Destiny 2 - Leviathan Raid. Spoilers, obv

[Uncle Mike]

I want to talk about the Raid, so I thought I'd start a thread, and try and outline a set of spoilers we can work with.

 

So our raid team got to have a go last night, and we made some progress.

 

We got in, did the first bit:

Spoiler

Castellum

 

And the second bit:

Spoiler

Baths

 

And got to, but didn't really start, the third bit:

Spoiler

Gardens

 

EDIT: fourth bit.

Spoiler

Gauntlet

 

Can we call them first, second, third and fourth when you make a spoiler section? I don't want to accidentally ruin the fun for people who don't get as far.

[Harsin]

General consensus online seems to be that the Raid is pretty, but gameplay wise is a bigstep down from WotM.

 

I believe that Raid was made by the 'B', so even more kudos to the designers of it.

 

I haven't got far enough into it to make an informed decision yet.

[Gorf King]

I ain't even reading Mike and LeChuck's spoilers, and they're in my raid team.

 

I'm a little disappointed so far, to be honest. Mainly because the lead-up game is so much better than vanilla Destiny, and I was expecting the raid to absolutely blow my mind. But so far, I don't care for it all that much structurally or aesthetically , or in the way they've decided to do loot. That might all change as we're not all that far in, and I've changed my mind about raids before, but I'm feeling a bit flat about it at the moment. I'll only really be able to form a judgment after second completion though.

 

We're at the third encounter, as Mike said, so partial spoilers for that and complete spoilers for the first two encounters inside. Do not read until you're past encounter three:

 

Spoiler

 

With the lessons they've learnt in narrative and sense of place, I'd really expected them to link the raid to the world more than just by that obscure quest that pops up for no real reason. And I also expected us not to magically just start on the Leviathan - I thought we'd have to get there first, and even a little cutscene would have been better than just appearing there. That was my first slight let down - even grimoire would have been better than the nothing we have here, but the omission is made worse by the fact that the book you get in the hardcopy collector's edition does give the backstory. Like publishing grimoire after all, but to a tiny subset of fans and at a cost. Really disappointed in the world-building for the raid, which seems to me even less cohesive than for VoG (which at least has interesting grimoire to go with it).

 

A purely personal thing here, but I don't like the aesthetic. Reminds me of WoW or something. Too fancy, a bit chintzy, somehow quaint. For all they're overplayed, the Hive worlds are far more original and exciting, and the Vex proper sci-fi, which is somehow more fitting. This seemed indulgent and a bit silly.

 

I quite liked the mechanics of both the first two encounters, but they're very, very similar to ones from earlier raids. Not sure about the third yet, but that initially looks to want to be played a bit like another encounter, from VoG.

 

I do NOT like not getting proper drops after sections. Tokens suck, and you need a better way of rewarding progress. These imply you get nothing until and unless you finish, which would be dreadful, as you need to be partially rewarded for partial completions and should get material encouragement as you go along. It's also nice to get raid gear that helps you do the actual raid as you progress. Too early to be sure, but if this plays out as something that gives all your rewards at the end, that's a mistake.

 

The no checkpoints, various paths thing... I'll just wait and see. I didn't like it at first, but I'm prepared to be won over. For what it's worth, I think we've unlocked every possible route at this stage and cashed in everything we can cash in - we did spend a *lot* of time exploring and puzzling as well as fighting. But even though we've done that, I'm still not really won over. I think partly it's because, although I like exploration, I just don't really care for these environments much at all.

 

That sounds terribly negative, but I can't pretend I'm not a bit disappointed so far. Plenty of time for that to change, but so far I think this is my least favourite raid, which is the exact opposite of what I expected my feelings to be at this stage. As we press on, hopefully that will change. I've significantly revised my opinions on some raids before as we've gone on, so maybe that'll happen here. And part of my let-down feeling is probably due to the hype I've built up myself, so as that dissipates I might get a more balanced view of its merits.

