I wrestle with this dilemma daily. This game is definitely not friendly to casual gamers like myself who cannot play every day, cannot play for long stretches of time, or who play at odd hours. The faction, mark, and mats grinding is horrendous and boring as hell; definitely reminds me of MMO-type grinding and why I stopped playing MMO's in the first place (in addition to trying to keep up with your friends who do have the time to play).

YET, I find myself attempting to log in every day to do a pub event, bounties, patrols, or strikes. That's about all I can do right now. I play at odd hours so the non-matchmaking strikes/missions are hard for me to coordinate (though I do need to try those LFG websites). Plus, 90% of my friend list is playing it so it's hard to not jump into the game when I do have time.

Running two or three classes to maximize the daily/weekly rewards is out of the question too. It probably took me just as long to get one class to 25 as it took some of you to get three classes to 28/29! I think I've done 1 or 2 Weekly Heroics, so what is that, like 3-9 Strange Coins per week based on mission difficulty? So every two weeks I can buy one piece of exotic armor from Xur or every third week I can get an exotic weapon (BTW, I'm still rockin' rare weapons too! FU RNG!). I haven't even attempted a Nightfall Strike yet (hopefully tonight will be the night). And, don't get me started on Raids.

YET, I still try to play this game..... every day.......

I slightly disagree with the first premise there Goot. I think the game is very much keyed toward people who play casually. Once you run your daily public event, daily heroic story and your bounties (total commitment of maybe 60-90 minutes per day), any grinding you do after that is a waste of your time. And on weekends, you might run your Nightfall and Weekly Heroic and maybe a raid (2 or 3 hours total).

I think the game is practically custom made for casual players, and the only part that's time intensive is the initial push to 20. Hell, even that push is best done with a few bounties and story missions per day.

If Borderlands is Diablo with guns, Destiny is Farmville with guns. Drop in for a bit and do your chores. Super casual.

What's funny is that I just started a quest with a new character and can't wait until get home to finish upgrading it. Hell, I even participated in two events already and I'm like a level 4. There's always something to do.

Please help a Destiny newb:

I'm at level 5 but am having a hard time really getting some direction in this game. I'd like to do missions and events as part of a fire team but I can't seem to figure out a way to do this consistently. Is there some lobby or matchmaking system that I can't seem to find? I'd love to be able to join a fire team or setup a team and have others join. What is the best way to do this?

let's start by letting us know what platform you are gaming on
If PS4 feel free to join our clan

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/video-game-...s-destiny.html

if not on PS4 look in the mirror and ask yourself why not

Hand me the mirror... XboxOne.

sorry

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/12280775-post2770.html

Thanks for the help.

This is seriously the solution for matchmaking? What a joke. That and the absence of couch co-op will result in a lot of dust on this game. Well, I'll just sell it I guess.

So finally experienced the Vault of Glass today. Damn that's tough. Started towards the end when a friend sent an invite. Didn't even know what I was doing. "Open the portal!" Huh? Took awhile to figure things out, then eventually lost when Aetheon appeared. "shoot the oracles" and "pick up the relic" WTF does that even mean lol

Haha

Just got to level 27 today, still haven't tried the raid yet

Does the raid have matchmaking or do you need six friends to do it with?

no matchmaking currently

Oracles are the balls of light that appear, accompanied by a musical note. In the early part of the Raid, they're yellow. But in the later part, the part you played, they're red. If you don't shoot them in that last part, they kill everyone on your team.

The Relic is the shield type item that shows up if you get teleported, along with the oracles. The relic is needed to heal the 3 guys that get teleported as they shoot the oracles.

Opening the portal is the job of the ones who don't get teleported.

Just finished a normal Raid on my Warlock. Got nothing on Atheon. Maybe because I already got a crapload on hard? Could be that once you do it on hard, it locks out rewards on normal for the week.

I was with a solid team this time, but the random teleport does change things, and right now makes it tougher. But I think in the end it could be helpful, as it will make everyone experience both the teleport part, and staying behind. I feel like I learned quite a bit by getting teleported, as I had typically stayed behind to keep the portal open.

I'm just glad I was with the chill group I played with last week when I beat it the first time. After the disaster of last night, it was good to have a smooth run. I still have my Titan (and Hunter I suppose) to do runs later in the week.

