Atheon fight getting patched, but not how you think

[psychlon]

It seems this is supposed to be part of the "difficulty" in their minds... . Randomness isn't unheard of and frankly not a big deal unless people aren't prepared. This is only a 6-man group, have always someone along who did this part already to help out the new guy and eventually everyone will know about it at some point. If you can steer who will be chosen, it's less likely that new people will get a shot at (in general) if you have people perfectly able to do it well.

[GodMars]

Randomness is used to draw out play time, whether it's through needed drops or enemy encounters. The longer anything games to complete, the longer they have to release new content.

[iw5000]

Oct 18, 2014 17:02:45 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

A point that I haven't seen made here yet: Bungie wants everyone to be able to do each job. That's all well and good, but how are we supposed to learn to do each job when we have no control over which job we stuck with? Want to learn how to run the relic today? Easy. Ask your raid team and you can practice for a few runs to get a feel for it, with the team understanding it's something new and that you'll probably be wiping a few times. That understanding reduces frustration. Rinse and repeat for the other jobs.

Want to learn how to run relic with random teleports? First, hope you hit your 50% chance to get teleported. Then hope in the chaos that somebody else doesn't grab the relic first, because you don't really have time to sort out who's been teleported, who's got relic, who's got oracles, and who's helping out relic with the adds before oracles start popping in. Too late, you just wiped. Try again. Oh, this time you didn't get teleported, 3 other guys with no relic experience did instead. Insta-wipe, better luck next time. Oh good, you got teleported but couldn't quite take out the adds with the relic and got downed. Another wipe! And so forth and so on until either a) you get extremely lucky with teleports and are able to clear it quickly, b) you get unlucky with teleports but keep playing for hours until you get all the mechanics down and clear it, or c) you or your team gets frustrated and gives up. And that's with a team full of guys that at least have some idea what's going on. Going in with a couple or more total raid noobs? Good luck, and have fun insta-wiping for the next hour or more!

That's not fun. That's an artificially difficult RNG-fest in place of an encounter that's currently highly strategy-based and not random at all. Bungie's forums have been flooded with complaints about this potential change--hopefully they'll come to their senses and listen to the community on this one.

Good post.

Have these random element changes been put in yet?

It seemed like last night, when we helped get Witty's first run in, the game was teleporting the back three people? But even with that, the game itself seemed to glitch a few times. I think I recall at least two of our six/seven attempts (to beat Atheon) ending up in weird glitch situations where we ended up wiping. But for the most part, it did seem to keep teleporting the back three, rather than a random three.

Last night was fun. I got nothing for doing the VoG (as it was my 4th run that week), but it was one of the most fun. Especially the end. On our last attempt that beat Atheon, I don't think the same three people teleported in any of the four sequences it took. Yet everyone seemed to know exactly what to do, and we got it done. Come to think of it, was that the new random generator being done? Or was it just because we had people dying, and out of position?

I agree with what others said. Bungie adding this stuff to ramp up difficulty is simply a shallow attempt to prolong existing content. They don't have anything else to add to the game right now, so we might be getting this. I know for myself, I am pretty much tapped out. I have four guns fully leveled up. I have 18 AS's and can't/won't use them, as three of my armor pieces are fully leveled. I am at level 29 and stuck. All i need is just Raid gloves to get to Level 30. I get those, I can be Lv 30 in a day. And to get them? I guess it's now just dumb luck. Keep doing the VoG stuff and hoping I get lucky. I know Aroc is in the same boat. He's been looking for 'Raid Boots' for weeks. Like well over twenty plus Raid attempts and ...NOTHING. He keeps getting unlucky. I don't really like that luck element. That's not really fun gaming. And reading this stuff, seeing how Bungie is deliberately 'tweaking' the system to make the game last longer, prolong it's life by adding random elements......I can see how this is going to play out. I will probably need another 100 hours to just get that last piece of gear. At some point, it's just not worth it.

I guess that's a problem for me. One of the issues I had with the PvP (and still do) is the uneven playing field, as well as the silly OP'ness of the Crucible, where each game often breaks down into what is Mario Kart FPS'er gaming. 'Super' explosion gaming. Luck. And now the PvE is slowly having this issue creep into it too. Where one's leveling process may come down to just a brutal ridiculous 'luck' element that involves even more ridiculous amounts of time invested to counter it.

[psychlon]

Oct 20, 2014 8:11:02 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Oct 18, 2014 17:02:45 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

A point that I haven't seen made here yet: Bungie wants everyone to be able to do each job. That's all well and good, but how are we supposed to learn to do each job when we have no control over which job we stuck with? Want to learn how to run the relic today? Easy. Ask your raid team and you can practice for a few runs to get a feel for it, with the team understanding it's something new and that you'll probably be wiping a few times. That understanding reduces frustration. Rinse and repeat for the other jobs.

