It's beta time, folks! Well, not at this exact moment, but later today...if you pre-ordered on PS4 or otherwise got your hands on a PS4 code.

• PS4 Pre-order: 18-20th
• Xbone Pre-order: 19-20th
• Open Beta: 21-23rd

• Character creator upon starting the beta
• Opening story mission, Homecoming
• Two Crucible modes, Countdown (new to Destiny 2, attack and defend based) and Control (classic zone control)
• Two Crucible maps, Midtown (Countdown only) and Endless Vale (Control only)
• Co-operative Strike, The Inverted Spire
• New sub-classes, Warlock (Dawnblade and Voidwalker), Hunter (Arcstrider and Gunslinger) and Titan (Sentinel and Striker)
• Over 20 weapons and 45 armour pieces, including Exotics Sweet Business, Sunshot and Riskrunner
• Social Space, The Farm (for one hour only on July 23 at 6pm UK time / 10am PST)
• Four emotes, for dancing, waving, sitting and pointing
• New emblem to unlock in the full game if you play the beta

I've played the first Destiny lately in short sessions, just doing random missions around the world. Despite already having done some of those missions in the past (my quest log's all kinds of messed up), I've still had fun replaying them just because I like the gameplay a bunch. If there's a solid campaign in two that tells a coherent story within the game, that alone might be enough to sell me on Destiny 2. Obviously I wouldn't mind them polishing it up in several different ways as well, but that'd at least be a good start.

I've got the beta downloaded on my PS4, so I'll be in the first wave of testers. That is, if we're assuming that the servers won't blow up.

I have that new Glacier White PS4 Pro on pre-order that comes with the game. But, that means I don't get me a beta code, so I guess I'll be playing on the 21st. I originally wasn't gunna be in for Destiny 2 until people had confirmed the content was there at launch, but I've been waiting to get a PS4 Pro and 4k TV once a white one came out (I have multiple white PS4 controllers since I bought the original Glacier White PS4 with the first Destiny, and obviously they have to match) so here I am buying Destiny 2 I guess.

At least it comes with the expansion pass included this time, so that's a decent chunk more confirmed content in the first year!

Really looking forward to this

Have they definitely said it would be one subclass only? They kept talking about 6 subclasses at E3 for the beta (that's two for each class) which would mean Striker, Sentinel, Arcstrider, Gunslinger, Dawnblade, Voidwalker. The only news I've found so far that there would be only one subclass each was on Polygon, which had entirely inferred it from the beta announcement which didn't officially state that.

Edit: Looked it up. It is very likely 6 subclasses. Bungie have said 6 since E3 and the sources that claim 3 have no official source to back it up.

Edit 2: It is 6.

Edit 3: This is a good time to remind everyone that we have two major Giant Bomb clans. Cerberus Wolves, which I created and BatmanBatmanBatman, led by @hestilllives19. You are free to join these clans!

What Cerberus Wolves is about:

'We're a clan that is as dedicated to D2 as we are flexible. We're going hardcore Raiding, Nightfalls, Trials and every other endgame activity, but we also do casual activities regularly. We have and support every skill range imaginable. You're welcome regardless of skill level or dedication (though keep in mind that you will need to meet certain requirements for certain activities depending on how good everyone else is, there's just no way around that).

We'll try to include you as much as possible, but don't be afraid to join the party on your own initiative!'

We currently house around 60 members, but I am expecting some of them to drop off. If you are looking at this and think: 'Hm... having a group to do things with would be handy but I don't know if I shou...'YES! You should! We could really use you and are happy to play with you. You're doing us as much of a favor as you are yourself. Send me a message on this website or on PSN and I will invite you to the clan on July 25th.

@zevvion: Yeah, all of the link are over on the Grouping Post. Just an FYI, clans are active within the Beta, I noticed that on TrueVanguards stream a few minutes ago as all of his RESOLUTE teammates were showing.

Got in after 15 minutes and played the opening mission (pretty good late title card) and the Strike. Seems like Destiny so far, even if those were really small snippets to show-off. I'll probably try the competitive/crucible once at least, but PvP was never my thang in Destiny.

Game looks and sounds awesome! Running on Pro myself.

