You write a lot of bull for someone who gets nothing done. What's the point of "having your voices heard" if it goes in one ear and out the other? You are the most pointless chess piece in this community. I hope they pay you well because that's all you have.

Say what you want about this community, but I'm digging it. You guys are beast mode right now. Best thread in awhile, imo.

Tell you what Deej, why don't you play the new raid and leave us your feedback? :)

All of these people saying that hard rewards do not match hard difficulties can be silenced in a simple fix: let hard mode armor get you one level higher and give hard mode weapons one more DMG upgrade. This isn't a huge change, but it's enough to make it worth doing for the complainers. I'll do it anyway because I genuinely enjoy the game. Or even better, have the bosses in hard mode provide a specific upgrade material used for the final weapon/armor upgrade or something like that.

The moment the templar shields random players takes about 10 seconds to overcome. Someone who dies using the relic on hard mode is nearly impossible to overcome. You comparison is valid, but not substantial as the two scenarios are very different. Randomness leads to a non strategic approach, every man for himself and the guy next to him approach. If you're going for this then that's great you've accomplished this. However, I was under the impression that you wanted a 6 man cohesive team effort. While you do have to have a competent team to complete the hard raid you don't have to have a cohesive team with this change. I will now instead of focusing my efforts on the best people for the job during certain parts will focus my efforts on making myself able to pull the team up from their bootstraps and by my efforts we keep going. This takes the team aspect away from it just a little more, because I now know that I may not be able to count on the two guys next to me if I get teleported. Hard mode is ridiculous as is so I think any team that could make it through before will be able to do so again with a little practice. "Easy mode" (normal mode) this change just means that people who would have liked to tried your experience aren't going to do it. I don't think you're going for most players of the year award, because if you were you would make the game easier. However, having been through every piece of your content I would really like those casual people to be able to experience the masterpiece you've put together in the raid. This just makes that goal that much more out of reach for some people. I say all this with respect, as I'm not a game designer or a developer. I work in the IT industry and sometimes I do things that will better the end user experience in the long run, but at that moment the end user hates me. So, while I don't agree with this change and if I thought I could fight to have it taken out, I ultimately can't do much about it.

Here's how it is, this is going to discourage raid teams from taking new people on the easy run of the raid to get used to it. My team would constantly take new players in our clan through it and give them an easy role the first time through. After that the next time we'd give them a harder role and make slowly learn all the positions. This set up a good 6-8 people in our clan that is good for every position. But now that its randomized we can't slowly work the "rookie" raiders into expieranced ones to take on hard mode. I'm entirely fine with not being able to knock him off, that was an exploit. But if you want to randomize who gets teleported, only do it on hard mode. Leave it as it was on the "normal" lv 26 one that way people who haven't done the raid, are still being taken on the raid by expieranced groups. Tldr: the new format for Athion discourages teams from taking people on the raid who already haven't done it before. Randomize it on hard mode, but for the normal leave it as it was

Thank you DeeJ for trying to represent our voice. I however find the design decision of not allowing an easier version of the raid troubling. Not for me, however for people who aren't able to physically or mentally able play games at an elite level. Here is a post that probably went unnoticed. [url]http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/73605803/0/0[/url] For PvE there is no good reason to not have a setting that everyone can get though, all that needs to be done is just increase the rewards for the more difficulty settings. Look at Forza, they have done a great job at having assists(even brake assist) that can make the game playable for anyone and if you're insane like me and take off all the assists you get a nice credit bonus. It would be asinine to say that basketball in and of itself should only be played by pros, there is a Pro Level Basketball for those capable. The Raid is supposed to be best Destiny has to offer, it seems a shame the designers only want a certain kind of person to be able to enjoy it.

The random teleport "fix" is completely ridiculous. In any RPG, there a roles to raids. Nobody just gets thrown into a situation in WoW. They plan ahead, gear up, swap skills, and do whatever they need to do to perform the task they know they are going to be performing BEFOREHAND. The only thing to come from randomly teleporting players is confusion and frustration. Those who are aces at either role are going to lose their edge and become less than professional at what they once shined at. And to even say that this is a "bug" or a "glitch" is totally false. This is proven through this reddit thread http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2jlow8/bungies_director_of_production_jonty_barnes_on/ and this eurogamer report http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-21-bungie-on-the-destiny-level-cap-raids-and-game-size