Yup. Doing it on Hard gives you double rewards at every boss battle. So, if you do Hard mode first, you'll get nothing on normal since you technically already got it.

It's pretty much the same as the weekly heroic strike and the daily story. If you play the Lvl 28 version first, you're basically getting all the rewards from easier levels when you complete it (e.g. The 9 coins you get is the 3 + 6 from the two easier versions)

I attempted the Hard raid from the beginning yesterday. We made it all the way to Atheon before it became too difficult. Everybody in our group was very experienced in the raid, so it wasn't so much the random teleport thing as it was everything is so hard to kill when you're a level below. I have a fully upgraded Atheons Epilogue, with the oracle disrupter perk and everything, and even with that it took almost an entire clip to destroy one oracle. Whenever I got teleported, I would basically be out of ammo before I made it to the last oracle in the room.

There is a big difference between level 30 and level 29 in the Hard raid. Only 1 of the guys in our group was 30. His fully upgraded Ice Breaker was doing 12k+ damge per shot on Atheon. All the guys that were 29 (including myself) were only doing 8K damage. Needless to say, after about 1.5 hours of trying to beat Atheon we only managed to ever get his health about 1/4 down at best. It was pretty frustrating. Not to mention, all I got at every checkpoint was energy and shards. But at least I can still try to beat him on normal for a chance at one last reward (which I'm sure will probably just be a shader )

Decided to try and solo the weekly heroic with my Titan, using the techniques I picked up doing the Nightfall and Heroics with 19K.

Managed to do it solo without dying. Ran through most of it, but it was a rough go in the parts I had to fight in. So now I have done them all for the week, and have over 70 strange coins. Xur better have something good this week...

I understand what Gooter is saying and with some between time zone, family and work hours it can be more grinding and more time trying to get ahead. Having 2-3 characters going is far more beneficial than one only and that's a fact. Doing multiple characters does take time especially if you're only able to do solo and no help.

All three of mine has been with others...be it the Story, Patrols, Strikes and even Bounties and has helped a lot. But I've also jumped in and done a lot of random Strikes to. But no question starting a new character does take time "Solo". But the great thing is you can check the game list and see where some are and jump in on a Fire Team. i think I did that a few time before when I wasn't able to get a friend.

Gooter...if you want to start another character I'll help you a bit..staying back so you can get the kills... but you can move up quickly doing the story, some bounties in the mix and catching some Public Events at first. You can knock out a few story missions a night and by the end of the week have another character up to 16+ easy.

I just farmed for spin metal last night. I'm just 2 steps below having my Vanquisher auto rifle at full power - I think it maxes out at 300.

Ya gotta love the RNG, because I just scored an Exotic Scout Rifle in the Crucible.

MIDA Multi-Tool?

Yep, that's the one.

Thanks Buzz! I may take you up on that offer. I definitely realize the benefit of having multiple characters and will try to devote some time to starting one soon.

Thanks to the boys last night, I was dragged/carried through my first Nightfall which in turn leveled my Vanguard to Rank 3 (need more marks to buy stuff). I got my first purple weapon, though it is a Fusion rifle, and have the armor equipped to get me to level 28 once I gather enough mats to level the pieces up. So maybe it makes sense to work on another character and I can gather the planet mats while I'm doing it.

Is it worth playing the daily challenge on the lower levels? (I think it's lv 22). The next one is like a 26 or so and that has been a challenge for me playing solo in the past.

you should definitely aim to do level 26 for the ascendant materials (shard/armor upgrade or energy/weapon upgrade)

if you don't/can't run solo just try and jump in with one of us on the boards or send a request if you see someone might be available to help

I aim to run at least level 26 once daily with my level 28 Warlock and level 25 Hunter

The gunsmith is selling rare fusion rifles for 50 more minutes. Figured I'd give everyone a head up that is currently doing the pocket infinity bounty or plans to do so.

Got my alt up to 20 today, moved over some old gear and shes at 27 now. If any one is down for weekly heroic tomorrow morning, I need to get that knocked out.

so did I just see that PSN will be down for 2 hours of maintenance tonight
9:00 - 11:00 PT



if you are logged into Destiny before the maintenance start doesn't that insure that you can stay on or no?