That's all well and good, but it doesn't really fix the problem, and creates a new one that I would hate. If I'm not good enough to play a higher difficulty level, I'd feel bad forcing the likes of you and Korny and Cruel or whoever else to play a raid at my level. You all wouldn't feel challenged, but I'd feel like a boat anchor playing at your level. So we end up in a situation where someone isn't enjoying themselves, or we just don't play together, and that sucks.

I already feel bad asking them to play with me.

I've been playing with Korny for close to 3 years now... that should tell you that I'm happy to play with just about anyone ;p

Seriously though, no need to ever feel bad about that. <3

And Korny's been playing with ME! :-p

That's all well and good, but it doesn't really fix the problem, and creates a new one that I would hate. If I'm not good enough to play a higher difficulty level, I'd feel bad forcing the likes of you and Korny and Cruel or whoever else to play a raid at my level. You all wouldn't feel challenged, but I'd feel like a boat anchor playing at your level. So we end up in a situation where someone isn't enjoying themselves, or we just don't play together, and that sucks.

I already feel bad asking them to play with me.

I've been playing with Korny for close to 3 years now... that should tell you that I'm happy to play with just about anyone ;p

Seriously though, no need to ever feel bad about that. <3

I don't think kF has the best encounters or overall experience of the Raids, but it does make everyone feel more important, if you ask me.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. Don't get me wrong, I really loved King's Fall. As I said, it's the only one I did blind, and I had fun doing it a few more times after that. I like that it requires teamwork in a way that the others don't. I just think there's room for both types of raids, and I hope they can find neat ways to keep the old raids relevant once the new ones come along. That didn't really happen in Destiny 1, until Age of Triumph. I think what they've done there is awesome, and I hope they can just do something similar along the way, asnew content comes out in Destiny 2, rather than just waiting until the end.

We're lucky around here in that it was never really too difficult to find folks willing to run VoG or Crota just for the hell of it, even when they old and irrelevant to the current loot levels. But I also know people for whom that wasn't true. One of my old buddies from the Air Force couldn't get his group of friends to go back to the old raids once The Taken King was out, and that sucks. I get that the fun of it should be it's own reward, but I also just think it's be neat if they could keep old stuff relevant for that as the game moves forward.

... but imagine a (Destiny) world where light level wasn't a thing:

Want the new hotness? Run the latest raid.

Want to run the old raids? They still drop loot that is just as effective as the new hotness.

The light level arms race KILLS variety. How many of Destiny's guns are just replacements for other guns with a higher number attached to them?

Get rid of Light Levels, and suddenly the onus is on Bungie to make each piece of new gear DIFFERENT than stuff that's already in the game. Y'know, NEW content, not just treadmill/reskin BS.

/angry rant

That's all well and good, but it doesn't really fix the problem, and creates a new one that I would hate. If I'm not good enough to play a higher difficulty level, I'd feel bad forcing the likes of you and Korny and Cruel or whoever else to play a raid at my level. You all wouldn't feel challenged, but I'd feel like a boat anchor playing at your level. So we end up in a situation where someone isn't enjoying themselves, or we just don't play together, and that sucks.

How is that any different than now? You can either handle the hard mode raid or not. If you can't, you won't play it in either situation.

I don't think kF has the best encounters or overall experience of the Raids, but it does make everyone feel more important, if you ask me.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. Don't get me wrong, I really loved King's Fall. As I said, it's the only one I did blind, and I had fun doing it a few more times after that. I like that it requires teamwork in a way that the others don't. I just think there's room for both types of raids, and I hope they can find neat ways to keep the old raids relevant once the new ones come along. That didn't really happen in Destiny 1, until Age of Triumph. I think what they've done there is awesome, and I hope they can just do something similar along the way, asnew content comes out in Destiny 2, rather than just waiting until the end.

We're lucky around here in that it was never really too difficult to find folks willing to run VoG or Crota just for the hell of it, even when they old and irrelevant to the current loot levels. But I also know people for whom that wasn't true. One of my old buddies from the Air Force couldn't get his group of friends to go back to the old raids once The Taken King was out, and that sucks. I get that the fun of it should be it's own reward, but I also just think it's be neat if they could keep old stuff relevant for that as the game moves forward.

It is interesting because I usually really straddle the "gameplay itself as a reward" and "I want the new bobbles" line and KF is for me where that worked out best, even if it was a more stressful initial experience. But when I was doing it up to 3 times a week we were completing it in 40-ish minutes in most cases. Only for a very short while was the getting easier a part of getting gear and most of the time was refinement of roles and practice. It was rewarding to be that well oiled machine. But it was also rewarding getting those last drops I was looking for on this or that character.

