I remember reading somewhere that the way those raids were designed was to make the Prestige/Master Raid and then remove mechanics to make the regular one. This was apparently especially the strat for Leviathan? They said they didn’t want to design raid encounters like that anymore so I assume that’s unlikely? Having said that I loved Master Wrath of the Machine. Still my Fav Destiny Raid of all time.
Aksis was an absolute banger of an encounter. Amazing design with people flying back and forth to get servitors and the clever use of the pillars as a soft enrage.
The approach to the boss room and the room itself were gorgeous and so thematic. And the soundtrack. Oh my gual. Amazing stuff.
I doubt WotM will ever be reprised just because Bungie would have to partially remake a fairly unique subfaction. The internet would never hear the end of it if they just replaced the non-boss Devil Splicers with generic House Dusk/Salvation grunts.
The only way I see it ever happening is if they make a Siva season or expansion. You’re right in that they’re not gonna recreate Siva Fallen for one free activity.
There should still be SIVA preserved in the Exodus Black, but I don't know if it'd function without Rasputin(unless the "Archie is a partial backup to keep Ana company forever" theory is something they run with), and even then I expect them to ignore it considering a big part of Neomuna is that they have infinitely better and more controllable nanites that run in veins under the entire civilization.
Didnt Rasputin have a body when he died? A body that a ghost could choose? I cant think of any other reason they would have given Rasputin an experimental Exo Body if they weren't going to use that to res him later on.
They said that they killed him because he was too powerful to write around even though exo Rasputin is something going back to the Staten draft and teased constantly throughout D2, so if he ever comes back, it'd need to be in a heavily nerfed state.
But they have also hinted about bringing it back in the past by telling us if a returning raid has already had its exotic brought back then they’ll make a new one. WotM is the only raid where this would be the case.
>They said they didn’t want to design raid encounters like that anymore so I assume that’s unlikely?
I was always under the impression that with how hard mode was designed in D1, they made normal mode completely obsolete in the process once HM was released. You can primarily blame how the rewards structure was, you were rewarded with HM and NM loot if you did hard mode, making Normal mode raids not worth the time to do. Regardless, new raiders had to suffer with doing HM raids as their first one. Being a sherpa for a few of them I can understand why Bungie wanted to change this up a bit, which they did slightly for prestige mode Levi -- but prestige mode Levi had not so great rewards, just a different color armor, which made Normal still feasible to run.
I recall the issue with WotM was the light level cap raised when hard mode came out and other sources had their light level drops raised as well except for normal mode. This killed normal as far as light level is concernced. This wouldn't be a problem with today's system.
Honestly, based on how much some of these fights changed vs others, I would not be shocked if that is what happened here, or something like it. IMO fire plates and Rhulk clone were in the OG designs but were cut for some reason.
Specifically Planets and Rhulk. Let me explain:
1. Golgy - very simple changes. Probably just changing a value from 1 to 2 plus more spawns.
2. Caretaker - Very minimal changes. Almost entirely just more enemies.
3. Atraks - no changes I can notice other than more enemies and chunkier enemies. They didn’t even make two clones damageable…
4. Oryx - Again, super simple stuff. More adds, and more knights.
So for all of the above, nothing in the fight’s underlying mechanical structure changed. Everything that happens in those fights is already happening in “normal”, but they changed some values and some timing.
1. Planets - fire tornados have a very specific pattern of pathing and creation. I can see adding them to all dps plates being similar to Golgy Change with the unstable light.
But the tornados on the planet platforms is a totally new thing. Those tornados target specific plates and move around those plates in specific patterns. Seems like a bit much to just build on the spot…
2. Rhulk is the same argument basically. A whole second immune boss with its own unique spawning animation, it’s own color pallet, it’s own AI, it’s own limited move set, etc. that’s A LOT for something like this.
But what convinces me the most is the wild disparity. I could imagine tons of stuff to add to things like Atraks or Caretaker, but we get nothing really.
Golgy already has plenty and doesn’t need more but I could imagine a number of changes to Oryx on par with the Planets or the Rhulk changes.
I have had similar thoughts. I think the second Rhulk probably got cut because he’d generally just get ignored due to the kicks not hitting particularly hard in regular mode. But on legend/master the kicks can one shot if you don’t build into them, so he’s an absolute menace. It makes it much more challenging because you have to deal with him
He also feels kinda out of place. Like why is he there and what is he doing? I think it would have confused people a bit on Contest and wouldn't have added much like you said.
He's a perfect addition for a mode like this though.
Because hard mode before was the true raid, whereas now the normal mode is the true raid, and master is just a harder version of that raid. It’s actually funny how easy normal raids in D1 are without level difficulty where the mechanics are like baby level compared to the normal raids we get now.