 

Fucking tokens though. Fuck fucking tokens.

 

 

[RubberJohnny]

Whole raid Structure wise:

 

There's an underlayer reachable from all the "wings" with hidden chests and puzzles and enemies and different mechanics down there, don't know if this allows you to skip the Castellan fights to open each one. One of the worlds first competitor streamer teams got lost in there just before the final boss and ended up back in the Gardens.

Aesthetically it looks good, it does a thing later where essentially all that classical faux-Roman stuff is revealed as fake, there's bits that are unfinished and you can see the regular Cabal designs underneath which provides a clever contrast.

 

[Gorf King]

@RubberJohnny, could you mark the spoiler clearly to indicate how much of the raid is spoiled by its contents. People sometimes take several days (or even weeks) to complete and need to know what sections are spoiled before opening it. Thanks.

[BarryL85]

13 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

I ain't even reading Mike and LeChuck's spoilers, and they're in my raid team.

 

I'm a little disappointed so far, to be honest. Mainly because the lead-up game is so much better than vanilla Destiny, and I was expecting the raid to absolutely blow my mind. But so far, I don't care for it all that much structurally or aesthetically , or in the way they've decided to do loot. That might all change as we're not all that far in, and I've changed my mind about raids before, but I'm feeling a bit flat about it at the moment. I'll only really be able to form a judgment after second completion though.

 

We're at the third encounter, as Mike said, so partial spoilers for that and complete spoilers for the first two encounters inside. Do not read until you're past encounter three:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

With the lessons they've learnt in narrative and sense of place, I'd really expected them to link the raid to the world more than just by that obscure quest that pops up for no real reason. And I also expected us not to magically just start on the Leviathan - I thought we'd have to get there first, and even a little cutscene would have been better than just appearing there. That was my first slight let down - even grimoire would have been better than the nothing we have here, but the omission is made worse by the fact that the book you get in the hardcopy collector's edition does give the backstory. Like publishing grimoire after all, but to a tiny subset of fans and at a cost. Really disappointed in the world-building for the raid, which seems to me even less cohesive than for VoG (which at least has interesting grimoire to go with it).

 

A purely personal thing here, but I don't like the aesthetic. Reminds me of WoW or something. Too fancy, a bit chintzy, somehow quaint. For all they're overplayed, the Hive worlds are far more original and exciting, and the Vex proper sci-fi, which is somehow more fitting. This seemed indulgent and a bit silly.

 

I quite liked the mechanics of both the first two encounters, but they're very, very similar to ones from earlier raids. Not sure about the third yet, but that initially looks to want to be played a bit like another encounter, from VoG.

 

I do NOT like not getting proper drops after sections. Tokens suck, and you need a better way of rewarding progress. These imply you get nothing until and unless you finish, which would be dreadful, as you need to be partially rewarded for partial completions and should get material encouragement as you go along. It's also nice to get raid gear that helps you do the actual raid as you progress. Too early to be sure, but if this plays out as something that gives all your rewards at the end, that's a mistake.

 

The no checkpoints, various paths thing... I'll just wait and see. I didn't like it at first, but I'm prepared to be won over. For what it's worth, I think we've unlocked every possible route at this stage and cashed in everything we can cash in - we did spend a *lot* of time exploring and puzzling as well as fighting. But even though we've done that, I"m still not really won over. I think partly it's because, although I like exploration, I just don't really care for these environments much at all.

 

That sounds terribly negative, but I can't pretend I'm not a bit disappointed so far. Plenty of time for that to change, but so far I think this is my least favourite raid, which is the exact opposite of what I expected my feelings to be at this stage. As we press on, hopefully that will change. I've significantly revised my opinions on some raids before as we've gone on, so maybe that'll happen here. And part of my let-down feeling is probably due to the hype I've built up myself, so as that dissipates I might get a more balanced view of its merits.

