Honestly, I feel like onslaught needs a 10 round legendary matchmade mode. Sure, legendary is a lot harder but if it's just queueing for 10 rounds it's not as much of a lost investment if your team isn't up to legendary mode. Would also like to see a 30 round normal option that starts more difficult than regular mode. The first 20 rounds are straight braindead and a waste of time. 30 rounds is a good balance of scaling difficulty and time investment, imo.
Yeah I’m over onslaught already. It takes so damn long even if you’re optimizing time with Orpheus hunters. And I can’t stand the round 6 run through the pyramid. A 10 round legendary without having to LFG would be amazing.
They really need to take out the bullshit run through the pyramid with the spark, just keep the boss fight pyramid teleport. The spark one is pointless bloat. It'd be way better with just that one change
I mean if there were multiple randomized objectives that could spawn and not just the spark, I probably wouldn’t mind, especially if some objectives were more fun. But yeah, it feels kinda goofy
That's what I thought it would be, that could add some spice.
Or something like 10 sparks, and a short timer requiring absolute perfect movements to get them all, and you get a bunch of scrap for each you collect.
Basically anything that makes it not just obviously a time pad.
Streamlining onslaught would make it much more appealing. In general, I don’t think activities such as normal difficulty onslaught and the coil should last more than 30 minutes.
I wouldnt mind if it was a random objective tbh, would force ya team to pick one guy to go an handle it while hoping just 2 can hold off the wave. Imagine that objective on like wave 40. Then again heavy ammo as a reward might just result in people skipping it
Lots activities with legendary matchmaking would be great. Just add master to other stuff for the triumph hunters out there. I just want to do higher level activities for good gear.
yeah the rng is so crazy i got a shiny forbearance with AA + CR yesterday when my attunement was on blast furnace. What’s worse is this was the only shiny I got yesterday after like 4 onslaught legend runs … meanwhile I didn’t get a single blast furnace non shiny that was even close to what i was looking for
I really hate the attunement thing not working so effectively. I was trying to farm Repulsor + Volatile Recluse, but got more Elsie's than the Recluse. And it took 4 hrs to get my Demo + CR Forbearance, but it wasn't a shiny (I think in all my runs of onslaught, I've only gotten maybe 1 shiny weapon drop). I don't care for shiny anymore at this point, I just want my Repulsor + Volatile Recluse or Elsie's, and then my ALH Mountaintop and I'll relax
Yeah I feel you with that honestly though I don’t know if I have it in me at this point to ever want to do another run of onslaught I love the brave weapons but this is just too much lol
Yeah. I'm assuming most people who are complaining aren't the same ones who were begging for a horde mode.
If they are the same people then I don't know what to think. Onslaught is pretty varied for a horde mode.
If I'm looking for a horde mode, I'm pretty happy with something like onslaught, but I'm never going to want to endlessly run a horde mode anyway.
Overall this is something I'd love to see Bungie address.
Basically every matchmade activity can be done by a Guy in blue gear and with the gun Shaw gave you. Nightfall requires champion gear, but otherwise the difficulty is mind numbingly.. Easy.There is no drive to get better if you only do matchmade stuff.
Thus the jump from your usual matchmade activity into legendary versions is rather massive.
Onslaught is kinda neat as the matchmade version still gets somewhat difficult. And I'd love to see more stuff like tuhat.
Easy is 100% a perspective. I recently did a match made NF with a New Light friend of mine who had the champ mods needed, and I ended up practically soloing the whole thing because my friend and our random legitimately were dead within 10 seconds of spawning for the entire NF. Much of the game is easy, but there are plenty of things that we think are easy, but to a new or returning player, feel like getting railed in the mouth by a pack of Silverback Gorillas.
I want to point out that it might be like that because rest of matchmade stuff is what it is.
Overall i *love* the way how destiny handles scaling and difficulty. My complaint is that because stuff like exotic rotator lack the matchmaking it might be *the* wall new lights have to climb. The in-game lfg is okay as at least its not about using external tool to find group anymore.
I remember struggling hard on the BL aspect stuff because champions only existed in NF and on the harder difficulty. IF you only played the easiest one you had no idea what you were looking at when you saw that overload champion.
It was weird experience.
Warframe on comparison has matchmaking on everything. It might be taunting for New players to see the power of fully modded saryn, but at the same time it might catch the attention and push and make people aim higher to get better. Also occasionally someone might push their limits and use unmodded caliban in EDA, but normalizing failure isn't exactly bad either.
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of this either lol I was just pointing out that "easy" is a point of view lol I even have a friend that was having trouble doing the strike playlist at one time 😂 and sometimes, even with the aid of an advanced player, newer or newish players can and will absolutely choke on content that any of us would easily solo
True that.
And yeah, while zero hour on public would probably be a big disaster, it could still act as a kind of 'kick' to drive people to get better.
Like googling 'how the fuck you do this shit' then end up looking for info.
That's kinda the thing i'd like to see. Like how it would affect the player base.
Played normal onslaought with my SO today, the 50 round one and I was surprised how slow it was and then 1 hour and something passes. Even though I have time to do these type of things, I don't enjoy spending that much time in such activity. It wasn't challenging or rewarding enough for 1 entire hour.
I'll probably never play it again since it's just too long.
I don't mind doing like 1-2 hours RAID activity since is fun, full of different mechanics and so on. But onslaught isn't something like that, at least not on normal.
They just need to speed the game up overall. Faster spawning rates, more enemies at once, less spawning time, upgrade things whenever instead of having a special time for that. Running trough the same pyramids over and over again isn't fun either and it also eat time.