Want to learn how to run relic with random teleports? First, hope you hit your 50% chance to get teleported. Then hope in the chaos that somebody else doesn't grab the relic first, because you don't really have time to sort out who's been teleported, who's got relic, who's got oracles, and who's helping out relic with the adds before oracles start popping in. Too late, you just wiped. Try again. Oh, this time you didn't get teleported, 3 other guys with no relic experience did instead. Insta-wipe, better luck next time. Oh good, you got teleported but couldn't quite take out the adds with the relic and got downed. Another wipe! And so forth and so on until either a) you get extremely lucky with teleports and are able to clear it quickly, b) you get unlucky with teleports but keep playing for hours until you get all the mechanics down and clear it, or c) you or your team gets frustrated and gives up. And that's with a team full of guys that at least have some idea what's going on. Going in with a couple or more total raid noobs? Good luck, and have fun insta-wiping for the next hour or more!

That's not fun. That's an artificially difficult RNG-fest in place of an encounter that's currently highly strategy-based and not random at all. Bungie's forums have been flooded with complaints about this potential change--hopefully they'll come to their senses and listen to the community on this one.

Good post.

Have these random element changes been put in yet?

It seemed like last night, when we helped get Witty's first run in, the game was teleporting the back three people? But even with that, the game itself seemed to glitch a few times. I think I recall at least two of our six/seven attempts (to beat Atheon) ending up in weird glitch situations where we ended up wiping. But for the most part, it did seem to keep teleporting the back three, rather than a random three.

Last night was fun. I got nothing for doing the VoG (as it was my 4th run that week), but it was one of the most fun. Especially the end. On our last attempt that beat Atheon, I don't think the same three people teleported in any of the four sequences it took. Yet everyone seemed to know exactly what to do, and we got it done. Come to think of it, was that the new random generator being done? Or was it just because we had people dying, and out of position?

I agree with what others said. Bungie adding this stuff to ramp up difficulty is simply a shallow attempt to prolong existing content. They don't have anything else to add to the game right now, so we might be getting this. I know for myself, I am pretty much tapped out. I have four guns fully leveled up. I have 18 AS's and can't/won't use them, as three of my armor pieces are fully leveled. I am at level 29 and stuck. All i need is just Raid gloves to get to Level 30. I get those, I can be Lv 30 in a day. And to get them? I guess it's now just dumb luck. Keep doing the VoG stuff and hoping I get lucky. I know Aroc is in the same boat. He's been looking for 'Raid Boots' for weeks. Like well over twenty plus Raid attempts and ...NOTHING. He keeps getting unlucky. I don't really like that luck element. That's not really fun gaming. And reading this stuff, seeing how Bungie is deliberately 'tweaking' the system to make the game last longer, prolong it's life by adding random elements......I can see how this is going to play out. I will probably need another 100 hours to just get that last piece of gear. At some point, it's just not worth it.

I guess that's a problem for me. One of the issues I had with the PvP (and still do) is the uneven playing field, as well as the silly OP'ness of the Crucible, where each game often breaks down into what is Mario Kart FPS'er gaming. 'Super' explosion gaming. Luck. And now the PvE is slowly having this issue creep into it too. Where one's leveling process may come down to just a brutal ridiculous 'luck' element that involves even more ridiculous amounts of time invested to counter it.

I don't understand why Bungie is back at where raiding was 10-15 years ago. There was a reason why major MMO's went to smart loot at a certain point. Yes, people will finish quicker and maybe drop the game for a week/ month and do other stuff but if you bring new interesting stuff, they will be back, run the content etc. . It seems Bungie is trying too hard to keep people playing their game when clearly, you can't, especially if you consider those having every time in the world and can go through the game in no time. Are they thinking that no LFG feature is a welcome time sink? Some of the missing elements are just baffling, no less than "changing working content" just because people found different ways to beat your encounter. Hopefully there will be plenty more in the coming years but they've got to let go and move on. Nobody wants a patch on Atheon 3 years down the road. 

[GodMars]

Same situation for us PS4-side, iw. I've been waiting on gloves for weeks, and Hawk has been waiting on boots. It feels like we'll be eternally stuck at 29.

[wings]

I suspect some changes are there purely on grounds for gamers to grind some more. I've heard the random teleport would be a major hindrance to new Raiders from messages left when accessing the App (I barely use it). I thought about getting into Raid because of the chance to earn elemental primaries can help with Weekly Heroics and Nightfall events, but I wouldn't want to let others down. Occasionally I get VoG messages but these are becoming less frequent so I wonder if this is why.

