Crota's End - HARD Mode differences [SPOILERS!]

I haven't gone in there myself yet, but from watching various Twitch streams, these are the differences from normal mode:

Overall
- No revives
- Everything is level 33

The Abyss
- More thralls in general
- Cursed thralls are Hallowed (yellow-titled) thralls
- more (and Hallowed) knights

The Bridge
- Knights are Hallowed

Thrall Hallway
- Shriekers respawn after being killed

Deathsinger
- Liturgy starts earlier (the encounter seems to be on a 2 or 2.5 min timer instead of 3 min)

Crota
- No chalice
- Knights in side rooms are Hallowed
- Boomers are Hallowed
- Gatekeeper spawns downstairs after killing the Swordbearer - although he seems to be on a leash, staying near the bottom middle (probably to discourage going downstairs in the puddle room for a more safe area)
- Hallowed wizard spawns on the bridge (or is it in the boomer tower and then moves to the bridge?)

Still waiting for confirmation on who the World's First was, but TripleWRECK's team beat it in about 40 minutes. The IGN team already beat it too, although I'm hearing that they cheesed part of it. Many other groups - including Datto's Primeguard team - still struggling to finish the Crota encounter about an hour and a half in.

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

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also, i basically say "basically" too much, basically.

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

I can't confirm, but it doesn't seem that he gives you any buff. Most of the teams are just ignoring the Gatekeeper.

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we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

Gee, I only paid for the DLC content, which I now have all of. No paying for beta testing required ;-)

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Jokes aside, I'm still not sure I understand your point. From where I'm standing:

1. Normal mode wasn't "beta" quality, even if there were bugs. And most of the bugs involved cheesing, not detrimental defects that prevented a player from accomplishing a given goal.

2. The alternative to any pre-release testing is to simply not play. This is where I would consider myself "paid", because I was able to play and enjoy software that you would call "beta".

It seems you would have preferred that Bungie release Normal and Hard mode together, which would mean that all this time no one would have been playing the raid. It also likely means that more internal testing would have been required, since a community of millions of players is more likely to find defects than a team of a hundred (or however many Bungie has). So you'd really rather the raid was released weeks/months from now so that you didn't "have to pay" to play? This is where I don't understand.

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Jokes aside, I'm still not sure I understand your point. From where I'm standing:

1. Normal mode wasn't "beta" quality, even if there were bugs. And most of the bugs involved cheesing, not detrimental defects that prevented a player from accomplishing a given goal.

2. The alternative to any pre-release testing is to simply not play. This is where I would consider myself "paid", because I was able to play and enjoy software that you would call "beta".

It seems you would have preferred that Bungie release Normal and Hard mode together, which would mean that all this time no one would have been playing the raid. It also likely means that more internal testing would have been required, since a community of millions of players is more likely to find defects than a team of a hundred (or however many Bungie has). So you'd really rather the raid was released weeks/months from now so that you didn't "have to pay" to play? This is where I don't understand.

I don't presume to be able to speak for Scheddonardus, but I think his point is that since there are not really any new mechanics to hard mode, it's not really any different. The difference betwee normal and hard is really not much more than the deiffence between the normal level Phogoth strike and the Weekly Heroic version of the Phogoth strike. It's not that they should have waited until now to release even the normal mode raid - it's that they could've released the hard mode back then with the normal mode. They obviously weren't working on any new mechanics that needed to be implemented, so it kind of feels like the normal mode version we've been playing was no more than a beta version for what we have now.

(I'm mostly just playing Devils Advocate here. Even though I am personally a bit disappointed that there weren't really any new mechanics or puzzles to figure out, I wouldn't personally consider it to be a beta/final version relationship.)

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I don't presume to be able to speak for Scheddonardus, but I think his point is that since there are not really any new mechanics to hard mode, it's not really any different. The difference betwee normal and hard is really not much more than the deiffence between the normal level Phogoth strike and the Weekly Heroic version of the Phogoth strike. It's not that they should have waited until now to release even the normal mode raid - it's that they could've released the hard mode back then with the normal mode. They obviously weren't working on any new mechanics that needed to be implemented, so it kind of feels like the normal mode version we've been playing was no more than a beta version for what we have now.

