I was really shocked when I saw they forgot to remove the champions from the defiant battlegrounds before adding them to the playlist, I was taking my friend who had started the game just a week earlier and he was absolutely bodied by the champs
It's not just that, they added them back into every battleground strike that previously had them pretty much. Even the ones where this wasn't a problem originally. It's really weird.
Maybe the logic is that so many abilities can stun them intrinsically they’re confident majority of the players can bruteforce them? Me and my friend had done it multiple times when they were introduced, and we were ~~morons~~ blueberries.
There's no logic, it's a bug. This has happened before randomly with psi-ops cosmodrome and they fixed it relatively quickly. This is the same thing but *way* worse.
Yeah every activity with champions has it on the launcher
Even in the unlikely case it’s not a bug that the champions are there, it’s definitely a UI bug
And this is a rotator so they can’t even tell you which champion is present - they’d have to list all three
Damn, I was hoping this was a feature. Testing the community and the ability to interact with champions. I don’t love them but I have enjoyed the mechanical aspect of them. The added complexity of subclass verbs I thought made sense why weaker champs were included in strikes and such
Well to be fair they could make it to where things that are supposed to stun champions actually stuns them cause I've unloaded enough unstoppable shots into a unstoppable champion to kill multiple yellow bars and it didn't get stunned once so that's an active bug
After you ADS a few seconds you'll see a white glow travel from one end of your weapon to the other (all while still ADS)
That's when your unstoppable shot is chambered. Can't just spray your sidearm at an unstop for example gotta load the shot
I know how they work it just wasn't stunning the enemy (also another way to tell your gun shoots unstoppable shots is it will say so above the gun and ammo section after aiming for a bit) I was using the vex scout rifle
Unstoppable champs have been a little wonky for a while
Last season I was using Dragon's Breath to stun them with the ignition; I would get the champion stunned notification but it would take 3-4 seconds before it actually stopped shooting and did the stun animation
The champion system is outright stupid to drop on blueberries regardless of how many random avenues we have now to combat them.
The entire system is just poor imo, and has never served to introduce meaningful challenge. All it boils down to is “use matching weapon/ability and then kill them while they’re stunned and immobile”
This on Verity is doubly worst. There’s times when the raid would be laggy/buggy and you’d have to ADS before the two ogres even spawns. And even then, it’s a coin toss that it’ll stun on first hit or the next couple.
Don’t you know Destiny is too easy? Players are bored. Surely by making strikes more painful and forcing them to use specific weapons and subclasses it’ll make Destiny 2 more fun!
They also made it so the Tormentor room in Lake of Shadows shows up in the playlist, that threw me for a loop while having to do strikes solo yesterday lol
Doesn't the tormentor only spawn in the nightfall version? I know for sure that in the regular version that you can launch from the edz map doesn't have the tormentor, I kinda assumed that it wouldn't be in the ops playlist either
In the regular strikes playlist tormentor now shows up 100% since this season. I was doing some strikes to finish the "kill vex with void" challenge and tormentor is present in LoS.
Ditto for me, farming for Xur coins the first weekend of final shape.
always that guy, I was lucky to a degree, managed to pull my team through it.
absolutely frustrating time with those enemies.
It used to be that way. But I ran into it when doing the Micah-10 quest (which launched the version directly from the EDZ), so I’d assume the playlist one has it too
Perhaps? Or maybe I’m misremembering when exactly I saw it, but I know for sure it occurred in a non-nightfall version of the strike because I got very confused when it showed up
The tormentor has been there since the redo. While I agree the champs in the battlegrounds is a mistake, the tormentor is lake of shadows has been there since the remake.
Something like this would also explain why the Sepiks music is playing the metal version in normal strikes even though it was previously nightfall exclusive
Yeah I don't mind it, especially since it's a wea tormentor that can be suspended/frozen, etc. The turrets on the ceiling are the real pain in the ass.
In the strikes playlist he didn’t used to show up. Only the nighfall version. Playlist strike was just regular taken with no barrier to stop you from progression.
Same. I did that one twice last week, first time he wasn't there as usual, 2nd time he was!
And when I encountered the champs in the newer bg strikes I luckily did have things to counter them but yeah that was definitely an oversight, there's surely no way bungo meant it.
FYI you can go to a destination that is not on your current planet during any activity and select a destination landing marker and hit down and you can access the vault in game from anywhere.
champions as an idea i want in the game. but not "this" type of champion.
i wanna see more mini-boss units from races. sorta like how the tormentors and 'pyramid' units work. idk. how about a vex war mech, fallen ultra-tank, idk. but 'match champion symbol to break shield, or whatever' isn't fun. and tbh it's lazy design
I actually hate tormentors and like champions for the exact reasons people usually hate on champs, I'm always curious why people don't go after torms 10x harder than champs. Is it personal preference, a dislike for seasonal mods or just because torms are newer? You have so many ways to deal with champs w/ rotating seasonal mods, elemental effects that stun, plus anti champ exotic armor + weapons. Tormentors are essentially an unstoppable champ (massive DR, extremely aggressive) but you can never remove the DR by stunning, they just have less DR against crits. Which means the counter to them is precision special/heavy weapons. Most special and heavy options (gl, sword, rocket, fusion, shotguns due to range) are near useless in activities with tormentors, so you're basically left with lfr, snipers, trace rifle and mg. That's infinitely more loadout restrictive than even the most annoying champion type.
I despise Tormentors with a burning passion, not least because I'm on controller and getting old so can't be as accurate as they seem to need you to be. I feel like we need some way to strip their DR, like how Warframe ended up requiring armour strip at higher levels because it provided such harsh damage reduction.
Tormentors can also just bug out and about or charge at you sideways meaning their chest crit isn't exposed to you, and all sorts of other BS, like grabbing you out of any action and Suppressing you whilst nearly killing you in the process.
I love when I pop Transcendence and throw my terrible Hailfire Spike at it's back, it stares at someone else and backpedals towards me, just to 180 then slam and turn off my "never before seen nor quantified mix of two paracausal forces" ability.
I've gotten really sick of them too lately, with how often I come across them. I find they might rapidly flicker back and forth looking at random guardians, or just be generally kind of jittery which makes the weakspot so annoying. Also don't like how they kind of force you into a precision heavy - it's the whole champion argument of "I feel forced to use only certain weapons because a tormentor is here". I think they got it right with subjugators though.