[TheHawkNY]

Alright, so let's discuss strategy for the patched Atheon fight. Here's the best idea that I can come up with:

Identify a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Relic Carrier. If everyone is alive, chances of the Primary Relic Carrier being teleported is 50%, Primary or Secondary is 80%, and one of the three is 95%. If a player not one of those three dies, those percentages go up to 60%, 90%, and 100%.

When teleportation happens, the Primary immediately identifies whether they have been teleported by saying "in" or "out".
If "in", they grab the relic.
If "out", the Secondary carrier identifies if they have been teleported by saying "in" or "out".
If "in", they grab the relic.
If "out", whoever can grab the relic first does so. (Alternatively, you could have the Tertiary identify, but if all three had not been teleported, you may have wasted too much time)
Once the relic has been picked up, the carrier identifies which portal to open. The other two players in the portal identify which one will be responsible for the first Oracle, and which will be responsible for assisting the relic carrier with clearing the adds. Whoever identifies their role first defines the role for the remaining portal person.
Relic carrier is responsible for counting down time for end of Time's Vengeance.
If one of the three designated Relic Carriers dies, they are responsible for announcing it and identifying new roles. Ex. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary are Player A, B, and C; Player A dies, he says "Player A down, Player B is now Primary and Player C is now Secondary."

This would help maintain predefined roles and allow players to alter their loadouts to maximize the strengths required for their roles. Thoughts?

[iw5000]

That's a lot of communicating. 'ins and outs'.

[hebbnh]

iw5000: No, I don't think any changes have been implemented yet. Sounded like that was supposed to come in a hotfix this week, along with "baby bumpers" to prevent Templar and Atheon from being pushed off of ledges. Any randomness you saw last night must have been due to someone being downed or out of position.

I was thinking about some things that would make more sense than random teleports if they're trying to make that fight harder. First, they could increase Atheon's health, or make it so getting shots on his crit spot was more important. Not that making bosses into even bigger bullet sponges is a great solution, but that would call for increased gunskill and tighter execution of your strategy while still allowing the current strategy to be utilized. Another idea would be to alternate who gets teleported. The first run could work just like it does now where the back 3 get teleported, but then the second teleport will take the 3 who didn't get teleported the first time, and so forth and so on. That would still give teams a chance to set their lineup, so to speak, while also meeting Bungie's goal of making sure one person isn't always stuck defending outside, one person isn't always on relic, this guy isn't always on oracle duty, etc. I guess the only issue there is what happens when it's a downed player's turn to get teleported, but I don't think it'd be that hard to come up with a solution for that scenario.

psychlon: The randomness wouldn't be as big of a deal if it had been set up that way to start with, although even then it still wouldn't have been a good design choice. Changing it now comes off as Bungie attempting to artificially extend their game because players are blowing through the content more quickly than expected. It also doesn't help that there are several direct quotes from the raid designers talking about playing a set role in the encounter which they're now backtracking on by saying the current teleporting behavior is a bug and it was always intended to be random with no set roles. Everyone can see right through that.

Players generally don't like randomness, and for good reason--you can't strategize against randomness/luck. This is why so many games are built on a "rock, paper, scissors" approach. Think Street Fighter or something, where fireball is countered by jump kick, which is countered by uppercut, which is countered by fireball, and this is true at all times unless an input/timing error is made by the player. There are many layers of strategy here based on predicting your opponent's move, or enticing them to make a move that you're ready to counter. You also can't just sit back and fireball the whole time, or you opponent will simply jump kick you to death. Now imagine the same system, but half the time jump kick beats uppercut, sometimes uppercut beats fireball, and fireball randomly decides to track and beat a jump kicking opponent every now and then. You now have a game of button mashing totally devoid of strategy, because it doesn't matter what move you make when randomness and luck dictate the outcome. Might as well just fireball the whole time and hope the game rewards that choice. Obviously this is in no way an apples to apples comparison with Destiny, but it does illustrate the problems with randomness and luck in game design.

Look at the Cryptarch changes. That's something they got right. Nobody was happy when the Cryptarch could (and often did) randomly give you an item worse than the quality of the engram you turned in. Players are much happier knowing that their blue engram will get them a blue item with a very small chance of a legendary, versus before potentially getting white, green, blue, or legendary with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it, even if the chance of getting a legendary may have been higher. Obviously we don't know the percentages involved, but you get the idea.

