Destiny 2 free for a limited time, and you can keep it (kotaku)

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Kotaku link [https://kotaku.com/you-can-now-get-destiny-2-free-on-pc-1830184743?utm_medium=Socialflow&utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0kg1NAhYsSEulPkstLugCVIYbiDJ1tzzI8fTIVMNf_fxLHvQPjH0AmkrI]

Now, the question is...Do we care?

Like...I'm not sure I even want it for free. My assessment that it appears to be a less compelling borderlands with loot boxes (not the good kind!) as a huge focus seems to have been right on the money, and I don't know if I care to even download it.

What about all y'all?

 

[meiam]

Hmmm I'll probably get it but just because I already have the battle net launcher and it's literally a click away.

I played the demo/beta before launch and while the gunplay was competent fight got a bit repetitive for me and the power were on such a long cool down that they didn't really spice up the gameplay. I did like the instance but without a trinity or anything like it they felt kinda chaotic.

 

[Hawki]

I might, but my PC can't run it, so...here's to the future?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I got it for free on the PS4, but haven't tried it yet (there's a shitload of better games out right now). I might get it on the PC and dump it from my PS4 to save room though. I figure my friends and I will play it eventually when we get the itch for a loot and shoot and borderlands 3 still isn't out.

 

[TopazFusion]

Just checked, and yeah, it appears as a 'gift' in the BNet app.

I claimed my gift, not that I'm ever going to play it though...

 

[Dalisclock]

Can I get it in Single Player and Good?

If so, then yes please.

With that being said, is this a sign that they're about to abandon D2 for D3, which will start the cycle of "Crap game at launch, apparently improves with a couple years worth of DLC" again?

 

[sXeth]

Kotaku link [https://kotaku.com/you-can-now-get-destiny-2-free-on-pc-1830184743?utm_medium=Socialflow&utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0kg1NAhYsSEulPkstLugCVIYbiDJ1tzzI8fTIVMNf_fxLHvQPjH0AmkrI]

Now, the question is...Do we care?

Like...I'm not sure I even want it for free. My assessment that it appears to be a less compelling borderlands with loot boxes (not the good kind!) as a huge focus seems to have been right on the money, and I don't know if I care to even download it.

What about all y'all?

The loot boxes are almost entirely irrelevant, as that goes. Just cosmetics, and even then you get thrown them fairly rapidly just for additional levels past the last one (that don't increase in required amount).

More to the point, the base game is kind of sabotaged at the moment. Amidst the year 2 stuff, they changed infusion (a critical component of increasing what passes for your level) to require masterwork cores (which are now called something else because people called them on co-opting the masterwork mechanic, in one of the most tone deaf responses to a fan backlash ever). Regardless of the name, said cores are an incredibly rare commodity via the random loot pool, and the only consistent source (which is still a pretty garbage one) is in the Forsaken expansion. Also if you're into the PvP at all, year 2 loot has extra perk slots on weapons, and perk slots on armour that don't come on year 1 stuff. And events like Iron banner and Trials of whatever are affected by the level stuff, so while they kindly left them accessible for base game owners, its effectively impossible to actually compete.

If you particularly enjoy the gameplay, you'll have a fun enough 6-14 hours or so, but once the campaign/sidequests are dispensed with, its just going to fall apart.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I'll never say no to a free game, so I?m downloading it now.

 

[bluegate]

I downloaded the game on PS4 back in September and have been playing it on and off since then.

I had fun with the campaign, but after that the game sort of died out for me. I'm not a big fan of PvP combat so you won't find me jumping around in the Crucible much and gear that helps me level up my light / power level only seems to drop by doing Challenges, most of which reset weekly and some every 4 days or so.

So once a week I boot up the game, do the weekly challenges, increase my character's power level and then I turn the game off again.

Although recently I also had a bit of fun with the game's Halloween event, you could grind for a strong weapon and collect Pepakura masks, which was fun.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I claimed it just because I'm a greedy fuck, but I have no intention of playing it. I heard that it's about as short as a demo and without the DLC is basically worthless. That's why it makes sense that they're giving it away like that.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I paid cash money for this game, very disappointed. I never really played Halo games but by all accounts, Bungie had a reputation for making great games. But every single decision made in D2 made the game worse, not better. D2 was made by committee and every design decision made was absolutely deliberate, and that is the real shame.

First, being "online only" it isn't massively multiplayer. Other players are in-game, but they may as well not be for how much you can interact with them. There is NO chat of any kind, no player trading (wouldn't want to interfere with the real money lootcrate shop), nothing. You can't ask for help, inspect other builds or anything...it's an online game but feels like a mausoleum, completely silent and dead.

