This guy does it pretty well. I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "Players will now be required to wait for the bridge to be completed prior to crossing with the sword", so we'll have to see if this is still viable when the patch drops.

You could jump up and lunge your way across with the sword. Kind of like that Bladedancer crossed the Hellmouth.

Got all the way to Crota the other day with no cheese except sword-flying across the bridge. Looks like you cant do that any more though. Is it possible to form the bridge solo, do we know?

I doubt it. Starting the bridge requires you to have one person on the button and another two on the Totems.

For the record: In the area with the Totems, I activated it and got across solo. But died immediately on the other side to a knight.

I've managed to get across the bridge with just two other people, and this was before we understood that the totems did anything more than kill us.

What we figured out was that standing on the pad until a second before the totems fire, hopping off, rinsing and repeating with great timing will actually slowly progress the bridge forward. Now, we had to hop on and off 5-10 times, and we failed many times, but it was possible.

The only caveat with this is that, at least when I made the run across the bridge, I got myself in the air as soon as I could make the jump to the other side, just in case the bridge fell out from under me. I do not know for sure that the bridge stayed up for as long as it would take to run across.

Still, using this method would be tedious for 2 people, and couldn't be done with one person. While the sword person runs you need someone dancing on and off the pad to keep it up long enough.

I must say that when I was told that you could simply stand under the totems to keep from dying to them, it all became a lot easier :)

He might be having the exact problem I was. With the whole get killed if activating bridge and lose bridge if not. Now I know how it works, but still haven't tried it. My group cheeses a LOT.

Figuring out how to make the bridge work legit was the most fun I've had with this game. It does concern me that they're seemingly fixing the whole 'get a few people across and wipe' bit, just because if you have less than 6 people, you can't actually get everyone across from a purely mathematical standpoint (at least as I understand it with the changes they're planning).

Which brings us to my next point--what is "right"?
Does someone just whip out a Mythoclast or Last Word or any of the weapons I DON'T have and just drop level 32 and 33 enemies effortlessly? How can the bridge holders defend themselves when the sword guys just walk on through their barriers with no problem? How can the CENTER guy stay alive for more than a quarter of a second--WITHOUT running in a circle defenselessly? When stacked against the odds with their sword MUCH stronger than yours, and doesn't dissipate the second they actually NEED it?

What is right? What is good?

Here is what is right. We've been doing it very successfully.

1. Everybody be sure to kill a gatekeeper whenever they cross. That way you have zero running around making things harder.
2. Send your best guy over first, or the guy who can blind stuff.
3. Cross bridge. Kill Gatekeeper. Optional: have gatekeeper blinded for you.
4. Everyone is across, all group together on the right.

It sounds like your problem is that your group isn't killing gatekeepers.

The bridge has been the easiest part thus far. Our second run in the double header last night actually had zero wipes, and our first only one at the deathsinger.

... why are they sacrificing so much of PvE for PvP?

That's not how it works.

EDIT:

• Queen's Wrath, last time, worked like this:
  
• She had her own set of bounties. Fallen-focused.
  
• Complete one bounty, get one token.
  
• Token unlocks 1 play in a special playlist that picks a random story mission (from a very small subset).
  
• Complete mission and get rewarded with random Legendary item from: helm, chest, sniper rifle, Ship.

Given that you could have 6 bounties a day, and it ran for 2 weeks(?), there were Legendary armour pieces dropping all over the place. They quickly removed the ability to dismantle them for shards so as not to completely usurp the Daily Heroic. At which point, it felt like you were grinding samey bounties, for a token where you would grind the same few missions, for a CHANCE at a slightly, minisculely better roll on your armour or a tiny chance at a sniper rifle.

It got old really fast. It wasn't unique or different in any way to existing Daily Heroics and bounties. You did not miss much.

Bungie taking more time to rework it is not a crime, is not unexpected, and the work they already completed on Iron Banner does not prevent them from bringing it back as an event regularly, and does not prevent further work on Queen's Wrath and hopefully bringing it back later on.

//shouldn't even have to say this

Jeez, dude, if I've made it through that section you should be able to. There's a ton of videos out there showing what a good run looks like. (Pro tip: if your run isn't looking like that [e.g., you're dealing with three gatekeepers at once], it's best to wipe and start again. There are a few sections of this Raid where you can go a long time with less and less hope of success. Know when to wipe. Everybody gets more practice and gets better at handling the smaller mistakes so they won't matter.) In these rants of yours you consistently blame the game. The game is sometimes the problem, but not to the extent you make it out to be.

