lol (Recruitment)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 11:11 (2576 days ago) @ Claude Errera

Who said “you’re running with the right crew”? ;)

You did, sir.

Wait, was it really me? I thought it was Korny, lol!

And you were right - it was a solid crew. (The crew I play most often with on Xbox is just as solid. I've learned that playing with solid crews can be a disadvantage, when you step outside that circle - things that seem smooth as butter are not. And that causes extra frustration, on top of the standard "we're not executing" frustration that everyone feels when things aren't going well.)

I’m always fascinated by the way unique shorthands develop within any group that spends a lot of time together. My favourite part of the original “flawless raider” days back in the early months of Vanilla Destiny was not earning the achievement (although that was awesome). Rather, it was super cool and interesting to watch the communication and coordination of the group shift and change as the weeks went by. These days, replaying raids tends to turn things a bit more loose and casual (since we’re all just doing it for fun), but the difficulty tied to the flawless raider trophy meant that we had to stay completely on-the-ball, the whole time.

That level of repitition and focus lead to a fascinating lack of callouts in certain ways. The whole thing started to feel rehearsed and choreographed like a ballet or something. We all came to expect Defender bubbles or Nova Bombs at the exact same time, in the exact same place, run after run. And where things got really interesting was watching people who weren’t part of the core group fill in open spots from time to time. Sometimes they’d slip right in, and other times it was a train wreck... not at all due to any given player’s skill or proficiency, but based on how naturally their instincts fell in line with the rest of the more rehearsed group.