somewhat halfway between control and combo, establishing respectable boards turn 1 with a fairly compact engine, allowing many handtraps to be played. Their real strength comes in turn 3 and beyond, where their arsenal of free summons from the GY, coupled with their stellar resource recycling, easily overwhelm the opponent.
The majority of the deck is dirt cheap and is mostly able to be built with commons from SOFU+SAST supplementing 3 copies of Structure Deck: Soulburner.
Accesscode Talker is a huge part of this deck's success, able to steal games easily with the help of Update Jammer. Accesscode is not at all affordable on a budget, so the sample list plays Zeroboros instead. Owning one copy of Accesscode is a tremendous improvement to this deck's strength.
Salamangreat has found little competitive success in bigger online tournaments this format, but still regularly performs well in smaller events, remote duel locals, and the like. It's also a fairly safe choice, as it's somewhat unlikely we see further Salamangreat hits on the next banlist.
The provided list plays Rivalry + Strike, a potent option allowing you to sometimes win games even into established boards. Strike is quite solid in the current format, as even the combo decks don't usually end on ways to punish a lot of set backrow.
Parallel eXceed is an optional card, and can be cut in favor of more backrow or handtraps. On one hand, it allows you to more easily link climb when going second, and can easily add a Dweller or Bagooska to your board going first (Dweller is very good right now, as well). On the other hand, players may prefer to run more defensive cards instead of eXceed.
Subterrors are a control deck with a focus on flipping monsters face-down and generating constant advantage with Subterror Guru.
Pure Guru control is the most played variant, and is more or less a stun deck that tries to abuse Guru as much as possible. While most Guru lists online are Numeron and/or Dragoon hybrids, the pure version saw some success earlier this format at the Benelux Remote Duel Extravaganza, finishing top 4. You can watch that deck profile here, and the sample list is generally based off of that list.
While Dragoon isn't budget-friendly, the Numeron engine is very accessible for little cost, and is a viable variant of this deck as well. Numeron cards aim to make Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL going first or simply OTK going second. S0 is an extremely powerful card that can prevent the opponent from playing the game entirely if it resolves. If you are interested in this version, you can check the Subterror list on the previous budget post.
The sample list doesn't have a complete extra deck, mainly because it doesn't play Extravagance and you barely go into the Extra Deck to begin with. Relinquished Anima is a decent option if you can shell out the $7-8 for it, since sometimes you can turn Fiendess into Anima. Apart from that, provided Extra Deck options include anti-Maximus cards for the Dogmatika matchup, and Aussa + Zoodiac Drident in case you face a Zoodiac player. Taking their Zoo monster and then slapping your Drident on top can be potent.
This deck usually plays Extravagance over Desires, but Desires is quite a serviceable replacement. Similarly to Altergeist, this deck also enjoys Pot of Prosperity post-BLVO.
B Tier
Like the above category, but generally weaker, less consistent, and/or impacted harder by a lack of access to a certain card(s).
Dinosaurs are an aggressive deck with consistent access to Evolzar Laggia/Dolkka and Ultimate Conductor Tyranno, a formidable boss monster with incredible OTK power and disruption.
Dinosaur's strength tends to be largely meta-dependent, particularly how well it can counter the existing top decks. During the previous two combo-infested formats with decks like Dragon Link and Adamancipator running around, Dinos had several extremely impressive showing at events, such as TeamSamuraiX1's win at the first NA Remote Duel Invitational, as well as all three first-place players at LCS 7 (a 3v3 event) playing Dino.
In the current format, Dinosaurs are struggling. The Virtual World matchup is difficult, and it's hard for Dinosaur to build to beat all of VW, Drytron, Eldlich variants, and the plethora of rogue decks running around. Additionally, Mystic Mine is not very potent this format as both Virtual World and Eldlich have in-engine outs to the card, which is another blow to the Dinosaur strategy. Finally, the popularity of handtraps like Skull Meister and Artifact Lancea in the side or even the main deck are also reasons this deck has declined.
The provided variant still plays Mine, as it has utility breaking boards. Deckout is a much less reliable strategy against VW and Eldlich, but you can still stall for some turns until you can make a push for game. The addition of Cosmic Cyclone is also an attempt at neutering cards like Chuche and Conquistador.
If you wanted to build this deck without Mines, you would have to find replacements for quite a few cards (and frankly, Dinosaur does not have very many good ones). Most power staples are not budget, such as Lightning Storm, Talents, Droplet, etc. This deck also really appreciates Pot of Extravagance, which still sits barely out of budget range at around $25 each in NA.
Budget Dino must also deal with the lack of Animadorned Archosaur, an extremely powerful addition to the deck that opens up many new combos. However, sitting at around $60 per copy, the card is inaccessible on a budget.
The provided list plays the Simorgh combo, bringing out the WIND barrier statue on turn 1 to steal games. Though a full extra deck is provided, very few cards are actually needed, as the deck typically plays Extravagance anyway.
Dragon Link is a Link-centric combo deck that was a dominant force in the meta for about half a year, but lost a lot of resilience and power with the recent bans to Linkross and Dragon Buster Destruction Sword.
The provided budget version of this deck actually has a ton of extra deck flexibility due to not needing to play Synchro/Link cards related to the Halq/Kross package, meaning that you can play Knightmares, anti-Dogmatika cards, etc. This also means that the budget version doesn't actually care about the Linkross ban at all.
This deck has seen a great deal of variation online, playing a variety of different engines and tech cards. A few of these include Vylon Cube + Smoke Grenade, the Rose Dragons, several different Dragonmaid cards, and even an FTK variant involving Earthbound Immortal Aslla piscu. However, few of these are viable for budget players, especially if you do not own a copy of Halqifibrax.
An interesting option the deck has is to use Union Carrier to equip handtraps such as Artifact Lancea. On the opponent's turn, Hieratic Seal can be used to return the handtrap to your hand, making it live immediately. This is something you may want to consider in the main deck if you frequently have to deal with decks like Virtual World and Dinosaur. Another option is to equip Ally of Justice Cycle Reader to Carrier (they're both machines) and then bounce it to hand, as a weapon against Drytron. Carrier isn't in the example list, but this is a really interesting option to consider.
With Linkross out of the picture, playing Fibrax alone is an option if you either already own a copy or can afford the $20 needed to obtain one. You may have to retool your combos to incorporate Fiber, but the card can definitely add flexibility and resilience to your deck if you use it well.
Backrow-heavy control deck that summons its Traps to the field as monsters and pressures the opponent with Toadally Awesome
After being absent from the budget post for about a year, Paleo makes its triumphant return as its boss monster, Toad, returns to 3. Toad's reprint in Maximum Gold also brought this card down from $20 each to just a few bucks, making the entire deck extremely cheap.
As a control deck, Paleo suffers from more weaknesses compared to Eldlich, Altergeist, and Subterror. Notably, the engine tends to bleed advantage unless you've managed to maintain access to Swap Frog, and you can be quickly outpaced by stronger decks. However, in games where you can establish a Toad early, or where you can maintain control with your backrow, you can do quite well.
Paleo saw a surprising amount of success in various remote duel events this format, though some of that success is likely due to the format being unexplored and some sort of "new toy syndrome" as Toad recently went from 2 to 3.
Paleo struggles to out Dragoon, especially without access to Ice Dragon's Prison, a $40 card. An interesting option catching on in the meta lately is the use of Mirror Force cards, particularly Quaking and Storming, as they both pressure Dragoon. Still, the card puts quite a lot of pressure on this deck.
Speaking of Dragoon, some Paleo players opt to play that package in this deck as well. Swap Frog is a one card Dragoon as you can simply dump Ronin, turn Swap into Almiraj, and then revive Ronin to make Verte from there.
Fiend Griefing is presented as an interesting option which is very decent in the current meta, particularly vs Drytron. Combining it with Absolute King Back Jack is a classic combo that Paleo played a long time ago in 2017, during early Zoo formats.
Price: $100+, can be closer to $50 with fewer copies of Schism Imgur | DuelingBook
Classic Fusion-based archetype from 2014, debuting in Duelist Alliance. Somewhat of a midrange combo deck that can slow the game down with El Shaddoll Winda or be very aggressive with El Shaddoll Construct
Winda is a troublesome floodgate that many decks struggle to out, especially combo decks such as Drytron. Shaddoll cards are currently played in several Dogmatika variants due to the sheer power of Winda and the utility of Shaddoll Schism.
The current meta is favorable for Shaddoll not only due to Winda being effective vs Drytron, but also due to Ariel being very strong against a large chunk of the format, including Eldlich variants. Her ability to banish 3 cards from the GY is so strong that some decks are splashing in Sinister Shadow Games + Ariel just for that option, which we saw played in some of the 60-card Eldlich decks at LCS 9.
The growing popularity of Shaddoll cards has also caused Shaddoll Schism to go up in price substantially. Currently, it's around $17, but it may continue to rise.
The deck's biggest problem has always been its inability to consistently resolve a fusion spell on turn 1. Invoked Shaddoll was a popular hybrid in earlier formats, but with the release of the Magistus archetype in GEIM, Shaddolls got access to Rilliona and Magistus Invocation. This is an improvement since Magistus Invocation can fuse from hand and field whereas the regular Invocation can only fuse from hand when summoning Shaddolls. Additionally, Artemis provides a super convenient way for the deck to turn any Shaddoll into a LIGHT monster, which is important for summoning Construct.
While the full Dogmatika package is very expensive due to Nadir Servant being a $75 card, one option is to play just one copy of Ecclesia (around $20) along with Maximus and a playset of Dogmatika Punishment. Maximus and Punishment have a ton of synergy in the Shaddoll deck in conjunction with Apkallone's GY effect, and this combination is deadly even on a budget.
Other normal summons such as Mathematician and even Gale Dogra are potent on this deck, and can be played in addition to Rilliona or as a replacement for her. Yet another option is to run 1 copy of the now-cheap Eldlich the Golden Lord as a LIGHT monster for Shaddoll Fusion that can easily revive itself.
Another popular variant is a very trap-heavy list, sometimes cutting the Magistus cards entirely. PAK and SirEmanon's YouTube channels both have their own takes on this, if you're interested.
Floaty destruction-based archetype that generates advantage when its cards are destroyed, enabling its gimmick of using your opponent's monsters to Link Summon.
Can be built to go first or to go second quite effectively. Since going second is very difficult this format, the provided list aims to go first, playing a bunch of trap cards.
Fairly modest online performance, doing alright at smaller events and more recently finishing top 8 at the second YuGiJoe online series as well as occasional Luxury events. After the December banlist, Unchained has rapidly gained popularity in online remote duel events, and is one of the more prominent rogue decks this format. This success could be because the format is generally slower compared to previous ones, and many destruction-based cards such as Torrential Tribute are very popular currently, which this deck enjoys.
Mega-Tin reprints of Abomination's Prison as well as their Link 2 have helped make this deck a great deal more affordable. I:P Masquerena being more affordable is also a nice boost, though it's by no means essential in this deck.
This deck's best weapon is its opponents being unprepared for it. Playing improperly into backrow or Unchained floats can very quickly be fatal. It also matches up decently into some backrow decks as well as Dogmatika variants, which rely on destruction-based removal from Dogmatika Punishment and Elder Entity N'tss.
C Tier
Decks in this category have the capability to be just as good as the ones above at times, but often tend to suffer from multiple problems including consistency and power.
Versatile control-based Graveyard toolbox deck that has been swinging in and out of meta relevance since its release way back in 2014.
Gradually got more and more cards back from the banlist, with Cir and Graff being unlimited on the December 2020 list. The deck is now more or less "full power" with the exception of Beatrice, who is still limited.
The deck aims to establish Beatrice on turn 1 backed up with trap cards. The BA cards as well as Beatrice are extremely floaty, so this deck can put up quite a fight in grind games. Fiend Griefing is a solid card in the current meta, and is excellent in the Burning Abyss deck as you can send Farfa for further disruption, Graff/Scarm for followup, or Back Jack for more traps.
This deck was frequently mixed with Phantom Knight cards back in 2016 (often called PK Fire). Nowadays, Phantom Knight decks are typically either built pure or with an extremely compact BA engine. While it's possible to play a more dedicated hybrid build, the release of PK Torn Scales combined with most key BA cards being unlimited means that it's just better to focus on one or the other.
Many other options are playable - Desires for draw power, playing more traps, more handtraps, etc. Consider Needle Ceiling over Torrential as it can be harder to pull off, but combos better with Trap Trick. Players with access to Ice Dragon's Prison should play it, and adventurous duelists can even opt to play Fire Lake of the Burning Abyss.
