Kings Fall Hard Mode Predictions *SP*

Here are my predictions for how the Hard Mode raid will vary from the Normal mode.

Opening the Portal
1- Shortened relic timeout.
2- Shortened statue timeout (such that the new relics must be acquired immediately after the old ones are slammed home).

Tombship Jumping Puzzle
1- More tombships.
2- More wrong ships to take.
3- Different route.
4- Snipers, maybe.

Opening the Door / Powering the Glyphs
1- You won't be able to pickup the same brand twice in a row, but will have to weave between left & right sides.
2- Snipers will join the Boomer Knights up in the balcony.

Warpriest
1- More hit points.

Golgoroth's Cellar
1- Thrall?

Golgoroth
1- Taking his gaze more than once will light up a glyph on the relic. (Basically a mechanic to make you rotate gaze takers).
2- Shortened enrage timer.

Transept Jumping Puzzle
1- Pistons will be less predictable. Possibly proximity based.

Daughters of Oryx
1- Must acquire 2 relics (relic is split in 1/2 like when opening the portal)
2- Perhaps snipers constantly spawning.

Oryx
1- Snipers (constantly spawning?) in addition to the Ogres.
2- A random person is torn between dimensions instead of the first person on the platform (the one who picks up the spark).
3- Maybe 2 relics again?

What are your thoughts & predictions?

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I think Golgoroth will have some sort of limit on how many times the orbs will spawn to curb the one gaze grabber strategy. Even if that is a less efficient method.

I don't like jumping puzzles, so I hope those remain the same, lol.

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Opening the Door / Powering the Glyphs
1- You won't be able to pickup the same brand twice in a row, but will have to weave between left & right sides.

Wait, this isn't how you have to do it already?! For some reason, I thought we had to swap sides... (I've only done the raid twice, but both teams have "woven" across).

Golgoroth
1- Taking his gaze more than once will light up a glyph on the relic. (Basically a mechanic to make you rotate gaze takers).

And I feel like losing his gaze might trigger a glyph on the Tablet of Ruin, too.

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I think he meant that You cant get the Same Aura, 2 times in a row. IE You cant get the left side aura, then rotate to middle, then go back to the left. You would have to go to the right to get that aura. If that makes any sense.

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OH! You just have to rotate to the same side, Essentially we had teams of 3, and would just have 2 on the totem, and one in the middle at the start. Then just rotate to the same side.

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That's super crazy. I would have never thought something like that. We immediately formed teams of three for each side, with barely any discussion.

What was your line of thinking in switching sides? Just curious. I kinda fell in love with watching streams of Blind groups doing this raid just for this reason. It's fun to see how others figure things out and see how people think differently. I've seen some groups figure things out immediately when it took us ages, and I've seen some groups take ages to figure things out that were almost immediately apparent to us. It's just interesting.

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It's hard to watch now, but here's our blind run (should start around the 55-minute mark):

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Might try it next time, just for kicks.

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Just crazy enough to spice things up but not crazy enough to make it maddeningly frustrating.

Btw, my blind group had two Titans, one on each side, so we ALWAYS had a bubble up top. Ridiculously easy.

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But then again most of the raid seems to be mechanics for mechanics sake. I would like to think the hard mode would change up how the encounter works, rather then just take out the margin in the current mechanics.

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Mechanic for mechanics sake?

I don't agree, but even if it were true it's infinitely preferable to bullet sponges.

Personally though, none of the raid mechanics seemed particularly complicated or unnecessary once we'd figured them out.

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The difficulty in raid design is that players really only interact with the world by standing in a spot or shooting something. Therefore all the raid mechanics are about standing on a spot, or shooting a specific thing. Bungie tries to mix things up with relics, and I felt that Kabr's shield and to a lesser extent Crota's sword were good attempts to do so. The relic in Kings fall just lacks any big player interaction. You just need to stand near the person holding it once they steal the shield.

The whole form the platforms, torn between dimensions mechanic seems bolted on as well. With Atheon and Crota there was heavy integration with the story for why you had to kill oracles/open time gates/get the sword/chalice. In Kings fall you don't even know what the wisps or the relic are, why you are torn between dimensions, or why standing on those platforms matters or why Oryx hits them instead of you.

About the only thing that does get a reference is the corrupted light, and why detonating it hurts Oryx.

Like the secret codes in the Sleeper quest it just feels too arbitrary and random. It seems too much like an 80 videogame boss then an exercise in team skill and communication.

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I was wondering what the Relic was the other day. It's just a.. Thing? That has the power to steal invulnerability auras for... Reasons?

