Pinnacle Sports Review 2021 – Is Pinnacle Bet Really Best ...
Pinnacle Sports Review - Is Pinnacle Legit? Everything You ...
Pinnacle for US Players - Sportsbook Review
does pinnacle accept us players
does pinnacle accept us players - win
This Week At Bungie 12/3/2020
Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/49918 This week at Bungie, we prepare for next gen. It’s been a while since we last spoke. I mean, it hasn’t been too long. We took a quick week off for holiday, but we’re back to the grind. There’s a bit to catch up on. Since the last TWAB, new Exotics have been discovered throughout Europa. Banshee has found new memories. The Deep Stone Crypt has been infiltrated. A dinosaur was sent into space. Quite a few of you have been asking about raid statistics. It’s always fun seeing how many players took on the challenge for a completion during the first week. We dug through our databases and found some fun stats to share, and we’re happily surprised by how many of you completed your first ever Jacket Quest. Day 1 Stats (Unique Raid Activity Clears)
Last Wish
Garden of Salvation
Deep Stone Crypt
4
551
29,814
Launch +10 Days Stats
Statistic
Last Wish
Garden of Salvation
Deep Stone Crypt
Unique Raid Activity Clears
3,555
33,152
258,049
Total Player Hours
2,185,983
2,807,504
7,156,651
Total Kills
338,667,495
446,461,881
1,100,488,566
Total Deaths
32,734,027
42,676,699
85,008,596
A final fun fact: Over 979,680 Guardians unlocked The Lament since the quest went live. That’s a LOT of sword damage. Now that we’ve covered the time that’s passed, let’s get back to business.
Light Keepers – Charity Update!
Image Linkimgur Earlier this week we kicked off our Game2Give Light Keepers charity initiative and, to no one’s surprise, the Destiny community has shown up in force. At the time of writing this TWAB, you’ve already raised above $450k, and we’re still in the first week! Our overall goal is to raise $2 Million, and we're well on our way. We also announced our charity milestone rewards, one of which you’ve already unlocked. In case you missed it, say hello to the concept art of our upcoming Dawning 2020 Titan universal Ornament. Image Linkimgur If you’d like to chip in a few dollars for charity, head over this way to help out and donate. We have more Dawning concept art to share, and some lore readings from special guests once you break the $1 million donation mark!
$250k – Dawning 2020 Titan universal ornament concept art
(You've already smashed this milestone)
$500k – Dawning 2020 Warlock universal ornament concept art
$750k – Dawning 2020 Hunter universal ornament concept art
$1 million – Dawning 2020 Legendary Reward preview
Every $100k after reaching $1 million – Guest lore reading
For the full schedule of featured streamers, head on over to the Game2Give website to learn more.
Return of the Banner
With the raid done and dusted, Lord Saladin is ready to get Guardians back into the Iron Banner. This will be the first Iron Banner to feature Stasis powers, so we’re all excited for what’s to come. Image Linkimgur For any New Lights out there, Iron Banner is a limited time 6v6 Crucible activity with Power-enabled combat. While artifact power is disabled, you’ll want to infuse and equip your most powerful gear before jumping in. Similar to Control, there are three zones on the map for your team to capture. The more zones you hold, the more points you get when defeating Guardians. If your team is brave enough to capture all three zones, the opposing team will be locked out of capturing zones for a short duration. In other words, this is your time to shine while your enemies cower in fear. To say it clearly, capping those zones is one of the most important things you can do. Stay close to your teammates, slay your enemies, and enjoy the spoils of victory! Lord Saladin can be found in The Tower, offering Iron Banner bounties with pinnacle-powered rewards. If you’d like to adorn your Guardian in Iron Banner-themed loot, he’s got you covered. Two weapons from the first year of Destiny 2 have been reprised, now featuring random rolls! Additionally, the Iron Will armor set is making its return, updated to accept new combat mods. Image Linkimgur Iron Banner begins at 9 AM on December 8, running through 9 AM on December 15. Truth be told, you’ll be downloading an update right before Iron Banner becomes available. You know what that means? It’s time for a patch note preview.
It's All in the Patch... Notes
December 8 can’t come soon enough. In just a few short days, next-generation enhancements will be coming to Destiny 2! In case you missed our next-gen article, here’s a quick refresher of the update coming next week: Feature
Feature
Xbox Series X
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series S
Resolution
4K
4K
1080p
Framerate
60fps
60fps
60fps
120hz Crucible Support
Supported*
Supported*
Not Supported
Field of View Slider
Yes
Yes
Yes
Faster Load Times
Yes
Yes
Yes
Cross-Generation Play
Yes
Yes
Yes
Next-Generation Upgrade Free
Xbox Smart Delivery
Yes
Xbox Smart Delivery
For all details concerning our next gen enhancements, click here! Destiny 2 Update 3.0.1 has quite a bit more under the hood. The team has been working on some bug fixes for issues found around launch, but we also have a few promises to keep. Let’s dig in. Dungeons - Prophecy
The Prophecy Dungeon will be returning to Destiny 2 on December 8, 2020.
This endgame activity is free to all players.
Powerful rewards may be earned from each checkpoint once per week.
Players may complete the dungeon once per week to obtain a pinnacle-powered reward.
Previously featured weapon and armor rewards are available once more.
Destiny Companion App – Bounties
Beginning next week, players may acquire bounties from Destiny 2 vendors using the Destiny Companion App.
Bounties may only be acquired when players are Offline, In Orbit, or in The Tower.
This will be introduced through a Companion App update, which is planned for December 8, 2020.
Stay tuned to @BungieHelp for more on this Companion App update.
New Light – Resolved Issues
Fixed an issue with the New Light subclass quest where Ikora's waypoint was suppressed.
Fixed an issue where veteran players with two characters of the same class were blocked from acquiring their subclasses.
Fixed an issue where a step on the New Light pursuit was not granting experience.
Fixed an issue where players who skip the Shotgun chest in the first mission did not receive Special ammo when the Shotgun was granted.
Monument to Lost Lights
Fixed an issue where the waypoint on the Exotic Archive Vendor continues to flash for players who own all Exotics.
Collections
Badges and Armor in Collections correctly select player's class.
Fixed an issue where the UI would forget which page the player was on after previewing an item in Collections.
Fixed a bug where some new armor mods had incorrect sources listed in Collections.
Crucible
Updated the mercy rule for Control and Clash to prevent it from triggering too early in the match.
Fixed an issue where the "Survivor" medal could be awarded to players who were defeated during the round.
Fixed an issue where the "Untouchable" medal could not be earned.
Beyond Light Exotics
Icefall Mantle
Fixed a bug where the Icefall Mantle's description did not mention the slow field it generates when activated.
Mask of Bakris
Improved the readability of the visual effects when another player wearing Mask of Bakris shifts directly toward you.
Updated the description string of Mask of Bakris's perk to correctly describe its damage bonus, which applies only to combatants and affects all Arc weapon damage and all damage against slowed or encased enemies.
Additionally, fixed an issue where this damage bonus was applying to players who are slowed or encased in Crucible and Gambit.
Necrotic Grip
Fixed an issue where being killed by the effects of Necrotic Grip would show as being "Killed by the Architects."
We’ll have a full list of patch notes ready to go on December 8 when the patch becomes avaailble for download. Speaking of availability…
Player Support Dream Team
Image Linkimgur With every patch, many of you ask what time you should set your alarm to in order to wake up for the fresh update. How long should you spend eating breakfast before hopping online? At what point should you shake your fists in the air because you forgot to set your console to auto update? Destiny Player Support has most of the answers we’re looking for. Some you may have to answer on your own! This is their report.
UPDATE 3.0.1 Today, December 3, background maintenance for Update 3.0.1 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:
December 3, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.1 begins.
December 3, 2PM PST (2200 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.1. completes.
December 8, 7 AM PST (1500 UTC): Destiny 1 and 2 maintenance for Update 3.0.1 begins.
December 8, 8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Players are removed from activities in Destiny 1 and 2 and won't be able to log back in until 9 AM PST when Update 3.0.1 is available.
December 8, 9 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.0.1 is rolled out across all platforms and regions. Players can log back into Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 at this time. Ongoing maintenance is expected to conclude at 10 AM PST.
December 8 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.
NEXT-GEN CONSOLES When Update 3.0.1 releases on December 8, next-gen console users (Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5) will need to download the full-size game, regardless if they have been playing Destiny 2 since Beyond Light’s launch. This does not affect Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Steam users. Pre-load will not be available for this patch - pre-loads are usually only available for expansion type patches and are not available for hotfixes or seasonal updates. The estimated patch sizes for Update 3.0.1 based on platforms are as follows:
Xbox Series X|S 3.0.1’s patch download size: ~70.0 GB
PlayStation 5 3.0.1’s patch download size: ~67.0 GB
Xbox One 3.0.1’s patch download size: ~2.35 GB
PlayStation 4 3.0.1’s patch download size: ~2.09 GB
Steam 3.0.1’s patch download size: ~1.5 GB
Additionally, the updated Storage Requirements for Destiny 2 are as follows:
Platform
Destiny 2 Install Size
*Free Space Needed to Update *
Xbox Series X/S
70.0 GB
70.0 GB
PlayStation 5
67.0 GB
67.0 GB
PlayStation 4
70.78 GB
70.78 GB
Xbox One
65.7
65.7
PC
69.7 GB*
69.7 GB*
PC: Destiny 2 install size may vary based on languages installed, size shown is maximum size possible.
UPCOMING RESOLVED ISSUES
Below is a list of some issues expected to be resolved with Update 3.0.1:
The lift tubes in the Warden of Nothing strike fully drain Super energy.
The "Wanted: The Fanatic" Triumph is not being awarded after defeating the Fanatic in the Forsaken campaign.
"The Hit List" Triumph is not being awarded after defeating all the Barons in the Forsaken campaign.
The holograms from looped emotes, such as the Luxurious Toast and Feline Fancy emotes, disappear and leave players in a static position after the first loop ends.
The Adored Sniper Rifle cannot be reacquired from the Collections.
**KNOWN ISSUES * While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
Players who are colorblind may have difficulties seeing trails in Wrathborn Hunts.
In the Last Wish raid, players will get the “Place Relic” prompt for Riven’s Heart even if they aren’t holding it.
The Binary System ornament for Symmetry disables enemy highlighting in seeker mode.
Some players are being forced to reacquire the Cryptolith Lure every time they launch the game.
Major enemies that drop Moon weapon parts aren’t spawning.
The Scourge of the Past armor can’t take Season of Arrivals mods.
The Strength of Memory Challenge can’t be completed.
Some icicles on the Rimed Ghost shell are black and don’t look like icicles.
The Lost Lament quest sometimes progresses inconsistently/not at all and sometimes needs to be abandoned and reacquired to continue.
Kills with the Jade Rabbit Exotic Scout Rifle no longer auto-refill its magazine.
The Halcyon Visage Exotic Sparrow takes shaders poorly.
The Selfie Emote functions poorly on ultrawide monitor setups.
The Wisdom of the Witch Triumph no longer counts progress.
Some players cannot progress past the first mission of A Guardian Rises.
The Drifter sometimes misgenders players in idle dialogue and Gambit dialogue.
Eris still has a Weekly Challenge for some players. This Weekly Challenge intentionally does not provide a Powerful reward.
Flawless Execution on the Way of the Wraith Hunter subclass has a delayed trigger.
Resetting Valor rank on step 4 of 5 on the Light Reforged Crucible quest prevents future Valor earned from being recorded for the quest.
Multiple ships have their rocket effects floating behind the ship model.
Shiver Strike Titan melee does not function with the Heavy Handed mod.
Collections go back to the main menu instead of to the previous section.
HDR isn’t working as intended.
We’re investigating player reports that their veteran dialogue has been replaced with new character dialogue.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Don’t Fall for an Imposter
Image Linkimgur Since the Deep Stone Crypt raid went live, we’ve been watching numerous fireteams take on the challenge. For some, it was their first trip through pinnacle content in Destiny 2. Exploring new zones, encountering new bosses, and earning new loot is always exciting! For others, this was an opportunity to take things to the limit by taking on the challenge solo. Who needs a backpack? Movie of the Week: Solo Slayer Video Link Movie of the Week: Beneath the Ice Video Link Movie of the Week: Band of Bro Video Link If you’d like to throw your hat in the Movie of the Week ring, make sure to tag your video with #MOTW, submit it to the Community Creations page, and include any and all contributors to your video in the description.
Piecing Art Together
Image Linkimgur ‘Tis always the season to celebrate the artists of our community. Whether it be an awesome cosplay build, a slick digital piece, or a handcrafted replica of a raid boss using plastic construction toys, we’re excited to celebrate it! Art of the Week: Blocktraks-1
If you’d like to be featured, make sure to tag your creation with #DestinyArt wherever you happen to submit it! We frequently check Twitter, Instagram, and our very own Creations page for things to highlight. That’s a wrap for this week. A bit to look forward to next week, and even more over the course of December. Thanks to that community art, I've just realized it's almost time for the Dawning. More on that soon… Next week will be our final TWAB of the year. We’re entering a period where many of our employees will be spending time with family, celebrating the end of a year, and recharging for what’s to come in 2021. We’ll still be around to respond to your feedback, process bug reports, and keep the servers running. Now, it’s time for me to raid. Looking for a better roll on my Trustee scout rifle from the Deep Stone Crypt. Any suggestions? Cheers, -dmg04
I wanted to open a dialogue about cross play and post it here for discussion. First off, I am in favor of the innate idea of cross play. Having the ability to come together as a community and make that larger is, in essence, a good thing. I’ll be able to play with family and friends that only have PC, where as I have always been on Xbox. We may see in influx in clan recruits and develop new friendships. But this comes with a huge caveat. And, well... we know what the issue is right? Cheaters. Lots of them. I started playing Destiny with the beta way back in time. I was at the midnight release with my girlfriend, now my wife, and we have logged probably thousands of hours in Destiny and D2, with a sizable break between rise of iron and last April. I can think of probably 2 or 3 situations where I have encountered a cheater on console. Last year, I built a PC primarily for graphic design and digital art, but it’s beefy and can play Destiny. I decided to try enabling cross save, and played around 50 hours on PC for fun. I probably saw about 20 cheaters or more in that time; I saw infinite heavy, aim bots, walls, respawning after death. I put it down and don’t even consider messing with it on PC especially since my wife and I moved to next gen Xbox’s. And now, here we are at the crux of cross play implementation. We don’t have much info—Bungie seems relatively unwilling to reveal any kinds of roadmaps beyond seasons—but my hope is that we have an option to opt in or out of cross play. I would prefer to play pvp with only other people on console. I always have, and I’m old so I probably always will—hard to go m&k when you have over twenty years of controller experience. I like the concept for raids and pve to just bring people together, but it seems like this is a half asses solution to a real problem and I will elaborate. Concerns/points I have:
Who is asking for this? I only bring this up because the development of cross play and solidifying the servers to support it suggests a lot of man power and development time for a feature that I don’t think many people are interested in—especially with the abysmal state of the crucible in D2 now.