A having never done the raid, my opinion may matter less. The baby bumpers sound like a fair patch. The random teleportation seems a little harsh. Pointing the finger at the developers is getting a bit tiring. The focus seems to be on placating the migratory consumers of PvP and fine tuning the PvE experience for the Lvl 29/30 raid crowd. Developer hubris seems to be getting in the way of a lot of things. Tweaking the VoG seems to be a pride fight, while the rest of PvE grows stale each week by Thursday afternoon. However, I support eliminating exploits from the game's designed elite-level challenges. I understand that to get beyond lvl 28 you have to engage in specific parts of the game. I'm ok with that. But don't forget about the rest of PvE. Give us strike bosses that have a 3% chance of dropping a specific legendary weapon (with random rolled stats) if played at a level equal to Fireteam leader. This is common MMO stuff that keeps ppl engaged. Use advanced analytics to determine who's duping items so we can trade legendary weapons for legendary weapons, exotic armor for exotic armor, etc etc. create an in-Tower merchant who instantly "verifies" trades of legit gear. Respect that many of us don't have the time maintain three lvl 28 characters. This game is not for everyone, but everyone who has invested in it should be considered. PvE and PvP can't be everything to everyone. Programming excuses aside, once you realize the game ends up being an endless series of compromises to the user while trying to balance the two game-styles, the better it will be for everyone. PvE is Bullet sponges and horde mode played at distance. PvP is map knowledge, secondary weapons, and CQC. Two completely different game types governed by the same rules. I should expect weapons and gear to exist separately. I truly enjoy playing Destiny. I will play it for a long time. I keep hearing that this game will be around for 10 years, but I hope that doesn't mean you're giving yourself 9 years to get it right. PS - how bout that Bad JuJu buff? 25 strikes and 10k modified crucible points is a lot for what is otherwise a forgettable (BUT RAD LOOKING) primary weapon.

Nice improvement communicating with us. I'm still not happy with the decision, but thank you for explaining.

While I totally see your point on the raid susposed to be hard and undertaken by experienced guardians theres a few things that come to mind that still makes me unhappy about the atheon RNG 1. While I honestly dont see the new challenge being any harder for me and my friends or anything else whose been to the raid before a few times I see it being harder for groups with new people who dont know what to do, its already a challenging fight for new people. 2. You are basically removing a phase when you can add strategy and roles into the raid, which supports your emphasis on teamwork 3. The community might not agree with me on this last one but some of us have lives outside of video games, the raid is the only fun thing I dont want to be stuck in the raid for four hours because a few of the people im running the raid cant get down the oracles. Lastly as a someone whose played mmos(ik destiny isnt a mmo its a shared shooter)and raids for the past 8 years I love destinys raid with only a few minor gripes mostly bout the rng but keep it up bungie!

Its well and good to want to make it harder, but i dont feel this has made it harder, rather it is now just more annoying. I have done the raid before where there are 3 of us who know what to do and 3 who dont, so we send two that know what to do to be teleported with one newbie, so then there is a guy outside teaching what to do there and one inside learning what to so there, you do this for a few rounds until the new guys start to get the hang of it. All you have done now is made it so that we have to take more rounds to teach them, if all three new guys are teleported, you just wipe and start again, so it isnt harder, just takes more time.

Regardless of whether or not I think the patch was the right thing to do, you must realize the the stubbornness of the devs will cost you players in the long run. Making the raid that much harder will chase off the casuals, which over time will hurt profits.

You ask for feedback, so here's mine: A) fixing Atheon cheesing is self-evidently good. My surprise came from how long it took to implement. Your dev team locked down Queen's Wrath Armor yielding Ascendant Shards in something like two days...but a fix to an exploit allowing anyone "free access" to getting THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE GAME took over two weeks? *sigh* oh well; it's done now. I just hope you don't let it happen again. B) random teleporting: since this was announced as happening I have not seen ONE truly positive or accepting response to this idea, on any forum I frequent. The closest I've seen is a reconciliation to it by veterans who are at a skill level high enough to render it moot...and that particular stance is a decided minority. To be blunt: implementing a wholly unpopular mechanic despite widespread negative feedback seems a monumentally flawed decision. It's a significant blow to your credibility (both Bungie's as a whole AND yours, Deej...unfortunately the messenger never REALLY gets off scot-free) that's likely to foment even more distrust in future announcements. I don't like to criticize without offering ideas for solutions, so I'll finish with this: find a way to salvage and repair the good will between Destiny the game/entity and Destiny the community. For example, tweaking raid RNG & loot tables to allow a bit more consistent drop rate on things like equipment & weapons. Hey, It more or less worked for engrams.