As a deck easily capable of churning out Rank 3 Xyzs, you also have easy access to Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS Sky Thunder, one of the most powerful extra deck cards in the format. If this is an accessible option, it should be played.
Spell-heavy control deck that usually maintains only one monster on the field at a time, in the extra monster zone.
Formerly an extremely dominant control deck, modern-day Striker no longer accrues infinite resources through resolving Engage multiple times, but instead is easily able to kill you with an Accesscode Talker push after whittling down your LP and resources for a turn or two. The standard combo involves laddering from Halqifibrax -> Selene -> Accesscode and then dismantling your opponent's board before swinging for game.
You may have noticed a problem: if you're on a budget, you can't use Accesscode. This is a pretty big blow to the deck's overall strength. Some players opt for alternatives such as the Utopia Double package, which Zoé Weber played in the second EU Remote Duel Invitational last format. Another option is to simply not run it at all, and close games the old-fashioned way.
In previous formats, this deck was oftentimes played like an anti-meta going second deck, packing tons of removal cards and usually 3 copies of Mystic Mine in the main deck. In the current format, this strategy is a lot more difficult due to several factors - it's very hard to go second this format in general, and Mine is a lot less effective vs the top decks right now.
Instead, the sample list plays a going-first strategy with powerful trap cards like There Can Be Only One and Solemn Strike. It's possible to build this deck to go second, but you'd probably want to play board breakers instead of trap cards, and potentially also maindeck PSY-Framegear Gamma.
Yet another way to play this deck involves (surprise) Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon and multiple copies of Red-Eyes Fusion. Instead of using cards like Widow Anchor and Afterburners to muscle through disruption and stick a Mystic Mine on the field, you use them to get to your Dragoon and either win the game immediately or put yourself in a position where your opponent can't play through the Dragoon disrupt.
Roze is the most expensive card in this list. If your budget is tight, you can definitely cut her down to 1.
Xyz-focused deck with a gimmick allowing you to use any one Zoodiac as the entire Xyz material requirement for another Zoodiac. This lets you stack Zoo Xyz monsters on top of each other, making use of their effects.
Plays a compact engine combined with around 20 slots dedicated to handtraps, traps, and draw power. This deck is also commonly played as a hybrid deck, oftentimes with Eldlich and sometimes with Dogmatika cards. Both of these options are quite expensive, so they are not shown.
The deck's strength in competitive play comes almost entirely from Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS Sky Thunder, an extremely powerful Xyz monster that Zoodiac can effortlessly make due to Zoodiac Boarbow. Zoo is also easily able to summon Zeus with many materials, allowing it to repeatedly nuke the board.
Budget Zoo without Zeus is extremely weak by comparison. Relying solely on Drident + handtraps is not a reliable win condition, so cards like Parallel eXceed and Pot of Avarice are included in the sample list to give this deck a boost. While Megaclops is a troublesome boss monster in some matchups, the big three decks (Drytron, Virtual World, and Eldlich) generally don't have much trouble dealing with it.
Even with Zeus, the deck has been struggling in the current competitive meta. Noteworthy is its performance at LCS 9, where out of a whopping 51 Zoodiac variants that entered the tournament, only 1 survived until top 16.
Up-And-Coming
Decks to watch out for, oftentimes due to recent online success or new support being announced. Some might also be decks that could potentially be on the main body of the post, but need a little more time to prove themselves.
Link-focused deck that plays a variety of Beast, Beast-Warrior, and Winged Beast monsters. The maindeck Tri-Brigades cheat out powerful Link monsters, provided your GY is set up. This deck also trivially access the Simorgh link, which can sometimes seal games on its own through the WIND Barrier Statue.
In the current format, Tri-Brigade has seen fairly sparse success, usually mixed with Zoodiac. However, BLVO gives us Tri-Brigade Kitt, a great boost to this deck and a fantastic combo piece.
Further support in LIOV and beyond is also very promising, making this deck a potentially solid investment for the future.
The Tri-Brigade core is currently quite cheap, but this could change in the future depending on hype and the market.
Control deck with an extremely powerful Link 1 monster, Traptrix Sera, that pumps out constant advantage.
The sample list incorporates a very small Dogmatika engine. Dogmatika Punishment itself is very cheap, and is one of the best generic traps in the game right now. Just 1 copy of Ecclesia (around $20) provides a substantial power boost to this mini-engine, as dumping one copy of Titaniklad with Punishment and grabbing an Ecclesia for next turn is extremely powerful. Another option is to dump El Shaddoll Apkallone, then adding and discarding Ariel in order to trigger her effect and banish 3 cards, which is insane value.
If you can't get Ecclesia, you could simply play just Punishment as a generic trap. Another option is to play pure Traptrix, incorporating more power traps/handtraps, and quite frequently the Utopia Double package as well.
Pirate archetype with ridiculous recursion and a unique tag-out and equip mechanic based on Attributes being used in the game.
The pirates become equips for one of (currently) three Patrollships, extra deck monsters that can all discard Plunder Patroll cards in hand to fuel powerful effects. The ships become stronger when manned (equipped with) a Plunder card, with bonuses such as ignition effects becoming quick effects, or being able to replace the discarded card with a new one from the deck.
Many Plunder lists play Forbidden Droplet, as it has great synergy with the cards. Without Droplet, you could fill the space with several different options. This deck chooses to play the Undine package, but you can also go for cards like Foolish Burial Goods, Salvage, Silent Angler, Tenyi Spirit - Shthana, Toadally Awesome + Bahamut Shark, or just more generic staples.
This deck is getting at least one more support card in LIOV, that being Ravenwing. Many people speculate that they'll also get another Patrollship of a new attribute, which would be a huge buff to the deck.
Honorable Mentions
Megalith, Madolche, Pendulum decks, Cyber Dragon, Orcust, Mermail Atlantean, Magical Musketeers, Crusadia (Guardragon), ABC, D/D, Generaider, and more - Decks that are fairly decent but have been left off of the post to make room for other decks that have seen more recent success or have fewer budget resources online.
Dragonmaid, Eldlich, Infernoid, Invoked variants, HERO, etc - Decks that are pretty good but are sorta in limbo due to some expensive individual cards, such as Chamber Dragonmaid, Cursed Eldland, Invocation, etc.
Cubics, Phantasm, Chain Burn, Evilswarm, Yosenju, Dinomist, and much, much more - Unfortunately, there is not enough room to cover every single decent, super-cheap deck.
I hope to keep this post updated for the foreseeable future. Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions.
Moving into High-Level PvE: Guide for Beginners (Part 1, Season 12 update)
Season 12 Update: What’s New
· Updated mods section to reflect new mod structure · A few updated thoughts on Stasis classes · Significant update to Warmind Cell section, including information on Seventh Seraph weapons · New recommendations for defensive and offensive mod loadouts · Recommendations updated for Season 12 mods · Weapons recommendations Part 2 of this guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/DestinyTheGame/comments/k5fzne/moving_into_highlevel_pve_guide_for_beginners/
Before We Get Started
Why you should trust me
I’ve got a few hundred raid completions, including flawless completions of the post-year 1 raids, and I’ve soloed each of the dungeons flawlessly as well. But also: I’m not an amazing player; I’d say I’m above average but I am nowhere near as talented as some of the people whose videos you can watch online, or indeed who are in my clan. I am someone who has to work hard to get good and who makes up for a lack of talent with stubbornness and a willingness to learn from my mistakes. So this advice is not for the amazing D2 player. It’s for someone who’s just starting to move into raiding or is thinking about working on raid triumphs, or soloing a dungeon for the first time, or maybe dreaming of earning the Conqueror title. My main goal is to help you become a better teammate—to know what weapons, mods, and armor you need in different situations, and to learn how to use them. Hopefully I’ll answer your basic questions and give you a starting point from which you can learn more.
What do I mean by high-level PvE content?
Raids: multi-encounter structures that require team coordination and adaptation to/knowledge of various raid-specific mechanics (ball throwing, buff swapping, tethering, cranium charging, etc.)
Sublight challenges: master and grandmaster nightfalls, master nightmare hunts, solo 1280 lost sectors, 1280 empire hunts, or any new content where players are likely to be 0-25 light levels below the enemies they face. This content includes raids and dungeons in their initial season of being offered.
Solo challenges: attempts to accomplish 1 and 2 by yourself or with a suboptimal team (like doing a raid with three people instead of six).
General Advice
As you begin to push into more challenging content, one lesson is key: dying is not good. That’s kind of a strange lesson to have to learn, but the reality is that Destiny does not punish you much for dying in ordinary content. That makes it easy to develop habits that will serve you poorly in raids and other situations, where dying can lead to a cascading series of mishaps that will cause a wipe or an extinguish mechanic. So one of your main goals as you start playing in these situations is to try to get better at not dying. The other thing to begin to learn—and which the game does not really force you to learn—is how to make weapons, armor, and ability builds that synergize both internally, in relation to your own character, and externally, in relation to your teammates and the environment. Understanding, for instance, not only your role in a given raid encounter but the roles of your teammates, and knowing what classes or weapons they’re running so that you can communicate with them about what to do next, are both critical to becoming a stronger team player. And understanding how your armor and weapons, your mods and class abilities, all interact is critical to your being able to maximize your impact as a solo player. All this advice is focused on building up the basic sets of gear that will help you through difficult PvE content. I have probably forgotten many things, and of course you can always do things with an off-meta or weird loadout, either because you’re a masochist or because you want to challenge yourself. What’s below focuses on the basics.
Part 1: Armor and Armor Mods
In general a good PvE build will be a fully masterworked set of armor with high recovery and discipline or intellect. (Resilience sounds good but has only a very small impact on PvE combat.) For raids you might end up using melee abilities, but for sublight content you will mostly be fighting at range, and meleeing only in a panic. Grenades have a wide variety of important uses (hence discipline), and supers (and super energy) are also always useful (hence intellect), so spec into one of those if you can. In general armor stats matter much less in PvE than PvP; your armor mods will almost certainly not be focused on other things, which we’ll discuss in a second. For now it’s worth noting that high-end PvE content tends to feature a pretty limited set of class and subclass options, along with a certain number of key exotic armor pieces. Hunters: (1) Top or bottom tree void, with Orpheus Rigs (especially top tree) or Sixth Coyote or Wormhusk Crown (the last two for solo especially). (2) Bottom tree solar with Celestial Nighthawk for one-shot boss damage, mainly in raids. (3) Middle tree solar with Assassin’s Cowl for heal on knife melee, for solo content. (4) Stasis, especially for solo content where the grenades and debuffs help with champions. Titans: (1) Top tree void, for the bubble, along with the Helm of Saint-14 (in some circumstances), or (2) middle tree void, for the barrier, with Ursa Furiosas for orb generation. In some situations, particularly when using Xenophage, Titans will run with Actium War Rigs for the reload benefit. Warlocks: (1) Top tree void with Contraverse Hold gauntlets for frequent charged grenade use, or (2) Bottom tree void with Nezarec’s Sin, for a devour-focused build especially useful for soloing content (in which case you would want to be running a void energy weapon). (3) Much more often, middle tree solar with either Phoenix Protocol for super regen or Lunafaction Boots for reload benefit, for almost any content involving groups. (4) Middle tree arc with Geomag Stabilizers for some high-end content like grandmaster nightfalls. Season 12 has added stasis subclasses to all three groups. One of the huge advantages of all stasis supers is that they allow for significant crowd control—for slowing and stunning enemies to take them temporarily or permanently out of the fight. This is true for supers, melees, and grenades. Of the three stasis classes I find the Warlock and Titans supers a bit weak for high-end content, but the grenades and melees to be very strong (especially when paired with the correct seasonal mods). Note that the most common subclasses for group content are the ones that boost the entire team (Titan bubble, Warlock well), protect the entire team (Titan barrier), make allies invisible (Hunter smoke grenade on bottom tree), or control/manage and debuff enemies (Hunter tether, the stasis classes). Solo players tend to focus intensely on survival abilities—the Warlock devour, the Hunter invis, or the healing melees of top tree void Titan, bottom tree arc Titan, or top tree Arc hunter. The other thing to say is that roaming supers—arc Hunter, solar or arc Titan, top and bottom arc Warlock, middle void Warlock—are generally not good in high-end PvE, especially if you’re sublight. They simply don’t deal enough damage quickly enough to be viable. This kind of content emphasizes one-shot supers like Celestial/Golden Gun or Nova Bomb for damage, and supers like the well or Titan barriebubbles, for protection. Must-have exotic armor: Hunter: Orpheus Rigs and Celestial Nighthawk (for group play), Sixth Coyote (solo). Titan: Helm of Saint-14, Ursa Furiosa, Actium War Rig (group), Synthoceps (solo). Warlock: Phoenix Protocol, Lunfaction Boots, and Contraverse Hold (group or solo), Nezarec’s Sin (solo). Of the new Season 12 armor exotics, three have some utility here: Icefall Mantle, which can allow a Titan to tank a single champion (at 10-15 light levels below, at 25 this becomes quite hard); Necrotic Grips, good for Warlocks doing low-level add clear in raids, and Precious Scars, the Titan helmet that gives an overshield when rezzing—very useful in grandmaster nightfalls where a rez can often be a deathtrap. In season 12, changes to the seasonal artifact mean that only solar and stasis subclasses have the ability to stun Overload champions with their grenades; this means that those classes have suddenly become more viable (and void less dominant) for high-end PvE work. More on that later.