It seems like another decision based off of raw data without any analysis of the actuality of the problem. Bungie sees that the crucible has a lower population in all game modes. They determine nothing from this information except the fact that not a lot of people play crucible after the first few weeks of a season. Then, they developed a solution to just expand the player pool to all platforms in cross play. This solves the concept of a low player base in crucible but does nothing for the underlying issue that crucible is not entirely rewarding for those individuals that don’t find it inherently rewarding. You don’t really earn meaningful rewards past the first few weeks of a season. Also the sheer amount of cheaters could be a contributing factor to less people enjoying crucible—as well as forced movement/movement reduction with stasis.
Anti-Cheat. This is a no brainer. A game doesn’t need to be an Esport to need a good system in which cheating is found and stopped. It happens a lot in D2, and I don’t see any reason why it should happen as much as it does. Regardless of giving us an opt out button or not, anti cheat should be implemented. And if it isn’t implemented and we DONT get a way to opt out as console players, than Bungie is writing an expiration date into their game.
Possible solutions: I would love to hear more suggestions from the community. What I’m listing below is in no way the only way in which crucible or D2 should be changed, it’s just an opinion.
In contradiction to what Bungie is doing with dev time for cross play, I think we should center focus closer to home. This starts with new maps. We haven’t had a new map since (correct me if I’m wrong) 2018. And, beyond that, the maps we have in rotation now I believe that over half of them are either from D1 or vanilla D2. That’s not acceptable. We need new maps desperately. A fools hope in my heart says a few bigger maps to make longer range combat more viable, but I would be happy with just new maps in general.
Revive loot: now, we are seeing a change to loot in S13. Trials is getting a sparrow, a ship, a ghost, new weapons and 2 crucible ritual weapons. This is great! I love the way they’re implementing a progressing experience bar for materials in the new vendor model. I will say, revamping loot, for me, mostly involves reintroducing pinnacle crucible weapons. We lost Lunas, NF, revoker, mtn top. I’m glad they’re gone, but I’m not glad that we don’t have replacement quests. I’d like to see more pinnacle quests in more crucible modes to increase player base and engagement. I’d also like to see emblems and shaders mean something again. Make an emblem for getting 20000 kills. Make a shaded for getting 5000 headshots with a sniper. This is relatively easy reskinning of shaders that could potentially increase longevity. Something along these lines would be great for replay ability.
Take the time, spend the money, and put in a serviceable anti-cheat system. I know I’m not an esport player. I know I’m just a guy with a full time job, a wife, and a whole world outside this game. But cheating hurts everyone. Not just the top tier players, but the average people who have loved your brand since we were in our teens.
Much love Bungie, but I hope you guys take these things into consideration. And, as always, I’ll see you guys starside.
Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/49722 This week at Bungie, there is just a lot going on right now. What a week. It started out with a brand new ViDoc showcasing Bungie developers giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what we’ve been cooking up from home. Now we’ll pause the TWAB for 15 minutes so you can go watch it in all its glory. Even if you already watched it, go watch it again. Don’t worry, we’ll wait on you. Video Link That was your first look into Season of the Hunt, as well as a deeper dive into Beyond Light, Stasis, New Light, and our plans for Year 4. We also mentioned that most Seasonal content is going to be sticking around throughout the year and showed off a new calendar for Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt. Start writing these dates in your calendars, or I guess like - programming them into your virtual calendars. You do you. Image Linkimgur We followed that up by pushing out the Beyond Light launch trailer this morning featuring some good vibes and a familiar soundtrack. It’s one of the last action-packed previews of Beyond Light you’ll get before it launches in less than a fortnight. We'll pause the TWAB one more time so you can watch it, but this is it. No more pauses after this! Video Link That’s all we got for you this week... Nah, just kidding. We got a lot more to cover. Let’s get to it.
Progression Changes
The start of any new Destiny expansion begins with a Power climb as you experience the campaign and play through the story missions. After finishing that up and completing some additional quests and activities, you’re usually around what we call the “Soft Cap” and will need to start earning Powerful rewards to continue to increase Power so you can tackle some of the more aspirational activities in the endgame. After you reach the “Hard Cap” then there is an additional 10 Power you can earn through earning pinnacle rewards if you choose to hit the “Pinnacle Cap.” Here are the new Power Caps you are aiming for when the next Season begins on November 10:
Soft Cap: 1200
Hard Cap: 1250
Pinnacle Cap: 1260
When you first log in next Season, all of your weapons and armor will be at 1050 Power or higher. If you have anything already over 1050 it will be unchanged, and anything under will be brought up to 1050. All new players will start at 1050 as well.
Powerful Reward Changes
We’ve heard a lot of feedback from players for more opportunities to earn Powerful rewards from the activities you enjoy most. We have a change coming that will allow you to have a chance to earn Powerful rewards from strikes, Gambit, Crucible, and from Seasonal drops all the way up until the Hard Cap. It will still be much quicker to continue to complete all the Powerful reward sources each week, but if you just want to play strikes or Crucible matches all day every day, you can continue to earn Powerful rewards. We hope this helps you to continue increasing your Power during the period when you are still close to the Soft Cap and may find completing some of the Powerful sources like The Ordeal very difficult.
Tokens and Collections
Destiny is at its best when you are shooting aliens, getting loot, and becoming more powerful. That gameplay loop breaks down when the best way to increase your Power can be standing in the Tower, handing tokens to Lord Shaxx. Starting next Season, gear received from Collections and turning in tokens and will have a lower Power than in previous Seasons. Gear earned through token purchases will be 20 Power below your Power Level and Collection buybacks will be capped at 1050 Power.
Economy Changes
Some currencies and items have changes coming either at the end of this Seasons or in the near future. Here is what to expect when you login next Season.
Materials with No Home
With several destinations going into the Destiny Content Vault, many of you have been wondering what is going to happen to the currencies found in the areas currently underneath the Pyramids. The simple answer is that there are no changes to these currencies in Season of the Hunt, and you will be able to continue to spend them at vendors normally. Starting in Season 13, Phaseglass Needles, Alkane Dust, Simulation Seeds, and Seraphite will be no longer accepted by vendors. For those of you that still have unspent stockpiles at the end of Season of the Hunt, Spider will be kind enough to offer a small Glimmer exchange to take them off your hands. But you’ll realize the best value by spending them before that point, so make sure you turn in your stockpiles before the end of next Season. There are other items that will be removed from your inventory at the end of Season of Arrivals. Some, like Faction Tokens, have not had a purpose in quite a while, and others, like Expired Ramen Coupons, never really had a purpose but held some sentimental value. We know that it might hard to part with those, but it’s time to let them go. Check out this Help article for the full list of items that will no longer be in your inventory at the start of Season of the Hunt.
Bounties
Back in late April, we shared some plans on how to tackle the problem of “bounty fatigue.” We have made some shifts to seasonal bounties and reduced their importance on earning seasonal currency and seasonal progress. We’re happy with these changes, but still want to continue to improve the bounty system overall. One of the plans we previewed was to eventually replace weekly bounties with a new mechanism to provide players with a set of non-expiring and account-scoped objectives each week that will grant lots of Season rank progress. We’re still working on that system and will share more on it before its targeted release of Season 13.
Season Pass
The Season Pass you've come to know since Shadowkeep is largely staying the same. There will be new weapons and armor to earn off both the free track and the owned path. One big change we are making is adding Bright Dust to the Season Pass. As mentioned before, we wanted to change the way you earn Bright Dust and move more towards account-specific paths to give players with only one character significantly more Bright Dust than they've been earning over the last year. Here is the high-level look at the changes coming next Season.
Season Pass free path will now offer 7,500 Bright Dust
Season Pass owned path will now offer 3,000 Bright Dust
Weekly Bounties will now award 100 Bright Dust
With these changes, the vast majority of players will be earning more Bright Dust than before. One of our goals here is to not have a system that pushes you to try to grind out every weekly bounty on all three characters every single week. Whether you are a three-character player or only play a Hunter, Bright Dust will be more available when earning ranks on the Season Pass. We will also be making a change to the timing of Season Pass rank purchases which will be available starting in week five instead of week nine. We have more plans for improving how you earn Bright Dust coming in Season 13 and will continue to monitor your feedback. I’ve been talking a lot. Let’s change it up. Here is Design Lead Justin Dazet to tell you about some changes Spider is making to his wares and to answer a question we have been seeing about the customization updates we are making to your Ghosts.
Spider’s Dealings
Justin Dazet: Spider is going through some changes in Beyond Light. Though a notoriously savvy black-market dealer, our favorite four-armed friend has been largely the same for quite some time now. But the impending journey to Europa has finally given him a reason to tune up the materials exchange and make two key changes. First, Spider will no longer be selling Legendary Shards. This exchange was removed mainly because it was not seeing enough use, particularly when compared with the other exchange offers. After reviewing player balances and the frequency with which this exchange was accessed, it was an easy decision to free up the space for something much more interesting. In place of the Legendary Shard exchange, Spider is now selling Enhancement Prisms. These highly valued items come at a cost – 400 Legendary Shards per Prism – and he’s stingy with them so you can only purchase three a week. But we wanted to give those of you with higher balances a way to transmute your Legendary Shards into something a little more valuable than planetary materials and Upgrade Modules. Second, we’ve taken another look at how the Enhancement Core exchange works and made some changes. The ascending cost mechanism has been removed, and in its place, Spider will now sell you five Enhancement Cores a day for fixed price of 30 Legendary Shards each. While this does limit the number of Cores you can acquire from him each day, we feel a consistent price is a clearer experience with less chance to accidentally spend large quantities of Legendary Shards. More importantly it’s also cheaper. In the old purchase model, you’d pay 310 Legendary Shards for five Enhancement Cores (10, 20, 40, 80, and then 160). In the new model you’ll only pay 30 Shards each, which equals out to 150 Legendary Shards for five Enhancement Cores. So, while it does limit your acquisition rate, it actually will save you 160 Legendary Shards every five Cores!
Got to Go Fast
Finally, we’ve seen a few people wondering if you’ll be able to equip the Ghost mod Speed Demon with other mods like Guiding Light in the new system, and we have some good news for you: You won’t need to. Starting in Beyond Light all Sparrows, both Legendary and Exotic, will innately summon instantly, even without the Transmat Preloader perk. As a result, there is no need for a Ghost mod to impact this functionality, so Speed Demon was not carried forward into the new system. If you’re already driving around a Sparrow with Transmat Preloader, you can keep using it and it will work just fine. Or you can pull it from Collections again and get two new perks. Newly created Sparrows will no longer roll on Transmat Preloader, so you have a chance to get yourself an extra perk and still retain that instant summon speed. Hop on that newly instant-summoning Sparrow and zip on over to check out Spider’s new offers. He’s ready and waiting to wrap those four greedy arms around some of your wealth and make you a deal you can’t refuse.
Eververse
Starting in Season of the Hunt, Bright Engrams will now contain all Eververse content from Season 1 to three Seasons prior to the current Season (excluding content from special events like Festival of the Lost, the Dawning, etc.). Here are some practical examples:
Season 12: Bright Engrams contain all content from Seasons 1 through 9.
Season 13: Bright Engrams contain all content from Seasons 1 through 10.
As always, as you open more Bright Engrams, your chances for earning things you don't own increases. There will be instances of duplicate drops, but the Engram will be weighted to grant you things you might be hunting.
Down to the Wire
Image Linkimgur It’s time now to check in with our Player Support team for the latest on known issues and important information on the state of the game. This is their report.
WORLD ACTIVITIES
When Beyond Light and Update 3.0.0 release on November 10, 2020, some world activities will be removed. These removals are not related to the Destiny Content Vault but are general game updates. Players should complete any activities and quests they have left if they want to claim rewards from them.
Flashpoints (Weekly Engrams should be claimed before November 10 or they will be removed).
All Destination Adventures.
World Quests from Year-1 locations, such as Enemy of my Enemy, Exodus Black, and Data Recovery.
INVENTORY ITEM REMOVAL
With the start of Year 4 and the introduction of the Destiny Content Vault on November 10, certain items will be deprecated from player inventories that correspond with Vaulted destinations, activities, and campaigns. Click here to review a list of items, quests, and currencies that will be removed from player inventories at the start of Year 4. Some items listed can be used or turned in for rewards, such as Glimmer, weapons, and armor, so be sure to do that before November 10.
14-HOUR DOWNTIME
On November 9, Destiny 2 will be taken offline for maintenance. Maintenance will begin at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC), ending on November 10 at 9 AM (1700 UTC) with the launch of Destiny 2: Beyond Light and Update 3.0.0. Stay tuned to Help.Bungie.net and @BungieHelp on Twitter for updates.
