My point is, the Vault of Glass is so memorable because the game is constantly throwing things at you that you didn't even realize were possible in Destiny, as a game or even as an engine. It takes the wholly mundane and familiar encounters you have become used to over the story missions and throws dozens of new mechanics into the mix, and doesn't stop throwing new things at you until it's over. And we LOVE experiencing new things in games.

Yes, if you go way back and look at my posts about VoG the morning after it opened up, I was absolutely floored, because none of it was expected, or even something I thought was possible. It was one of the best gaming experiences ever, because there was so much new to discover. It was like stepping out of the Lifeboat onto Halo times 100.

This revelation of new things is part of what dulls CE and KF. We're no longer stunned by the concept of an enemy that can wipe everyone without touching us, or having one fireteam member take up a relic and perform an important role with it. And that lack of "newness" is what makes us look at them as lesser then VoG.

We have 8 more years of this. I'm actually starting to anticipate a time when the raids might not even excite me anymore… Which is another reason why committing to something for 10 years may not completely pan out for the entire time. But for now, I am looking forward to the next one.

And then The Taken King dropped, and we got our hands on King's Fall. It seemed to hit most of the points I thought it needed to hit:

• It's longer then VoG
  
• It has no less then three non-combat sequences (Jumping Puzzles!)
  
• We were able to take down the final boss before reset, despite being technically weaker due to light-level.

So why do I still feel like VoG was way better?
The first reason is simple: Hive Fatigue.

So much this. I'm tired of the Hive.

The second reason is that Kings Fall's combat encounters feel overly reliant on DPS-checks. A DPS-check is a part of an encounter where players MUST do a set amount of damage to an enemy within a short amount of time, or else they have to restart the encounter because the situation is unrecoverable (or Oryx claps his hands). Forcing the fireteam to restart the encounter because of this sort of design feels un-creative and is demoralizing for the players, especially because of how much focus it places on the players' gear and level, things that Destiny explicitly places out of their control. On the other hand, this might be a purely subjective complaint, and other people I've talked to love this kind of encounter design.

I hadn't realized it before, but YES! So much this. It can be very demoralizing. I'd say a lot of KF's mechanics end up being demoralizing, plus it's just so FREAKING LONG! Take the fatiguing length of the thing and add in demoralizing mechanics and people tired of it.

On the topic of KF being SO FREAKING LONG... I know I've said this before, but I think KF would have benefitted from being 2 separate raids. This just occurred to me, perhaps it could have been 1 non-linear raid 'space' and you pickup quests to take down certain bosses. The first time entering the raid you would get the first quest, which would unlock the 2nd quest (and geometry) which would unlock the finale. After unlocking a quest it would reset and be available to you each week. Each quest would give "known" random rewards.

As an aside, here's an example of how I think the "Pistons" section of KF could have been improved, using existing mechanics that still feel completely "new":

• Rotate them 90 degrees.

The Piston section is cool, but it's really just a retread of mechanics we've been using (avoiding?) before; Anyone who's engaged a cabal/taken phalanx, in an enclosed space, will know what I'm talking about.

But what if the pistons had been vertical instead? Waiting until the initial unsuspecting guardian walked over top of it (Make it look like a plate!), and then launching them skyward? And then the players have to learn to use the incredible, mancannon-esque momentum of these pistons in sequence to ascend to Oryx's throne room! Destiny's engine is clearly capable of handling these sorts of physics mechanics, but we don't ever see it used to the player's benefit, or as something the player can make use of.

I love this idea.

Interesting thoughts, but I do have one question-

Is it possible that VoG is your favorite simply because it was first, and Destiny was still new and shiny?

(I mean, even with new content out and some tweaks to economy and RNG, the subsequent raids don't have the element of 'surprise' that the first one did)

Like in the sense that a movie sequel is rarely better than the original.

Just curious.

Your other points are more than valid from a game play perspective.

Lots of great points, Cyber.

Personally, I think the way I feel about the raids is influenced by a few main factors: the raids themselves (judged in a vacuum, if you will), and how they fit into Destiny's end game.

Judged in a vacuum, I enjoy all 3 raids very much. They each have their own distinct theme and "feel", which is great. VoG is certainly my favorite, but I appreciate all 3 for the unique experiences they all bring.

Where things get problematic for me is what happens to the raids when they are weaved into Destiny's end game. Mainly, Destiny's end game is built around replaying these raids over and over and over. I think VoG and CE hold up very well under such repetition, KF not so much.
Then there's the issue of Light Levels and how those effect each raid. In this regard, I think Bungie has made things progressively worse since VoG. While the VoG loot drop rates were not great, they got a few things right. Once you reached the minimum light level (26), you could very realistically finish the entire raid without needing to go up in level during the raid. King's Fall throws this out the window, which is a big mistake IMO. Crota's End Hard Mode was problematic because of the over-levelled enemies, at least until HoW (which, IMO, is when CE finally lived up to its full "fun" potential). But King's Fall is just stacked against the player in so many ways. For all but the very best teams, it was impossible to finish the raid at the same level at which you'd begun the raid. You needed loot drops from the first half of KF to have any hope of completing it. And since the drop rates were so crappy, you needed to repeat the first half of the raid A LOT before you were levelled up high enough to kill Oryx. And the Heroic Mode does the same thing all over again.

