With the start of Season 3: Meltdown, Apex Legends received the largest update it ever has–implementing so much new content that the game is almost unrecognizable from what it was in Season 2. Whether a conscious decision or not, the new changes make for an experience that’s more accessible to those who haven’t played the battle royale in a while or are looking to start.

Fundamentally, Apex Legends is still the same game. You still team up with two other players in a 20-team battle royale match. Every previous Legend is still playable as well, giving a leg up to those who’ve been playing the game since launch. However, with Season 3, a lot has changed, giving newcomers time to get acclimated to how Apex Legends works while veterans get readjusted.

For one, the map is completely different. Everyone plays on World’s Edge, as Kings Canyon has been (most likely only temporarily) removed. So all the strategies that tie into knowing the terrain–whether it’s ideal drop spots, best sniping locations, or secret hiding nooks–all have to be discovered again. For the first time in a while, veterans don’t have an advantage when it comes to knowing the map inside and out because everything is brand-new.

World’s Edge is also huge, easily more than twice the size of Kings Canyon. This provides two benefits for those who aren’t used to Apex Legends’ fast-paced firefights. For one, there are now way more viable places to land and find decent loot, so it’s easier to avoid dropping next to another squad right at the start. And second, because the map is so big, you’re not going to run into other squads nearly as often in the beginning of the match. There are now long stretches of nothingness between firefights–something that almost never occurred in Kings Canyon–providing numerous opportunities in a match to safely heal and loot for supplies. The vastness of World’s Edge means you’re likely to see enemy squads before they can ambush you too. You have to contend with snipers more often as a result, but the new map has certainly made Apex Legends matches play out a lot more slowly.

All of which isn’t to say the fast-paced battles are gone. For those looking for a more traditional Apex Legends experience, you have options. The blue circle that highlights high-tier loot areas is back and the loot-heavy dropship has been replaced by an equally loot-filled train. Both spots are clearly marked on your map, making them both easy to find and avoid.

Weapon loot has also been changed to better appeal to new players. Respawn has redesigned many of the weapons so that you no longer need to know which guns are objectively the best, you just have to find the firearms you’re best with. Two of the stronger weapon attachments in the game–disruptor ammo and skullpiercer rifling–have been removed, affecting every weapon that utilized either hop-up. Specifically, the Alternator and Wingman have dropped in utility, no longer being nearly as dominant as they previously were. Both guns were almost unfairly powerful with their corresponding hop-up attached, but only if you were a decent shot; the Alternator has a powerful recoil and the Wingman requires an exceptionally steady and patient hand under pressure to be effective. It’s not easy to be proficient at either one at first, especially if you’re new to first-person shooters, presenting a significant advantage for those who’ve been playing Apex Legends for a while. Now that advantage is just gone.

In place of those weapon attachments, a bunch of guns that are fairly easy to use have brand-new hop-ups in Season 3. The two easiest assault rifles to use in the game, the R-301 and Flatline, (as they have no wind-up time and possess fairly low recoil and decent range) have a new attachment, the anvil receiver, that increases their semi-auto damage. The easiest sniper rifle to use, the G7 Scout (as it has low recoil and semi-auto fire), and the far easier of the two shotguns to use, the EVA-8 (as it fires very quickly), have a new double tap trigger hop-up that allows them to fire two shots with every trigger pull. Respawn has also implemented various buffs and nerfs across most of the library of firearms in Apex Legends, all of which have seemingly created a more balanced experience.

The new weapon, the Charge Rifle, is also a nice addition, presenting a fairly beginner-friendly option for long-range combat. Though it requires time to charge, the weapon fires a targeting laser as it’s warming up. Provided your scope has a powerful enough zoom to see what you’re shooting at, the targeting laser assists in pinpointing your shot. The laser itself also does minor damage, so even if your shot misses its mark, you’re still assisting your team just by pulling the trigger in the right direction.

One of the cooler new features added in Season 3 is the brand-new audio cues, specifically warnings for when you’re being attacked by more than one squad. Apex Legends’ firefights can be hectic once the playable safe area becomes small enough, so it’s occasionally difficult to discern one enemy team from another. For anyone who’s worried about holding their team back by not knowing when to retreat, there’s now an audio cue to help you out. If you’re fighting an enemy squad and another squad suddenly tries to flank you, a teammate’s character will call it out. Bangalore, for example, might yell, “Ambush! Ambush! There’s another squad!” or Caustic may call out, “We’re being attacked by two different squads!” It’s a small change, but it makes it so much easier to understand how much the odds may be stacked against you–a boon for those who struggle with situational awareness.

