Destiny's Raid, 'Vault of Glass' is now available to play. Hardest challenge yet.

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How is it possible that Activision Blizzard didnt send over some MMO vets to Bungie to help them out or give advice about what works and what doesnt?

I'm honestly struck by the impression that Bungie had a lot less time to put together the final product than people think There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that only really makes sense in the context of a rushed production (copy/pasted mission structure, tacked on story, the actual statement from the devs that if the Grimoire had needed to make it onto the discs it would have been cut). That would explain why they didn't take more time to refine the MMO elements.

I think that part way through development, they realized that what they had just wasn't working for some reason, and they totally rebooted and started again. This is that game.
 
Perhaps they did? What social options do people want this game to have that are not already built into the game or system OS? Do you want the ability to chat in the Tower, like on PC? Please explain what you mean by limited social options.

- See/Invite Clan members in game.
- Being able to list yourself as LFG for specific instances
- Searching for people LFG for specific instances
- Talk to people in Matchmade groups by default without inviting to fireteam
- Talk to people you meet in-game without inviting to fireteam
- Kicking people from Matchmade teams if they aren't actually playing
 
Difficulty isn't the problem. The god awful social features/interaction are. If there was a global chat system and quest board or lobby system it would be perfectly fine.
 
Noone said anything about difficulty levels, you should stop projecting.

This argument has gone around in circles.

The stream makes it obvious that Bungie wasn't lying -- raids are designed for well organized groups of skilled players, which is simply incompatible with MM. At the end of the day, people asking for MM are really just asking for them to nerf the raid difficulty so that it's viable for MM like strikes.

We already have strikes. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to do a raid (I'm busy, my friends are busy and suck at games), but I'm glad raids are special. I'm sick of games being dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. It's ok for games to create content for different types of gamers.

A few pages ago, it was full of people going "well then why not make easier versions of the raids?" so the claim that "Noone said anything about difficulty levels" is flat out wrong.
 
Gameplay of the raid looks...banal. Boss is a massive bullet sponge that wanders extremely slowly back and forth, slowly firing a gun that's very very easy to avoid (BLAM......BLAM.....BLAM), so players just peek out of cover every few seconds to do some damage, rinse and repeat for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

It looks like an MMO raid instead of something specifically designed for a shooter, and the end result is that it doesn't look fun at all.
 
But Destiny does let you play with randoms. Before you get to the raid, you have plenty of opportunities to meet randoms in strikes and other missions, add them to your friend list, and build a consistent group that you could go on and take on the raid with.

Are you serious?

Also, "other missions?" No, I think you mean only Strikes.

Most people aren't interested in accepting random group/friend requests, either.

Let's say you did make enough friends while leveling up (I imagine less than 0.0001% of the player base has done this), how do you coordinate with them? Send PSN/XBL messages? Invite half of them to your Fireteam and use voice chat?
 
I'm honestly struck by the impression that Bungie had a lot less time to put together the final product than people think There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that only really makes sense in the context of a rushed production (copy/pasted mission structure, tacked on story, the actual statement from the devs that if the Grimoire had needed to make it onto the discs it would have been cut). That would explain why they didn't take more time to refine the MMO elements.

I think that part way through development, they realized that what they had just wasn't working for some reason, and they totally rebooted and started again. This is that game.

If you've ever seen the development history of some of the older Halo games that isn't unlikely.

The game was a very nebulous concept until its E3 showing. You do get the impression that they doubled down on what the game would be shortly before then.

They desperately need to get some patches done for the missing social elements.
 
Maybe people wouldn't mind raids not having matchmaking if there was something else in the game anywhere close to as interesting as the raids?
 
Are you serious?

Also, "other missions?" No, I think you mean only Strikes.

Most people aren't interested in accepting random group/friend requests, either.

We have people in this thread saying they did exactly that -- meet randoms as they played the game.

Let's say you did make enough friends while leveling up (I imagine less than 0.0001% of the player base has done this), how do you coordinate with them? Send PSN/XBL messages? Invite half of them to your Fireteam and use voice chat?
...yes? I mean, party chat is probably better than fireteam chat, but MM doesn't help communication.
 
