A 20-30 (at best) to 45 min activity is not fun. Period.

Especially when every activity of this calibre in the past were consistently 15-20 minutes. Now it’s 30 at best and 45-hour at worst.

[quote]Especially when every activity of this calibre in the past were consistently 15-20 minutes. Now it’s 30 at best and 45-hour at worst.[/quote] Yeah it's too long, & IF anyone leaves it doesn't pull new players in, bungie just keep fumbling, this should of been a 6 player activity with the CoO active too to play in. Bungie just keeps dropping the ball

Solo it’s an hour, matchmade 45-hour. If you get a premade or matchmake with others running sweat loadouts then sure, you could do it in 30. That’s still longer than every other seasonal activity and requires premade and/or sweaty loadouts. These activities are meant to be on par with strikes. This is the core seasonal activity. Even at its fastest, it still takes twice as long as most strikes or other seasonal activities. Also, “with a bunch of gear”. It’s the same amount of gear per playtime, just more gear per activity.

I find I’m doing it consistently at 20-30 minutes per run MATCHMADE. It’s not all that hard if you know the Encounter areas and each of the Encounters/Puzzles. The hardest boss in the entire activity is the Tormentor, and that’s not because it’s difficult, but just slow to kill compared to the other bosses.

Ah, so you’re speed running the objectives and then wondering why you’re doing it so fast. Makes sense

No. Not really. I’m also going around, collecting chests, collecting Materials, and doing some of the optional stuff like the bowls, Minibosses for the extra chest, and Toland. And you can’t really speed run the activity. The Plates all take the same amount of time to complete, and the Relics take the same amount of time to run. It’s not a particularly speed run friendly activity. Edit: and even if I was going fast, what’s your issue with that?

The activity should take 15-20 minutes at normal Speed, not speed running speed. It’s a seasonal activity not a dungeon.

And it takes 20-30 usually and gives you more rewards. The Coil took upwards of 30 minutes from what I remembered, and we are getting equal, if not more rewards from the Nether than we are from the Coil.

“Usually” no, not usually, unless you’re using one of the few meta builds that the mode demands. Seasonal activities are meant to be on par with core activities, not require meta loadouts to play. If I wanted to play meta I’d do a dungeon. There’s no reason the seasonal activity is a dungeons length and commitment

Meta is subjective in Endgame PvE. While there are a couple distinct “Meta Builds”, the barrier of Meta vs Off Meta is very very thin. Last Season I was using a Damage Over Time build for GMs, that employed Anarchy, Necrotic Grips, Area Denial Gl, and a couple other options. It wasn’t meta in the sense that everyone used it, but it was highly potent and very powerful in what it did, especially shredding champions. Is that a Meta Build? Some would argue that it is because of its potency, some would argue no because of its slightly higher Skill Floor and the fact that not many other people used it or similar builds Simply put, calling something Meta outside of the few Objectively high efficacy builds, is too subjective. All of this to say, the activity doesn’t commit you to anything. You earn enough loot just from chest running that you can enter an activity, complete one encounter, and then leave the moment the encounter is done and you got the loot. That might even be the optimal farming route. You really have no argument to stand on because it’s YOUR OPINION that seasonal activities are meant to be 15 minutes long. The Coil wasn’t 15 minutes long. On top of all of that, don’t tell people to go play raids and dungeons if they are using potent builds. That’s simply not fair. It’s one thing to have a player think they are entitled to loot if they are using a weak build in a hard activity. It’s another to have someone use a powerful build in a lower level activity.

This isn’t endgame PvE. This is entry level. This is the first activity people get to grind for the current episode. It’s meant to be as accessible as other core activities, like strikes. Every other seasonal activity in the past has been. The Coil wasn’t even the main seasonal activity for the season it was in, it was a tier up iirc. There’s no reason the core seasonal grind is as annoying, tedious and difficult as a dungeon. I’d even go so far as to say it’s worse than any dungeon. At least the dungeons are fun, have good scenery and good story. Most of the dialogue is missing, the scenery is the same Dreadnought we saw in TTK (but more tentacles, whooooo!) and the gameplay is the epitome of unfun. Build diversity ruined, gameplay mechanics destroyed to simulate difficulty. The only redeeming quality is that it’s different. Is it better? No, it’s worse in many regards. But at least it’s different.