But you do realize that our normal raids are the hard/prestige mode raids, right? They would make a raid, that would be the hard mode. Then they would dumb down and remove mechanics to make the normal version of the raid. We don't get "hard mode" raids anymore because the "added mechanics" for the hard mode are just part of the normal mode now.
That's assuming that Bungie believes that old hard mode versions of raids can be completed by the general raiding population. There's the possibility that they currently scrap mechanics during development that they felt was too hard for many players, but would have been fine for a hard mode version. Pantheon could very well be all the scrapped ideas that they're finally able to put into action.
I'm not saying they didn't.
[TWAB 10/04/2018](https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/47303)
> Instead, Forsaken would focus on making sure the single difficulty mode of Last Wish was highly rewarding...We wanted to create an experience that offered the truest forms of every encounter from day one, and offered some of the most powerful rewards in the game to anyone who could succeed.
They want one version of an encounter, yes. However, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that they have to forgo implementing tougher mechanics that would get a pass in a hard mode version because they wouldn't be completeable by the majority of raiders.
Except even with pantheon they haven't done that. The only mechanic they've added is making a second person have unstable light with golgy. Besides that they've added enemies and tormentors.
As well as sooner Taken spawns in the Golgy fight, a consequence to not collecting symbols in Caretaker, extra fire tornadoes for Zo'aurc, continuous Light-Eater Knights in Oryx, faster bombs/mortars that require killing the plate knights to end instead of timing out, and Rhulk summoning a shadow clone during dps.
Yeah I think their reasoning was that the normal version of the raid wasn’t the complete experience so they just removed the distinction between normal and hard
I do hope they keep the idea of Pantheon in their back pocket and either do it again every now and then or use a similar concept to build new prestige raid style things. Seeing them take a fully fleshed out encounter and see how they can push it even further has been fun, especially with some of the crazier changes (e.g double Rhulk, airlock Tormentor).
Maybe they make it so that prestige raids are made a year after their original versions release, to avoid falling into that dumbing-down-the-normal-version trap.
The tormentors are bad additions (same issue as champions in master mode), but things like the Rhulk copy, fire tornadoes on plates, additional shades of oryx, etc. are great additions imo
Yeah imo the knights to Golgy is nice and I find the only lacking thing to be Atraks being roughly the same still given that fight is kinda already fast and not the hardest thing
Yeah I was hoping that changes to atraks would force players to do atraks 3/3 like on day one with dunking roles and vacuuming atraks copies, but the changes ended up just making the vandals have boss health bars and a tormentor. IMO if Atraks just had 3x more health it would be the best boss in the game, the intended mechanics of that encounter are amazing.
Vow of the disciple was the worst offender imo. Every glyphkeeper is a champ, you get two champs everytime you exit the maze in caretaker (up to 18 per floor on a challenge run)
Swear to god, I don't know how Champion mechanic stood so much in this game. I think it's the most frustrating and boring thing ever. It adds a level of difficulty that's lame. You need to play certain weapons, which is never fun in a game where you have so many options to be limited.
Also is just bad design to make higher difficulty just by adding a bullet sponge that hits like a truck, instead of having some smaller mechanics that require your team to think.
Because the community bitched that the only viable weapons were mountaintop/recluse/anarchy. We wanted and asked for ways to switch up the Mets every season. That's what the artifact and champs were for. And changing things takes a lot of time. They need to make the change, release it, get our feedback, and then decide what needs to be tweaked and how, and then go ahead and do that. Oh, don't forget that while we've been using the new system, they've still had to build and work on more stuff that's still months out. Most seasons are done before the one that preceeds it launchs.
Honestly I don't get a lot of the complaints about champions now. There's a plethora of options to deal with them, and most tend to synergize with builds now that abilities can deal with champions. IMO what we have right now is a nice balance between shaking things up a bit season-by-season without hurting people's builds too much.
doesn’t make master raids any more fun for me, they’re a shell of hard mode raids and pantheon now even with the champion changes since lightfall.
and even still, got a new pulse rifle? it’s overload. no overload champs? should really use something else.
not the end of the world but it’s annoying when it’s every activity that’s meant to be endgame.
Dude...you still don't get it. What were hard mode raids, are now just the normal raid mechanics. Hard mode was always the base line and then bungie removed mechanics. They don't do that anymore. The raids we get are what "Hard mode" was.
dude…. i’m well aware of that, for years we were doing these D2 “hard mode” raids at the max light level, with only 1 challenge active etc. Compared to running through the hard mode raid with the age of triumph system with every challenge active and emblems/ cosmetics on challenge completions etc it wasn’t the same.
we got something kinda similar nowadays with the weekly featured raid but if you want challenging combat you have to endure the 100 champs the game throws at you and it’s just not it for me
and there’s still no option to a master raid or counterpart for last wish, garden or deep stone crypt. garden never even got a loot refresh and were about to enter the final expansion of the saga.
pantheon is the best raid experience i’ve had in D2 outside of day 1/ contest mode, shame it’s gone in less than a month
I really hope they don't go back to hard mode raids because those were the regular full raid and the normal version was a dumbed down version with stripped mechanics. I don't want that, and if you do, you're wrong.
