The story behind obtaining a coveted raid exotic.
Insurrection Prime didn't really stand much of a chance at this point. 6 Whispers firing in succession. Add a Celestial Nighthawk Golden Gun shot, the boss goes down. Finish him again. And Again. And Again.
Looking back, when Destiny 2 first launched, I was still a relatively inexperienced at raiding. I'd managed my way through most of Destiny 1's raid's once or twice, using Destiny 2 as a launching point to invest more time into learning and really engaging with raids.
By the time Forsaken hit, I was fortunate enough to find a reliable, consistent group that I ran through Last Wish with and that carried into Scourge of the Past. I was able to get One Thousands Voices relatively quick, but Anarchy was a whole other story.
Destiny is one of those games where each player has their own elusive gun/roll. Anarchy was mine.
Cutting to the chase, it took me an even 50 boss clears to obtain that sweet, sweet raid loot.
Yet, looking back at it, despite the frustrating, patience testing moments, it is one that I genuinely look back on positively. It's an experience that really transformed how I engage with Destiny 2, LFGs (Looking For Gamer), and teaching raids.
When I first sat down to write this article, I made a list the ground I'd covered over the year and a half it took to get Anarchy:
All in all, the process of trying to get this one weapon, taught me a whole different level of raiding. It also got me thinking about how Destiny 2 players are introduced to raids, the challenges of LFGing raids, and about raid exotic quests vs. random drops.
One-Dimensional Raiding
A major reason I look back at Anarchy in such a positive light was because I had consistent raid team to help me learn it and master the mechanics. However, that's not the experience most Destiny players get.
I'd argue that most Destiny 2 players get a one-dimensional raid experience - they are taught one role/task in each encounter, often without them fully seeing the full picture of the encounter. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially as its quite honestly the most tangible way to introduce an unprepared player to a raid, but there is a cost.
The dangerous part of one-dimensional raiding is if it becomes a crutch. A crutch for not teaching the new player alternative roles in the encounter. A crutch that can lead the player becoming only comfortable with one role and not asking to learn others.
In LFGs, this also manifest itself. Players may be unsure of how communicate what's going wrong when something inevitably does.Teams may need to post for one and praying the person they get knows how to read map or has a Divinity.
More significantly, it can lead to players being less engaged with raiding in general. If you only knew that one-dimension, you're less likely to go back to help others with clears once you've got yours and you're sure as hell gonna hit some difficult raids if you do try.
Out of any raid in Destiny 2, I'd argue that Scourge of the Past was the most teachable. The first and final encounters had dedicated spots you could plant players who have no idea what's going on and basically tell them to focus on killing enemies.
For first encounter, you have them defend map. They don't need to focus berserkers, learn the ball deposit, understand the cooldown timer mechanic, and learn map locations/callouts. It also pigeon holes them into the top-side team in the Boss Phase 1 and sniper roll in Phase 2.
As a result, it forced them to first learn about Continuous, Angular, Parallel buffs for the first time on the final boss DPS section. Thankfully, we had CAP to help teach at this point (see below), but it's still basically asking an inexperienced player to go from low engagement roles to a very high-engagement one at the raid's zenith.
I'm not trying to say this is a bad way of teaching new players, instead, trying to outline how it can lead to one-dimensional experience.
Coming back to the many LFGs I played en route to Anarchy, as my confidence in the raid grew, I became more and more proactive in asking the random people I would be matched up with, which part(s) they knew. My motive was simple: I wanted to identify if I needed to teach them a role.
Too often LFGs, even with 'KWTD' in the title, are slapped together very quickly with very little level setting. You often find out how competent a group is just moments after you start an encounter.
While there is definitely a time and place where you genuinely want a KWTD-only crew, the reality is nothing is stopping someone from jumping into an LFG with little experience. LFGs can be intimidating and they also can lead to miserable raid experiences, but if you've got the clears and patience, helping break someone out of their one-dimensional raid experience can help open up this game for them.
Looking at my Raid Report back in late December 2020, my lifetime total of only 48 full raid clears listed me in the top 10% of players on Destiny 2. I was really surprised to see this.
To me, this indicates the person you're LFGing with probably has even less experience than you'd think.
Do I need to post an LFG?
We've all said this at one point or another, haven't we?
For many players that don't get a quick raid exotic drop (and really want it), I'd bet money that before long they looked to LFG to simply to get the reps and chances at it. This was certainly the case for me, as I learned to seek out the "SOTP Boss CP 3x" LFG posts.