PlayStation 4 COLLECTOR’S EDITION CODES
Earlier this week, we informed PlayStation 4 players who purchased the Destiny 2: Beyond Light Collector’s Edition that they may have received an email about a possible account lockout if they used their Collector’s Edition codes. The issue resulting in account lockouts for early code redemption has now been resolved, and players can now safely redeem their codes prior to November 10.
TITLES AND SEALS
With Moments of Triumph and Season of Arrivals coming to a close, players are strongly encouraged to claim and equip the titles located in their Seals so that they will correctly count as claimed.
KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
The Warlock’s top tree on the Dawnblade subclass can trigger the Icarus Dash cooldown when playing on PC.
Players can’t dismount from their Sparrow using the dismount button on a controller if their Ghost is out.
Some players report that they’re receiving the Baboon error more frequently.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Nominees
Image Linkimgur It’s now time for our Movies of the Week. For those unfamiliar with our weekly tradition, this is where we find a few of our favorite fan films to feature. To enter, just make a Destiny 2 related video and upload it somewhere we can see. Our Creations page is always a good place we like to pull from. If you win, we will send you a special emblem as a reward for your effort. Without further interruption, here are this week’s winners! Destiny 2: The Series Destiny Lo-Fi/HipHop Beats to Wait for Beyond Light to Video Link Memories Video Link It’s been a fun week filled with several early mornings for us on Pacific time. It’s always nice to start off your day delivering a new ViDoc or exciting new launch trailer. The train carrying the hype is nearing its destination though, and Beyond Light will be arriving in less than two weeks! It’s almost time to start counting the sleeps until the big launch. Next week we will have a preview of some of the patch notes coming with the big update on November 10. We want to leave plenty for you to discover on your own in Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt and are excited to let the game do the talking, but we will still check in next week for one last TWAB before launch. See you then! <3 Cozmo
I am new here to this forum but I'm sure I've sent at least a few of you here. I feel I will be speaking for a silent majority in this post but I ask you to please read til the end. To preface, I am no God at this game nor do I claim to be. I'm probably an above average player at best. Something however needs to be said about the state of the community's attitude about this game specifically regarding crucible, and my worries for the future of not just the crucible but also this game. They are, believe it or not, quite intertwined. It has become quite apparent to me that many vocal players are quite upset with the state of crucible so much so, they quite literally want it removed. I say vocal because I would like to observe that I know many players who love crucible but they are quite literally just not on here or anywhere complaining about it. Most players probably don't come to these forums or many other forums for that matter. However I do see lots of "nerf this, nerf that." "Crucible should be taken out of the game." "Why can't we go back to before stasis" Etc, on twitter at least once when replying to a player with an audience. Let's be real, crucible and stasis are not going anywhere. I highly doubt they will make a non-stasis playlist, and truly I hope and pray they don't. I understand things will always need tuning, and I understand some things may truly be overpowered at times on certain occasions. But please stop selling yourself short. The crucible is a wonderful place for guardians to hone their skills. To test your mettle and grit. Your wit and clever. To think you simply lost that fight or that match because of shatter dive, or because of a warlock melee, or because behemoth lasts too long... well you're kidding yourself. You haven't taken the time to learn. To change your playstyle. To adapt your abilities. To break bad habits and to grow as a player. You'll continue to push a lane you've been sniped three times in now. You'll continue to chase that top tree dawnblade who's floating around the corner with a felwinters aimed in your direction. You'll continue to take A on deadcliffs and spawn in the back only to be trapped until your team is mercied because you couldn't just sit back and hold B and C when you had the chance. There are so many bad habits and things I see players do, and things I still do myself, that it baffles me that almost every player that feels entitled to post a negative opinion about crucible thinks they do not do these things. It's an endless list and I could continue giving examples all day. Almost every player makes any number of mistakes all the time. It's a part of getting good at a pvp portion of any game. Minimizing your mistakes and optimizing your strengths and the plays you know you'll win. Becoming strong in the crucible does not make you a "pvp sweat".. it makes you a good gamer. It makes you want to be more than a robot doing the same monotonous task and route over and over. To me personally, staying bad at something sounds like a waste of time. I'm sure the pve community can even agree to this. Why do a raid boss in three phases when you can one phase a raid boss with that crazy build or strat you found? It's the same concept. It's the reason we as a community play Destiny and not Call of Duty. Now I understand if Crucible is JUST not your thing. If pvp is JUST not your thing in any game for that matter. That's absolutely okay. I do believe Destiny should give you a bit more of an option on how you can earn your rewards and progress quest steps. I don't want you in my match of Survival any more than you don't want to be there. It's no fun for either of us. However I'm tired of seeing Bungie scared of making solid crucible content and rewards. I'm tired of seeing Bungie quite literally afraid to give top tier players solid weapons that are for them. They have catered quite heavily recently to the "no one left behind" ideology with the ability to use materials to earn end game pinnacle rewards. This goes for pve exotics and weapons as well, which I also believe is not healthy; I'm here to talk about crucible though. I personally feel giving away pinnacle weapons was absolutely a mistake. It took away the need to do all pvp-centric questlines. It took away the feeling of having earned something you worked hard to get. Worked hard to learn to play to get. I would love to see pvp pinnacles come back. It's not like there isn't plenty of other powerful options in the crucible to combat a few new powerful weapons. The only players who would actually want those weapons are pvp players anyways. It's unfortunate that Bungie is afraid of doing more things like that because so many people would be angered that there would be a weapon or two they are just completely unable of getting. It's silly though, because those same players that would complain are literally the same players that don't want to be in the crucible, where said specific weapon would shine the most. It just doesn't make sense to me but because of the vocal part of the community, that is what has happened. As it stands right now, there is no reward for putting in time and work at getting good at the crucible and that is solely due to that. Without content and rewards, this could affect player counts quite negatively the longer the game continues. I will explain why more so in my next section, but in short pvp players do make up a majority of end of season player base. Now I'd like to close with having everyone here understand one thing. We are all the reason this game is alive. We all raid. We all do dungeons. We all do our nightfalls. We all find ourselves in crucible at least once in a while. There are statistics that show certain things. As a season dies down most pve content starts to dry up. Not entirely, obviously. But mostly people run their weekly raid, do their bounties and hop out. A majority of the daily active players are those hopping into crucible. Bangin out control matches with the clan, running survival with the homies. Sweating in their chairs in Trials on the weekend. In my opinion, those are the players that keep the game alive through content droughts and end of the season weeks/months. And those players just haven't spoken up enough lately. I'm speaking up for those who haven't said anything. Those within my personal circle. Those who are at the top and don't bother saying anything. With the least amount of disrespect... please get better. Please be better at the game. Please attempt to strengthen yourself. Please be better to your fellow guardians in the way you interact. Be thoughtful and insightful of your opinions and maybe try to look at all aspects of the game. No matter what you want to think, crucible is an integral part of this game and has a large portion of the community that plays it regularly. If you're just a pve guy or gal, maybe your opinion on pvp is skewed, and vice versa. I genuinely want to see this community thrive. I want to see people enjoy all aspects of this game like I do. Cause we all know it has plenty of flaws, but we know it's something special. I'm sure I'll get tons of downvotes on this, and I'm sure I'll get hate messages. I just want to see crucible and overall player attitude in a better state. I want guardians here to think about things a bit more deeply and wholly accept how every playlist interacts with the rest of the game. Except for gambit, no one likes gambit GGs guardians. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Excuse my scatter brainedness.
I had a lot more time at home this year, so this has definitely been my most expansive year in gaming ever. I played 49 new games in 2020 (with only a few impatient splurges) and I wrote up a short review for each one. There’s some predictable praise for this subreddit’s most popular games, a couple controversial takes, and maybe (hopefully) some games you haven’t seen before. You probably want to know if my gaming tastes align with yours. I’m a fan of unique experiences, action-adventures, engrossing stories, immersive environments, roguelikes, challenging puzzles, and attention to music. These are a few of my all-time favorites, in no particular order: · Katamari Damacy · The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth · Breath of the Wild · Hollow Knight · Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door · Crash Bandicoot 2 · The Witness · Shadow of the Colossus · SSX 3 · Skyrim Without further ado, here is my review of every game I played this year, mostly spoiler-free and roughly in order from most to least favorite. -----
The Best
Outer Wilds I’ve been thinking about this one ever since I finished it in September. The sense of exploration this game provides is absolutely enchanting. Every location generated a visceral response at least once: swimming through the underwater rapids on Timber Hearth, reaching the Sunless City, falling into the black hole for the first time, reaching the core of Green Giant, flying through the Dark Bramble (terrifying). The Nomai dialogue is cheesy, but discovering everything they left behind on each planet is an incredible experience. Love timing my exploration around how far into the cycle I was--lot like Majora's Mask. The ending was beautiful and I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the world I had come to know. A spectacular game. Dark Souls Trilogy If I had to rank these from best to worst, I would go 1, 3, then 2—but all three are incredible. I love that exploration is rewarded, I love the sense of isolation you feel with minimal UX and overworld score, and I even love the repetition in learning how to fight each boss. DS1 is definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had with any game and the only time I’ve ever wanted to immediately start a game over as soon as I finished. DS3 has the most polished combat of the series and beautiful settings. The level design in DS2 is great and I liked having a more coherent story and some new mechanics like lockstones and fragrant branches (though I didn’t miss them in 3). I’ve already played Bloodborne and loved it, and now I can’t wait to move on to Sekiro and eventually the Demon’s Souls remake. Celeste An excellent platformer with a beautiful story about living with anxiety—I really can’t think of any way this game could be better. It’s clear that the developer put lots of love and consideration into the experience. The game is as challenging as you want it to be: you can modify the difficulty if you don’t like constant death, you can play through the solid challenge of the regular story, or you can crank the difficulty up to 11 by finding every strawberry and completing every B-side. If speedrunning is your thing, the game is tailored to that as well. I used to think SMB3 was the perfect 2D platformer, but this just might claim that title. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout This game is so good that I can't believe this hasn't been done before. A battle royale a la Tekashi's Castle. Brilliant. I hit the max level within a week of the game coming out. It’s got a lot of replay value, especially with regular updates, and any issues I had with lag and dropping out of matches at launch have mostly been fixed by now. It’s just so damn fun. The Last Of Us: Part II I would say this game is currently the pinnacle of storytelling in video games. It's a little long, and the ending--while totally essential to the story--drags on. But the gameplay is fluid, combat and stealth are both very satisfying, and I loved how I got the story from both sides. Fuck the haters; this deserves all the praise it gets. Animal Crossing: New Horizons I’ve been a fan of the series since the beginning so I was following this game from the moment they announced it, and the pandemic only increased my wife’s and my immersion in our island getaway. There are some silly quality of life issues (can't buy nook miles ticket at airport, can't craft from storage in house, can't get camper to automatically swap with someone already moving out) but it's relaxing and fun and charming and exactly what we needed. Also the best soundtrack of the series. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling I’m a big fan of the first two Paper Mario games, but I’ve played them so many times that there’s nothing I don’t know or expect. Bug Fables is a beautiful love letter to those games that is somehow both new and nostalgic. The presentation is familiar, but the twists on combat mechanisms and world exploration are welcome additions. I played it on Hard Mode the whole time, which was a decent challenge. Sometimes the dialogue is flat, and there are a few lag issues with the Switch port, but this is definitely one of the best games I've played all year.