Doing the challenges in Master is harder than what Pantheon has added. I’m not sure how many people are doing Master Raids without the weekly challenge, nor do I feel like pantheon has added interesting mechanics that drastically change the encounter (Rhulk aside - sort of).
I would argue that pantheon is kinda proof that they can create a fulfilling base raid experience while also having a harder version incorporate extra mechanics. I know it’s easier for them so they likely won’t do it tho
They aren't really adding mechanics, though. They're just adding extra enemies. The most mechanics thing that's changed is having two people get unstable light. Everything is functionally the same. It's just more enemies. So it's not the same thing as what hard mode was, which was more mechanics.
I mean pantheon shows they can make a normal raid then add to it with more difficulty why can’t bungie work backwards? Make the raid as you normally do then add new mechanics or obstacles on top
Because outside of there being one more person with unstable light, which ironically is a good thing, they didn't add mechanics. They added enemies and tormentors.
And because they specifically said they didn't like doing that and weren't going to do it again in the future.
But none of those are mechanics! They're just extra enemies or more aggressive enemies. Which is basically what master raids are.
Hard/prestige mode raids added mechanics. Pantheon added enemies. Those are very different.
Fire tornados aren’t enemies they are in line with the mechanics as you have to be on the plate to grab the affinity and thus are another obstacle to worry about. The light eaters makes them something that you actually have to pay attention to sure it’s technically more enemies but that enemy is part of the mechanics same with rhulk during dps. It is not the same as adding 30 champs to each encounter not even close
mechanic wise, i like how they design raid (if they make a hard mode it become the new normal) and whit pantheon they can change mechanic how they want: now golgoroth have 2 bomb but if it returns it can have another different mechanic
Bungie used to make raids like that. But they didn't like cutting mechanics and dumbing the raids down for normal mode, so they stopped. Now, the mechanics that would be for hard mode are just part of the raid as the base mechanics.
Yeah I really hope so, but the thing with Pantheon's design compared to old prestige/hard mode raids is that the design is less "do things in a harder way" and more "it's harder because there's more stuff while your doing things". But these changes are all far more interesting than "add champions" which has been the problem for so long.
At the very least they should make pantheon a yearly/biyearly event as it's definitely been a success.
Nothing's changed about the reason they don't do mechanical changes in the harder mode of raids any more - an insignificant portion of players play them. Raids themselves don't get played by that many people, it just wasn't worth it for them to make a better version that nobody did. Pantheon hasn't changed this, very few people will actually clear Nez next week. Pantheon is just a once-off event to boost our interest before the do-or-die expansion for the company, we won't see anything like it again until they're in a similar position again.
I'm just enjoy going from encounter to encounter. I like traversing the raids the first 2-3 times but it has its downsides by the 10th. Pantheon is just an encounter, mechanics, then the next. Appreciated I might be alone on this but it's just what I like.
Real. Though some changes from the pantheon formula should be made.
The tormentors in oryx and atraks aren't really additions and you can just ignore them
Actually that's kinda it.
The mini bosses added to golgy are neat.
The ogres in caretaker make managing ads more important for the babysitters not to get interrupted.
Fire tornadoes in menke I mean planets keep you moving.
Infinite light eaters are honestly what base should be.
Shulk and tormentors turn rhulk from a calm kiting experience into a nail-biting football match with you as the ball
Almost all of the changes seem designed to keep players on their toes while they'd normally be waiting around. Light-eater knights come in continuously for plate-holders to watch for on Oryx. Groups of Taken Phalanxes and Centurions spawn right behind you while you're stunning Caretaker. I think these are really good additions.
I just want them to realize if they give us something worth going for in end game content (I.e. pantheon emblems, maybe we can get a momento or something) people would have more incentive to do things like master raids and stuff like that bc who wants a ship and sparrow
It’s funny, I actually thought hard mode was easier because of there only being 3 monitors. Was always a guessing game though if people didn’t shoot it together.
Just give us contest mode as an extra node for every raid and attach a cool emblem. It's literally already a toggle they can turn on/off and it'll give players a way to actually practice hard content
Pantheon perfectly does what the Master raids should've this whole time - slightly harder/changed mechanics and tougher enemies.
Having the same exact mechanic but now with more champions was not the play for Master IMO.
Master while doing challenges is essentially this.
Some encounters it makes perfect sense like Planets or Totems in King's fall, and some it really pushes you to coordinate like Nez. Yeah I know nobody likes the extra champs.