 

Fucking tokens though. Fuck fucking tokens.

 

 

 

In regards to loot...

 

Spoiler

I decided to see what strat people were using for the pool section after what we came up with last night and people are getting loot drops and not just tokens after each proper encounter. 

 

I have seen many people say there teams haven't got any drops whereas other teams have had drops, it's vanilla VoG loot drops all over again except somehow worse.

 

[Gorf King]

Oh my Fucking God no.

[BarryL85]

2 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

Oh my Fucking God no.

 

Spoiler

Yeah we thought as we all got a chest key maybe we had to find it or wait till later in the raid to open for loot, i'm not sure what is in the chest as we haven't found it. We guessed it was a different loot system and were a little disappointed with no drops but apparently that's RNG when I looked at a few vids this morning.

 

Only good news our strategy was pretty identical to the ones I watched today.

 

[Gorf King]

Just now, BarryL85 said:

 

  Hide contents

Yeah we thought as we all got a chest key maybe we had to find it or wait till later in the raid to open for loot, i'm not sure what is in the chest as we haven't found it. We guessed it was a different loot system and were a little disappointed with no drops but apparently that's RNG when I looked at a few vids this morning.

 

Only good news our strategy was pretty identical to the ones I watched today.

 

 

First chest contents (not location) spoiler:

 

Spoiler

We found the chest. You can work out by my earlier post what was in it.

 

[Nate Dogg III]

That is horrific. 

 

 

"Guys, it feels bad when you get no loot from a raid encounter but the rest of your team does."

 "Yes, it does. How can we fix that? We could remove 'no drop' from the loot table?"

 "No, let's make it team-wide, so if one gets nothing then no one does."

 "Great! This really synergises perfectly with Guided Games and our general philosophy for getting new players into our best, hardest content. Make them work harder than ever for nothing at all."

 

Nuts. On the flipside, does that mean that if there is a drop, everyone gets the same thing?
 

 

[BarryL85]

8 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

That is horrific. 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

"Guys, it feels bad when you get no loot from a raid encounter but the rest of your team does."

 

"Yes, it does. How can we fix that? We could remove 'no drop' from the loot table?"

 

"No, let's make it team-wide, so if no one gets anything."

 

"Great! This really synergises perfectly with Guided Games and our general philosophy for getting new players into our best, hardest content. Make them work harder than ever for nothing at all."

 

Nuts. On the flipside, does that mean that if there is a drop, everyone gets the same thing?
 

 

 

 

Not sure...

 

Spoiler

I'd assume if you do get something drop it is individual to you. 

 

[BarryL85]

Massive spoiler (loot proof on the section we are talking about)....

 

Spoiler

Seems like it's just extremely rare to get a drop...

 

 

 

 

 

[Nate Dogg III]

Huh. That's a different key to the one I got, too.

[BarryL85]

10 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

Huh. That's a different key to the one I got, too.

 

I noticed that too.

[Uncle Mike]

So, we probably took longer than anticipated, but we cleared the third bit:

Spoiler

Pleasure Gardens

tonight.

 

Notes about the fight:

Spoiler

We'd seen enough the night before to have some ideas when we turned up, and by the time Gorf and LeChuck had explored a bit whilst waiting for us, we pretty much had the idea down when we started, around 9:30.

 

But it still took us until 12:45ish to clear it.

 

We'd been trying to have two teams of 2 pollen guys on each side, and then killing one beast per side per round, but it just wasn't working. Once you took out all the times we messed it up, or a beast went a bit mental, we weren't reliably doing enough damage. And when we did, the timer for round 2 decreased massively.

 

Our successful strategy:

Spoiler

So in the end, our successful strategy was to have all 4 pollen guys in one group stacking the buff to *48. Then we all went to a beast each, and took each down as far as possible without killing any of them.

 

Then one more round, and finish them all off in one turn.

 

Worked really well.

