Glad you got a group man. Vault of Glass is just so fun. You probably just went through it but the area is a lot bigger than you imagine. There's a ton of empty space which is really nice to explore around.
It was even better at launch because it was so challenging. Back then:
1. Strategies weren't perfected. We now have great positioning for everything and have figured out quirks like sniping the Gatekeeper to death in seconds instead of killing him while he teleports and 50 million yellow bar Vex snipe you.
2. Shotguns did half the damage they do now, and had far lower attack stat. This means Praetorians were a fucking menace. A 274 attack shotgun only tickled them. We grenaded, sniped and rocketed those assholes with a passion. Really, run VoG without a shotgun and tell me how much harder it is.
3. Heavy ammo was expensive as hell. We have so many bunched up Strange Coins now that we buy them from Xur without remorse but it used to be a 950 glimmer emergency measure. You also lost heavy ammo every time you wiped, and you wiped often.
4. Imperfect loadouts. Most groups now have basically everyone owning maxed stuff of every kind and element. Back then you'd actually see a lot of people shooting Minotaurs with their auto rifles. The grind was so fucking real. A 300/300/300 loadout took incredibly long to build, with planetary mats not being sold, only 5 bounty slots, daily heroic not feeding weapons XP, ascendant energy being so hard to farm etc.
5. Under leveled. People complained about artificial difficulty in CE but I think it was an answer to how comparatively easier it was to reach level cap. Heroic VoG with 29s is amazingly punishing. Way, way harder than CE a level under. The time and frustration spent in Heroic VoG was directly proportional to the number of level 30s you had, and #forever29 was a very real thing.
So magical. I can't wait for the next Raid so I can feel that sensation of challenge and discovery again.