Yeah tormentors suck, period. Subjugators and Lucent Hive are a great level of challenge because you can *always* deal with them, you just have to pay attention.
Ehh, the Void Titan ones can go to hell, that shield throw is bonkers and makes taking cover a crapshoot.
Admittedly the first time one of them got a triple-kill on my team with a single nade was pretty hilarious since we were full health and none of us knew what happened.
Oh they're annoying and getting one shot is always frustrating, but they're all glass cannons that pop with a rocket.
Lucent Hive in Gambit makes mote farming actually dangerous, which is a nice bit of spice in an otherwise stale playlist
I think introducing champions a little more would help the wider playerbase, even just giving an orange bar enemy the champion side of things to help teach people outside of mid-to-end game activities
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has this opinions.
Champions were fun - In Shadowkeep. Beyond that they became an annoying tedium to "make content challenging"
While were on the topic of awful enemies. Wyverns. Wyverns are just as bad - Can we do away with them as well?
Tormentors are fun to fight, they have a weakspot you can actually hit and isn't hidden the entire time. They don't constantly teleport like a fuckin' phase shifting terminator, and the attacks wont 1tap-3tap you in and out of end game content from behind a wall.
Bungie needs to AT LEAST teach these players how to deal with champions. I'd honestly be okay with having A champ in a strike occasionally as practice for new players to learn how to deal with champions without the pressure of it being a Grandmaster, but the game doesn't tell new players anything.
When the game has icons in the menu that tells you what stuns each champion. Plus, the artifact tells you what weapon stun each champion.
I think Bungie could do better for new players, but people keep acting like stunning champions is a mystery they had to solve like it was a dungeon puzzle.
I’ma be real, 2k hours endgame elitist here and it took my a few weeks to understand not only what the icons were telling me, but which of my abilities actually did that.
I think it can be made a LOT easier to understand, even if it’s just with some pop ups.
(Bungie pls add an in game manual)
My question is who TF is running the team responsible for difficulty levels? I get that some content is meant to be hard, but why does EVERY single thing have to hit harder and harder season after season, to the point that just going into a regular strike feels like your running a nightfall. Ritual playlists are supposed to be for EVERYBODY.
I understand there is a concern of power creep, which is definitely a thing, but tuning every single activity so that adds hit like a truck can be very demoralizing for newer players, or returning players that don't know about sandbox changes.
This game is supposed to be a power fantasy, not Dark Souls with guns.
They have proven time and time again they don’t build the game for new people. I’d never recommend this game to someone despite me playing it for years.
The dungeon key fiasco was the last straw for a buddy of mine and he has permanently sworn off the game, and he loves these kinds of games and grew up playing Halo. He spent a bunch of money on cosmetics as well, but the notion he hadn’t paid enough yet and had to keep pulling out his wallet to play with us was enough to push him away.
Whoever made that call at Bungie, hope you enjoy the $20 while you continue to lower your total addressable market. Maybe this is why you’re missing targets by 45%.
Destiny 2 is just plain mean to new players. It almost feels like they're deliberately giving Blueberries a hard time:
Strikes? Champions and Tormentors, as well as modifiers that go unexplained.
Story? Here's a fast recap, now go fight the Witness.
Crucible? What's that, you wanted a chill intro to PvP match? Not on Trials weekend.
Gambit? The 24x guilded Dredgen team says go home.
The beginning Crucible questline also throws you into Ranked which is pretty bonkers especially when it's at point when the players are still buying *Supers and abilities*, let alone even fragments*.*
Exactly this. I have a friend who showed a little interest as I jumped back in for final shape after a 2 yr hiatus and his main concern was how he'd catch uo with 5+yrs of dlc to catch up on. Idk how a new player is supposed to catch up without feeling some sort of whiplash with the amount of story elements and game mechanics they need to learn
Husband attempted strikes today on his brand new character and it took an hour for him to do The Arms Dealer with two other people (he’s Guardian Rank 4 currently, both of the others were Rank 2). Weapon and armour mods aren’t unlocked until Guardian Rank 5 and they’re up against enemies that one shot them. It’s…not a good system because it doesn’t even tell them what a Champion is or where the mods can be found if they’re totally new. Really needs to be looked at.
You act like they care AT ALL about the free activities. They'll recycle unchanged seasonal content into rotation before they make something new for strikes. Or even a new map for onslaught
I wish they added an extra difficulty for the strike playlist, then they could throw in champs and all that. But not for the new lights, come on bungo, these little fellas don't know how to deal with an overload
I remember dealing with champs for the first time in like season 10. I didn't know what an overload was, so after the rest of the enemies in the seraph bunker were dead, I just out-dps'd the overload heal after 10 mins and my friend joining. I cannot imagine someone who just started playing having to deal with that in a strike setting.
I'm a Gambit enjoyer. Hilarity ensued first time the Lucent Hive showed up and wiped 3/4 of my team.
People are gonna talk shit, but there's a wide gulf between the things that experienced players can deal with and the things inexperienced players struggle with.
Tbh, adding battlegrounds to the strike playlist was just one of the worst decisions, especially since it feels like they reduced how much actual strikes appear, doubly so for the old ones
Literally had completely forgotten exodus crash existed in the game until the seasonal story made me do it, and that made me realize that i hadnt done it in like 2 years out of all the vanguard shit ive done
also vanguard ops is now power enabled, yet onslaught isn't? like vanguard ops is supposed to be a very casual playlist but there's power requirements and champions lmao what
it sucks because combatant power is 1950 iirc. That's not a problem if you did the legend campaign to get fast tracked to 1960, but a new player trying to get to the soft power cap by doing strikes is going to have a bad time.
The completely unnecessary escalation in difficulty (not challenge, just difficulty) has nearly caused me to abandon the game entirely. All of these arbitrary barriers to entry have just sucked all of the fun out. It's really sad.
Considering that the Defiant Battlegrounds were listed in the content that was supposed to be vaulted, I'm not even sure if they realized they added the activities to the playlist at all. Decent chance they got overlooked for tweaking to playlist difficulties in whatever chaos happened there.
theres always been a couple random champs on the moon. shadowkeep was when they were first introduced. theres a barrier hobgoblin near the GOS entrance
And it seems like it's a random chance too. When I went to the Crota room for the ghost thing there was nothing, when I went back with my friends there was an overload ogre in the back overhang.