The Great
Gravity Rush This game really surprised me. Extremely fun mechanics, beautiful stages, great music. Combat was too easy, boss fights were alright, story was all over the place. Camera took a while to get a hang of. But I ended up getting the platinum trophy because I just didn’t want it to be over. Overall really good. DOOM (2016) An excellent FPS. Found myself interested in all the lore, reading every codex entry. Weapons, enemies, challenges, upgrades, all great. Music was fitting but it got tiresome. Doesn't overstay its welcome. They do a lot of fan service, and I never played any DOOM before but I could tell they cared a lot about its origins. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past I’m actually still playing through this one (just got the second crystal) and I can see how it both built on the original Zelda formula and inspired all of the 2D Zelda games that came after. It’s the right level of difficulty, the world is fun to explore, dungeons are challenging, boss fights are varied, and it can be quite funny at times. I’m having a great time with it. What Remains of Edith Finch This game is really beautifully crafted. I played it all in one sitting, although I kind of wish there were more extras scattered around (but maybe that would have taken away from the story itself). The house itself is a masterpiece in design and storytelling, the overall effect was excellent and I never found the narration invasive. This is a story that everyone can enjoy, and the less you know going in the better. Prey Exploring the space station and unraveling everyone’s stories was enthralling; I think I only made it through 5 hours of main story in the first 25 hours of playing. I love how Arkane designs a mission and gives you a dozen ways to complete it. Enemies could have been more varied, but combat and allocation of resources was a fun challenge for the first half (and then you get OP really fast). Didn’t devote much time to Mooncrash, though I am a fan of roguelikes. I’ll go back to that one day. NieR:Automata I've only played through the first ending, so this should be taken as a sort of preliminary rating. This game has really good combat, though it does get a little stale. Boss fights are excellent, but too easy. Music is top notch. Story is fine, but I wish they didn't detail the story throughout boss fights because I can't pay attention to it!! Quests are frustrating because you have to go back to the person who gave you the quest so often just to say it's over. I guess I brought that pain on myself by doing all these quests before unlocking fast travel. Excited to see the other endings though! Darkest Dungeon This feels a lot like playing through a D&D campaign, which I like. It’s difficult, but fair. After about 15 in-game weeks and a couple failed quests I’m finally getting the hang of things, diversifying my lineups and testing new strategies. I’m sure there are plenty of guides online, but I’m really enjoying learning this stuff on my own. I just encountered a character refusing to do a low-level mission because he’s too high a level, which is a clever way to keep things interesting. Excited to keep exploring this one! Luigi’s Mansion 3 Room design was great: every room is basically a sandbox and it’s really satisfying to suck it all up. Boss fights were interesting and dynamic. I got bored of going back to get all the gems but that's probably my own fault since I played it so much in one sitting. Only played multiplayer a little bit and it was fine. Into the Breach Really good strategy game. Sometimes I spent 15 minutes just staring at the screen, looking for the best move. Not all of the preset teams are great but you can mix and match pretty much anything. It can be a bit repetitive within a single run, but it has lots of variety across runs depending on your build. Panel De Pon I’m not gonna say that this is a better tile-matching game than Tetris, but I’m a longtime Tetris fan and I’ve been playing this game much more recently. I've mostly played the 1 player VS against the computers and I don't understand how they're so good!! It just makes me want to get better at the game. Current goal is to clear normal difficulty without using any continues but it's tough. Wish me luck. Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019) I never played the original, but this was a very good game on its own. I wasn’t turned off by the art style like some people, and I enjoyed all the dungeons and finding all the secrets of the world. I borrowed this game from a friend, and I’m glad I did because it’s a little short to be worth $60. Risk of Rain 2 Kinda crazy how well they adapted the original game as a 3D experience. Still haven't beaten it because it's *very difficult* but I really enjoy everything I've done so far. One of these days I'll be good enough to get to the end. Lego Harry Potter series Instant gratification in a game. Press square and you shoot out magic and something happens. Lots of stimulation, which is good for playing with my wife who is very particular about what games keep her attention. Character unlock is a pain in the ass, though. The story for years 5-7 is basically incomprehensible if you haven’t read the books or seen the movies, but I can’t imagine many people are playing who haven’t done those things. A Short Hike Exactly as advertised. I absolutely love the humor of this game. Great dialogue, and a fun, short experience. Easy for anyone to enjoy. Super Mario Bros 35 I never would have thought Mario could work as a battle royale, but then again I never thought Tetris could either so I guess this tracks. Just kind of a shame that in regular mode my experience hinges on how far along everyone else is in unlocking levels. I'm sick of the first world over and over again. However, this does make me want to go back and play the original game so it's a nice way to broaden the series to people who probably never played this. Gorogoa I really like the concept of a puzzle that can only exist as a video game. I did feel challenged towards the end, and I enjoyed watching the tiles interact. I'd say the picture frame portion was probably the most interesting bit. Would have loved for this to be a little longer.
The Good
Yooka-Laylee & the Impossible Lair A very good 2D platformer, all things considered. Exploring the overworld is fun, those pagie challenges are good, and the Impossible Lair itself is really well designed. The Capital B fights are fine. I never really felt a need to use any tonics. Good for children to get through the game, but don't really make things any more interesting for an experienced player, especially because the filters lower the framerate. Ori and the Blind Forest Beautiful game. A well-designed metroidvania with incredible art/music direction. The combat kind of bored me because your basic attack is homing, so you mostly just press a button. Also the story bothered me: the owl was just trying to protect her children!! I don’t like seeing her as an antagonist when the forest caused all her suffering first. Fire Emblem: Three Houses I recognize why so many people adore this game, but I guess it’s just offering things that I don’t care about in my gaming experience. Probably would like this more if the focus was more on diversifying the combat than on tropey characters. Wasn't interested in anyone's story. I regret playing on normal; if you have any experience with strategy games, normal mode is far too easy and you can’t change the difficulty after you start. Really good soundtrack though! Final Fantasy VII Yeah, this is lower for me than what public opinion had led me to believe. The game has very good battle mechanics and the story is pretty interesting, even when I know the big things that happen. I liked the action sequences like the motorcycle and snowboarding. But man, the second half of this game is such a slog. I couldn’t discern the location of anything from the map, so there was hours of “look up next location, go to place, cut scene, battle, cut scene, repeat.” DIdn’t like that. Most of the optional activities are too archaic to be fun for me without any nostalgic connection. Also didn’t like that I put all my effort into developing three characters, only for the story to make them unplayable for a while so I kept failing at everything I needed to do. Maybe I’ll try the remake. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice The obvious success of this game is in the audio design. I don’t usually play with headphones but the game recommends it and I was glad I did. Scenery was great, puzzles were interesting, but combat got a bit dull at times. Story was very cool. Liked all of the bonus narration, which is often bland for many games. InBento A good tile-switching puzzle game that does a great job of teaching you the mechanics without invasive tutorials. Art was cute. The later puzzles can be real head-scratchers; I think I spent over an hour on just one puzzle. Gravity Rush 2 This is a more polished version of the first game with grander environments, improved combat, and equally good music. But this gets docked for the story experience. Waaay too many stealth objectives; in a game where I can literally control gravity, the last thing I want is to be banned from using that throughout the story. I wish this one had way more skill trials and way fewer activity quests because the rewards were all useless. Didn’t need the talismans and I have no interest in earning a character emote. Adding online servers was the wrong move, in my opinion. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Am I supposed to be a longtime Castlevania fan to enjoy this game? To me the movement seemed unnecessarily stiff, even after earning the full moveset. Quests were pretty pointless, and some of the rewards were just immediately traded in for other quests, which awarded me items that were worse than what I already had. But the music was good and I enjoyed it mostly as a fan of the genre rather than for anything this game did in particular. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy A solid 3D adventure platformer. I feel like they really botched the jumping though, it never feels quite right. In any event, it's a fun game that's easy to beat and a little more challenging to 100% (which I did). Story is lame but not necessary to follow. What The Golf? (2019) A game made by people who love games is always nice. Good entertainment for a few hours. Perfect for when I was on the subway and had a few minutes to kill. Minit It's fun! I like the idea of stripping an adventure game down to its basest components and completing it in a time crunch. Played through three times (once per mode) then watched a speedrun to find everything I missed, which wasn’t much. Playing for more than 30 minutes at a time made my head hurt. Donut County Love the writing of this game, feels young and fresh (two things that I am not anymore). I wish there was a little more to each level. The gimmicks with the hole are good (catapult, fire, snake tail) but every level went by too quickly. Would really like to see the idea expanded on, if they can. Axiom Verge Gameplay is pretty good. Only ended up using like three of the weapons, with the exception of certain boss fights where I had to use a specific one. Story wasn't too interesting but the giant sudrans were cool. Wish there was a fast travel unlocked towards the end but I guess that's not too big of an issue. Sound design was very jarring, couldn't play late at night because it bothered me Genshin Impact I guess the f2p gacha model makes a lot of money because there is an incredible amount of content here for a free game. Sure, it's all locked behind level-up barriers, but I found that they gave me enough stuff at the beginning to get there with minor difficulty. The frame rate is often bad, buttons don't respond when they should, and I wish fighting enemies gave you more leveling experience. I reached a point where I was doing the same thing every day and the grind basically mandates paying more money, so I stopped and probably won’t be going back. I had a decent time for about 20 hours. Mario’s Super Picross It’d be pretty hard to screw up a picross game, so this does what it’s supposed to do. It was just an easy picross game, nothing more. I think I did all the puzzles over like 5-6 hours in a week.
The Okay
Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope Of all the Supermassive games, this one has the cleanest execution. They made it pretty easy for anybody to play well, whereas Until Dawn is more of a video game than a storytelling device. That said, the story experience here is not good. Voice acting is pretty bad, and every area feels so self-contained. I never felt like I was in one large area like in Until Dawn or Man of Medan, which is weird because the town is arguably the largest setting yet. I did not enjoy most of my time here, and no choice mechanism or on-screen cues can make up for that. And yes, I am disappointed that all the Dark Pictures resolve with “there was never anything supernatural happening.” Sorry, James My rating would immediately go up if they just fixed the terrible latency on all non-puzzle screens. I get it's supposed to be like an old computer but all that does is put me off from playing. Entering codes to unlock packs was such a chore. Was definitely entertained by the story though, it was fun to read through. But also, they should give you the login for puzzles directly in the game; I tried all combos and logged into Mariia's account first, which had every conversation that was about to be revealed. Really takes away from the story if you do that first. Myst I wasn't really roped into this one. I can tell it's well constructed and it's very obviously an inspiration to The Witness, one of my favorite games ever, but the mechanics and types of puzzles just didn't resonate with me. Sayonara Wild Hearts I don’t know, this one just wasn’t for me. The music is decent, but the gameplay just wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s just far too stylized. Snakebird This game is so goddamn hard and they barely teach you what to do!!! I want to like it but I was so lost after like five levels. Night Trap I love the concept of this game, but no matter how hard I tried I would get a game over after like 10 minutes. It’s an old game, so there’s nothing fancy going on; you really just have to memorize when and where the burglars are gonna show up and trap them. Could be more interesting with some randomization. Operation Logic Bomb This rating only goes down because of the Continue mechanic, so I can't get very far without having to start back at the beginning again. I guess better use of save states would fix my problem but I'm never sure where exactly I should save. Ah well. I tried a few times, got a little further each time, then got bored.
The Bad
Garfield Kart: Furious Racing My friend and I bought this when we were drunk and it is only fun to play in that condition. Otherwise, it is an all-around poor kart experience. There is no reason to play this unless you want one of those “so bad it’s good” feelings. Ape Escape 2 The first Ape Escape is one of my favorite PS1 games. This one is terrible. All charm has been removed from the game with its new unsettling art style and dull soundtrack. This doesn’t even get the distinction of “so bad it’s good”—it’s just plain bad. ----- And that’s it! Gaming really helped me through this year, and I’m glad I had the chance to play some games that will stay with me forever. I have a short list of what’s coming next from my backlog (Return of the Obra Dinn, Ratchet & Clank) but I am always accepting recommendations. Thanks for reading :)
I find myself in a weird space today, looking to this off-season. I've been a fan of this team since the 1997 season (14 years old, in Schenectady NY), and a diehard since 1999. At first, I only watched the games to get in on the pizza and wings at my neighbor's house. Now, when I'm not watching the Giants, I'm participating regularly on this Giants forum (that has never provided me with pizza or wings!). Over the years, my fandom has naturally grown. I went from being an intense, loud fan- that lived or died with every play; to a more analytical, big picture focused type of fan. I think the nuance of building a franchise now interests me almost as much as the play on the field does. I'm not sure if that came from age, running a business myself, or having a child... perhaps it just came from reaching the pinnacle with this team (nothing will beat the feeling of winning the Superbowl in '07 and '11) and then getting used to watching this team repeat the same mistakes, over and over. I feel like I'm married to the Giants. And any long term relationship is a marathon, not a sprint. Now-a-days, I consider myself a very pragmatic fan. I don't get nearly as "up" as I used to, and I don't go nearly as down. When we had a shit year in 2009, I was completely miserable to be around on Sundays. Contrast that to now... when we lost 5 games in a row this year, I would just go about my day. I won't say one way of fandom is better than another... I suppose when you love something, the highs are always higher and the lows are always lower. But then you come to understand that you can't have one without the other. Having experienced that ultimate "high" from sports; that remains my primary focus. I'm not too interested in watching an 8-8 team every year. I want to experience another run. I want my son to be able to experience that (since he currently thinks I'm crazy when he hears me yell at the TV on Sundays). I don't think I've ever been more pragmatic about a season than I was, this season. I told you all in the summer that we'd have done reasonably well to go 6-10, and that the playoffs were never a realistic goal. The 2020 season (as frustrating as it is, because it shouldn't have been) was a building year, and would be a success regardless of the record IF we could walk away from it knowing that we: - Competed in most every game (we were competitive in 12 of 16 games) - Found an identity on both sides of the ball (as much as our offense sucked, we definitely had an identity as a power run team, and the defense found plenty of things that it did well) - Established a foundation (or "program") that we could build off of, instead of just being a collection of players that wear the same uniform. I think we can all agree that Judge has done this one, more than the others. Perhaps the only thing we didn't really do this year (aside for win) was properly evaluate Daniel Jones. And that's squarely on the shoulders of Garrett and Judge. I know his WRs sucked (thanks Gettleman), but we had the SAME WRs last year (with a worse line) and we threw it downfield anyhow (which is his strength). It was a choice to play conservatively. A choice that neutered the QB and may have resulted in less turnovers, but also less big plays. I maintained during our 4 game win streak (when many in the media had us as the best team in the division and a threat in the playoffs), that we were "overperforming" due to good coaching, and that we were still deficient in talent. It was most obvious during 2 minute/ spread situations on defense (when scheme is less important than just beating the guy you're lined up against)- that our defense couldn't man up against the better team's talent; it was Patrick Graham putting on a clinic. The offense was doing just enough in those games, but we were not capable of winning a shoot-out or playing catch-up. We wouldn't have made it out of the first round of the playoffs. I had bitched all season about Garrett's unimaginative playbook, even before it was cool to dump on him. Once we got past the Rams game, there shouldn't have been any excuses for how bad our offense looked. Other teams had no preseason as well, with new offensive systems. Look at the YAC numbers this year, to last year (with the same WRs). It's hard to create separation and get YAC when you are running 7 yards in a straight line and then turning around. I openly said that I would prefer the team didn't win in week 17, because I was focused on making sure we had less excuses to keep Gettleman and Garrett. And that having a higher draft pick is a more valuable asset (if used correctly), than a feel good win. Hell, we just watched a team take a dive on national TV for 3 spots in the draft, when they could have had a "moral victory" of knocking a division rival out of the playoffs with a signature comeback win from their young, potentially future QB. I would never want the Giants to purposely lose... but clearly there's some professionals who agree that a win is not always a win, when you're playing the long game. Playing the long game to me, meant aggressively self scouting and looking to make a big jump next year. Not just looking for incremental improvement. While the Giant's brass all claps each other on the backs and gets drunk off of any "improvement"; I will be thinking about how we went 5-11, 4-12 and 6-10, the past three years. How only one player (BJ Hill) made any meaningful contribution this year, from the 2018 off-season. That is not good enough, and a good organization doesn't just lean on the shiny new coach as all the reason for optimism. It's the coaches job to talk about improvement, but it's the front offices job to help him take large leaps instead of small steps. So while this season may have been a "success" (if you had realistic goals for this year); it's still in no way acceptable to not try to aggressively improve, and take real accountability. So far, it doesn't appear as if we'll be doing that, with the predictable news that we are going to retain Gettleman. I warn you now, that if we don't replace Garrett... you can forget about Daniel Jones developing into the QB that we all want to see him become. I am not trying to be pessimistic about this team. It brings me no joy to double down on negative takes. But the proof is all right there, and many wise posters on this board have spelled it out, all season. But you have to be willing to take the red pill; instead of the blue kool-aid state media is serving. "Don't rest at progress: 2021 off-season".