So there's definitely a disonnance between the mechanics and the narrative. I still feel like they're fun mechanics, but I'd love to see an answer because Im intrigued why Oryx would have a magic orb hanging around that can steal her lieutenants powers.

Unless she's testing us? Sword logic says if we can take it and kill them, we should do so. Kind of.

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I think that a lot of the raid ties strongly into the concepts of Sword Logic. It is Oryx's throne realm, but because of the pact with the Deep, even there Oryx is vulnerable, and for a reason. It resembles the Tomb Husk, which also resemble's Eris' rock. The way I figured it, these items work for the Deep similar to the way our Ghosts work for the Sky. Not on a 1:1, but on an asymmetric balance sort of thing.

Both are responsible for doors, as a simple example. Subsequently, they're also what our lifeforce is tied to. If our Ghost dies, we can have a true death. In order for us to give a true death which isn't even true, because some of us are carrying around a part of him with us now in the Touch of Malice, which leads to an interesting causal loop of Oryx actively seeking death to Oryx in his throne (which is the Dreadnaught - he is reabsorbed at the end of Regicide without a true death even though he is technically in his throne realm) we have to first break his bonds to the Relic.

This was accomplished with Crota by using one of his Blades, as it is direct Sword Logic of cutting him out of existence. And, this is personal rampancy, when it comes to killing Atheon, we break its timeline with Time's Vengeance because we have destroyed the Oracles (imitation Deep-parts, thanks to Quaria attempting to replicate a Throne Realm and producing the Vault of Glass) and thus have the ability to directly impact Atheon's life force within its throne.

Now, not all of this is concrete statements, but from reading the Book of Sorrow and trying to apply all of the reasoning to the raid, those were the broad strokes I came to. Additionally, each step of King's fall is a Challenge to the Guardians, the Oryx wishes to be defeated, to escape his pact with the worms.

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The whole form the platforms, torn between dimensions mechanic seems bolted on as well. With Atheon and Crota there was heavy integration with the story for why you had to kill oracles/open time gates/get the sword/chalice. In Kings fall you don't even know what the wisps or the relic are, why you are torn between dimensions, or why standing on those platforms matters or why Oryx hits them instead of you.

Yeah, I agree. I suspect the Queen might be the wisp that's guiding you throughout The Taken King, but I have nothing to back up that suspicion.

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I have thought the same thing! However everyone shoots down that theory and says that its a Taken thing. =[ *fingers crossed*

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Opening the Portal
1- Shortened relic timeout.
2- Shortened statue timeout (such that the new relics must be acquired immediately after the old ones are slammed home).

Given that the relic/statue tolerance is already reasonably tight, I don't expect that to change much, though the idea that you have to pick up the relics quickly after placing them I like. I just don't imagine the relic timeout will be shortened. Likely a rise in enemy levels, though.

I expect something to delay a straight run to the portal, though. Possibly having to kill 1-3 wizards before you can actually enter it, or possibly a need to each pick up a tomb husk from a statue to actually get through.

Tombship Jumping Puzzle
1- More tombships.
2- More wrong ships to take.
3- Different route.
4- Snipers, maybe.

I see 1-3, but I see no benefit other than annoyance to having snipers. I have the same expectation for the pendulum, plungers, and vertical jumping puzzle. Would be neat if the vertical puzzle was also a taller spire, or at least a changed jump pattern. Sorry to all of my Warlock and Hunter friends.

Opening the Door / Powering the Glyphs
1- You won't be able to pickup the same brand twice in a row, but will have to weave between left & right sides.
2- Snipers will join the Boomer Knights up in the balcony.

Both of these I can get behind. It's the sort of encounter that seems like it is suited to just having more bodies thrown at you. But the change of the cycling mechanic would be neat.

Warpriest
1- More hit points.

While I expect it'll take more punishment to bring the Warpriest down, I expect that the aura will require a faster add-kill to keep the refresh going. Also spawning in knights of some variety to harass the group makes sense, and I'd imagine they're associated with either active or destroyed pillars if that's the case.

Golgoroth's Cellar
1- Thrall?

I'd actually prefer seeing a changed layout with different pits and all that, but no enemies. I think one thing that CE lacked was the defined mechanic-only encounters and relied too heavily on the combat-only (Abyss and Deathsinger) and combo (The Bridge and Crota) encounters. The Gorgon's Labyrinth and the Vault Approach were nice changes of pace, as was the entrance to the Templar's Well. Also, 6 buttons for the chest, with more hidden buttons.

Golgoroth
1- Taking his gaze more than once will light up a glyph on the relic. (Basically a mechanic to make you rotate gaze takers).
2- Shortened enrage timer.

