Early reports from King's Fall hard mode *Spoilers* (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, October 23, 2015, 19:54 (3414 days ago)

I've been reading up on the King's Fall raid over at NeoGAF... people are NOT happy over there (I know it's NeoGAF, but it's more lopsided than usual).

Seems like there are 2 specific points that people are taking issue with.

1) Loot
2) (lack of) new mechanics.

Loot

First of all, there are lots of reports of players getting loot in the 300-310 range. It sounds like the Kings Fall loot drops function same as the previous raids: If you've already done Normal this week, you'll only get drops from the Hard table. If you haven't raided at all, you'll get drops from both Normal and Hard tables. The chests can only drop loot once per week, so if you've already done Normal you get nothing.

So it makes sense to be able to get 300-310 gear on Hard if you haven't done Normal yet, but it sounds like some people are getting Normal-level drops exclusively, which is a real bummer.

Raid RNG has not been kind to me so far. I've gotten very few weapon/armor drops, and most of what I did get has been in the low 300s. As such, the highest light level I can possibly hit is 306, and that's only with 1 specific weapon loadout. I'd been hoping that Hard mode would be my ticket to cracking 310, but apparently it's not a safe bet. Even if I manage to claw my way through at 306 (which is not likely... people are saying 308-310 is the sweet spot up until Oryx, anything less than 310 at Oryx is a nightmare), I might come out the other side with gear worse than what I already have. On the other hand, I might not. But it still kinda sucks that it is a possibility.

Mechanics

The other area of the raid that is drawing a lot of fire is the mechanics. Apparently, Hard mode is mostly what Bungie said it isn't: Normal mode with tougher enemies. Sounds like there are very few new mechanics at play that are meaningful. Boguester posted this breakdown for anyone who's interested. This doesn't really bother me (I enjoy the Kings Fall mechanics as they are), but it is a bit strange that Bungie went out of their way to talk about Hard mode a certain way. Who knows, maybe NeoGAF is blowing it out of proportion.

Personally, the revelation that there are no new elemental primaries is a disappointment. I'm not a fan of any of the Raid weapons so far, but elemental versions of the primaries would have been a prize worth chasing. I was convinced that Bungie intentionally made the raid primaries somewhat "meh" so that the elemental versions wouldn't be too overpowered when they were finally released. Turns out that all we get are the same weapons and armor, maybe with higher stats.