Destiny Raid Groups/ General Discussion

[wheelhaus]

The new strategies look great, they're 100% legit, and sort of follow the same pattern as Atheon's fight. Move to center, kill swordbearer, DPS Crota, leave center, come back to center, kill swordbearer, DPS Crota... Leave center, go right, kill Ogres, move to center, kill swordbearer, DPS Crota. Profit.

There's a few strategies that don't even use Titan bubbles, such as DPS team distract knights, and sword carrier never shoots or throws grenades- only jumps and swords. Knights will essentially ignore him.

[53Driver]

So I hit rank 4 with Eris. I didn't realize you cap out at rank 4. Any reason to keep doing bounties for her? I can't think of any reasons personally.

[Andrew025]

Originally Posted by 53Driver

So I hit rank 4 with Eris. I didn't realize you cap out at rank 4. Any reason to keep doing bounties for her? I can't think of any reasons personally.

Quick experience if you do the sword bearer/kill 15 with melee that takes like 10 minutes and every once in a while she has the one with the motes reward.
Otherwise, no there's no point.

[wheelhaus]

Yeah she's another source for XP for leveling up weapons/armor. If you don't burn the bounties every day, you can cherry pick some that add up easily, like the Kill 15 w/ sword, kill 3 Swords pf Crota, kill 7 w/ melee, and some other Vanguard bounties that stack easily...

Go into the Fist of Crota mission on Earth, and just run past the whole first area to the hallway where the Blade is being summoned and kill him and take the sword. Then run through the hallway (just run past the 4 thralls) and continue forward just a bit until you see more thralls coming (they come from left and right) run between them and turn around to see them now gathered in front of you, and R2 to slam the sword, you'll check off two bounties instantly (might need to sword a few more baddies to get the 15 kills). Bounce to orbit and just kill the Blade two more times and you can knock out 3-4 bounties within a few minutes.

Bounties are most effective if they can be grouped, even if it's only a 50pt minor, if it can be done at the same time as others, it's more efficient.

[n2oinferno]

So over on NeoGAF there was this post:

Originally Posted by rodiard
The announcement of how upgrading exotics and purchasing new vendor gear works in HoW will draw first blood.

And then someone from Bungie showed up and posted this in response:

No it won't.

Nothing specific to announce at this time, but the mistakes we made with the DLC1 reward economy will not be repeated:

Mistakes like:

• Vendor gear invalidating the effort of VOG Raiders
• Upgrading an Exotic reseting its talents

Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react.

We will continue to improve acquisition stories and frequency (My understanding of the perception is that Crota's End drop rates are much improved vs. Vault of Glass: footnote below), lessen the grind and get players to the fun parts of their arsenal faster.


On CE drop rates vs. VOG:
The Forever 29 meme was a killer for us.

We sat down and talked about the rewards for VoG and the rates vs. CE and ended up with the following:

• increase drop rates globally in CE: we wanted dedicated players to be around 32 or real close by the time Hard mode came out.
• increase the variability of perks that a given piece can roll.
  the goal here: players would reach 32 easier than 30, but would have more customization and options to build the perfect set (in terms of stats, perks, weapon affinities)

The part where this didn't work as well as we'd hoped is with the Shard economy. Shards are a are a barrier between you and equipping a sweet new piece of gear.

We want fewer barriers to equipping upgrades. The shard economies erect these barriers between players and the new piece of gear they just got.

We're not intending to adjust the shard economy for this Tier -- we don't want to invalidate player effort (again). But removing the barrier between that new drop you're excited to get and actually being able to equip it as a member of your arsenal are something we will do going forward.

[53Driver]

I sure hope they change the system. I was one of the ones who got stuck at 29 forever and it really sucked. Certainly, part of it was my fault as I rarely played the VoG and even more rare did I start the Raid and finish it the same day. I also hope they do away with the stupid commendation system they instituted with the DLC. I also wish you could purchase the perks you wanted with weapons or at least give you the option to purchase ONE perk that way everyone wouldn't be building the same weapons. Just a thought. And yes, the shard system sucks. I have leg armor and the chest piece from CE and I still haven't been able to completely upgrade either and most likely the HoW will drop before I have completely upgraded them.

