I somewhat agree. I have no interest in doing it, yet this weekend I'm going to have to do it just to progress the story. Lame.

I'm with you. I've attempted half-hearted, but I am annoyed I'm forced to do this. *sigh*

I am in the same boat, makes me not want to play the game if I can’t advance season story. I only play solo and I am a senior with arthritic hands and slow reflexes so not able to do this exotic quest. It really should not be required to advance story line.

I was able to solo the quest but I agree with the OP. The exotic mission should be separate of the main story line like the other exotic quests. I get the impression that the devs have been increasing the difficulty of all activities, regardless of level. I find myself crutching my lorely splendor build much more than I would like.

All these Conquerers saying how easy it is, showing how completely out of touch they are with casual players.

I'm just going to say what everyone else is thinking. You're not forced to do the mission with people. There's no rule of thumb that says "You need to have people to do this mission." You can choose to do the mission alone if you like, or do it with people. It would be just like Season of the Seraph, with Operation Seraph's Shield. You don't NEED to be a top tier player to do anything. Even casual players with minimal exotic weaponry or armor, can do the mission, you're just not going to have an advantage like the rest of us, but that's okay. Just because you "can't" do a certain thing, doesn't mean you should just stop playing the game. That's like quitting your job because you have a little bit of extra stuff pushing you, i.e customers, colleagues or even your boss.

As socially averse as I am, I still hopped into the Fireteam Finder and joined two randoms with no mics. We beat the mission in under an hour, only wiping once at the final boss room. I’m not saying this to mock anyone who feels they’re locked out of the seasonal story now, and that completing an exotic mission is beyond their capabilities. I’m saying it’s not nearly as bad as we’re making it out to be, and you too can do it if you make that small effort and push past your own anxiety.

There’s a place for challenging content. That place is not the base level of seasonal content or the seasonal story. The seasonal story and content should be accessible to everyone.

I have to say I have not played the mission yet, however I still agree that in the past year and more I've disapprovingly noticed that the new game director :rolls eyes: has been aggressively making the game worse for solo players. It's a weird goal on his part, really. This is an OLD game and it has a lot of die hard fans, but people are constantly leaving and refusing to come back. People play video games to have fun, and for the majority of gamers it's NOT fun to team up every week and do a checklist of chores that they mostly don't want. "Hey, you need that mission? Cool, I want to do a dungeon and a Nightfall on legendary or Master first and then if we still have time we'll do that." That's not fun. I like to just log on and do a few bounties most days and a seasonal step when I feel like it without being hit up for dungeons, etc constantly. Personally, I don't find dungeons fun. They take too long and I have other stuff I want to do. Plus, I'm getting older and remembering mechanics and the order of many complicated steps is becoming more difficult for me. It really doesn't matter what your reasons are for not teaming up. Any reason is valid. I just accept that I won't be doing raids or dungeons. That's fine, since it's exactly that type of stuff I don't like. Where I get put out is increasing difficulty of seasonal storylines or campaigns to where even a competent solo player like myself finds it frustrating or tedious. The Calus fight in Lightfall is a perfect example of something that just isn't fun. Nobody likes that, and it was widely dissed by the community. But Bungie has a severe disconnect. They just aren't intelligent enough to understand where this game is at within this point of it's lifespan. Seasonal and campaign missions should never, ever be more difficult than a beginner player with basic weapons can complete on normal level. Witch Queen was a great example of the perfect amount of difficulty in both Legend and Normal campaign modes. Lightfall was fine until the Calus Fight. Mainly, the arena was too small to adequately fight Calus and two tormentors. Had it been left open like the first phase then I really doubt it would have been so widely planned.. It was still a terribly stupid campaign and Calus was a Sesame Street caricature of a boss, but again, Bungie just isn't very intelligent as a developer. The most baffling thing is that after a 45% miss on profits, a layoff, and the almost inevitable loss of their studio to Sony coming very soon they STILL refuse to get the basic concept of fun. Dungeons, Raids, Legendary and up Nightfalls. Those are literally the ONLY things in this game that should require a premade fire team. The fire team finder makes no difference in that inescapable truth. I've been having some fun recently farming legendary lost sectors for exotics lately and that's also the type of content that should be as difficult as it is. Master included, but the drop rate in Master is too low for the increased difficulty.

I just can't be arsed with it. 🤷‍♂️