I think this sort of content is absolutely necessary. (Destiny)

by iconicbanana, C2-H5-OH + NAD, Portland, OR, Wednesday, May 27, 2015, 18:49 (3553 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by iconicbanana, Wednesday, May 27, 2015, 19:03

The shining star of the House of Wolves expansion is Etheric Light. With this currency, we can take any gear we want and bring it up to max level. We can build out our characters however we like, to suit any playstyle. Awesome.

I think the beauty of this expansion is, really, that you don't need to be at max level to enjoy it.

You did need to be max level to enjoy the very endmost of end game content in previous iterations, and that hasn't changed. If you want to play ToO or 34/35 PoE, yeah, you need to be 34, with some synergy in armor perks.

But if you want to play Prison of Elders, the barrier to entry is way, way lower. If you wanted to raid in Vanilla/TDB destiny, you didn't just need to be at the appropriate level cap. You also needed something even harder to get: 5 teammates on the same schedule.

That might not seem so bad to people who raid a lot, be it via LFG or here with the fireteam builder. But for people with social anxiety, or with a small group of friends with similar schedules, this is a gamechanger. Not because it's a raid alternative: because it's a strike alternative. And not just strike playlists. Nightfall has an alternative for the peeps out there who rarely raid but can put together a nightfall run.

And this content is harder than a nightfall. It's more varied, and it requires far more strategy. I think Bungie looked at strike playlist populations against raid populations and decided that this content was necessary. It might not be for people who raid frequently, and yes, that sucks for you folks. But Prison of Elders is for the underserved majority of players who can't raid frequently, for whatever reason, and I think there's more of them out there. It's the sort of content that Destiny really, really lacks, and this is absolutely the sort of thing that should be Bungie's first priority.

(For the record, I've played more PoE runs 28-34 in just this first week than I ever managed to raid ever, and enjoyed the game more for it).