I guess it's hard for me to judge--I never played KF enough to feel like a well oiled machine. Warpriest was fine, but every time I played the rest of the encounters, especially Oryx and the sisters were always absolute shit shows. And that's fine, I guess. That's the part where patience and practice comes in. But even if you were really good at all that, I still feel like it requires way more precision and could never match the casual fun of VoG or Crota.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't really fix the problem, and creates a new one that I would hate. If I'm not good enough to play a higher difficulty level, I'd feel bad forcing the likes of you and Korny and Cruel or whoever else to play a raid at my level. You all wouldn't feel challenged, but I'd feel like a boat anchor playing at your level. So we end up in a situation where someone isn't enjoying themselves, or we just don't play together, and that sucks.

I already feel bad asking them to play with me.

There would be a max through at which point you can no longer damage your enemies given the way the light system works.

True. Maybe it stops at that point and you can finally say you beat destiny when that happens.

I think it would divide the community, and discourage strong players from ever playing with anyone other than players at their level.

I hear you, but I'm not sure it would have that effect. I know that I probably would never play this mode. I'm just not that good and I don't imagine most people around these parts would be chasing it either.

I did VoG when it was hard and I was proud of that but I wouldn't want to do that over and over. I enjoyed playing it more post-Crota than before. The atmosphere was just a lot more relaxed and fun.

I would love to see the crazy-good players stream their antics on ridiculous settings. It gives them something to do that doesn't also give them an advantage in other parts of the game - just bragging rights.

True enough, and I'm not trying to be selfish, but I don't want there to be more activities I'm shut out of because I don't measure up. I'd worry that this would extend the rat race of raiding, and it would diminish the part of the raid's life cycle I enjoy the most, playing the raid with friends (with a range of skills) while it's moderately challenging.

(I actually "enjoy" the experience of blind raiding the most, but that's short-lived and I couldn't handle the stress every week.)

I'm with you. Our blind King's Fall (the only blind raid I've ever done) stands out as the pinnacle of Destiny for me. But our Crota and VoG runs over the past two weeks were just as cool, and even more "fun" in many ways. Even when we were having spots of trouble, it remained much more light hearted and relaxed than a blind raid ever could be, I think.

I never did do the whole grinding out a raid week after week thing, but I can totally see why people would. I probably would have too, but I just didn't think King's Fall was that fun of a raid to do over and over, and VoG and Crota were both irrelevant by the time I started playing. In a way, that was a blessing, because the folks I joined up with just wanted to do it for fun and help a newbie experience them.

True enough, and I'm not trying to be selfish, but I don't want there to be more activities I'm shut out of because I don't measure up.

I think by definition you are left out of a lot of the fun in games if you don't measure up, simply because for a good game, playing at a high level is intrinsically rewarding. Or it should be.

The solution is difficulty levels. Each player can select the difficulty level that is interesting and challenging for them, such that the game is interesting to play at all times. If they improve, they can bump up the difficulty. As long as a baseline challenge of certain activities is preserved across the difficulty levels, then everyone can have the best time possible.

All raids and challenges should be accessible on any difficulty level.

You could optionally scale the challenge as well as the difficulty, as long as the challenge starts in a meaningful place.

This was figured out decades ago. When you think about it, it's very odd that Destiny had no selectable difficulty.

I think it would divide the community, and discourage strong players from ever playing with anyone other than players at their level.

I would agree with you, except the ratio of strong players who would do this are far outnumbered by the weak players. Kinda like how the lighthouse has divided the people who have gone to those who haven't. Everything is divided, it's just where you draw the line.

True enough, and I'm not trying to be selfish, but I don't want there to be more activities I'm shut out of because I don't measure up. I'd worry that this would extend the rat race of raiding, and it would diminish the part of the raid's life cycle I enjoy the most, playing the raid with friends (with a range of skills) while it's moderately challenging.

(I actually "enjoy" the experience of blind raiding the most, but that's short-lived and I couldn't handle the stress every week.)

I'm in the same boat as you. And if it makes you feel any better, this might be an amazing tool to figure out those people who are willing to raid with you and those that you probably don't want to raid with anyway :D

I think it would divide the community, and discourage strong players from ever playing with anyone other than players at their level.

I would agree with you, except the ratio of strong players who would do this are far outnumbered by the weak players. Kinda like how the lighthouse has divided the people who have gone to those who haven't. Everything is divided, it's just where you draw the line.

True enough, and I'm not trying to be selfish, but I don't want there to be more activities I'm shut out of because I don't measure up. I'd worry that this would extend the rat race of raiding, and it would diminish the part of the raid's life cycle I enjoy the most, playing the raid with friends (with a range of skills) while it's moderately challenging.

(I actually "enjoy" the experience of blind raiding the most, but that's short-lived and I couldn't handle the stress every week.)