I was impressed with the opening story mission. Was expecting more after that based on the Destiny 1 beta, but that was enough I suppose. I really like how weapons are handled now. And the new subclass for Titan is pretty good. I like the shield attack and throw. I'll check out the other two later. Off to check out the new crucible.

Torn the on crucible. I don't like 4v4. I don't like seeing everyone's info. I didn't really enjoy the two matches I played. I didn't find them fun.

It's Destiny so meh, not that good.

1. SMGs are fun.
2. The first story mission was better than I thought it would be.
3. The hunter dodge roll is a huge bummer. I don't feel like I lost anything by forgetting I had it most of the time in PvE. It might be a decent PvP tool but not without a scuf controller. Truly a baffling design decision.
4. They weren't kidding about these fixed weapon rolls. My first PvP match I just got the exact same SMG I was currently using.

Just me or is TTK in this beta in PVP way too fast.

@spamfromthecan: Haha, just no. It's actually the opposite (engagements look like they are taking forever). It kinda works compared to Destiny 1 because they've slowed movement speed, and changed both Melee's and Grenades so that they now both don't do as much damage. But from what I can tell, and the numbers I've seen from people like Mercules904 on Reddit, we are pretty much sitting at exactly 50% more TTK on weapons across the board compared to Destiny 1. A game in which many, myself included, thought the biggest issue was the increasing TTK at around 0.9s optimal compared to around 1.25s in Destiny 2 so far. With Supers that can 1HKO and Power Weapons that can do the same, a high TTK is a really bad thing. I think the slowed movement speed (even though Destiny's movement speed was one of my favorite parts about it) is the biggest thing making this increased TTK work in Destiny 2. Less ability spam is great from what I've seen as well, though Supers are a little too uncommon right now, 1 per game for only the top 1-3 players. Melee's should also hit for about 50% of health rather than about 35% from what it looks like. Honestly, the biggest things we can tell right now, is that it seems fun to play a gun game again for players who still play Destiny 1 because the current Meta there is unbelievably awful with ability spam and forced special weapon usage. But it just looks like a whole lot less exciting of a game to play/watch than Destiny 1 was at it's height because it seems impossible to make great clutch type plays. Everything is routine teamshots and clean cut kills. Which makes for pretty poor looking Twitch and Montages. But it might make it more fun and accessible for the majority of the community, and I think that's what Bungie is going for.

Titan Barricade is super strong. It has a quick cooldown for what it does and is immensely useful. Ward of Dawn is less useful as a result, it only grants Armor of Light as well. It will likely still be used in endgame activities from time to time though.

Countdown is amazing. It feels tense. Control is fun. I really like their split of 'low intensity' and 'high intensity' playlists.

Scouts seem noticeably better in range than Pulse Rifles which was much needed. It seems much harder to hit with Hand Cannons now. Requires more precision.

Sentinel is not OP. That shield throw has almost no native tracking. If you throw it two centimeters off of someone, it will still track them, but half a meter and nope, off into the skybox it goes. It also has one charge only. You can throw it twice in one Super if you time it right, which isn't that much. Striker still kills Guardians in their Super in one hit with the smash. Not with the shoulder bash

They have altered some perks of the Striker as well, last we saw them.

Overall: it was a mistake to play this beta. Now I want to play the game but still have to wait 1,5 months.

@hestilllives19: I don't know about all that. It sure feels like I'm killing people much quicker than D1.

@spamfromthecan: It is slowed down pretty significantly, about 25%. There are no OHK outside of Power weapons and Supers anymore. Also, ttk is generally increased across the board. It takes 4 shots from a Hand Cannon to kill someone as opposed to 2-3 as before for example.

@spamfromthecan: Destiny Spreadsheet, this is about as accurate as it is possible for TTK's to be. Destiny 2 Spreadsheet isn't quite so accurate because it's based on information we know as of now, timed video rates of fire, and the damage numbers we've seen, but should be pretty close to accurate based on what we know as of now (keep in mind it will be updated as the Beta goes along). Though all of this is subject to change, and likely will, before launch in September.

Comparable Guns...