Watching a few of the raid streams and something just occurred to me that would be a great way to train people for raids in Destiny.

All the mechanics in these raid fights are completely new and foreign and people are struggling to figure everything out. In WoW you could run 5 mans where there were raid mechanics but at a limited scale so when you finally got to a raid you could recognize what a boss is doing and plan accordingly.

Sprucing up the strikes in Destiny to include raid-boss mechanics would be an awesome way to liven up the strikes while at the same time get people ready for raids.

This could really solve problems with raiding with randoms since they'll most likely have seen the aspects of the raids before on their grind to 26+.

Just a thought.
 
Gameplay of the raid looks...banal. Boss is a massive bullet sponge that wanders extremely slowly back and forth, slowly firing a gun that's very very easy to avoid (BLAM......BLAM.....BLAM), so players just peek out of cover every few seconds to do some damage, rinse and repeat for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

It looks like an MMO raid instead of something specifically designed for a shooter, and the end result is that it doesn't look fun at all.

Please tell us how you would design a raid like encounter in a shooter.
And there's a lot more mechanics going on there that you are totally ignoring.
 
Gameplay of the raid looks...banal. Boss is a massive bullet sponge that wanders extremely slowly back and forth, slowly firing a gun that's very very easy to avoid (BLAM......BLAM.....BLAM), so players just peek out of cover every few seconds to do some damage, rinse and repeat for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

It looks like an MMO raid instead of something specifically designed for a shooter, and the end result is that it doesn't look fun at all.

and assuming this isn't even the final boss, unless these guys have been playing for hours, then we can only expect what the other possible bosses might be. I hate bullet sponges with enemy mobs.
 
- See/Invite Clan members in game.
- Being able to list yourself as LFG for specific instances
- Searching for people LFG for specific instances
- Talk to people in Matchmade groups by default without inviting to fireteam
- Talk to people you meet in-game without inviting to fireteam
- Kicking people from Matchmade teams if they aren't actually playing
All of this. Its kindof nuts that none of this is in the game.
 
We have people in this thread saying they did exactly that -- meet randoms as they played the game.

Sure. I freely admit that some people may have done this, but there is no way that most people are interested in this kind of crippled communication. Why should social interaction be limited to only the extremely dedicated and persistent?
 
Difficulty isn't the problem. The god awful social features/interaction are.

This is strictly from the perspective of someone who doesn't play Destiny, but this raid doesn't honestly seem all that difficult. The MrBlackMagik/StreamerHouse streams are plagued with poor communication, poor situational awareness and poor prioritization. Cleanses take too long to happen, adds are inefficiently killed and in general time on boss is not coordinated during periods of maximum potential output. Seems like the utter lack of communication is something Bungie can at least attempt to amend. I get more built-in feedback about what's going on during TF2 MvM matches than these beleaguered raiders get.
 
I'm honestly struck by the impression that Bungie had a lot less time to put together the final product than people think There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that only really makes sense in the context of a rushed production (copy/pasted mission structure, tacked on story, the actual statement from the devs that if the Grimoire had needed to make it onto the discs it would have been cut). That would explain why they didn't take more time to refine the MMO elements.

I think that part way through development, they realized that what they had just wasn't working for some reason, and they totally rebooted and started again. This is that game.

Interesting theory, I cant wait for some stories on what happened during development.
 
Sure. I freely admit that some people may have done this, but there is no way that most people are interested in this kind of crippled communication. Why should social interaction be limited to only the extremely dedicated and persistent?

MM isn't communication. Nobody is arguing that Destiny couldn't benefit from better communication options.
 
So... because you don't have enough real life friends to do it, and since you don't count online friends as actual friends, it's somehow Bungie's fault? What?

It's Bungie fault if they close this content for a huge amount of people just for being lazy. And yes, It's lazy because we can get over the absence of MM with real social features. But there is none, Right now is a half baked game. MM or social features. Choose one.

Yeah, those outdated mechanics of meeting other people dedicated to the game, practicing hard encounters together, and learning to work well together as a team called. If that is outdated, then it's very fucking easy to see what's wrong with endgame stuff today.

