I checked the difficulty of the Kings Fall raid last night. It hasn't changed, I'm guessing only the light of the loot drops has increased.

Looking back at it now, I don't know why we thought they'd be changing the difficulty of the Kings Fall raid. They've never increased the difficulty of any others, why would they change that now? Especially when they have PoE that's end-game.

I thought they said that it would take effect a little later than this patch? or am I thinking of something else?

Difficulty was unchanged, but the reduction in Sniper and Machine Gun ammo is quite noticeable. Hopefully it's offset in the future by increased damage at higher light level.

Other thoughts:

• Bungie says the drop rates were improved, but Shards-only drops still happen.
  
• Challenge mode seems to guarantee an extra drop 5 light levels higher than your current LL (not a 330 or 335 drop).
  
• Moldering shards matter - it's an extra drop of an item that matches or improves your current LL.
  
• Recent raid events have focused on challenge mode only. With the new leveling system it probably makes sense to do a single full run (5 drops, all of different items) instead of 3 challenge runs (3 drops of a specific item pair).