• Scouts do less variable damage in Destiny 2 (52-44 crit) compared to Destiny 1 (73-45). Optimal Kill times as a result have gone from 3 to 4 shots on High Impact resulting in TTK of 1.2s rather than 0.8s. Lower Impact Scouts appear to be 1.33s compared to 0.9s and 0.93s.
• Pulse Rifles, in a similar fashion, have gone from 0.67/0.87/1.0s to 1.2s mainly because they now require 4 rather than 3 burst per gun.
• Hand Cannons sit between 1.2-1.3s compared to 0.8/0.87/1.0s. They as well went from 3 bullets to 4 bullets to kill.
• Auto Rifles are kind of all over the place. They have always required too many crits optimally to hit their optimal TTK's, and also require constant damage, which makes them rather unattractive compared to other weapon types. But they have been hit the least hard here. Going up to 1.07-1.1 (Sweet Business can hit 0.93 once spun up as the fastest TTK right now) from 0.87/0.90/0.93. Keep in mind Suros Regime had a 0.7s TTK once Spun Up using that perk in Destiny 1. Auto's seem to be an attractive choice in Destiny 2 though, as their Range Falloff has been improved drastically compared to Destiny 1.
• Submachineguns didn't exist in Destiny 1, but they can most closely be associated with the Doctrine of Passing Auto Rifle archetype at a 0.87s TTK in Destiny 1. They also suffer less range than those Auto's. They come in at a pretty hot 1.0-1.07 TTK though.
• Sidearms were also moved from Special to Primary. They dropped from 0.53/0.6/0.67/0.7s in Destiny 1 to 0.83s, which is the fastest Primary TTK, but also has the least ammo and the lowest range. I also haven't seen a Sidearm in the Beta yet, so these are numbers from DRE and E3 videos.

Like I said, everything takes about 50% longer to kill another player with, at least within the archetypes people actually used in Destiny 1 currently like High Impact Scouts, Mid Impact HC's, Low Impact Pulses, and Low Impact Auto's. All of those sit in the 0.8-0.87s TTK range. The most frequently used guns you will likely see in this Beta will be sitting around the 1.2-1.3s timeframe.

It may feel about the same though, because they decreased movement speeds by as much as 60-75%. There is no more Bones Control or Titan Skating players zooming at you or away from your shots. This could be resulting in the shorter TTK feel you are seeing.

It's Destiny. I'm enjoying it. I look forward to completing the story and doing no raids at all again.

Countdown is a lot of fun. Quick exciting matches.

Further thoughts:

I played around with arcstrider and I'm taken aback with the gaul on Bungie's part calling this a new subclass. I know people are calling it the pole dancer but a more appropriate name would be the trash blade dancer.

Because it's just blade dancer with the interesting abilities stripped out and a shade step you can do once in a blue moon. It's blade dancer down to the janky start/stop melee on the super. It might look nicer and have a bit more range but that super is functionality identical to arc blade.

Also, it's hard to stress how much the dodge roll hurts the hunter gameplay experience. Warlock and Titans can get to make the choice of when to trigger their respective abilities which help them and their allies fight, hold positions and so on. This choice is meaningful and interesting. It ads much needed variety to what feels like a stripped down gameplay experience especially in PvP. In contrast, hunters can decide when to use a worst version of a Destiny 1 ability that is downright pointless in PvE and very limited in PvP. The dodge roll is lazy, boring to use and it's just lame.

Looks like there is some heavy Skill Based Matchmaking turned on in the Beta. KJHovey/Managator/Mtashed just matched with DrLupo/Ninja_With_No_L two matches in a row after separating. In the second match, IFrostbolt randomely joined on DrLupo's team. This is too crazy of a coincidence, seeing as all of these streamers are located in different areas, have all been playing since Beta launch, and are now being thrown together seemingly frequently. I have also noticed as the day has gone along, teams like KJHovey's, DrLupos, and TripleWrecks have been facing much tougher competition and seeing much closer games than their constant mercies in the first hour or so. How do you guys feel about this? Personally I don't really like it at all. SBMM was one of the worst things to ever happen in Destiny 1, and to see the pull so strong that top 100 players are matching each other frequently within the first 5 hours is pretty insane.

Update: I just looked up the players KJHovey has matched the last two matches. Pretty frequent 2.0 K/D Trials players with 100+ Flawless runs. A few players like myself around the 1.5 K/D mark and a few that didn't play Destiny. This means they are constantly playing top 1% players already. This is pretty nuts in my opinion. Sometimes I don't understand it when Bungie makes the same stupid decisions the playerbases hates and has railed against in the past...