Armor Mods
The key difference between high-level PvE content and ordinary content or PvP content is the importance of armor mods. Where PvP builds tend to focus on statistics like Recovery or Mobility, PvE armor tends to focus on damage resistance. The Destiny mod system is unfortunately pretty bewildering. There are many many choices and it’s not clear how much any of them matters. So let me cover a few things—all of these now updated for Season 12.
The first mod slot
This mod slot allows you to boost your character’s basic stats. For group PvE content, you’ll want to focus on Recovery (which affects how quickly your health begins to regen when you’re not being hit), Intellect (which increases super regen speed), and Discipline (for grenades). For solo content that relies heavily on a single ability to survive—like the Hunter’s dodge, which regens faster with high Mobility, or the Titan’s healing void melee, which regens faster with high Strength—you will want to focus on those things specifically. In the previous seasons this mod slot could be used for resistance mods, which are central to many PvE builds. But that has all gone away with Season 12, which means that this slot is less interesting, and less important, than it used to be.
Legacy, Combat, and Raid mod slots
These should be focused on one or more of the following goals, in order of importance:
Resistance mods (on chest armor) that reduce incoming damage
Mods that stun or disrupt or otherwise affect champions (arms or class item)
Raid-specific mods (final mod slot only, and only on raid armor)
Charged with Light and Warmind Cell mods (fourth slot)
Ammo Finder (helmet) and Ammo Scavenger (boots) mods.
For grandmaster nightfalls in particular, finisher mods (mainly Special Finisher) that go on your class item and allow you to trade super energy for special ammo drops.
Resistance Mods
Resistance mods come in four types: energy, melee, sniper, and concussive dampener. They all go on your chest armor. Melee reduces any damage done within 5m (does not have to be melee damage) by 25%. Sniper does the same for damage done from 29m or farther. Concussive reduces splash damage from grenades/boomers. These mods stack, with the second mod getting you to 40% damage resistance. The same goes for the energy resist mods. Since you only have two slots, you will probably want to change them depending on the activity. For Gambit or really any content where you’re at or above the appropriate power level, melee/concussive or melee/melee is quite strong, since you’ll probably be mixing it up with mobs on the regular. For grandmaster nightfalls and other sublight content, snipeconcussive is a good place to start.
Anti-Champion Mods
These mods come in two types: weapon-specific mods, which go on your arms, and grenade or melee mods, which go on your class item. These mods come from the seasonal artifact and therefore change each season (which is why I have to update this guide). Most high-end content will have two kinds of champions, so you’ll want to go into encounters making sure that you or your fireteam can stun, disrupt, or stagger the appropriate champions with the appropriate weapons. For season 12 these mods are: Unstoppable Schwarzschild Condenser (2-Cost, Class Item), which allows Void melees to stagger Unstoppables, and Thermal Overload (2-Cost, Class Item), which allows solar and stasis grenades to disrupt Overload champions. Another very useful champion mod in season 12 is Surge Eater, which restores your grenade whenever you stagger or disrupt a champion. You can combine this with Thermal Overload to stun Overload champions and immediately get your grenade back, allowing you to stun them again as soon as that’s possible. In general I would say that the most obvious/basic combo this season is Surge EateThermal Overload… the melee mods are going to be hard to use because it’s going to be hard to get close enough to champions (in sublight content) to actually land a melee hit. The same is true for the Unstoppable Shotgun mod, which is also very highly priced at 7 energy.
The CwL system works as follows: certain mods (colored in green) give you stacks of CwL, up to a maximum of two stacks. Other mods (yellow) spend those stacks. And a third set of mods (white) changes the number of stacks you get or can have (increases your stack maximum, up to five, or gives you two stacks instead of one each time you get a stack). The basic system is this: (1) Get CwL (2) Spend CwL. The easiest way to get CwL is to use the Taking Charge mod, which gives you charges for picking up a light orb. Combined with a masterworked weapon that drops orbs on fast kills, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll spend most of the time CwL. You can also get charges from mods that give charges on weapon damage (kills with a certain weapon give you charges) or action triggers (breaking a shield, doing a finisher). For Season 12, Abyssal Charge, in the sixth row of the artifact, will give you CwL for void melee final blows. So now you have charges. How should you spend them? One option is to look for damage resistance or damage buffs. The best damage resist mod is Protective Light, an absolutely crucial choice that gives you 50% damage resistance when an enemy breaks your shield. I use it almost all the time. Useful damage boost mods include High-Energy Fire (generic 20% damage buff till you kill an enemy), Lucent Blade (for swords), and Surprise Attack (for sidearms). Other CwL mods will give you chances to drop special ammo, return grenade or melee energy, heal you on grenade kills, and more. For lower-level PvE content I tend to use damage mods like Lucent Blade or Surprise Attack. For scarier content I’m almost always on Protective Light. If you have room for mods that increase your stacks, Stacks on Stacks (gives two stacks for each one you earn), Charged Up (increases total stacks by one), and Superpowered (increases total stacks by two) are all useful here. TL:DR: if you do nothing else use Taking Charge (green) and Protective Light (yellow), and get more fancy once you understand more.
Warmind Cell mods
Like Charged with Light, this system involves creating an opportunity to affect the gameworld (by making a Warmind Cell), and then using that opportunity (the Cell) in a certain way. You create a cell by getting a kill using a Seraph weapon (which now are world drops; Ikelos 1.2 weapons also count as Seraph Weapons). Once the cell exists you can either pick it up or shoot it. Shooting it causes it to explode, and a number of WC mods increase the range of that explosion or add effects to it. Picking up the cell will allow you to throw or, or will (with a Warmind’s Light mod) Charge you with Light, or have some other effect. Here are the Seraph weapons currently available. Names include “Seventh Seraph” except where noted: Kinetic: auto rifle, hand cannon Energy: smg (Seraph and Ikelos), sniper (Ikelos), sidearm, shotgun (Seraph and Ikelos) Heavy: machine gun When I’m playing I’ll tend to run an auto/shotgun/Xenophage loadout for max solar explosion damage, unless I’m running a void Warlock, in which case I use the sidearm (void) with Nezarec’s sin. For some explosion-oriented content I’ll run the hand cannon, Jotunn, and the machine gun. The most basic way to use these cells is to create them and then shoot them. A mod like Global Reach will then give your cell explosions far greater range and effect. But you can also combine numbers of mods to create some pretty cool synergistic builds, as you see here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/27/a-destiny-2-solar-inferno-warlock-warmind-cell-build-for-more-room-clearing-fun/#5ec7d0c01c30 You can find a guide to all the Warmind Cell mods here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kqaf2MdmUm1Ll6jCh-Rt0k6j2-nYCwf5lbbRLtXyr7M/edit# But here are the basics: Solar mods generally affect cell explosion damage; Void mods create buff and debuff effects that do not rely on exploding the cells; and Arc mods create effects upon mod pickup. The key to Warmind Cell is to understand that cells, once created, belong to everyone. Effects from shooting or picking up the cells are pegged to the person who picks them up or shoots them. So if Person A has Rage of the Warmind on and shoots a cell created by Person B, who does not have it on, then the explosion will be affected by Rage of the Warmind. And if Person B has Warmind’s Protection on, they will get 50% damage protection from mobs standing near a cell created by Person A—even if Person A does not have that mod on. What this means that an entire fireteam of 6 people can coordinate Warmind Cell mods to create synergistic effects. I describe some of those below.
Recommended Builds
Add-clear Explosion Fun Build Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Rage of the Warmind (5 solar), Incinerating Light (3 Solar), Reactive Pulse (CwL, 3 Arc). Ideally paired with a weapon that causes solar splash damage (Ace of Spaces, Sunshot, Jotunn, Xenophage, Martyr’s Retribution; the Warlock exotic chest Chromatic Fire also causes explosions on kinetic precision kills) and/or a solar subclass. This build involves creating cells and then using the explosions from the cells to create more cells, killing everything within 30m (that’s the range of the explosion, Rage of the Warmind doubles that). Wrath of Rasputin creates more cells from solar splash so you’ll be making cells from your non-Seraph weapons and your class abilities (if you’re running a solar class). Incinerating Light charges you with light when you kill three or more things with a cell explosion, and the Reactive Pulse mod creates a 30m Arc explosion when you take damage while surrounded—essentially destroying red-bar enemies all around you. This is a build for content where you’re higher or even in power level with your enemies; it’s super fun. In a perfect world it turns your character into the walking center of a series of explosions, and feels awesome. Defensive Build Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Taking Charge (CwL, 3 neutral), Protective Light (CwL, 2 void), Warmind’s Protection (2 void). This build has a number of variations depending on whether you’re running a solar class and/or coordinating with a team. A maximum defensive build swaps out Wrath of Rasputin for Cellular Suppression (2 void); you generate fewer cells but the cells you make help more, since shooting cells when you have CS on will send out a stunning pulse that will stun red-bar enemies for 10 seconds. Warmind’s Protection gives you a 50% damage buff against enemies near a cell. If you have a full fireteam with multiple people using Warmind builds you can coordinate some of these buffs (making sure a couple people have Cellular Suppression on, for instance, or having someone else run Grasp of the Warmind (3 void), which allows you to pick cells up and move them to better places. Here's a list of some fun builds for you: Neutral, good for anything
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Stacks on Stacks, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Stacks on Stacks
Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic, Warmind’s Protection, Cellular Suppression (this is the build I use most often in non-challenging content)
Aggressive
Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Rage of the Warmind, Fireteam Medic, Power of Rasputin
Taking Charge, High-Energy Fire, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Lucent Blade (sword) or Argent Ordnance (Rockets) or Surprise Attack (sidearms)
Fusion Rifle or Shotgun-focused build: Supercharged, Quick Charge, Heavy Handed, High-Energy Fire, Charged Up
I think I drove myself into a wall not doing things efficiently. Do I have to restart my account to progress better?
Nah. You'll be just fine continuing. Just do things better from now on.
How do I level my girls? And I heard about corpse dragging, What is it?
First is grinding them on leveling maps. Corpse dragging is a resource efficient way to grind XP. The where and how.Dragging 0-2. Second is using Combat Reports. You can get them in the Forward Basecamp or through the Data Room. You can give them by going to the Dorm>Warehouse>Gift tab or going to your owned doll profile and tapping the + button by the EXP bar. Note that they are not affected by dummy link EXP multiplier. They give 3000 fixed EXP per report. Last one is the EXP mode combat sim. Total EXP per run is divided equally between all dolls present.
Is GFL being phased out/abandoned?
NO.
Not anytime soon, at the very least.
When do I do night campaigns?
Best metric would be when career quests send you there. Unlock them by completing the next chapter's emergency map (i.e. 11-4e unlocks 10-1n). Remember to equip PEQs to negate the accuracy penalty and bring HGs for map vision.
Is it worth to reroll in this game?
Depends on what you value more. If you want a pretty easy time until endgame, no need. Game gives you free strong dolls. Endgame? Mostly not, since this is a game of accumulation instead of meta characters.
What teams should I build?
ARSMG first, then whichever second ARSMG or RFHG you need more, then the other one you haven't made yet, then MGSG if you want.
How do I change my commander's gender so I can change their dirty clothes?
Change gender in the commander's wardrobe, which can be visited by tapping the arrow below then tapping WARDROBE, or tapping your commander name then tapping on the avatar.
What does Infinite Surprise Dyes do?
Changes the appearance of your commander's clothes, IF they can be changed, that is.
What commander costume sets do the older servers have right now?
So far, nothing that the EN version doesn't have.
I saw that commander costumes have skills. How do I level it up?