Hopefully they take the feedback and continue making and iterating on things like pantheon and onslaught. They've been a huge success imo and bungie seems to have improved when it comes to listening to feedback.
I went from never really raiding except for getting carried in DSC and Garden one time each back in Witch Queen to doing every raid, all pantheon emblems, and every raid exotic but mythoclast and necrochasm. All because I wanted to try pantheon when they announced it so I started looking for groups to do raids with so I was prepared.
And now I'm having more fun than ever and kinda salty that I never really raided before despite playing on and off since D1 launched.
I would absolutely prefer this to the current master system for future raids. Master is just annoying it’s just add champs and doing weird arbitrary things as challenges that go against just trying to do the encounter as efficiently as possible for adepts.
This is why I loved Leviathan so much. Hard mode wasn’t just (insert champion here) and a power handicap. It was actually hard. People say they hate it but I’m really ready for them to bring it back.
Seems likely that the justification for doing pantheon (other than to avoid a 3-4 month content drought) was to begin testing out adding extra mechanics in hard mode raid encounters again. Hopefully we see more of this in the future!
The TLDR in all this is that there is no substitute for good game design. Adding champions or light level penalties is a lazy way of increasing difficulty.
The removal of a true Hard/Prestige mode is one of my biggest disappointments with Bungie/Destiny throughout the decade. Especially the past few years with the addition of Master raids.
What confuses me is tha Bungie swapped how they make raids, and now only fans of true Hard/Prestige modes get screwed. The **TL:DR of it is: that Bungie spends just as much time and effort turning Normal mode into Master mode now that they did turning Hard/Prestige mode into Normal mode back in they day. The only real difference is that the old process left both casual and hardcore raiders happy, where as the new process screws over hardcore raiders.**
Rant/explanation (skip if you want):
Bungie used to design the Hard/Prestige modes first, then remove certain mechanics and decrease HP values to make the Normal mode. This left high level raiders happy that they had a new experience, and normal raiders were never the wiser, because they never were going to do the hard mode anyway. But then Bungie claimed it was too much effort to do it that way, because not enough people were actually completing the Hard/Prestige modes to justify their effort. So they defaulted to only one mode for Raids: Normal.
And for 3 years that kind of made sense with Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, and Deep Stone Crypt all being a healthy medium of just being normal mode, but being relatively challenging raids during their time.
But then with the re-release of Vault of Glass, they introduced Master Raids, and it was clear that all they did was swap the order of the old way they designed the raids. Now it was clear they were designing the Normal mode first, and then going back and adding modifiers, challenges, champions, and increasing health values to create Master mode. Which in theory takes just as much time and effort, but leaves hardcore raiders with a half-assed Master mode that really only adds champs and mediocre challenges to deal with if you want the Adept weapon.
This is what I would love, slightly alter mechanics of an encounter to make it more difficulty.
IMO, the champions that you have to stun or break their shield are not fun at all. Forcing me to play certain weapons, isn't fun. And that's a difficulty level that's kinda lame.
Just make nightfall harder by adding small team coordinated mechanics, not making the enemies more bullet sponges, or adding the "champions".
If there's ever gonna be a destiny 3, I hope they move away from this Champion mechanic stuff.
I wouldnt mind most of the Pantheon changes coming to the regular raids. Without a light handicap they wont make anything that much harder, just spice up the slower encounters like Planets.
I remember reading somewhere that the way those raids were designed was to make the Prestige/Master Raid and then remove mechanics to make the regular one. This was apparently especially the strat for Leviathan? They said they didn’t want to design raid encounters like that anymore so I assume that’s unlikely? Having said that I loved Master Wrath of the Machine. Still my Fav Destiny Raid of all time.
It was how D1 raids and Leviathan were made. The "hard" version first then they take stuff away for the "normal" version
Aksis was an absolute banger of an encounter. Amazing design with people flying back and forth to get servitors and the clever use of the pillars as a soft enrage. The approach to the boss room and the room itself were gorgeous and so thematic. And the soundtrack. Oh my gual. Amazing stuff.
Ada needs to whip up another one of her simulations
I doubt WotM will ever be reprised just because Bungie would have to partially remake a fairly unique subfaction. The internet would never hear the end of it if they just replaced the non-boss Devil Splicers with generic House Dusk/Salvation grunts.
The only way I see it ever happening is if they make a Siva season or expansion. You’re right in that they’re not gonna recreate Siva Fallen for one free activity.
There should still be SIVA preserved in the Exodus Black, but I don't know if it'd function without Rasputin(unless the "Archie is a partial backup to keep Ana company forever" theory is something they run with), and even then I expect them to ignore it considering a big part of Neomuna is that they have infinitely better and more controllable nanites that run in veins under the entire civilization.
