I'm a huge sucker for full-team coordination, so I agree with you. Skolas was pretty damn fun and Mines/Argos is the best. I think D2 did Raids really, really well. I used to think Aksis would be the epitome of full-team coordination, but D2 just blew that out of the water.

Well done, Bungle. Keep up the good work. :)

I have not played the Raid Lair, so I won't get into that, most of what your comments made me think of were D1 memories, anyway.

There is a set of boxes when you fight the boss in Exodus Crash (left side oriented from point-of-entry) but you can only do that as a Titan, but really there are other issues with that fight (still think there are too many phases when you can't damage the boss) that I would rather see addressed.

Anyway, I definitely think you are right about the best encounters in Destiny requiring at least some mobility. My favorite Raid encounters are usually the mobility ones. Disappearing Platforms in VoG, Tombships and The Rude Wall in KF. Though the ones that are also combat encounters which requirement coordinated movement - not necessarily complex movement, Skolas' fight doesn't being in any non-standard movement requirements and is a good example - are probably the most rewarding.

The Abyss (and to a lesser extent regarding movement, The Bridge) is still one of the most enjoyable fresh experiences I've had with Destiny. Even encounters with staggered movement, like Totems in KF as your warm up to the Warpriest is probably one of the encounters I would identify as great from an overall design perspective. In a similar manner to The Bridge in CE where you had to coordinate placement to support movement, though one-at-a-time on The Bridge, the Totem fight in KF requires all of the players to be cognizant of timing, movement, and communication in a way much like passing the debuff was required with Skolas needed you to juggle more than just what you were shooting at.

Though at this point some of the Strike bosses in D2 are still somewhat disappointing, I appreciate that they all, at a minimum, operate in phases. That was a distinct improvement. Changing geometry, introduction of environmental hazards, and varying boss attack patterns shows that there was a lot learned from D1. Even the reimagined D1 strikes showed that a lot had been learned.

But you're spot on that usually the best of the experiences are the ones that support and encourage movement. I'm hoping to see even more of the in D2 as time goes forward, though.

The other thing Skolas does well (better than anything else in Destiny even?) is tension. The combination of passing the essence and dismantling mines is tense, and feels like you’re always just on the edge of failing. Even last night, when it was really easy, there was that inherent tension of “C’mon, I’ve only got five seconds, hurry, take this thing from me.” It’s sort of choatic, and even the best runs feel like sort of a sloppy mess of narrow misses.

I would agree that D2 made a big effort to try and make strike bosses interesting. D1 largely has the bosses as huge hitpoint sinks that just fire away. Golgoroth, the ogre in the strike on the moon, and Valus T'arc being the most egregious examples. They fire almost constantly, have a stomp if you get near, and are swarming with ads. Forcing people to find cover and snipe from far away.

If I have a complaint in D2, it's that the boss from the Nessus strike that teleports is too aggressive, often running players right off the map. Brackus can get this way as well, if your two teammates are dead he just runs right up and guns you down and there isn't much you can do about it.

Having run the Raid Lair now, I have to say it felt more like the Crota strike, which was fun but not as stringent as KF for positioning, and it involves the whole team somewhat, so no people hiding in the back with rockets.

That Argus battle really makes people move, use their abilities wisely, and change up what weapons are preferred moment to moment. I think that is what makes the game fun. You have pressure, and it's tough, but there is room to handle it your way, and it's not so intimidating about one person screwing up everything because of a lucky Psion blast.

I do love the lair for many of the reasons you describe. I'll ping you next time we have one scheduled. We finish it pretty consistently these days. Had a rough time few weeks back, but that was an outlier.

This thread is great - I really like thinking about what makes some encounters really fun, and others a chore.

I think the idea of mobility is important in whether an encounter stands the test of time... but it might be a side effect. When I look back on the Raids (we have 6 now! Wow.) the ones that are most replayable, for me, are the ones that don't let anyone off the hook.

I think Bungie didn't like the idea of someone getting comfortable doing one thing. We saw this in the very first raid; during the Atheon encounter, the three players furthest back in the room were teleported in time, and so teams split up to put the people most comfortable with that encounter in the back. Bungie's response? They picked the three transporters at random. Your whole team had to learn to be comfortable in both tasks.