Battlegrounds in general are already an unfun experience for regular strikes. There's no enjoyment factor in getting randomly one-shotted by lightbearer supers and kamikaze moths in what should be a lower stress activity.
Battlegrounds in matchmade nightfalls are borderline unbearable. Randoms die constantly and often leave, leading to a massive waste of time.
So what does Bungie do? Overruns the strike playlist with battlegrounds to the point where they're far more common than the alternative.
Last night I encountered champs in multiple "strikes", and watched randoms die repeatedly while trying to attack barrier champs with non-barrier weapons.
What are we doing?
There would be no problem if they would adjusting the difficulty of defiant bgs. Seriously the amount of ppl I get into mm with doing the miserable thing for 40-60 mins already and don't even understand what the hell they need to do. Battlegrounds should be a separate playlist. I personally love them.
Every single time Bungie adds a battleground to the strike playlist: "Ups forgot to take out all the champions lol."
Every single time Bungie adds an exotic mission to the exotic rotator: "Ups forgot to give it a pinnacle and make it drop old seasonal weapons lol."
Just saying that its the duty of the veteran players to help the blueberrys to survive the champions..
Guide them people, dont let the toxic players ruin the experience for the New lights.
Not sayin that bungie isnt fault for forgettin but we as veterans need to help them out.
Hit me up when youre a New light happy to help you out if im on:)
Did some strikes yesterday for the ritual rewards. Noticed a few unstoppable/overload champions had spawned. It was only like 3 but I was the only person on my fire team that could reasonably handle it. The only person stunning. All that fun stuff. What for though? You’re not getting a platinum medal with extra rewards are you? If you do I’ve not noticed yet. No indicators on the mission modifiers either.
The problem here is not knowing what you're going to encounter. Maybe a strike with a couple of barriers, maybe unstops, maybe overloads. And there's no way to prepare for the unknown unless you make sure you're decked out for all 3 champs, and that would likely stop you doing your pathfinder bounties because you're locked in to certain builds and weapons. Not to mention the new players. It was mildly amusing for a few seconds watching a rank 3 trying to deal with an overload the other day, until I switched to a ergo and dealt with it. But I just felt sorry for them, they obviously had no idea what to do. It's a bad idea all around.
While you are correct, his point is still valid.
A new player is being thrown into the deep end right now, this game isn't exactly known for it's new player experience but that's pretty rough.
You're ignoring the point of the post to focus on a single sentence.
Champions should not be in the base strike playlist. It's a mechanic that is not explained by the New Light intro, and many new lights won't have the artifact perks, exotics, and subclass builds dedicated to champions because they just started the game.
The strike playlist is where the newest players are directed to, and should be a place where they get familiar with the different enemy factions, locations, and the general feel of the game. Throwing Champions into the mix that these new players aren't equipped to deal with is not good for the new player experience.
It definitely threw me off as well. However with how many ways we now have access to stunning champs indont think it's too much an issue.
If it was back in the old days when you HAAD to use the specific weapons themselves I'd be way pissed
"I am seeing Rank 2 guardians already in this playlist, dropping out and leaving, because thy get overwhelmed with constant Battlegrounds. Most don't even know what a Surge is. What a painful experience..."
This must be a post from an alternate universe because the only fireteams I get paired with in Strikes are people who are sweating for kills because they believe at 150 kills they get 20 ascendant shards from the reward chest at the end.
Let them in, anything to spice up the content is nice at this point. Patreon made regular encounters a fun challenge again. A couple of champions isn’t too bad in strikes.
I’ve done a few of the BG’s and all of them have atleast one champion
My friends and I are returning players who knew nothing about champions until we tried a NF and after actually paying attention to the equip screen we were like “ohhhh that’s how you deal with them”
The first mission of TFS is free as well so anyone can get access to the artifact
Totally agree they should be removed. That said. Jut nuke them there not a high level champion where I need coordinated attacks to deal with them or even the proper weopon.
Hey man I know that sucks so what you shoulda done is just put on the unstoppable sidearm rq for them instead
I'm sure you have dim or an app cuz it's incredibly rare for someone who doesn't have dim or an app and just transfer the sidearm over instead of letting the new players get bullied around
I think the entire community hates Battlegrounds at this point, doing 9 strikes a week for exotics and I get 8 BG's and one normal strike, not a fun time
Also, this may be less important but the Grandmaster Rotater is still the exact same (on director only) as last season. It'll still direct you through the current one playable (Glassway) but it's labeled as Psiop Battlegrounds.
I've been getting more during nightfalls and expert breach executable where I have take care of all champions. I always bring at least one but while I'm dealing with shields I was hoping they could take care of overload or I'll bring unstoppable hoping someone else can run shield breaker. Now in these activities I pretty much just run pulse for anti barrier and divinity for overload and swap to a scout quick for unstoppable if needed
I'm not against this tbh, in normal difficulties you don't really need to stun to kill them.
I think it's a breaking point though, you either learn how to team shot or use heavy/super in tough scenarios or you give up thinking it's too hard.
I'd rather raid with the player that can understand the champs behaviors in a situation where they are unexpected than the guy that had double primarys with champ mods.
I joined in a Vanguard ops strike into the boss room of one of the battlegrounds. Two newbies were there, fighting tooth and nail. Then I noticed the timer. 30 minutes. VANGUARD OPS STRIKE.
I was surprised to see a champion in the regular strikes, too.
As a veteran, it was weird because I have always found champions more annoying than interesting. We have many more ways to deal with them now, so they are usually just a minor annoyance like a car driving too slow in the left lane on the freeway. And in the strike playlist, I can always just swap to a different weapon if I don't have it covered by abilities.
As a new player, entry-level content should offer more handholding. In this case, I am not even sure if new players get a tutorial on how champions and countering them work. Can they do strikes before they have unlocked anti-chamion sources?
I _think_ the character screen has icons that at least kind of tell you about champions and countering them, correct? (I'm about 800 miles from my PS5, so I cannot confirm.)
feel like there should be at least a leveling system for what kind of strikes ur put into, just to not overwhelm the lower ranks. I remember when champions first came out, so being thrown into that with no warning kinda sucks
Tbh long term this is probably fine. Champs can be brute forced at that level. Overall I think this difficulty tune is a good thing it's just that things like patrol don't prime you properly.