 

Notes on loot:

Spoiler

Fucked. Three of us got some armour, one got a rocket launcher, 3 just got Tokens.

 

[Gorf King]

Further notes on the loot we got for clearing the third encounter (including a picture of one piece of loot, nested one spoiler deeper):

 

Spoiler

 

Only two of us got armour, one got the RL, three got no proper loot. Everyone got tokens. The two armour pieces were chests. Here's a picture of the Hunter chest and some details about perks:

 

Spoiler

 

 

There are no perks, which is a bit disappointing - it's basically a standard chest with normal stats, and is only distinguished from other chests cosmetically. I imagine that's true of all the raid armour, which reduces its appeal somewhat.

 

 

[DonRumsfeld]

Third Encounter

Spoiler

We've not cleared it but running the same strategy as you guys. 

 

However it's just not fun. I'm shocked a section like that stayed in, stealth bits are very hard to make enjoyable especially in an FPS.  We were at it for 3 hours and made little progress.

 

Bungie made a big deal about making the raid accessible to everyone.  The pleasure garden is incredibly frustrating as it is, I dread to think what it'd be like with randoms from an LFG or guided games.

 

[Nate Dogg III]

Same section

 

We almost had it a couple of times using that same strategy, but didn't quite manage it. Had to call it for the night around 11 – reckon we'd have cracked it with another half an hour, but wasn't to be.

 

Has anyone else had dogs glitching out at all? We've had some seemingly random 180s from them, they've wandered weirdly off their routes, they've got stuck in safe room doors. I don't think stealth and the FPS are mutually exclusive at all – and the way this is set up, with two people on overwatch, helps mitigate it a bit – but stealth doesn't work without reliable AI, which this doesn't quite seem to be. 

 

We should have a slightly longer session at it tonight since it's Friday. Hoping we knock it out quickly because I'm getting a bit sick of it. 

[Uncle Mike]

Don, I think so far I'm a little disappointed, too. (Discussion about the first, second and third areas follows)

 

Spoiler

There's a lot of reuse, it seems to me. The Baths are a variant on Oryx ogres, and then gathering up to DPS his chest. The War Beasts are reminiscent of the VoG Gorgons, but with a twist.

 

We haven't tried the next part yet, so can't really comment.

 

And the loot situation is poor.

[Uncle Mike]

Just now, Nate Dogg III said:

Same section

 

 

  Hide contents

Has anyone else had dogs glitching out at all? We've had some seemingly random 180s from them, they've wandered weirdly off their routes, they've got stuck in safe room doors. I don't think stealth and the FPS are mutually exclusive at all – and the way this is set up, with two people on overwatch, helps mitigate it a bit – but stealth doesn't work without reliable AI, which this doesn't quite seem to be.

 

 

 

We've suffered all those, too. It's the sort of thing (like when Crota would sometimes misbehave) we'd previously try to resolve by leaving to Orbit and trying to force a new host, but you can't do that here.

[Gorf King]

That third section again:

 

Spoiler

 

Yes, the dogs do sometimes perform mysterious 180s. I think there's supposed to be a small element of randomness to it rather than them being on completely fixed, 100% predictable paths, but it's a bit inelegantly executed.

 

The encounter is part Gorgons and part Vosik (safe room, obv). It was starting to get on my nerves a bit too until we tried the 4-man spore party, each of the six to one dog (or, rather, flower) method. Then I thought it was plain sailing, more or less, the occasional fuckup caused by being spotted notwithstanding. We'd have got it basically first go after going one flower each, had it not been for getting one of the flowers wrong.

 

I actually liked that section better than the others, though admittedly as a light bringer rather than a pollinator I had an easier job than the guys below.

 

We can't raid on Saturday at all, and not on Sunday until evening, so I'm a bit concerned we'll not finish this raid before reset. Then we're a man down next week. I think the last section, or sections, will ramp the difficulty/obscureness up. They always have in previous raids, where it's at the last fight that we have far greater problems and stall. We usually get to that pretty quickly and get stuck there for days sometimes. Here it will have taken us days to get there.