Can I deploy two or three of the same pets in expedition?
Actually, that is the method used by min-maxers regarding advantaged pets.
Can the basecamp not give expedition loots?
Only if you didn't do one. If you did and no visible loot, restart app.
Which pet corresponds to which exploration material?
Cat - Bricks/City; Dog - Buttstock/Snowfield; Bird - Acorn/Forest; Misc - Fluid/Wasteland Then use the corresponding food that gives higher chance to visit a locale for a near 100% visit.
If advantaged dolls change mid-expedition, which one determined your rewards, the advantaged on the start of exploration or at the end?
I can't beat the current stage. Is this it for me?
Nope. Just fall back to the last boss node you can handle. These nodes can mitigate the "beaten stage" penalty so it's worth more than non-boss higher node.
I wasn't able to place high enough to 5★ the reward HOC. Is there another way to get their central data?
Wait for the next theater and they'll join the HOC gacha.
I'm thinking of using Landmine Fairy. Will they work?
Well yes... as a stat stick. Can't use a Strategy Fairy skill in theater mostly because you can't tap a node to activate it in the first place. Stick to Combat Fairies if you want to use skills.
I can't do auto-battle even though I met the required CE. What happened?
Is it a night map? If it is, refer to night CE. If it still doesn't let you, increase CE, some required CE are listed wrong.
Can I get SPEQs/Limited dolls from auto-battles?
Yes, you can.
Support Echelons
Do support echelons use equipments?
Equipments, formation, and apparently costumes too are saved instances. Doll levels, equipment levels, skill levels, and chibi aren't.
I can't deploy a friend echelon. What do I do?
"Unable to deploy Support Echelon before the mission starts!". Maybe it's possible to set support echelon after starting the mission". If it's still a no, restart or check how many are allowed.
What does "Event" mean on the left side of the mission select screen?
Combat Missions: If there is a new night map, SPEQ rate up for X-4n. Combat/Campaign: 1.5x EXP Logistics: Great Success Rate Up Combat sim: All simulations unlocked.
Which should I prioritizein the Data Room, Combat Reports or Special Combat Reports?
SCRs primarily because you can just EXP sim, corpse drag, and auto-battle the dolls, and also because basecamp sells far more CR than SCR. Note that you'd need 5000 SCRs to fully level a fresh HOC.
How do I maximize the efficiency of my RFHG echelon's ROF?
Part 2 of the "How To Demon's Souls: Sassy Edition." Given that Demon's Souls has brought in a couple trophies for invasion-related activity, I figured some people who struggle with invasions might find a general guide for standard invasion tactics and helpful tips for both the invaders and the hosts' side useful. In honour of my 1000th invasion in Demon's Souls, here is your How To guide to invasions.
So You Want To Be An Invader
You had some red guy come into your world, kill you in two hits with a longsword from across the room, clap at your disintegrating corpse and leave. What was that all about? How was he so strong? Welcome to Invasions 101. where everything is made up and the points don't matter.Are we allowed to use that? Am I going to get a call from Drew Carey's lawyer? Here we'll learn how to invade, how to counter invaders and how to get those valuable trophies.
What are Invasions?
Invasions are an online component of the Soulsborne series in which players can attempt to kill one another. There are no rules, there is no honour, and there is no glory. It's like the Thunderdome but with more nudity and less blood. Using the Black Eye Stone in coop areas a player can invade another person's level. They can invade at any time if you're online and human, but it will happen most often at the beginning of a level, as fogwalls create natural coop and invasion boundaries. Most spawn points for invaders are at the beginning of a level, which can be a significant downside for invaders which we will discuss later.
How do you win?
You win by being the person with the shittiest internet. You win by being the last man standing. Invasions are all about skill, tactics and using whatever you've got on hand. For the invader, it's an uphill battle that is often being fought entirely on the backfoot, and so you will want to use whatever you have at your disposal. Poison, hiding behind mobs, . For the host, it's a battle for surival. Use everything you can to eliminate the invader. That includes summoning, hiding, using the Banish spell, abusing the fact that you have 25-50% more health and making a break for the fogwall if you just want to get rid of them.
Finding your Opponent.
As an Invader One of the more exhilarating parts of invasions is the tracking. Some hosts are like a whirlwind through a level, and you can track their path of destruction through a level. More discerning and skillful hosts can evade pursuit for a surprisingly long amount of time. Always be wary of doors and corners as hosts and phantoms love to hide behind them for free damage. Get into the habit of rolling through doors, and checking corners. A hosts' healthbar is the easiest way to track them. Any time they take any form of damage, their healthbar will show up from any point on the map. Some Hosts will hide, and a new discovery recently is that the Plead emote will cause the host to clip through a wall, leaving only their feet visible. Keep your eyes open and be alert. As A Host This bit is easy. If you see an invasion notification, if you head back to the entrance, you're almost guaranteed to run into your invader. It's up to you on whether you want to engage with them, but a surprising amount of invaders are corner-blind and you can elude them simply by standing to the right or left of a door. Be aware that they may have the Graverobber or Thief's ring on, making it harder to track them from long distances. But most of the time, they're actively hunting you, and want to be found. Just be wary of sneak attacks.
Solo Host Invasions
This one is pretty simple, it's a lone host in the area. Depending on your luck, this is either a new player who hasn't figured out the risks of human form; a hyper-competent veteran of the series who is an efficient killing machine and fears no invader; or a lure who is sitting around waiting for invaders because they don't want to engage in combat without their extra 25-50% health. Most of the time, it's going to be a duel around the Archstone, or an open plateau. Occasionally, you might encounter an entrepid, courageous sole adventurer who can handle both you and the mobs, but most of the time the second they spot you, they're going to make a break for the nearest clear area. You can choose to give them space to do so, or you can choose to hound them relentlessly as they flee, it depends on you as an invader. But be aware of reversals in those situations, as sometimes a fleeing host may turn around and take a few shots at you if you're pursuing too hotly. Hot Tips
Beware of Hidden Soul hosts who will take the opportunity to backstab you. They can be spotted more easily by the black outline when moving, or the Augite hanging from their belt. They can also still be locked onto when invisible.
Slower weapons can be easily backstab fished one-on-one. Abuse this readily for an easy victory.
One Host and One Phantom
This is where the uphill battle really starts to get heavy. Your Sisyphean task only ends when the host is dead, as in most cases, if you merely kill the phantom the host will flee to the start of the area to summon his buddy again. This is where your spawn point really displays its weakness. You're going to be starting behind enemy lines. Most 2-man invasions are password coop buddies playing through the game. Expect some level of advanced cooperation, as they likely have some form of voice communication. Traps, ambushes and coordinated play is common, you should prepare for this. Graverobber's ring is a must for evasion. Utilise corners, stairs, tight alleyways and doorways, although beware that this can be reversed on you in a heartbeat. Remain mobile as much as you can. Divide and conquer is the key, you want to be able to use mobs like a shield. Most of the time, hosts and their phantom will have an unrelenting bloodlust for you, and will chase you into even the most obvious of traps, so use that to the best of your ability. Force them into mobs. The most difficult bit is usually finishing off either one of them. If you get one of them to low health, their partner will often automatically close in on you to protect their friend, and giving them time to heal. Use one-shot abilities to eliminate targets as quickly as you can, or prepare for sieges. Good news is, you won't often be alone for long. Invasions match on a 1-1 ratio, meaning if the host has a phantom, if someone else is invading in the area, you're almost guaranteed to have back up in the form of another invader very soon. When you see that second spawn notification, as soon as it is safe, sprint for backup. If nothing else, you can keep the second invader from being jumped at spawn. Once you are facing 2-on-2, things become a bit more interesting, as they lose their bloodlust and become a lot more timid. Swap opponents often with your partner, and keep an eye out for rogue backstabs, in case your partner's opponent disengages and homes in on you. Hot Tips:
See Advanced Tactics for some... well, advanced tactics.
In general, you're always safe to assume there's going to be more than 1 player in a world. Be prepared for a trap, and keep your eyes open for any secondaries trying to sneak up behind you.
One Host and Two Phantoms
The legendary Gank-squad. Not too common in Demon's Souls Remake yet, but not unheard of. These are usually dedicated, focused, and absolutely deadly. The win ratio for facing three or more players at once is not high, regardless of how skilled you are. Your best hope is for backup. For the most part, the tactics between 1 and 2 phantoms remain the same, but it becomes a bit more dicey running away, as they can cover each other in far more effective ways. Mages are absolutely crippling here, especially Firespray mages. Anti-Magic is a must. If you're not able to shut down their magic, then you need to eliminate the fire support as quickly as possible. If there's more than one mage, I'm sorry, I'll send a letter to your widow. Most of the time, they will have pre-cleared the area, meaning there are no mobs to hide behind. Run and hide until back up arrives. Thief's Ring or Graverobber's ring come in great use here. Hot Tips:
Send me your address, I'll bring flowers and condoms to your widow.
Advanced Tactics
I want to dedicate some time to talk about advanced tactics. These are things that you may naturally do anyway, but they're good to bring up. I've already mentioned some chokepoints, but one of the most important ways to use these chokepoints is by playing Fortress. Fortress is the act of holding siege warfare at certain areas, in which there is back-and-forth, and there is a battle for territory. Some phantoms and hosts will automatically hunker down at a safe spot, and they will not be removed from it. Some common ones are the first large island in 5-2, the Swamp of Sorrow and the first small stairway to the left of the boss room in 1-1, the Gates of Boletaria. It's important for you as an invader and a host to recognise when a game of Fortress is about to ensure, and what tactics you can use to foist them from their strongest position. I previously mentioned the partner-cover, and this is a huge flag that a game of Fortress is about to start, as well as a lack of desire to move from a particular spot. Most hosts will, upon the loss of a fortress, will immediately seek to either take it back, or flee to the next safe spot. One possible response to Fortress is to apply pressure to their position, by shooting arrows from a distance. It's not intended to seriously injury or damage, but it's harassment that is used to frustrate an enemy into chase. Hit-and-Run is particularly effective, as it makes the enemy think you're in hurtin' range, and may force them to take to chase. You're going to want to use a fast weapon for this, as you don't want to have your trousers down at an awkward moment. Hit and run is rarely going to kill an enemy, but it's about unsettling your opponent and keeping the pressure up. Reversal is a major component to the invasion game. I've mentioned it previously, but the unrelenting bloodlust of some hosts and phantoms you face mean they're more than happy to run straight into your weapon, often several times in a row. Be aware of your surroundings, and make sure that you're only doing it at safe windows where you can target a single opponent at a time, or hit both of them in the same swing. The safe windows for attack are much smaller if you're facing 3 opponents, but still feasible. Use your heaviest weapon, if you can.
Invasion Counters
I've already talked a lot about what invaders can do, and I'm sure you can glean some idea of what to do from that discussion, but just to highlight a few things: Summon when you can. More enemies that they have to face, the more chances the invader is going to mess up. Play Fortress. You have the highest chance of success when you own the turf. Don't chase. Invaders are going to want you to give chase, which they will use to put you into traps. Keep calm. Invaders are at a massive strategic disadvantage, and you can use that to your delight. Double Firespray is a guaranteed win. Very few invaders can deal with it without specifically speccing for it, and very few expect it. Grab a buddy and pew pew away. Don't you dare stoop to such low tactics.
Hints and Tips.
You absolutely must have a fully upgraded weapon. Preferably two, a light chase-down and a heavy critical weapon. Don't even attempt to invade without a maximum upgraded weapon, you have very slim chances of winning.
Disconnects are going to happen. You're just going to have to accept that. Thankfully the SSD of the PlayStation 5 removes most of the frustration of the previous games. This isn't Bloodborne at launch, thankfully. For Invaders, just pop your stone again and hope you don't get the same host. For Hosts, try not to disconnect. Losing to an invader is a risk, but the positive side of that risk is that if you manage to beat them, then you earn 30% towards Pure White World Tendency, so there is a good reason to stay and fight. If you want to know more about World Tendency, I wrote a short guide on the basics here.
Your Graverobber or Thief's Ring is your best friend. The element of surprise is by far your best advantage, if your opponent can't see you, they can't tell what you're planning. If not, get used to wearing the Foe's Ring for that extra 20% damage. I can mean the difference between a two-shot and a three-shot kill.
You're going to be in soul form, for all intents and purposes. It's advisable you get used to wearing the Cling Ring if you don't want to be killed in two hits by a Northern Regalia wielding phantom, if your build can afford it.