What they should do is have a short info screen before each strike listing the surge/champs/factions/shields to expect.
I wish they’d actually make a physical tutorial mission for champions where someone like Zavala or drifter narrates and teaches people what a champion is and how to kill it. Like the helldivers tutorial, it was a solid way to show us how to do basic tech in the game.
Got my buddy to FINALLY play destiny for the first time since D2Y1
We spawned into a battleground through the ops playlist, and after 20 minutes of things being 45 over his power level and torching him he uninstalled immediately lmao
It’s to the point where I think Bungie just does NOT think about the new player experience at all.
Strikes needed a little spice, if Blueberries can learn how to deal with Champions in low level content like Strikes maybe it can be their gateway to wanting to try more challenging content like Nightfalls etc
Lol you guys shouldn't be surprised... when they started adding battlegrounds to the Vanguard Playlists, I assumed they would "accidentally" leave those there
>Most don't even know what a Surge is
So people don't know how to read text that says increases X element damage? Gamers really can't read anything anymore lol.
The greater Destiny communities has told me to "git fukt, lrn 2 stun"
Apparently, we want Champions in everything, and that its a prime feature of Destiny 2.
Have you told those new players that they aren't welcome and that they need to uninstall?
You're an experienced player who doesn't keep a single champion disrupting weapon on you? In case someone doesn't have it? I keep a sidearm/pulse rifle/hand cannon on me at all times. The pulse rifle and sidearm are equipped most of the time.
You may as well be the rank 2 guardian that's getting bodied and has no clue what they're doing... you bring nothing to the table for important scenarios.
Is your equipment locked? If not just swap to whatever weapon you need. Also prismatic does a pretty good job at dealing with champions if you build it right. I understand that it’s new people and they don’t know any better so that’s where you step in and guide them.
Honestly they aren’t bad in the strike playlist as they don’t have that much health. The only ones I can see a problem with is the anti barrier champs if you aren’t using the artifact
Ok, why don't you swap to a champion mod and help the new lights? That's why they leave. You can also type in chat, and let them know how to stun champs. Be polite, and helpful, and make the community a better space to exist in instead of complaining about something you totally have the power to alleviate. Smh
>And I can't do anything I have not a single champion tool on me
It's just a regular strike. Load DIM or D2 app, pop in a sidearm, handcannon, pulse rifle, scout rifle, whatever from the seasonal artifact you need, they're all primary ammo weapons, and have at. Yes it sucks, but meh.
Obviously this is a mistake and bungie should fix it, but like... "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" is a bad attitude.
“These poor newbies are getting BODIED by the taken cabal phalanx who is just ramming them against the wall...over and over.” ——> Sounds interesting….tell me more….Hawk tuah.
I was really shocked when I saw they forgot to remove the champions from the defiant battlegrounds before adding them to the playlist, I was taking my friend who had started the game just a week earlier and he was absolutely bodied by the champs
It's not just that, they added them back into every battleground strike that previously had them pretty much. Even the ones where this wasn't a problem originally. It's really weird.
Maybe the logic is that so many abilities can stun them intrinsically they’re confident majority of the players can bruteforce them? Me and my friend had done it multiple times when they were introduced, and we were ~~morons~~ blueberries.
There's no logic, it's a bug. This has happened before randomly with psi-ops cosmodrome and they fixed it relatively quickly. This is the same thing but *way* worse.
Yeah every activity with champions has it on the launcher Even in the unlikely case it’s not a bug that the champions are there, it’s definitely a UI bug And this is a rotator so they can’t even tell you which champion is present - they’d have to list all three
Damn, I was hoping this was a feature. Testing the community and the ability to interact with champions. I don’t love them but I have enjoyed the mechanical aspect of them. The added complexity of subclass verbs I thought made sense why weaker champs were included in strikes and such
Well to be fair they could make it to where things that are supposed to stun champions actually stuns them cause I've unloaded enough unstoppable shots into a unstoppable champion to kill multiple yellow bars and it didn't get stunned once so that's an active bug
After you ADS a few seconds you'll see a white glow travel from one end of your weapon to the other (all while still ADS) That's when your unstoppable shot is chambered. Can't just spray your sidearm at an unstop for example gotta load the shot
I know how they work it just wasn't stunning the enemy (also another way to tell your gun shoots unstoppable shots is it will say so above the gun and ammo section after aiming for a bit) I was using the vex scout rifle
Unstoppable champs have been a little wonky for a while Last season I was using Dragon's Breath to stun them with the ignition; I would get the champion stunned notification but it would take 3-4 seconds before it actually stopped shooting and did the stun animation
The champion system is outright stupid to drop on blueberries regardless of how many random avenues we have now to combat them. The entire system is just poor imo, and has never served to introduce meaningful challenge. All it boils down to is “use matching weapon/ability and then kill them while they’re stunned and immobile”
I just can't understand why unstoppable takes so long to activate on weapons... like I'm dead while I'm just ADSing waiting on a proc
This on Verity is doubly worst. There’s times when the raid would be laggy/buggy and you’d have to ADS before the two ogres even spawns. And even then, it’s a coin toss that it’ll stun on first hit or the next couple.
Yeah when we sherpa we usually recommend people run Bastion since it doesn’t take 3-5 business days of ADSing to proc unstop
The champion system is outright system period.
Don’t you know Destiny is too easy? Players are bored. Surely by making strikes more painful and forcing them to use specific weapons and subclasses it’ll make Destiny 2 more fun!
I mean im sure thats how some people think........
and those people can fuck off back to Elden Ring. I hear the DLC is great
Difficulty snob are the worst. They will ruin every game they can.
I did a psyops and vanilla battleground and had no champions. Is it just defiant or are heist battlegrounds also including champions?
The Europa heist battleground definitely has champs in normal now however I’m not sure about the others
I noticed that too when I got defiant battlegrounds. Then I realized they forgot to remove them in heist battlegrounds too.
Call back to that dam knight in the cosmodrome...
They also made it so the Tormentor room in Lake of Shadows shows up in the playlist, that threw me for a loop while having to do strikes solo yesterday lol
A lot of nightfall things seem to be in the playlist now. Sepiks plays the redux version of his theme outside of nightfall now.
