Two more things:

1) one role can stay constant, which is one person needs to focus on Harpies during Time's Vengeance, when everyone else is wailing on Atheon.
2) Atheon could go down faster, because the away team won't have to have one eye on the timer and rush to the back in time to be teleported.

I don't have a problem changing it for hard mode, however. Hard needs to be hard, and this could have been a cool gotcha for hard mode players if they'd implemented it this way from the start.

I've been thinking the exact same thing since this was announced.

Wouldn't it be a cool dynamic, and offer a new spin on the same content?

Oh, you mastered the Raid on normal, did you? You have a plan? You know the sequence?

Well, that won't help you on hard mode. Surprise!

I disagree with the reason change. It seems apparent to me that Bungie made the decision for the encounter to teleport the three furthest players from Atheon into the Timestream. That seems to be pretty difficult situation to have come up because of a bug, as they have described it.

Just as it happens in every single MMO, the players figured out the mechanic and devised a strategy to overcome the encounter. So, when the players figure out the other strategies for future raids, will those be randomized, too? When does the randomization end? What's the big deal with players figuring out the mechanic?

I certainly believe randomizing the players that are teleported to the Timestream will make the encounter more dynamic, but I don't believe Bungie "didn't intend" for the encounter to be different than what we see now. If they wanted to randomize that aspect, they would have done that by launch.

It's awfully hard for me to buy that this is a bug in the code.

I agree that calling it a bug is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps there was a reason they didn't get to fix it before release? Perhaps it got pushed off the list by other priorities.

All that said, I really don't like the change. Allowing players some choice in their roles gave novice (or maybe weaker) players a better chance (although sometimes I think it's a tough call to say which job is easier, being on the home or away team). Some constancy in the teams allows for some subtle adjustments to be made in quick succession as you cycle through. It feels good when everyone gets in the zone, everyone is doing what they should, and you're making progress.

I don't have a problem changing it for hard mode, however. Hard needs to be hard, and this could have been a cool gotcha for hard mode players if they'd implemented it this way from the start.

Just as it happens in every single MMO, the players figured out the mechanic and devised a strategy to overcome the encounter. So, when the players figure out the other strategies for future raids, will those be randomized, too? When does the randomization end? What's the big deal with players figuring out the mechanic?

I certainly believe randomizing the players that are teleported to the Timestream will make the encounter more dynamic, but I don't believe Bungie "didn't intend" for the encounter to be different than what we see now. If they wanted to randomize that aspect, they would have done that by launch.

It's awfully hard for me to buy that this is a bug in the code.

"oh, so you're a programmer? Well today you are an artist, tomorrow you will record dialogue, and on Friday you're scrubbing toilets. It's important that everyone be able to do everyone else's jobs around here."

I think you might not understand what the word 'designed' means, if you can stand behind this statement.

It was DESIGNED the way they want it to play. It was released differing from that design, and it looks like they're taking steps to fix that.

That quote from Jonty Barnes would indicate otherwise.

Not to me it wouldn't.

It was DESIGNED the way they want it to play. It was released differing from that design, and it looks like they're taking steps to fix that.

I feel bad for you having to do the Vault of Glass your first time with random teleports :-p

My first time through was yesterday, with non-random teleports. I'm not sure I agree with this particular design decision - but that's not really the point here, is it? The point is that this change is not 'proof' of anything like what car was suggesting.

What's your character at on PhorPlay? I'll take you in Monday before the patch!

Still at 17. Not gonna change between now and Monday. :)

The fact is, the number or people who played and exploited this raid in the last month is tens of thousands of more QA then even their supposedly insane budget could have paid for.

And they want the raid to be challenging.

Don't you want it to be challending?

They want the gear that drops to mean something.

Don't you want it to mean something?

I havn't finished it yet, so this means more to me than to you. It means I wont finish it any time soon, and when I do clock it, I will have experienced all aspects of that final encounter.

Awesome.

I've run through the raid four times, Rag.

I've killed Atheon once. That's how difficult it is. Even with a team of 28 through 30's with experience we couldn't even do it. I spent ALL DAY yesterday attempting it to no avail.

Wut? On Normal!? Either you're doing something wrong, or you're just not good enough.

I've done 3 serious runs and completed all 3 times. Few DBOers, few peopled I'd never heard of before. Every time it was impromptu and we weren't anything like a team before it started.

Using the Relic isn't as hard as I thought it might be and was quite fun actually!

That sentence is an oxymoron.

Only if you think that designed and built are synonyms.

Or that having a vision and then making that vision into something real is easy.

You do kill oracles in the Templar fight, yes. You do kill Praetorians to open the door, yes.

The difference in the Atheon fight is that AS SOON as you get teleported, you're on a timer. The players outside the portal are fighting Supplicants, which are harpies that can home in on you and ONE HIT KILL YOU. The players INSIDE are slowly going BLIND. Their screen filled with darkness to where they can't see anything. If the Relic user doesn't clear out the enemies in time or by chance dies before the grenade meter fills so they can cleanse and release the blind from the players, the party wipes.

I've run through the raid four times, Raga.

I've killed Atheon once. That's how difficult it is. Even with a team of 28 through 30's with experience we couldn't even do it. I spent ALL DAY yesterday attempting it to no avail.

Your team has to work like clockwork, and assigning teams to do a certain job is what gets you through it. Making this random will eliminate all possibility to plan ahead or an already grueling challenge.

I'm sorry you haven't done the raid to experience this, but as someone who has I can't think of a worse idea.

