Its the only one where I feel like I'm doing something that matters, it has the more interesting boss fight of the campaign, and its very atmospheric.

The title of my post is a bit misleading. The story missions aren't bad. Its just this is the one that stands out to me as being exceptionally well made.

For clarity, I fully plan on playing every raid in the future. I don't think I'll be going in as a virgin from now on, simply because I don't want to spend as much time on future raids as I spent on the VoG. But I love the problem-solving aspect of it. I love gameplay that switches things up on you like this did. And I want to be able to experience that sort of stuff on my own schedule, and at a difficulty that I choose.

If you don't go in knowing nothing, then how do you preserve the problem solving and challenge? If you know the mechanics and strategies of the fights, that would ruin that aspect. The raid was a lot of fun because you had to work together to figure this out.

But that's only half the equation. I found it a lot of fun to problem solve the Raid, but we didn't even figure out the Relic could Cleanse you till after attempting the gatekeeper sequence for about 4 hours. That felt like a horrible waste of time.

What I'd like to see in the future is more missions (in any format) that utilizes similar gameplay and level design, but that's tailored for people who aren't interested in the coordination challenge, but just in having a different experience. I know it wouldn't be the same, but if the VoG had the same puzzles, but just half as many Vex shooting at you with half as much health, it would have been the perfect experience in my book. Solving the puzzle should be the primary obstacles, not the hours and hours of repetitively trying to execute something you understood a long time ago.

This something we talked about during that section mentioned above. Figuring out the mechanics never felt like much of a reward. Executing it perfectly did. Perhaps this is just the balance BUNGIE uses make the people who look it up online still earn thier keep, but it felt very punishing for us. I think a mix of these ideas in different scenarios would be great. Figuring out the puzzle means you can go on, no repetitious mechanics. While other more shoot them up activities are strait forward but are lengthy and more demanding in nature.

A level 20 no grind needed version would have been rad.

Yes.

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I'd probably play with people who know but respect my need to solve it myself. Ultimately though, I just want the lore and universe content most (VoG was great for getting you thinking about the Vex time travel capabilities), and if I have to forego the problem solving for quicker access to new lore content, I'll probably do that.

To backtrack a little bit, I should talk about my gaming habits. I'm the sort of gamer who will always play on the easiest difficulty the first time through, just to get the story. When I'm watching a movie, I don't want to have anything get in the way of my enjoyment of the plot. The same goes for a game. If I'm frustrated because I'm repeating levels or sections over and over again due to difficulty, that's a bad thing to me the first time through. It's the equivalent of having to pause a movie to watch scenes over because someone was talking through the whole thing... over and over again. Challenge is fine, and I'm all for that, but not on my first time experiencing a story.

We differ here. I consider the gameplay ideally to be inseparable from the narrative, and ideally that gameplay puts me into a flow state, which means that I've chosen a difficulty level commensurate with my skill level--for games that have difficulty levels, that is.

The thing about good game design is it should have the same emotional effect on you in spite of the difficulty you're playing on. The final Warthog run in Halo: Combat Evolved is an adrenaline-ruled race against time that feels just as triumphant to complete on easy as it does on Legendary. The music, the level design, the dialogue... all of these are the things that make the experience what it is. The same goes for any other game... Journey is a relatively easy game with an incredibly emotional impact. The Last of Us. Dead Space... all of these games achieve the emotional impact they're going for, regardless of difficulty. The challenge might add a little tension, but mostly what it's going to add is frustration as you have to re-attempt each challenge over and over again.

Emphasis mine. I could not disagree with this statement more. I'll remove Journey from the discussion because I don't think it has difficulty levels, and I haven't played Dead Space (and probably won't). But for the Last of Us, the emotional impact of the game is intimately connected to the tension you feel during gameplay. Your bond with Ellie is strengthened every time she superbly vocalizes exactly what you just felt. I'm sorry, but I just don't see it as being that effective if she says "That was intense!" and what you just played wasn't really intense because you played on Easy.

I played The Last of Us on easy. It was intense, frightening, and emotional. I played it on the hardest difficulty for a little bit just to see the difference. It was intense, frightening, emotional, and frustrating. Crank up the difficulty, and (for me) it's just cranking up the frustration.

Going back to Destiny, the Vault of Glass is some of the best level and gameplay design in the game, no doubt. But then you have to stop and realize... most players are not going to have the ability to put together a group to run through the Vault. After that, a lot won't have the skill. And finally, a vast majority just won't have the time in their busy schedules to beat the damn thing before the checkpoints reset.

Sorry, disagree again. Accessibility and challenge do not go hand in hand. Most people won't climb Everest. So what? If everyone could and did, would it mean anything?