MM won't stop you to do this. If you do not want to use it, just don't. Other will, and it's their problem,


You can get into the raid and wipe to your heart's content with three people, if so you choose. Making matchmaking available would do nothing but cause frustration - raids would be disbanding on the very first encounter.

Your perception of those forums as a whole colors your view on everyone from them, but I have played with people from everywhere I mentioned and there are no shortage of good players - and many of them are even pleasant to talk to and hang out with - SHOCKING, I know.

Again, we do not need your condescension. if it is difficult for others, it's their problem. MM will not affect your enjoyment of the game if you only do you play with your friends.

That might be the most ridiculous thing I've read in this thread.

In how many other games have you hit level cap and immediately jumped into raiding without some kind of other progression?

Are you joking?

A lof of games use tiers of content. Like FFXIV, you have a group of dungeons/raids/trials to get iLvl 60, then another group of dungeons/raids/trials to get iLvl70, and so on. There is no a repetitive grind fest. At least you unlock new challenges very often.
 
The game's been out a week. Literally one week. If you play this game over time, I don't think there's any way you won't hit level 26 at some point. Maybe it won't happen as fast as you want, but it will happen. It's okay if you can't do it the first minute it's available. The raid is not hidden behind some kind of impenetrable 133t force field.

As for matchmaking, I wish we could just table the whole thing. It's not in the game, for better or for worse. At this point, does it need to be brought up every other post? Can we not move along? We'll all just have to live without it until either they change their mind or we figure out workarounds or we quit to go do something else.

I've been able to build up a big friends list on PS4 just by tapping into the various GAF threads. Now I see about a dozen folks at least playing when I'm in the game. Many of them are already in the mid-20 light levels. I think if you just reach out to your fellow Gaffers, you'll be able to get in some raid action.
 
I'm honestly struck by the impression that Bungie had a lot less time to put together the final product than people think There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that only really makes sense in the context of a rushed production (copy/pasted mission structure, tacked on story, the actual statement from the devs that if the Grimoire had needed to make it onto the discs it would have been cut). That would explain why they didn't take more time to refine the MMO elements.

I think that part way through development, they realized that what they had just wasn't working for some reason, and they totally rebooted and started again. This is that game.

Because Blizzard is independent of Bungie.

Activision ONLY publishes for Bungie. So far as I understand it, Bungie employees are NOT Activision Employees, and vice-versa.

I could be wrong about that. But that's how I understand it.

Blizzard actually merged with Activision; Bungie did not.
 
...yes? I mean, party chat is probably better than fireteam chat, but MM doesn't help communication.

Expecting this kind of work from players is insanity.

MMOs have had better communication options since the mid-90s. The lack of social interaction tools in Destiny is simply an inexcusable oversight, which makes me think it was a conscious decision at Bungie due to some desire to not have public chat options. I bet they thought it would kill the atmosphere they were going for or something.
 
MM isn't communication. Nobody is arguing that Destiny couldn't benefit from better communication options.
You're right, MM is logistics - matching players that want to engage in activity with others that best fit that criteria, right then and there. I still think it should be in regardless of difficulty because you can find out - within the raid itself - which players you'll want to join up with in the future.
 
All of this. Its kindof nuts that none of this is in the game.

I wonder how much of the chat options was removed due to its impact on lag, etc. I remember when Bungie put in push to talk for Halo 3 BTB for that reason. In my experience Destiny's online code is quite good; I wonder if ditching most voice communication was the cost. Unfortunate if so, it really guts the social element of the game.
 
Expecting this kind of work from players is insanity.

MMOs have had better communication options since the mid-90s. The lack of social interaction tools in Destiny is simply an inexcusable oversight, which makes me think it was a conscious decision at Bungie due to some desire to not have public chat options. I bet they thought it would kill the atmosphere they were going for or something.

MMOs have keyboards. I'm not saying Destiny can't do better in terms of communication, but they are treading on some new ground here trying to make a social controller game.
 