Edit-BTW, I'll have a lot of play time the next 2 weeks as I'll be out of work recovering from a surgery so if any of the XB1 guys want to run missions etc. that'll be cool. I won't be available tomorrow and most likely Wednesday too so that'll suck.

[f0rge]

That post on Neogaf was interesting, it sounds like they understand a lot of the problems with the game at least.

Be interesting to see how they deal with some of it though. They're in a tough spot, they're almost better off not saying anything than giving vague statements like that.

For a lot of people, myself included, the HoW DLC2 is going to be the breaking point of this game since we already paid for the content. Unless they knock it out of the park DLC3 is going to be a tough sell for people. Hell I really enjoy this game and even if HoW is awesome I might not buy DLC3.

[n2oinferno]

I just need to start using the available resources to find people to play with, for the most part. People aren't online so I do my own thing, and then silently complain to myself that I'm not raiding. Nobody's fault but my own.

[53Driver]

Originally Posted by n2oinferno

I just need to start using the available resources to find people to play with, for the most part. People aren't online so I do my own thing, and then silently complain to myself that I'm not raiding. Nobody's fault but my own.

Which goes back to the the argument why Bungie should incorporate matchmaking into the Raid/Nightfall/Weekly.

[The_Understated]

Originally Posted by 53Driver

Which goes back to the the argument why Bungie should incorporate matchmaking into the Raid/Nightfall/Weekly.

^This. I took someone's advice and signed up for the100 website. Works quite well for me, super easy to coordinate raids.

[n2oinferno]

Originally Posted by 53Driver

Which goes back to the the argument why Bungie should incorporate matchmaking into the Raid/Nightfall/Weekly.

I agree and disagree. It would be a nice tool to help people out in some cases, yeah. But looking back on something like WoW when they made raid matchmaking, it kinda diminished the sense of community to some point.. Not that Bungie really has that problem with a game of much smaller social scope, but that wasn't the only change. They actually have an "easy mode" Raid Finder tier, which is even easier than regular mode raids. And I think when you're going in with a random pickup group you have to assume nobody has any clue what's going on and you're set up to fail. And then you have people bitching about "welfare epics" that drop in "easy mode" and it creates another whole level of elitism.

I'm rambling a bit. That said, I still think it's worth implementing.

Originally Posted by The_Understated

^This. I took someone's advice and signed up for the100 website. Works quite well for me, super easy to coordinate raids.

I got to the point I was signing up for it the other day and something pulled my attention away for five minutes.. then it was all over.

[53Driver]

Originally Posted by n2oinferno

I agree and disagree. It would be a nice tool to help people out in some cases, yeah. But looking back on something like WoW when they made raid matchmaking, it kinda diminished the sense of community to some point.. Not that Bungie really has that problem with a game of much smaller social scope, but that wasn't the only change. They actually have an "easy mode" Raid Finder tier, which is even easier than regular mode raids. And I think when you're going in with a random pickup group you have to assume nobody has any clue what's going on and you're set up to fail. And then you have people bitching about "welfare epics" that drop in "easy mode" and it creates another whole level of elitism.

I'm rambling a bit. That said, I still think it's worth implementing.



I got to the point I was signing up for it the other day and something pulled my attention away for five minutes.. then it was all over.

I agree with some of what you said, but I don't buy into the argument that "'you're going to get randoms and you have to assume you'll fail part". Whether I find a group from an independant website or from matchmaking within the game, they're both still RANDOM and you have no idea what will happen until you start the Raid etc. Besides, I'm definitely not the best player out there so I'm not going to point fingers at anyone else, unless they just do something really dumb. And I've done some really dumb things in this game.

[Andrew025]

Almost every time I raid, it's with randoms. Yes, there are times where it's a disaster and we barely get anything accomplished but more often than not, I get with a group that can complete the raid.

[The_Understated]

My biggest thing is ensuring you have a mic. IMO necessary not for when everything is going well, but for when everything goes wrong and you're trying to save it. Even if you can't talk but can hear direction from the raid leaders is enough. Maybe that's just me coming from Ventrilo WoW raids but makes pushing through to the end much easier to try and keep it sub 3 hours eh?