Spoken like an elite player. (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, September 28, 2017, 14:09 (2462 days ago) @ DEEP_NNN

Cruel your a great guy, give lots of good advice and help plenty of people out. You just can't come to terms with how much easier these games are for you than a 'lot' of other people.

Bungie made Destiny Raids for people just like you, not my skill tier. They've been faulted for it by themselves and others and that will continue until they offer different flavours of the Raid. There's no reason why a Raid has to be an unplayable space for 'most' customers.

We have a dedicated (old) group playing Tue. and Fri. for 2 hours each. We managed to open the Castleum door twice. Subsequent stages saw little progress and we aren't even running blind. Our time investment is huge but success is slow to arrive. We would benefit greatly from a non-resetting Raids as well as other performance changes.

There was and is no reason why Destiny Raids couldn't have differing skill flavours. Give better rewards to the Elite versions while letting more people check out the playspace at a more favourable setting.

I do take your point, truly. But my gut reaction is that the solution may not be quite as simple as you present it.

Luke Smith has talked several times about the process of creating a raid, and how it differs from creating other content in Destiny. One of the major differences is that the raid designers are able to make certain assumptions about the player... assumptions that cannot be made while designing other activities. They can assume that players are in a full fireteam of 6, and everyone has headsets. They can assume a certain level of commitment over time. And while I've never heard Luke specify this, I bet one of the assumptions the raid team makes is a certain level of compitence and mechanical mastery of the game. I would stress though that I do not believe the raids are particularly demanding on that final point. I'd argue that the Nightfalls are a far more demanding activity in terms of requiring players who can perform like a 1-person army. But to your point, the raids are somewhat more demanding of skill than the rest of the game.

When I think about the implications of your suggestion (adding an "easy" mode), my gut reaction is that something would be lost in the process. I think about the way the current setup has lead to fireteams struggling for days or even weeks, grinding against every encounter, before finally succeeding. How amazing do those teams feel afterwards? How many of those teams would have just given up and done the easier version, had it been available, and robbed denied themselves the sense of accomplishment in the process? Is that a good trade to make? I genuinely don't know. Or what about the social aspect of these challenging activities? Look at all the connections that have been made thanks to players going out of their way to find help, or to offer help.

There's an element to all of this that overlaps with the debate around raid matchmaking. I think, in some cases, it is worthwhile to demand certain efforts of the player. I think certain experiences are only possible when the players involved have put in a certain level of investment. That's a real tricky line to walk, and Bungie hasn't nailed it flawlessly every time, but my gut tells me that the raid right now is in a pretty good place overall. It's demanding, it's tough. It is not for everyone. And I think that's ok. I don't see how it could be made "for everyone" without diluting what makes it special.

That said, there is another layer to all this. I think (but I could be wrong), that there is a large group of players who are more interestied in *seeing* the raid than they are in *playing* the raid. What I mean is they want to see the locations, fight through some of the playspaces, and explore without worrying about all the stress and pressure that they might feel while joining a raid team. I think Bungie actually addressed this issue quite well with TTK, by creating story missions that took us down into the Vault or to Crota's throne room. I loved that, and I hope Bungie does something similar with the Leviathan raid locations in the future.