I will check this out when it's open on ps4 to see if i will get it on pc, I hope their will be a pc beta too though.

@oursin_360: there will be. Thinks it's in august

My hope is that they're trying to make sure all the people who have never played a Destiny game before don't get matched up against the top 1% of players. Perhaps with the full game, they won't care as much about that sort of thing, but they don't want to ruin anyone's first impressions of the game.

@hestilllives19: I fail to see why this is a bad thing. I've been on both sides in various games, and constantly stomping the competition is as boring as getting constantly stomped and only slightly more fun. As long as it doesn't lead to super long queues, I can't see why anyone would ever complain about decent matchmaking.

I hope they buff abilities and super cooldowns. I've gone through entire matches without a super or getting one at the very end.
Also grenades already got a big damage nerf, having a long cooldown only makes them even worse. This especially hurts my experience with PvE, it feels like I go through most battles with my abilities unavailable due to long cooldowns. Which IMHO is kinda boring. At least the shooting still feels good and the story presentation is alot better.

@spaceinsomniac: That's my hope as well. Especially considering Destiny has a really bad history in regards to SBMM and it's implementation without warning or anyone in the communities desire for it halfway through The Taken King.

@punched: There is a lot more to heavily pulled matchmaking within Destiny's history, and very much not in a good way. Bungie stealth implemented extremely strong SBMM setting into Destiny during The Taken King in December 2015 pretty much out of nowhere, and without informing the community, and actually even going so far as to lie about even doing it for a few months (to gather unbiased data). Because of Destiny's really awful netcode, this led to horrifically laggy games on a pretty constant basis. Not just for the top 1%, who honestly felt it the hardest, but for everyone. This happened because to add that strong of SBMM you have to segment the population into extremely small groupings, which led to Pings of 400-500 on a frequent basis, and players that were often more than 1,500 miles apart in every single game. And this was when there were still 1.5m active daily players or so, so not really a small population per say. Regular Crucible became unplayable to be completely honest, and Bungie, after extreme community backlash on places like their own forum and Reddit, finally toned down their SBMM settings. In Destiny right now, it's much better, but skill is still a very strong determining factor (I can't remember the last time I've played a single person with a negative lifetime K/D in normal Crucible, generally they are 1.3+). They did finally turn it down enough that matches are actually more location based, as in US players play other US based players a large % of the time (as opposed to the mostly South American, Latin American, British, and even Australian and Saudi Arabian players I was matched with before). The other big problem it presents is it doesn't match teams based on the aggregate of a teams skill, but rather the best player on the team is weighted the most. This presents a situation where players who are extremely good aren't really able to play with average, below average, or even often above average players, because the matchmaking will set itself to play a team of top 1% players if even 1 top 1% player is on the team. Another interesting trend SBMM brought into Destiny is a drastic widening of the Skill gap. Trials of Osiris never had SBMM turned on at all. Because of this, anyone could match anyone else. What happened in practice though is the lower brackets of players started constantly playing lower skilled players, developing bad habits, and not seeing top level techniques and strategies outside of Trials of Osiris. At the same time, top level players had the opposite effect, seeing constant smart players, developed better habits, and turned into better players because they not only knew all of the best techniques but also how to counter them as well. This turned Trials into a landslide when these two groups would match each other, even if the good players weren't great, they were so far out of the lower tier players league, it wasn't even a fight anymore.

So, I'm not saying no SBMM criteria should exist within Destiny at all, what I"m saying is this level of extremely strong SBMM has absolutely no place, especially when there are no in game tiers or any way to even recognize or reward players for playing in those top tier brackets. If lag wasn't a concern, and players were rewarded based on the difficulty, then I don't see it as a problem, but neither of those things has ever or ever will likely be true with Destiny.

@bollard: Hopefully the first two expansions are more beefy than Dark Below and House of Wolves, since the pass seems to cover only those, like it did with the first game's SP. I think The Taken King and Iron were only sold as seperate packs? I also hope that the bigger ones cost less than 40€ this time around...

I've never played the first Destiny, but are intrigued. Luckily on PC, so anyway i'll have to wait some weeks, while I watch twitch and read impressions before I can even buy it.

That said, I have been looking for a Borderlands fix lately. Several players together, random loot and skill / level progression.

So; Does Destiny scratch that Borderlands itch?