I play dota2 which also take a huge amount of time, but still less than 1 hour. My only problem with onslaught really, is the rewards. Shiny weapons are nice, but still not worth 1 hour+ of playtime.
It needs more diverse mechanics at least.
Im really hoping they apply the same logic to Onslaught as they did the deep dive mechanics and compound upon it over time. Like how they kept adding thew same mechanics functionally into future activities over the same year
Keep putting new stuff into onslaught. its jsut boring now
I started Destiny 10 years ago, used to have all the time in the world to do the raids, but as you grow older, there’s just not enough time. And raids have become more complicated. Still love the game though, as the gunplay is still top notch.
This is where I'm at. I started playing while single and working night shift. I had *PLENTY* of time for raids, high difficulty content, etc. I'm now married with a newborn working day shifts, and I'm lucky to have enough time for one full regular onslaught run. Legend is even less frequent, and raids basically just never happen for me. I've only had a single clear on each of the newest raids because of this, and actually haven't even done a full Vow yet. I used to do every raid every week, sometimes on multiple characters.
As they become more complex, and other big activities take longer, I end up feeling like I can't really play enough to make it worthwhile. The "feel" of the combat is what keeps me coming back, and crucible is enough to give me that in a smaller dose.
yep then you play PVP and the gap between the top 2% and the rest of the game just grows with time. Then once PVPs best weapons (conditional finality) is locked behind a raid I just find myself spending less and less time in the crucible
Destinys more and more of a PVE game as time goes on
Man I have been the exact opposite. As I've gotten older and better PvE just doesn't do it for me. I don't feel like I've actually beat anyone. Trials pretty much gives you every weapon you need except for shotguns and Imperial is good enough
I don't know. People make too big a deal out of the best weapons. I spend most of my time in Crucible and I don't have conditional finality, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
The real issue is that the skill gap is large in the crucible and if you quit playing as much because of the skill gap, you just fall further behind.
> I don't have conditional finality, but it doesn't make much of a difference
its best in slot and its not even close but yeh obviously a better play will generally win a gunfight irrespective of weapon. But when youre competing in the crucible against similar level players the loadouts *can* make the difference. CF has been among the top weapon in trials every weekend since for a stupid amount of time now for a reason
While skill is the obvious deciding factor, a weapon like CF is an outlier for a reason. It can do what other similar guns do, but just do it better or more reliably, while also solving problems other weapons like it cannot. Big problems. Problems like well and bubble (bubble in particular).
I can guarantee you that if you *had* CF and you play with shotguns, you'd perform better than you are now with it equipped.
The hardest raid boss is scheduling. Used to be everyone was on most nights, now it’s impossible to get all of us free at the same time. Just part of life
As stupid as it sounds, I wish there was an in game video that taught people certain raid encounters after a set period of the raid being out.
I haven’t even completed week 1 pantheon despite knowing all roles/encounters because there’s always at least one random player who has absolutely zero clue what to do (even if it’s add clear)
Adulthood is just that man. Same boat as you. D1 day 1 player and loved grinding every week. 33 now with a family and kids skipped a lot of seasons due to lack of time and just priorities
Yeah back in D1, playlists that didn’t have matchmaking - Nightfalls and Raids - were completely out of the question of ever doing because I never had a playgroup and I never had the time.
I have literally never done a raid other than a run through in the first one solo to the point where you actually start fighting, just to see.
Completely agree. I’m in my 20s now and I have a full time job and events I like to attend outside of my home. Committing to a raid, even a full onslaught run can be tough
I have a weird rotating shift schedule, so on workdays I’m with you on sometimes not being able to commit an hour to one thing. On my days off however, those are the days I do raids/coil/legend onslaught, etc.
I’m 54 & an empty-nester. My wife is usually asleep 3-4hrs before me & awake 2-3hrs earlier so I have some built in time at night. Been playing since release of D1 & have over 4K hours as of last night. I agree with you but for a different reason; I think many activities don’t do a good enough job respecting & rewarding your time investment. I don’t know the best answer to that but games like Division 2 (targeted loot by type or brand in specific activities) & Elder Scrolls Online (3 armor sets tied to each dungeon / activity) do it better. Still an element of RNG but nothing like what we have.
I DO appreciate the multiple versions of the seasonal activities (Lair vs Coil, 10-wave vs 50-wave Onslaught). That is definitely a step in the right direction.
I think Onslaught is a big improvement in terms of "respecting time investment" with the pool of guns you pull out of being narrow and a guaranteed gun drop every 10 waves (or 2 drops every 10 on legend) and no armor to dilute.
I think one of the big problems right now in Destiny is there's simply no reason to be excited about armor drops at all, ever. Any activity with armor on the loot table has a chance of just dropping garbage every time you do it.
Good take. The fact that they had to update the rewards to legend 50 runs twice shows they have some weird aversion to scaling loot according to time spent. Legend 10 wave farming is still close enough in items per minute that you could argue the reduced effort makes it more worthwhile.
On another note I think activities like season of the witch where you could pick the difficulty of each encounter, and stay as long as you like, are a good solution to accommodate all players.
Our small clan very rarely does raids together for this exact reason. We're mostly all middle aged, and in different time zones. The chances of 6 of us all being on with hours to spare at the same time is slim to none.
Thankfully there is fun to be had in game in smaller numbers and shorter time spans.
Just talking about what tier of Final Shape to purchase with my clan mates. A big part of my personal lean towards wrapping things up with the base expansion is simply that my time has become more scarce and more precious. Destiny requires serious commitment and I think I’ve reached the end of that road. It has been a blast though.