Your spawn point is usually at the start of the level, which is a serious tactical disadvantage. Most of the time, you're going to be facing at least 2 hostile phantoms right out the gate with no backup. Be prepared for immediate death the second you head through the fog.
For melee builds, I'd highly recommend having Anti-Magic Field, especially if you see your opponent has Homing Missiles. I've been killed by buggy or laggy Homing spells more often than I can count.
Poison and plague halves healing and lights you or your host up like a beacon across the map, regardless of their Thief or Graverobber's ring. If it's an expansive level, I'd recommend using poison, bleed or plague if your host or invader likes to run away and hide.
Second Chance can be used before an invasion spawn, and can be an absolute lifesaver. It prevents one-shots, and helps you survive longer. You need a minimum of 15 Faith for the 2 spell slots, and a minimum of 15 Int for the 100MP spell cost, so invest wisely.
As always, if you have anything to add, do so in the comments!
Offseason Blueprint: The Detroit Pistons are an NBA basketball team. Hopefully, they can remind fans of that in the next few years.
The playoffs continue to rage on, but there are 26 teams sitting at home with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs, watch the Conference Finals, and wait for next season to start. For their sake, we wanted to look ahead with the next edition of the OFFSEASON BLUEPRINT series. In each, we'll preview some big decisions and make some recommendations for plans of attack along the way. Today, we're looking at the Detroit Pistons. step one: weave a new narrative Some teams are good, some teams are bad -- but almost all of them have a general direction. Are you a young team on the rise? Or a veteran team trying to squeeze out as many wins as possible? Right now, the Detroit Pistons are in a wonky grey area. They're missing an identity. When they tried to make the playoffs, they were fairly mediocre (records of 37-45, 39-43, 41-41). When injuries hit this past season, they plummeted down to 20-46. While that generally suggests a young and rebuilding team, the roster doesn't reflect that yet. Their marquee players are Blake Griffin (age 31) and Derrick Rose (age 31.) They also have a veteran coach in Dwane Casey who's more accustomed to competing than rebuilding. All in all, they feel like a confused, forgotten franchise. Fortunately, there's a new sheriff in town. The team hired a new GM in Troy Weaver, who had been Sam Presti's right-hand man in Oklahoma City. Weaver's been on the verge of a GM job for several years now, and his hire represents something of a coup for this embattled organization. Going forward, the franchise needs to hold the keys over to Weaver and allow him free reign to do whatever he wants. Back in OKC, he had experience with a variety of makeups: with a rebuilding team, with a contending team, with a rebuilding-wait-whoops-we're-accidentally-pretty-darn-good team. It's up to him to look at this roster and this payroll and determine the best path forward from here. step two: hold a garage sale for your old homeowner's property Presumably, Troy Weaver will treat this project as more of a teardown than a remodel. Mainstay center Andre Drummond is already out of the door, and the other veterans may join him on the bus out of Detroit. Unfortunately, that may be easier said than done. It makes a lot of sense to trade star PF Blake Griffin to a veteran team, but his injuries and his contract ($37M + $39M player option) would make that difficult from a logistical perspective. There's a chance that a desperate team may be willing to roll the dice on Griffin. Throughout his career, he's been one of the more misunderstood players in the league. People want to treat him as an athlete-dunker only, but he's actually a skilled ballhandler and passer. In his last healthy season in 2018-19, he averaged 24.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 5.4 assists, and even showcased an improved three-point shot (36.2% on 7.0 attempts per game.) If healthy, he'd be a major difference maker to a team like Portland. Still, teams aren't going to give up major assets for Blake Griffin until he proves that he is healthy. From Detroit's perspective, it makes more sense to wait to trade him. They need him to come back, put up some good stats, and then float him in offers. Right now, you'd be trading Griffin for 20 cents on the dollar. In contrast, Derrick Rose's stock may be at a high. He put up good raw numbers this year (18.1 points, 5.6 assists), and he's on a reasonable $7.5M expiring contract. He'd be a positive addition to a playoff team, best served as a Sixth Man scorer. The Pistons and their fans like Rose (and he likes playing here), but it'd be irresponsible for them to not consider trade options. If they get any decent offers, they have to pull the trigger. If the offers are weak -- R2 picks or so -- then the team can keep him around as a veteran leader and placeholder starter. step three: don't let your breakout break out As bad as the Pistons were, they had a few bright spots. Derrick Rose played better than expected. Luke Kennard looks on track to be a rising starter. And, most surprising of all, rando Christian Wood broke out as a legitimate NBA player. As a starter, Wood averaged 21.9 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. Wood is a springy, energetic player who also has an improving range (40% from three as a starter.) You can read a longer deep dive about Christian Wood here, but to sum it up. A) His production looks legitimate, as he's been putting up numbers in virtually every stop as a pro. But B) His breakout may be poorly timed for the Pistons, because he's slated for free agency and about to get more expensive. He's a 24 year old whose best days should be ahead of him. Based purely on his stats and scouting profile, you could talk yourself into a contract closing in on $15M a year for Wood. However, players with his "pedigree" (undrafted, limited sample size) rarely get that type of contract right away. To me, paying him somewhere in the range of 3 years, $36M would be a fair deal on both sides. There's too much uncertainty to justify much more of a commitment. Of course, the Pistons should know better than any of us whether to trust Wood. Prior to this year, he had a mixed reputation in terms of his basketball IQ and work habits. If Coach Casey can sign off on Wood's character, then the team can feel more comfortable with him as a building block. If there are still red flags, perhaps it's better not to get too attached. The Pistons have more cap room than most teams this offseason, so the money shouldn't be a major deterrent to this decision. It should be entirely about Wood as a person and a player. If you believe that he's the real deal, then you keep him around. step four: find your next field general Christian Wood is a solid young player -- Luke Kennard is a solid young player -- but these aren't franchise players. They're secondary scorers and members of a supporting cast. To truly advance to the promised land, the Detroit Pistons are going to need to find transcendent talent, somehow and some way. Unfortunately, the NBA Draft Lottery didn't help. The Pistons slipped down from the # 5 slot to the # 7 pick, making it unlikely that they'll land a future star. On the bright side, the "supply and demand" may be on their side. This draft class happens to be heavy with point guards. There's LaMelo Ball (the # 1 prospect on ESPN), Killian Hayes (the # 1 prospect on The Ringer), and Tyrese Haliburton (one of the safer picks in the class.) If any of them slip down to # 7, the Pistons should strongly consider them. It usually takes a point guard a year or two to find their footing, but they can sit behind Derrick Rose for a year and then get unleashed in 2021. From a personality standpoint, Rose isn't going to mentor and educate like Aristotle, but he's capable of soaking up 25 minutes and allowing the next PG some time to develop. If those top guards are not available (and they are unlikely to be), the Pistons may have to take some chances. One name I'm intrigued by is R.J. Hampton. On face value, that'd be a "reach." Like LaMelo Ball, Hampton was a top high school prospect who went off to play in the Australian league. Unlike Ball, his NBA stock suffered as a result. While Ball put up numbers (17-8-7), Hampton put up weak stats -- 8.8 points, 2.4 assists on 41-30-68 shooting splits. As a result, Ball is now locked into top 3 pick status, and Hampton is seeing his name ranked around the 10-20 range in mock drafts. However, I'd defend Hampton to some degree. We have to consider the context here. LaMelo Ball joined a struggling team called Illawarra. With Ball, the team went 3-9 (and finished 5-23.) When you're playing on a bad team like that, you can be the "star" and jack up as many shots as you want. In contrast, Hampton joined the New Zealand Breakers, a better team that relegated him to 20.6 minutes a night and a more limited role. His raw stats may not do him justice. No doubt, Hampton has a long way to go, especially as a shooter. At the same time, he's a big lead guard (6'4" with a 6'7" wingspan) who flashes a lot of explosive scoring ability when he's getting downhill to the hoop. He's also a smart kid and allegedly a good worker. There's some legitimate "star" potential here, even if it's a narrow bull's eye. Hampton doesn't have the same athleticism as Russell Westbrook (hardly anyone does) but maybe there's a parallel here. After all, Weaver and OKC selected Westbrook after he'd been a little under the radar after playing off the ball at UCLA. To be clear, I'm not urging Detroit to take R.J. Hampton at # 7. I'm not endorsing him as a future star like Westbrook. I don't know enough to do that; I don't sit around and splice up tape of New Zealand basketball. Still, the point is, the Pistons should be looking at upside players in that vein, knowing that they're going to need to hit a home run in the future. step five: keep one hand on the detonator The Detroit Pistons only have $68M committed on the books for next season, which means they could be players in free agency even if they re-sign Christian Wood. If the team decided to go "all in" in a desperate attempt to compete, then you could maybe talk yourself into retaining Blake Griffin, handing out a big contract for Fred VanVleet, and shooting for the playoffs. That may work. But to what end...? The 7th seed? The 8th seed? Is that the end goal here? More realistically, the team should (as discussed) try to get Blake Griffin back and fully healthy in order to showcase him for a trade. After that, they'd then dive into a full rebuild. Presuming that's going to be the ultimate destination, then the Pistons may as well get a jump on that with free agency. With their remaining cap space, they can take on a toxic asset that comes attached with future picks, or take some fliers on young and promising players. Among my favorite gamblers of this offseason may include PG Kris Dunn (CHI), SG Denzel Valentine (CHI), SF Josh Jackson (MEM), and C Harry Giles (SAC.) None of them should draw huge money offers, making them reasonable purchases and lottery tickets. If the Pistons end up blowing it up, then they should play their younger players over the course of the season. That should mean a lot of Sekou Doumbouya (entering Year 2) and even some Thon Maker (entering Year 42). If that means you only win 25-30 games, that's all right. It'll only help your odds for next year's lottery. I've mentioned this before with some potential tankers (CLE, CHA, etc), but next year's draft could be quite strong. The group is headlined by point forward Cade Cunningham (heading to Oklahoma State) and scoring swingman Jalen Green (heading to the G-League), but there are about 4-5 other players who have the potential to join the # 1 pick conversation in time. The Detroit Pistons aren't likely to be bad enough to get a top 3 pick on their own, but the flattened lottery odds make it possible for the 7th or 8th worst team to leapfrog into that territory. Of course, before Weaver and the Pistons officially press the detonator and go into full-blown rebuild/tank mode, they need to have a heart to heart with Coach Casey. He's 63 years old already, and entering the third year of a five-year deal. Is he going to embrace the rebuild? Is he going to be the scapegoat if they rack up losses? They need to get on the same page, out of fairness to Casey and out of fairness to this franchise. A reasonable solution would be to promise Casey that, if he does tank like a good soldier, he'll still be retained for next season. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will chrome. previous offseason blueprints ATL, CHA, CHI, CLE, DAL, IND, GS, LAC, MIL, MIN, NYK, POR, SA, SAC, UTA
[I was writing something up on the situation VR is in (spoiler: it’s fucked but Valve could turn things around, but they probably won’t) but I thought I should put this out first and let people know. I’m the person who maintains the “ACAB good games list,” a guide to getting into Vupgrading a PC, and I’m just made a "How to use SteamVR" guide getting you familiar with all the settings and using your desktop in VR.]
The Valve Index is an AR Headset
In June, Valve released 3D passthrough for the Index. They actually paid another company to do it and in all likelihood they could have done it way way sooner. Either way, it means that, besides some warping around your hands, you have a view of the room you’re in that actually looks real. And as it turns out, there isn’t an actual reason why you couldn’t run a game or other software over that passthrough. Basically you can judge for yourself. Go on steam, download a program called “Metachromium” (turn it off in your startup settings so it doesn’t launch on its own with steamVR), turn on your passthrough, and then run Metachromium. It’s a desktop UI so just use your desktop view on your dashboard to input any WebXR URL. Choose one without a background environment and MoonRider’s controls don’t work unfortunately. Any stuttering is the WebXR sites, not the AR. Here are two sites you can try, just load them in Metachromium with your passthrough running and then click the VR button on the page. Bump up your headset brightness if needed. https://zach-geek.gitlab.io/vartiste/# https://whiteboard-xr.herokuapp.com/vr.html Here is facebook’s own depiction of the best the Quest 2 can do. https://preview.redd.it/lflqne3gnnq51.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=266863e0808374c0d89cbd6365b195a0f924c8dd And this is what took me five minutes to figure out on my index (It looks better in-headset, especially everything arranging itself on my walls and the lighting) https://preview.redd.it/fk3rojahnnq51.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2bc40b49f93266ef3bb6eab3527fca65bc146c66 https://preview.redd.it/khf0xruinnq51.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef0c0f771f233e023a92d5b06968916052c40460 To take screenshots, you need to turn on SteamVR mirror, and then capture your monitor view. SteamVR screenshots are terrible and don't include any overlays, passthrough, or anything else This is the absolute bare minimum of what is possible. This is what is possible with nothing officially supported or made to use with AR, and with super basic WebXR programs. You might not be all that impressed with passthrough AR but it’s a real thing. Apple is rumored to be making a passthrough AR headset, some french startup is making one for $1,500, and Facebook is adding a low resolution, black and white, “passthrough+” mode for AR next year on the Quest 2 for their own apps and then third party apps including work software “Spatial.” Valve just isn’t going to make this functionality official apparently, technically they could have done it when the Index came out, since they just paid some other company to add 3D passthrough anyway. Over a year later, this is a really big deal and it needs to be made usable before Infinite Office and Quest 2 Passthrough AR comes out. Valve could flip a few switches, make a guide for Devs to take advantage of it, and then the Index is the first consumer AR headset and they can add an “Augmented Reality” tab to Steam. History made, at no additional cost to you.