@paulkemp: No. Can't be compared. Destiny is not and is not trying to be Borderlands.

So I haven't finished downloading the 12GB and opened up the game, now it's on the "Transferring Game Content" screen with 0.00GB out of 11.00GB. Will quitting out of the game now affect the download? I don't want to have Destiny 2 running all night.

Yeah Taken King was sold separately as it fell outside the year expansion pass. That said, House of Wolves was alright (but those packs were definitely not worth £20 each).

Either way I'm not going to turn my nose up at "free" content, when the price of a PS4 Pro and Destiny 2 is the same as the Glacier White bundle that comes with the pass. If I like the game I'll just have to suck it up and pay for the inevitable "large" expansion that'll come after the expansion pass DLC.

@zevvion: No of course, but you are looting and shooting with your friends. So its scratching a coop looting itch.

What is the main drive for playing Destiny? Whats the funnest part? Is it your skill progression as a player, or a character? Is it your rewards? Is it the fun of it?

@paulkemp: It has a lot of rerunning missions to get better weapons so yes. It follows the term "loot shooter" cause it's not really a mmorpgfps game imo.

@paulkemp: It isn't a loot shooter like Borderlands is. If you are expecting to do some stuff and keep getting new and crazy weapons and increase your power, you're going to be disappointed. At max level and with max gear, low level enemies still murder you almost as quick as if you're on level with them. You will never be overpowered like in BL.

It is mostly just a skill shooter with loot elements. The fun part is doing the endgame challenging and possibly getting the gear you want. But unlike BL, gear has a definitive end. You can be maxed out, you can have the exact weapon you wanted. Even better, you can try to get the exact weapon you want specifically. After that, there is no real loot grind. When you have what you want, you're done with that. It's not the main draw of the game like it is in Borderlands.

The two really couldn't be further apart. You're constantly tested and challenged in Destiny. You will never be this demi-god that lays waste to everything. If you will keep playing Destiny beyond finishing it, it will be in a group and it will force you to work together, otherwise you have no chance of success.

Anyone else bothered by both the vastly increased cooldown times, and the much weaker grenade and melee attacks? In PVP, they make it feel like your character class doesn't even matter 90 percent of the time, and in PVE it just makes the game boring.

I can absolutely understand the need to reduce the damage of melee and grenades in PVP, seeing as they increased the time to kill, but the cooldowns feel like they take forever. Everyone getting their super right at the end of a match isn't great either. I think having your super two times in each game would feel a little better, without being overkill. I just have to wonder if the full game will be like this or not.

I'm still having loads of fun with the game, though. PVP feels great, other than that. What does everyone else think?

I quickly slapped a video together looking at all 6 subclass perk clusters. Looks good. Still shit we can't mix and match.

@spaceinsomniac: Supers are shit in both PvP and PvE in terms of cooldowns. The rest feel

@zevvion: @paulkemp: Zevvion isn't really wrong that it's not really like Borderlands. But I know for me at least it really scratched the itch, maybe that I didn't know I had, after playing Borderlands of a Coop game. I feel like Borderlands, at least with my friends, did that pretty well. Destiny does it so much better and on a whole other level. It's hands down the best Coop game out there in my opinion. In all honestly, that is the draw. Don't get me wrong, the loot is great, and at least as far as Destiny 1 is concerned @zevvion is underselling how useful going from Max Level & Light to having many great Armor builds that match your playstyles and top tier Weapons can be. A lot of the Destiny grind has been finding those "gem" or "god roll" weapons because they do make combat significantly easier, even if the same combat can be done with any weapon. So it does have fun on multiple levels, but the part I'm talking about, of finding those "god roll" weapons is changing a bit in Destiny 2 with static rolls. I'm sure some will exist and be sought after, but I haven't seen a single great one in the entire Beta so far for either PvP or PvE. This kind of activity was not really seen by players of Destiny who only played 100 hours or so and just more or less played the story and Raided once or twice either. This is the kind of thing you would only see if you had invested hundreds of hours (sometimes thousands to obtain all of the Exotics like myself and many others around here like @zevvion). So for most players, the big draw isn't the loot game. While that's fun to an extent, and also decently useful (even if enemies scale to your level), the great Coop experience is what Destiny's main draw is. And that only appears to be getting better because of things like better Clan integration within the game and Guided Games. I hope this answers your questions.