[hebbnh]

Another point: For all the griping I've/we've been doing, we're not the ones that are going to be negatively affected by the changes. A lot of us here have ran the raid multiple times and are at least familiar with all the roles, even if we may not have performed them yet. This is a curveball that we're going to figure out in a week or less. It's raid newbies who are really going to get shafted. As it stands now, you can bring a new guy in and tell them basically to stand on this spot and shoot those things, and they can learn one of the roles easily while not being a hindrance to the rest of the group. With the changes, that won't be possible. Instead, mass chaos is going to ensue, and there's going to be a lot of frustration for raid vets as the new guy(s) has to try to figure out 3 different roles all at once without any consistent way to do so. Not to mention the extra time requirements for an activity that's already pretty time-consuming, as you're going to be wiping a lot more. Yup, GG Bungie, that's great, way to discourage all but the hard core from even bothering with the raid.

[Dumien]

Yeah... we the glorious "we" are going to be fine. I just feel bad for people like Witty lol. Btw did you get to see the amazing new templar cheese. It is FUN.

[psychlon]

So... out of curiosity since I've read it here somewhere.... what progress does the game save? I've been trying to run the weekly heroic and finally came to the last area. Sure as hell I'm being logged out due to disconnect of whatever the fuck. Not really hoping, I'm logging right back in and .... 0 progress. I could swear I had more disconnects and lags since they fixed whatever they think needed fixing + empty tower/ planets. Aaaaaaaaaaaarg!!!!

[thebb22]

It may have been the cheesiest cheese of all cheese. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[psychlon]

Oct 20, 2014 10:32:17 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Another point: For all the griping I've/we've been doing, we're not the ones that are going to be negatively affected by the changes. A lot of us here have ran the raid multiple times and are at least familiar with all the roles, even if we may not have performed them yet. This is a curveball that we're going to figure out in a week or less. It's raid newbies who are really going to get shafted. As it stands now, you can bring a new guy in and tell them basically to stand on this spot and shoot those things, and they can learn one of the roles easily while not being a hindrance to the rest of the group. With the changes, that won't be possible. Instead, mass chaos is going to ensue, and there's going to be a lot of frustration for raid vets as the new guy(s) has to try to figure out 3 different roles all at once without any consistent way to do so. Not to mention the extra time requirements for an activity that's already pretty time-consuming, as you're going to be wiping a lot more. Yup, GG Bungie, that's great, way to discourage all but the hard core from even bothering with the raid.

Whoever things that making stuff harder than it currently is...as long as the current difficulty is still somewhat uphold/ entertaining etc. you do NOT go back and change it because whoever thinks this adds anything positiv is an idiot. Test your stuff better before release, take it as experience but don't discourage a much broader field of people who only now get to it.

[hebbnh]

Oct 20, 2014 11:04:24 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Yeah... we the glorious "we" are going to be fine. I just feel bad for people like Witty lol. Btw did you get to see the amazing new templar cheese. It is FUN.

Haven't seen it, but I've heard plenty about its glorious cheesiness.  AOE grenades > masters of time, life, the universe, and everything.  Apparently.

[2piece]

I think the most important communication is going to be from the 2 people that get teleported that aren't picking up the relic.

One person has to help with adds (and the Minnie on green side) or its going to be a wipe anyways.

The relic carry will have a few seconds to pick it up and then get to the adds but I can see the first oracle getting missed if both oracle slayers don't communicate adds or oracle.

In a perfect world there would be 4 people that are decent with the relic so you could be sure that regardless of who goes someone will be able to fill the role.

[iw5000]

Agree heb. For a game that was all about the 'community' aspects, many of the original designs and especially these updates/patches being discussed to make Atheon harder, ....they are entirely anti-social based. All they do is further widen the gap between the lifers (haves) and the casuals (have nots). I can't under any circumstances see how this is good for the game. As soon as a person feels like they have fallen slightly behind the pack, moves like the Atheon patch will just make people throw in the towel & quit. There is no other solution. I can not play CoD for a month, but then jump right back in having fun. Destiny? I don't keep up, am all ready go go when the next Raid stuff comes out (Dec?), I am screwed. No friends (even loyal ones), are going to want to drag a rookie through an ever more ridiculous process.

And that's the point. Bungie isn't as smart as people claimed they would be. They've been constantly caught with their pants down lying about mistakes this whole gaming process. The plot screw up. Fixes. PvE/PvP integration, Gun patches. These guys are somewhat inept and clueless. And now we see their solution to an earlier lie they told, about how the world changes every week. Uh...no. It doesn't. There isn't any new content. Just bvllshit 'fixes' to make their original prize Raids harder. I didn't sign up for that. New content just being old content being made more difficult. Lame.