And then there is Aardvark.
Aardvark is a community project by a Valve programmer and some open XR people like the creator of Pluto, a program that lets people hang out in VR without being in the same program. The idea behind Aardvark is that you can create AR apps inside of VR, from floating UI to spatial tools, and since it runs on top of VR programs it can have a lot more functionality. The same way that AR glasses will one day let you answer a phone call by waving your hand, it's envisioned as a way of allowing Devs to make AR in the here and now. The difference between Aardvark and normal SteamVR overlays is that these can communicate with each other, meaning if someone makes a wrist mounted UI, someone else could make a discord integrated UI add on that slots right into it. And Aardvark overlays can communicate with another person’s, so you could share your screen, play poker, pick up a line of text and hand it to another person so they can paste it, etc. It definitely has huge potential and if you’re a coder or a dev, you should definitely look into it. It’s on github and already works over passthrough even if it’s a bit stuttery. There are actually not a lot of things you couldn’t do with it in theory. And since none of these things need to be the dedicated focus of your time or the only overlay you’re running, it basically brings the app structure to VR where you download some QoL, UI, or system tweak for a dollar and can use it whenever you want. One of the bigger draws of the Quest is the idea that it’s a super smooth experience and the closed garden allows less friction than open PCVR can achieve. That is something that tools like Aardvark could completely reverse because they would allow a level of integration, resources, and third party applications that just aren't possible on mobile, and a level of customization, control, and pluggability that Facebook will never allow. We could get new features all the time from the community either as open source projects or paid add ons. I myself submitted a bunch of ideas for Aardvark, and was told that nearly all of them were possible, but obviously they’re just concepts. Some examples:
A rear warning system that tells you the exact object you’re about to walk into and where it is relative to you, making irregular boundaries more viable or letting you ignore things like walking into your couch. Could even allow you tracking a moving object if you have a Vive trackespare Vive wand.
A full HOTAS that renders over a game, basically adding VR motion controls to any game even if it doesn’t support them (Squadrons/Sturmovik/MS Flight Simulator)
Macropads that let you do work or stream in VR and have a macro UI that can do anything you want. You could have all the funcationality of a half dozen $200 macropads for free.
An in VR gameboy that lets you play emulators or steam games with your VR controllers or a gamepad in the middle of a social VR app. This could even extend to playing multiplayer (screenshare plus hooking into Remote Play Together). Imagine you each sitting on your couch, seeing your friends next to you in AR, and playing on a display rendered over your TV.
An input output organizer that lets you set up your own chains, like RSS feed photos popping up in SteamVR home, letting you record a message and have it tweeted out, control your room fan to match up with the level in your game
Card games you can play with other people in AR on a real life table.
A body based UI system based on the HEV suit that easily plugs in any and all add ons you have onto your arms or chest or wherever you want and be shifted to avoid covering up any in game UI.
Replacing the entire SteamVR game launching system with a VAR bookcase where every game you have is rendered as a case on the shelf with the name on the spine, art on the cover, and Steam description on the back. You can arrange them however you want and save the layout and shelves you make.
Universal avatars you can use across any software you want or even outside software with dedicated avatar systems.
Passthrough Portals that let you mark out the couch as a 3D passthrough zone, so when you’re playing with friends in the room, you can always turn back and see them, so VR is basically no longer isolating if you don’t want it to be. You could also mark out your keyboard, mouse, even a glass of water so you easily work in VR. A person holding a Vive tracker could be in the game with you if you want.
A controller assistance system that would let you put a friend in VR and use your phone or desktop (even over parsec/remote play together) to highlight buttons when you’re showing them what to do.
A translator that listens to what you say, translates it, and shows it as text in front of you as you talk, showing you a reverse translation of what other people are hearing to make sure it’s not too bad.
Metamatchmaking that lets you mark multiplayer games you want to play and then matching you up with anyone else who wants to play them and alerting all of you to start up the game and play.
Replacements for the steamVR keyboard with one that actually works and supports other languages, as well as a virtual mouse that locks into a flat plane instead of a laser pointer
Hand tracking through the Vive SDK, the Leap Motion, or emulated with Index controllers.
The idea I was most interested in was the idea of tracing out your room in 3D vector shapes, then making them invisible occlusion zones. Do it once in 30 minutes and then all your apps can use it from now on. That would allow real world objects to occlude virtual ones, a really key part of AR (occlusion in AR is like the transition from 3doF to 6doF in VR) that would allow for completely new experiences. It would also let you mark out the things you traced with context, so a character in a VR game could sit in a chair, walk through a door, etc or your friends could appear in AR sitting in the chair next you and the game you’re playing could appear on your real table. And since it’s preprogrammed and done through SteamVR tracking it could be much smoother than anything done with machine vision currently. AR is the real prize of everything in XR; if VR is a billion dollar industry that will change gaming then AR is expected to be a trillion dollar industry that will change the world. Facebook only does VR to build a hardware, software, production, and dev base for AR. They want to beat Apple, who have the most advanced AR SDK of anyone and make their own silicon, and are reportedly working on AR glasses. Valve basically invented consumer AR back in 2013 and just didn’t ship it; future Facebook exec Micheal Abrash fired Valve’s whole AR division and so their head AR engineer Jeri Elsworth took her research and made her own startup, TiltFive. Facebook’s main showcase of their AR right now is Infinite Office. It’s an app where you can have a black and white low res background view of the world, use a special keyboard you have to buy, use the trackpad on the keyboard since mouses aren’t supported, and you can control your browser since it doesn’t let you control your PC. That’s it. Valve could absolutely stomp that by giving you full color higher res passthrough, let you control your PC and actual keyboard and mouse, add virtual macropads, dashboards, and other things to help you work, multimonitor support, and even letting you work alongside someone else in AR and share screens. Third parties are getting all in on facebook passthrough, like remote work software Spatial where again, PC headsets are the only ones comfortable enough for working and allow for a lot more functionality (including occlusion and context awareness) and full color so it’s a huge waste for AR to not be supported on PC. Facebook is clearly hoping this will be a huge draw for the Quest (and I'm sure the VR outlets will really lay on the praise), push it into workplaces, and make it a devkit for AR. Valve can and should kill that in the cradle, even if killing the Quest 2 itself will take a lot more.
What now?
If you’re interested in deving AR on the index I guess you should look into WebXMetaChromium and especially Aardvark. If you’re a developer of a game like Cubism or Steady, where the environments aren’t important to the gameplay, there is a way to render over passthrough in Unity even without Valve’s official support. I would reach out to the team making Pluto and ask how to do it. If you're just a member of the community who knows how to code and wants to try making something cool, look into Aardvark and see if you can make something. I hope Valve makes this all official. I can’t think of anything better right now than giving a set of huge new features to everyone who bought an Index. I hope they open it up to devs and offer the kind of support Facebook is offering and more. I hope they seed WebXR and Aardvark with some money to get things rolling. I hope they offer Jeri Ellsworth a boatload of money to handle their AR stuff or something and add compatibility with her TiltFive. I hope Valve makes SteamVR a general XR platform and uses AR as a way to explore that. I hope things like Aardvark can make PCVR a lot more usable both to increase how much people use PCVR and to create a new market for AR software. They probably won’t, and community efforts won’t pick up enough momentum unless it can create some utility apps that people will pay for to get things moving. Valve is in a bubble where they think that because they’re doing a lot, or because they’ve done a lot, that they don’t need to escalate to compete with Facebook. They also seem to unfairly expect a lot from the community without offering much help, like with SteamVR Home modding, Alyx modding, and generally expecting us to market VR and Alyx for them. It’s also a dysfunctional nightmare inside that company, like the (ethical) foil to Zuck's dangerous dictatorship, and who knows how many people actually work on or care about VR, it could be a hundred or just ten incredibly productive people. Either way, if they don’t see the bigger picture the next two years (and beyond) could be a disaster for everyone.
A Comprehensive List of Every Issue in Destiny 2, and How to Fix Them
Hey there, my name is Nick, but I go by Rampage on Steam. I’m an avid Destiny 2 PC player who has logged 2000+ hours into the game, and am making this post to outline all the feedback I feel the community wants heard by Bungie. In saying that, I also acknowledge I do not necessarily represent the entire community, but I have looked at what common complaints are, watched several youtube videos, looked at twitter pages, read TWABs, etc. and do think I have a general idea of improvements waiting to be made. These are my opinions, I’m not trying to tell anybody how to do their job or anything, I’m just giving feedback. Other prefaces: These criticisms are primarily for PC, but many can be applied to the game as a whole, I am not currently aware of Bungie’s financial situation, I know Covid is going on and is restricting development, and I am aware Bungie is a small company. I am also not a genius, so please correct me if something I say is incorrect. Even if these criticisms are seemingly out of reach, I feel at the very least they deserve to be addressed. I am also a lore god;), so if you want an in-game change explained lorewise feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll explain how it could make sense. Also, please ignore spelling and grammatical errors, I’ve been writing this around midnight every day for nearly three weeks after my day is finished. With that being said, I’d also like to introduce you to the structure of this post. I’ll be delving into different topics throughout, so naturally it’ll be a long one. The post will be structured into six different sections: crucible, gambit, strikes, planetary activities/vendors, raids/dungeons, and a miscellaneous section - covering all sorts of topics not directly tied to the core activities of the game. The aforementioned sections are not going to be all criticisms, as I do still enjoy the game and simply want improvements to be made; it will also include what I like about the game, and what I see as potential solutions. Again this is gonna be a long one, so grab your popcorn. Let’s begin.
The Crucible
The first section I’ll be covering in this post is going to be the crucible. I spend most of my time here playing with my clan, doing help with trials, playing comp and iron banner, etc. and basically my entire friends list does the same. As a PvP oriented player, and admin of a clan that plays PvP more than any other gamemode, I have a thorough understanding of the activity. Below is an outline of each issue I see with the activity, as well as potential solutions, followed by an individual sub-section of what I enjoy about the crucible. This will be the only section formatted this way, as it is the longest.
The removal of maps and gamemodes: This is a fairly obvious complaint I’m sure most of you have seen, especially over the past few weeks. With the release of Beyond Light, the crucible saw several maps, and two game modes removed from their respective rotations, with no replacements added back.
Potential fix(es): un-vault beloved game modes such as skirmish and rift, to replace the gamemodes removed. For the entire lifespan of Destiny 2, players have wanted to see those modes implemented back into the franchise. Skirmish is a great place for casual players to hone their skills, while also not competing in an end-game activity. Rift is well, just a fun playlist. Playlists like rift and team scorched are fun for the casual audience, and also serve as a place for clans and groups of friends to go relax while playing some casual PvP after perhaps, sweating it out in a grandmaster nightfall. In terms of maps, players would greatly enjoy at least one new Europa location to play on. Maybe make it a map based near the pyramid? A map with high vertical spaces embedded into cliffs, as well as a chasm like ravine splitting the game in the middle, with shards of ice as barricades and the pyramid off in the distance would be fresh and unique. Making a map like that also has the same effect as the developers and map designers have pulled off on other maps - making the world feel connected. A new map for each location currently in the game would be amazing, especially considering how criminally underused zones like Luna, Nessus, etc are. At the very least, match the vaulted content with an equal amount of new content to make the modes/matches feel fresh.
