It's the best of times and the worst of times. That's rise of Iron. I think more so than any other DLC it has a lot going for it, but has just so many backwards decisions that it baffles me. Most have already been discussed, but here we go.

The question of length has come up, and I don't have any problems with short games. After all, you can probably finish the best game of this decade in around 6 to 7 hours. The rise of Iron story missions were around this length. That doesn't make it bad necessarily. You have to look at the overall experience. I don't think the story missions were really that engaging, but this is the result of their design and length. It really hurts that the game doesn't have any kind of coherent story during the course of play. You are kind of always just running to a place for some unknown reason. You look at the "Download Complete" and 'Walls Come Down" missions, and they are not only short but absolute garbage in term of engaging design. We aren't doing anything cool. You are running to a place which you aren't quite sure why you are there, deploying your ghost, then killing enemies that spawn. Like every other stupid mission you played before. A serious lack of imagination here. The final mission and the first mission were the only one I felt had some kind of inspiration to them.

So was the game too short? Yes. I say this because the story missions did not leave you satisfied. They could have done so much more in terms of design to push us out of our comfort zone. Remember, we've been playing this game for 2 years. We know it really well. We already have the skills and knowhow to succeed. We need to be tested in different, fun, and unusual ways or else we just blow through it ezpz without really even having to think. It was autopilot. Comfort food.

There has already been a thread about this, but the game after the story missions is pathetic. It offers you nothing interesting to do to progress, or to explore. I don't want to play the same strikes over and over again. Literally the same strikes we have been playing before Rise of Iron came out. Does it not strike anybody as odd that one of the ways Bungie wanted you to progress was to play old content in a new DLC? Taken King 'questified' the game, and offered numerous things to do after the story missions. So the fact Rise of Iron did not is really really baffling.

The raid. I appreciate the Raid, and I think it's very fun. It's up there for sure. However, I am slightly disappointed in certain aspects because our expectations weren't really defied. You again have to remember that we have conquered raids before, and so know the 'language' of them. Killing the first boss is basically a reskin of the Warpriest fight. It's literally the same concept. We figured it out very quickly.

I am getting a bit tired of the idea of having an invincible boss, whom you must make vulnerable, then burn him until he's invincible again, then repeat. This is why I enjoyed the Siege Engine part so much, because it was a break from the type of boss fights that has been the unwavering norm since raiding began in Vault of Glass.

I would love to see future raids incorporate more sections like the Bridge, or Prove Your Worth, and the Siege Engine where you are not fighting bosses but nevertheless have regular enemies to kill and something to accomplish. After the siege engine, there was a really cool server room where a few splicer ambushed us. Why not turn that into an objective based fight, where we have to turn on the lights and unlock the door while being attacked by splicers? Would have been great. I'd also like to see boss fights where the boss isn't invincible and can only be killed by burn phases. At this point you can just assume shooting them will pop up 'immune'.

That being said, the raid is excellent when compared to the other raids in Destiny. However, there was no story lead up, and it just starts you off fighting this boss you have no idea about. This worked for the Vault because it was a mysterious side quest. But both Crota and Oryx had some context. The atmosphere of the raid is great, the environments are great, the fights are fun, and it'll be fun to run again and try new things or run again to level up.

The tl;dr version is that the story missions are ok, the raid and crucible are excellent, and everything else is shit. But more shit than the shit in pervious DLCs. Even Dark Below's shit.

I'm still playing post-story RoI content, but IIRC correctly, isn't the Raid boss Aksis? He's mentioned right after RoI's story content ends as the leader of the remaining SIVA threat. Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this?

But I have to agree with Cody that we're still not given much context. Compare Aksis to Sepiks Perfecred, who we have a history with and was part of the RoI story. Aksis is sort of just there.

I thought you didn't like repetitive gameplay, bullet-sponge bosses or wave defense rooms?

I thought you didn't like repetitive gameplay, bullet-sponge bosses or wave defense rooms?

THANK YOU! :)

I've been gone for like two years and he's still talking about a game which no one here has bothered to touch. His persistence is commendable.

I've been gone for like two years and he's still talking about a game which no one here has bothered to touch. His persistence is commendable.

Platinum is an incredible developer, though. I got a couple hours just replaying the Revengeance demo over and over trying to master all the nuances of the combat.

I've been gone for like two years and he's still talking about a game which no one here has bothered to touch. His persistence is commendable.

Platinum is an incredible developer, though. I got a couple hours just replaying the Revengeance demo over and over trying to master all the nuances of the combat.

Oh no doubt! Revengeance is an absolute gem and a somewhat quirky spinoff for Metal Gear that gets it right in so many ways. Mind you, I wasn't deriding Cody for his instistent love of Vanquish, I just think it's endearing that he continues to reference it in comparison to Destiny. Sometimes I do honestly feel like that game is worth giving a shot.

Though the less said about Mutants in Manhattan the better.

Not sure about other platforms though.

I've been gone for like two years and he's still talking about a game which no one here has bothered to touch. His persistence is commendable.

Platinum is an incredible developer, though. I got a couple hours just replaying the Revengeance demo over and over trying to master all the nuances of the combat.

Yup Vanquish is like that. If you find it boring crank up the difficulty where you are forced to master the nuances of every weapon and every move. Play is fast with lots of flow. Sublime.

I've been gone for like two years and he's still talking about a game which no one here has bothered to touch. His persistence is commendable.

I played Vanquish. Found it terribly repetitive and not very fun at all. I am a quasi-fan of Platinum (though I refuse to buy Bayonetta 2, because Nintendo), so I get their style, but that game was a dud.

PS. Speaking of Platinum, Transformers: Devastation is one of the free PS plus games this month. Give it a download!

Cover based shooters suffer from the issue of being unfun. Hiding behind a wall is boring. Even ME suffers from this, and I thought their implementation was better then most.

Bungie still seems to be learning how to design raid bosses. They have a harder time then most MMOs since they operate under a larger restriction that they have no real classes, and interact via their gunplay vs. the auto hit abilities of standard MMOs. To their credit, the difference between the bullet sponge strike bosses and the varied mechanics of the raid bosses is huge. If anything I would like to see more of those mechanics "leak" down into the strikes, and the CoO was a huge opportunity to test new mechanics for implementation in strikes or raids.

If the live team could focus on new mechanics in those same geometries, they could get far better feedback from players.

The better you are, the less you have to take cover. It's all about being fast and stringing together moves. Unless you set it to God hard.

Cover based shooters suffer from the issue of being unfun. Hiding behind a wall is boring. Even ME suffers from this, and I thought their implementation was better then most.

If hiding behind a wall is boring in Mass Effect, I don't want to be excited. Mass Effect was a good start, Mass Effect 2 was a giant leap forward, and Mass Effect 3 had amazeballs gameplay and I will Krogan head butt anyone who disagrees. ;)

The better you are, the less you have to take cover. It's all about being fast and stringing together moves. Unless you set it to God hard.

Yup. I liked Vanquish very much. Mass Effect is like that too.

Speaking of "being fast and stringing together moves," any interest in the new DOOM, Cody?