The boss I watched seems to have some more mechanics associated with it and sub objectives within the fight instead of just shooting the guy and not dying. There are debuffs that need to be cleansed and half the party gets teleported to a different zone where they need to kill some specific enemies while the other half is activating a specific portal to get them out. So basically more mechanics than approximately every boss in the Strikes combined.

Thank you, exactly what I was looking for.
 
I wonder how much of the chat was pitched due to its impact on lag, etc. I remember when Bungie put in push to talk for Halo 3 BTB for that reason. In my experience Destiny's online code is quite good; I wonder if ditching most voice communication was the cost. Unfortunate if so, it really guts the social element of the game.
I could see that as a reason to ditch general proximity chat - but basic matchmade fireteam chat seems like something that should be available by default. And it is doable if everybody is again reinvited into one fireteam, so the overhead is available and accounted for.
 
Gameplay of the raid looks...banal. Boss is a massive bullet sponge that wanders extremely slowly back and forth, slowly firing a gun that's very very easy to avoid (BLAM......BLAM.....BLAM), so players just peek out of cover every few seconds to do some damage, rinse and repeat for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

It looks like an MMO raid instead of something specifically designed for a shooter, and the end result is that it doesn't look fun at all.
Really? Here's my observations at a glance from the Datto stream

Main boss teleports 3 farthers players into either the past or future area, people still with the boss will need to open the portal back to the boss while fending off the kamikaze adds that spawn. The three teleported in need to have one member pick up the relic shield. While in the past/future they must destroy each of these oracles that appears or get wiped instantly while also dealing with a small group of enemies there. While also in the past/future they have a lingering debuff that slowly makes their screen go blind unless cleansed from an ability used by the relic shield holder. Once all oracles are destroyed the whole team gets a buff that makes them do massive damage to the boss turning him into a beatable enemy rather than just a bullet sponge. All of this on an overall encounter timer on which the boss will enrage and wipe the group.

The tuned downed version of the raid are called strikes.
 
Maybe people wouldn't mind raids not having matchmaking if there was something else in the game anywhere close to as interesting as the raids?

Pretty much my thinking. Walling off the super-difficult content so people who beat it can have bragging rights is one thing, walling off all of the genuinely interesting content is another. If the Strikes incorporated the kind of mechanics we're seeing in the Raid, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.
 
No where near the level recommended but even I were then I wouldn't be playing it.

I understand that Bungie want people to work together and that's great but I think it needs matchmaking. Hopefully some point down the line they allow it.
 
Because Blizzard is independent of Bungie.

Activision ONLY publishes for Bungie. So far as I understand it, Bungie employees are NOT Activision Employees, and vice-versa.

I could be wrong about that. But that's how I understand it.

Blizzard actually merged with Activision; Bungie did not.

But Bungie definitely isn't merged with MS, but they sent over some guys to do technical work. Why wouldn't Bungie think to consult with the leading MMO company about the elements they were borrowing from MMOs?
 
MMOs have keyboards.

It's 2014, they could have maybe tried to evolve their feature set to work around that limitation? Maybe look at games like Day Z and work in some kind of proximity based voice chat? Obviously give players the option to turn it off.

At the very least, enable voice chat by default for Strike groups even when the players aren't in your Fireteam.

Hell, optional text based chat would still work, even without a keyboard.

At the absolute bare minimum, they need to have some kind of LFG function. That way you could search for players who are looking to do the same content as you. It doesn't need to be matchmaking, but there needs to be a way in game to find like-minded individuals.
 
na, the game just isn't very good.
Opinions are great, aren't they?

How does it ruin the game for hardcores to have difficulty levels of the same raid? WOW, D3, most of the decently made loot games out there have this. Works well for everybody.
In order to accommodate LFR, the fundamental design of WoW's raids changed, and arguably, they became universally worse for it. There are some mechanics that you can't dumb down, and so it becomes an issue of catering to the lowest common denominator, and before you know it we end up with a bunch of raid bosses just like the ones in the Strikes.

Thats the thing though kid, some of us did.
That's great! Then why are you here? If you're all grown up, why does 0.05% of the game concern you SO MUCH?