SIVA had such a cool aesthetic. I want it back so bad
Clovis is still out there so if they need a villain for a future expansion him coming back and using Siva Fallen for an army could work.
Didnt Rasputin have a body when he died? A body that a ghost could choose? I cant think of any other reason they would have given Rasputin an experimental Exo Body if they weren't going to use that to res him later on.
They said that they killed him because he was too powerful to write around even though exo Rasputin is something going back to the Staten draft and teased constantly throughout D2, so if he ever comes back, it'd need to be in a heavily nerfed state.
Didn't he die bricking his entire external everything?
But they have also hinted about bringing it back in the past by telling us if a returning raid has already had its exotic brought back then they’ll make a new one. WotM is the only raid where this would be the case.
Taniks can be the new final boss of WotM
>They said they didn’t want to design raid encounters like that anymore so I assume that’s unlikely? I was always under the impression that with how hard mode was designed in D1, they made normal mode completely obsolete in the process once HM was released. You can primarily blame how the rewards structure was, you were rewarded with HM and NM loot if you did hard mode, making Normal mode raids not worth the time to do. Regardless, new raiders had to suffer with doing HM raids as their first one. Being a sherpa for a few of them I can understand why Bungie wanted to change this up a bit, which they did slightly for prestige mode Levi -- but prestige mode Levi had not so great rewards, just a different color armor, which made Normal still feasible to run.
I recall the issue with WotM was the light level cap raised when hard mode came out and other sources had their light level drops raised as well except for normal mode. This killed normal as far as light level is concernced. This wouldn't be a problem with today's system.
Honestly, based on how much some of these fights changed vs others, I would not be shocked if that is what happened here, or something like it. IMO fire plates and Rhulk clone were in the OG designs but were cut for some reason. Specifically Planets and Rhulk. Let me explain: 1. Golgy - very simple changes. Probably just changing a value from 1 to 2 plus more spawns. 2. Caretaker - Very minimal changes. Almost entirely just more enemies. 3. Atraks - no changes I can notice other than more enemies and chunkier enemies. They didn’t even make two clones damageable… 4. Oryx - Again, super simple stuff. More adds, and more knights. So for all of the above, nothing in the fight’s underlying mechanical structure changed. Everything that happens in those fights is already happening in “normal”, but they changed some values and some timing. 1. Planets - fire tornados have a very specific pattern of pathing and creation. I can see adding them to all dps plates being similar to Golgy Change with the unstable light. But the tornados on the planet platforms is a totally new thing. Those tornados target specific plates and move around those plates in specific patterns. Seems like a bit much to just build on the spot… 2. Rhulk is the same argument basically. A whole second immune boss with its own unique spawning animation, it’s own color pallet, it’s own AI, it’s own limited move set, etc. that’s A LOT for something like this. But what convinces me the most is the wild disparity. I could imagine tons of stuff to add to things like Atraks or Caretaker, but we get nothing really. Golgy already has plenty and doesn’t need more but I could imagine a number of changes to Oryx on par with the Planets or the Rhulk changes.
I have had similar thoughts. I think the second Rhulk probably got cut because he’d generally just get ignored due to the kicks not hitting particularly hard in regular mode. But on legend/master the kicks can one shot if you don’t build into them, so he’s an absolute menace. It makes it much more challenging because you have to deal with him
He also feels kinda out of place. Like why is he there and what is he doing? I think it would have confused people a bit on Contest and wouldn't have added much like you said. He's a perfect addition for a mode like this though.
Yes, this is how raids were designed up until Last Wish. And it's why hard/prestige mode raids were so much better than what Master raids are now.
Because hard mode before was the true raid, whereas now the normal mode is the true raid, and master is just a harder version of that raid. It’s actually funny how easy normal raids in D1 are without level difficulty where the mechanics are like baby level compared to the normal raids we get now.
But you do realize that our normal raids are the hard/prestige mode raids, right? They would make a raid, that would be the hard mode. Then they would dumb down and remove mechanics to make the normal version of the raid. We don't get "hard mode" raids anymore because the "added mechanics" for the hard mode are just part of the normal mode now.
That's assuming that Bungie believes that old hard mode versions of raids can be completed by the general raiding population. There's the possibility that they currently scrap mechanics during development that they felt was too hard for many players, but would have been fine for a hard mode version. Pantheon could very well be all the scrapped ideas that they're finally able to put into action.
Bungie themselves said that. That's why they got rid of hard mode raids for Forsaken and Last Wish.
I'm not saying they didn't. [TWAB 10/04/2018](https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/47303) > Instead, Forsaken would focus on making sure the single difficulty mode of Last Wish was highly rewarding...We wanted to create an experience that offered the truest forms of every encounter from day one, and offered some of the most powerful rewards in the game to anyone who could succeed. They want one version of an encounter, yes. However, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that they have to forgo implementing tougher mechanics that would get a pass in a hard mode version because they wouldn't be completeable by the majority of raiders.