As far as my impressions of the Beta last night, I'm very torn on the changes, and mostly in a negative way. I knew this would be the case, but I'm extremely sad one issue is so pervasive already.

Pros: I actually really enjoy the Power Weapon changes in PvP, in a way a really didn't think I would honestly. When they actually happened, having Primary gunfights with other players unhindered by ability spam and Special ammo crutching is actually a lot of fun. From what I've seen, the Class abilities in PvP for each all seem rather useful (though I've only played Titan personally so far, which I plan to change tonight by playing through Warlock, then Hunter on Thursday). Guns themselves, feel good just like always. I really like how they've reduced the effective range of Pulses, and really put them as Mid-Long Range Primary rather than a gun that can cover any range like they are in Destiny 1. It really accentuates Scout Rifles in a way that truly makes them feel useful and unique for the first time in a long time, and I love my Scout Rifles which feel really good here because of this (though I've only used the Titan Scout, I really want to try that Full Auto Hunter Scout). Hand Cannons also feel good in both PvP and PvE (though in PvP I noticed what seemed to be a whole lot of Ghost Bullets again, which I'm not a huge fan of that mechanic returning, especially with this slowed TTK).

Cons: Power Ammo in PvE doesn't drop even remotely often enough, and it seems like outside of Snipers, other Power Weapons (except maybe Linear Fusions, as I just got one and didn't try it) don't seem all that useful, so in that vein I'm very worried about encounters, especially as what we've seen from this Strike, our only content to compare, is a pretty bullet sponge heavy Boss, and primary weapons just really don't cut it. Comparing it to Destiny, a Strike like this should take a very short time period, so in a Nightfall setting, I can see these encounters and Raids being much more dangerous and time consuming purely based on the fact that we have too few ammo reserves for the Power Ammo, and a lack of Special and Heavy to now pull from. (psst @spaceinsomniac) Power recharges are set vastly too low. I really hope this is due to us only having access to piss poor armor, but only getting a couple Supers in a Strike and maybe 1 per Crucible match is just far too low. Supers create dynamic gameplay, and make players have to think on their feet and make quick decisions. One of my favorite moments last night was a game that went to 4-5 (Countdown) and the other team pulled a Sentinel and two Dawnblades and the same time. I suppressed one Dawnblade and we teamshot the others for the round win and clearing all of their Supers. It put us at a huge advantage and was so much fun. We easily Nova'd their last Super and Wiped them with my Sentinel, Arstrider and Dawnblade. Only having those kind of encounters on extremely long games isn't fun. In PvE, it stinks that Grenades aren't able to be used frequently, and I don't like that, but the biggest downside for me isn't even the slow recharge rate. To me, it's the lack of power Grenades now have and how that has drastically impacted PvP in a very negative way. @spamfromthecan yesterday talked about an extremely quick TTK. While that isn't the case in a technical sense, after playing all last night I can understand where that sentiment is coming from. This is because Destiny 2's PvP has already become (as I thought it would, but not to this extent) teamshot the game. I can literally barely remember the 1v1 encounters I had last night. It felt more reminiscent of the few Destiny 1 "sweats" I played, rather than Destiny 1 itself. This is because Destiny 2's mechanics actually actively encourage you to stand 4 players hip to hip and fire at the enemy, even in Control. Any team that does this will win 100% of the time. So while a TTK of 1 player vs 1 player is 1.2s, 1 player vs 2 players is actually 0.4s, and both players are rewarded with points. So while the actual TTK is higher than Destiny 1, the lifespan once fired upon is actually lower due to a vastly higher % of teamshooting in Destiny 2. There were multiple occasions last night where I peaked a corner without the other team on radar, only to find literally all 4 of them who each hit me instantly with 1 shot for an instakill. This is extremely frustrating gameplay and not fun in any sense. The biggest reason this is the case, at least in my mind, is due to the lack of effective area control grenades in Destiny 2. In Destiny 1, each class has access to multiple Grenade options that punish grouping in a major way. A Nightstalker Wombo Combo (Grenade, likely Spike, thrown with a Smoke Grenade) can easily kill anyone within a 10m diameter within 0.5s. Same thing goes for Incendiary Grenades when placed properly. Solar and Vortex grenades can lock off areas and do a lot of damage to stationary groups as well (though they aren't used much as they are kind of bad). Sticky Grenades like Fusions, once stuck to an opponent could kill the stuck opponent, and do 80% damage to anyone within 5m. Both Firebolts and Arcbolt Grenades had their days when they could tag 2-3 players for large health %'s. One of the best, still to this day is the Lightning Grenade for locking down zones, as two Pulses would kill any group in the cone. So when the lethality and the recharge of these grenades has been diminished to these levels, it creates the type of situation we are seeing in the Beta, where players just stand hip to hip and run around the map teamshotting everyone in their path. And while I really enjoy the idea of a Primary gunfight game in Destiny, and think it would work and play well, I just don't think the game will be very fun or dynamic when it's an exercise in who can stand closer to their teammates. Lastly, my most frustrating complaint with the Beta would be the recharge rate of Recovery. As a Titan I have literally full spec'd into Recovery with every Armor piece I've gotten (I think I'm running like a 5-2-6 or something), and even then, if I get shot it's something along the lines of 10 seconds before health starts regenerating. Which is an eternity in this game. Note: I also hate the Revive timer in Countdown being 20 seconds per death, that is just far too long and if a team can't hold a body on a 10 seconds Revive timer, that should be on them. The punishment of only basically having, at most 3 revives, and in practice, really 1, should be enough. Edit: Another huge gripe is the fact that the Roster is not present on the character menu anymore. There are no words to describe how much I hate this and how inconvenient it is already.

