The assumption that we are all the same paracausal entity has less in universe conflicts than there being 1.3-3.9m active guardians in the world. And there is already an established precedent for people working with other versions of themselves - whether or not by Vex time experiments doesn’t matter when the paracausal nature of Light already exceeds the Vex.

While I won’t get i to an argument that might conclusion is or is not supported by Lore, to the same effect I cannot accept a conclusion that all player guardians are somehow unique because it is equally or less supported by the Lore.

Oh, sorry, didn't notice.

No worries!

I've always chalked that bit up to Bungie not knowing exactly how to handle it. This decision is probably their most overt attempt at establishing a "way to do it." I am personally fine with it and too find it neat.

Me too. I think the issue is still there, though. When I finally do get into the raid, what's the explanation for the fact that the World's First team already did and cursed the Dreaming City, but I'm just not going in to do it? At a certain point, I think we just have to accept that's how it has to be, but I think if Bungie would start approaching the game from that angle, they could find creative solutions for that, and find ways to have it make more sense. The "Vex time shit" of the Vault of Glass is a good example of that, but you can't just use that excuse for everything.

Haven't been spoiled at all, but one theory of mine is that he'll still be able to present himself as a menace for repeated culling. He is a mystical, magical being after all.

I thought the details about his "power from the grave" was lampshading the possibility, at the very least.

Oh, sorry, didn't notice.

No worries!

I've always chalked that bit up to Bungie not knowing exactly how to handle it. This decision is probably their most overt attempt at establishing a "way to do it." I am personally fine with it and too find it neat.

Me too. I think the issue is still there, though. When I finally do get into the raid, what's the explanation for the fact that the World's First team already did and cursed the Dreaming City, but I'm just not going in to do it? At a certain point, I think we just have to accept that's how it has to be, but I think if Bungie would start approaching the game from that angle, they could find creative solutions for that, and find ways to have it make more sense. The "Vex time shit" of the Vault of Glass is a good example of that, but you can't just use that excuse for everything.

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian. The VoG Vex time stuff doesn’t even apply to that implication. It’s much farther reaching consequences.

Is that thought backed by known lore? Or is it a theory you have?

FWIW, I don’t know much if the lore around the VoG. Is it canon that our fire team went in and ended Atheon for good? I just feel like it’s really easy to chalk that particular raid up to “Vex time shit,” which can fit nicely with every fireteam still tackling that raid.

I'm referring to the first half of your post. What leads you to believe that we are all playing the same Guardian? This is the first time I'm hearing this perspective so I'm curious as to where it originated.

I didn't say that--Harmanimus did. I just replied to you to continue the discussion and make it clear that he could be totally right, and that my explanation for why we can all do the Vault of Glass is more just headcannon and an easy explanation for why it makes sense from both a story and gameplay mechanics perspective.

As for what lead hims to believe we're all the same Guardian . . . that is how Destiny sort of presents itself. Did you kill whatever was at the heart of the Black Garden? Did you kill Crota and Oryx? Took out Ghaul? Woke up the Traveler?

What do you know, I also did all of those things! How can that be? We're the same person. It's always been a weird disconnect between the story and the mechanical aspect of the game, and it probably always will be. I just chalk up to what it is though--the difficulty of telling an actual story where millions of people get to be the "hero" at the center. I think the game reacting to something like the first raid completion starts to address that issue in a cool way, though.

Oh, sorry, didn't notice.

I've always chalked that bit up to Bungie not knowing exactly how to handle it. This decision is probably their most overt attempt at establishing a "way to do it." I am personally fine with it and too find it neat.

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian. The VoG Vex time stuff doesn’t even apply to that implication. It’s much farther reaching consequences.

Is that thought backed by known lore? Or is it a theory you have?

FWIW, I don’t know much if the lore around the VoG. Is it canon that our fire team went in and ended Atheon for good? I just feel like it’s really easy to chalk that particular raid up to “Vex time shit,” which can fit nicely with every fireteam still tackling that raid.

I'm referring to the first half of your post. What leads you to believe that we are all playing the same Guardian? This is the first time I'm hearing this perspective so I'm curious as to where it originated.

I didn't say that--Harmanimus did. I just replied to you to continue the discussion and make it clear that he could be totally right, and that my explanation for why we can all do the Vault of Glass is more just headcannon and an easy explanation for why it makes sense from both a story and gameplay mechanics perspective.

As for what lead hims to believe we're all the same Guardian . . . that is how Destiny sort of presents itself. Did you kill whatever was at the heart of the Black Garden? Did you kill Crota and Oryx? Took out Ghaul? Woke up the Traveler?

What do you know, I also did all of those things! How can that be? We're the same person. It's always been a weird disconnect between the story and the mechanical aspect of the game, and it probably always will be. I just chalk up to what it is though--the difficulty of telling an actual story where millions of people get to be the "hero" at the center. I think the game reacting to something like the first raid completion starts to address that issue in a cool way, though.