So a lot of that is your opinion, but I want to broach the Entry level thing. Bungie did not design for this activity to be Entry level. They designed to activity to be something you do after you complete all the available campaigns to you.. at this point, you’ll have unlocked a variety of Exotics, Abilities, and just general crap that should make this activity of equal if lower skill level. Simply put, there is no reason why this activity should be compared to a dungeon in difficulty. The mechanics are easier. The adds are easier. You may have limited revives, but you have so many that it really isn’t that much of a barrier for entry. The Bosses go down super quickly outside of the Tormentor, and you can cheese the tormentor along with the fact that the attack pattern on the tormentor is super easy to deal with. AND ON TOP OF ALL OF THIS, there is no reason why you can’t just stop the activity after the first boss. So you comparing it to a Dungeon is completely insane. Again, you don’t even have to go in and actually do any of the encounters. You can just go farm chests. Now the material rewards are dependent on you completing the activity, but those are far less important.

Every single seasonal activity Bungie has ever created in Destiny 2 has been entry level, except for The Nether. Seasonal activities are part of the core content available to players. Strikes, crucible, gambit, and the currently available seasonal activities for the year. That isn’t an opinion. That is a *fact*. Look at every other seasonal activity since Season of the Dying. They throw players in, and they are as easy as a regular strike, maybe a tad more challenging because of modifiers to offset bonuses you get throughout the mission. The Nether is an endgame activity cosplaying as a core seasonal activity. Bungie has made no claims whatsoever that The Nether is meant to be harder or even different than other seasonal activities. This is the core seasonal grind, the same as every single other season since Undying, and it is by far the worst grind. I’d rather play every other seasonal activity 3 times back to back in a row than play The Nether. It’s unfun, uninspired, tedious, annoying, frustrating, and above all else, *unfun*. Its buffs are bland and uninteresting (sliding creates a wave of fire, wow! Too bad enemies 3 shot me) the puzzles don’t tell you anything because the puzzles themselves are simply figuring out what the -blam!- the puzzle is (these same orange sacks that are in nearly every hive tileset? That’s the puzzle now.) and the gameplay revolves around running from Point A to Point B and hiding behind cover because Bungie neutered survivability to make the activity last longer. The Nether being a core seasonal activity is not an opinion, it is a fact. This is what we’re meant to grind, and as a casual player, my money that I’ve always spent on seasonal content and seasonal activities, has been WASTED because Bungie made this seasonal activity a difficult, tedious, annoying and unfun mess. Enjoy it all you want. If it doesn’t receive significant changes then Bungie has to pull a rabbit out of their -blam!- to get my money again

1. I’m a causal player too. Don’t use the term “causal” as a synonym for weak. The activity is not that hard. While that is my opinion, I believe it holds merit because I am a causal player. 2. The activity is entry level for the first 3rd of it, and only gets to be Legend level upon the 3rd section. Legend difficulty is not that hard. As for the argument of being entry level, I want to point out the Coil again. Yes, the Coil was essentially the leveled up version of Dragons Lair, but in reality, Bungie designed the Coil to be the primary activity for the season, while the Dragons Laid only existed to get quick completions for bounty, or for players who didn’t have the time to spend 30-40 minutes on something. The argument that it wasn’t the primary activity doesn’t make sense cause why would Bungie spend more development time and resources on something that isn’t supposed to be what holds our attention. 3. Again, YOU DONT HAVE TO DO THE FULL ACTIVITY (outside of necessary quest progression, but that is once and it is to introduce the player to the Nether, and can be done in the Matchmade variant iirc). As I’ve suggested before, it might be optimal to complete the first round, collecting all the chests and resources before reloading the activity. Mind you, the first section is at the Base Difficult of the game outside of the Modifiers, which are not that hard to deal with in my opinion.

1. Real casual players don’t want to sink an hour into an activity that has historically only taken 20 minutes. You can claim you’re a casual player all you want, doesn’t change the fact that this activity is 3 times as long for no reason. 2. It’s the core seasonal activity. The basic difficulty should be entry level. Any new player should be able to buy the season, click the seasonal activity, go in and complete it. Instead, the build they managed to scrap together is demolished, they’re given limited revives so they can’t make mistakes, and they don’t get much healing if any so they’re force to play a cover shooter when in reality they’re meant to be playing Destiny 2. 3. Oh okay. So now the optimal way to play the game is to not finish activities. Absolutely genius design! Why complete the activity when you can simply do 1 encounter and then jump off the map so you can leave? You know the better option? Make the activity 20 minutes so we aren’t forced to kill ourselves just to leave. Keep defending this garbage mode all you want, it is astronomically worse than previous seasonal activities and there is no reason for it to be. Your points are all placebos. This is meant to be an entry level core activity for new players to jump into after purchasing the season. New players aren’t going to enjoy losing their builds, losing their health regen, jumping off the map so they can end the activity prematurely. This is horseshit design.