Might be that I'm coming across as a little spoiled here, but I'm a story guy. I'd prefer that my story not be locked away behind insane difficulty. I'm not really complaining so much as just reflecting on how I felt about the experience I had, and thinking what would make me - personally - happier in the future. I acknowledge that it wouldn't be best for all, and might not be best for the game. You can be damn sure I'm still going to push through any future raids so I can understand more of the Destiny universe. :)

The best content in Destiny is intentionally being locked away from the majority of its players.

That's only because the majority of players aren't willing to invest so much. You get what you give.

For clarity, I fully plan on playing every raid in the future. I don't think I'll be going in as a virgin from now on, simply because I don't want to spend as much time on future raids as I spent on the VoG. But I love the problem-solving aspect of it. I love gameplay that switches things up on you like this did. And I want to be able to experience that sort of stuff on my own schedule, and at a difficulty that I choose.

As others have pointed out, this doesn't make sense. If you love problem solving, why do you want to know the solution up-front? We did seek out strategies at a certain point, and I can live with that because we tried to do it blind first. You can have everything just as you like it on your timetable, but I don't think that's what the Raid is really about. The Raid isn't about providing just-in-time fun at your convenience. I think it's about making a commitment with a group of friends to tackle a challenge, preferably without knowing the full parameters of that challenge or exactly how long it will take. (I feel the same way about co-op night. You don't join if you're planning on sitting in a corner of the level and eating your supper. You're there to play with others and focus on the game.) If you want advance intelligence ahead of time and make it more of a paint by numbers exercise, that's fine, but that's not my preference. To me, that greatly diminishes the satisfaction I'll have at the end of the journey.

I don't think Bungie should down tone their raids. I think they just need a middle ground. Maybe it's just as simple as making future strikes have more gameplay content similar to what the raid threw at us. If the game were made to cater to me (and yes, I know it's not) the raids would be much easier and offer no rewards, but have a difficulty modifier that increased the recognition that people got for completing, that way any of the world building content wouldn't be blocked off from weaker players, but people would still be able to Become Legend by turning up the difficulty to what it was designed for. I understand that not everyone will agree with me, I'm just putting my thoughts out there.

What I'd like to see in the future is more missions (in any format) that utilizes similar gameplay and level design, but that's tailored for people who aren't interested in the coordination challenge, but just in having a different experience. I know it wouldn't be the same, but if the VoG had the same puzzles, but just half as many Vex shooting at you with half as much health, it would have been the perfect experience in my book. Solving the puzzle should be the primary obstacles, not the hours and hours of repetitively trying to execute something you understood a long time ago.

I agree that the rest of Destiny would benefit from more creativity like we saw exhibited in the raid, but for me, the cooperative experience was what made it really special and, to use your word, perfect.

I know raids wouldn't be the same if they could be run solo, but I think that's kind of the sort of content that I'm hoping to see in the future. Something as long (physically) as the Vault of Glass, with the same sort of interesting challenges, but capable of being tackled more easily. Open up some of these great experiences to the masses, and allow the difficulty modifiers to cater to the more hardcore players. I'm okay with there being more raids along the lines of VoG (and I know that's already what's planned), but I just hope there will be more stuff targeting to middle ground, and catering a bit more to us players who like more casual experiences that also offer lots of variety. Maybe it's just a matter of making future strikes more interesting, I don't know.

As I said above, the rest of the game could benefit from ideas developed in the raid. Otherwise, I disagree that it should be more accessible. I see this time and again in discussions. People want stuff handed to them. If everyone's special, ain't nobody special. In general, it sounds like you want Destiny to be solo game because you like playing solo. That's okay, but I don't think Destiny is, at its core, a solo game and in fact I think it's designed to break players' habits of playing solo and turn them on to the rewards of playing cooperatively.

Don't get me wrong, I love playing cooperatively far more than playing solo! There's a great dynamic that gets going when you're shouting battlefield tactics to your teammates and attempting to execute plans. The biggest reason I play story and more immersive experiences solo is because when I play with other people, I inevitably end up feeling rushed. I'm taking my time, walking slowly, looking in every corner and admiring the atmosphere, while everyone else rushes ahead. Dear Esther was a nearly perfect game for me, because it moved at my pace and was more about exploration. Skyrim and Fallout 3 were great for the same reason. I spend more time just out walking around in those landscapes than looking at enemies, and oftentimes avoid enemies to try and keep things peaceful. That's just not the way that most players play, and it makes me feel like I'm holding people back or that I can't experience the game I want. That's frustrating. That's really the biggest reason I don't play with people often. I don't like it, but I'm set on having the experience I intend on having.