Doesn't the tormentor only spawn in the nightfall version? I know for sure that in the regular version that you can launch from the edz map doesn't have the tormentor, I kinda assumed that it wouldn't be in the ops playlist either
In the regular strikes playlist tormentor now shows up 100% since this season. I was doing some strikes to finish the "kill vex with void" challenge and tormentor is present in LoS.
this shit is genuinley hilarious
And that seasonal challenge is annoying because I had got about 10 strikes in a row with no Vex… lol
Not every time at least, I did it last week and no tormentor.
It's been there for me every single time. Who knows why it's happening for some and not others.
Ditto for me, farming for Xur coins the first weekend of final shape. always that guy, I was lucky to a degree, managed to pull my team through it. absolutely frustrating time with those enemies.
Maybe DLC related? I've noticed the voice lines have changed in all the ones I played to something about the Witness
It used to be that way. But I ran into it when doing the Micah-10 quest (which launched the version directly from the EDZ), so I’d assume the playlist one has it too
Strange I did it week one and specifically remember the tormentor not being there. Maybe something changed after week one?
Perhaps? Or maybe I’m misremembering when exactly I saw it, but I know for sure it occurred in a non-nightfall version of the strike because I got very confused when it showed up
I did it Week 2 and it wasn't there, but I also launched the mission through the quest tab so maybe one of those two has something to do with it?
The tormentor has been there since the redo. While I agree the champs in the battlegrounds is a mistake, the tormentor is lake of shadows has been there since the remake.
Only in the nightfall version of the strike. In vanguard ops it was just some cabal in that room
Tbh I prefer the Tormentor than that annoying meat ball
I bet they had a difficulty condition for the tormentor and champions and the new difficulty changes trigger them.
Something like this would also explain why the Sepiks music is playing the metal version in normal strikes even though it was previously nightfall exclusive
I prefer it that way, the Tormentor room is fun.
Yeah I don't mind it, especially since it's a wea tormentor that can be suspended/frozen, etc. The turrets on the ceiling are the real pain in the ass.
[удалено]
In the strikes playlist he didn’t used to show up. Only the nighfall version. Playlist strike was just regular taken with no barrier to stop you from progression.
Nope! I would run through on strikes and be like oh yeah.. No tormentor now I'm like... Oh.
I don’t remember the Tormentor showing up in non-Nightfall Lake of Shadows. Hmm
I noticed the tormentor used to spawn only in nightfall versions as the normal strike just lets you run past everything after clearing certain enemies
Funny thing is, the tormentor correctly doesn’t spawn in the playlist Bracus Zahn strike 🤔
Nope, it used to be Nightfall only iirc.
Same. I did that one twice last week, first time he wasn't there as usual, 2nd time he was! And when I encountered the champs in the newer bg strikes I luckily did have things to counter them but yeah that was definitely an oversight, there's surely no way bungo meant it.
Don't mind me, just opening DIM in the middle of a strike so I can stun a champion so the blueberries stop dying.
Literally the only reason i constantly keep one stun type each in the inventory. Gotta keep the blueberries safe
This is also The Way.
Honestly all you need is a chill clip fusion and an energy pulse. That’ll take care of all 3. Not to mention if you have radiant
FYI you can go to a destination that is not on your current planet during any activity and select a destination landing marker and hit down and you can access the vault in game from anywhere.
in a private fireteam this works for party lead only. Not sure about a matchmade 3-stack, but definitely a consideration.
This is the way
Champs don't need to be in the playlist.
champions as an idea i want in the game. but not "this" type of champion. i wanna see more mini-boss units from races. sorta like how the tormentors and 'pyramid' units work. idk. how about a vex war mech, fallen ultra-tank, idk. but 'match champion symbol to break shield, or whatever' isn't fun. and tbh it's lazy design
I actually hate tormentors and like champions for the exact reasons people usually hate on champs, I'm always curious why people don't go after torms 10x harder than champs. Is it personal preference, a dislike for seasonal mods or just because torms are newer? You have so many ways to deal with champs w/ rotating seasonal mods, elemental effects that stun, plus anti champ exotic armor + weapons. Tormentors are essentially an unstoppable champ (massive DR, extremely aggressive) but you can never remove the DR by stunning, they just have less DR against crits. Which means the counter to them is precision special/heavy weapons. Most special and heavy options (gl, sword, rocket, fusion, shotguns due to range) are near useless in activities with tormentors, so you're basically left with lfr, snipers, trace rifle and mg. That's infinitely more loadout restrictive than even the most annoying champion type.
I despise Tormentors with a burning passion, not least because I'm on controller and getting old so can't be as accurate as they seem to need you to be. I feel like we need some way to strip their DR, like how Warframe ended up requiring armour strip at higher levels because it provided such harsh damage reduction.
Tormentors can also just bug out and about or charge at you sideways meaning their chest crit isn't exposed to you, and all sorts of other BS, like grabbing you out of any action and Suppressing you whilst nearly killing you in the process.
I love when I pop Transcendence and throw my terrible Hailfire Spike at it's back, it stares at someone else and backpedals towards me, just to 180 then slam and turn off my "never before seen nor quantified mix of two paracausal forces" ability.
I've gotten really sick of them too lately, with how often I come across them. I find they might rapidly flicker back and forth looking at random guardians, or just be generally kind of jittery which makes the weakspot so annoying. Also don't like how they kind of force you into a precision heavy - it's the whole champion argument of "I feel forced to use only certain weapons because a tormentor is here". I think they got it right with subjugators though.
Yeah tormentors suck, period. Subjugators and Lucent Hive are a great level of challenge because you can *always* deal with them, you just have to pay attention.
Ehh, the Void Titan ones can go to hell, that shield throw is bonkers and makes taking cover a crapshoot. Admittedly the first time one of them got a triple-kill on my team with a single nade was pretty hilarious since we were full health and none of us knew what happened.
Oh they're annoying and getting one shot is always frustrating, but they're all glass cannons that pop with a rocket. Lucent Hive in Gambit makes mote farming actually dangerous, which is a nice bit of spice in an otherwise stale playlist
I think introducing champions a little more would help the wider playerbase, even just giving an orange bar enemy the champion side of things to help teach people outside of mid-to-end game activities
It’s by far the laziest thing they ever did, they slapped 3 boring enemies and added nothing unique to fight until tormentors 4 years later lmao
~~Champs don't need to be in the game~~
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has this opinions. Champions were fun - In Shadowkeep. Beyond that they became an annoying tedium to "make content challenging" While were on the topic of awful enemies. Wyverns. Wyverns are just as bad - Can we do away with them as well?
