Crota’s End was to be the culmination of Bungie’s response to user feedback regarding their raids in Destiny. It comes to pass that little, if anything, has been improved.
The Vault of Glass, Destiny’s first raid, was originally met with awe and applause. Soon after its arrival, however, its flaws became readily apparent. From “exploits”, to glitches, to “cheeses”, the Vault of Glass became the central event that many players either loved or avoided. Crota’s End picked up this mantle and tripped on itself doing so.
Less than a month later, we find that there are still “cheeses” and “exploits” to be used. The first stage of the raid gives players the ability gain rewards by soloing it. Various methods can be used to complete the stage and gain raid level gear with minimal effort and time. Just use your favorite search engine or go straight to YouTube for a quick how-to. One of the easiest methods can be completed in less than five minutes and involves killing as few as two enemies.
Players that choose to do the phase legitimately are faced with a somewhat ridiculous bullet mad race to the end. Again, there are various strategies to straight-out fight your way through the opening part of the raid. In the end, all strategies come down to coordinating a mad dash of six players, alternating between running and shooting through a maze filled with hordes of enemies.
Not surprisingly, the second stage of the latest raid is also solo-able. This may require more skill and/or luck but still is possible. The basics of this strategy include killing the Swordbearer and then meleeing while jumping across the chasm. Once on the other side, skill and luck come to play in killing all of the enemies but upon completion you need only continue to the next phase – of running through a hallway.
Once again, the legitimate strategy just takes more time and some coordination. Only one member of the raid party can cross the constructed bridge since it requires the player crossing to hold the sword taken from the Swordbearer. Getting the group to work together is the hardest part of this and any other stage.
Want to kill the boss solo? You can do that too. In fact, at least two players have done so. It comes back to a combination of luck, skill, and most importantly patience, but it can be done with the proper strategy.
Playing as a group still comes down to having a good leader and strategy. Having the group coordinated and following direction is key. The sub-phase of Deathsingers can be more frustrating than actually fighting Crota since it needs to be done properly or it results in a quick reset of the stage.
As far as rewards go, it is still somewhat of a crap-shoot. The RNG machine has been tweaked and Bungie has stated that rewards will be based on what players have already received but it seems that rewards are still somewhat locked. Going through the first stage seems to only reward gauntlets and radiant shards or energy. Later stages reward other armor pieces and weapons, reports on how they are doled out, however, vary greatly.
Given what Bungie has done to Destiny, Crota’s End doesn’t offer much to redeem the game as a whole. Forcing players to grind through the new raid to upgrade what equipment they got in the raid makes it less amicable. As Bungie continues to reassess how the game works, serious consideration needs to be given to simplifying the loot and upgrade systems.
I tried to justify what Bugnie was doing with Destiny and defended them to the bitter end. Now, I can only stand and admit that I saw what I wanted to see. Perhaps the following picture can best sum up what Destiny has become to me…
Paul Novak is a self described Polish ninja toiling away as an IT professional but more into gaming and writing. Physically existing in the west side of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania yet existentially flowing with the ether of the Internet. Found here at What’s Your Tag? and on the Twitter @dudewantshisrug. Game on with Team XBRO!
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Reblogged this on Reviewer Discretion.
Damn. That was harsh.
I agree with you and it’s a shame that Destiny isn’t getting any better. I was one of the hopefuls that thought that it would get better over time.
I kept hoping too but the game isn’t getting better. Playing the new raid feels like the end of the game for me. I may play causually and try to watch for any changes that may improve the game to come along.
I already got rid of mine. I’ve officially wrote it off.
If I had not bought the Ghost Edition I would be done with it as well. I blame no one for walking away from this gane. In fact, I have argued the fact that this gane would have been forgotten if not for the names of Activision and Bungie.
I’ve often thought that about Destiny too. If a small company would have made this game it would have been forgotten about already.
They keep updating it which is good. Unfortunately some of their changes were not for the good.
I know. It’s still not enough content for me though. Destiny just failed in too many areas. The story, lack of end game content, bad loot drop system, bad raid, etc.
I’ll keep tabs on the game, but I doubt I’ll ever own it again.
“Some” coordination? Highly disagree with that. My friends and I did it legit. Not looking online how to do anything. The bridge segment took TONS of coordination. It probably took us 4 hours to fully get everyone across. That, right there, made the Raid and expansion worth it.
I admit, we have cheesed after we beat Crota legit because of time concerns. I bet they will fix a lot of them in the next update, which is fine by me. The Raid itself takes the cake as being the beat things in Destiny. I was very surprised how hard the new one was and cannot wait to try it on Hard Mode.
I’m glad that you and other players are still enthusiastic about playing this game but I do not share that feeling.
I went into a random group I found on destinylfg.net and one player took the lead telling everybody what to do and when. 4 of the 6 players, including myself, had never even done this raid before and we were still done within an hour without using any cheese methods. That says to me that there isn’t really much to this raid and if this is the best they have to offer…I just don’t have an interest in it.
This! That is exactly how I feel about Destiny right now. It’s just not enough content to keep me invested in the game. I still play Borderlands 2 because of the amount of content that was added over time. That and it actually has a complete story.
Well your problem was running the Raid with someone who knew everything. That clearly takes away from the “unknown” that is in the Raid. It is disappointing that you cannot find anything good about the game since I and many other can still find fun in the Raids. Hell, running the first part in the dark is hella fun! Even killing the Wizards before Crota is fun.
If I was you, find a team in the next expansion who have NEVER ran the Raid. If you were on the Xbox One, I think you would love running the Raid.
Your solution is a short term fix for Bungie’s inability to construct a proper raid. Eventually, the masses will have played this raid and finding people that have not played it will become sparse at best. I will not blame having a good leader for the raid not being good.
I respect that you still enjoy this game. It comes down to the fact that I do not. In my opinion this game has under-performed and is not worth my time at this point. I do hope that they continue to update the game and that those updates will help make the game worth returning to.