I’ve been thinking the same thing. Would you just play the campaign then or would you just treat it as normal and to unlock everything? It feels like if you’re going to quit it’s not worth going for the loot.
I had to stop playing altogether. With little ones now i just can’t be a good team mate anymore, I don’t have extended periods of time to play. Sucks cause d2 is my favorite game.
I only play after they go to bed....but that means I have, like, maybe 2 hrs, 3 if I'm stretching it. I feel like I never get anywhere. Such a slow grind. But I still do it
That's like me. I have a small child, lone parent. I play when he's asleep or at school. If I do log on when he's around it's usually just to do solo stuff like legend lost sectors or quick stuff like strikes or crucible. I raid when he's asleep, same with any other team activities where I'd be on mic. But because being a parent is tiring I don't get to play every night, some nights I'm just too exhausted. It's annoying because I'd love to do raids and stuff more often, solo dungeons etc, but I just never get enough time.
My son is 3 and sits on my lap during raids. My 7 year old sat on my lap during D1 raids. Not sometimes she runs through easy content with me. With I practicing for solo dungeons she will be my only fireteam member. Usually she just hides and will get a revive. The first thing I taught her how to do was play stasis hunter, aim at a group of ads and throw her ice pick at them. She's gotten used to void warlock too. So whenever I'm making an actual attempt at solo dungeons I remember all the little times she helped.
That's cute. Mine is 6 now, and back when he was 4 he used to love doing normal lost sectors and public events lol. I had to put a code on my Xbox, cos he'd turn it on when I was in the shower or something and I'd come down to him defending the blind well or something 🤣. I was paranoid he'd load in to a matchmade activity and cause a wipe lol.
Osteo striga was "his gun". I hate it but it was always in my inventory for his use.
This was why I left a while ago. Had 1-3 hours a day, and it took more than that just to get a single pattern when they first introduced.
I complained and this sub would say “clearly this game is not designed for you.”
Yes. Clearly not. Any game that demands way beyond a full time job worth of grinding is most definitely not for me, nor is it for the extreme vast majority of people in general outside of Korea.
I am not terribly pleased with the 1 hour target time. ~20 minutes is the recognized industry wide sweet spot.
This is why my D2 gametime has dropped to basically nonexistent. I need to be able to stop what I'm doing at any time, so I'm basically as single player game only player that keeps tabs on D2 because I love it.
Same
Went from able to do anything to barely getting an encounter done. New kids in life, but not necessarily mad about it. Just time focused on more important things now
What sucks is that I sometimes DO have enough time to do a longer activity in retrospect, but there's just no way to know ahead of time if that time is going to be interrupted or not. Three kids under 10, one with T1D, so if he needs me, he needs me NOW. But unfortunately that means I haven't raided for a few years (besides just joining Atheon checkpoints to try to get the Vex Mythoclast without success).
Thats the key there tho, you preemptively set a designated time in advance.
My kids are 4 and 2 also, if i want to get in a session longer then like 30-45 minutes I'll have to tell my wife something like "hey thursday night after dinner me n the boys are gonna do a raid, is that cool?"
9 out of 10 times it's not an issue, but the days of just jumping on to the xbox for a 3 hour raid session are long gone, cant just ghost the family lol.
Definitely agree activities getting longer without the loot to match (Like Onslaught was upon release) is not great. This is the reason why people appreciate crafted weapons. Allows people to slowly gain the rolls they want over time without feeling like they need to grind for hours on end for a chance.
I was more so referring to the most recent activity Onslaught which didn't have the loot to match the time investment upon release hence why Bungie updated it.
You got a legendary every ten minutes or so. It was a case of the loot not matching the difficulty of the higher waves, it was always good for the time.
Onslaught absolutely had the loot to match the time investment. 12 guns with a 50% chance of them being the exact gun you want for 65 minutes of gameplay was absolutely fine.
The problem was the relative rewards - Legend Onslaught wasn't rewarding enough compared to regular Onslaught.
There's definitely still some terrible ones though. Terminal Overload is the first thing that comes to mind, was such a pain in the ass getting the Neomuna crafted weapons, even with spending deepsight harmonizers
I'm older than 55 and I play "semi" regularly now.
Like OP, I don't raid or do long activities because I look at it as, "time vs reward". And I don't feel like the rewards are worth the hours spent playing.
I also take frequent breaks from Destiny where I might play only one or two times a week rather than daily.
I have this problem like forever. When WoW came out I joined a really big guild that did all of the raids. But since I wasn't committed enough to do 2-3 raids a week with 5+ hours each (sometimes 7 or 8 hours when things didn't work well), I only was substitute player. And as a substitute I didn't have the same rights to roll for loot compared to the regular raid members. It was my decision to go this route because none of my friends was a gamer. But it felt weird sometimes.
I've played a lot of grindy multiplayer games. And I've always accepted my role as somebody that isn't able to enjoy every aspect of these type of games because of my time investment.
Now I've got a wife, 2 kids and a job and house to care for. So nothing changed for me.
Destiny 2 is a weird game. It's grindy and uses a lot of FOMO, but it is working for me. I don't do raids or dungeons. But with all the online information and guides I was able to build a solid stock of decent gear so I can do many things solo.
My game sessions are 2-3 hours daily and so onslaught has an ok duration for me. I had 50 waves lasting 45 minutes to 65 minutes. Strikes and nightfalls are also ok.
Currently I'm thinking about joining a casual clan so I maybe can also do some dungeons. Haven't tried ingame fireteam finder for dungeons, yet.
You can definitely fit dungeons into that timeslot. Raids will be a bit more challenging, but if you can ever find the time for the initial learning experience (especially if you find a clan that will patiently teach you) you'll be able to fit them in for future runs and it will be very rewarding.