[quote]1. Real casual players don’t want to sink an hour into an activity that has historically only taken 20 minutes. You can claim you’re a casual player all you want, doesn’t change the fact that this activity is 3 times as long for no reason. [/quote] I am a real casual player. The activity takes 30 minutes max. Exploration will take longer but that’s because you aren’t focusing on the activity. Just like how exploring a Patrol zone would take longer. [quote]2. It’s the core seasonal activity. The basic difficulty should be entry level. Any new player should be able to buy the season, click the seasonal activity, go in and complete it. Instead, the build they managed to scrap together is demolished, they’re given limited revives so they can’t make mistakes, and they don’t get much healing if any so they’re force to play a cover shooter when in reality they’re meant to be playing Destiny 2. [/quote] Again, no seasonal activity has EVER been new player friendly. The game is designed for players to play through each campaign, complete it, get some stuff, then enter the seasonal content. And the “build” they manage to scrap together is going to be absolute garbage for any activity, base level strikes included. The Nether (Explore) which is the “entry level” variant of the activity gives you 20 revives, and you have the ability to get more through the pots and random drops from chests. Limited Revives my -blam!-. [quote]3. Oh okay. So now the optimal way to play the game is to not finish activities. Absolutely genius design! Why complete the activity when you can simply do 1 encounter and then jump off the map so you can leave? You know the better option? Make the activity 20 minutes so we aren’t forced to kill ourselves just to leave. [/quote] ITS CALLED FARMING FOR A REASON. People farm specific encounters in raids and dungeons, and have done so for other activities in the past. My suggestion ain’t a bad one. And again, this is coming from a perspective of Efficiency. If what I suggest proves true (which it probably won’t, who knows) Bungie never intentionally designed it to be as such. Just like how Bungie has never intentionally designed Raid Encounters to be farmable (thus why completing the encounter looses you the checkpoint). It has always been the players who have manipulated the game so as to be able to farm crap. [quote]Keep defending this garbage mode all you want, it is astronomically worse than previous seasonal activities and there is no reason for it to be. Your points are all placebos. This is meant to be an entry level core activity for new players to jump into after purchasing the season. New players aren’t going to enjoy losing their builds, losing their health regen, jumping off the map so they can end the activity prematurely. This is horseshit design.[/quote] This is just a whole lot of opinion here. I don’t agree that it’s garbage. I don’t think it’s Astronomically worse, as I enjoy myself. My points aren’t placebos, as they make genuine suggestions and counter arguments. This isn’t meant to be entry level for new players. The Coil wasn’t entry level, and it was the primary and main activity of the season. Of course new players aren’t going to enjoy loosing. No one does. Thus they are going to create better builds, actually get better at the game, and learn how the activity works. Mind you, the activity ISN’T ALL THAT HARD. It’s legend difficulty at worst. This is not horseshit design. It’s something new, and you don’t like new. I enjoy it. A great many other players enjoy it. The suggestion that they don’t is simply wrong. Don’t use the forums as a consensus as this place is overly toxic, and don’t represent the majority of the community. Not everything is designed for low level players. Get over it.

First of all, if you solo an activity intended to be for a fireteam in a multiplayer game then shut up and stop complaining if it’s harder. Second of all, it is not 45 minutes. U ran it twice. This is 100% on u man. And “Sweaty loadouts”?? r u saying you’re purposely not using good weapons/loadouts and then getting upset when it takes you longer.

First of all, it has a solo-focused node (the game even suggests you do it first) and in the dev stream for The Nether they talked explicitly about how they had it balanced for solo play. They apparently put effort into balancing it for solo, and it does not show. Second, running it solo and exploring took me an hour. Two manning with my friend (matchmade, rando left after 5 mins) took 45 to get to the boss. Third, do you run your meta builds in strikes too? Seasonal activities are meant to be core activities, you’re meant to explore and experiment. Not run the same meta -blam!- you use for dungeons or raids. Seasonal activities aren’t on that level and they never should be. “Wahhh wahhh Git gud you should sweat the casual mode” kindly shut up lol

You dont need meta builds in the new activity. Thats kinda on you lol. I did a run with an arc titan, and i just spammed the charged punch with skullfort And my heavy was an eager edge sword.. Sooo meta... Dont blame the game if you expect a new activity to be easy while having zero build

“Played arc Titan” lemme guess, knockout? Guess what, bud? That’s the meta lmfao

On Prismatic sure, and isn’t healing not supposed to be as efficacy in the Nether Makes ya think. 🤔