However, more than anything, Crypto’s addition to Apex Legends provides the easiest way to join your friends and not have to worry about knowing how everything works. Crypto is at his best when he’s tucked away in the corner and using his tactical to get eyes on enemy targets. Playing as Crypto actually gives you an excuse to not jump headfirst into a firefight because you benefit your team most by initially pinpointing targets with your drone. You might not rank as high as your teammates for your post-game stats, but playing as Crypto allows you to contribute without being adept at shooters–so you don’t have to worry about your teammates being too angry at you if you’re still learning. Crypto is a great addition to Apex Legends as a result. He’s certainly not the best character for aggressive styles of play, which is common if you decide to participate in Gold or higher ranked play, but he’s definitely the easiest of the current eleven Legends to grasp. At the very least, simply playing as him helps you get acclimated to Apex Legends’ role-centric gameplay as well.

And once you do reach level 10 and go into ranked play, you don’t have to worry about being judged for a low kill count at the end of a match. Ranked matches now also keep track of your assists, rewarding you for your performance if you manage to shoot an enemy a few times before your teammate finishes them off. It’s immensely satisfying to know the game rewards you for fulfilling a support role. In Season 2, it was very difficult to engage in ranked, knowing you were primarily rewarded for only surviving and kills, as it then curated a competition within your squad to get the kill shot over winning together. Apex Legends–which has remained entirely squad-based save for a limited-time solo mode during Season 2–finally feels more like a cooperative experience. If you’re just jumping into Apex Legends with Season 3, you don’t have to immediately be good enough to get kills. And, of course, this new assist system means veteran players will most likely be more willing to come to their less experienced teammate’s aid as well, now knowing their own performance and rank will get a nice boost even if they don’t get the kill shot.

There has never been a better time to get into Apex Legends. Crypto is the most beginner-friendly Legend ever introduced and the distance between veterans and newcomers has been shortened by evening the playing field in terms of guns and forcing everyone to drop onto a brand-new map. Some of these perks will diminish as the season goes on and new patterns settle into old habits but, for now anyway, Season 3 is the most accessible Apex Legends has been for new or inexperienced players since the battle royale game launched.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/apex-legends-season-3-is-nice-to-newcomers-present/1100-6470289/

Destiny 2‘s new moon location includes a series of quests you can repeatedly undertake to acquire certain armor and weapons. Through the Lectern of Enchantment and other means, you can acquire Essence quests such as the Essence of Vanity, which nets you the Tranquility sniper rifle. This process involves one tricky step, where you have to find the Horned Wreath in the Chamber of Night. Here’s where the Wreath is located.

Unfortunately, reaching the Horned Wreath is a much more complex process compared with the Captive Cord, for instance. The Wreath is found under the surface of the moon, deep in the series of tunnels that the Hive have constructed. It takes several minutes to get where you need to go. Once you do finally reach the correct area, you’ll receive an objective marker once the Wreath is nearby. Here’s a rough outline of what’s involved.

Where To Find Horned Wreath

• Spawn at Sanctuary and hop on your sparrow, making your way out the right exit
• Go straight through the Anchor of Light into the Hellmouth
• Continue straight until you enter a Hive structure through a hole in the side
• Turn left and make your way down the stairs, then turn right to go down another set of stairs
• Continue advancing through the ensuing areas until you go down a hallway with a high ceiling and an exit on the left
• Move forward and then take a right down the hallway in the next area
• You should now be moving through a series of caves, enter a room, and then exit into another set of caves
• Proceed into an area with platforms suspended high above a chasm; make a jump over the chasm to go through a door, which should trigger a message saying you’re in the Circle of Bones
• Move through the tunnels and the room to enter a wide-open area; head right until you see a doorway with what looks like a bright Hive chandelier above it
• Continue along the path and you should be notified you’ve entered The World’s Grave
• Take a left and go through the large doorway, then keep advancing until you enter a dark corridor that should trigger your flashlight; you’ll be notified you’re now in the Chamber of Night
• Move straight through a series of rooms and hallways filled with enemies until you come into a more wide-open room, and you should–finally!–see an objective marker for the Wreath

As with the other quests like this, finding the Horned Wreath is the trickiest part, but it’s only one of three steps you’ll need to complete.

Essence of Vanity Quest Steps

• Activities Completed (patrols, public events, Lost Sectors on the moon)
• Sniper Rifle kills
• Horned Wreath found

Once you knock out all three steps, you can return to the Lectern to receive Tranquility, a kinetic weapon slot sniper rifle. As with other weapons obtained through Essence quests, you can reacquire the quest from the Lectern to try getting a different roll. Thankfully, the Horned Wreath step only needs to be done the first thing you ever do the quest.

