Non-raiders often seem unable to "get" raiding (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, September 27, 2017, 09:45 (2454 days ago) @ Kermit

Please no. In this regard I like things the way they are. Part of the challenge of completing the raid is doing it within a week. Raids in general would be diminished by adding another watered down flavor.

I disagree, because at its core the raid is not about time pressure at all. It would be designed differently it it were.

Way back when, most games had to be completed in one sitting. They would reset your progress every time you started the game! Even more hardcore than once a week. This was a game design decision; password systems were easy to implement even in the simplest of games.

First of all, these games were short. We are talking less than 45 minutes typically, and even that may be high. The emphasis was on mastery, and since you could not save your progress at all, you had to play masterfully and continuously for the duration of the game. You could mess up a few times (hence lives systems), but you basically needed to play from start to finish and not mess up at all.

This pressure for mastery and continuous play is completely removed when you are allowed to save progress, and when you no longer have limited lives. And guess what? The raid has both those features! You can wipe an unlimited number of times, and you progress is saved. On principle, there is no fundamental difference in terms of design philosophy if your progress is saved forever, or if it is saved for a week. Just the act of saving it fundamentally changes to nature of the game.

The fact that you have to beat the raid in a week is not what makes it special. It's special because the challenges are unique, and you are doing it with other people with whom you must co-ordinate with in game.

If Bungie redesigned the raid system so you checkpoints never reset unless you either reset them yourself, or you beat the raid, this would not affect hardcore players at all. They'd still bust through the raid in one night and get their loot every week. But those for whom scheduling is a problem, could potentially play over the course of three weeks, and still get their drops. The gear resets could still happen, but since you haven't gotten the final boss drop, it resets from 'available' to 'available'. See?

The week limit is NOT a challenge, and it is NOT a meaningful design decision since the fact that you have unlimited lives and saved progress is just like every other modern game. All it does is hurt people who have lots going on in real life.