Matchmaking: the main issues players have with matchmaking as of its current state tends to be connection, and team balancing. Connections are peer to peer, shotty at best, make the crucible feel poor to play because a player with a bad connection can win a gunfight due to lag 100% of the time. Players also tend to feel like the balancing in matches isn’t truly balancing, as some players have matches with forty defeats, while the second player on their team has 13 defeats. (This is in no way meant to belittle the skills of other players in comparison to others, it’s simply obvious that if the leaderboard’s defeats don’t decrease gradually instead of a sharp slope from top to bottom, players will feel disheartened.)
Potential fix(es): As stupid as it may sound, make the connections peer to server instead of peer to peer. Another solution to this (I am not sure how much this may cost) would be to have Bungie make their own servers instead of using Steam’s. Steam servers, while not all bad, are notorious for poor connections. As for team balancing, perhaps make an algorithm that doesn’t necessarily form skill based matchmaking, but arranges the players on a given team by order of general crucible info (KD, Elo, MMR, etc.), and have them decrease gradually in skill so that the teams feel more even. (Obviously doesn’t account for stacks)
A lack of crucible titles: This is a somewhat minor one, but I’ve seen some players tweeting about it. Currently, the only two titles available through PvP are Unbroken and Flawless. I personally think these two titles sound amazing, and enjoyed the grind for them. The issue is, crucible accounts for a considerably large portion of the player base, and only has two titles. And while Destiny 2 is a PvE heavy game, PvE having so many other seals makes the PvP community feel under-appreciated, especially considering the numbers it puts.
Potential fix(es): As simple as it sounds, add in new titles. Unbroken has been around for a while, and it would be amazing to see a new encompassing playlist title. I could see adding a new list of triumphs to go after for it - get ex amount of weapon kills with Adored while using the crucible ornament, land 500 precision final blows, reach 1,000 on a weapon’s kill tracker, for example. Unique triumphs like that can make the chase feel fresh again, while not being “free”, but also making it a reachable goal. Some ideas for a new title I’ve seen could be Redjack, Duelist, and Champion; you can get really creative with crucible titles. Add an Iron Lord title for the Iron Banner playlist - it’s naturally a time locked title, and can be another seal you can repeat each season in the same way Flawless and Conqueror are. Triumph ideas for that: reach a 20 kill streak in iron banner, complete the seasonal iron banner quest, complete an iron banner collections badge, mercy 10 teams in iron banner, earn a specific reputation rank with Lord Saladin, win matches wearing a full set of Iron Banner armor, win matches using all Iron Banner weapons, etc. (These are all hypothetical triumphs, and I’d love to see some feedback on them.) These would give a new chase for title seekers to go after, and would provide a reason to play Iron Banner other than a shader, an emblem, a few power level increases, and a decently rolled bite of the fox.
Adept Weapons: Adept weapons have been a staple of Trials since Destiny 1. In Destiny 1 they felt special, and had things that made them worth going for. Now, they don’t. They add barely any additional stats to them when masterworked, don’t have any additional perks or special perks that they can roll with, and are a pain to go for. Smaller things concerning them would be issues like releasing an Adept Eye of Sol with the adept mod for charge time, which belongs on a fusion rifle, as well as not shipping out an adept weapon that will constantly roll with hip fire grip and box breathing no matter how many drops you get, and not getting one every time you go flawless (excluding the first time for that week for each respective character)
Potential Fix(es): Add adept perks to their perk pools that make the guns worth going for, or even simply add an extra perk. Add additional slots for the adept mods and regular mods, and ship the weapons out each week with mods that actually correspond to the gun. Make adept weapons drop for every flawless completion.
Now for the big ones.
Stasis (in regards to crucible of course): Ah yes. Stasis. A subclass that quite frankly no matter the gamemode, no matter the map, no matter if you’re a warlock, titan, or hunter - ability spam is endorsed. Again, ability spam is endorsed. While I completely understand Stasis is a brand new subclass, and that it’s never been a piece of the meta before, there should never be a subclass that endorses ability spam, especially in an FPS. Destiny is completely centered around gunplay. To quote the words of Bungie, “The demiurge of the guardian is the gun.” Crucible is a place where gun skill matters. Gun skill has been thrown away in the current meta. Stasis was shipped out with incredibly powerful abilities, a freezing mechanic that doesn’t (in my opinion) belong in crucible, and extremely long and overly powerful supers; yes, I’m looking at you behemoth. Obviously considering this most recent TWAB Bungie has heard our complaints, and I am genuinely thankful they have - I think they delivered this week with it. The question I pose to you - why should a freezing mechanic (which can be spammed) be in a game that’s meant to be fast paced and full of gunplay. Bungie, the gunplay in Destiny 2 is like no other game. It feels amazing, every gun feels unique, every gun’s perk is unlike any other game - center crucible around gunplay and crucible players will be extremely happy. Stasis needs to be looked at as intensely as possible.
Potential fixes: Remove Stasis, or at the very least freezing, from “endgame” PvP modes. Modes like Trials and Comp where you often play off the first pick have been invaded by stasis like moths to a lamp. Bungie, you say you want these gamemodes to be difficult, but then make them as easy as possible with freezing. A pick based off of ability spam, in an endgame mode, simply does not make sense. While this may seem extreme, having stasis removed from trials and comp would free up the gamemodes and make them more fast paced again. As of now, these gamemodes most of the time include sitting in the back waiting to freeze somebody; once you do, headshot them with a sniper. Endgame modes like trials and comp need to feel exciting and fast paced for them to be any different than other game modes, and they just aren’t. Quickplay modes such as control, clash etc. would still have stasis for the casual players looking to freeze an unsuspecting guardian in the crucible, and wouldn’t be so invasive towards other game modes where they don’t belong. Or, simply remove the freezing mechanic and make it slow instead. Other small things pertaining to stasis: Behemoth shouldn’t freeze nearby crucible enemies on cast. Behemoth should not last as long, nor be as powerful as it currently is. Shatter damage from all sources, not just shatter dive, should be observed. A shotgun blast to an ice crystal should do as much damage as a titan sliding through with cryoclasm. Take another look at warlock stasis, and evaluate why top tree dawnblade, or middle tree arc with geomags are currently the only viable options. Take a second look at the grenades, perhaps ice walls should serve as ice walls and not catalysts for kills, while the other grenades do their respective jobs as intended as well.
Issues with Iron Banner: Iron Banner is a beloved gamemode. It’s been a staple of Destiny as long as the franchise has been around, but is now being neglected. The changes made like being able to turn in tokens without doing the seasonal Iron Banner quest are great, but just not enough. The main issue with Iron Banner as of now is the loot. The loot from Iron Banner is some of the best in the game. Swarm of the raven, Bite of the Fox, Forward Path, Steady Hand, Crimil’s Dagger, etc. But we barely get these guns. End of match drops are extremely low, or at least seemingly are, there’s no targeted system to chase what weapons you want, the loot pool for Iron Banner is constantly being rotated each season for (what I see to be) no reason, and the only way other than tokens and match rewards, which have proven to be minor sources of loot, is bounties. I understand the bounties give pinnacle gear, but that’s just not good enough. There’s also an issue with artifact glitching where a player can enable their artifact power bonus in Iron Banner (I know how to do it if a dev would like to reach out and talk about how to get it fixed), and another issue I’ve seen players commonly complain about is the armor. I’m not saying the armor looks bad, but by the communitie’s standards, it’s nowhere near as striking as it could be. Destiny 1 armor was better looking. We need more Iron Banner ornaments, and we need armor from Iron Banner to shift away from the Japanese theme, and more towards a medieval theme again.
Potential fix(es): Fix the artifact glitch, design cooler looking armor with new and fresh themes, and re-incentivize the gamemode. Provide a targeted system of chasing loot such as the umbral decoder, where players can go to spend their tokens/reputation ranks on specific items of loot. Give Lord Saladin more than four bounties. Give him slightly more than other vendors have: the four weekly bounties for pinnacle gear, and if not an umbral decoder to chase loot, bounties specific to certain pieces of armor and guns. Also, similarly to Destiny 1 from what I remember, it’d also be good to bring back a system where you could buy specific pieces of loot after you reach a certain reputation level. Also, bring back wormwood ;).
Cheaters: Ah yes, the final piece of criticism I have left to cover. Cheaters. Cheaters have been running rampant in Competitive, Trials, and even quickplay. Whether it be an aimbotter, a wall hacker, or somebody shooting infinite colony shots at you. Cheating has had little to no acknowledgment from Bungie whatsoever. Yes, I understand they are targeting the companies that develop and distribute the cheats legally, but that won’t 100% solve the problem. Bungie’s lack of a solid anti-cheat has driven the majority of the player base away from the modes, and has made them not worth playing. Who’d want to go up against an aimbotter teabagging you in Trials every weekend? At the beginning of the post I declared I am no coder, but I’d presume it can take a while to make one; the issue with this is that it’s not a new problem. Cheating has been a severe issue for an extremely long amount of time, and a AAA game deserves a better anti-cheat than it has now. If a game can’t notice a player shooting heavy ammo at 171838732839372294829 RPM, when heavy hasn’t even spawned. , something is wrong.
Potential Fix(es): The solutions are pretty simple. Continue to legally pursue the companies developing and distributing the cheats, but also develop a solid anti-cheat.
Everything Bungie has done right
Bringing adept weapons back in the first place
The current weapon meta - guns feel near perfectly balanced as of right now
New vendor system with Shaxx
Freelance comp
Freelance Iron Banner
Legal action against cheat companies
3 win reward bounty
Making 110s 120s
Handcannon changes in general
Weapon changes in general
Light subclass super tuning
General changes that have already been made (6v6, comp to 3v3 etc.)
Now, onto gambit.
Gambit
Gambit has been a touchy subject for a long time. When it first released in Forsaken, I and many other players were having a lot of fun with it. However, over time gambit’s appeal started to dissipate and many players lost interest. This can be attributed to the common conclusion that after the appeal wore off, people began to realize how frustrating the gamemode really is, and that same sentiment has lasted all the way to this expansion. The common reasoning for people saying the gamemode is too frustrating is primarily because of the invasions. The meta for invaders is as stale as it gets. Xenophage, Eyes of Tomorrow, Truth, and Izanagi’s Burden are essentially the only options you have if you want to be an effective invader. Tone down these specific weapons in gambit and let other weapons shine. Another issue many players have found with gambit is the lack of maps. Like every core activity in Beyond Light, we had two maps taken away with not a single one given back. While two maps may not seem like a lot, keep in mind there are only three maps now. Gambit has desperately needed maps for a long time, and Bungie took some away. The only solution to this problem would be to make more maps. Other (smaller) issues with Gambit:
Every invasion being with either a super or a heavy weapon - Reduce heavy drops and suppress super energy to only being up on one invasion per game
Enabling players to not understand the core mechanics of the gamemode - Seeing a player with 15 motes going to invade is very frustrating, disable the invasion portal for players that have enough motes to summon a blocker. Make the Primeval immune to damage until envoys are killed so players don’t waste all their heavy ammo
Add more unique map mechanics like the rotating circle on Deep Six
Add more verticality to maps so they aren’t flat and boring
Add freelance gambit
Diversify DPS areas - standing in one place in the center of the map makes it incredibly easier for the invader, and making the prim-evil shift to different areas of the arena would add an extra small layer of difficulty to all sides without it being gamebreaking
Add more unique gambit loot & quests
Tone down invasion timers & the prime-evil healing from killing enemy players
Tone down the strength of the ads, this would allow for different weapons to be used without punishment to the player
Remove the overshield given to the invader
Add weekly rotating gambit modifiers to add freshness to the meta
Make it more difficult for losing teams to catch up to the team who summoned their prime-evil first
With that being said, Bungie has not completely neglected the gamemode, especially not this season. I think the morphing of gambit and gambit prime into one gamemode was an excellent idea, and made gambit somewhat more bearable. I’d also like to acknowledge that the devs are taking a look at the issue where when motes are dropped it’s difficult to pick them up, and some get stuck in the ground.