You can purchase Essence of Vanity at the Lectern for a Phantasmal Core, which can be earned from some Eris Morn bounties or bought for 20 Phantasmal Fragments. The Fragments themselves are earned by killing Nightmares, or you can buy them (again at the Lectern) for 25 Helium Fragments.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2-horned-wreath-location-where-to-go-for-e/1100-6470287/

A new year, season, and expansion have arrived with Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, and it’s a very exciting time to be playing Bungie’s sci-fi loot-shooter-MMO. Shadowkeep brings with it a new story, an updated version of a classic destination, new gear to chase, tons of balance and economy changes, a completely revamped armor system, and much more.

And, of course, there’s a new raid launching soon–Garden of Salvation, which arrives Saturday, October 5. For some Destiny players, that’s the most important thing. And getting raid ready by powering up as high as possible this week is all that matters.

Jumping from 750, last season’s maximum power level, all the way to above 900 in just a few days to get ready for the raid might seem daunting. But thanks to the way power level currently works in Destiny 2, it’s actually incredibly easy to do. Things get a little bit more complicated once you pass 900, but it’s nothing you can’t manage with this handy guide. Here’s how to get as many powerful drops as possible to ensure you’re ready to tackle the Garden of Salvation on October 5.

The Soft Cap

Gaining over 150 power levels in a few days seems intense, given that each season used to raise the power cap by only 50 points. But what matters is actually the new “soft cap,” which is set at 900 power.

That means that any drops you get while playing Destiny 2, no matter their source, can potentially help to increase your power level all the way up to 900. That even includes the normally worthless blue items that come from completing public events, simply killing enemies, and dozens of other sources. There are exceptions to this–for example, if your overall power level is 800, but you have one slot with a high outlier number like 810, drops for that slot likely won’t help you until the rest of your slots catch up. But for the most part, you can simply play the game normally, completing the new story elements and exploring the Moon, and hit 900 with relative ease.

One important thing to note is that it’s best to save any potential powerful drops until after you hit 900. For example, you should wait until you hit 900 to pick up Hawthorne’s clan rewards, which are considered powerful drops. However, this doesn’t apply to prime engrams, whose levels are set the moment you pick them up or they arrive in your postmaster.

You want that world’s first clear, don’t you?

Of course, if you want to speed this up and hit 900 more quickly, you have some options. For veteran players, the best course is to simply spend some time trading in materials for vendor gear. If you have a surplus of items like Crucible or Vanguard tokens, or even destination materials like Dusklight Shards and Microphasic Datalattice, you can trade them in with their respective vendors and receive random loot in return. Vanguard and Crucible tokens are probably your best bet, since you might have several thousand of them, and they serve no other purposes in the game (unlike destination materials).

But even new players without a huge surplus of these materials can get to the soft cap of 900 without breaking a sweat, simply by farming public events on any destination, completing old story content (if you’re a New Light player), or doing other world activities (like killing the Trove Guardian knight on the Moon and looting the chest his death opens a path to).

How to Get Powerful Drops Above 900

Now that you’re 900 power, the easy part is over. Progressing above the soft cap is always a challenge in every new season of Destiny, but this time it’s thankfully not too bad.

First off: Make sure you’re actually 900 power, without the extra levels from your season artifact being factored in. To ensure this, you can hover over your power level in the character menu and see your power from gear and your power from the artifact laid out separately.

Throughout the power grind, you’ll be able to see “powerful” gear sources on the map and destinations director, and even more will appear to you once you hit 900. These specially named engrams are guaranteed to award you armor or guns that are above your current maximum possible level. They even have tiers now–Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.–to indicate exactly how much of a boost they’ll give you.

Even so, there’s bound to be some confusion around exactly where you can get powerful gear, because many old sources from the past year of Destiny 2 no longer count. For example, you can still play old raids to get legendary weapon and armor drops–and even new, Year 3 Armor 2.0 versions of old raid armor. But those drops will act the same as basic world drops, getting you up to the soft cap, but not helping to progress you beyond it.

There’s one major caveat to this: Thanks to changes in Shadowkeep, non-powerful drops can potentially still help you even after you pass the soft cap. That’s because normal, everyday drops now arrive at levels much closer to your current power, even after you get above 900. For example, if all your gear in every slot is 915 except your helmet, which is lagging behind at 905, a blue helmet that drops in a patrol zone or from a public event would still be helpful, because it might arrive at 912 or 914. It’s below your overall power level, but higher than your current helmet.

Lastly, in previous seasons, players who wanted to get raid ready as quickly as possible often used complicated processes to juggle gear between three characters. Basically, you get as much powerful gear as possible on one character, then transfer your highest guns to a second character, which then starts the whole process with a boost in power compared with the first character. Then you do all powerfuls again, which should get the second character higher than the first, and repeat with your third character–the one you intend to raid with.