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian. The VoG Vex time stuff doesn’t even apply to that implication. It’s much farther reaching consequences.

Is that thought backed by known lore? Or is it a theory you have?

FWIW, I don’t know much if the lore around the VoG. Is it canon that our fire team went in and ended Atheon for good? I just feel like it’s really easy to chalk that particular raid up to “Vex time shit,” which can fit nicely with every fireteam still tackling that raid.

I'm referring to the first half of your post. What leads you to believe that we are all playing the same Guardian? This is the first time I'm hearing this perspective so I'm curious as to where it originated.

The Light is Paracausal. The Guardian operates outside of linear time either Causal or Acausal (Forward and Reverse time) and the level at whih that has reality warping effects has not been fully explored. I think suggesting it doesn’t make mechanical sense is an undersell. It’s complex and not necessarily intuitive (Paracausality isn’t) but that doesn’t make it bad.

Maybe if they had been telling that story from the start I would feel different. But instead we are all experiencing the same story from different sets of eyes. We’ve never been playing with millions of Guardians in the world. That suddenly changing now is silly.

Crota killed thousands of Guardians on the moon. There are occasionally implications in the lore and in random comments from NPCs in the new Tower that a lot of Guardians died when the Red Legion cut off our Light. I'm not sure millions was ever implied, but thousands of Guardians existing at the same time certainly is... and that's enough scale to support all the random Guardians we've ever seen out and about...

My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. Survivor of the great disaster: the day we set out to retake our moon, united in a host of thousands, and found ourselves outmatched by one Hive champion of unspeakable power.

The Light is Paracausal. The Guardian operates outside of linear time either Causal or Acausal (Forward and Reverse time) and the level at whih that has reality warping effects has not been fully explored. I think suggesting it doesn’t make mechanical sense is an undersell. It’s complex and not necessarily intuitive (Paracausality isn’t) but that doesn’t make it bad.

No, the fact that it's an overly complicated hand-wavy way to make the story and the mechanics "make sense" is what makes it bad. It's them half-assing their way out of the corner they put themselves into in the first place.

Maybe if they had been telling that story from the start I would feel different. But instead we are all experiencing the same story from different sets of eyes. We’ve never been playing with millions of Guardians in the world. That suddenly changing now is silly.

I think the first paragraphed you just typed in this post is silly. We see every other Guardian out in the world, doing the same things we're doing, and they're all just paracausal entities that are actually still us and no one in the game has anything to say about that? That's ridiculous.

We have been playing with millions of Guardians out in the world, literally. We see it every time we log on and go to a Destination with other Guardians running around. To ignore that feels foolish to me.

It's clear we'll never see eye to eye on this--it's just more proof that Bungie has a basically impossible task. No matter what they do, someone will end up disappointed.

A theory derived from Lore. Nothing explicitly within the Lore states that every player Guardian is actually the same Guardian. But it is a conclusion that derives from Lore pretty easily and has yet to be contradicted in Lore (pending if there is anything counter to it within Forsaken) so take that as you will. It also supports all the in game storytelling better than other explanations (excluding this chnage to storytelling with LW)

No. As much as I love a good theory, there's just absolutely no support for this one. There are no references or even implications that your Guardian and other Guardians are somehow the same Guardian.

All this is, is a minor storytelling failure where Bungie wants to both acknowledge each player's accomplishments and make them the most important player similar to how they were the Master Chief in Halo while also having Destiny be an always on MMO style game where you routinely encounter other players out in the wild.

If we're going to derive anything, we should start at the far more easily explained. For a bunch of Guardians showing up in the Reef after Cayde-6's death... it would make far more sense and fit far better with the Lore for our Guardian to perhaps go first but for a bunch more Guardians to hear about Cayde's murder and to quickly follow. (From Rezyl Azzir, to Osiris, to Ana Bray, we've seen Guardians go where they please often despite direct orders telling them not to. That makes far more sense than trying to say all Guardians are paracausally linked and merged and whatever...)

My favorite little moment in Destiny that opposes this theory is back in D1 around the time of The Taken King, you could walk by Lord Shaxx and he'd ask you something like "were you one of the ones who managed to kill Oryx?!" That's how I think things should always be. I'd like to see the story always written to leave the possibility open either way that you were or weren't one of the Guardians to do X. Bungie would have to alter the more personal revenge tale of Cayde-6's death... but just sticking a few other random Guardian models in the same room would have been enough to give the impression that this upset more Guardians than just yours.