A big thanks to the 2055 of you who took a moment to complete the recent golf 2020 census. This is a tremendous response and should provide a reasonable sample size among active users of this sub. Caveat: while my IRL work has a lot to do with digital media and numbers, I am no data scientist or Excel whiz, so I'm sure this isn't quite as good as it could be, but it's all I have time to do with now! So without further ado, here are the results (and I have made the data available here if anyone wants to take a peek or slice and dice it for themselves). You can view natively in your browser, or simply click the 'download' button in the top right. I might edit this later with some more findings, but that's enough for now! I'll be really interested to know what you think. What results surprise you? What results were you sure of? Please post and discuss your feedback! 1. How old are you? The average age of golf is 30.01 years. It's also the most common age selected in the census with 144 of you identifying as exactly 30 years old, 135 of you identifying as 31 and 134 identifying as 28 years. The oldest respondent is 72 (and has a handicap of 5). The youngest respondent was 13, which is the minimum age to have a reddit account, which is why I cut it off there. The two 13-year-olds identify as being off 12 and 6 handicaps. Just 108 of the sample size are teenagers, representing a mere of 5.26% of respondents. 2. What is your gender? A whopping 98.2% of us identify as male and just 1.1% female. I knew this sub was heavily skewed to men, but that's a LOT more than I expected. 3. What is your relationship status? 41.9% of this sub is married, 29.7% are in a relationship and 27.5% are single. The average handicap of married golfers is 17.0, single 17.5 while golfers in a relationship are 18.4, suggesting this latter category is prioriting other matters in life :) 0.8% of married golfers and 1.1% of both single and golfers in relationship are better than scratch players 4. Where do you live? 79.7% of you live in the United States Canada is second with 8.1% and the UK third with 4.4%. The top 10 is:
Country
Count
USA
1637
Canada
166
UK
90
Australia
27
Sweden
26
Ireland
23
New Zealand
11
Norway
10
Germany
8
Netherlands/Denmark/Finland
7
There are single representatives from Antigua, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Greece, Grenada, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Romania and Thailand. 5. In which US state do you live? Here is where the Americans among us live:
State
Count
California
171
Texas
108
New York
88
Illinois
69
Pennsylvania
63
Massachusetts/Ohio
62
Georgia
69
Florida/Michigan
58
Virginia
56
Minnesota
54
The states with the fewest golfers are Delaware and Montana (2 each) while Vermont and Wyoming each have 4 representatives on golf according to this census. 6. What is your current handicap? (rounded to the nearest whole number) According to this census, the average handicap or golf is slightly lower than 17.5 (slightly lower as there are 20 players who identify as better than scratch, but were counted as 0 for the purposes of this average). 7. Recently,my handicap has been... 1262 (61.35%) of you have been reducing your handicaps lately - well done! 8.81% of you need to stop the recent rise in your handicap 29.84% of you are remaining relatively unchanged/consistent 8. My status as a golfer is... The vast majority of us (96.15%) are amateur players/weekend hackers while there are at least 8 current professionals among us, 3 former pros and 68 aspiring pros 9. What would you say is your preferred brand of club? I appreciate this question didn't suit everyone, as putters are different to irons as wedges are different to drivers - you might like a brand in one club, but loathe it in another. Without wanting to make this survey too in-depth, I think the below table is a decent snapshot of golf's preferred club brands (and really sorry I forgot about the PXG crew!)
Brand
# that express it as 'favorite'
TaylorMade
532
Callaway
380
Mizuno
303
Titleist
270
Ping
218
Cobra
126
Cleveland
46
Wilson
46
Nike
39
Srixon
32
Ben Hogan
20
Adams
13
Miura
9
Dunlop
6
Bridgestone
4
MacGregor
4
Bettinardi
2
Honma
2
Vulcan
2
Obviously a lot to unpack here and there a LOT of variables. Of particular interest is the love for a now defunct golf brand (Nike) ahead of leading brands such as Srixon and Miura. Also, there is a noticeable drop-off from Ping to Cobra and an even greater one from Cobra to Cleveland. When you isolate the data to those with a 0 or better handicap, the results look like this: TaylorMade (9) Titleist (7) Callaway (3) Mizuno (3) Ping (3) Cleveland (2) Miura (1) Nike (1) 10. Do you prefer to mix or match? 19.57% prefer to match your sets while 80.43% don't mind what's in the bag, as long as it works for you. 11. What brand of ball do you primarily play?
Brand
Number who play it
Titleist
462
Whatever I find in my bag or the woods
290
Callaway
249
TaylorMade
211
Srixon
194
Bridgestone
170
Kirkland
121
Vice
119
Snell
79
Wilson
39
Nike
21
Top Flite
19
Oncore
16
Maxfli
13
Inesis
8
Volvik
8
Mizuno
7
Pinnacle
6
Noodle
3
Seed
2
Sugar
2
Slazenger
2
OtheVarious
12
12. Do you think the ball you play has a significant impact on your game? 37.59% of you think it's VERY important 19.40% of you don't think it matters at all 43.01% don't mind, as long as it's a ball by a 'leading' manufacturer 17/20 of BETTER than scratch golfers said that ball choice is critical. The only surprising thing about this is that it wasn't 20/20! The average handicap of players who suggest ball choice is very important is 14.16 (down 3+ whole points from the overall golf average) and if you include the BETTER than scratch handicappers as zero, that falls to 13.85. 13. What is your position on iron covers? 57 of you (2.77%) use iron covers 821 of you (39.97%) of you think these 57 people should be openly mocked 1176 (57.26%) of you think these 57 people should do whatever they like :) 14. Do you drink alcohol while golfing? 17.96% of you don't see any difference between a golf course and an open bar 29.60% of you drink and play some of the time 24.74% of you drink occasionally 27.70% of you never drink while golfing Of the 29 zero or better handicappers among us, 11 never drink on the course and 5 drink most of the time! 15. What is your preferred tee time? 40.55% of you enjoy gettingup at the crack of dawn for an early morning tee time 27.46% of you like a morning slot, but without the early wake-up 14.41% of you would rather play in the afternoon 13.00% of you enjoy finishing the day with twilight golf Just 4.58% of you prefer to tee off at lunchtime 16. What is your preferred way of getting around the course? 45.13% of you prefer driving 32.18% of you are card carrying members of the push cart mafia 22.69% of you mental bastards prefer to walk and carry 17. Are you a member of a club? 71.23% of golf are nomads 23.81% of us are full year members of a club 4.96% of us are members of a club for part of the year 18. Have you ever had a hole-in-one? 10.18% of you have an ace to your name 89.82% of us are still searching for that elusive milestone! 19. Who do you prefer golfing with? 76.53% of us would rather golf with our friends 12.03% most enjoy playing with family 10.37% prefer the solitude of a solo round 1.07% of you most enjoy the company of strangers 20. Hot or cold? 67.53% of you would prefer to play in roasting hot conditions 32.47% would rather play in the freezing cold 21. What is your biggest pet peeve on the course? Here's how you responded to the pre-defined answers:
Peeve
# of you who most hate this
Slow play
1051
Lack of course care
214
People who hit up on you
204
'Put me down for bogey' guy
147
People who litter
145
Bluetooth speakers
111
Unsolicited advice
93
And here are some of the best 'write in' answers!
All of the above in equal parts (this was a popular response!)
The 6-foot gimme guy
Drunk golfers (refer to question 14)
Finding out the greens have been cored
The 10 practice swings before a duff guy
Snobbery
Rule sticklers
This is technically littering, but cigarette butts and sunflower seeds
Starters who don't properly manage their time sheets
Angry players who swear, throw clubs etc.
22. What do you consider to be the best part of your game? 34.95% of you are best with an iron in your hands 31.44% of you are magicians around the green with a wedge 16.84% of you feel most at home on the greens 16.77% of you love to step on to the tee with the big dog 23. What do you consider to be the worst part of your game? 45.62% of you aren't confident with driver in hand 20.25% of you least like putting 18.55% don't strike irons well compared to the rest of your game 15.58% of you are most uncomfortable with a wedge 24. Assuming you had not achieved either, would you rather... 68.01% of you would rather play a whole round to par or better 31.99% of you would prefer to write a "1" on your score card 25. Which shot produces the most pleasure for you? An utterly PURE mid/long iron right out of the sweet spot (40.12%) Ripping a booming drive down the middle of the fairway (30.62%) Reading the break and hitting the ideal weight on a putt (11.74%) A pin-point chip/pitch to tap-in range (9.54%) Crushing a wood off the deck (4.67%) Splashing out of the sand to a few inches from the cup (2.58%) A perfectly judged bump & run (0.73%) So that's all of the questions with pre-defined answers, which was much easier for me to dissect than the qualitative answers to come! With upward of 2000 responses, I can't depict every answer, so have done my best to group them and provide some outlying humour and interesting responses. 26. Who are you picking to drain a 20-foot breaking putt to save your life? By far the most popular response was "Tiger" or a variation of it (including "2000 Sunday Tiger" or "Young Tiger" or simply just an emoji and there are so many variations of TW, Eldrick, El Tigre etc. that I am not going to tally them up - just trust me on this, he is far and away the top choice!) A lot of you would back yourself for the putt. Some because you legitimately think you will make it, others because they will feel more motivated than anyone on earth while others wouldn't consider burdening another person with that responsibility! So here's the list I've generated with everyone who had 5 or more mentions.
Tiger Woods (714) - not including the aforementioned variations of his name, so I suspect that more than half of you will have chosen TW in some way, shape or form
Myself (139)
Jordan Spieth (121)
Jack Nicklaus (83)
Phil Mickelson (82)
Dustin Johnson (76)
Rickie Fowler (62)
Justin Thomas (58)
Jason Day (49)
Kevin Kisner (31)
Bryson DeChambeau (26)
Colin Morikawa (20)
Brad Faxon (18)
Kevin Na (17) - and two said "just so he can walk it in"
Steve Stricker (16)
Rory McIlroy (15)
My dad (13)
Dennis McCarthy (12)
Anyone but myself (11)
Happy Gilmore (11)...uh oh, Happy learned how to putt!
Jesus (11)
Ben Crenshaw (10)
Brandt Snedeker (9)
Webb Simpson (9)
Matt Kuchar (8)
Ian Poulter (8)
Brooks Koepka (6)
Arnold Palmer (6)
Tommy Fleetwood (6)
Jim Furyk (6)
Jon Rahm (5) - would have been a lot more after last weekend!
Patrick Reed (5)
A special shout out to....
The 6 people who would choose my mom (clearly good putting is not hereditary)
The 3 people who said "The Club Pro Guy"
The 2 people who said Michael Phelps
The 2 who said Batman
The 1 cool cat who said Carole Baskin
The 1 who nominated Rick Shiels because he "prefers some risk"
And the wise guy who said "a robot designed for putting" (see: 2000 Tiger)
27. If you could change one rule in golf, what would it be? Another one where I made it pretty difficult to analyse and display the results! But here are a few of the top answers (in what I interpret as order of popularity), and please feel free to access the results yourself if you want to sort through them all.
Lost ball to become a drop at nearest point of relief for a one-shot penalty instead of reloading for three
All hazards/OOB to be red stakes for consistency
Be permitted to ground your club in a bunker
Relax dress codes (including allowing tour players to wear shorts)
"Gallery Balls" whereby amateurs receive a free drop for a 'lost' ball that is definitely in play
All players should receive relief from fairway divots
Any drop/penalty should just be one stroke (a LOT of you think all OB should be treated as a lateral hazard)
A certain number of mulligans per round (most said one, but some of you want up to 3 per nine!)
Actual enforcement of penalties for slow play and/or a shot clock
Be permitted to lift, clean and place on all fairways
Free relief for things like ree roots, fences etc.
Drop height... some of you want it lower (ankle) and some of you want it back to the waist!
Change number of clubs permitted in bag (interestingly, half of those who suggested this want fewer and the other half want more - there doesn't seem to be a universal consensus)
That inconsequential and accidental touches of the ball or sand should not result in a penalty
Allow rangefinders/slope in competitive play
Preferred lies within one club-length no nearer the hole on all grass and bunker sand
Flagsticks should remain in the cup 100% of the time
Overturn the ban on anchoring
Slightly bigger cups
Stymies should be permitted
While sorting through these responses, it became apparent just how difficult it is to please all golfers. On one line, someone says "Collared shirts compulsory" and on the next, someone says "Collared shirts optional!" And finally, this one tickled me... "If you are not on the green and can run to your ball and play another shot within 5 seconds, the first one shouldn't count!" 28. What is your hottest/most controversial golf take? Another one that's impossible to really depict succinctly, so here are some interesting responses, copied and pasted exactly as you wrote them!