Lots of different zones, each as tedious as the last. Open-world events include defending a spot or killing a boss who's attacking a spot for a crateful of blue-rarity shit. Generally, the open world just exists to make it take longer for you to get where you need to go and it does take a while because you don't get your mount until AFTER completing the main game. That's right, you have to complete the game before you get your mount.

Scaling enemies...everything scales, all the time. As such combat and the enemies you face are EXACTLY the same at level 1 as they are at max level (20 or 25 now). There is literally no difference between fighting at lvl 1 with a lvl 1 weapon and the same at max, even on the same team. Further, all the weapons are of the AR and SMG variety, because moron devs in their stupidity made shotguns, snipers and RLs "power weapons". Power Weapons can be equipped but only hold a tiny amount of ammo, so they essentially can only be used briefly once every third skirmish or so. So no shotgun/sniper playstyles.

Next, the class abilities. They take so long to come off cooldown that you are left with NOT using it for even longer because you might need it in the next fight. When they are popped, it's great for about 15-20 seconds and then you're done. 20 secs of fun and back to being a no-class AR/SMG shooting thing. They took 3 classes with different specs and made them boring AF because....heaven knows why, but Bungie devs with Activision execs lording over them decided this was how they wanted their game to be.

Destiny 2 is disappointing. It's a bad game at its core with very high production values. A well made bad game however is still a bad game. The essence of it is wrong and since all of it was made INTENTIONALLY that way, I don't think it's something that can be fixed. You can have brief moments of fun for 30sec increments every 10 minutes or so. For a brief 20-30s window when I use a shotgun and my Titan's shield, the gameplay was cool. But then you realise the rest is just bad.

It's the loneliest, emptiest multiplayer shooter with tedious combat due to scaling, tedious weapons, restricted class abilities, restricted loot due to real-money lootcrates (the grind itself was a subject of major controversy [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=destiny+2+grind+controversy&atb=v110-2_b&ia=web]) where they artificially lower XP rewards at max level to prevent players getting crates.

Oh, and a brief note on PvP...not many people really care about it, but it's worth mentioning anyway. There are three classes: Warlock, Hunter and Titan (that I went with). Hunter is utterly dominant in PvP due simply to class mechanics and there's nothing Warlocks or Titans can do. By design, Hunters are simply better at PvP which is a serious balance issue, but at this point, it's the least of D2's worries.

Borderlands 2 is better in almost every way, if you have friends to play with. There isn't always online-activity at a given level otherwise, but since D2's only coop content is a handful of dungeons you'd have to grind anyway, you aren't missing much. You feel like you're playing a Mechromancer, Siren or Psycho because you're constantly able to pop your class skills. Weapons are fun, varied and exciting (altho I will admit that shotguns/snipers at max level aren't really shotguns or snipers), there's no real money store, it can be played online or offline, is more fun and lasts about as long as a shooter like that needs to.

I'll also mention Warframe as a great online co-op shooter with quite possibly the most consumer-friendly F2P model I've personally seen. You get to play with great abilities, fun and unique weapons, come up with creative builds using a kinda collectible-card system, can trade for the premium currency in-game without spending real money but there is some grind/farming required and some time-gating that I don't think is unreasonable.

At least it's free now, probably because it's a bad game and they can't get people to pay for it anymore after those of us that did warned those that didn't not to.

 

[WindKnight]

80 gig install. I think I'm gonna pass.

Besides, between Warframe and Overwatch I don't think I have the time for another game that demands a lot of attention.

 

[sXeth]

I claimed it just because I'm a greedy fuck, but I have no intention of playing it. I heard that it's about as short as a demo and without the DLC is basically worthless. That's why it makes sense that they're giving it away like that.

Yeah, lots of 12 hour demos out there. I'll criticize Destiny with the best of them, but thats just a crazy amount of misinformation.

First, being "online only" it isn't massively multiplayer. Other players are in-game, but they may as well not be for how much you can interact with them. There is NO chat of any kind, no player trading (wouldn't want to interfere with the real money lootcrate shop), nothing. You can't ask for help, inspect other builds or anything...it's an online game but feels like a mausoleum, completely silent and dead.

There's actual chat on the PC version. You can 100% ask people for help (on consoles you can invite them to your team (which does involve reloading for some inane reason). And inspect has been there since D1 and remains to this day, its oddly easier then the inviting bit for some reason, its the default option when you push the stick in on a player (on controller)
.