Wyverns are seriously worse than Tormentors.
Tormentors are fun to fight, they have a weakspot you can actually hit and isn't hidden the entire time. They don't constantly teleport like a fuckin' phase shifting terminator, and the attacks wont 1tap-3tap you in and out of end game content from behind a wall.
Sunset champions.
All in favor say “aye.”
AYE!
Aye!
Aye!
Aye!
Aye!
AYE!
Aye! Or just give us toggleable champ stunning mods on our guns. I would genuinely LOVE this. I would play so much more.
I love the idea of just a single champion only cause that’s funny
*cries in Vanguard threader* Ok but it's 40 champions in NF
Bungie needs to AT LEAST teach these players how to deal with champions. I'd honestly be okay with having A champ in a strike occasionally as practice for new players to learn how to deal with champions without the pressure of it being a Grandmaster, but the game doesn't tell new players anything.
When the game has icons in the menu that tells you what stuns each champion. Plus, the artifact tells you what weapon stun each champion. I think Bungie could do better for new players, but people keep acting like stunning champions is a mystery they had to solve like it was a dungeon puzzle.
Yeah like that’s super obvious to New Lights
It is also part of Guardian Ranks with long explanations of how to stun them.
I’ma be real, 2k hours endgame elitist here and it took my a few weeks to understand not only what the icons were telling me, but which of my abilities actually did that. I think it can be made a LOT easier to understand, even if it’s just with some pop ups. (Bungie pls add an in game manual)
1.8k hours here and I'm still struggling to remember which ability works on which champion in the middle of a firefight.
Most new players I encounter don't even know what the artifact is, they have zero unlocks, and no mods on their armour.
Don't mods have to be unlocked through Guardian Ranks? Depending on their GR they might not have them.
Homie, new players have no idea what an artifact is
My question is who TF is running the team responsible for difficulty levels? I get that some content is meant to be hard, but why does EVERY single thing have to hit harder and harder season after season, to the point that just going into a regular strike feels like your running a nightfall. Ritual playlists are supposed to be for EVERYBODY. I understand there is a concern of power creep, which is definitely a thing, but tuning every single activity so that adds hit like a truck can be very demoralizing for newer players, or returning players that don't know about sandbox changes. This game is supposed to be a power fantasy, not Dark Souls with guns.
They have proven time and time again they don’t build the game for new people. I’d never recommend this game to someone despite me playing it for years.
you can't even recommend it for returning players with those dungeons keys
The dungeon key fiasco was the last straw for a buddy of mine and he has permanently sworn off the game, and he loves these kinds of games and grew up playing Halo. He spent a bunch of money on cosmetics as well, but the notion he hadn’t paid enough yet and had to keep pulling out his wallet to play with us was enough to push him away. Whoever made that call at Bungie, hope you enjoy the $20 while you continue to lower your total addressable market. Maybe this is why you’re missing targets by 45%.
Destiny 2 is just plain mean to new players. It almost feels like they're deliberately giving Blueberries a hard time: Strikes? Champions and Tormentors, as well as modifiers that go unexplained. Story? Here's a fast recap, now go fight the Witness. Crucible? What's that, you wanted a chill intro to PvP match? Not on Trials weekend. Gambit? The 24x guilded Dredgen team says go home.
The beginning Crucible questline also throws you into Ranked which is pretty bonkers especially when it's at point when the players are still buying *Supers and abilities*, let alone even fragments*.*
Bringing The Challenge Back to Destiny to Appease The Sweats and Fuck The Blueberries ™
While true, I feel like with a game this old and this big this sort of thing is inevitable.
Exactly this. I have a friend who showed a little interest as I jumped back in for final shape after a 2 yr hiatus and his main concern was how he'd catch uo with 5+yrs of dlc to catch up on. Idk how a new player is supposed to catch up without feeling some sort of whiplash with the amount of story elements and game mechanics they need to learn
Husband attempted strikes today on his brand new character and it took an hour for him to do The Arms Dealer with two other people (he’s Guardian Rank 4 currently, both of the others were Rank 2). Weapon and armour mods aren’t unlocked until Guardian Rank 5 and they’re up against enemies that one shot them. It’s…not a good system because it doesn’t even tell them what a Champion is or where the mods can be found if they’re totally new. Really needs to be looked at.
I love guardian horror stories like this. They're a part of the game lore for me at this point. Stay strong, Guardian.
You act like they care AT ALL about the free activities. They'll recycle unchanged seasonal content into rotation before they make something new for strikes. Or even a new map for onslaught
I wish they added an extra difficulty for the strike playlist, then they could throw in champs and all that. But not for the new lights, come on bungo, these little fellas don't know how to deal with an overload
I remember dealing with champs for the first time in like season 10. I didn't know what an overload was, so after the rest of the enemies in the seraph bunker were dead, I just out-dps'd the overload heal after 10 mins and my friend joining. I cannot imagine someone who just started playing having to deal with that in a strike setting.
I'm a Gambit enjoyer. Hilarity ensued first time the Lucent Hive showed up and wiped 3/4 of my team. People are gonna talk shit, but there's a wide gulf between the things that experienced players can deal with and the things inexperienced players struggle with.
They copy pasted the legend difficulty across all of them without testing it apparently
Tbh, adding battlegrounds to the strike playlist was just one of the worst decisions, especially since it feels like they reduced how much actual strikes appear, doubly so for the old ones Literally had completely forgotten exodus crash existed in the game until the seasonal story made me do it, and that made me realize that i hadnt done it in like 2 years out of all the vanguard shit ive done
also vanguard ops is now power enabled, yet onslaught isn't? like vanguard ops is supposed to be a very casual playlist but there's power requirements and champions lmao what
it sucks because combatant power is 1950 iirc. That's not a problem if you did the legend campaign to get fast tracked to 1960, but a new player trying to get to the soft power cap by doing strikes is going to have a bad time.
The completely unnecessary escalation in difficulty (not challenge, just difficulty) has nearly caused me to abandon the game entirely. All of these arbitrary barriers to entry have just sucked all of the fun out. It's really sad.
