The loot cave didn't matter except to point out how screwed up the loot system was at the time to the point where you were better off doing that than strikes or crucible. That being said the best thing I ever got from the cave was a legendary chest piece which I sharded long before I ever stepped foot in the raid. The loot cave was a nice way to try and tilt the odds in your favor. The bugs in the raid combined with connection issues are a good way to make people just plain quit.

You are complicating the benefit of the loot cave. More engrams meant better chance at loot, regardless of engram decoding failures. And beyond the exploit, it's part of the reason so many people were ready for the raid in a matter of days instead of weeks, and are now complaining of lack of content. The loot cave and VoG exploits are the worst things to happen to this game. Which is why they were the highest priority fixes. /thread

Regardless of when people were ready for the raid, playability issues are a much bigger problem than any exploit or loot farming shortcut, especially in a game with no economy. (At least in games with an economy, duping items can quickly wreck said economy) People will complain when someone gets loot for doing something easy or mindless like pushing Atheon off or shooting into a cave. People will flat out stop playing the game if they can't stay connected for more than 10 minutes or complete content because of bugs. Frankly there are few things more infuriating in a PvE game than executing perfectly and then wiping because of a damn bug. And people who don't play the game don't buy dlc. My point with the loot cave was that I was ready for the raid essentially completely legit thanks to the Queens Bounties event (particular the purple head and chest piece I got), xur, vanguard marks, and strikes. I don't play all that much. And I'm still pretty bored with the game, and am still affected by disconnect issues and encounter breaking bugs.

Nobody is denying the bugs on the Aetheon fight. Bungie is working on them. Too many kids here on proverbial road trips continuing to ask, "Are we there yet?" every 5 minutes. How about giving some constructive feedback instead of repeating what Bungie already knows? How exactly, is this helping improve the game? As for disconnect issues, I logged in 3 hrs after the latest patch went live, have played over 10 hours and haven't had a single DC. I've also cleared the raid on normal and am about to again on a different character. Are the bugs annoying? Yes! Are they game-breaking? No. End game exploits and the loot cave were game breaking, in a sense. They threw the intended progression out of whack. The same people that benefited most from these are now the same people complaining about lack of things to do.

I'm glad you haven't had any connection issues. I hope you understand that that has not been everyone's experience. Yesterday both the nightfall strike and the weekly heroic were almost unplayable for me and my friend because we kept getting kicked to orbit. A boss fight where the mechanics fail to work properly with any kind of regularity is quite literally game breaking. You say the loot cave was game breaking because it allowed way more people access to the raid than Bungie expected, but anyone who has ever played a PvE centric game will tell you that's how it goes. There's always a small dedicated portion of the population that burns through content almost as it's released, and a larger group who clears it soon after then everyone sits around and asks what is next. That's how it goes, and Bungie will never keep up demand, and haven't seemed to find a way to artificially gate people that's actually enjoyable. I could almost respect the argument, that the journey is as important as the destination, if the journey itself, especially from level 20 onward hadn't been designed to be so tedious. Even if the game had launched with no loot caves and with strikes giving launch day rewards (which is to say, crap) there'd be a lot of people at 28+ or there'd be a lot of people who just quit the game. The complaints would be that leveling goes from badly written story missions to absolute tedium. Hell plenty of people already complain about that. That's because the system they put in place with extra levels coming from light, nothing to do but the same strikes, patrols, and story missions we've done a million times, and one of the worst rng systems I've ever seen outside a casino is fundamentally flawed. It's just plain not fun, but the raid is the carrot. Do all this drudgery and you can participate in something fun and awesome. And then they keep breaking it. Now, let me say I don't think they should have left the loot cave in and I don't think they should have let people push Atheon off for any length of time. But to call those game breaking issues, when there are other literally game breaking issues is just wrong. And to "fix" something as stupid as the teleport "bug" when those other issues exist shows an abhorrent set of priorities. You want some feedback? Here's some: Bungie, video games are meant to be fun. You used to understand this. I know you did because I despised first person shooters and yet Halo Reach (first bungie game I actually played at all) was so good I've been a fan ever since, and preordered this game years ago based solely on the knowledge that you were making it. Somewhere along the line you forgot that, because as great as the combat is, the game is ultimately not very good. In fact for large portions of the game it's just flat out boring. So when we finally get to your raid, where you go out of your way to explain nothing, how about you just stop telling us how we're supposed to have fun. Stopping exploits? Go ahead. Stopping legitimate strategies because it never occurred to you when you designed it that people would simply assign people roles, and breaking the one interesting part of your game even more? Not cool Bungie. Not cool at all.

"Halo Reach was so good". Credibility out the window! JK! No issue in VoG is game-breaking, period. Aetheon is downed hundreds of times per day. Plenty of regular fireteams, actual pre-formed, same group every week fireteams, one shot the entire raid in less than an hour. If they wipe from a funky portal issue or whatever, they simply down it on the next attempt. This raid wasn't meant for 6 randoms to get together and be able to breeze through.

