Contrary opinion (Criticism)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, September 15, 2018, 13:17 (2294 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I have seen both sides with regards to raiding. I went in to the Vault of Glass the second it opened up, and I have also ended up waiting weeks before tackling Spire of Stars.

I absolutely appreciate that challenge that doing the raid right away entails. Staying up till 8am doing the Vault of Glass was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I have ever had. It was awesome. It was hard. It was frustrating. It was rewarding. It was a really great experience. So I totally get wanting to do that with future raids.

But I have also waited. It's gone well most of the time, but with Spire it did not. People were spoiled. I did not get to do it with a blind group. And it diminished the experience significantly.

Believe it or not, Vault of Glass had a non RNG way to get to 26: you can just buy legendary armor from vendors. Spire of Stars did not. Drops were the only way. I think as you point out that was the key difference. if you were not ready for VoG on week 2 when it opened, you probably could be by week 3 even with casual play.

The experiences for the hardcore players should absolutely be there, but not at the expense of those who can't or don't want to rush through the game. Especially in something like Forsaken where there feels like there is a lot to do, I personally don't want to feel a time pressure; I want to just be able to explore and learn about the new places and new facets of the game.

But the other facet of getting raid ready that matters is fun. VoG had you chasing RNG drops for armor or for Ascendant Shards. Taken King had you playing through post campaign missions. Guess which was more fun? From Taken King through CoO it never felt like preparing for the raid was a huge grind. It might take some time, but it didn't feel boring.

But with Spire and now Last Wish, it seems that the climb is simply a grind. This is a huge step backwards in my opinion.

The solutions seems pretty simple. Either:

1. When the raid launches have a normal mode and hard mode from the get go. That way hardcore players can tackle hard, and everyone else the normal mode.
2. Make the light level achievable in a reasonable amount of time by normal players. Taken King did this. You had three days to get ready for the raid, and if you played a shit ton you could do it. But everyone else could get there not that far after.

560 the way the progression system works now is just bullshit. And to top it all off, we all get spoiled when world's first beats the raid.

Look at the graph for 1/x:

Imagine the X axis is time from launch, and the Y axis is effort required to raid. This is the ideal shape. If you want to raid super quickly, you can be hardcore and put in tons of effort. But it should quickly get easier and easier to get to raid level. Everyone is happy.