Lots of different zones, each as tedious as the last. Open-world events include defending a spot or killing a boss who's attacking a spot for a crateful of blue-rarity shit. Generally, the open world just exists to make it take longer for you to get where you need to go and it does take a while because you don't get your mount until AFTER completing the main game. That's right, you have to complete the game before you get your mount.

Hyperbolic oversimplification of the open world events. The loot from them is generally useless though. Year 2 took the purples almost entirely out and scaled way back on the exotics from public events, so they indeed aren't really worth the bother. You get the sparrow at the first level cap as well, which is probably after the main campaign, but depending what order you do the sidequests in, could be anywhere from halfway through.

Scaling enemies...everything scales, all the time. As such combat and the enemies you face are EXACTLY the same at level 1 as they are at max level (20 or 25 now). There is literally no difference between fighting at lvl 1 with a lvl 1 weapon and the same at max, even on the same team. Further, all the weapons are of the AR and SMG variety, because moron devs in their stupidity made shotguns, snipers and RLs "power weapons". Power Weapons can be equipped but only hold a tiny amount of ammo, so they essentially can only be used briefly once every third skirmish or so. So no shotgun/sniper playstyles.

The scaling is a big downer. You do actually do a tiny sliver more at +10 light level to an enemy, but its effectively irrelevant unless they're a boss. The rest *was* true (other then power ammo is easy come, drops off every elite), but changed with the year 2 updates with shotguns, snipers, and some grenade launchers moving back into the regular weapons. And you always had hand cannons.

Next, the class abilities. They take so long to come off cooldown that you are left with NOT using it for even longer because you might need it in the next fight. When they are popped, it's great for about 15-20 seconds and then you're done. 20 secs of fun and back to being a no-class AR/SMG shooting thing. They took 3 classes with different specs and made them boring AF because....heaven knows why, but Bungie devs with Activision execs lording over them decided this was how they wanted their game to be.

Never really true if you knew how to play the game (especially in co-op). Long ago changed to make it faster anyways. Also you can pick up your own orbs now if you're intent on playing a co-op game solo. Masterwork weapons also constantly spit out orbs.

It's the loneliest, emptiest multiplayer shooter with tedious combat due to scaling, tedious weapons, restricted class abilities, restricted loot due to real-money lootcrates (the grind itself was a subject of major controversy [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=destiny+2+grind+controversy&atb=v110-2_b&ia=web]) where they artificially lower XP rewards at max level to prevent players getting crates.

While I don't support the XP reducing thing. Even playing with that in effect. I can't understand how they even sell the loot crates. The stuff is literally thrown at you. I never played the game in any hardcore fashion and still had damn near every bit of the cosmetic crap, and thousands of the trade-in Bright Dust you get from duplicates (And daily/weekly challenge bounties now). The actual loot of the game is also not in the Eververse stuff.

Oh, and a brief note on PvP...not many people really care about it, but it's worth mentioning anyway. There are three classes: Warlock, Hunter and Titan (that I went with). Hunter is utterly dominant in PvP due simply to class mechanics and there's nothing Warlocks or Titans can do. By design, Hunters are simply better at PvP which is a serious balance issue, but at this point, it's the least of D2's worries.

Lots of the playerbase does care about PvP, to an insane degree. I don't understand it, because Bungie clearly don't (that or they are horrendously incompetent at designing it on basic fundamental levels). Dunno how you'd get Hunter being dominant (they're on the bottom of it nowadays, but never really shone), they're the popular choice because teenagers like hoods or whatever, but not particularly good,with Titans actually having more mobility (in mobility armour) then them despite that being their alleged niche.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I was re-installing Warcraft 3 when I happened upon this. Funny coincidence. I have no use for the Blizzard launcher save for my 16 year old disc of WC3 and I happen to get the urge to install it in the wake of the remaster only to get a free game. Not that I'm particularly interested mind you, but free is free.

 

[Something Amyss]

I totally intended to try it when it was free for PS4.

...and I;'m sure I'll get to that any year now....

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

...
There's actual chat on the PC version. You can 100% ask people for help ...

...The rest *was* true (other then power ammo is easy come, drops off every elite), but changed with the year 2 updates with shotguns, snipers, and some grenade launchers moving back into the regular weapons.

I will take your word for it and this being the case, that the PC now has chat and that shotguns et all are normal weapons, I will gladly say that those are unquestionable improvements.