Tyson Green, straight from the October 24th Bungie Weekly Update:

That might even further solidify my point--from October. Iron Banner has been reworked each time, and they manage to bring it back pretty much once a month. Destiny was released in September, right? I started in October. I've played two Iron Banners since then, and a 4th(my 3rd) is coming up next. Unless they're having a DLC-sized makeover for the Queen's Wrath, why are they sacrificing so much of PvE for PvP?

PVE is hardly neglected. It has two challenges each week that grant lucrative items. The Weekly Heroic Strike grants up to 9 Strange Coins and is the best way to buy exotic weapons from Xur. (The Last Word is on sell NOW by the way.) The Weekly Nightfall Strike grants very high end items and takes far less time to get those items than ranking up Iron Banner. Then there's the Heroic Daily Story missions that grant much needed upgrade materials.

What? The second bridge crossing is perhaps the simplest part of the whole raid. The mechanics are pretty straightforward and there's lots of room to maneuver around. Where has your group been getting caught-up?

Where the swordbearers can slice right through that shield they're not supposed to be able to touch and 1-hit kill us even though we're 30's and 31's.

Oh, and where that one guy is supposed to stand IN THE OPEN UNPROTECTED while every enemy in the world is either shooting at him or again, swordbearers(see previous paragraph). My teammate had to run in circles nonstop with high sensitivity in order to make the turns and maximum agility to BARELY dodge their sword swings. Oh, and there's three of them. Also.

Oh, and I forgot the Knights! With butt clenching accuracy, they can kill any guardian in three shots. That's where we get stuck.

I don't think any other group has ever screwed up the Bridge section as much as our group did the first time (We never killed a Gatekeeper), and we still succeeded. At one point, I think I had three Gatekeepers swinging at me while I ran in circles to capture the far platform.

That was insanely tough, but very possible, and we weren't even doing it right.

Which brings us to my next point--what is "right"?
Does someone just whip out a Mythoclast or Last Word or any of the weapons I DON'T have and just drop level 32 and 33 enemies effortlessly? How can the bridge holders defend themselves when the sword guys just walk on through their barriers with no problem? How can the CENTER guy stay alive for more than a quarter of a second--WITHOUT running in a circle defenselessly? When stacked against the odds with their sword MUCH stronger than yours, and doesn't dissipate the second they actually NEED it?

You're vastly overrating the exotic weapons. The Last Word in particular is awesome at taking out one or maybe two light to medium targets but it kinda sucks when you're fighting a swarm or wave of targets like at the bridge. I would much rather have had one of my large magazined guns vs the mere 8 shots of The Last Word. I got pulled into a raid a couple of days ago and all I had on me was The Last Word and to my embarassment I died multiple times where I'm usually fairly comfortable and steadfast in that section. To be clear, there is no effortless dropping of enemies with anything less than an exotic rocket launcher.

Beyond that it sounds like maybe your group was doing the bridge wrong. You should:
1. Hold the central button with at least one person while keeping someone on each of the side totems. It may be neceassary for someone drift to help out the totem people if they get in trouble.
2. Work together as much as possible to take down the Swordbearer who appears after a few seconds. People on the totems can leave their totem for a few seconds to help out as long as they stay close enough to get back before everyone dies. When you kill the Swordbearer a Gatekeeper sword knight spawns on the far side.
3. The closest person should pick up the dropped sword and IMMEDIATELY cross the bridge and kill the sword weilding Gatekeeper on the far side. If you are too slow or hesitate your sword will vanish before you're done with it. (If you fail to kill a Gatekeeper your next sword guy will face two of them, the one you didn't kill and the new one. If that guy fails to kill any Gatekeepers your next guy will face three. Killing two is doable. Killing three is possible but is very much a long shot.
4. If each person that crosses the bridge kills their Gatekeeper you will soon have three Guardians on the far side. Your remaining three on the near side should now group up and get off the central bridge button. The three on the far side will now be the ones maintaining the bridge by staying on the far side central button and far side totems. They will be under heavy fire so it is crutial that you get your next three across as soon as possible to support them.
5. Once you get all six of your people across the Hive will mount a large assault on you including a wizard and a pair of Ogres. Survive and kill the enemy and you've beaten the section!

If you're doing it right you should only ever fight one sword knight at any time. Doing it completely right is hard though, I don't think any of my raid groups executed the above 100% correctly. One thing that helps a great deal is a Defender Titan with the Helm of Saint-14 helmet since it blinds any enemy that walks inside the Titan's bubble. I've cast that right on top of enemies to blind them. It makes killing a Gatekeeper or Swordbearer trivial since they will be staggering around blind instead of fighting back.