(most) old people ruin the game (gatekeeping & arrogance towards younger generation)
"Annoying fans" are necessary to grow the sport
18 holes per game is too many
70% of people should be playing from the red tees. Move forward
Alcohol should be banned on the course
Alignment lines on balls should be banned
All private clubs should have a public day
Amateur golfers on YouTube do more for attracting new people to the sport than pros on TV
Augusta as a course/club is overhyped. If it wasn't for the exclusivity and the masters itself, it would be considered an average course
Bad golfers should be relegated to non-ideal tee times
Blades make you a better golfer because you can feel where your misses are on the face
Breaking 80 isn’t impressive if it’s not from the tips
Brooks is more annoying than Bryson
Bryson and brooks are likable, talented guys
Bryson and Patrick reed are good for the game (several dozen more Bryson takes!)
Carts should only be used by people with mobility issues
Corn Ferry far superior to European tour
Dress codes are stupid
European Tour is more difficult than the PGA Tour
Everyone cheats, somehow or some way
Fairway shots are most times harder than shots out of the rough on low quality courses
Fedex Cup should be match play
Fitting is the biggest scam going. It is a sales tool and nothing more.
Getting married ruins the promising careers of young pga pros (see Jordan, tiger, rory, rickie, DJ)
Gimmes are acceptable and should be reasonable encouraged in social (non-competitive) play
Gimmes suck and hurt your game
Glove should not be removed during putting
Golf courses are a waste of resources and land
Golf decorum means something and isn't designed to be purely elitist
golf fans are the worst fans of any sport
Golf isn’t fun to watch just to play
Handicapping is a participation trophy for bad players
Hazards should not be raked, they are hazards
Hitting Fairway Woods off the deck is far easier than off the tee
Hole in one's aren't that special
I don't like Phil Mickelson
I don't really mind slow play
I don't think you should mark your ball on the putting green for the other golfers. Putt around other balls.
I love golf but hate golfers
I'd be on tour if I was given 1 year to train, a new fitted set of clubs, and had no obligations to anything outside of golf (this respondent is a scratch player)
I'd like to see a tournament with separate tees: womens/champions/PGA, all competing for the same $/trophy
I'd rather hit a great drive and double bogey than dink my iron a few times and par
If Bryson was black people would focus on the fact that he is changing the game and advancing it rather than focusing on his minor blunders he has had and blowing them out of proportion.
If you can’t shoot under 100, you have no business being on a regulation/championship 18 hole golf course
Instead of rolling back the ball, ban the use of tees
Iron covers aren’t terrible
Irons should be labeled with loft not numbers
Leaving the pin in to putt is better than taking it out
Men can learn way more from watching the LPGA than the PGA Tour
Mulligans are stupid and you cheat yourself out of an actual score
Music being played from the cart should not be distracting during a random weekend tee time. We aren’t on tour.
No discount should be given if the greens are aerated
No one should take more than one practice swing. Just get up and hit the ball.
Nobody wants to see pros play ridiculously tough courses where the winner is -1.
Older men at golf courses prove millennial aren't the entitled generation, its the 50 to 60 old dude who is
Pace of play is less of an issue than people make it out to be in the amateur game
PGA tour broadcast juices yardages for casual fans
Players on the tour aren’t too long, it’s cool to see what they can do with the same equipment as us
Playing forward by a set of tees doesn't make you less of a man
Playing more rounds will help you improve scores faster than range sessions. Rounds are what get scored, not repeated hits off turf.
Practice swings don't work and are generally pointless
Prime tiger wouldn’t go on that run he had today against this new talent
Pro Golfers should be able to play through noise and heckling
Pro V1s are overrated and mainly used by people for placebo
Pros are playing for millions of dollars they are allowed to be entitled and whine
Pros should carry their own bags
Putters over $100 are a waste of money
Rowdy fans are alright
Ryder Cup is better than any major
Scottys are not overpriced
Scrambles are a horrible way to play golf
Shafts don't matter for most golfers
Solo golfers do not have the right of way as long as the group ahead is meeting course pace of play
Stepping on someone's putting line makes no difference
Take the driver out of the bag. You’ll shoot better.
Tee boxes based on handicap not age/gender
The British Open is more prestigious than the Masters
The top 20 LPGA players could make bank on the men's tour if they could tee off from 100 yards ahead
The US Open is a better tournament than the Masters
There are like 5 people on the subreddit qualified to give swing advice
Tiger doesn't care to win again
Unless you are a 10 handicap or better, the ball you play does not matter
US Open should only be played at public golf courses
Waiting for the group in front of you is not hard or annoying
Womens golf is more entertaining to watch
Yelling fore does nothing. You’re on a course be aware of your surroundings.
You should have to have a license to play golf. Nothing crazy just take an online class that would go over basic rules and etiquette.
29. What is the best golf course you have ever played? Have aggregated the most popular answers to the best of my ability, capped at 6+ responses.
Pebble Beach (17)
Chambers Bay (16)
Half-Moon Bay (15)
Torrey Pines (13)
Whistling Straits (12)
TPC Scottsdale (11)
Bethpage Black (10)
Arcadia Bluffs (9)
Wolf Creek (9)
Tobacco Road (8)
Sypglass (8)
Pinehurst #2 (7)
Pasatiempo (6)
TPC Sawgrass (6)
30. What is your bucket list course that you are yet to play? Again, a lot of variations here which made it tough for me to sort the data, but have done my best to sample a Top 10. I was very surprised to see Augusta behind St Andrews and so far behind Pebble but I suppose people subconsciously don't vote for courses they have no legitimate way of ever playing. I'd be interested to see these results if I re-phrased the question to "You have a free, no questions asked tee time anywhere in the world, name your club..."
Pebble Beach (433)
St Andrews (200)
Augusta (193)
Bandon Dunes (119)
Pinehurst #2 (61)
TPC Sawgrass (49)
Bethpage Black (35)
Torrey Pines (22)
Whistling Straits (22)
Wolf Creek (21)
31. What is the ONE thing golf administrators ought to do to encourage more people (particularly young people) to play the sport? This was a genuinely encouraging list of 2000+ results to read though. We often read about the 'doom & gloom' aspects of the future of our sport, but there is a vibrant and dedicated golf community out there thinking of ways to perpetuate interest in the sport and keep the flame lit for the next generation. Again, here's a sampling of what I would consider to be the most popular responses.
Make the game less cost prohibitive (this is a big one - everything from clubs to green fees to beers)
Open 'masterclasses' or free clinics from pros at ranges and local clubs (another big one)
Shorter courses (9 or 12 hole)
Heavily discounted beers for 18+ players
More facilities like Top Golf
A greater focus on 9-hole game, tee times, handicap structure etc.
All clubs should have a dedicated youth program
Allow interest free payment plans for things like memberships, clubs etc.
Alter rules to make it less elite/proper ie. mulligans, preferred lies etc.
Allow kids (U15) to play free (and rent clubs free), or at heavily reduced rates
Alternate course routing that allows you to come off whenever you like, not necessarily play 18
Kids play free with a paying adult (ensuring pace of play is maintained)
Relax the dress code and 'traditional' golf culture ie. be far less elitist
Twilight 9-hole beer leagues, aimed at young professionals looking for something to do after work
Carving out tee time blocks for 'beginners' so they don't feel pressured
Similarly, these blocks might be "free for all" in terms of attire, etiquette etc. so if a 14-year-old shows up in a hoodie, carrying 18 clubs and wants to have two mulligans from every tee, it's completely fine!
Introduce golf to public schools through gym/PE classes
More tech in carts and ability to connect bluetooth (with limited volume)
Change the nomenclature of "women's" tees to "beginner" or "forward" tees
Close the course one day a month for beginners, with teaching pros on the course and range
Pace of play is important, but if newbies feel intimidated they will never come back
Encourage mini games within a round for kids ie. straightest shot, nearest to pin etc.
Engage with local community/government to identify talented (possibly minority) athletes who would otherwise have no access to golf and get clubs in their hand
Decrease the emphasis on score - make it FUN and about the process, not the end result
More social events BEYOND golf in local clubs to build the golfing community rapport
Improve the professional tour TV and online products
32. What is the best tip, or piece of advice you have ever received that's improved your game? This one is just too crazy to aggregate, so please view all responses (in column AG) here :) But I will list EVERY bit of advice provided by our scratch or better players.
Only hit shots you know you can hit
Just keep playing
Don't think, just do
If you chunk chips, focus on using you left (right handed) hand more than your right
Focus on the next shot
Get a lesson
You're not good enough to get mad
Slow tempo always creates a better shot
Tempo tempo tempo! 90% of my bad swings are rushing at the top and hands getting ahead of my body
Hammer the nail
You don't control the outcome, focus on the process
Bowed left wrist
Being mad is ok, being negative is not
Ask quetions of people who are better than you
Focus on the shot you have now, not the one you just hit
Swing on a plane
Eliminate the double cross
Play your game
Before all else, hit the center of the face
Aim small, miss small
Care less
Slow Down
Learn how to properly manage the course
The only shot that matters is the next
Rotation is the wrong word, you're not supposed to rotate
Relax your grip
Accelerate THROUGH the ball - let the ball simply get in the way of your club head’s swing path
33. If you had the attention of EVERY SINGLE PLAYER in the world for 10 whole seconds, what would you say? Again, too much for me to break down, so you can see all responses here in column AH, but here are some of my favorites and some of the more popular ones!
Fix your ball mark
Hurry the fuck up
One practice swing is enough
Leave the flag in
Pick up your fucking trash
Have more fun on the course - it's a game after all
Enjoy this game while we can - it's truly a privilege
Accommodate the new as when you are gone, they are all that are left to carry the game
Grip it and rip it
Focus on contact before power
Sam Snead's win record is B.S.
Thank you for making me feel like I'm not the only person obsessed with this game
If you love golf, take new people golfing
Be considerate to players of all skill levels and work to grow the game not alienate newcomers
Keep your tempo up through the chip shot
Yelling "FORE" could save someone's life (including tour players)
FORE RIGHT
Your ego doesn't exist, let it go
Don't be a dick, treat the game/courses right, and if you're going to suck, suck at a faster pace
There's always someone worse than you
You don't practice enough to get that mad
You aren’t as good as you think and that's okay
Go get fitted, it will pay for itself many times over in the long run
Be ready to hit your shot before it's your turn
You hit the ball 15 yards shorter than you think you do
At your best as a pro, you’ll never be half as good as Tiger's peak
Mashed potatoes
It's our job to grow the game.
Baba booey
Jim Nantz, please come do the color commentary for one my rounds
Take some damn lessons and stop buying $500 drivers
Stop giving yourself gimmies, put the ball in the hole
Smell the roses, enjoy the views
Golf is hard
All of you sandbaggers are going to hell
Hurry the fuck up, and stop spending a minute perfectly adjusting the line on that 15 footer for bogey
It's our job to grow the game
ONE FUCKING PRACTICE SWING
Thanks again for your input! I might edit this later with some more findings, but that's enough for now!
