I played one round of Menagerie yesterday and it was fun but very very confusing. It seemed like raid speed round.

What I liked about it:
• Enemies were tough but not impossible. I did get killed quite a bit, but it had a pretty quick respawn time. And with 6 players in tight areas, I was usually respawned almost immediately. This is much welcomed considering when I played The Reckoning, all I did was constantly sit at a death screen watching blueberries run past my dead body.

• Boss Encounter - At the very end, we had to fight a big Vex dude. The mechanic required us to kill some baddies to create light wells, which would let us lower the boss shield, at which point we could DPS. His attack move was to summon "death walls" that would phase towards us and kill us if we were in the path. They were always in a predictable pattern which made it really easy, but it was a fun battle that required you to pay attention but it didn't demand perfection.

What I didn't like about it: (And this is more because I'm a dumdum at this stuff)
• I was generally confused about what was going on. Nothing was explained, I just followed my teammates around and killed bad guys. There was (what I understood as) a timed running/jumping round. We had to run obstacles and clear sections in a time limit or....well, I don't know what the consequence was of failing. I died a couple of times, but respawned with my team and kept going. There is a progress bar in the top left that seemed to progress or regress based on our performance but I couldn't tell what actions made it move either direction.

Overall, it was pretty fun but relies on a team to do it so most likely it's something I won't spend too much time doing.

Enemies scale up if you're having too easy of a time? Check.
Absolutely no way to fail the activity as a whole? Check.
Interesting mechanics that are fun to figure out and optimize strategies? Check.

Mini-raid you can't wipe is an absolute godsend in my books. Will be spending a LOT of time there this season.

I agree with your points. My only issue was not understanding things, but I was also thrown into a game halfway through. They could make the objectives a bit more clear and what causes negative versus positive progress.

It fun to have these Raid like mechanics, but not be so punished. So getting all randoms, it can still be completed, and that's fun. It's something I can see myself playing without even needing to get a reward. Because it's just fun, and you want to do better on it.

Off topic, but every time I hear the word" Menagerie" I think of Conroy Bumpus.

+1 Action. Reveal your hand. If the revealed cards all have different names, +3 Cards. Otherwise, +1 Card.

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