Sorry, that was pretty long, just wanted to put it out there how I'm not really feeling this PvP so far. For all it's jank, I honestly like Destiny better. I hope they fix a lot of the glaring issues and that might get me back on board. If it ships like this, I highly doubt I'll be putting another 1,000 hours just into the Destiny 2 PvP like I did with Destiny 1, I'll probably go back to being a primarily PvE player.

I really hope they drop at least something of the open world into the beta, because that's what will make or break the game for me. As someone who has zero engagement with Destiny PVP, there isn't much for me to go on so far, other than the opening mission looks good.

@hestilllives19: In regards to the comment you posted about TTK. Yeah I realized this was why last night myself after playing it more. It seems so quick because a lot of people are playing as actual squads and concentrating their fire. Not everyone is lone wolfing it. Which I'm not a fan of honestly. I love the chaos of D1 6v6 where most everyone is just doing their own thing. I find that extremely fun. I don't really find this new 4v4 team focused stuff fun.

@spamfromthecan: Yeah, I completely agree. In my experience absolutely nobody was lone wolfing it at all. I'm pretty sure I won 80% of my 1v1's (all 4/5 that actually happened, haha) last night but coming from a frequent Destiny 2 non sweat player I find it hard and honestly not all that fun to just attach a rope to my teammates and just chill on their curtails. This lead to a whole lot of frustration last night and frequent deaths to 1v2, 1v3, and even 1v4's when I was more than 5m away from my teammates. Even more frustrating to me was quickly noticing I had put myself into a bad position, get hit by 2-3 of the 4 shots to kill me, disengaging and not being able to re-engage in any fights for upwards of 10-15 seconds due to the horrific recovery rate, or even have them be able to push on me for that same period of time. I generally don't even run recovery builds in Destiny 1 and those are even 4-5x faster than the recovery here. It's extremely annoying. There is a lot to love about the D2 Beta, but there is also a whole lot of just awfully stupid design decisions on Bungie's part. Luckily they have already talked about fixes for a few of the issues, Power Ammo bricks in PvE frequency being improved for launch and no more being kicked out of menu while in a loading screen. Hopefully this trend continues this week.

https://twitter.com/thislukesmith/status/887430092011393024

https://twitter.com/sharkeatsman/status/887503496592805888

@alkusanagi: If you launch the Strike and go the opposite direction, you can explore a bit. There is even a public event you can interact with. Supposedly they will open up the Farm on the last day of the beta. Which is just a social space though.

The new Hunter roll seems pretty good. Still need to decide if I like fast reload or Melee recharge more.

Can someone explain how the dual specials work. Like on the titan, why is it some times the the protect dome, and then some times its the gladiator sword and shield? Is just rotating? or is is based on something?