I was personally hoping for weight of darkness during the Crota encounter. You'd have lamps by the stairs on either side. Your sword bearer couldn't jump, so he'd have to run the gauntlet so to speak to get to Crota, get his hits in, then immediately walk off the side so as not to die to Crota. Your team would then have to clear the way for them to walk back to the lamp, and keep them alive.

But did you really expect new mechanics? Vault of glass hard and normal are virtually identical.

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

Eh, I don't mind their approach. That is, I don't mind them getting rid of the low-hanging cheese before releasing the hard mode. The cheesers have to get more creative to get hard-mode rewards.

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

Eh, I don't mind their approach. That is, I don't mind them getting rid of the low-hanging cheese before releasing the hard mode. The cheesers have to get more creative to get hard-mode rewards.

I'm with you there. I'm glad they got rid of the cheese, i just wish they had added new mechanics to work through in addition to just cleaning up cheese (and pushing the "up" arrow on the keyboard to make the enemies "harder").

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

Eh, I don't mind their approach. That is, I don't mind them getting rid of the low-hanging cheese before releasing the hard mode. The cheesers have to get more creative to get hard-mode rewards.

I'm with you there. I'm glad they got rid of the cheese, i just wish they had added new mechanics to work through in addition to just cleaning up cheese (and pushing the "up" arrow on the keyboard to make the enemies "harder").

Yeah, but they didn't do much different in VoG either, did they? More detain shields, yes, but what else? I agree with you. I was one of those who wished that the random teleporting had been reserved for hard mode.

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does killing the gatekeeper give you a damage buff? if he is there just to make the encounter harder, than boo to Bungie.

I can't wait to play, but i kinda feel cheated. None of these changes are drastic, the basically waited until all the major flaws were found. we basically paid them to beta test the raid for 6 weeks.

Eh, I don't mind their approach. That is, I don't mind them getting rid of the low-hanging cheese before releasing the hard mode. The cheesers have to get more creative to get hard-mode rewards.

I'm with you there. I'm glad they got rid of the cheese, i just wish they had added new mechanics to work through in addition to just cleaning up cheese (and pushing the "up" arrow on the keyboard to make the enemies "harder").

Yeah, but they didn't do much different in VoG either, did they? More detain shields, yes, but what else? I agree with you. I was one of those who wished that the random teleporting had been reserved for hard mode.

I was thinking about this in the past hour in case I had to defend my stance :-)

All I can think of is (a) more detain bubbles, and (b) more gorgons - which is somewhat significant because it means you can't take the same exact path through the labyrinth on hard mode that you can on normal. I guess that's pretty much it though, so I must concede somewhat.

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http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/21/7869413/halo-the-master-chief-collection-beta-test-xbox-one

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Word on the Reddit is Helm of Saint-14 is relevant to the Crota encounter. Need to get my Titan up to 32..

Along with a Hunter sporting Don't Touch Me for the Abyss encounter..

And Sunsinger Warlocks for everything else, right? :D

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Basically, yes.

For the Crota fight having a defender titan is huge with armor of light, as well as having items with "regenerate health on orb pickup."

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Basically, yes.

For the Crota fight having a defender titan is huge with armor of light, as well as having items with "regenerate health on orb pickup."

I think Blessing of Light is actually going to be more useful since it allowes you and your teammates to regenerate health. Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

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Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

I'm suddenly really glad I decided to max out my 331 Red Death.

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Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

I'm suddenly really glad I decided to max out my 331 Red Death.

And I'm really wishing I had either of my two Suros Regimes upgraded.

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Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

I'm suddenly really glad I decided to max out my 331 Red Death.

Not 100% sure on this, but I recall testing this once and finding that Red Death did not regen health. But that could be a bug because I was watching the Gothalion (sp?) stream today and one of his teammates specifically said that the Suros Regime perk was working. The weird thing was that Gothalion was using the Suros and it was definitely not working for him. Anybody got any ideas?

- CC

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Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

I'm suddenly really glad I decided to max out my 331 Red Death.

Not 100% sure on this, but I recall testing this once and finding that Red Death did not regen health. But that could be a bug because I was watching the Gothalion (sp?) stream today and one of his teammates specifically said that the Suros Regime perk was working. The weird thing was that Gothalion was using the Suros and it was definitely not working for him. Anybody got any ideas?