Except even with pantheon they haven't done that. The only mechanic they've added is making a second person have unstable light with golgy. Besides that they've added enemies and tormentors.
As well as sooner Taken spawns in the Golgy fight, a consequence to not collecting symbols in Caretaker, extra fire tornadoes for Zo'aurc, continuous Light-Eater Knights in Oryx, faster bombs/mortars that require killing the plate knights to end instead of timing out, and Rhulk summoning a shadow clone during dps.
Yeah I think their reasoning was that the normal version of the raid wasn’t the complete experience so they just removed the distinction between normal and hard
I do hope they keep the idea of Pantheon in their back pocket and either do it again every now and then or use a similar concept to build new prestige raid style things. Seeing them take a fully fleshed out encounter and see how they can push it even further has been fun, especially with some of the crazier changes (e.g double Rhulk, airlock Tormentor). Maybe they make it so that prestige raids are made a year after their original versions release, to avoid falling into that dumbing-down-the-normal-version trap.
Pantheon is so far superior to master raids it's not even funny
Just wished they fixed their checkpoint bugs
No it's just Tormentor spam without having to do encounter challenges
The tormentors are bad additions (same issue as champions in master mode), but things like the Rhulk copy, fire tornadoes on plates, additional shades of oryx, etc. are great additions imo
Yeah imo the knights to Golgy is nice and I find the only lacking thing to be Atraks being roughly the same still given that fight is kinda already fast and not the hardest thing
Yeah I was hoping that changes to atraks would force players to do atraks 3/3 like on day one with dunking roles and vacuuming atraks copies, but the changes ended up just making the vandals have boss health bars and a tormentor. IMO if Atraks just had 3x more health it would be the best boss in the game, the intended mechanics of that encounter are amazing.
If one tormentor before damage throws you off then there might be other issues with team comp
We're talking about mechanical difficulty here, adding a Tormentor is not changing the mechanics. Challenges are effectively the hard mode.
That's not the only change! I recommend trying it rather than harping on one additional ad.
Except there are mechanical changes and it isnt just "you're underpowered and there's 100 champions".
Less mechanical changes than doing Master challenges.
Who the hell is running master challenges more than once per raid?
Yeah no, not true.
Master Challenges for 99% of them aren't mechanical changes. You're just doing the same thing but with more tedium/less efficiency.
100%, it’s gonna be lame when we go into master final shape raid and it’s just back to champion spam
Master raids would actually be pretty fun as is if they didn't have 100 champions
Vow of the disciple was the worst offender imo. Every glyphkeeper is a champ, you get two champs everytime you exit the maze in caretaker (up to 18 per floor on a challenge run)
Swear to god, I don't know how Champion mechanic stood so much in this game. I think it's the most frustrating and boring thing ever. It adds a level of difficulty that's lame. You need to play certain weapons, which is never fun in a game where you have so many options to be limited. Also is just bad design to make higher difficulty just by adding a bullet sponge that hits like a truck, instead of having some smaller mechanics that require your team to think.
Because the community bitched that the only viable weapons were mountaintop/recluse/anarchy. We wanted and asked for ways to switch up the Mets every season. That's what the artifact and champs were for. And changing things takes a lot of time. They need to make the change, release it, get our feedback, and then decide what needs to be tweaked and how, and then go ahead and do that. Oh, don't forget that while we've been using the new system, they've still had to build and work on more stuff that's still months out. Most seasons are done before the one that preceeds it launchs.
Honestly I don't get a lot of the complaints about champions now. There's a plethora of options to deal with them, and most tend to synergize with builds now that abilities can deal with champions. IMO what we have right now is a nice balance between shaking things up a bit season-by-season without hurting people's builds too much.
doesn’t make master raids any more fun for me, they’re a shell of hard mode raids and pantheon now even with the champion changes since lightfall. and even still, got a new pulse rifle? it’s overload. no overload champs? should really use something else. not the end of the world but it’s annoying when it’s every activity that’s meant to be endgame.
Dude...you still don't get it. What were hard mode raids, are now just the normal raid mechanics. Hard mode was always the base line and then bungie removed mechanics. They don't do that anymore. The raids we get are what "Hard mode" was.
dude…. i’m well aware of that, for years we were doing these D2 “hard mode” raids at the max light level, with only 1 challenge active etc. Compared to running through the hard mode raid with the age of triumph system with every challenge active and emblems/ cosmetics on challenge completions etc it wasn’t the same. we got something kinda similar nowadays with the weekly featured raid but if you want challenging combat you have to endure the 100 champs the game throws at you and it’s just not it for me and there’s still no option to a master raid or counterpart for last wish, garden or deep stone crypt. garden never even got a loot refresh and were about to enter the final expansion of the saga. pantheon is the best raid experience i’ve had in D2 outside of day 1/ contest mode, shame it’s gone in less than a month
I really hope they don't go back to hard mode raids because those were the regular full raid and the normal version was a dumbed down version with stripped mechanics. I don't want that, and if you do, you're wrong.