[quote]I even said "Why not just change Hard Mode and leave Easy Mode alone?" I was told "The Raid is never supposed to be easy."[/quote] So you're saying the learning curve is dictated then by just having to die over and over. I mean, that's what has to happen for everyone to get the sense of what's going on when they're time-warped. The problem here is that it robs the game of being fun. It's not fun and it's highly frustrating to have spent all that time learning to work as a team, and then have team roles broken because of lazy random mechanics. [quote]This is an activity that was designed to be undertaken by a hardcore team that is ready and willing to adapt and improvise to changing battle conditions.[/quote] If this is true, then why can't I change my loadout in game without losing half my ammo and having to open up terribly slow inventory screens? If we encounter minotaurs with void shields, either I have to have a void damage weapon or let my buddy who has one do the hurting. Isn't that part and partial to the whole team mechanic? Having assigned roles? Swapping out abilities versus damage types between the mixed classes? The game cripples our ability to adapt in the hope that we'll develop solid teams which can rotate through our assigned roles. Then you break role assignment by instituting lazy random mechanics. Also, if this statement is true, why also make it the only path to top level gear? I can understand having something worthwhile for completing it. But giving that content not only the best armor in the game but the best guns as well? The raid is the only way to get maxed out on damage and armor. So you're just enticing everyone to do it. You're saying "Here's victory lane and all the shiny trophies! Oh but this isn't for everyone, only you hardcore teams." It's pretty insulting. I've said that twice now. Let me be clear. [b]Everything about random mechanics in this game is extremely lazy.[/b] It's a poor coding substitute for instituting a clever, meaningful mechanic for why something happens based on a reason. Because that would require someone write a lot more code. Instead, nope, RNG in place and deadline met! This applies to everything from the reward system to Atheon's warping of players. It's lazy coding. Bungie has already gutted the story, made guardian customization bland and uniform, nerfed the weapons, and now they're coming after teams and roles. It's like you don't want us to even play the game. And just for an example of pure laziness, I'll point to the Legendary Engrams. So they were fixed to not decode to rare gear. But putting your cursor over the engram still shows that it can decode to rare, legendary, or exotic. Details, details. This is one of MANY details I just shake my head at. It shows that at a company level, there's no real task outlining, system influence hierarchy, assigned tasking, quality control, and systems review. Everything is a push to make it look good, not upset the majority (or you tuck tail and change it), and meet a deadline. Basically, all your post does is say FU to the community who've spent countless hours trying to adapt to this shell of a game as it was presented to us. [i]Almost everything[/i] about how this game has presented itself to the community is turning out to be false. You and I both know that there's a serious image problem here. Changes such as these aren't helping the matter, especially when the community gave you such good suggestions for a nice balance. You can keep pretending to be the good guy here, but the more you post insulting comments and posts to the community the worse it'll get. I'm only here because there's not much better going on at the moment. I suspect that will change in the next 6 months. The promise of what Destiny could have been really hooked me. But it's completely failed to lure a lot of us in. Saying FU to the community is only going to get you that Nail in the Coffin trophy.

We as players have grown used to the easy way of finishing Atheon in such a short time I almost feel this exploit was left open for too long. So many people now don't know how to properly fight Atheon on normal, much less on hard mode. While this change will make the barrier for entry greater in the case of new players, we will start to see those who are lacking in teamwork or skill weeded out. I can understand why this has taken priority in regards to update urgency, but I'm hoping we get a spoonful of sugar to help this medicine go down.

I feel I need to say something. I have tried to not be one of the "complainers" because I do enjoy the game. But this needs to be said. I have NEVER played a game that had a raiding aspect where the "easy mode" was EXACTLY the same as the " hard mode". In hard, there was always a different ability each boss had, a new mechanic you had to strategize and work around. I could see the random teleport thing for hard, but also applying it to easy just blows my mind. Make "hard"... Well hard. Not "hard is harder cause the enemies have more health". It's just lazy.

Totally fine with this change. Sure, the raid will be more challenging, but it will still be just as fun! I would like to request that the portal glitch be fixed (the one where you walk through the portal, but walk straight through and stay in the same area you started instead of being teleported). That is, of course, unless you intended it to sometimes not teleport you. Thanks!

The biggest problem is that we are all "chasing the rainbow" now. When you see a rainbow as a kid you may want to run to the base of it and be in the colored light. Wouldn't that be awesome. You may even run after it, but eventually you grow up and realize that you are never going to get there. Whenever you get close the end moves away. Even if there is a damn leprechaun there you are never going to get the pot of gold. Well Bungie is that damn leprechaun, and we are starting to grow up. If you don't like the way the raid is going fix it in the next one stop screwing us all over by changing the rules all the time. I have a 10 year old son that hates to lose so whenever he is he changes the rules. Grow up bungie! sometimes you lose, that is what makes it a game. Remember we all bought a game. If we choose to do it the easy way we should be able to, if we want the challenge is there. That is what makes it a game.