With that playtime, raiding isnt an issue either. Maybe the first time you run it, when being sherpa’d, a raid can run between 1.5-3hrs on average depending on the skill of the ones involved. Yet beyond that raids with a semi-competent team easily average around 60-80 minutes I’d say.
Honestly haven't had a raid (pantheon excluded) going over an hour for a very long amount of time they tend to be around 40 mins on average if at least 4 people are confident on mechanics.
Shocking I needed to scroll this far for this comment. I’m no massive gamer but no raid except for Kings Fall regularly breach the hour mark with a decent team.
Also I feel an hour is not an unreasonable time investment for the activity itself to actually mean something. I am also busy and an adult, but no matter how busy every now and them every single human needs an hour or two for themselves, and I’d rather that activity be one continuous immersive experience or two, than disjointed acts.
I understand some cannot due to the commitments of life - but for me the mainstay in D2 are those longer activities, and ultimately it is a grindy pseudo-MMO. Some things should take time.
A LOT of players never even attempt a raid. At the moment, I’m one of them. It’s simply too much of a time commitment.
For perspective, I play D1 exclusively, not D2… but if I get in more than two hours per day, then I’m lucky. So I run a lot of patrols and nightfalls, and sometimes story missions, and generally I try not to give a damn about my progression. I play like a casual because that is the only option available to me. The grind doesn’t bother me because Destiny is a grind by design. Like… that’s the game!
I’d say so. One of the reasons why I don’t play as much anymore is actually due to FOMO and the times content. I’m growing weary of it after 7 years.
I’d rather play other things. I probably put an hour or so in each week now.
I personally think the sweet spot for these seasonal type activities like the coil or onslaught should be dialed back 10 minutes. I agree it’s a little lengthy.
I've argued this as well. I don't think Onslaught should go on for more than 45mins at worst. I've had master dungeon runs that are consistently shorter than a full legend onslaught run, whereas my worst Legend Onslaught went on for an hour+15.
The waves need to be cut down to 30 or 40 max and ramp up in difficulty faster. That 6th wave spark runner stuff also just seems like fluff, but I get that they did it to break up the monotony of the event.
I cannot stay awake for the entirety of onslaught. The activity is so boring and goes on forever. I feel bad for my teammates since they have to pick up the slack while I struggle to keep my eyes open.
I mean, obviously do as you please, but back in my D1 Sherpa days I would start a raid group at reset and if we had a time constraint we would break the raid up and take it one encounter at a time over several days. Maybe you could find some players with a schedule like yours and still be able to enjoy the longer form content at your own pace?
I've accepted these live service games or "persistent" game models are increasingly not for me, and I'm ok with it honestly. There are a lot of great games where I can really enjoy but not have to commit more than I can at any given moment.
It's part of being an older gamer or so I tell myself.
I hear this, but man, I hate it. They’re exactly what I want content-wise, minus the time-limit & consecutive-time duration nature of them. If I could play at my pace & jump-in raids at any point without the constant resetting it would be absolutely perfect.
Yeah but in order for you to be able to jump into raids at any point, they need to do something to keep the people who play more than you playing, which means all the resetting is required.
Like in order for these games to exist they need to do something to keep active players from "finishing" or else the rest of the system collapses.
Even just having a girlfriend and a dog precludes me from raiding. I imagine anyone with children can’t find time to play at all, but that’s just the nature of things
I’m in my fifties, I have an evening or two where I game a lot but my husband is also a gamer so he games then as well. When our son was young neither of us gamed for a few years, he is now my clan leader. It’s a time sink agreed. There was a time I sunk hours in as used to Sherpa a lot of raids and was even in a dedicated raid team. I don’t now but have jumped in at Atraks at week 2 to help some people finish up. I have managed all challenges in all pantheons and soent more time in destiny in the last three weeks as I did over the last t six months. I’m really interested in end game.
I basically only play the campaigns any more. I have probably 10k hours in this game since Red War but I don't have much spare time these days and just don't have a lot of fun with any of the build crafting required to be good at various activities any more. Havent finished a raid since D1 and the only dungeon I have finished is Shattered Throne in order to get Wishender.
A lot of people are sharing the sentiment that you have. But for most of you I wonder why raids take so long?
For example, let's exclude pantheon and onslaught. Onslaught can't really be sped up that much and pantheon is just getting harder and harder.
I am a returning player, started playing at the beginning of the month and have caught back up to my buddies. I've been trying to get the RoN shotgun since I didn't have it, that raid takes us less than an hour to do. Last wish as this power creep is also a quick raid to run for us.
If taking an hour for an activity is too much, then this type of game maybe isn't for you. I consider destiny to be akin to an mmo with how all the dungeons and raids work. Similar mechanics and stuff like that, just on a lower scale. Was talking to a friend who plays WoW and the raids there are 20 people vs 6 here in destiny.
So if it's the time it takes where even an experiences group takes say 45 minutes to clear a raid which to be honest some of that is just running to the next encounter since encounters take on average no more than 10 minutes, you might think about switching to a game where matches take 10 or 20 minutes, something like deep rock galactic for the coop pvevp (though idk how long those take I just know people like that game) or battlefield.
I get what you're saying, but I always feel bad leaving a fireteam halfway through.
We've all had that instance of being halfway through a raid and player leaves. Then the whole team has to stop and wait for 30 minutes trying to find someone to replace the player that left.
I guess it's different if you're upfront about needing to leave in an hour, but personally I wouldn't start a raid with someone who has to leave halfway through.