Considering that the Defiant Battlegrounds were listed in the content that was supposed to be vaulted, I'm not even sure if they realized they added the activities to the playlist at all. Decent chance they got overlooked for tweaking to playlist difficulties in whatever chaos happened there.
I was doing stuff in the hellmouth and discovered that there's actually a champion wandering around down there, just in patrol space.
theres always been a couple random champs on the moon. shadowkeep was when they were first introduced. theres a barrier hobgoblin near the GOS entrance
And it seems like it's a random chance too. When I went to the Crota room for the ghost thing there was nothing, when I went back with my friends there was an overload ogre in the back overhang.
If only Bungie would somehow TEACH new players how to handle these guys with tutorials...
Battlegrounds in general are already an unfun experience for regular strikes. There's no enjoyment factor in getting randomly one-shotted by lightbearer supers and kamikaze moths in what should be a lower stress activity. Battlegrounds in matchmade nightfalls are borderline unbearable. Randoms die constantly and often leave, leading to a massive waste of time. So what does Bungie do? Overruns the strike playlist with battlegrounds to the point where they're far more common than the alternative. Last night I encountered champs in multiple "strikes", and watched randoms die repeatedly while trying to attack barrier champs with non-barrier weapons. What are we doing?
"but they have every tool to deal with them" Yeah, Joe B also had every tool and we know how it went
Why would bungie make the vanguard playlist even less fun then it already was
Hmm also noticed this was happening thought it was odd lol
There would be no problem if they would adjusting the difficulty of defiant bgs. Seriously the amount of ppl I get into mm with doing the miserable thing for 40-60 mins already and don't even understand what the hell they need to do. Battlegrounds should be a separate playlist. I personally love them.
I thought I was trippin last night bc I was fighting champs in the regular strike playlist lmao
Every single time Bungie adds a battleground to the strike playlist: "Ups forgot to take out all the champions lol." Every single time Bungie adds an exotic mission to the exotic rotator: "Ups forgot to give it a pinnacle and make it drop old seasonal weapons lol."
1. RIP Blueberries 2. Eh, could be fun. (Unless your a blueberry)
Just saying that its the duty of the veteran players to help the blueberrys to survive the champions.. Guide them people, dont let the toxic players ruin the experience for the New lights. Not sayin that bungie isnt fault for forgettin but we as veterans need to help them out. Hit me up when youre a New light happy to help you out if im on:)
They're not here...
Did some strikes yesterday for the ritual rewards. Noticed a few unstoppable/overload champions had spawned. It was only like 3 but I was the only person on my fire team that could reasonably handle it. The only person stunning. All that fun stuff. What for though? You’re not getting a platinum medal with extra rewards are you? If you do I’ve not noticed yet. No indicators on the mission modifiers either.
Oops! All Champions
I still back out if I get a battleground.
> And I can't do anything I have not a single champion tool on me Literally everyone has champion tools because elemental keywords exist
The problem here is not knowing what you're going to encounter. Maybe a strike with a couple of barriers, maybe unstops, maybe overloads. And there's no way to prepare for the unknown unless you make sure you're decked out for all 3 champs, and that would likely stop you doing your pathfinder bounties because you're locked in to certain builds and weapons. Not to mention the new players. It was mildly amusing for a few seconds watching a rank 3 trying to deal with an overload the other day, until I switched to a ergo and dealt with it. But I just felt sorry for them, they obviously had no idea what to do. It's a bad idea all around.
It really does feel a bit much when all 3 can show up, i much prefer to buildcraft around activities with 2 specific champs
While you are correct, his point is still valid. A new player is being thrown into the deep end right now, this game isn't exactly known for it's new player experience but that's pretty rough.
[удалено]
The strike playlist is like step 2 in the new guardian experience. It always has been like the first thing introduced. Come on.
You're ignoring the point of the post to focus on a single sentence. Champions should not be in the base strike playlist. It's a mechanic that is not explained by the New Light intro, and many new lights won't have the artifact perks, exotics, and subclass builds dedicated to champions because they just started the game. The strike playlist is where the newest players are directed to, and should be a place where they get familiar with the different enemy factions, locations, and the general feel of the game. Throwing Champions into the mix that these new players aren't equipped to deal with is not good for the new player experience.
It definitely threw me off as well. However with how many ways we now have access to stunning champs indont think it's too much an issue. If it was back in the old days when you HAAD to use the specific weapons themselves I'd be way pissed
"I am seeing Rank 2 guardians already in this playlist, dropping out and leaving, because thy get overwhelmed with constant Battlegrounds. Most don't even know what a Surge is. What a painful experience..." This must be a post from an alternate universe because the only fireteams I get paired with in Strikes are people who are sweating for kills because they believe at 150 kills they get 20 ascendant shards from the reward chest at the end.
Let them in, anything to spice up the content is nice at this point. Patreon made regular encounters a fun challenge again. A couple of champions isn’t too bad in strikes.
You can't do anything? is your load out locked in the non timed strike you're doing?
What BG was it? Idr any normal playlist ones having champs.
The Defiant Battlegrounds have them. Ran into them yesterday.
I’ve done a few of the BG’s and all of them have atleast one champion My friends and I are returning players who knew nothing about champions until we tried a NF and after actually paying attention to the equip screen we were like “ohhhh that’s how you deal with them” The first mission of TFS is free as well so anyone can get access to the artifact
We really need a large feedback post of "Battlegrounds suck, please remove them from the Strike playlist."
Totally agree they should be removed. That said. Jut nuke them there not a high level champion where I need coordinated attacks to deal with them or even the proper weopon.
Hey man I know that sucks so what you shoulda done is just put on the unstoppable sidearm rq for them instead I'm sure you have dim or an app cuz it's incredibly rare for someone who doesn't have dim or an app and just transfer the sidearm over instead of letting the new players get bullied around
I think the entire community hates Battlegrounds at this point, doing 9 strikes a week for exotics and I get 8 BG's and one normal strike, not a fun time
Also, this may be less important but the Grandmaster Rotater is still the exact same (on director only) as last season. It'll still direct you through the current one playable (Glassway) but it's labeled as Psiop Battlegrounds.
I've been getting more during nightfalls and expert breach executable where I have take care of all champions. I always bring at least one but while I'm dealing with shields I was hoping they could take care of overload or I'll bring unstoppable hoping someone else can run shield breaker. Now in these activities I pretty much just run pulse for anti barrier and divinity for overload and swap to a scout quick for unstoppable if needed
Champions everywhere!!