Maybe I just don't understand raiding.

[markopolo]

Oct 20, 2014 10:07:10 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

That's a lot of communicating. 'ins and outs'.

I don't know where to quote Michael Scott, remarking that "That's what she said!" or quote Shrek the Ogre, remarking "Better out than in, I always say!" when refering to belching.

Thanks! I'll be here all week! Try the veal! Tip your waitress... you've been a lovely audience!

[psychlon]

Oct 20, 2014 11:43:36 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Maybe I just don't understand raiding. 

Bungie doesn't seem to. They already abuse the "same same but different difficulty" which wouldn't have worked years ago. New content was understood as new content... not 1 dungeon with different meatbars. Along with the recent changes, randomness and a pvp which at most is a funny/ unfunny timesink at most. New Age FPS..... not yet. 

Making existing harder also shows that they don't seem to have something quite ready yes.... worrysome as usually the finalized content is much more than released, just to keep everyone happy and survive the "finished, what now" period which happens in almost any game. Its dissapointing how little experience was used, given the broad assortment of games released. If I want to do something new and different, shouldn't I cover complaints player have been highlighting in other games again and again? One might think so. It just doesn't strike me as a very smart approach.

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 20, 2014 11:04:24 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Yeah... we the glorious "we" are going to be fine. I just feel bad for people like Witty lol. Btw did you get to see the amazing new templar cheese. It is FUN.

That's OK . After getting carried I did some reading, got the gist of it. Will stumble for a while for sure before becoming a capable Raider especially with this new change, but I am excited about being force to do each job.

My teammates, on the other hand, are probably won't be as excited .

[iw5000]

Oct 20, 2014 12:48:57 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Oct 20, 2014 11:04:24 GMT -5 Dumien said:

Yeah... we the glorious "we" are going to be fine. I just feel bad for people like Witty lol. Btw did you get to see the amazing new templar cheese. It is FUN.

That's OK . After getting carried I did some reading, got the gist of it. Will stumble for a while for sure before becoming a capable Raider especially with this new change, but I am excited about being force to do each job.

My teammates, on the other hand, are probably won't be as excited .

You always have a spot with me Witty, no worries there. I'm the one who pushed you to do it yesterday, and it all worked well. I thought everything went pretty smooth. There's always a few issues (at least that's what my limited experience seems to show). If you ain't dying, you ain't trying!!! If it were to easy, everyone would be bored.

[Jay]

Bungie sucks dick

[mannon]

That certainly adds a lot to the conversation...

[wittyscorpion]

Oct 20, 2014 13:02:51 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Oct 20, 2014 12:48:57 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

That's OK . After getting carried I did some reading, got the gist of it. Will stumble for a while for sure before becoming a capable Raider especially with this new change, but I am excited about being force to do each job.

My teammates, on the other hand, are probably won't be as excited .

You always have a spot with me Witty, no worries there. I'm the one who pushed you to do it yesterday, and it all worked well. I thought everything went pretty smooth. There's always a few issues (at least that's what my limited experience seems to show). If you ain't dying, you ain't trying!!! If it were to easy, everyone would be bored.

And thanks a lot to you and everybody who jumped in at a moment's notice for making that happen! The Raid boots I got helped me greatly on leveling, I am able to finally reach level 28 without havin to spend any shards on legendary. I now finally feel competent enough to go into normal VoG.

I did not know at the time but now I realize carrying a clue-less level 26 through VoG is a lot to ask

[iw5000]

maybe a lot to ask, but there's the thing. It benefits everyone if everyone pitches in to help lower people. You end up having more to RAID with later. Right? If you get up to 28/29, you are now able to help more people too.

Win/win.

[wittyscorpion]

Might be a good time to ask the following question:

What are the main differences between VoG normal and VoG hard? Just the enemy level difference or a lot more than that?

[TheHawkNY]

Higher level enemies.
Players cannot be revived, will not respawn until entire team wipes or a checkpoint is reached.
I'm not sure if there are more enemies or not. There are definitely more Gorgons, don't remember about in other areas.

And of course, the rewards.

[Dumien]

Also... Atheon fight is more difficult because of supplicant-side Templar-ish bubbles. Templar fight has two oracles spawn per ritual. More gorgons spawn (stationary).

[tooros]

Baby bumper and teleport patch goes live tomorrow? Is that what others have heard, or can confirm?

[GodMars]

Oct 27, 2014 7:21:08 GMT -5 tooros said:

Baby bumper and teleport patch goes live tomorrow? Is that what others have heard, or can confirm?

No word