@spamfromthecan: Are you talking about the Super activation? Sentinel has a perk on the tree we are forced to use in the Beta that allows you to instead of popping the Sentinel normal roaming Super to hold both R1 & R2 which will pop a Ward of Dawn Bubble instead of the roaming Super. It's up to the Players discretion. Though personally I don't see Ward of Dawn being very useful outside of you having Shotgun Power Ammo and having already planted the bomb in Countdown. You get your Super so rarely, and the Sentinel Super is so much fun to use, I would never use Ward of Dawn personally.

@hestilllives19: Okay so it was based on how long I hit the buttons, makes sense. I couldn't figure out why some times it was one or the other.

@hestilllives19: Ward of Dawn is even almost pointless in PvE because you have the Barricade. I found it to be very disappointing that it doesn't even last a minute. It only lasts about 40 seconds and it only gives you Armor of Light. They should have went with Blessing of Light and over a minute of downtime. Why would you trade your Captain America for it when you have a slightly less useful Barricade to use?

Also, if you have played it, you know now it plays nothing like Sunbreaker. 1-2 Shield throws per Super and shorter melee bashes. If anything is Sunbreaker, it is Dawnblade. Complete with arcing projectiles and the Icarus Dash (Twilight Garrison).

Here is me playing that first mission as a Titan. It is super fun.

After playing the beta a bunch I agree with most of this. Supers should be balanced for 1 guarantied to every player per match and 2 for good players at the very least. As of now the last 2 minutes of every match (in control especially) turns into this super slugfest as everyone triggers their super at the same time so they can use it before the game ends.

Also you're right, grenades are needed for crowd control. I feel like their damage being nerfed is fine but their 80 second cooldown is not. It's especialy unbearlable in PvE. 40-50 seconds would be fine. Hopefuly they patch it or this can be addressed through armor specs.

They already said they are addressing power ammo drop rates in PvE and I hope they're serious about that because using primaries all the time is super blend. In fact that would be my biggest complaint with the game right now: it feels blend. With the lack of power ammo and the super long cooldowns you're just shooting primary all the time and that gets pretty tedious pretty quickly.

Destiny is more fun than other shooters for me because it gives you the freedom vary up your playstyle from moment to moment in different interesting ways in both PvE and PvP. From what I've seen of Destiny 2 it severely pulls back on this. Everything is more stripped down and constrained gameplay wise. The weapons, the class abilities, the cooldowns are all more limited. Sure, it might be easier to balance but it's not nearly as fun to play.

@pyrodactyl: Remember that Luke is in charge. Mr. King's Fall loves to constrain you into a playstyle. Besides Super recharge rate and Power Ammo drops, my biggest complaint is that I can already tell you have to play PvP a certain way or you will get smoked. I teamed up with a friend, we teamshot and Super spammed to spread Orbs and we got our Supers 3-4 times every match this way (orbs give tons of Super energy) while the opposing team got theirs 0.

Not teamshotting and not Super spamming will give you a significant disadvantage. I am not having fun doing it though. It's boring. And it ironically makes 'low intensity' that much easier to stomp as a team.

Overall I am really liking what I have played so far, but these two things absolutely need to be changed.

Edit: Some grenades are better than others in PvE and PvP. I found Void Wall grenade on the Titan can single handledly kill a named enemy (orange bar). Seriously. Without firing a shot. Conversely, the sticky now does basically fuck all. It kills one regular add and damages one or two others, but that's it.

@zevvion: You say that but Taken King was the expansion that introduced Nighstalker. The most inspired and interesting class in Destiny 1 PvE. Sure, the raid was bad and very limiting from a gameplay standpoint but nothing else was particularly terrible in that regard. I'm not even sure Luke designed that raid since he was the lead on the whole expansion.

@pyrodactyl: He was very involved, he talked about him directing it. Nightstalker was made to be in line with the other subclasses. You can't bring out a new subclass and have it be objectively worse than the ones you already have. When you start from scratch, you can do whatever though. However, I was more aiming at the constraints of Super recharge rate, mobility cap and all that. I do not mind the increased cooldowns on grenades and melee, but seriously, that Super cooldown is just wrong as it is. It doesn't provide fun in both PvE and PvP.

I havent preordered so I cant check out the beta until the weekend. Quick question though, does anyone know of a way to download the client in advance? Or do I just have to waste half the weekend dealing with PSN's shite internet speeds.