So then. Raid Thoughts? Good/Bad/So-So? *Raid SP* (Destiny)

by RaichuKFM , Northeastern Ohio, Monday, October 30, 2017, 22:37 (2370 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I liked it! I'll go through stuff in the order our group first experienced things.

The opening area is just fantastic. It's fun to explore, and it's big without being a pain to get to the end when you want to get straight to the challenges.

The Castellum is a nice encounter; having to repeat it all the time is an eh design choice, but it isn't as annoying as I would have thought. It's fairly easy to push through, but sometimes can be challenging for one reason or another (like if you're down a guy) so I'd say it's fairly well designed. It does a good job of introducing later mechanics, too.

The Pleasure Gardens... Well. The Pleasure Gardens were the first encounter I've ever done blind, and man did it show. It didn't help that we were down a guy for a while, after our sixth didn't show, and my brother dropped out from filling in because he wasn't having fun, and if I recall correctly Disciple's messages were being funny and we didn't get Steel in until an hour after he originally offered to join. We just spent forever, figuring it out, and then struggling to execute once we did. With that said, I actually like it? It was probably the most fun to figure out, for me, and I was impressed with everybody piecing it all together, and manually working out the timers, and the like. It was difficult, frustrating (especially when a dog would spot us due to wonky pathing) but ultimately I liked it. Although I don't think that that's the majority opinion of our group.

The Baths are solid. It was the one encounter where I was lagging behind everyone else in figuring anything at all out, so I'm not as excited about it as anything else. But damn, am I impressed with the sheer efficiency of the strategy the rest of our group worked out. (We have three people on either side; two start on the plates, with one floating. The floater immediately goes and gets protection in the middle, and runs to one of the plates, let's say the top; the person who was at top then runs to the middle, grabs the protection, and runs to the bottom; the person who was at bottom then runs to the middle, relieves top, and so on ad infinitum. Probably not a unique strategy, but I like it a lot.) It's the easiest challenge, I think, but rewarding. It also happened to reinforce one of the lessons of the Pleasure Gardens; Hawthorne's Field Forged Shotgun is a beast.

The Gauntlet is the most ridiculous thing and I love it. Less so the execution; I really need to get MIDA already so I have something to shoot the arrows with. Sturm is nice because it's a one shot affair, but man am I terrible at aiming it in a pinch. And the last time I played it I somehow managed to consistently forget my Councilor, somehow. With that said, it's the one encounter where I'm already comfortable in both roles, although less so the bit at the end. I think I just need more practice, though.

The Underbelly is... interesting. I like the idea of it, a big place to explore, with shortcuts and hidden chests. The aesthetic is a little disappointing to me, though. Every other Raid space is just gorgeous, and really unique. The Underbelly is... it's Cabal architecture. It makes sense, and isn't a bad thing, but it did underwhelm me a bit at first. I think running into some of the more ridiculous elements fixed that, though. (Oh, the Ventilator...) I like the idea of how you get into most of the chests, with the Watchers, and it's usually pretty fun, in execution; some of the spots are better than others, though. But this definitely gets a plus just for being an extra dimension to a Raid I haven't seen before. I still haven't played King's Fall or Wrath of the Machine, so I don't know if they had anything like that, but in any case it's new to me so it gets brownie points for that. (If there's a way to get into it from the outside embarkment with just one person, I would love to know-- exploring it just for the sake of exploration sounds like it could be fun, but more something I would want to do on my own then with a group. That's just a small thing, though; it was fun to follow Steel around with everyone else.)

And finally, Calus. Oh, Calus. This one actually frustrated me, unlike The Pleasure Gardens, which just frustrated everyone else. For the first while, in fact, I didn't even like it, like, at all? It really grew on me, though, and beating it was just so satisfying. Honestly, afterwards, for whatever reason, it felt a little like Christmas- but it did for other people in the house, too, so it was probably more that it was cold. I was on the dark world / shadow realm / nega-zone / purple / outside / inside / Zordon / Mars team (as opposed to the throne room / Calus's chamber / inside / outside / different shade of purple / Bender / Venus team), and man, those psions. Those freaking psions. They are such a clever and aggravating application of a move they've had since vanilla Destiny that's generally just been a mild annoyance. I think we put together a pretty solid strategy, though, and eventually we got past some of the hiccups of execution, if not entirely. Dealing out the actual damage, I think we have down pat. I also do really enjoy the opportunity to use Sweet Business and the Lunafaction Boots on a mob of flying alien skulls. That's just a lovely experience, really. It's also the one section where I don't run Voidwalker, opting for Stormcaller instead, for the fast rift charge time and the helpful little arc souls. All this mechanical babble aside... Wow. The story of it was fantastic. I mean, surprise, Calus is a robot! Oh look, Calus is a legion of robots. I genuinely did not see that coming. And I really, really enjoy that, in contrast to the other raids, which were all of the general formula 'We break into a bad guy's lair, fight through these puzzle like challenges, steal some fancy gear, and then kill the bad guy', this was... Well. 'Defy' the Emperor, we did not. We arrive on the Leviathan after he invited us, we fight the challenges because he wants us to, on his terms, in an order he picks, even! The rewards are gifts, not salvaged or stolen, and even at the end when you kill him... Well, it didn't really mean anything. We don't really stop Calus; he just decides that we were entertaining enough that he can leave the rest of Nessus alone, and go get his nectar ingredients elsewhere. It makes the Guardians feel, not insignificant, but like a smaller power in a larger setting, in a way that nothing in the original Destiny, or even the campaign of Destiny 2, did? At least not for me. And I like that, especially tied in with some of the lore on the gear (It Stared Back, I'm looking at you) and the black pyramids stinger. I'm feeling pretty good about the future direction of the story. Oh, and the way you start the encounter is just so lovely.

Also, Calus's voice overs during the raid are a nice touch, I think. I like that it comes with tokens, and the vendor is fun. I already almost have a full set of Raid armor on my Warlock (I just need the boots), and sure, it might not all be max power level, but it has that sweet, sweet lore tab.