Raid Lairs - I hate inventing a word and not describing it (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, November 16, 2017, 12:23 (2565 days ago) @ Xenos

I get that and I have no problem with bungie using a new term to describe something new. Thanks to the discussion here, I've been able to hone my concern to something more accurate: Bungie is hyping a new term without adequately describing it. That's what bugs me. The term is almost meaningless right now, given how little information they've given us, and yet they still insist on using it as a marketing pitch. That opens the door for rampant and unwarranted speculation, which Bungie has historically not denied.

I think the problem here though is how could the resolve this? The only way I can think of that would satisfy everyone who agrees with you would be to show you the actual content ahead of time. They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid. What information are you actually looking for? What qualifiers could they use that would satisfy you without actually spoiling the experience?

These are completely fair questions and I appreciate you asking them.

I think that their descriptions needed more comparison terms. Saying "it's smaller than the raid" gives us an upper bound, but no lower limit. I'd have liked "it's smaller than the raid but bigger than Io" or "It's about the size of the Dark Below raid" or "It's not at all like Prison of Elders, except in terms of how big the playable area is. Or even "It's a little bigger than the new Tower." Hopefully not "It's as big as most Lost Sectors." The information we have now is that size S={0,..., The Current Raid} which isn't enough info to know much about it, imo.

We do know for a fact that this is "Raid Content" and they said that means it is designed for 6 players. So that's concrete, at least.

As for the mechanics, they said it contains a couple of puzzles. That casts a very wide net. There's a "jumping puzzle" in the Vault of Glass that is basically nothing and can be completed in a single jump by most classes. Then there's the exotic weapon puzzle/chain in Rise of Iron which is hugely in-depth, required community support and research, and contained many varied steps. So we can't say what this is. It could be several massive and complicated puzzles, or several tiny and simple "puzzles," or a mix of the two, and we simply don't have enough information to know.

Then, we know that it ends with a boss fight. We don't know if this means there's only 1 encounter and 1 chance at loot per week, or if each puzzle results in a chest and then the boss fight is more loot, or if there are multiple possible bosses but you can only fight one per week (sort of like PoE). We also don't know if this is going to be a simple, strike-style boss fight, or a more complicated fight comparable to the final fight of the Leviathan raid, or something in between. Not enough info.

The last bit of information we have is that this will take less time than the current Raid. Commonly discussed was "I don't have time for the full raid, so let's do the Raid Lair." That concerns me. The full raid can be completed in under 2 hours by most experienced teams, and some nutso guys finished it in 24 minutes.. So this seems to indicate that the raid lair will take about an hour to complete once you know what's going on, and be possible for crazy people to finish in 12.5 minutes? Given that we already have a plethora of activities in the 15-20 minute range (strikes and PvP matches, as well as most adventures and missions), it would make sense to me that that would be too short for a 6 player activity. Again, I'm thinking about an hour is most likely, but - as with the size, we don't know for sure. What we do know is that Time T=(0,..., The Current Raid).

The end result here, though, is that we've been told it'll take less time than the raid and that's all we know.

Look, I get that it's absurd to think that this will be a 1 pixel sized space that takes 4 nanoseconds to complete. And yet, from the information Bungie has provided, that's a (wholly unrealistic) possibility. Which is why I would appreciate more information. Let's get the word from the horse's mouth as to what the size, time commitment, and level of complexity are.