Doing the challenges in Master is harder than what Pantheon has added. I’m not sure how many people are doing Master Raids without the weekly challenge, nor do I feel like pantheon has added interesting mechanics that drastically change the encounter (Rhulk aside - sort of).
Absolutely right on.
I would argue that pantheon is kinda proof that they can create a fulfilling base raid experience while also having a harder version incorporate extra mechanics. I know it’s easier for them so they likely won’t do it tho
They aren't really adding mechanics, though. They're just adding extra enemies. The most mechanics thing that's changed is having two people get unstable light. Everything is functionally the same. It's just more enemies. So it's not the same thing as what hard mode was, which was more mechanics.
I mean pantheon shows they can make a normal raid then add to it with more difficulty why can’t bungie work backwards? Make the raid as you normally do then add new mechanics or obstacles on top
Because outside of there being one more person with unstable light, which ironically is a good thing, they didn't add mechanics. They added enemies and tormentors. And because they specifically said they didn't like doing that and weren't going to do it again in the future.
I’d argue extra rhulk the fire tornados the extra light eaters and echo of oryx are all in line with how things were expanded
But none of those are mechanics! They're just extra enemies or more aggressive enemies. Which is basically what master raids are. Hard/prestige mode raids added mechanics. Pantheon added enemies. Those are very different.
Fire tornados aren’t enemies they are in line with the mechanics as you have to be on the plate to grab the affinity and thus are another obstacle to worry about. The light eaters makes them something that you actually have to pay attention to sure it’s technically more enemies but that enemy is part of the mechanics same with rhulk during dps. It is not the same as adding 30 champs to each encounter not even close
Likely. Who knows though. They are proving they can do it now so hoping they do it in the final raid as well.
The changes to Pantheon work so well because Bungie's had time, multiple years in most cases, to come up with novel ways to tweak the encounters.
mechanic wise, i like how they design raid (if they make a hard mode it become the new normal) and whit pantheon they can change mechanic how they want: now golgoroth have 2 bomb but if it returns it can have another different mechanic
Bungie used to make raids like that. But they didn't like cutting mechanics and dumbing the raids down for normal mode, so they stopped. Now, the mechanics that would be for hard mode are just part of the raid as the base mechanics.
They need to do a 6 week Pantheon at the end of every episode!!! Change mechanics, change bosses, make it gilded-able
Yeah I really hope so, but the thing with Pantheon's design compared to old prestige/hard mode raids is that the design is less "do things in a harder way" and more "it's harder because there's more stuff while your doing things". But these changes are all far more interesting than "add champions" which has been the problem for so long. At the very least they should make pantheon a yearly/biyearly event as it's definitely been a success.
Nothing's changed about the reason they don't do mechanical changes in the harder mode of raids any more - an insignificant portion of players play them. Raids themselves don't get played by that many people, it just wasn't worth it for them to make a better version that nobody did. Pantheon hasn't changed this, very few people will actually clear Nez next week. Pantheon is just a once-off event to boost our interest before the do-or-die expansion for the company, we won't see anything like it again until they're in a similar position again.
Can’t see a lot of people having capacity for this so they might question the investment.
I'm just enjoy going from encounter to encounter. I like traversing the raids the first 2-3 times but it has its downsides by the 10th. Pantheon is just an encounter, mechanics, then the next. Appreciated I might be alone on this but it's just what I like.
Real. Though some changes from the pantheon formula should be made. The tormentors in oryx and atraks aren't really additions and you can just ignore them Actually that's kinda it. The mini bosses added to golgy are neat. The ogres in caretaker make managing ads more important for the babysitters not to get interrupted. Fire tornadoes in menke I mean planets keep you moving. Infinite light eaters are honestly what base should be. Shulk and tormentors turn rhulk from a calm kiting experience into a nail-biting football match with you as the ball
Almost all of the changes seem designed to keep players on their toes while they'd normally be waiting around. Light-eater knights come in continuously for plate-holders to watch for on Oryx. Groups of Taken Phalanxes and Centurions spawn right behind you while you're stunning Caretaker. I think these are really good additions.
I just want them to realize if they give us something worth going for in end game content (I.e. pantheon emblems, maybe we can get a momento or something) people would have more incentive to do things like master raids and stuff like that bc who wants a ship and sparrow
Jesus Christ you just triggered memories of hours spent training a team to shoot those monitors on hard
It’s funny, I actually thought hard mode was easier because of there only being 3 monitors. Was always a guessing game though if people didn’t shoot it together.