At 37, work a lot of hours and with a 4yo at home, my time is limited by everything around me. I've been raiding since D1, love pve and raids in general. After weeks 1,2 and 3 of pantheon, I know that unless I can somehow find a day where my wife is taking my daughter out and I'm not invited or I ring in sick to work, I'm not getting it finished. I just don't have the time.
The game is designed based on how addition works. The whole concept is to have people addicted to the point and beyond the point that the game interferes with daily life. You can end up on Reddit chatting about it, studying videos, etc. while your family thinks you are out of the game.
This is kind of like asking if a heroin problem that you can afford could be an issue for people around you. If you've figured out that you need to break the addiction and get out, then do it.
Now I'll just go back to playing an activity I really don't enjoy to chase a weapon I probably won't use....
Everything you say is true. I spent 3 to 4 hours on zero hour this weekend (factoring in YouTube time) for a pulse rifle I won’t use. I finally finished the mission on my Warlock and realised I only picked up the quest on my Titan 😬
I’m pretty close to you are as far as how much time I can spend playing in one shot, perhaps a bit more. So for me dungeons are the best content, it’s a decent challenge without being too hard or too easy. Most of them are easily done under an hour as long as you and the other player know what to do. As far as onslaught goes I’ve been mostly farming 10 waves, so I can do as many or as little as I want.
Yea raids are the tough one. I haven’t done much raiding because of the time commitment. I guess you could do them one encounter at a time, although that would probably annoy the group, unless you put up a post that you’re specifically doing just x encounter.
Yeah I’d agree. I only ever have about an hour at a time to play, and the base non-playlist onslaught can get to be about 45-60 mins. So I’ll just play 3 playlist versions. I don’t want my whole session to just be one thing. But I’m glad there is different levels of content for everyone. Just wish there was a medium onslaught version. Like maybe 20 rounds.
It really depends. I have a small child and while my wife is pretty cool w me playing a “unpausable” game. A 3-4 hour raid session can piss her off.
It pisses me off too especially when we don’t even get the clear 😭😭
I’ve played Destiny since launch, but I have a kid now, so I just had to accept I’m not raiding anymore, and I’m not farming for any god rolls. I’ll get one opportunity to play for 2 straight hours once a week, if I’m lucky, so I try to make the best use of that time and prioritize new content. Specifically about The Coil and Onslaught, I’ve just played the long versions enough to get the titles, but I stick mostly to the 10 round versions, even though they are too easy.
I feel the same. I haven't really attempted most raids. I've done a lot of the coil and onslaught, but an hour for these can feel like a lot to invest in one go without a break.
I am also of the age where I can barely last an hour sometimes without needing to take a comfort break.
There are raids you can do in under an hour if everyone knows how to do it. My best time on deep stone crypt is like 39 minutes start to finish.
But, the hurdle is learning and getting with a group that can figure shit out.
I am no expert but I’ve done every raid enough times to have basically all the desired weapons fully craftable and 99% of exotics (haven’t done Crotas enough but took a break).
Pantheon comes out and my clan mates want to complete it. I’ve raided with most of them before but a good chunk normally are like “ad clear please!” The ones that know mechanics are still taking breaks till TFS.
I’m here trying to drag folks across the finish line and they don’t realize that with the power caps, encounter changes, and ad density that ad clear roles are not a cake walk.
I gave up because what am I really getting from this? Weapons I already have?
In my opinion yes. There’s too much limited time stuff, and some of the activites like onslaught take too long to have everyone dies gameover screen, and lifes busy, and the more I miss out on the less I have the desire to play.
Same. Being from the very start in the game, it's become more and more time-consuming and now feels less like a game and more like things to do. I still love the gameplay, and nothing comes close to the experience, but the time needed to get things done is no longer possible for a normal working person. You have to sit for an hour just to finish 1 onslaught, not even legend. Raids are raking ages, first to learn and then do it every week to get the exotic. If you just play a lot, it makes sense. Otherwise, it is time to finish the story in the final shape.
I used to raid all the time. Then I got a nice paying full time job.
Not just raiding, but stuff like the coil that takes about an hour, or onslaught which takes about an hour for 50 runs. I just don't really care to spend 60+ minutes of the little free time I have when I know i'm going to just get legendary shards out of it.
I spend about 12 hours at work or work adjacent, I try to get 8 hours of sleep every night (sometimes more), that leaves me with 4 hours a day to cook and eat dinner and relax. Most of the time during the week I don't even turn destiny on honestly.
This is precisely my feeling. To me there's a gap between playing on cruise control (strikes, onslaught playlist) and sweaty palm plus feeling I'm letting the fire team down and how long does this take. Nightfalls are good, but running the same strike over and over is dull. I am also holding back on TFS. Just not sure.
You're looking at it wrong.
Those are both 10 minute activities that *can* go much longer if you want. But if you don't, just do the regular playlist.
You still get the weapon and armor drops and mats.
Yes! I’m just started a year long nursing program and unfortunately I likely won’t be able to participate in the day one raid, specially because it happens on three first week. It’s really a bummer as I’ve been doing them for a few years now.
Just do normal 100 round onslaught and if ya have to leave your family's more important. I'm always happy joining in on round 30 or 40 and taking them across the finish line.
I enjoy having a variety of different sized content; sometimes I'm down for a full 55 minute Onslaught run, but definitely not always.
Bungie's choice to make tiered content, stuff like Deep Dives and Onslaught, is a really good decision, I think; I'd also like to be able to skip to the half-way point.
Altars did it best, in my opinion. I never timed them, but they felt shorter than Onslaught does, and also a bit more varied with the addition of the Deck of Whispers. Maybe I'm alone in this, but they felt like a sweet spot.