These types LFG groups became my main source of engagement with Scourge for a while, even before the raid loot drop rate improvements. While I'm sure Bungie's original design philosophy didn't aim to have players to only play the final encounter, over-and-over, I for sure did appreciate that the farming the boss checkpoint was/is a thing (more on this later).
Raid LFGs are really the epitome of a Destiny melting pot. Success is dependent on how well different personalities, experience, and skill mix.
At it's best, LFG to get my Boss CPs done that week led me to meeting my current Clan.
At its worst, it becomes hours of your life you'll wish you had back. I'll never forget the where I joined as a 6th for a run that was already in progress.
Loud background noises: ✅
One player who you have absolutely no idea what they are doing and won't listen to instructions: ✅✅
Suboptimal DPS: ✅✅✅
Frustrations starting to build: ✅✅✅✅
Oh man, that was a fun one. And the icing on the cake is that once we finally managed to put down Insurrection Prime, the player that was the host - booted all 5 of us from the fireteam, just as circular door was about to open and let us down to the raid loot. We didn't get a drop. 😑
Frustrating experiences are definitely out there. At the end of the day, you should go into any raid with an open mind and a willingness to teach, but it's still okay to set boundaries. If it's not working out or taking wayyy to long, it's okay to politely exit. Just try not to rage or rage-quit or ghost.
Exotic Raid Loot Drops
Destiny 2, like many looter-shooters, bank a-lot of their success around the payoff behind getting rare or exotic loot drop. That dopamine kick when you hear that exotic drop sound. All that hype, anticipation, and repetition that leads to it. Despite all the work that led up to that moment, it so rewarding to finally get it yourself or watch a friend's reaction when they get theirs.
For Destiny 2, all Year 3 Expansion (Forsaken) Raid Exotics were obtained through random drop chances (RNG). In D2Y3, Bungie began shifting it's exotic drop rates, helping make obtaining the weapons more accessible:
Each buff gave me a renewed energy to grind out the drops. Likewise, as we saw with the final drop rate increase, it brought back a ton of players to the game and a ton of streamers & content creators rallied together to get many, many community members their raid exotics before their chances went away in Beyond Light.
This led to some people getting it quickly, for others, like YouTube streamer Vegeta Plays, it took as many, many more clears.
Q&A with Vegeta Plays:
How many SotP raid clears before you got Anarchy?
Vegeta Plays: 98 clears!
You've done a lot of exotic help streams - any reactions or stories of helping players get a coveted exotic stand out?
Vegeta Plays: One help stream that stood out for me was during one of my very first Divinity help streams. We just went through all the puzzles and were about to beat the final boss and as soon as we did the party chat went crazy. Everyone was freaking out and were so excited that they just got their Divinity’s so that was a pretty cool experience to help people with that.
Raid Exotics - do you prefer raid exotics obtainable through RNG (random drops like 1k Voices, Anarchy, Terrabah) or from Exotic Quests (like Divinity)?
Vegeta Plays: I would say I prefer raid exotics through RNG, but the exotic should have a max limit of clears before it’s a guaranteed drop. Because if you do too many runs I feel the exotic becomes more of a chore to get than a hype moment.Find Vegeta Plays on Twitter and YouTube, where he streams Destiny 2 Exotic help, Raid help, Weekly Reset, and Xur Streams.
Bungie's stance on raid exotic drops changed with the release of Shadowkeep, shifting to the Divinity Quest style approach, which is a far more direct and obtainable path. And while it's without a doubt the better logistic solution, there's a part of me that saw it as a bittersweet change.
I hope that Destiny always tries to capture some of the energy of a random exotic drop. Remembering back to Destiny 1, I miss the moments where world exotic drops would hit. The D2 vanilla launch and updates to Xur led to obtaining many the exotics very quickly and it's really only the start of new full DLC expansions we get new exotic world drops. The Year 3 raid exotics kept that alive for a while and led to many good times, and some frustrating ones, that I ultimately look back on with positivity.
Loot in Beyond Light
To my surprise, Beyond Light shipped with the new Deep Stone Crypt raid featuring random RNG for the new raid exotic rocket launcher, Eyes of Tomorrow. If you'd have asked me prior to Beyond Light, I would have bet we would have seen a Divinity-style quest coming.
Bungie confirmed bad-luck protection as well:
While this bad luck protection isn't nearly as good as the final Forsaken-era raid protections, it's good to know it's there as I venture into many more LFGs.
So far, I'm up to 24 clears without an Eyes of Tomorrow...looks it might be in for another long run for me.
Image Credit: Vegeta Plays & UnforsakenJ - Rubbing in the fact they had Anarchy and I did not. 😜