- CC

I think the reason the Suros didn't seem to work for Goth is because the Suros has a chance to return health when dealing damage with the bottom half of the magazine and Goth is a compulsive reloader and rarely uses the bottom half of his magazine.

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return health when dealing damage with the bottom half of the magazine and Goth is a compulsive reloader and rarely uses the bottom half of his magazine.

I mean, I've tried to reload icebreaker only a million times, multiple times per minute, no matter how many times I tell myself that's useless.

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I actually manage to run out of Bad Juju ammo because of this...

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I sure hope you're right. Cause I know what I'm using if that's true!

- CC

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Basically, yes.

For the Crota fight having a defender titan is huge with armor of light, as well as having items with "regenerate health on orb pickup."

I think Blessing of Light is actually going to be more useful since it allowes you and your teammates to regenerate health. Also, from what I've seen - whatever perks you can spec that let you regen health (be it from melee kills or picking up an orb or whatever) are super important.

If I can just get my Titan to 32, I have all the defender items you could ever want!

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP MILHOUSE

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Holy crap - that's fast. My main two questions:

- Cheesed?

- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

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- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

'Hard' doesn't mean 'long.'

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- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

'Hard' doesn't mean 'long.'

Very true that A =/= B, but to an extent the amount of time something takes does give insight into how hard it is. If normal mode Crota takes about half an hour even when you run through it with ease, how much harder could it have been if it took you about the same amount of time on hard? In other words, making something 'long' doesn't mean you made it 'hard', but making it 'hard' should mean that it takes 'longer' to accomplish.

That said, I am positive that we are going to struggle for hours tonight!

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If normal mode Crota takes about half an hour even when you run through it with ease, how much harder could it have been if it took you about the same amount of time on hard?

Not necessarily. Some parts won't take LONGER on hard mode, when you manage to complete them. It'll just be less likely that you make it in the first place.

Think of the abyss section as an example. The enemies there are now higher level, giving you a higher chance of being killed. However, theoretically if you're doing it as fast as possible, you should be moving the whole time from one lamp to the next. You're not walking slower on hard mode. The jacked-up enemies make it less likely that you'll finish without incident, but assuming you DO finish, it's likely because you went fast and hit all the lamps with the ideal timing. If anything, I expect the average completion speed to be higher (keeping in mind that I'm only counting the runs which DO succeed in that average) because players who fall behind now are much more likely to be killed.

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'Hard' doesn't mean 'long.'

[image]

Yes, I'm a child :)

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It's ok. I had to stop myself from posting 3 times.

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- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

'Hard' doesn't mean 'long.'

TWSS

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- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

The fact that it's possible to do it quickly doesn't inherently mean it's not hard. Out of many, many, attempts, only one of them went that fast. It's getting things to fall into place JUST right which is the hard part.

Or, you know, could be cheese too.

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After watching twitch today, I can't imagine my first try finishing it in less than 2 hours. It takes serious commitment by everyone to use tons of heavy synths.

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- How does Luke Smith and the rest of the raid team feel about - what should be the hardest content in the game - being downed in less than half an hour?

The fact that it's possible to do it quickly doesn't inherently mean it's not hard. Out of many, many, attempts, only one of them went that fast. It's getting things to fall into place JUST right which is the hard part.

Or, you know, could be cheese too.

You definitely have a point. It's just kind of shocking that it took the world's first VoG hard mode Invigorate 15 hours - compared to less than half an hour here. Even if this group cheesed as much as possible, TripleWreck's team beat Crota Hard in about 40 minutes with no cheese. And I think the main reason this went so much quicker is because Bungie didn't really introduce new mechanics/puzzles to figure out - they just leveled up the enemies.

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You definitely have a point. It's just kind of shocking that it took the world's first VoG hard mode Invigorate 15 hours - compared to less than half an hour here. Even if this group cheesed as much as possible, TripleWreck's team beat Crota Hard in about 40 minutes with no cheese. And I think the main reason this went so much quicker is because Bungie didn't really introduce new mechanics/puzzles to figure out - they just leveled up the enemies.

There's another major difference between the first VoG hard mode runs and today's Crota runs. The first teams to attempt VoG on hard did so pretty much right after completing it on normal mode for the first time. Since Bungie separated the release of the hard mode raid from the release of the normal raid this time, the teams that are running Crota today have had a couple of extra months to find their rhythm. The only real difference they'll face today is having to put a couple of extra rounds into most of the enemies.