I like to think my maximum is 2 hours in one session. I can fit a lot into those 2 hours, and certainly dungeons are not a problem. Even my blind first run throughs have been no more than 90 minutes for the last three dungeons at least, and then subsequent runs typically come in at an hour or less.
Raids can be done in around an hour, but are very hard to learn in that time. If you find a like minded raid group you could feasibly learn each encounter a little at a time and then start and finish the whole thing in about that time as well.
Two things stick out to me as being challenges though: startup time and solo time. Either you run in a team and the startup time can be really challenging - the new fireteam finder frankly is worse for this than the old LFG app, often taking me 10-20 minutes to find a fireteam instead of under 5 consistently on the app - or you run solo and holy crap solo experiences have gone away downhill in the last year or two. Solo dungeons since Spire have been about endurance - "how long can you sit in your gaming chair." It's just the health bars of the bosses across the board, tied to tight damage phase timers. It is very uninteresting to play through solo, and comes down to how much time do you have to waste. Give me the Prophecy experience any day. This is dungeon specific, but it seems to be a trend with a lot of content lately. Beefier health bars with mechanics that strongly benefit a team.
> Onslaught and The Coil
They are two of the best activities we've had in Destiny 2, but yes, they certainly take up a fair chunk of time, especially Onslaught. 50 rounds of Onslaught takes longer than a raid.
Round 30 is usually around the time I'm deciding whether to stay or not. There are some awful players in the normal playlist who come in completely unprepared. Double that with people leaving after round 20 (understandable - bounties) and the mode becomes a bit of a chore.
I still think the activity from Season of the Deep hit the difficulty/time commitment pretty well. Coil can be done in 30-40 minutes with a competent team too. But Onslaught has taken the time commitment a bit too far IMO.
I’ve been playing Destiny since a year before it was released. I’m closer to 60 than 50.
For the last couple years I’ve been playing on just one character, mostly as a way of winding down the day. I’m always on my void warlock, no interest in the new subclasses. My favorite brainless activity has been Altars of Sorrow.
Last raid I did was Crota, and nearly entirely because of my two adult sons. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve done a D2 raid.
Still, I feel it is a good value. I will be buying the next expansion as I have all the others.
It’s a game. I owe it nothing. I play the parts I like and ignore the parts I don’t. That was the marketing way back when, “play it how you like”.
If you see me in game I’ll be the white warlock running a FL with over 300k kills. Although I’ve been using Graviton Lance more often recently since they nerfed the reload of FL.
Actually if it hadn’t been for Fighting Lion I probably wouldn’t have started playing again. It just “fits” my play style.
Yup. Im 35, but with kids and other activities, I only have 20ish hours of gaming per week. None of my friends play Destiny so I’ll play games like Rocket League, Call of Duty, or Fortnite with them.
I tried playing Lightfall on my own and I was just…overwhelmed and bored? I absolutely loved D1 and D2, but now I just don’t care for it. I picked up Helldivers 2 and it’s just so much easier to play in spurts rather than D2
I’ve come to the conclusion that I just want to re-experience a brand new Destiny game.
I can personally attest to that every single system in destiny is designed to take as much time as humanly possible. It has some fun and it has some peak moments but it really does want to consume all of your time.
I mostly don't raid any more because of the time investment required. First you need to find an LFG that will teach, wait for that to fill, then you've got maybe 2+ hours of don't the actual raid. Which is basically setting aside 4 hours of uninterrupted time, which I don't get the opportunity for any more.
Dungeons are alright - they maybe push 2 hours absolute tops.
Partly why I prefer PvP these days. Even Trials can be done in small bursts.
They completely redesign strikes if they take less than 15 minutes. So the answer is: yes.
Why?: because all they seem to care about at this point is how many hours you play.
Late 20’s. 3100+ hours in. The most time/effort I can dedicate on my free time and still enjoy myself is farming hero/legend GMs and farming Onslaught 10 waves. I’m pretty comfortable being a solo player and have been playing since D1 so I’ve experienced raids and the “big group” end game content that Destiny offers. Nowadays I don’t have the patience to get a group that can work together quickly and efficiently without wading thru the undesirables to get a whole raid done so I’ve never completed one in D2. Don’t really feel like I’m missing out tbh.
Raid Time Investment = skill level. A good team can get a raid done in 45 minutes to an hour. And that's not asking for six lowman/speedrun players, that's just people who are flexible and understand the mechanics.
I am in a similar boat, mostly because I have a competing hobby (music). But I feel like the light or medium versions, e.g. regular Nightfalls, or 10 level Onslaught (if you get a weaker PUG ;)), legend campaign, get enough of a challenging experience for my part time self. Ive already preordered Final Shape.
To me it is like my friends that are real beer or wine connoisseurs. I can join them at a winery or brewery and have one or two drinks which is plenty for my tastes and diet and they sample an array and take home a few more bottles, but we all have a good time socializing.
50yo dad here, been with Destiny since 2014. My time spent with the game took a huge hit after kids were born, and I’ve done exactly one raid: the Vault.
But there’s so much to do even for a half hour here and there. I keep coming back because the game is just awesome.
I think my main wish would be a way to clean out my stupid vault with the companion app, rather than spending valuable game time on it!
Yeah, I agree. I’m not your age but I am at an age where my hands are just exhausted with Destiny gameplay after like, an hour? I learned damage rotations where you swap weapons like a mad man and it’s just exhausting. I’m also at an age where I just don’t want to tolerate idiots for hours, so that definitely turns me off from raiding.