Strikes
Strikes have been as big a staple of Destiny as its raids. Strikes are arguably the primary core playlist, but have still been neglected. As of now, the main issues with strikes are how boring they are, how repetitive they are, how easy they are, and how pointless they are. Here are my solutions. A revitalization of strikes In order for strikes to be revitalized, there needs to be a reason to run them in the first place. As of now, the only motivation I have for strikes is to get the bright dust from the two weekly bounties, and sometimes even those are difficult to get done. Strikes give little to no rewards, and therefore don’t have a point in playing them. They’re a prime example of a system of artificial power grind, and make players lose motivation. Strikes need to return to the system they had in Destiny 1, where heroic strikes were added and provided an extra layer of difficulty. As of now, strikes are so easy to run through I could do them with my eyes closed. Make the modifiers matter, make the ads hit harder, make the bosses more difficult to kill, and add more mechanics like the orb mechanic in The Corrupted strike. And I bet you didn’t see this one coming - bring back strike specific loot. Now, I understand there is technically is strike specific loot in Destiny 2, but it’s all sunset weapons with static rolls, a sparrow, or a ghost shell. There needs to be unique weapons and armor added to make the playlist feel fresh again. Nearly the entire reason I ran strikes back in Destiny 1 was in order to get a god roll Grasp of Malok. Now, I don’t run strikes because they’re annoying and tedious as the game gets. If strike specific loot gets added into Destiny 2, there also needs to be certain mechanics along with it in order for the loot to be dropped. For example, in the shield brothers strike in order to get the gauntlets you had to kill one of the shield brothers before the other, or the Dust Palace strike where depending on which psion you killed last, you’d get a specific cloak. Along with this, in general exotic drops need to be heavily reduced to incentivize nightfalls. I appreciate that nightfalls are a good way to get upgrade materials, but it’s just not enough. Everything about strikes needs to be made more difficult, and they need to have a reward that feels rare. In order to do this, add more modifiers that actually make the playlist harder, and reduce world drops at the final chest, and instead add other items like small amounts of bright dust, upgrade modules, etc. Several strikes were also taken away this season, with two being added. There needs to be many more strikes added. The playlist is as stale as it can get, and the removal of strikes did it no favors. In addition to this, stop adding strikes as parts of the campaign. I understand the reasoning for doing this, as there were complaints that the strikes didn’t feel very important and didn’t pertain to the story. However, this is just forcing the player to repeat content and makes the strikes and campaigns more monotonous. Make strikes have meaning in the story by connecting them to the world post campaign completion. For example, after we defeat Eramis, make a strike where a rogue group of say, Cabal, get their hands on stasis technology on Europa and we need to stop them before it’s too late. Small stories like this that are separate from the campaign but make us feel more apart of the world are exactly what we meant when we said we want strikes to feel important to the story. The nightfall rotation also needs to be completely removed. Allow all players to play any nightfall they want at any given time, and bring that nightfall’s loot, like The Mindbender’s Ambition (which was a perfect example of strike specific loot), up to the current power cap of any given season. Keep nightfalls at an exceptional difficulty in the weekly rotation as they are now, but allow other nightfalls to still be accessible. Locking this activities behind a timegate makes the time of the player feel less valuable, and reduces incentives to go complete nightfalls/strikes in general. An extremely good video I’d recommend watching on strikes and what other potential fixes could be made can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfRmBkZBpxc (all credit to Kujay) As I said in the beginning of the post, I am including everything I enjoy about each core playlist. However, with strikes, there quite honestly isn’t anything I particularly enjoy about them. Bungie really dropped the ball with strikes, and desperately needs to take a second look at what they can do for the playlist, or else strikes might as well be removed as a whole. Now, onto planetary activities/vendors.
Planetary Activities, and their respective vendors
With the release of Destiny 2 came a roster of unique and fun characters for each new planet introduced. From failsafe, a character with two personalities that has fun dialogue and has a tragic, yet cool backstory, to Asher Mir; a scientist on Io that can be a bit of a dick sometimes. These characters felt fresh and original, and made me feel more connected to the world of destiny, but over time they began to lose their purpose. The only reason I go to Nessus, or the EDZ in beyond light is for Xur. I don’t have any motivation to go see the vendors, as they serve no purpose in the game. Beyond Light also came with Variks and the Exo Stranger, but once you complete their original set of objectives they essentially become pointless beyond the powerful gear. Each planetary vendor should serve a purpose in the game, like how spider does with his black market commerce. Every planetary vendor could be given their own loot system similar to that of the umbral decoder with their own unique weapons and armor sets, things like this would allow the average player to get a sleepless roll they like from Petra without having to do tedious activities. In addition to that, vendors should not be giving sunset items out with their reputation rank ups, I ranked up my rep with Devrim the other day, and got a year one sunset fusion rifle. With that being said, the reputation systems also need to be reworked to drop more unique items. Emblems, shaders, and even auras (I’ll get to those more later) could drop from reputation rank ups, in addition to the aforementioned armor sets and weapons. These could also come with minor upgrade materials, and could also reward planetary materials to use as well. Said planetary materials should also not be the source of ranking up reputation. It should be done through planetary missions, adventures, lost sectors, patrols, and public events. This change would provide an incentive to do the activities currently pointless in the game, and would not force players to give their planetary materials to vendors that they could be spending on purchasing a weapon bounty from Banshee. Unique aspects of each planet, like the eclipsed zone on Europa, should also be added to the other planets. Small features like this make the game feel more connected to the story, and make the planets more fun to play on. Currently, I’m really enjoying vendors selling differently rolled armor each week. It’s actually somewhat exciting checking Devrim each week to see what he’s selling, for me it gives the same magic that Xur does. I also enjoy the aesthetics of each planet. Destiny 2 has done an amazing job with the location's looks. I also enjoy specific public events unique to their respective destination, like the brig event on Europa and the escapee even on the Tangled Shore. Next up we have raids and dungeons.
Raids and Dungeons
For many players, raids are what make Destiny. Since the beginning, raids have been meant to be a challenging endgame activities with unique and extremely special rewards that make the player feel accomplished after the final boss is defeated. I remember in Destiny 1 seeing a guardian with a full vault of glass set on meant you were the boss of the tower. Unfortunately, raids are now just too easy. The objectively best raid to ever grace Destiny 2 was the Last Wish raid. It was connected to the story, difficult to beat, had mechanics extremely unique to the raid, and had some of the most amazing lore in the game. The amount of boss encounters in comparison to non-boss encounters was perfect, and the queen's walk encounter at the end of the raid was done perfectly. The challenges were done exceptionally well, and the title seal is fun, and difficult to achieve. A long, unique, and difficult raid is exactly what Destiny 2 should have. Bungie also hit the nail on the head with the chase for the 1000 Voices exotic. I’ve done several clears where a player got the exotic on their 20th or so run, and the excitement in their voices made my heart swell. The chase for powerful exotics that were so rare some players would cry was another thing done just right. The cherry on top for Last Wish was the addition of the wish wall. The wish wall is an immaculate addition to the raid, and makes it feel more special to run through. Last Wish is the perfect raid, and set the standard for me in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, no other raid has matched it. Raids as of now lack the magic that Last Wish had, yet Destiny 1 raids stood up to the test. King’s Fall, Vault of Glass, Crota’s End, and Wrath of the Machine, were all incredibly unique and important story-wise. The loot they dropped, and the mechanics and special features of each raid made them so fun I ran them over and over again along with Last Wish in a heartbeat whenever I had the chance. Part of what made these raids so special was how difficult they were. It wasn’t because of the strength of the ads, or the boss’s health, but actually how hard the mechanics were. Mechanics feel too easy in Destiny 2, and the raids just aren’t as satisfying to finish. Unfortunately, little can be done about this because retroactively changing the mechanics of the raids is not a good idea. What can be done is this: add hard mode raids with extra mechanics that don’t necessarily change the way the encounters work, but add another layer of difficulty. Like the age of triumph, put every raid on a weekly rotation with their own unique raid modifiers, armor ornaments, auras, etc. In order to make the exotics feel as special as they used to, remove the mechanic where the more clears you have raises the % chance you get at getting the exotic. Make the drop rate static, and fall somewhere between a 5-8% chance. In addition to this, add a random drop exotic such as 1k voices and eyes of tomorrow, but also a quest exotic in each raid like divinity. It’s not too late to go back and add quest exotics to the Deep Stone Crypt and Last Wish, and would actually be another motivator for people to do hard mode raids. It’s also not too late to add a random drop exotic to the garden of salvation raid either. With all these criticisms, it may not seem like I like raiding, but I actually do. I love the scenery in every raid currently in-game. They feel unique, amazing, and make the world seem alive. Each raid has an area that made me say “woah…” and get shivers down my spine the first time I saw it (especially the jumping puzzle in the Deep Stone Crypt raid, but I won’t spoil it for people who haven’t run it yet). The mechanics of each raid are unique and make them feel special. I also like the loot system in the final chest of the Deep Stone Crypt raid, and is a perfect example of how targeted loot systems should be done in endgame activities from now on. The lore of the raids are all excellent, and the exotics for each raid feel special. Now, onto dungeons. Dungeons are a special activity in Destiny 2. I think they’re on par as being the most unique activities in the game, and yet like other activities they’ve been somewhat neglected by Bungie. Shattered Throne has sat in the game for years now with no incentive to play, and The Pit of Heresy no longer has an incentive to play it other than enhancement prisms. In the most recent TWAB Bungie said they’re making changes to the dungeons, you can find them here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50006 I actually like these changes. It makes the upgrade materials from the Pit of Heresy more attainable, while in exchange providing gear with high stat rolls and new perk pools. However, Bungie never said that they will be dropping at a pinnacle, or even powerful reward level. In order to get players to complete these dungeons, they need to be relevant in the leveling system. Dungeons are in a pretty good place right now respectively, they just need to drop gear at higher power levels so players can have the motivation to complete them. I also think that in about two seasons, they should be given new fresh armor and weapon sets to drop along with the old ones. A weekly pinnacle rotation for the dungeons each week would also be a fun idea. In order to avoid issues with the Prophecy dungeon and free to play, on the weeks it’s not a pinnacle drop, make it a powerful drop. I like the exotic quests for wishender and xenophage in their respective dungeons. I really enjoy the special xenophage encounter in the Pit of Heresy, and I think it is a perfect model for Bungie to use in future exotic quests in dungeons. I also like the changes being made to dungeons next season, and am excited to see how it turns out. Well, this brings us to our last section. The miscellaneous issues of Destiny 2.
Miscellaneous Issues
Destiny 2 is an extremely unique game. The gunplay feels better than any other FPS I’ve ever played, the lore is incredibly amazing, and the franchise will go down as a staple in raids and looter shooters for the rest of video game history. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by so many small changes that players have been begging to be made, and it’s driving people away. This is a list of miscellaneous changes that should be made to improve Destiny 2 and the players experience, and make the game more bearable on a day to day basis, you’d like me to add more reach out to me through DMs and I’ll add it.
Provide purpose to Shaw Han for veteran players
Fix melee whiffs and general connection issues
Allow players to mass dismantle shaders
Allow players to toggle an option to auto-dismantle blue tier loot drops
Fix hit registration issues
Fix the launch glitch issue
Add targeted loot systems like the umbral decoder to every vendor
Make bright dust more accessible to the player
Add back auras for completing activities
Bring back unique emblems from Destiny 1 for veteran’s nostalgia
Make an in-game, moderated LFG system
Add more unique exotic quests
Reduce exotic drop rate and the chances at getting them from any given source to make them feel more exotic
Stop reskinning weapons and bosses
Add more exotics to the game with the next expansions, and with the proceeding seasons ahead of us
Add every eververse item to the store unless it’s an event item (the spare rations ornament, nucleus shell, old armor set ornaments, etc. for example)
Update Hawthorne’s dialogue
Bring back sparrow horns
Give Ikora a purpose (perhaps a place to go for weekly reset info in game?)
Increase vault space
Bring back factions once a season
Bring back the sparrow racing league
Bring back strike scoring
More activities like the archon’s forge, blind well, etc.
Bring back a revamped prison of elders
Allow us to track more than one exotic at a time
Tune weekly bounties (their bright dust amounts, killing vex in strikes when not having a single vex centered strike, etc.)
Add more unique exotic missions, like the special version of the corrupted strike for malfeasance
Feature armor from community artists and put it in game once every month, season, or whatever you see fit for more community inclusion
Stop selling bounties that can only be purchased with sunset planetary materials on certain days
Bring back old seasonal ornaments available for purchase in the eververse
Make eververse items generally more accessible and less locked behind a paywall
Edit: Fix RNG pellet spread on shotguns I’m enjoying the character screen being darker, the launch screen being darker, and general UI changes like the lore book section updates this season. I’m a big fan of season of arrivals weapons being added into the world pool, and I like the removal of token systems. I think small things like raid entrances being in planetary environments we’ve hidden is a smart idea, and I’m loving the lore every single season so far. Well, that's about it for this post. It was a long one, and one that I’m very passionate about. I hope Bungie listens and takes a close look at what the community is saying. Again, these are my opinions but I do think they’ll all be really nice improvements to the game. Feel free to reach out to me about anything concerning this post. Thanks for reading :)
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