This exactly (as far as end-game). There is nothing at all in place and this is what, 6+ years of work? If the end-game portion of Destiny is the meat and bones of their vision... it's inexcusable for them not to have a better path to it (4 maps to grind and a crap loot system) and foundation for social integration related to it. A fleshed out hub for 20+ guardians would be a great start!
I'm not going to disagree. There are definitely some things missing, especially at endgame.

Same way some people apparently thinks lvl 26 is.

Look I dont give a shit about which level it is on the point is I have already invested almost 17hr and I am on lvl 21. And its damn hard to lvl up after 20. I am assuming 17more hr until I get to lvl 26? How can you expect people to have invested 35hr+ in the game within a week?
Nobody expects you to invest 35 hours in a week. The raid is going to be in the game presumably forever. You have until Destiny 2 to do it, so what's the rush?

LOL @ 4Chan as a Raiding resource.
Spoken like someone who's never even tried. There are plenty of dedicated people on 4chan, whatever your perception of the overall site might be. In fact, I've played far, far, far more difficult games with people from 4chan than Destiny could ever hope to be.

this is a concentrated effort as attested to by many people in this thread. It's literally impossible to find someone who just casually leveled to 26. You even mentioned farming as if that is something a casual is going to do.
This is dumb, stop arguing against consumers rights. If I bought the game, I shouldn't be arbitrarily restricted because of a terrible design decision when the devs invented solutions to the very problems I have.
I usually hate when people jump to accusations of entitlement, but this is the perfect example. You can't do it with minimal investment and effort, so it isn't fair, and so instead of doing something about it and finding people to play with and working on your gear, you go online to cross your arms and cry about it instead.

Did you make this post fighting back a torrent of tears?
The tears from the people in this thread, maybe.

I wish to fill a swimming pool with them, and then bathe in them daily.
 
I can't really recommend these farming spots like the one in the video. I've done two different ones for hours and may have gotten 2-3 legendaries out of all of them in like 3 hours of gameplay. It's all entirely based off luck, if certain enemies were more likely to give X type loot I'd recommend it but until then? Don't get your hopes too up. First mission on the moon also has a lot of clusters of enemies coming out of a door you can kill and then die and repeat over and over again. It didn't do much of a difference I still only got like 1 legendary engram, which turned into nothing useful.

At this point just save up marks and play PvP.

Yeah pretty much what I'm doing. Just build rep with a faction and get marks so you can buy armor with +18 light each. Should easily get you to 25 or so if you get all of it. And you can hope to get good stuff along the way while getting there.

Dunno why people are in such a rush to beat everything right away. No excuses for the looting and engram system though. Those are bad.
 
I could see that as a reason to ditch general proximity chat - but basic matchmade fireteam chat seems like something that should be available by default. And it is doable if everybody is again reinvited into one fireteam, so the overhead is available and accounted for.

That seems like a real oversight then; baffling.
 
MMOs have keyboards. I'm not saying Destiny can't do better in terms of communication, but they are treading on some new ground here trying to make a social controller game.

Console games can support keyboards. Monster Hunter and Phantasy Star managed it so I don't know why Destiny couldn't.
 
I wonder how much of the chat options was removed due to its impact on lag, etc. I remember when Bungie put in push to talk for Halo 3 BTB for that reason. In my experience Destiny's online code is quite good; I wonder if ditching most voice communication was the cost. Unfortunate if so, it really guts the social element of the game.
The game has voice chat in fire-teams, and it works fine. I think the rampant racism/sexism/cursing kids of Halo 2 and 3 scared them for Destiny. But they forgot that this was a coop game largely.
 
Gameplay of the raid looks...banal. Boss is a massive bullet sponge that wanders extremely slowly back and forth, slowly firing a gun that's very very easy to avoid (BLAM......BLAM.....BLAM), so players just peek out of cover every few seconds to do some damage, rinse and repeat for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

It looks like an MMO raid instead of something specifically designed for a shooter, and the end result is that it doesn't look fun at all.

Sounds like Strike but even less fun.
 
