A key, ironic difference (Criticism)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, December 05, 2018, 11:39 (2213 days ago) @ squidnh3

Then I got to the Dreaming City and it felt like I was trespassing and I LOVED it. I had the same experience going underleveled into Crota and the Shattered Throne. Something about those places just felt right when I was struggling to survive. I could explore and poke around, but it was dangerous and exciting to do so.

Plenty of people have pointed to this exact experience as something they wanted to see more of in Destiny. We all remember the ??? enemies in the original Destiny Beta, and how much fun it was to try to sneak past them. At the beginning of Forsaken I had the experience of starting a Tier 3 Blind Well while where I wasn't leveled enough to even damage the enemies, so I switched to Tether and tried to generate orbs while using invisibility to revive the other players. It was a blast, even though we failed.

I've since had a lot of success at Tier 3 and 4 - almost to the point that it's trivial. I expect in a week or two, we'll all blow through some Black Armory Forges without barely even having to try. I don't see the issue with Bungie giving us a week or so of struggle with the new content - after we are leveled there's no going back to this state.

Full disclosure, I haven't even tried or looked at what the Forges entail. My understanding is that the encounters start at 620, and ramp up to 630. To me this means you can start trying at 605 (I'm already there after last night). There are plenty of reports of people succeeding at them at 605-610. Maybe you aren't as confident with your abilities, but I always think it's worth a try. There's really nothing like succeeding against overwhelming odds.

There’s a funny distinction between the Forges and Blind Well or Escalation Protocol. Because the Forges use matchmaking, you can’t do them with more than 3 people. The community has been clamouring for 6-9 player matchmaking in Blind Well and EP, because we think of them as 6-9 player activities. But Bungie has always talked about them in terms of being 3-player activities. Now we have matchmaking for the Forge, and it basically locks us out of doing them with groups larger than 3 players.

While the process of gathering groups of 9 players to tackle EP or BW was always a pain in the ass, it was a great way for underlevelled players to experience the activity and make up for their lack of power, which helped bridge the gap until they were leveled up high enough to run the activity with the intended group size of 3.

Personally speaking, I love a challenge. I ran most of the Forsaken campaign 20-30 levels underlevelled, I was soloing Ascendant Challenges and Lost sectors where I’d get killed in 1-2 hits, I played the infamous 6-player strike almost 40 levels under, with a group who was similarly underpowered, I solo’d a good chunk of the Shattered Throne at ~565, etc. I love that kind of thing. But all those examples give the player space to move and maneuver, to use cover in intelligent ways. The Forge is more of a “bullet hell” style activity. You’re just getting blasted from all sides, all the time. I’m sure some players will enjoy pushing their way through while underlevelled, but it isn’t the kind of challenge that I personally enjoy.