Destiny 2

I always forget that feature exists... Is the join process a bit smoother now then? It was a bit disjointed before with manual joins/copy pasting steam IDs etc.

Ended up with a fireteam of 6 when I needed 3 a few times.

The app is more convenient now, since it doesn't need to fuff with the ID or username. You search for the activity you need, and when you find one with free spots, just click "join". The leader will then send you an invite to join the fireteam (presumably through the app itself, because it's always arrived within seconds).

Light.gg says my version of Jurassic Green is S+. I mean, it's only 1270 power, but still

So gear is only dropping at 1270 now. Is that the "soft cap"? Is it time to start infusing, or do I do stuff for "Powerful" gear?

Just keep playing. Powerful drops and prime engrams will bring you up to 1320, then you've got the fun fun pinnacle grind to 1330.

TBF the pinnacle grind gives me something to do. Not really playing anything without matchmaking though, so the climb is very slow. I only just started getting some 1325 gear.

Until I hit the endgame stuff last year I did most stuff solo

Man, I can see that they have basically stopped caring until the Anniversary pack hits. The legendary versions of the seasonal activities are no different at all, and offer no new lore or items. All you get is an extra chest in Alignment, and a triumph for Shattered Realms. Considering that there's no matchmaking either, I don't think it will be very populated after people get their one run for the triumph.

I remember the Legendary Sundial, during Season of the Almighty, had a final gauntlet with all the bosses together and then the final boss of the season. Now that was cool.

I won't even do that once I don't think. Matchmaking on a throwaway 1320 seasonal activity with one poxy extra chest has to be amongst the stupidest ideas they've ever had. It's not even worth the trouble of gathering a few people to do it.

Locked Loadout is the biggest culprit, I guess, since you could easily get stuck with random noobs who don't know they have to bring specific mods and elements.

Nevermind the fact that it makes no sense as a modifier, so I'm not sure why they keep enforcing it for high-level activities. Get rid of locked loadout, and matchmaking would become very much possible - it's not like these activities are especially hard. Yes, you'll die quite often, but a party wipe will be rare (especially in a 6 players activity with explained mechanics). Even for the Shattered Realm, I got on LFG with two randoms, and we only wiped once at the last boss.

I only need to do each of these once for the triumph, after that I can stop caring.

And on a side note, Bungie clarified (I thought it was obvious, but for some reason people were still in doubt) that the two extra dungeons of Year 5 will only be included with the Deluxe Edition of the game, not the season passes. Piecemeal gaming much?

Admittedly I can see why people wouldn't believe it. So far, all we ever got with deluxe editions was cosmetics. The fact that you could miss on some actual gameplay content even if you bought the season passes later is a first (not sure if No Time To Explain was ever unlocked from its deluxe requirement though). So even if it was clearly explained, I can understand why many were doubtful.

The Anniversary pack probably makes more sense because it's kinda like a season in itself.

Edit: possibly, Bungie noticed that dungeons didn't see a lot of playtime (which would also explain why we got none during the past year), and decided that the only way to justify their development costs was to sell them outside of season passes.

They need to throw better rewards behind them. Give each one its own Mythoclast/EoT/1k and some meaningful, unique legendaries to supplement that.

Functionally, Dungeons are so much more accessible to guys like me who can't commit to scheduling Raids all the time. But they are largely pointless unless you are pinnacle chasing. I'd rather run a couple of raids every month and get access to some meaningful rewards over playing through dungeons over and over again for.... reasons.

Yeah, dungeons are much more accessible than raids. You don't even need a mic really. And chances are, even an uncoordinated team can eventually make it through without too much trouble, as long as they know what to do.

But I think they are in a bad middle spot. Basically, uncommitted people won't wanna go the trouble of LFGing. While committed players will prefer raids for their better rewards.

It's easy saying they are simple and people shouldn't get good things out of them if you're a hardcore player. But we're really not the people the money decisions are made around as we'll just end up buying whatever anyway. It's easy to see why more casual players would flock to a raid carry over a dungeon based on rewards alone. It's about being respectful of time irrespective of what standard you play the game to, and with your average dungeon run for a filthy casual easily being somewhere around the 1hr+ mark, it's not hard to see why they wouldn't bother wanting to spend that time doing it for a couple of copy and paste purples that don't set the world on fire.