Man, I remember those drunken Tuesday night antics during D1 - we'd get the clan together, get goofy, and run our weekly Normal and Hard VoG and Crota Raids while messing around and talking about pretty much anything other than Destiny, because there was an intuitive flow that we all understood. We'd stop for snacks, push each other off ledges, solo or 2/3-player certain sections if someone needed to deal with something for a minute, there was never any real pressure so we could just have fun. It was more RPG/FPS and less MMO, more like a cooperative Halo or Skyrim-esque experience than a weird mix of experimentation, watching Twitch/YouTube tutorials, and swapping loadouts between every encounter to optimize DPS because the boss couldn't be beaten without some bizarre mix of a certain Super, a melee, and 3 shots from a certain weapon. I can't speak to Wrath or the D2 Raids, but even Skolas and King's Fall started getting too complicated for a 3- or 6-man team in a game built the way Destiny was designed - the bosses themselves felt like an afterthought, and the timing/poison/Mine/ad-clear mechanics of Skolas and the instawipe platforming and Ogre/Blight stuff in King's Fall made Raiding less about "beating the boss" and more about "don't mess any of these seven things up or we have to start over." (I still remember the time our Sword guy died during an early Crota "training" run, Oversoul wiped the team, our Sunsinger self-rezzed, picked up the Sword, and beat Crota to death with it by himself...that's the sort of clutch badassery that Destiny has slowly lost over the past 3 years.) Right now Destiny is trying too hard to be an MMO and a "hardcore" looter-shooter (and, apparently, a first-person platforming game), and distancing itself from the RPG and FPS roots that drew many players into the franchise in the first place (both from the Halo fanbase and games like Fallout) - the mechanics are getting too complicated, the loot and material grind and leveling process are getting too drawn out, and for a game centered around collecting and using increasingly-powerful weapons we spend far too little time shooting things in the face with powerful weapons.

This is what happens when Streamers have more of a say then the community ever will. This is a fact that will always stand in spite of what anyone says. I want to say I don't get why this happened but the truth is, it shouldn't have happened. Bungie had 3 years of feedback, actually way more than enough to know gamers liked how D1 raids were set up. I mean, look at the all the videos that were created that even Cozmo posted over the years about the raids and the positive feedback, the excitement about them etc... Yes, I can see having more mechanics, but overdoing them and saying the raids are "noob friendly" when the first raid was clearly not, was not a good idea. No, I don't want things to be easy, but I don't want to spend more than half a raid just doing mechanics, jump puzzles etc... I want to feel I'm playing a game to were I'm interacting with the surrounding area and not feel I always have to focus on one task and forget what's around me. Vog IMO gave that experience to where you were interacting with the enemies more so than just doing jump puzzles. ?Besides that, the raid has full raid weapons and way better options when it came to random rolls. Hell, when ROI kicked in going back with all the raids updated. That loot to collect was fun, not to metion the raid gear was a hell of alot better looking.

I found this as early as King's Fall. There was so much more to watch out for that VoG and Crota. Then WotM came out and the mechanics involved crossed from manageable to stress-inducing. Now before any elitists jump on my back about this, no WotM or KF weren't difficult to do, the difference was in the types of players you'd encounter in LFG sites. You went from finding a chill group who just wanted to enjoy some banter after work and maybe get some loot, to absolute twats who expected the group to perform like a North Korean battalion marching before Kim Jong Un. It got harder and harder to [i]enjoy[/i] raids, so I hung up my raid boots...

Bruh you have 10 raid clears total talking about you run Last Wish a lot, trying to do a 640 raid at 628, talking about wanting a casual fun time pushing your buddies off ledges? How to fix that: Go run an EP and stay out of the raid. Raids are suppose to be hard. They are the pinnacle end game for PvE. Damn casuals are ruining the game. Get gud don't make the game suck.

This is exactly why raid participation is so rock bottom low. Raid encounters have gone from interesting challenges that require a little more work over your usual nightfall with a much longer length to being overly complicated just for the sake of saying “look how crazy hard our endgame is! First completion took 19 hours isnt that wiiiiiild?”. Theres a fine line here, don’t get me wrong, i dont want a cake walk, i love something that will get me to sit up and pay a little more attention. But theyve crept out of that fun challenge with friends territory to complexity for the sake of complexity, from tests of can you hold your own in a fight against big tough guys to “are you over 600 light, able to memorize 6 different patterns from a pool of 20+ symbols, solve arbitrary puzzles, and have 6 hours of free time for your first run since lfgs keep rejecting you as a first timer and no one will join the one you made because first timer?” Your average gamer and bulk of destinys player base is not, in fact, the hard cores screaming for this, but your 20/30/40 somethings who like games AND have lives. When the majority see hurdle after hurdle like this, theyre gonna put destiny down, hop onto RDR2 for a side mission or Cod for a few matches, because with those they know theyll have some fun, make progress in the game, and still have time to pick kids up, eat dinner with the fam, study for class, balance a checkbook. When you envision your entire playerbase as hardcores who cant even hold their controller from sweating so hard you start making decisions that alienate the main base from your game

I keep hearing that only 1% of pop actually do raids. This seems like an under statement a little bit. But if it is a very low number I think that means there is room for improvement point blank period. Maybe there should be a level system like in crucible and those people who have very low level are prioritized to some extant to those who are willing to Sherpa people through. The people who are willing to Sherpa should get something special and most importantly something that’s powerful in the raid week to week. Instead of making those who don’t raid or find it hard to find raid groups constantly, awkwardly search for experienced folks. Try to reverse the roles and make it so sherpas want to find inexperienced players. Just my thoughts.

I never completed the first raid in D2 just because of all the ridiculousness they added into even getting your reward chests. I have had no interest in ever trying to complete them since. Bungie kept on a mission since they launched D1. Harder = more fun At least in their eyes anyhow. Very, very few people share that vision.

The problem is that most never actually try to improve. 100%. They never stop crying about content that is already extremely easy, and is far easier than most progression raids in MMOs. I wish they would spend their time that they spent typing cry post on aim training for like 5-10 minutes a day, learn about cover and "head glitches", and learn to not open themselves to multiple incoming damage sources at once. Seriously, FPS games have been around for decades. Learn the knowledge, don't ask for content nerfs when you are doing very little to step your game up.

Sure, let’s rip any sense of challenge from endgame content so anyone can easily complete it. No doubt that’d be great for the longevity of the game.

I've done every raid in destiny 30 times apiece...there really doesn't seem to be much difference from now to the beginning to me

Easy solution? Make raids for a fireteam of 3 instead of 6.

YES! I always think about the Vault of Glass. The encounters were not extremely complex, but fun as hell.

-groan- When people finally start point out the truth that these raids are actually brain dead easy and focused on the casual raiding experience rather than a long term raiding experience... all of a sudden the community screams "its too complicated????" -eye roll- Guys... I understand most people who complain about the raids have 0 experience with raiding outside of Destiny raiding but... you guys need a harsh reality lesson. Raids are supposed to be alot harder than what Destiny raids have been... even their prestige raiding counterparts. Sorry guys but... you need to go actually do some research before screaming for nerfs. The game is struggling in the raid department because... there is no loot in them worthwhile. All there is has been the new shotty and the exotics.