Strictly speaking, this still works in Shadowkeep. However, it shouldn’t be necessary for Garden of Salvation, since the “contest” modifier that will be active for 24 hours starting from the raid’s launch time on Saturday will cap all players at a maximum level of 920 in the raid’s final encounter. If you’re going for a day one clear, getting above 920–which is extremely easy to do before Saturday–is completely pointless. So you might as well stop there.

Every Source for Powerful Gear

Since many existing sources of powerful gear–including old raids, Menagerie, and Black Armory forges–have been deprecated, where exactly should you start looking for high-level drops once you pass 900 power? So far we’ve discovered the following sources:

• Clan engrams: If you’re new to Destiny or simply haven’t joined a clan yet, go find one. Simply being in an active clan ensures you multiple powerful rewards per week. (The unofficial Destiny 2 PC LFG discord server is a great place to start looking for a clan.)

• Challenges: Once you hit 900, you’ll start to see icons over NPCs in various places, and on the destinations director itself. These icons give you objectives like “Complete 8 Vanguard bounties and speak to Zavala” or “Complete four Crucible matches,” and they generally reward Tier 1 powerful gear. These are found all over the place, and will generally be your main source of powerfuls above 900. And there are several new challenges on the Moon, including the Nightmare Hunts and a heroic version of Shadowkeep’s opening story mission.

• Prime engrams: Prime engrams are rewarded periodically as you play. Decrypt them in the Tower as soon as you receive them.

• Bungie rewards: Bungie will actually give you one free powerful engram, sent directly to the postmaster on the platform of your choosing, simply for signing up for emails. Check the Bungie rewards page to claim yours.

• Ritual weapons: In Season 8 (the current season), pinnacle weapons have been replaced by “ritual” weapons. You can pick up the quests to attain them from Zavala, Shaxx, and the Drifter in the Tower. Obtaining them is a grind, but might be worth it if you need more powerful rewards.

• New exotic quests: Shadowkeep introduces new Exotic weapon quests, some of which we likely haven’t even discovered yet. For now, in these early days, you can start with the quest to obtain the Exotic rocket launcher Deathbringer, which will unlock through Eris Morn after you finish the campaign missions on the Moon.

• Glory rank-ups: Destiny 2’s old competitive playlist has been replaced with a 3v3 survival mode that awards Glory points. Earning a new glory rank awards a powerful drop, so it’s definitely worth jumping into the survival playlist as soon as possible.

If we missed any powerful reward sources, let us know in the comments below, and we’ll keep updating this guide as more info emerges. For now, have fun grinding, Guardians, and good luck in the Black Garden come October 5.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2-shadowkeep-how-to-power-above-900-and-ge/1100-6470286/

Among the many new activities that Destiny 2: Shadowkeep brings are those tied to the Lectern of Enchantment. This device is located near Eris Morn on the moon and presents you with bounties and Nightmare Essence quests. These allow you to farm for superior versions of certain armor and weapons. One of the weapon quests, Essence of Failure, consists of several steps to earn the Arc Logic auto rifle, including one that requires you to find a special item. Here’s where the Captive Cord is located and what to do.

Each of these Essence weapon quests gives you a named location for where to find the item you need. In this case, it tells you the Captive Cord is found in the Lunar Battlegrounds, but you won’t find that on the in-game map. The area you’re looking for is the one from the very first mission of the Shadowkeep campaign. Once you’re reasonably close to it, you’ll receive an objective marker that guides you right to it. Here are step-by-step instructions to get there.

Where To Find Captive Chord

• Spawn at the Sorrow’s Harbor landing zone
• Get on your Sparrow, head right toward the southeastern exit, which takes you across a bridge
• Keep moving forward and you’ll be notified you’ve entered the Lunar Battlegrounds
• Pass through this next area by going straight and to the right
• When you enter the next area, you’ll see a wrecked dome structure and a building with a series of antennae and satellite dishes
• Jump up to the third floor of the satellite building and you’ll find the cord on the right side

Finding the Captive Cord is only one of three steps for this quest, though it is the only one with any ambiguity to it.

Essence of Failure Quest Steps

• Activities Completed (patrols, public events, Lost Sectors on the moon)
• 50 Auto Rifle kills
• Captive Cord found

Finish all three steps and you’ll net yourself the Arc Logic auto rifle. If you don’t like the rolls you get on it, you can reacquire the Essence of Failure quest from the Lectern. When replaying the quest, you’ll only need to complete the first two steps–you won’t need to find the Captive Cord again. However, the quest itself costs one Phantasmal Core, which in the early going are not easy to come across. They drop as rewards for some of Eris Morn’s bounties, or you can buy them from the Lectern in exchange for 20 Phantasmal Fragments, which you’ll earn by killing Nightmares. They can also be purchased for 25 Helium Fragments, the moon’s planetary material.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2-captive-cord-location-where-to-go-for-es/1100-6470285/