All it takes is one guy in a raid group to have connection issues for it to be game breaking. All it takes is several wipes to bugs on a boss you should have on farm to start making people think maybe there's better uses of their time. It happens once, it's annoying but whatever. It keeps happening? Why should I keep going through frustrations on a boss I've killed already? And if no issue in VoG is game breaking then neither was pushing him off the cliff. Meanwhile, you still have zero justification for the loot cave being game breaking at all other than a symptom of the true game breaking feature of the entire game: the Rng nature of the loot drops. Point is that any of the bugs should have been addressed before this teleport "bug" which wasn't a bug, and wasn't even an exploit. You say Bungie is working on it? I say they aren't. Certainly their activities the past several weeks don't indicate they're interested in anything but ruining everyone's fun.

[quote] You say Bungie is working on it? I say they aren't. Certainly their activities the past several weeks don't indicate they're interested in anything but ruining everyone's fun.[/quote] Awww, does wittle baby need a bottle and a nap?

Awww has someone been reduced to ad hominem attacks because they can't think of valid arguments? My point was I'm not gonna take your word for it that they're "working on it". I'm not gonna take their word for it either. I'll believe they've worked to address issues when they actually work to address issues.

There's no rational response to ignorance. If you want your whining to be catered to, go see your mom. "They are just trying to ruin my fun!" Act like a baby, get treated like a baby.

On the contrary, rational response is the only proper response to ignorance. On a broader scale, it could be very well argued that Bungie's entire existence is based on catering to their consumers. They make a product whose only purpose is for those who use it to enjoy using it. Of course we both know that you can't make everyone happy, and often simply catering to whining mostly just upsets a bunch of other people (sup mythoclast nerf). However nevertheless, they should be aiming for as many people to enjoy their product as possible, if only for the cynical reason that people who enjoy Destiny will much more eagerly pay to play more Destiny. My point, admittedly badly made, is that I won't take your word for it they are working on issues. As far as I know you're some random guy on the internet. I have no reason to think you have any clue what they're working on. I could perhaps take their word for it, except I don't see much from them at all when it comes to PvE issues. They said they'd fix cheesing Atheon and also make the teleports random and to their credit they have done so for good or ill. The feedback from me continues to be "there were better things to fix than the teleport". Now if they have said they will address other issues specifically (not just broad platitudes mind you. Poor community reps basically have to use those to placate the mob), then you may address my ignorance by pointing those out to me. Of course I am then free to point out that there are other things they've said they will fix that haven't been addressed like certain exotic weapons. Meanwhile, giving them full benefit of the doubt, why should I believe they'll work on fixing bugs when they have a new expansion to playtest and might think the bugs help keep the raid "hard"? You can call it petulant whining all you want but I can think of tons of legitimate reasons why such things would be low ppb their priority list and nothing you've said convinces me otherwise.

Solid structure, weak logic. Sometimes less is more. "They said they would fix exotics, but haven't done so yet, therefore they aren't."

I'll also add, if you are running the raid as intended, with a regular, same fireteam members week in and week out, then you wouldn't have the number of attempts it takes to experience all these bugs. You are one-shotting your way through the raid. People are experiencing bugs 1 out of 5 attempts (or whatever frequency it is) because they are blowing it on the other 4 when it's working just fine.

If one guy in your raid group can't stay connected, he should be replaced. Welcome to raiding.

And if he can't stay connected because of issues on Bungie's end? I never had problems till Tuesday, when both I and a lot of others suddenly had issues, not to mention the people who were having issues before that the patch was supposed to address. Even if you can replace the player, and good luck finding someone who knows what they're doing since the intention is to only raid with the same group, it's still pretty game breaking for that person, and raiding is one of those things that many times if you aren't having fun with your friends then the rest is irrelevant. Face it dude. Your stance in this thread is just wrong.

Its not hard to find viable replacement players whatsoever. And anyone who is constantly disconnecting likely has an issue on their end, not bungies, and they are an incredible minority compared to those without connection issues. Their modem or router may be going or their isp might be throttling them. The vast majority of players have minimal dc issues. A fast internet connection, up to date hardware, and the correct network settings solve the majority of connection issues. Tuesdays patch created some issues for many people that had previously had none and it was resolved just a few hrs after going live. If that 3hrs is still bothering you, then perhaps you should avoid online gaming. Ill commend you on your concise and clear writing, but your logic is questionable...

I feel as though you missed the entire point of everything that has been said on the post. Ha ha ha go back and read everything again not just the thread title.

Yeah well that tends to happen with a title like that and an all caps demand in the first few sentences. Why would I read any further?

So if you watch the first five minutes of a movie and turn it off you know what happened and can give an educated answer to any questions about the movie? Yea didn't think so. Move along and go troll somewhere else.