https://preview.redd.it/evtgfu4xx3x51.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0494eba02ec54f0ae410a7a3c82215fa93c4c88 For those who are interested in learning more about the world Avowed will be set in - the world of Eora - this post is for you. As well as for anyone who already knows all this but wants to geek out! :) the world of Eora is also the game setting for two Obsidian games: Pillars of Eternity, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire This post will focus on an overview of the gods of Eora. I will dedicate deeper lore to each deity in future posts; so for those more versed in Eoran lore, worry not, this is more of a primer. For those new, or unfamiliar make sure to at least check out Galawain and Woedica for connections to the Avowed Reveal Trailer we've all seen. WARNING - MAJOR SPOILERS for the Pillars of Eternity games in this post. If you have any intention of playing those games pre-Avowed and do not want the main stories spoiled then do so post-haste. I will label each subsection as containing spoilers or not for those still pressing forward. TL;DR - there are 10 (or eleven) gods, [MAJOR SPOILERS] which were not Self-Existent, like typical gods, but were created by an ancient race known as Engiwthans[MAJOR SPOILERS]: Ondra (moon/water) Skaen (secret hatred, resentment, violent rebellion) Woedica (law, memory, rightful rulership, vengeance) Galawain (the hunt) Berath (cycles, doors and death) Wael (dreams, secrets, mysteries and revelations) Rymrgand (death, famine, plague, simple bad luck) Abydon (crafting, the forge) Magran (fire and war) Hylea (birds and the sky) Eothas (light and redemption) OVERVIEW Ten of the eleven deities of the Eoran pantheon. Every epic fantasy setting has deities, and Eora is no different. However, there is a unique twist on the gods of Avowed. What is that unique twist? I'll save that spoiler-y little tidbit for the history section of this lore-post. The gods of Eora are powerful beings embodying various ideals within the world of Eora. Using the image above, from left to right, their names are Ondra, Skaen, Woedica, Galawain, Berath, Wael, Rymrgand, Abydon, Magran and Hylea. The eleventh god who isn't present in this image is Eothas. IMPACT ON GAMEPLAY: "disposition" \"Disposition\" achievement unlocked! In the Pillars of Eternity games, selecting the class of Priest during character creation included selecting a patron deity you follow. This essentially operated as a subclass selection - as your chosen patron would impact which spells you automatically knew as a Priest. If you chose the class of Paladin you wouldn't choose a patron deity, but you would choose a set of dispositions. Failure to play your character in alignment with these dispositions could lead to negative consequences in the game (or at least, not gaining as many positive benefits). In Pillars of Eternity, a disposition is essentially a mechanical way of measuring the kind of person your player character is in the game. During gameplay, you will make actions/choices, and those actions/choices may correlate to a particular disposition. For example, if you came across a crying child alone on a woodland path you may choose to speak kindly/gently to the child. This action will boost your player character's benevolent disposition; or you may choose to yell at the child to stop whining and get out of your way, which may boost your player character's cruel disposition. Disposition scores can be used to unlock certain dialogue options with NPCs; affect your reputation with your adventuring companions; impress factions of similar dispositions; and, in the case of Paladins and Priests - will affect your ability strengths. There are ten dispositions: aggressive, benevolent, clever, cruel, deceptive, diplomatic, honest, passionate, rational, and stoic. Each of the gods has their own dispositions. While aligning with a god's disposition does not mean you will be a follower of that god, it may grant unique encounters/opportunities with the gods depending on what score you have in their favoured disposition. So, if your Eothas Priest character acted in a way unaligned with their patron god, Eothas, then it would have negative consequences for your abilities. While some deities have their dispositions explicitly outlined in the Pillars games, some deities do not. In Avowed I would expect us to see some use of a disposition mechanic in our playthrough. What kind of character might you play? AN IMPORTANT PLAYER IN THE GODS' STORY:the Engwithans Details on the Engwithans will be featured on another post, however, to understand some context of the gods' actions and history, you need to be familiar with the Engwithans. The Engwithans were a ancient society of peoples, which included many of the modern-day Kith races. They had mastered an academic study known as animancy. Animancy is the study of the soul, or the essence of the soul. Using animancy one can bind a soul to an object, or peer into previous lives of an individual's soul. The Engwithans died a long time before the Pillars of Eternity games, but left behind ruins and secrets which many contemporary Eorans study to this day. They were a pinnacle society of high-minded people, who died out under mysterious circumstances. (an analog for the Engwithans society within the Pillars games is like the Protheans for the Mass Effect games, imo) SPOILERS AHEAD HISTORY OF THE GODS (major spoilers) The gods in Eora are not gods in the typical sense. When we think of epic fantasy gods we typically think of timeless beings of immense power having created the realms or participated in a piece of it. In Eora, however, the pantheon we have are not timeless, and they did not create the world. In fact, the deities of Eora have an origin - they were created, by a Kith race known as Engwithans. Long ago the Engwithin culture devoted their energy to finding the Creators of the world. Here is a quote from some of the in-game lore: "Generation after generation, they analyzed the fabric of the world and unlocked its secrets, mastering the science of animancy [science of the soul; soul magic]. One day they found an answer - except the answer was no answer at all. There were no gods to be found. Or if there ever were, they were gone." The Engwithans,>! fearing what this revelation might bring, used their immense knowledge and resources to forge the gods as Eora knows them.!< Utilizing technology mixed with a magic known as animancy, the Engwithans sacrificed many of their kind to create embodiments of various ideals, which became the gods themselves. As well the Engwithans created a machine that used the natural phenomenon known as the Wheel to continuously give the new deities their divine power. The Wheel is one name for the Cycle of Rebirth that occurs within Eora - when a person dies their soul drifts but then is reborn into a new body (it's not unlike ideologies of Reincarnation from many eastern philosophies). And so now, in Eora, the gods of the Engwithans are the gods of today. The Engwithan missionaries all pledged to die childless so that their secret may die with them. Some time in the history of Eora, long after the Engwithans died out, the god Eothas inhabited the body of a man named Waidwen and began a crusade across the continent of the Eastern Reach. During this campaign, however, Waidwen was destroyed with a weapon called the Godhammer, and many believe Eothas to be dead. THE GODS: (spoilers) ABYDON - god of crafting and the forge Unrestored and restored versions of Abydon Abydon, also known as the Iron Arm, the Golem, or the Smith of Magran. Is a deity devoted to duty, progress, industry, and preservation. Though, the last devotion on that list may no longer be the case. Abydon is the patron for a faction called the Knights of the Crucible. https://preview.redd.it/ynxnk1tu05x51.png?width=90&format=png&auto=webp&s=e49b1fddd3c5a164d2bc0fcbbd07a4879178a363 Though Abydon agreed with the other gods that the elimination of the Engwithan race was necessary for their own self-preservation, when Ondra>! threw the smallest of Eora's moons at the Engwithan mainlands, Abydon destroyed the moon midflight,!< and was killed in the process. When Abydon was able to rebuild himself (I know, sounds confusing) his memories had been removed by Ondra to protect her secret. In Avowed, if we are allowed to align our character with Abydon what might this mean during a playthrough? Will we have access to high-level smithing early on? Will there be factions in-game that we can easily ally with? What dispositions will this god align with (perhaps honest and stoic)? BERATH (bare-ath) - god of cycles, or doors, and of life & death Berath in her form: the Pallid Knight Berath has many names and many forms it takes. Though often seen as a female black-armored knight, it is not inherently "she". Berath is in charge of the natural phenomenon known as the Wheel. The continuous cycle of rebirth that Kith souls undergo upon death and birth. When a Kith dies they enter into Berath's Wheel and re-enter Eora in a new body. Berath, like many gods, have different names depending on the society. However I think the Glanfathan society's name is the most apt: "Bewnen i Ankew and Ankew i Bewnen", literally: "Life in Death and Death in Life". Berath ensures that all life ends in death, and that all death ends in life. In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, the player character (called the Watcher) is "recruited" by Berath to investigate the activities of the god known as Eothas. Godlikes (see Races, pt. I for info on 'godlike' race) of Berath are called Death Godlike, which have strange, menacing, or even horrifying appearances. Often the heads of such individuals are encased in an insect-like growth, which appear opaque to on-lookers, but is transparent to the death godlike itself. In Avowed, if a player or NPC were to be a follower of Berath then they likely will play with Stoic and Rational dispositions. If a player aligns with Berath will they have access to some special function involving death/rebirth? Will they be able to see previous lives of their soul and use that information to their advantage? (also, I laugh every time I see Berath is the god of "cycles and doors", because it brings to mind images of bicycles and doorways, lol) (spoilers) EOTHAS (AY-uh-thahss) - god of renewal and light Eothas inhabiting an Adra Statue in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Eothas, also known by monikers such as the Child of Light, the Dawnstars, the Shattered God, and Gaun (his alter ego). He is the patron of light, redemption, rebirth, dawn, spring, and birth. Oddly enough he is considered allied with Woedica, a deity which may be an important character in Avowed. He has enmity for the goddess Magran. In the history of Eora it is believed by many that Eothas was killed by a bomb called Godhammer when he inhabited the body of a man named Waidwen. https://preview.redd.it/4b6nbtlf25x51.png?width=90&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd0b81a742a1b462cf75b9a6ffa80c71e09459ea Eothas is a major player in both Pillars of Eternity games. In the events of Pillars of Eternity, the player character is alive during a time not long after the death of Eothas/Waidwen. These events, penned in the game's lore, are crucial precursors to the story laid out within the game. During the events of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Eothas inhabits a statue of Adra (a resource/material unique to the setting of Eora) and begins walking through the Ocean into the area known as the Deadfire Archipelago. In Avowed it will be interesting to see if Eothas is "alive". If we ever get information about Avowed before its release that shows Eothas is alive it might be a strong indicator as to whether or not Avowed is a prequel or sequel to the Pillars games. Players following an Eothasian disposition will be Honest and Benevolent, unless they follow the Gaun side of Eothas which is more Stoic and Rational. GALAWAIN - god of the hunt in all its forms Left: un-named statue from Avowed reveal trailer; Right: Concept art for Galawain There is not a lot yet known about Galawain from in-game lore. That isn't to say that Galawain doesn't have a rich history, or that we don't know a fair amount about him, but just that lore regarding Galawain isn't currently as plentiful as other deities like Eothas. Galawain is called Lord of the Hunt, as well as other aliases. Not only concerned with hunting, Galawain is concerned with pursuit and discovery. While most followers of Galawain may be hunters, there is no reason that a scholar, someone in the pursuit or discovery of knowledge, wouldn't be considered an acolyte of Galawain. That said, the actual act of hunting, and the setting of the un-tamed wilderness are physical manifestations of what Galawain embodies, and so are often associated with him. In the Avowedreveal trailer, we see one of the fiery arrows approach and pass a statue which bears a resemblance to Galawain and the wolf at his right side. Though the bear and sabre-tooth are missing, as well Galawain is not often depicted with a sword, so we can not definitively say the statue is of Galawain. Definitively. What would Galawain's presence in Avowed manifest itself as? What would you like in Avowed for the Lord of the Hunt? HYLEA - goddess of birds and the sky An aspect of Hylea, the Bird Queen. Though Hylea is associated directly with birds and sky, she also has a strong associated with midwives and birth. It is said that Hylea visits people when they hear the screams of a woman in childbirth, and that if a woman dies in childbirth, her soul is carried away and reborn as an avian attendent of Hylea's Court. A godlike of Hylea will often appear as a Kith creature but with bird-like qualities. Often the hair is replaced with feathers. There may be many other oddities to an avian godlike, as they are called, but they are incredibly rare to find in Eora. In Pillars of Eternity there is only one avian godlike known, which is the companion Pallegina. In Avowed, a follower of Hylea may have a background in midwifery (what a word!!), which could give them unique contacts within the game's story. As well, being the Queen of Birds perhaps the ability to fly could be involved in the game. While that seems quite fanciful an idea, I would definitely consider following a deity like Hylea in Avowed if I could have access to flight abilities. MAGRAN - goddess of war and fire Magran Magran is the goddess of war and fire, though it would be appropriate to heavily associate the word trials with her as well. Magran does not permit her followers to avoid or ignore trials, for they are the purifying fire that creates the best of individuals. It was followers of Magran that were responsible for the development of Godhammer, the bomb which allegedly killed the deity known as Eothas, of whom Magran was an enemy of. Magranites, the name given to followers of Magran, are known for their boldness and quick wits. As a result, it is no surprise to find that Magran's favored dispositions are cleverness and aggressiveness. If Durance (a companion of Pillars of Eternity) is any example, it is not uncommon to see a Magranite refer to Magran as a bitch, or a whore. Rather than being an insult these terms are spoken in an almost endearing way. Depending on where and when in the world of Eora Avowed takes place, Magran may or may not be a large player in the story. Wouldn't it be fascinating to play a character who partakes in the making or deploying of the Godhammer bomb, used to kill a god? Could a player following Magran expect a higher degree of difficulty in the game, since Magran's followers welcome trials in their life? As well, fire godlikes are among some of the most badass looking characters. ONDRA (ahn-drah) - goddess of all seas and ocean Ondra, as \"Ngati\" Ondra is the goddess of seas/ocean and to a certain degree the moon as well. Among the Huana, a society of Aumaua within the Deadfire Archipelago, she is known as Ngati (nh-gah-tee). Stories of Ondra are the oldest of lore, one of the earliest tales being that of her adoration of the moon which caused it to fall upon Eora's waters, causing monumental damage. In reality, Ondra had flung the moon at the ancient society of Engwithans in order to exterminate them; though Abydon intervened on her plans. Ondra is associated with loss and forgetfulness. Many adore Ondra for her gift of forgetfulness. When one loses a loved one they begin mourning. When the mourning turns to peacefulness you could say you have 'forgotten' the person, at least in an intimate way. Without this forgetting we could not move on from our grief. This forgetfulness is one such blessing viewed as bestowed by Ondra herself. In practicing this, many followers of Ondra will toss items associated with loss and grief into the ocean as a way of beginning that path to forgetful acceptance of reality. In Avowed we may be able to play as a marine/moon godlike. In Pillars II: Deadfire, the only instance of hearing Ondra's voice is heard through peering into the soul of Tekehu, one of the player character's companions in the game. I think it would be very interesting to have a quest-line that involves radical Ondra worshippers forcing memory loss on people. Could that happen to you, if you worship Ondra in game? RYMRGAND (REE-mear-gahnd) - god of death, famine, plague, simple bad luck the Watcher interacting with a manifestation of Rymrgand Rymrgand is the god who's name I always mispronounce and misspell. He goes by another name: the Beast of Winter. He is a deity embodying coldness and entropy. While Berath is a god who sees death as an inevitability and cyclical; Eothas sees death as a consequence and a second chance; Rymrgand sees death as the end - as stillness. While Berath uses Death as a means to Life, Rymrgand would is the act of death itself. A godlike of Rymrgand is known as an endings godlike. In the Pillars world there is only one known endings godlike mentioned: Vatnir; and NPC in the Pillars II DLC: Beast of Winter. An endings godlike's body attacks itself and others around it, causing both to decay. In Avowed, could being an endings godlike, or being near one, cause damage over time? Could the god of entropy be one of the main antagonists/protagonists of the game? There is much mystery to Rymrgand, even with the lore shown in the Beast of Winter DLC, named after the god himself. SKAEN - god of secret hatred, resentment and violent rebellion Skaen (left) and Woedica (right) Skaen, the Quiet Slave is one of the more "typical" evil gods in Eora's pantheon - further emphasized by his divine domains: defiance, secret hatred, covert plots, resentment, envy, and violent rebellion. However, despite his disposition towards cruelty and deception, a Skaenite is not necessarily evil. Indeed, none of the gods are "evil", in of themselves, as each god is the representation of an ideal, which itself is amoral rather than moral or immoral. Skaen is the god who is present in the heart of those who seek penultimate vengeance through cunning and violence - all within a shround of secrecy. Skaen iconography Possibly the only ally of Woedica, Skaen is also called the Queen's Slave. Skaen is known to manifest as a horrific incarnation known as the Effigy - a ghastly creature you can call upon in Pillars. Skaenites can be found plotting the destruction of their superiors, all with an impassive face. For this reason, it is hard to identify one, especially in public. In Avowed there may be Skaenites located anywhere within Eora. Indeed, many people may be praying to Skaen in their vengeful daydreams without intending to. Could it be possible to follow a path of vengeance in Avowed during quests, and unknowingly place yourself in an encounter with Skaen himself? If Skaen has a godlike, what would it be like? How many stories/games have we played where revenge is the thrust of the narrative? Perhaps, too, in Avowed we may see Skaen at play more than we admit to think. WAEL - god of dreams, secrets, mysteries and revelations One of (presumably) many manifestions of the deity known as Wael A reddit post on Wael will be released in the near future. Wael's symbol... maybe? In Avowed, Wael could be behind anything, and may even be behind the game's creation entirely. A Wael godlike could appear as anyone. Perhaps you have been one this entire time... would you even know it? (spoilers) WOEDICA (wood-ick-uh) - goddess of law, justice and oaths. Left: banner symbol in Avowed reveal trailer; Right: artist depiction of Woedica Woedica, known as the Exiled Queen as well as the Burned Queen, among a few other names. Is arguably the strongest of the deities, and for that reason, she was exiled by the other gods. She sits and waits, planning her "rightful" revenge; perhaps it is for this reason she is allied with Skaen. Wherever law and justice are practiced, you can find followers of Woedica. In the Pillars of Eternity game, she is the main unseen antagonist. In Pillars II: Deadfire, she uses the player character as a means to test Kith as worthy. She holds justice and oaths as two of her main domains. Individuals who break their oaths may live in fear of Woedica's wrath. In Avowed's reveal trailer the symbol for Woedica can be seen on the banner hanging on the castle wall. For this reason Woedica is believed to play a large part of the game's narrative. As well, this could indicate a potential faction heavily involved in the story, potentially revealing timeline, location and other details: Woedica is the primarily worshipped god by the empire of Aedyr. Does the line at the end of the trailer "is an oath worth the weight of a crown" indicate a tension between our player character and following the path of Woedica?