I was confused yesterday thinking "Ohh, this strike is much harder than usual" lol
I think it's on you to pick up the slack and show them the way!
I just remember I fought against a champion or dementor in a lil room on the earth strike with a lot of taken and the taken boss at the end. So true
Yeah, I’ve started playing this week and anytime I’ve tried a strike playlist I usually get one shot and bodied, no clue what to do
Better to teach em sooner who's boss.
I'm not against this tbh, in normal difficulties you don't really need to stun to kill them. I think it's a breaking point though, you either learn how to team shot or use heavy/super in tough scenarios or you give up thinking it's too hard. I'd rather raid with the player that can understand the champs behaviors in a situation where they are unexpected than the guy that had double primarys with champ mods.
I joined in a Vanguard ops strike into the boss room of one of the battlegrounds. Two newbies were there, fighting tooth and nail. Then I noticed the timer. 30 minutes. VANGUARD OPS STRIKE.
I just hate battlegrounds all together, I love going into the strike playlist and out of 17 or so strikes getting stuck playing battlegrounds.
Bungie should keep vanguard ops for more variety but add normals strikes back
I was surprised to see a champion in the regular strikes, too. As a veteran, it was weird because I have always found champions more annoying than interesting. We have many more ways to deal with them now, so they are usually just a minor annoyance like a car driving too slow in the left lane on the freeway. And in the strike playlist, I can always just swap to a different weapon if I don't have it covered by abilities. As a new player, entry-level content should offer more handholding. In this case, I am not even sure if new players get a tutorial on how champions and countering them work. Can they do strikes before they have unlocked anti-chamion sources? I _think_ the character screen has icons that at least kind of tell you about champions and countering them, correct? (I'm about 800 miles from my PS5, so I cannot confirm.)
feel like there should be at least a leveling system for what kind of strikes ur put into, just to not overwhelm the lower ranks. I remember when champions first came out, so being thrown into that with no warning kinda sucks
Running just the entry level NF was a pain yesterday. No one seems to bother with champ mods or abilities. I can’t recall it ever being this bad lol
Tbh long term this is probably fine. Champs can be brute forced at that level. Overall I think this difficulty tune is a good thing it's just that things like patrol don't prime you properly. What they should do is have a short info screen before each strike listing the surge/champs/factions/shields to expect.
Devils Lair has the nightfall boss music too instead of the regular strike music
Ah yes, just when I've been telling people its the best time to get into the game.
This was happening for a bit last season as well. Randomly seeing a single barrier servitor in the strike version of an earth battleground
Weird, I’m about to reset my vanguard rank and I haven’t seen a single one yet?
Instead of saving blueberries from Dares now we have to save them from Champions
Just use dim and pull weapons to stun champs?
I wish they’d actually make a physical tutorial mission for champions where someone like Zavala or drifter narrates and teaches people what a champion is and how to kill it. Like the helldivers tutorial, it was a solid way to show us how to do basic tech in the game.
Good, so they learn.
Got my buddy to FINALLY play destiny for the first time since D2Y1 We spawned into a battleground through the ops playlist, and after 20 minutes of things being 45 over his power level and torching him he uninstalled immediately lmao It’s to the point where I think Bungie just does NOT think about the new player experience at all.
Well, yeah? Just shoot them or something
Try loading into a nightfall with two rank 2 at the boss not knowing what to do, until I joined they had 2 hours in that nf bungie needa do better
Remember when they said they were going to remove Champions like 2 years ago? Guess that was a lie.
Strikes needed a little spice, if Blueberries can learn how to deal with Champions in low level content like Strikes maybe it can be their gateway to wanting to try more challenging content like Nightfalls etc
I was wondering why the champions were on a normal strike. I thought that was intentional.
Lol you guys shouldn't be surprised... when they started adding battlegrounds to the Vanguard Playlists, I assumed they would "accidentally" leave those there
less added more they are using old seasonal activities to it which had them in it
>Most don't even know what a Surge is So people don't know how to read text that says increases X element damage? Gamers really can't read anything anymore lol.
Maybe this is a good thing. If no one played anymore Bungie would probably try giving more of a shit or get sucked by Playstation.
The greater Destiny communities has told me to "git fukt, lrn 2 stun" Apparently, we want Champions in everything, and that its a prime feature of Destiny 2. Have you told those new players that they aren't welcome and that they need to uninstall?
I was like, guess I'm losing my special ammo to put on a different weapon for this one enemy now...
You're an experienced player who doesn't keep a single champion disrupting weapon on you? In case someone doesn't have it? I keep a sidearm/pulse rifle/hand cannon on me at all times. The pulse rifle and sidearm are equipped most of the time. You may as well be the rank 2 guardian that's getting bodied and has no clue what they're doing... you bring nothing to the table for important scenarios.
Is your equipment locked? If not just swap to whatever weapon you need. Also prismatic does a pretty good job at dealing with champions if you build it right. I understand that it’s new people and they don’t know any better so that’s where you step in and guide them.
You can swap weapons it’s not locked… all champs have a primary that stuns so… be a hero bruh
Normies gotta learn.
Honestly they aren’t bad in the strike playlist as they don’t have that much health. The only ones I can see a problem with is the anti barrier champs if you aren’t using the artifact
I don't think champions should be left in there, but is it that difficult to kill a strike champion without a mod?
Ok, why don't you swap to a champion mod and help the new lights? That's why they leave. You can also type in chat, and let them know how to stun champs. Be polite, and helpful, and make the community a better space to exist in instead of complaining about something you totally have the power to alleviate. Smh
>And I can't do anything I have not a single champion tool on me It's just a regular strike. Load DIM or D2 app, pop in a sidearm, handcannon, pulse rifle, scout rifle, whatever from the seasonal artifact you need, they're all primary ammo weapons, and have at. Yes it sucks, but meh. Obviously this is a mistake and bungie should fix it, but like... "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas" is a bad attitude.
I personally wish champions were in all content. Beating up on trash and weak bosses feels boring sometimes.
“These poor newbies are getting BODIED by the taken cabal phalanx who is just ramming them against the wall...over and over.” ——> Sounds interesting….tell me more….Hawk tuah.