Rethinking Raids: What makes VoG stand above CE and KF (Destiny)

by dogcow , Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Friday, July 22, 2016, 21:29 (2827 days ago) @ CyberKN

And then The Taken King dropped, and we got our hands on King's Fall. It seemed to hit most of the points I thought it needed to hit:

• It's longer then VoG
  
• It has no less then three non-combat sequences (Jumping Puzzles!)
  
• We were able to take down the final boss before reset, despite being technically weaker due to light-level.

So why do I still feel like VoG was way better?
The first reason is simple: Hive Fatigue.

So much this. I'm tired of the Hive.

The second reason is that Kings Fall's combat encounters feel overly reliant on DPS-checks. A DPS-check is a part of an encounter where players MUST do a set amount of damage to an enemy within a short amount of time, or else they have to restart the encounter because the situation is unrecoverable (or Oryx claps his hands). Forcing the fireteam to restart the encounter because of this sort of design feels un-creative and is demoralizing for the players, especially because of how much focus it places on the players' gear and level, things that Destiny explicitly places out of their control. On the other hand, this might be a purely subjective complaint, and other people I've talked to love this kind of encounter design.

I hadn't realized it before, but YES! So much this. It can be very demoralizing. I'd say a lot of KF's mechanics end up being demoralizing, plus it's just so FREAKING LONG! Take the fatiguing length of the thing and add in demoralizing mechanics and people tired of it.

On the topic of KF being SO FREAKING LONG... I know I've said this before, but I think KF would have benefitted from being 2 separate raids. This just occurred to me, perhaps it could have been 1 non-linear raid 'space' and you pickup quests to take down certain bosses. The first time entering the raid you would get the first quest, which would unlock the 2nd quest (and geometry) which would unlock the finale. After unlocking a quest it would reset and be available to you each week. Each quest would give "known" random rewards.

As an aside, here's an example of how I think the "Pistons" section of KF could have been improved, using existing mechanics that still feel completely "new":

• Rotate them 90 degrees.

The Piston section is cool, but it's really just a retread of mechanics we've been using (avoiding?) before; Anyone who's engaged a cabal/taken phalanx, in an enclosed space, will know what I'm talking about.

But what if the pistons had been vertical instead? Waiting until the initial unsuspecting guardian walked over top of it (Make it look like a plate!), and then launching them skyward? And then the players have to learn to use the incredible, mancannon-esque momentum of these pistons in sequence to ascend to Oryx's throne room! Destiny's engine is clearly capable of handling these sorts of physics mechanics, but we don't ever see it used to the player's benefit, or as something the player can make use of.

I love this idea.