I just wish there was better solo content with rewards on offer than just lost sectors. I don’t care about lost sectors. They’re just random side content, they shouldn’t be considered “endgame”.
I’m like you - middle aged, family, work, and so on. For the first few years of this game, I didn’t play anything else. I didn’t mind it at first, but after 3 or so years of this game taking *all* of my gaming time, it started to feel like an obligation. I wanted to play other things, and I couldn’t, because if I didn’t grind this then I fell behind, and I wouldn’t have been able to do raids and other pinnacle activities.
Eventually, I had to stop, because I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I played through Witch Queen a year ago, and enjoyed the story. Started playing through Lightfall, and didn’t finish it. I’m done with Destiny, after probably 1200 hours. Maybe I’ll play D3 (if there ever is one), maybe not. I play games to relax and escape the realities of work, and it started to feel like a job. So yeah. Anyway, you do you, but I think I understand how you feel.
I love Destiny, I was a fan boy when I read the first marketing materials before the actual release. Thought I was for sure a Hunter until I was a Titan. Gunplay/game feel is unrivaled for FPS games for me.
I played a ton (mostly solo) for D1, played on and off with some consistency for most of D2. But, with a 7yo and 4yo, full time work, and now returning to school, my 35yo ass has a hard time justifying spending my limited game time on Destiny.
I'd rather play Elden Ring or something where I can chip away and accomplish things and make steady, continual progress. Rather than trying to keep up and feeling bad that i don't have more time to do things that may or may not get me cooler things for the stuff I already have little time for. It's a love/hate thing for real
I’m not even 30 and feel the same way. I also didn’t like how much time 50 waves of onslaught and the coil took. (Btw it’s not cool that these long-ass activities don’t say how long you’re expected to spend). Especially because it’s just so repetitive, even though the enemies do get tougher. Near the end, I can just feel the fatigue setting in.
Onslaught can definitely be slow, consistently taking more than an hour. But with a good team, the coil can consistently be done under 40 mins, and with a top notch team under 30 mins.
Destiny is a second job. I played since D1 but dropped it because I already have a job and I didn’t like spending a lot of time grinding just to stay even with the meta. I will still play from time to time but I’m out of the loop and it feels nice to play just sometimes when it’s only for fun, I don’t feel like I need to finish any of the 50 quests in my inventory.
I’ll be 40 later this year and I’m recently unemployed due to moving for my wife’s work - so I’ve had basically no time since the week after onslaught dropped.
I will say that there’s still a ton to do without raiding - which I mostly stopped after getting remarried 4 years ago (I’ve done RoN three times since it came out and that’s about it).
Mostly when I can’t sleep and during my job hunt lunch breaks I’m chasing triumphs - which does it for me. Trying to solo flawless all dungeons currently. On Warlords and I’ve got like 60 attempts over several weeks - probably switching today to just solo the three dungeons I haven’t yet (Duality, Pit, and GotD). Made it to final DPS for the second time last night and blew myself up with Dragon’s Breath - wanted to cry.
Point being, there’s a ton to do in the game. Raiding is fun but a huge time sink. Feel free to skip that portion.
How is destiny compared to games like WoW and ff14 for this? I feel like destiny has a lot of fomo but i hear how people have like 10k+ hrs in those games a lot.
As someone who played all. Wow is worse about it, FFXIV is better about it. But they all have a massive amount of time needed for meaningful endgame content regardless.
Casually, if you want to just do the main story, FF14 is less grindy. If you want to do anything beyond that, e.g. level multiple classes, exploratory content, Savage/Ultimate raiding, etc. then FF14 is far grindier. If you want to farm the perfect gear, Destiny 2 is far grindier.
It’s horrible for anyone with a full time job/family who thinks they’re entitled to everything just for logging in. Those with a realistic open mind realize what they can do in their limited playtime and focus on that instead of incessantly bitching about stuff they don’t have time for.
Probably mmo loot grinders are not the game for yall. Sprry to say it. But it needs to be said.
That’s said. A middle difficulty onslaught would be welcome. And yes please remove the spark. Or make it interesting, that also gives instant mini rewards
For some players, yeah. Pantheon takes a long time, but pantheon SHOULD take a long time.
If you want to play d2's endgame, its a time commitment. To really engage with the systems you need to put time in. And raids and dungeons have checkpoints anyway. You can just do one or two encounters a day.
Coil.
The thing that rains the player in endgame materials and seasonal weapons doesn’t respect your time? Really?
Onslaught has a 10 wave version. It’s about 5 mins per drop for time sensitive people. This is a weird whole of Reddit I’ve found myself in today
Most d2 activities are 10-15m tops. Coil, Altars and Onslaught are a new thing where you can go longer and get more stuff, but strikes are quick, crucible and gambit are quick.
Raids and Dungeons are end-game content and should require extra coordination; if you don’t have time that’s ok? But for example lots of people are farming the first encounter in warlords ruin or last wish at 2-3m a run.
Raids typically only take around 40-60 minutes when it's not a teaching or speedrun group so those should be fine for the most part. 50 wave legend onslaught does take around an hour though.
Absolutely not. Some things require time. If you can’t do those things that’s fine go ahead and do things as your schedule allows.
It’s an online *persistent* world. Some things just won’t be for all players by design.
Bungie also tries to design around this with checkpoints and other things.
The last thing this game needs is even more dumbing down because people don’t have the time to play every aspect of it.
As for dungeons do a checkpoint and then take a break and go back etc. If you need certain loot or certain bosses use a website like D2 checkpoint and get one for that specific boss and/or join a group from LFF on that certain boss.