However, it doesn't address a lot of the rest of my issues which I maintain to be true when I sunk my several dozen hours into it from beta to launch. The fact is devs decided to make the game the way they did. To lock the speeder until the campaign is over (for reference, WoW gives it to players at level 20 (out of I believe 100 now). To have no chat until whatever update. The shallow, unrewarding "open world" events. The consumable cosmetics. The lootcrates. The XP penalties. The power cooldowns. The scaling. Every one of these things is not a bug but a deliberate case of design by committee, devs intentionally designing these mechanics to work this way. They intentionally made the game to be this uninteresting and boring, whereas Borderlands 2 (as one example) does every one of these things better.

It's a live service, lootcrate shop with a high cost of entry. It's subpar and this free giveaway is only happening because they want to sell the expansion DLCs. I think it might have been more interesting as a single player shooter without the other mechanics. I will give credit where its due for the changes you described above, but not much more than that. It's not a surprise why so many former fans are jaded, and why the Warframe sub is constantly welcoming ex D2 players who want a coop shooter done right.

 

[sXeth]

...
There's actual chat on the PC version. You can 100% ask people for help ...

...The rest *was* true (other then power ammo is easy come, drops off every elite), but changed with the year 2 updates with shotguns, snipers, and some grenade launchers moving back into the regular weapons.

I will take your word for it and this being the case, that the PC now has chat and that shotguns et all are normal weapons, I will gladly say that those are unquestionable improvements.

However, it doesn't address a lot of the rest of my issues which I maintain to be true when I sunk my several dozen hours into it from beta to launch. The fact is devs decided to make the game the way they did. To lock the speeder until the campaign is over (for reference, WoW gives it to players at level 20 (out of I believe 100 now). To have no chat until whatever update. The shallow, unrewarding "open world" events. The consumable cosmetics. The lootcrates. The XP penalties. The power cooldowns. The scaling. Every one of these things is not a bug but a deliberate case of design by committee, devs intentionally designing these mechanics to work this way. They intentionally made the game to be this uninteresting and boring, whereas Borderlands 2 (as one example) does every one of these things better.

It's a live service, lootcrate shop with a high cost of entry. It's subpar and this free giveaway is only happening because they want to sell the expansion DLCs. I think it might have been more interesting as a single player shooter without the other mechanics. I will give credit where its due for the changes you described above, but not much more than that. It's not a surprise why so many former fans are jaded, and why the Warframe sub is constantly welcoming ex D2 players who want a coop shooter done right.

Borderlands 2, ugh. Even if the ambiance equivalent of 12 year olds on XBL screaming memes at each other aroudn you didn't turn you off. I dunno how anyone enjoys that stiff ass shooting and obnoxious bullet spongey enemies. At least go for Shadow Warrior 2, which is isn't that much better for the "humor", but at least its mostly skippable and quickly over with, and has much better moment-to-moment in it.



Warframe's actually an interesting example for your issue with cooldowns. You sure as hell aren't using your Warframe abilities consistently in that game until you figure out one of the handful of ways to do so. Which are almost entirely late game availability at that(barring the Ghoul event being around early on for you to get Adrenaline/Rage). The core thing though is you have to learn and use those mechanics. Its is (and has always been) 100% possible in Destiny for a team to chain their supers infinitely through an entire mission. If you don't look at which parts of your class charge abilities, or target the enemies that drop more orbs when you are supering, that's kind of down to your disinterest in learning the mechanic.

Its more co-op dependent, but it is a co-op shooter. Which is a fairly consistent critique that pops up in Warframe reddit that the game doesn't offer too many things that actually push or require the co-op play despite the mechanical options surrounding that idea.



The scaling is not 100% a terrible idea. Certainly, the concept that a regular grunt does not suddenly have 60 million ehp and can be killed by a bullet in his head is preferable to some of the mess that the other examples above get into when they get into their top ends. The problem with Destiny is that their progression is based around the whole Light/Power level concept, a simple basic vertical progression, but there's precious little effect of that. They could be fine with the scaling if they had horizontal progression (more class skills, weapon mods, masterworks, whatever gameplay adding option), but they only have the vertical one that they're mostly cancelling out.



The entry cost is actually reasonable at this point in time. Strangely enough. If you get the base game free+40 for the Forsaken (which now includes the other two DLCs). That may/will probably go to crap with their *3* DLCs in the next 8 months of course. Of course, if you went the other way around, it was 140 dollars for all that stuff, and the bundling of Curse of S***stain and Warmind onto Forsaken only came out 2 months after they forced anyone who wanted Forsaken (the real expansion) to buy the other two (despite the fact that Forsaken makes no use of any part of Mercury or Mars) (you got some cosmetics if you bought it before then when they did the change. Not even the Destiny forums were particularly impressed with the concept).