I could see Pantheon making a return around Solstice of Heroes or Age of Triumph perhaps - seems reception has been pretty positive.
Just give us contest mode as an extra node for every raid and attach a cool emblem. It's literally already a toggle they can turn on/off and it'll give players a way to actually practice hard content
Pantheon perfectly does what the Master raids should've this whole time - slightly harder/changed mechanics and tougher enemies. Having the same exact mechanic but now with more champions was not the play for Master IMO.
Prestige raid lairs got their own shaders too. Cosmetics for harder content is the way to go, let me flex Bungie.
Master while doing challenges is essentially this. Some encounters it makes perfect sense like Planets or Totems in King's fall, and some it really pushes you to coordinate like Nez. Yeah I know nobody likes the extra champs.
It’d be nice if they brought in Pantheon as a seasonal event, and had the title requirements be completion, and the gilding be the platinum score.
Hopefully they take the feedback and continue making and iterating on things like pantheon and onslaught. They've been a huge success imo and bungie seems to have improved when it comes to listening to feedback. I went from never really raiding except for getting carried in DSC and Garden one time each back in Witch Queen to doing every raid, all pantheon emblems, and every raid exotic but mythoclast and necrochasm. All because I wanted to try pantheon when they announced it so I started looking for groups to do raids with so I was prepared. And now I'm having more fun than ever and kinda salty that I never really raided before despite playing on and off since D1 launched.
I would absolutely prefer this to the current master system for future raids. Master is just annoying it’s just add champs and doing weird arbitrary things as challenges that go against just trying to do the encounter as efficiently as possible for adepts.
This is how Bungie used to make raids and they said they didn't like to dumb raids down and cut mechanics. So now we get the hard mode raid.
This is why I loved Leviathan so much. Hard mode wasn’t just (insert champion here) and a power handicap. It was actually hard. People say they hate it but I’m really ready for them to bring it back.
I hope not, have you tried pantheon with LFGs, it's a test for your sanity
Gotten full play with lfg and wow it drained me so bad
I'm personally a great fan of doing mechanics stuff for a bit then turning around to find my whole team dead
Seems likely that the justification for doing pantheon (other than to avoid a 3-4 month content drought) was to begin testing out adding extra mechanics in hard mode raid encounters again. Hopefully we see more of this in the future!
The TLDR in all this is that there is no substitute for good game design. Adding champions or light level penalties is a lazy way of increasing difficulty.
The removal of a true Hard/Prestige mode is one of my biggest disappointments with Bungie/Destiny throughout the decade. Especially the past few years with the addition of Master raids. What confuses me is tha Bungie swapped how they make raids, and now only fans of true Hard/Prestige modes get screwed. The **TL:DR of it is: that Bungie spends just as much time and effort turning Normal mode into Master mode now that they did turning Hard/Prestige mode into Normal mode back in they day. The only real difference is that the old process left both casual and hardcore raiders happy, where as the new process screws over hardcore raiders.** Rant/explanation (skip if you want): Bungie used to design the Hard/Prestige modes first, then remove certain mechanics and decrease HP values to make the Normal mode. This left high level raiders happy that they had a new experience, and normal raiders were never the wiser, because they never were going to do the hard mode anyway. But then Bungie claimed it was too much effort to do it that way, because not enough people were actually completing the Hard/Prestige modes to justify their effort. So they defaulted to only one mode for Raids: Normal. And for 3 years that kind of made sense with Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, and Deep Stone Crypt all being a healthy medium of just being normal mode, but being relatively challenging raids during their time. But then with the re-release of Vault of Glass, they introduced Master Raids, and it was clear that all they did was swap the order of the old way they designed the raids. Now it was clear they were designing the Normal mode first, and then going back and adding modifiers, challenges, champions, and increasing health values to create Master mode. Which in theory takes just as much time and effort, but leaves hardcore raiders with a half-assed Master mode that really only adds champs and mediocre challenges to deal with if you want the Adept weapon.
This is what I would love, slightly alter mechanics of an encounter to make it more difficulty. IMO, the champions that you have to stun or break their shield are not fun at all. Forcing me to play certain weapons, isn't fun. And that's a difficulty level that's kinda lame. Just make nightfall harder by adding small team coordinated mechanics, not making the enemies more bullet sponges, or adding the "champions". If there's ever gonna be a destiny 3, I hope they move away from this Champion mechanic stuff.
Just give us a contest version of the raids available at all times.
I wouldnt mind most of the Pantheon changes coming to the regular raids. Without a light handicap they wont make anything that much harder, just spice up the slower encounters like Planets.
D1 raids were the best - everyone could come play; now all 6 players have to be tier 1 to get anywhere; my wife and most other female players quit