Yeah, I hit a mob in the head and it disintegrates immediately. I hit a player in the head, he's barely scratched and turns around and one-shots me.

sounds good to me and that is how I understood it to be
6 of us in DoD teamed up last night for some Crucible ... we lost all 3/4 matches but they were fairly close ... would have probably been closer if I wasn't distracted/interrupted by my kid during one of the games

I should be on again around 9:00 CT tonight

I'm sorry but I cannot nor like to play the tag-along, ride-in-the-backseat in higher levels just to level up a character. Saw that in Diablo, Borderlands and others. Yes it's there but that's not the way a game is meant to play and it's missing the whole point. If this game had tradable weapons good gosh it would be pathetic. I guess to each their own.

I've got three characters going....19, 18 and 12 and played with people close to the same level and same part of the story and it's been fun and frustrating at the same time. Solo is one thing but the game shines with another or two other players fighting it out together and not someone whose is a wrecking ball clearing out everything while one hides in the shadows.

I am enjoying the hell out of the game with my friends...drop rate aside (still no legendary) we have played every night and had a blast...

I think the vary last "story" mission is only level 18, so if you're still doing Moon and Venus missions with your higher characters, you're that wrecking ball. Your character levels up way ahead of the games difficulty, especially if you're doing patrols and occasionally jumping in the multiplayer. The game inevitably becomes less challenging.

I've had success with a shotty blast+melee combo against higher level guys. However its tough getting up close enough to pull I off.

One thing I think that could balance out mismatches...allow weapon pickups. Say I finally get the drop on the level 25 guy, let me pick up his gun and tear some shit up.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/17/633...ls-325-million

A bit different from their announcement of shippnig $500 million to retailers.

There are plenty of copies of this game to be had at various retailers.

Less Challenging on the normal difficulties.

Try some of the harder things out, and no, that's not the case at all.

I'm mostly enjoying it too despite some annoyance with the raid enemies. Many of them don't seem to even have patterns. They just constantly spam attacks that instantly take your health down to nothing. Meanwhile, they are absurd bullet sponges. So the dynamic they've created is one where you pop out and shoot, hide until your health recharges and repeat for 20 minutes while having almost no fun whatsoever.

But I have all blue gear now, and the art design is gorgeous, and it definitely has some incredibly fun moments, even if it can't touch Borderlands or Warframe on the whole.

Yeah, I've been bumping them up when I have the option, but you don't have the option the first time IIRC.

I can confirm this. A friend played with me yesterday and said, “Wait, what's this cool orb here?” and was looking at an empty spot on the ground.

This might be the case for ammo too, but I am not sure.

Finally played one of the Crucible Missions, where it's your team against another team of three and it's hard as hell. Of course I'm still at level 20, so the opposing team is all leveled out at 26. We got our asses handed to us.

Shipped ≠ sold.

This sounds like there is $175MM of inventory at retailers worldwide. Figuring that the US is about 50% of the market, this means roughly 1.25 million games (assuming a $70 average price). There are roughly 2000 Targets, 2000 Best Buys, 4000 Gamestops, and 4000 Walmarts. Let's add 2000 to that number for regional retailers, mom-and-pops, etc. And let's say Amazon's share is the equivalent of 1000 stores among their distribution centers.

This means ~83 games sitting per store, which seems high but not very high considering that some of these could still be at distribution centers.

What are you saying is not the case at all? That the game doesn't become less challenging?

Have you tried the moon strike lately? The last time I did it, we finished it under 10 minutes (as a level 22 vanguard strike). The first time I played it (as a regular on mission) it obviously took much, MUCH longer.

I'm sorry if you disagree, but personally I feel the game has become much less challenging. And yes, I play the hard and heroic missions every day. Usually alone.

One thing that I did notice is that if you melee up close and personal one or two hits usually kills them instantly.

I love melee in this game (Warlock)

Yeah, I thought that was obvious. I was just mentioning the contrast to them jumping the gun and wanting to flaunt the $500 million number.

Yep, that was the main reason I went with that class. The shot gun / force melee combo is pretty deadly in most scenarios.

Did you play the moon strike on hard? Where you have 4 yellow wizards shooting their crap relentlessly? We had 2 level 25 guys and a level 26 and it took us a while to get past that. I breezed through that strike the first time until we got to the final boss, then we had some trouble. The weekly challenge version, not so much.

Missions are one thing, they're not that bad, but the strikes on hard? The raid? To say the game gets easier as you go is just silly.

Yes I did the moon strike on hard.

Sure the raid is extremely difficult. And the exotic bounties also contain some tough parts. But those are exceptions, not the norm. Your general daily activities (heroic missions, vanguard strikes, public events, etc) are much easier as you go.

Out of ALL the things you can select when you're in orbit, there's only 1 or 2 that are really hard. That's not silly. That's fact.

Woohoo just hit level 20 with my warlock!

Now you can start playing the real game!

that damn blue MK hand cannon is following me around like a curse .... I swear I must have dismantled that thing 25 times now

why can't I get more auto rifles

Finally started playing them multiplayer crucible bounties and they were awesome. It's 6 against 6 (Bravo vs Alpha) and at first I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Going back and forth trying to claim and neutralize the sectors was fun and I killed a few but was constantly getting capped. I was like the only level 20 cat and the enemy team were between 24-26, so I was a little mismatched.