(Although if we go by MMO standards, that previous 140 of stuff was/is spread over a 15 month period for less then 10/month, which is below the standard 15/mo subscriptions. Forsaken seems to be first content thats kept any sort of ongoing activity though to semi-justify that)

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

They intentionally made the game to be this uninteresting and boring, whereas Borderlands 2 (as one example) does every one of these things better.

Borderlands 2, ugh. Even if the ambiance equivalent of 12 year olds on XBL screaming memes at each other aroudn you didn't turn you off. I dunno how anyone enjoys that stiff ass shooting and obnoxious bullet spongey enemies. At least go for Shadow Warrior 2, which is isn't that much better for the "humor", but at least its mostly skippable and quickly over with, and has much better moment-to-moment in it.

I can't believe I'm about to unequivocally side with King's Gambit (And Gearbox), but I'm totally about to.

Borderlands 2 was an excellent game, IMO.

The guns felt awesome to use, the abilities were game-changers that you could deploy pretty frequently, the world was actually pretty entertaining and interesting (and this is coming from someone who isn't really into junk-punk mad-max desert stuff), and while some characters were a little grating, most of them were fun.

As for the bullet sponge enemies...I can't exactly compare them to Destiny 2, since I haven't played it...But from the footage I've seen, they look just as spongy as in Borderlands 2, only without me being able to pull out a shotgun that shoots lightning and bust their face in with it.

Yes, the shooting felt a bit by the numbers, but the wacky weapon variety offset that, IMO.

My friends and I went through almost ALL the new game plus runs of both games (not the DLC, sadly, as life got in the way), and we adored rolling through the world, talking about whatever...Only to get ambushed by a couple of Badass EnemyNameHeres and going into a frantic chaotic battle that saw us wondering if we'd make it out alive...Then repeat all the way to the quest destination. Coming up with neat skill builds was a ton of fun too.

And the game was still pretty fun alone. At least until you got into the 3rd playthrough and everything is so overpowered that you absolutely NEED a team.

Looking at footage of Destiny 2, it just seems like Borderlands 2, but with a less interesting art style and with mostly assault rifles and a more simplified skill tree.

Warframe's actually an interesting example for your issue with cooldowns. You sure as hell aren't using your Warframe abilities consistently in that game until you figure out one of the handful of ways to do so.

True. But the game still makes you feel like a god-tier badass even when you haven't broken the Energy system to your will yet. I still remember the first time I bullet jumped halfway across a map, shot 3 dudes with my Boltor wile gliding, then slammed down on top of two others, then sliced up 3 more with Excalibur's first ability, all in one pefect flow.

While the abilities can be broken strong, you don't need them in order to feel like a total badass.

Which is a fairly consistent critique that pops up in Warframe reddit that the game doesn't offer too many things that actually push or require the co-op play despite the mechanical options surrounding that idea.

While I DO wish that there was more content in Warframe that asks you to cooperate (I do enjoy eidolon hunts and wish they weren't tied to the day/night cycle, and I DO frequently burn out on the regular content because I barely need to think anymore when I do it), the fact that most of the content doesn't ask you to communicate is a point in it's favor, really.

Almost every time I ever play with random people in an online game, I hate having to carry people (I hate the pressure and I rarely feel qualified to try it), and I hate when one small fuckup leads to the whole team starting to cuss each other out instead of play. It's why I've mostly given up on Overwatch aside from playing with friends. Cooperative gaming is amazing when you have friends playing with you. But with random people, it too frequently devolves into people screwing off to do their own thing ("and screw you, team!") or endlessly complaining when anything goes wrong.

With Warframe though, I don't mind carrying, and most of the players I've run into don't complain if someone else goofs up. I think I've only seen about 3 toxic people the whole time I played it, even in Eidolon hunts, which are apparently the most toxic activity. And most of this comes down to being able to be so OP that you can easily make up for a teammate who keeps dying or who doesn't understand how to handle a particular fight, even when it does get hard.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Destiny 2 is now a demo for the rest of the game. Its like buying wow but not having access to the expansions. Yeah it might be fun for the gameplay loop but you'll be playing a different game from everyone else.

 

[Erttheking]

Well I claimed it, mainly because I never turn down free games, but I'll be surprised if I actually download it. I hear the endgame is basically worthless without all of the DLC.