Just out of curiosity, how fast were people running hard mode VoG a month after it was released?

-Disciple

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This is depressing.

I was really hoping they'd introduce something new, mechanically. Just inflating damage and HP bars and removing the chalice (which literally everyone predicted) is boring and dumb.

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This is depressing.

I was really hoping they'd introduce something new, mechanically. Just inflating damage and HP bars and removing the chalice (which literally everyone predicted) is boring and dumb.

Destiny is a game of artificial difficulty. Every higher difficulty setting is designed to force grind; new mechanics would require original thought from the player, not upgrade materials.

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I haven't watched the gameplay yet, but it seems like if the shriekers respawn that would change the dynamic of that area considerably. In fact most of the way I've done the raid would be changed based on what I've read. Were you hoping for new playable areas, or were you doing the raid in a way that requires no modifications given these changes?

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I haven't watched the gameplay yet, but it seems like if the shriekers respawn that would change the dynamic of that area considerably. In fact most of the way I've done the raid would be changed based on what I've read. Were you hoping for new playable areas, or were you doing the raid in a way that requires no modifications given these changes?

I'm anxious to confirm whether they respawn - or whether hearing some of the streamers say "the shrieker respawned" was just due to chaotic confusion in the moment and not realizing that it was a third shrieker instead of one of the other ones respawning.

But to your main point - I don't get the sense that we will need to change the way we have been playing much at all. Mostly - just gotta shoot stuff harder/more times and be more careful about not dying.

I was really thinking that there would be some bigger differences. My top three theories:

1. that Weight of Darkness would go up to 20 instead of 10
2. that Oversoul would be active much more often (maybe even during the Bridge section since you can see it from there too)
3. that there would be annihilator totems in the room with Crota on those two platforms that have glass floors just like the totems in the bridge area.

Any of those things would have made the raid feel harder for mechanical reasons rather than just having the enemies be harder to kill because you are "artificially" under-leveled and/or some of them are majors instead of normal tier enemies.

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^that right there

just reading this makes me want to curl up

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^that right there

just reading this makes me want to curl up

CC

I went through that list and I was like "That's it?"
I honestly expected worse... Then again, I expect the tiniest mishaps to wipe us over and over... But seriously, it's hardly any different strategy-wise...

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Im not sure about the Boomers spawning a Wizard on death. Depending on the timing (is it straight away, or on a delay like the sword Knights that jump down?) that could hurt.

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Im not sure about the Boomers spawning a Wizard on death. Depending on the timing (is it straight away, or on a delay like the sword Knights that jump down?) that could hurt.

I think that wizard takes the place of the sword knight that jumped on the bridge from the boomer tower.

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After dying 27,000 times, of course :)

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I can see that title on Reddit any day now.....

No chalice means people will be using Red Death now for the health regeneration at the end.

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I guess there are thee shriekers in the thrall hallway.

Additionally - and much more significantly - apparently Crota immediately becomes Enraged when he gets to a certain amount of health remaining; I've heard it's somewhere around 15-25% health. This means that you pretty much must get him to that point on the first round of hitting him with the sword, with enough time to down him a second time immediately and get the fatal blow before the Oversoul goes off.

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Crota
- No chalice

Great, now I have to level up Red Death again. (either that or level up my other 2 hunter's blade dancer tree and use hungering blade).

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Crota
- No chalice

Great, now I have to level up Red Death again. (either that or level up my other 2 hunter's blade dancer tree and use hungering blade).

I spec'd into hungering blade for the Crota fight tonight but actually didn't use it at all. I relied completely on Infusion (the first perk on Mask of the Third Man) for regenerating health.

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Crota
- No chalice

Great, now I have to level up Red Death again. (either that or level up my other 2 hunter's blade dancer tree and use hungering blade).

I spec'd into hungering blade for the Crota fight tonight but actually didn't use it at all. I relied completely on Infusion (the first perk on Mask of the Third Man) for regenerating health.

I would too, but I have the old version, so I can;t get to 32 with it.

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Crota's End - HARD Mode differences [SPOILERS!] (Destiny)