Destiny 2: Bound Labor - The Forgotten History of Looter Shooter Mechanics
Bungie has forgot the history and core of what makes a looter shooter, a looter shooter and a non-stop fun cyclical loop of addictive gameplay. From the old school Hellgate: London, to the popular Borderlands and Warframe that spearheaded the genre, to newer concepts like The Division & Remnant: From The Ashes. Looter shooters have very few core mechanics to get right, and when not done well it destroys the entire game experience ( Poor Anthem ).
Randomness
Loot
Worthwhile progression systems
These are the core and essence of what makes a looter shooter good. Over the years and each new season Bungie dies and loses sight of the mechanics and creates an even worse experience than before. There would not be a feeling of "content droughts" if these core mechanics were done well, because ultimately the player should always have something to do and strive for at all times.
Each new season removes randomness from the game and creates deterministic transactional content. Just take a look at Umbral Engrams in Season of the Arrivals, Pursuits in Season of the Undying, and even the mediocre Lure in Season of the Hunt. Then there's the exotic quests which are nice every once in a while, are at the end of the day transactional and a huge step away from the old days of simply having to get lucky, find an exotic engram, and get lucky to get the reward you want. These days you can just pick up all the old stuff from the monument in the tower, or buy what you are missing from Xur directly. Even the season pass gives exotic engrams which will guaranteed give you something you are missing. The only step forward Bungie has made was adding random perk rolls to weaponry. The mediocre random stat rolls on gear at the end of the day have no major effect on gameplay at the end of the day, and is in fact made even less important with the ability to slot additional stats on armor, and masterwork armor for more free stats. There's only a few major stats to worry about and getting 2 stats capped is extremely easy, and with some time farming high stat armor even 3 stats at 100 is possible.
Loot is the core of a looter shooter. You need a wide variety of loot in a looter shooter, and they need to be meaningful or unique in some way, either through perk availability, stat distribution, or just appearance. Meaningful loot does not exist in Beyond Light outside of the Lament and Cloudstrike quests, and the couple few new exotic items, which can be easily target farmed in a day thanks to the lost sectors removing yet another content loop from the game. Raid armor has low stats equivalent to any normal armor drops elsewhere removing the desire to even farm them ( people don't even use the raid specific mods as using them results in less damage in the raid from other buffs ). The rewards from the Lure are extremely limited, and ultimately worthless and outclassed by old rewards. All loot outside of the Lure, and Europa is worthless due to sunsetting, a trash mechanic implemented poorly. So bad that all other content on other planets rewards sunset gear that is useless in the current state of the game.
Destiny 2 has meaningless progression systems built just for the sake of saying that they exist. The light level system is a trash meaningless progression system built just for the sake of making stuff we have useless over time. The grind to soft cap is easily done, and reaching and surpassing the pinnacle cap is easily abused thanks to the season pass. Intentionally not accepting any armor reward until you have hit the soft cap. Add on having multiple characters of the same class on your account. All vendor progression systems are worthless either cause they give sunset items, or give under level rewards forcing you to waste rare upgrade modules to use those items if they are of any value to you. These vendors only exist today to carry bounties to check a stupid box for a reward every week, and for vendors outside of Europa and the Tower, those bounties can only be done on a planet that has sunset rewards, and offers nothing of value besides worthless xp and glimmer. There are no truly meaningful progression systems in Destiny 2. In fact Destiny 1 had more progression systems with things like Factions, faction rep, and the Prison of Elders rep farm which also gave guaranteed ascending materials. Then there was the Legendary Marks farming.
At the end of the day this expansion has made the game x10 worse, and only pushed it further away from what it is supposed to be. It destroys the game for any free to play players who care, and ruins the game for its veteran players consistently every expansion and season that passes by. I think Bungie needs to go back to its roots, and reintroduce mechanics that are key to cyclical addictive grinds.
Every playlist and activity should have its own specific loot pool, with random non specific loot available rarely. Ie Strikes, Night Falls, Crucible, Gambit, Patrols, Lost Sectors, and Public Events should all have loot that can only be obtained from those activities, with some loot only obtainable from harder content in those activities ( Strikes, Nightfalls, Lost Sectors, and Heroic Public Events ). These PvE activities should have loot with specific perks that have a higher likelihood to drop on certain planets over others, meaning all activities on all planets in the game are worth your time.
Lost Sectors and Night Falls should not be guaranteed to give exotics within a day or two of farming them. Thanks to these Lost Sectors and NF's you can obtain every exotic armor in the game with little to no effort. Exotic Engrams from Xur should have Catalysts added to the loot pool to dilute the chances of getting a weapon or armor you don't have, but also give players a way to obtain them and bypass some of the cancer unlock mechanics some exotics have just to get their catalyst (Symmetry, Eriana's Vow, ect). Instead of Xur giving 3 guaranteed exotics that you know exactly what they are, instead have him give a random class specific exotic.
Players who dismantle already upgraded weapons and armor should receive all item investments in said item. Master working gear is extremely expensive, especially exotics. Consistently sunsetting and making our items worthless over time and giving us little to nothing when we dismantle these items is a horrible mechanic that only encourages people to not play the game. I already put the grind and the work into master working the gear. It is already bad enough I have to go find an entire new full set of weapons and armor, but you want to force the entire player base to masterwork all their gear every year or more depending how long their current items have left to be sunset.
Champions limit build diversity and are a poorly implemented mechanic in the game. By design these champions force weapon loadouts and mods in armor to be mandatory. I thought Destiny was supposed to be a looter shooter where you "play the way you want". Instead this season I am forced to use SMG's and Scout rifles with Surge Eater and Thermal Overload mods in my cape. Not only that but I need to use specific elements as well thanks to match game. Overload Rounds, Anti Barrier Rounds, and Unstoppable Rounds need to be turned into Generic mods with only 1 cost. This will increase build diversity and actually allow people to play how they want, not how Bungie has decided we will play. Looter shooters by design are about creativity, diversity, and freedom of choice to do what ever you want. Destiny does not have freedom but demands, both in PvP and PvE.
This game lacks new loot. In reality most of the "new" loot is actually just old loot with a new name and a higher light level. It is an incredible insult to the player base to take the loot they already have and pawn that same loot back on to them and pretend it is new.
The Eclipsed Zone is a huge letdown and a lost opportunity to create a really good mechanic in the game. It would far more exciting if The Eclipsed Zone applied a modifier to all enemies and content in that zone, and applied a random beneficial modifier to gear obtained in that zone at that time. Imagine that The Eclipsed Zone made all content in that zone have competition modifier downscaling the power of all players in said zone, which effected the lost sectors, empire hunts, patrols, quests, public events, the raid, and so on. Imagine if weapons and armor obtained in that zone during this time was altered by "Alkahest", created by Clovis Bray l, resulting in items with completely random stats on weapons, and random mod slots and max energy caps on armors. Right now weapons have base stats, that are then modified by what ever perks it has. Imagine how much more farming potential and cyclical this would be if the base stats themselves were random, and then modified by the perks it rolled. Now imagine the public events were replaced with new Raid level difficulty events, with their own mechanics and Heroic Difficulty unlock conditions. This has infinite potential to get players into challenging content fluidly, making it fun, and rewarding, and hassle free. This whole instanced base challenging content is really the opposite of what the game should be going for.
Finally I just want to say this game by design promotes a lack of social interaction. The lack of matchmaking in soft cap power and higher strikes, night falls, and Hunts, along with Dungeons, Raids, and even quests that force you into content requiring a team (but can be solo if you are really good) all promote a lack of social interaction. The fact that getting a group for these from your clan can be impossible, and the over emphasis of forcing the player base to use third party apps and websites to attempt to do this content is ridiculous. Especially when that content requires no communication at all to be done by a group of random people. There is a reason why glitches, and methods to do this content solo is extremely popular, and its because Bungie does not incentivize doing the content in a group by strictly forbidding you from even attempting it with others without going out of your way just to find someone. I just wish Bungie would stop making these short lived time limited experiences that ultimately become meaningless to the point where they even opt to just remove the content entirely from the game themselves. Each expansion or Season brings along a temporary short lived experience. I would expect that in the future some sort of single individual piece of content is added to the game that can be expanded and altered for Destiny 2's entire foreseeable future, and still be a piece of relevant core content. For a game that was branded as being a living breathing world, it feels very much the opposite of what it was intended to be. When Path of Exile added the Mapping system to their game it changed their game forever and has become the core for all future content ever since its inception. All Destiny needs is 1 single piece of core content like this to exist that they can mold every year or every season to keep people hooked. Instead we get an empty game filled with more disappointment.
As a fully licensed online casino and sportsbook, Pinnacle does not accept bets from US players. Pinnacle - Premium Casino Games Available in Popular Categories. Although Pinnacle is marketed as a premium sportsbook, this operator also supports a Pinnacle casino platform. I suggest you to check out Betonline - unlike Pinnacle they accept players from USA and have deposit/withdrawal options for them, so you can avoid bitcoin (though they accept bitcoin too) Unfortunately, Pinnacle sports don’t accept many countries, therefore we share Pinnacle Restricted countries first to save your time. Since they don’t use geo-blocking, you may physically access to Pinnacle com login from anywhere though, it doesn’t mean you can open Pinnacle account. Pinnacle for US Players When I go to the Pinnacle website, it ... 'we cannot accept USA based players but we do not ask for location for players who exclusively use bitcoin'. Pinnacle does not have a first deposit bonus. While that might seem strange, if you understand the appeal of Pinnacle as a sportsbook, you soon realize that it simply does not need to offer a ... Pinnacle Sportsbook has been around for 20+ years since it was established back in 1998 and accepts players from 80 countries. The formerly known Pinnacle Sports was renamed to Pinnacle.com in 2016. The brand is whitelisted in Malta and in Curacao, while it acquired a Swedish license in June 2020. Pinnacle never caps odds for consistent winners neither does it exclude any players for big wins and the unusual thing of all is its full acceptance of arbitrage players. Pinnacle can accept this type of gambler because it does not need to conform to the standard pricing model used by most online sportsbooks. Pinnacle Sports Review. By Isaiah Founder & Editor of Betshoot.com Last updated on Jan 27, 2021.. Over the years, I have not found any bad testimonials about Pinnacle sportsbook. They are one of the most reliable bookmakers that you will find on the internet. We've thoroughly reviewed Pinnacle Casino and gave it a perfect reputation rating, which is the best rating any casino can get from us.In our review, we've considered the casino's player complaints, estimated revenues, license, games genuineness, customer support quality, fairness of terms and conditions, withdrawal and win limits, and other factors. Why Pinnacle wants profitable players Reports of bettors having their accounts closed or restricted to pennies by mainstream bookmakers is nothing new among profitable bettors. With Pinnacle claiming that winners are welcome, betting analyst, Joseph Buchdahl, puts our odds to the test to determine why Pinnacle not only accept winners, but also offers top-notch education to help bettors improve ...
Learn about Pinnacle Studio’s disc authoring tools and how they are used to create a DVD menu, create and edit chapters and export your movie to disc. Downlo... Get step-by-step instructions on how to export your Pinnacle Studio video projects, to view on your computer or upload to a social media site. Download a pr... It's super frustrating when you video editing software randomly decides to stop working. Well in this case, I found a solution thanks to someone's comment on... Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate Audio Correction tutorial. This audio correction tutorial on Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate will show you how to correct the audio i... Here is the Solution if you are facing No Video preview issue in Pinnacle Studio Video Editor.My OS: Windows 7 Home BasicMicrosoft DirectX End-User Runtime W... Pinnacle Studio no audio. This is the fix for when there is no sound in Pinnacle Studio. This is the fix if there is no audio or sound preview in the edit mo... [VOICE + TEXT] Discover how to apply Text and Titles with Pinnacle Studio 20 Ultimate by Corel. Corel Pinnacle Studio 20 text tutorial, beginners, basics.Ful... Author DVDs with customizable themed menus, chapters, and music. Select your template and begin importing your finished videos. Set chapters, menus, customiz... Get into a new Way of Learning Pinnacle Studio 23! Tutorial beginners, getting started, basics. 🔥MORE at https://theskillsfactory.com/There is not a show or... Pinnacle Studio 17, When i add a video to the time line and click on play, no video preview is displayed.Visit my website:http://www.avoiderrors.net/?p=24193...
![[FIX] Pinnacle Studio No Video Preview Issue - YouTube](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mZSslBJKneo/default.jpg "Get step-by-step instructions on how to export your Pinnacle Studio video projects, to view on your computer or upload to a social media site. Download a pr...")