No, I've done the Raid. I was designated the Relic Guy for the final section and really, it's not that hard. There's like four enemies on the ground for the Away Team to kill before the two shooters turn their attention fully to the Oracles. I got pretty good about taking out the ground enemies with the Relic's Death From Above attack. Most times the way would be clear by the time the Relic's cleansing ability was charged.

And the thing is, every Raid team that doesn't spoil themselves goes through a seemingly random teleport of their players at first. There's got to be some groups out there who never realized it was based on distance. They probably figured they were supposed to wing it, like with every other encounter in the Raid, and did just fine. Heck, our group didn't choose an away team based on their class or level or how leveled their weapons were. We choose to send the three who had never played the Raid before!

20 times. 1 completion. I've gotten to the Atheon fight four of those times, just due to time or whatnot.

I've fought Templar more than anyone needs to.

That sentence is an oxymoron.

Only if you think that designed and built are synonyms.

You do kill oracles in the Templar fight, yes. You do kill Praetorians to open the door, yes.

The difference in the Atheon fight is that AS SOON as you get teleported, you're on a timer. The players outside the portal are fighting Supplicants, which are harpies that can home in on you and ONE HIT KILL YOU. The players INSIDE are slowly going BLIND. Their screen filled with darkness to where they can't see anything. If the Relic user doesn't clear out the enemies in time or by chance dies before the grenade meter fills so they can cleanse and release the blind from the players, the party wipes.

I've run through the raid four times, Rag.

According to Bnet, I've done 28 raid runs, completing 12 of them, but it doesn't count times you get dropped or go to orbit to take a break, so I'd say it's really more like 18 runs, completing 12 of them. It does count each time you start the activity as a run, though, I think, as there's been a few times that we have to return to orbit due to a bug or dropped teammate or two.

Still, that's a dozen successful runs, half of them with a team of randoms culled together from the Tower or the LFG.

I've killed Atheon once. That's how difficult it is. Even with a team of 28 through 30's with experience we couldn't even do it. I spent ALL DAY yesterday attempting it to no avail.

It's not that difficult to kill Atheon. In this video, only half of us had completed the raid, and things kept going wrong. The key thing was that two of us knew how to work with the shield, so when one of us died and the other got sent into the past, we didn't miss a beat. All you need is for a few people in the group to practice with the shield. It's okay if you wipe, but you can't complain that you actually have to have some skill in more than one area to beat the raid. And I've done it with teammates who were 26 and 25 (like Revenant).

Your team has to work like clockwork, and assigning teams to do a certain job is what gets you through it. Making this random will eliminate all possibility to plan ahead or an already grueling challenge.

Again, all the plans in the world won't prepare you for the unexpected twists in the raid that happen simply because of gameplay. If it's grueling, it's because you probably suck, or your teammates do. Just gotta practice. Don't be afraid of the shield, and don't be afraid of being on either away or home team.

And you can still work like clockwork. Just because you get pulled into the timestream doesn't mean that YOU have to be the one to grab the shield if another teammate is better with it. quickly analyze the situation, and fill the role you trained for. But you should train for all roles.

I'm sorry you haven't done the raid to experience this, but as someone who has I can't think of a worse idea.

As someone who has done it way more times than you have, and on Hard to boot, I think it's a great idea.

The difference in the Atheon fight is that AS SOON as you get teleported, you're on a timer. The players outside the portal are fighting Supplicants, which are harpies that can home in on you and ONE HIT KILL YOU. The players INSIDE are slowly going BLIND. Their screen filled with darkness to where they can't see anything. If the Relic user doesn't clear out the enemies in time or by chance dies before the grenade meter fills so they can cleanse and release the blind from the players, the party wipes.

I've run through the raid four times, Rag.

I've killed Atheon once. That's how difficult it is. Even with a team of 28 through 30's with experience we couldn't even do it. I spent ALL DAY yesterday attempting it to no avail.

Your team has to work like clockwork, and assigning teams to do a certain job is what gets you through it. Making this random will eliminate all possibility to plan ahead or an already grueling challenge.

I'm sorry you haven't done the raid to experience this, but as someone who has I can't think of a worse idea.

It was DESIGNED the way they want it to play. It was released differing from that design...

That sentence is an oxymoron.

I don't think anyone can deny that they're just doing shit to increase player's game time now to compensate for the lack of content.

I agree completely.

Anyone who says otherwise is just splitting hairs. This is blatant. This is proof that Bungie can't stand by the game as it was originally designed.

Come on, be fair. This is the Bungie that said, "We want to improve, grow and evolve Destiny in the coming weeks, months and - hopefully - years." "When you come together in the public spaces of Destiny, we’ll be watching. Our studies of your behavior will inform the way that our game engine will evolve over time" and talked about in interviews how the development of Destiny didn't stop when the game shipped like with the Halos and how they hoped or even expected to continue to add features down the road.

With the change to the Cryptarch and rebalancing of two of the five weapon classes we've already seen changes to the way the game was originally designed that many agree were for the best. Bungie has even mentioned going back and making changes to the balance between the player classes. Bungie told us they planned to improve the game as time went on and I think that is exactly what the up teleport change is meant to do.

For me, the upcoming change is going to make the final section of the Raid more interesting and dynamic that it was. I Raided for the first time today and I played almost exclusively on the away teams because each time I suggested staying home someone replied with something like "Raga, you're really good with the Relic." I was pretty good with the Relic, but I also didn't get to experience a major part of the final battle. If I play the Raid again I'll get a better, fuller experience. And that's a bad thing??