- See/Invite Clan members in game.
- Being able to list yourself as LFG for specific instances
- Searching for people LFG for specific instances
- Talk to people in Matchmade groups by default without inviting to fireteam
- Talk to people you meet in-game without inviting to fireteam
- Kicking people from Matchmade teams if they aren't actually playing
Yeah, it's pretty crazy that none of the above is in the game, lol. I love this game to death, but... they missed a whole lot of features. Hopefully they start patching 'em in soon.
 
There is nothing wrong with wanting matchmaking for the raid. It doesn't make it ez mode in fact it will go a lot like WoW raids did back in the day when people tried to make random groups, they failed hard and disbanded BUT I don't see why you would be bothered by the option being there or people wanting it. It has ZERO impact on the difficulty.

Wait, I thought your problem was with the lack of in-game communication features? Of course there's something wrong with wanting matchmaking. It's a waste of resources, and more importantly it gives people the false expectation that they should be able to beat it with a group of 5 randoms. You won't, not ever, at least not until several months from now when we see if Bungie pulls a Blizzard and nerfs it into the ground.

If you want to get mad that the raid is too hard for you, well at least then you're being honest. The bandwagoning haters looking for their next talking point to have a good cry over can sod off though.
 
Opinions are great, aren't they?


In order to accommodate LFR, the fundamental design of WoW's raids changed, and arguably, they became universally worse for it. There are some mechanics that you can't dumb down, and so it becomes an issue of catering to the lowest common denominator, and before you know it we end up with a bunch of raid bosses just like the ones in the Strikes.

Haha no.. been playing wow since vanilla, pretty much done every major raid out there. You are just wrong, but whatever... not like I'm going to change your opinion.

BTW you kidding yourself if you think Destiny raids as nearly as complex and engaging as WOW raids are. I would say it is even a fundamental design issue Bugie is going to have for now on. Classes don't interact as well, camera perspective doesn't really helps, shooting being your only actual meaningful mechanic instead of a bunch of abilities also doesn't help them either, and so on and on.. My point being tuning down Destiny raid difficulty into various tiers doesn't really seems like rocket science.
 
Please tell us how you would design a raid like encounter in a shooter.
And there's a lot more mechanics going on there that you are totally ignoring.

Look at the strengths of the shooter genre, and the typical strategies that a shooter player will learn over the course of the game. Positioning. Flanking. Aim.

None of these things are at play with a typical MMO boss. It's just a bullet sponge gear check.

A raid, in a shooter, should be against a strike squad of highly specialized opponents that take coordination and strategy to defeat, alongside a ton of normal enemies.

I mean, that isn't feasible because a shooter boss requires really good AI, and we all know that Bungie is too lazy for that shit.

And of course there are mechanics I'm ignoring, because they're completely irrelevant. Warping a few squad members to special areas to shoot glowing orbs isn't fun or challenging. It's just there to prevent your raid members from slipping into comas.
 
Blizzard learn these lesson a long time ago, elitism is not fun... Good game design is fun, which is exactly the oposite Destiny is doing.
That must be why Blizzard is inundated with new subscribers, just bursting at the seams with new players waiting to do the amazing endgame...

Oh wait.

It's good to know that the people bitching the loudest about the raid are those who aren't even planning to play it, though. That cracks me up the most.

So what is final verdict of this game. Is it MMO or is it fucking not MMO. If it is MMO then I am not gonna complain because I have never played MMO before. But bungie is keep saying its no MMO. So yes people expect certain shit from shooting games. And not everyone has that much time in hand to invest in a game.
Bungie says a lot of things.

So, is doing the raid with randoms impossible, or is it the way it should be done? I'm confused.
Lol, you know that randoms become non-random once you play with them for a while? Way to completely cut up my post to make it fit your narrative though.
 
- See/Invite Clan members in game.
- Being able to list yourself as LFG for specific instances
- Searching for people LFG for specific instances
- Talk to people in Matchmade groups by default without inviting to fireteam
- Talk to people you meet in-game without inviting to fireteam
- Kicking people from Matchmade teams if they aren't actually playing

All of this. This is basic shit that should already be there even BEFORE you open the can of worms that is matchmaking. I seriously would like to know why it's not and if they plan on patching it in eventually.
 
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