 

 

[Harsin]

Based on my (admittedly limited) progress through the raid, it's a bit of a letdown. Strange that Bungie banged on about it being a more accessible raid, when it's possibly the most obtuse one they've made. Also not a fan of messing with the revive mechanic in normal raids, keep that to the harder modes. In my opinion Wrath of the Machine was a great example of a more streamlined raid that encouraged replayability and concentrated on what people want, which it to shoot  fun bosses and get shiny loot.

 

My current raid ranking, because I know you're all on tenterhooks and  everyone loves list threads.

 

1. Wrath of the Machine (if only because I like the tank section so much)

2. Vault of Glass

3. King's Fall

4. Leviathan

5. Crota's End

[Kryptonian]

What are the revive mechanics in the 2nd section? Do you just get 1 each at certain points or what?

 

Sorry for being thick 

[Uncle Mike]

20 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

What are the revive mechanics in the 2nd section? Do you just get 1 each at certain points or what?

 

I'm not 100% sure.

Spoiler

I think it's something to do with who rezzes who - something like a Guardian can't res the same Guardian twice.

 

[Uncle Mike]

Separate spoiler for the other on-screen Raid challenge:

Spoiler

Underbelly gifts

 

Spoiler

So we've found our way into the Underbelly using a switch system located

Spoiler

under the initial spawn.

 

And within there, we've found two chests that require keys (one of which we've had and looted.) The %age went up, so we have a reasonable idea how many of those there probably are (or maybe there's more, but you only get a random x per run, because there's x bosses - who knows.)

 

We've also found a separate switch system that we know we triggered, but we're unclear on what it did. And then there's pressure plates as well.

 

There's plenty of exploration secrets to be found, I think. Or perhaps it feels larger than it is.

[Scruff]

I was looking in the roster in the Tower earlier and I happened across a guy who was 296 or something so I thought I'd inspect his gear and see what he had. As well as the raid Head and Arms (he was a Warlock) he had the (spoilers for raid weapons ahead - just to be safe)

Legend of Arcuris(?) the exotic shotgun you get for finishing the raid with the World Eater quest. It's an absolute beast. Fully maxed range, 7/8th full impact and the same for stability. Only has one shot so it seems more like a mini railgun than a shotgun.

 

[Harsin]

Introducing Bungie's new environment artist.

 

 

 

[Lyrical Donut]

I really like the non-linear, structure of it.

 

 

Once you've sussed the labyrinth out to access the areas you want (and specific loot), instead of getting checkpoints off people.

 

 

Loot-wise, well we've only got NM loot tables at the moment. WotM pissed loot all over you, which was nice enough at the beginning, but quickly became a pain in the arse. My D1 Postmaster has been full for months.

 

I'm not particularly bothered about loot at this point anyway, it's not like we're missing any particular weapon that'll make our NM runs easier. 

[Lyrical Donut]

22 minutes ago, Scruff said:

I was looking in the roster in the Tower earlier and I happened across a guy who was 296 or something so I thought I'd inspect his gear and see what he had. As well as the raid Head and Arms (he was a Warlock) he had the (spoilers for raid weapons ahead - just to be safe)

  Reveal hidden contents

Legend of Arcuris(?) the exotic shotgun you get for finishing the raid with the World Eater quest. It's an absolute beast. Fully maxed range, 7/8th full impact and the same for stability. Only has one shot so it seems more like a mini railgun than a shotgun.

 

 

There also appears to be an exotic energy weapon too

[Nate Dogg III]

2 hours ago, Uncle Mike said:

 

I'm not 100% sure.

  Reveal hidden contents

I think it's something to do with who rezzes who - something like a Guardian can't res the same Guardian twice.

 

 

You can each only res once. Look at the bottom right of the screen, there's a token. When you res someone it disappears.