I think that if they do anything with the Tablet it'll be fewer deaths for it to fill. To rotate gaze takers, I would expect a debuff, like with Skolas. I would also expect more need to keep the gaze going. But most of the fight is pretty much solid. Maybe the bubbles don't respawn until all are dropped, so you are forced into every position, and make the Axion Darts a constant stream instead of bursts of 3, so that the Gazer has to really be on their toes.

Transept Jumping Puzzle
1- Pistons will be less predictable. Possibly proximity based.

I like the idea of less predictability, just for excitement. While it makes you more cautious it doesn't make it more difficult due to random deaths, as you can still wait for the plunger to retract.

Things I expect to change: Locations of all invisible platforms. The paths between the target platforms will be longer, and require passing by plungers. The chest room will have a different route, that will require all 3 target platforms to be resolved first.

Daughters of Oryx
1- Must acquire 2 relics (relic is split in 1/2 like when opening the portal)
2- Perhaps snipers constantly spawning.

I like the two relics. Perhaps after you get the one that is high, one spawns on the ground between the platforms. It requires you to take a little more time on grabbing the aura. You don't even need to adjust the health there. And I'd make snipers spawn more, but not indefinite. Perhaps on randomized platforms, too.

Oryx
1- Snipers (constantly spawning?) in addition to the Ogres.
2- A random person is torn between dimensions instead of the first person on the platform (the one who picks up the spark).
3- Maybe 2 relics again?

Make the snipers spawn in after the Ogres, once you stagger Oryx. So that there are snipers you have to engage on your way to detonate. And keep the halved relics, but also make it be a random person Torn and a random order you have to activate the platforms. Indicated by glowing orbs, of course. And Ogres spawn in the order the platforms are activated.

My group normally has 3 platform folks and two dedicated roamers. Which means if you make all 4 platforms require activation it can be a little more difficult due to complexity, but not be too complex that it ruins the encounter flow.

Also, during the bomb run, 2x bombs spawn behind you, and during the shade, the 4 columns from the Regicide mission are populated as well, giving the shade a chance to take cover from your fire and making it more difficult to skirt the edge. With that, the shade has the ranged attack (if it doesn't have that already, I usually am one of the last people teleported in) to make that fight a little more aggressive.

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Daughters of Oryx
1- Must acquire 2 relics (relic is split in 1/2 like when opening the portal)
2- Perhaps snipers constantly spawning.

I like the two relics. Perhaps after you get the one that is high, one spawns on the ground between the platforms. It requires you to take a little more time on grabbing the aura. You don't even need to adjust the health there. And I'd make snipers spawn more, but not indefinite. Perhaps on randomized platforms, too.

And when I say snipers constantly spawning I mean spawning in whenever someone is standing on a plate. If they get off then the snipers stop spawning.

Oryx
1- Snipers (constantly spawning?) in addition to the Ogres.
2- A random person is torn between dimensions instead of the first person on the platform (the one who picks up the spark).
3- Maybe 2 relics again?

Make the snipers spawn in after the Ogres, once you stagger Oryx. So that there are snipers you have to engage on your way to detonate. And keep the halved relics, but also make it be a random person Torn and a random order you have to activate the platforms. Indicated by glowing orbs, of course. And Ogres spawn in the order the platforms are activated.

My group normally has 3 platform folks and two dedicated roamers. Which means if you make all 4 platforms require activation it can be a little more difficult due to complexity, but not be too complex that it ruins the encounter flow.

Also, during the bomb run, 2x bombs spawn behind you, and during the shade, the 4 columns from the Regicide mission are populated as well, giving the shade a chance to take cover from your fire and making it more difficult to skirt the edge. With that, the shade has the ranged attack (if it doesn't have that already, I usually am one of the last people teleported in) to make that fight a little more aggressive.

I've noticed that when the 4th person stands on the plate under the relic that another set of platforms spawn from the 1st plate up to the relic (at least I'm pretty sure this happens). I suspect that the 2nd torn person will have to ascend those platforms to acquire the 2nd 1/2 of the relic.

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Snipers spawning at regular intervals so long as plates are active would be reasonable. Just not a "once one dies a new one spawns" because then you are motivated only to stagger and there is no risk in delaying a kill. If there are more platforms and snipers spawn in, then you get a time crunch. So I think that could work.

And I had considered the separate relic parts as something one individual would pick up. Because otherwise you have to resort the logic for who picks up the aura. Is it random between the two? Whoever smashes second? It's workable. I just hadn't reasoned it out in that way.

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Kings Fall Hard Mode Predictions SP (Destiny)

Loved those! Well thought