When it comes to the unique "identity" of each raid, I think the inherent nature of King's Fall work's against its replayability as well. To me, VoG is about mystery. The atmosphere and art design of the caves under Venus does do much for that raid. It is enigmatic, begging to be explored. And that carried through to the combat design as well. The encounters in VoG are so deep, with so many possible ways to tackle them, that I build an entire website dedicated to discovering and cataloging them. As demanding as they are, each encounter allows plenty of room for improvisation. That's the main reason it is so endlessly replayable.

While I don't think Crota's End is quite as good as VoG, I still absolutely love it. It was rough in places when it first launched, but by the time House of Wolves came along I enjoyed it almost as much as VoG. To me, CE is all about momentum. It has a more urgent pace to it. There's a great ebb and flow over the course of the raid where your fireteam pushes forward, then is required to pause and defend, hold out as long as you can, then use that urgency to launch yourselves back on the offensive. CE repeats that flow of holding your team in place and then launching you forward over and over again, and I think it works beautifully well. It's fast, chaotic, requires plenty of coordination, yet (much like VoG) it allows plenty of improvisation and moments of heroics. And as I've said many times, I still think the Bridge section of CE is the best encounter in the game.
The one thing that really works against CE IMO is the location. I was HYPED for a raid that took us down into the depths of the moon. But once we get transported into a different dimension, the raid looses some of the plausibility or believability for me. For all the impossible things going on in the depths of VoG, it felt like a believable place that could really exist under the surface of Venus. Crota's End was the first time a location in Destiny felt like something that could clearly only exist as a videogame level. The art design was no longer disguising the fact that these play spaces merely existed as arenas for the player to fight in.

The theme of King's Fall, to me, is "clockwork". Every encounter is a machine that requires the fireteam to perform a precise series of actions in perfect sync with each other. I really enjoyed the process of learning how to complete these machines with my fireteam. The first time my group got the timing down on the relay that leads to the warpriest was thrilling. But once you've done it a few times, that's all there is to it. Little or no room for improvisation, almost impossible to recover from mistakes. Combine this with the length of the raid and the light level/loot frustrations I mentioned above, and KF becomes the most punishing raid in the game by a very large margin. I also feel that King's Fall takes the same problems I have with the visual design of CE, and triples them. There isn't a single location in the entire raid that feels like it has any real reason to exist, aside from being a gameplay challenge for the player. None of it makes any sense as a real location. It makes for fun gameplay, but it fails to produce any sense of immersion in the surroundings; something that VoG did exceptionally well.

My impression is that all 3 raids have good and bad points. I agree that one of KF's biggest problems is the raw DPS check, but also, as I've mentioned before, the raid mechanics in KF are too obvious and video gameish.

VoG's mechanics are very well tucked into the story of VoG and game lore. The time travel, the oracles, everything is mysterious and has kind of an Indiana Jones feel too it. The reason for the relic, it's operation, all seem tied into the story seemlessly. The mechanics also encouraged some movement. You generally didn't need to stand in one place for very long, once you opened the gate you were finished.

CE was similar, but more straightforward. It seemed the only real mechanic was the sword and plate. While I feel that Crota was an epic fight if you were the sword bearer, it really was dull to be anyone else. The bridge encounter as it was intended to play also could be interesting, but CE's biggest failure was that it was so simple to cheese everything that no one played it straight.

KF fixes CE's solo issues, but really misses the feel VoG had. Every boss encounter requires you to stand in one spot for most of the encounter and shoot. The difficulty is entirely in the DPS per "round". While it probably requires the most coordination of all the raids to pull off, it just seems far duller and arbitrary then Atheon's or Crota's fight. Why are these plates here? Why does jumping counter clockwise on them work but clockwise does not? Why does Oryx pound them instead of doing something more effective? What the heck are the little pack man orbs? About the only mechanic that made sense to me was the corrupted light.

Oddly, the maze in the middle is something more of what I expected, and it of course a part pretty much everyone skips now. It's dark, mysterious, and has the secret plates. It reminded me of the light maze in CE, which was always hectic and fun, if a little frustrating when under leveled.

I think players need movement, shooting skill and teamwork to get the most out of the raid. VoG's Confluxes and Oracles, which mechanically essentially are intercept target/destroy mines yessssss, work well in that raid and give that feel. You are moving, communicating and trying to cover each one as players go down. KF it's really, you stand in one of two places, shoot mobs, then focus the boss.