Crota was more forgiving; there weren't any encounters that forced players to do things they weren't comfortable with (as long as their team contained people who WERE comfortable, of course). This made Crota both less and more replayable, I think. For normal raiders, it was less interesting... but some of the groups I played with played it endlessly... but with twists. (It was the only raid where people of MY caliber could 3-man it, for example.)

King's Fall was a refinement in the 'everyone needs to be able to do everything'... and was the least forgiving raid yet. Totems and Sisters, specifically, could crush even seasoned teams, because of the lack of wiggle room. One person dies, and it's almost always a wipe. Sisters threw in the random factor, with teams being (mostly) unable to pick their runners - so you could be good at all the tasks except one, and your team could still fail, because the game assigned that one task to you. There was a TINY bit of forgiveness on the final encounter; if you didn't complete all 4 orbs on each round, you had one extra round to play with... but mostly, if you failed somewhere, you were better off wiping and starting the encounter over.

That, I think, is the biggest lesson Bungie learned: that lack of forgiveness made a lot of people hate KF.

Aksis allowed screwups. By the time we were max light, you could finish him in 2 rounds, 3 if you were sloppy... but you had 5, so there was plenty of wiggle room. Vosik could be downed, even on Hard Mode (so no revives), by a less-than-full team; it wasn't a mandatory wipe if someone died. You still needed to know how to do all the roles (if someone died, someone doing a different role would need to take over)... but the emphasis wasn't on precision any more. You had to be good, but not perfect.

I feel like that carried over into D2, and I'm glad. There's still an emphasis on knowing all tasks (even more so in the Challenge and Prestige modes, where you're FORCED into every role on some encounters)... but you're allowed to make mistakes, as a team. For the most part, they're recoverable-from.

There are some decisions I don't understand. Some encounters are skippable; Tombships in KF, for example. If you simply can't make the jumps, just wait on the starting platform; when the first member of your team goes up the elevator, you'll be dragged forward. Some encounters are not, though. Golgoroth's cellar is confusing, and some people have real trouble with it. There's no skipping it, though; the door at the end won't open unless all team members are there. (You can get around this, of course; the person having trouble can go to orbit, the team can go through the door, and then the orbiting person can rejoin... but it's DESIGNED to force everyone through the maze, which is a weird decision given that you're allowed to skip the tombships.)

Bottom line, though: I think what Bungie has been morphing towards, with each raid, is an encounter where everyone has to be able to do everything... but nobody's required to be perfect at anything. You have to be a well-oiled machine, but Bungie's willing to let you pack along a bit of WD-40.

It's amazing how well they nailed Vault of Glass; it contains a lot of the design decisions they have honed in the past 4 years... but that they moved away from after VoG and are only now getting back to. In hindsight, that seems like a lucky accident more than a thought-through plan. ;)

A lot of great points in this thread :)

There are plenty of great encounters throughout Destiny and Destiny 2 at this point. For me, The Bridge section of the Crota raid is still my favorite. It has complexity, without being overwhelming. Everyone has a job to do, but it's not so rigid as to prevent improvisation, or prevent recovery after a mistake.

Digging deeper, I think one of the things about that encounter that makes it so cool is that it is filled with little "Hero Moments", and there are often several of them happening at the same time. Everyone gets to take their turn at killing the sword bearer, running across the bridge, and killing the blue knight. It's a great "my turn up to the plate" moment where everyone gets their chance to take center stage. But beyond that, there are several other unique hero moments repeating in their own little dramas. The first player across the bridge plays a pivotal and stressful role. Then there's the player who takes the center plate on the far side, and needs to spend the whole encounter dodging sword knights without losing control of their plate. There's the player on the far-left plate that needs to deal with a steady stream of boomers and wizards. The final player across has some pressure on them as well, being separated from the rest of the team and with so many foes between them and the bridge.

The great thing about each of these roles is that they are all important, but some are quite clearly more challenging than others. Or at the very least, they require different skills/abilities. It adds a strategic layer to planning beyond "you 3 go right, we'll go left". The team needs to select carefully.

The brilliance of this encounter is evident in the way it can be equally thrilling to see it executed perfectly...

or saved from the brink of disaster:

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