I should add, just to be clear. Knowing ahead of time that the raid goes up in level over the various encounters is totally fine. Knowing the level of the final boss, I can plan accordingly and jump in when I’ve hit a level I feel comfortable with. This is what part of why I don’t like blind raiding anymore. It was fine in the VoG/CE days because I knew that if I was able to start the raid, I could finish it. But King’s Fall changed things, and I felt bamboozled by the sudden switch. I’d just appreciate some clarity and transparency from the game when it comes to these kinds of things.

VoG and Crota's end had enemies start at the recommended level, and rise by two by the end. So the level 26 VoG had you facing 28 enemies by the end.

I believe (this was hour years ago after all) that a difference of 4 levels resulted in no damage. A difference of three was possible to damage, but given the mechanics of the raid it would not be completable. Two levels difference was doable but tough. One was only slightly tougher. For VoG and Crota, even if you got no drops, if you started at the recommended level of 26 you could definitely finish the raid. I believe you had to be 31 to do enough damage to Crota with the sword though?

Anyway, King's fall started at 280 and if I remember right it went to 310 by the end? That's the equivalent of a three level jump from VoG. Basically, it wouldn't be doable practically without level up.

I do not know how far up the enemies scale in Last Wish, but if it starts at 560 and you are going in under that, you are simply not going to be able to finish. Period.

Maybe if they had been telling that story from the start I would feel different. But instead we are all experiencing the same story from different sets of eyes. We’ve never been playing with millions of Guardians in the world. That suddenly changing now is silly.

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian. The VoG Vex time stuff doesn’t even apply to that implication. It’s much farther reaching consequences.

Is that thought backed by known lore? Or is it a theory you have?

FWIW, I don’t know much if the lore around the VoG. Is it canon that our fire team went in and ended Atheon for good? I just feel like it’s really easy to chalk that particular raid up to “Vex time shit,” which can fit nicely with every fireteam still tackling that raid.

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian.

I understand what you’re saying. I’m saying that’s stupid, and Bungie is smart enough to design a story and a campaign where that’s not true. Us all being the same Guardian doesn’t make sense within the mechanical structure of the game—it never has.

This stuff with the Last Wish and the Dreaming City is one small step towards bringing those two elements together. I say small step, because I very much doubt that the “story” of the raid will go forward and acknowledge that I wasn’t the first Guardian to accomplish that task when I finally get the chance to go in there.

I also recognize that to some degree those elements will always be at odds. But anything they do to bring them together and acknowledge that every player is another, different Guardian out there accomplishing things is a good step in a good direction, in my opinion.

Absolutely. In my opinion MMOs are terrible

It’s really weird that you spend so much time playing one then. (:

Yeah, but that's because it so heavily leans on the FPS side of things and has up until recently minimized MMO bullshit for the most part.

As a small example, look at the way Forsaken goes down. Ikora tells the player that they’re the only Guardian that can go do this thing, then we go to the Tangled Shore and it’s filled with other Guardians. The story they tell is immediately contradicted by what’s actually happening in the game they made. They could have very easily written it so that lots of Guardians are sent on the hunt and it makes more sense.

Which is exactly how they wrote the Dreaming City, btw. "Send in the Guardians."

Exactly! Thank you. I meant to make that point but I forgot!

Counterpoint: Being underleveled sucks and isn’t any fun at all. I don’t like feeling like I might as well just being throwing rocks. (:

It's all in your perspective. Your perspective is something along the lines of: "I can't do any damage and kill anything." Another perspective might be: "I'm gathering data each life to look for patterns and create strategies. Death is merely the rest on the gathering run." Until you've begun to try to execute the strategy, you're playing a different game entirely. That isn't just a player style that Raids tend to cater to, but a style that lives at the heart of what Raids are traditionally considered to be.

I can appreciate the sentiment of this post, but I can't see how it relates to the experience of playing a Destiny raid. How can you begin to solve the puzzles and mechanics of a raid if you can't stay alive, or clear the ads which trigger new phases within an encounter? You couldn't even really begin the process of figuring out the Bridge section in Crota's End if you can't fight off the Thrawl that swarm you on the plates, for example. It seems to me that being able to keep the ads at bay is a bare minimum requirement for any team hoping to make even the slightest bit of progress.

Again, I'm not arguing with the spirit of what you're saying... it just doesn't strike me as being possible in most Destiny raid fights.

Part of it becomes developing an "add-management" strategy to compensate for your lack of firepower. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it is a classic aspect of raiding.

I feel like this is exactly what we did with Lair 2. We developed a strategy to handle the adds, and that involved fine-tuning our load outs and positions. That we weren't able to kill the final boss didn't bother me once we figured out how to damage him. The latter was what mattered. It proved we could beat him with enough time, but at that point the blind raid was over. I had no problem quitting and coming back at a higher level armed with better strategies.

My point is just that you wouldn't have been able to get to the final boss unless everyone was high enough level to handle the rest of the raid up to that point. And I think that's where a lot of the contention around this issue stems from; The vaguery surrounding what level is actually realistically needed to complete the entire raid, combined with the huge time sink involved with reaching that level, exacerbated by the RNG nature of that grind.

Our point is that you can get to the final boss even when underleveled with the appropriate strategy. Finding that strategy is a classic aspect of Raiding.

I feel like we’re talking past each other a little :)

I know that finding the appropriate level to overcome a level gap is part of raiding. I enjoy it, to a point. What I’m specifically taking issue with is that being “underlevelled” is not a static thing in some of Destiny’s raids, because the goal posts change mid-raid. I beat Crota’s end many times when it first launched, and I was “underlevelled” the entire time. But I was equally underlevelled from the start to the end of the raid. I also knew after completing the first encounter that I would be able to beat the final encounter, once my group found the right strategy.

None of that holds true for Last Wish, because the enemies go up in level over the course of the raid. You might start the raid underlevelled, but find you are still able to overcome the gap by finding the right strategy. But that gap will only increase as the raid goes on. You WILL hit a wall. You just don’t know when, because there’s no way to know the light level of an encounter within the raid until you reach it. And once you hit that wall, focusing on a “strategy-building” run is pretty much impossible, because you literally get killed in 1 or 2 shots. Your team can’t survive long enough to figure anything out.

That’s the particular thing that I take issue with. If I’m high enough level to complete the first part of an activity, I should be high enough level to complete the entire activity. Hitting a level-wall (that isn’t communicated to the player at the start) after investing several hours into an activity is the precise opposite of a fun or engaging challenge, IMO. It’s closer to a simple waste of my time.

*edit*

I should add, just to be clear. Knowing ahead of time that the raid goes up in level over the various encounters is totally fine. Knowing the level of the final boss, I can plan accordingly and jump in when I’ve hit a level I feel comfortable with. This is what part of why I don’t like blind raiding anymore. It was fine in the VoG/CE days because I knew that if I was able to start the raid, I could finish it. But King’s Fall changed things, and I felt bamboozled by the sudden switch. I’d just appreciate some clarity and transparency from the game when it comes to these kinds of things.

As a small example, look at the way Forsaken goes down. Ikora tells the player that they’re the only Guardian that can go do this thing, then we go to the Tangled Shore and it’s filled with other Guardians. The story they tell is immediately contradicted by what’s actually happening in the game they made. They could have very easily written it so that lots of Guardians are sent on the hunt and it makes more sense.

Which is exactly how they wrote the Dreaming City, btw. "Send in the Guardians."

No, I’m literally saying that we are all playing he same Guardian. The VoG Vex time stuff doesn’t even apply to that implication. It’s much farther reaching consequences.

Is that thought backed by known lore? Or is it a theory you have?

Counterpoint: Being underleveled sucks and isn’t any fun at all. I don’t like feeling like I might as well just being throwing rocks. (:

It's all in your perspective. Your perspective is something along the lines of: "I can't do any damage and kill anything." Another perspective might be: "I'm gathering data each life to look for patterns and create strategies. Death is merely the rest on the gathering run." Until you've begun to try to execute the strategy, you're playing a different game entirely. That isn't just a player style that Raids tend to cater to, but a style that lives at the heart of what Raids are traditionally considered to be.

I can appreciate the sentiment of this post, but I can't see how it relates to the experience of playing a Destiny raid. How can you begin to solve the puzzles and mechanics of a raid if you can't stay alive, or clear the ads which trigger new phases within an encounter? You couldn't even really begin the process of figuring out the Bridge section in Crota's End if you can't fight off the Thrawl that swarm you on the plates, for example. It seems to me that being able to keep the ads at bay is a bare minimum requirement for any team hoping to make even the slightest bit of progress.

Again, I'm not arguing with the spirit of what you're saying... it just doesn't strike me as being possible in most Destiny raid fights.

Part of it becomes developing an "add-management" strategy to compensate for your lack of firepower. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it is a classic aspect of raiding.

I feel like this is exactly what we did with Lair 2. We developed a strategy to handle the adds, and that involved fine-tuning our load outs and positions. That we weren't able to kill the final boss didn't bother me once we figured out how to damage him. The latter was what mattered. It proved we could beat him with enough time, but at that point the blind raid was over. I had no problem quitting and coming back at a higher level armed with better strategies.

My point is just that you wouldn't have been able to get to the final boss unless everyone was high enough level to handle the rest of the raid up to that point. And I think that's where a lot of the contention around this issue stems from; The vaguery surrounding what level is actually realistically needed to complete the entire raid, combined with the huge time sink involved with reaching that level, exacerbated by the RNG nature of that grind.

Our point is that you can get to the final boss even when underleveled with the appropriate strategy. Finding that strategy is a classic aspect of Raiding.