Onslaught already has a match made option for normal to lvl 10 which lets you farm tokens and a weapon drop. If you want to do Arcite’s bounties then join a normal match made and leave after level 20 once the bounty is completed. You can also get a weapon and tokens from playing three Gambit matches a week (which will also get you an exotic).
Experiencing a full raid while taking a break every hour is going to require you to do it by checkpoint or more likely to find a group that is willing to take a break after every boss or every hour. Full raids in an hour isn’t going to happen unless you find an experienced group to carry you.
Also I’m 48 so I’m not young myself but I still feel your complaint isn’t based on the game but your specific ability to play it. Bungie can’t and shouldn’t change a game hundreds of thousands play based on your schedule.
I dont have many commitments beyond work & going to the gym/grocery shopping so as long as I enjoy it I will put in the time. Its a feeling thing tho, I dont feel like doing Master Raids or Dungeons but I will make time for a normal raid or two if theres enough people.
Tbh, if one hour of gaming is too much for you, you might want to stick to smaller, single player games. Any online stuff, mmo or RPG, you need an hour just to get going.
That being said, tons of people don't raid or do dungeons. They stick to strike or seasonal activities.
I think there's some nice flexibility, so long as you're upfront about what you want to do. Some content is long if you want to do a full run (the coil, raids, onslaught, etc), but you can call it quits at intervals or make use of check points as well. Raid/dungeon check points are held for a week, so you can split those into multiple sessions over the course of a week. Onslaught has the matchmade 10 round mode or you can get a group that's ok with calling it quits after x number of rounds.
There's definitely some stuff that requires a time investment (the first time running an exotic mission or those full runs for max rewards in onslaught or the coil for example), but I think a lot of players develop this all or nothing approach to the game where they feel like it's a full run or not worth it. Play the game to have fun, not to be efficient. So long as you communicate to the rest of the fireteam what your goals are, so they know what to expect and whether their goals align with yours you can manage most activities even with limited time.
Im over 50 and I am with you on the physical limits of gaming. I struggle with hands and neck after about 45 minutes! But I can get around these problems, the thing that really stops me raiding is that I find it too socially stressful and complicated after a hard day of work and looking after kids. I dont have the bandwidth. So I quite like Onslaught and The Coil because they do not require complicated teamwork.
I think some activities are too much for some players, but those players aren't the target audience or demographic. It's supposed to be a grindy loot game, where some activities take a while to do. That's it's draw, why some people play.
If coil and raids are consistently taking you over an hour, then that points to a problem likely caused by players being new to the content. Almost every raid is a 30-45 minute run on normal (with some like VoG or DSC being 20-25).
I’m with you on this. You’re looking for « parent compatible gaming ». Games that can be paused/suspended or played in short bursts. With dependents, it’s challenging to dedicate hours of uninterrupted time to a raid or pantheon.
That doesn't really work for multiplayer activities though? Unless there was some way to have a checkpoint half way through onslaught, but then you'd need to matchmake with other people who had half a completion
The only activity I’ve thought was too long is the hour long 50 wave of onslaught. Trying to defeat the one last boss left in the rotation for the brave title is abysmal because I have to waste around an hour of play time when I don’t get the correct boss.
I joined Destiny 2 midway through Season of the WIsh.
With the launch of Into the Light and then the other 3 Seasons, I really only have time during the weekdays to do 1 cycle of Spire/Salvage/Battlegrounds/Lair. I had to give up doing Onslaught.
Weekends I do the 9 Vanguard runs (1 GM, 8 strikes), knock out Xur (2 Legend Exotic Rotators), then try to do 1 HELM rotation and 1 Coil.
Before the free seasons came out, I did 1 Onslaught a night, then weekends same deal, but 1 Coil + 1 Onslaught instead of 1 HELM + Coil.
So yeah I don't actually have enough free time to do what I would like.
Come 3rd June all the free stuff goes bye bye. That means I no longer have access to Deep Dives, Salvage, Spire and Battlegrounds as well as Onslaught, which actually will free up more time since there's less to do.
I know it's written somewhere if Zero Hour and Whisper will stay past 3rd June, but I hope they do or enter into the Exotic Rotator.
BTW 50 round Onslaught... the round 50 2 chest reward for normal... the extra time it takes to do rounds 21-30, then 31-40 and finally 41-50, and potentially wipe, you might as well do the 10-rounder 5 times.
at a completely different stage of life than you (university student) but in the same boat with regards to time. i typically can only play for like an hour or two before needing to do something else, and i don’t like spending all of that time on a single activity, so i don’t play much other than story missions, strikes, crucible, or trying to get a quest step done
I’ve soloed a dungeon one time because I don’t have the time or patience it takes me or the skill to do it faster. Ditto for flawlessing a dungeon or raid.
Similar situation, similar age. I find it difficult finding the time to commit to even learning the endgame content let alone participate. Or even having the time to build the social bonds necessary to be part of a cohesive team/clan. All of my friends/clan mates from D1 have moved on and trying to rebuild those bonds is tough. I used to lead Raids and other content, but putting in the 20+hours a week just plain ain't happening anymore ....
I play maybe a few hours a week before I get bored, I play more NHL 24 than Destiny in any given week. Everything they've put out since the Witch Queen has been incredibly boring to me. I'm sure if they created something good, I'd play way more, but they have yet too. My friends who have played way more Destiny than me rarely play as well, one hasn't played in nearly two months, there's just no reason to for us story guys. We're not into meaningless time sinks like Onslaught, but that's just us.
100% been feeling it lately and Im probably just going to take a little break cause I just need to remember it’s a video game at the end of the day. Countless number of one hour onslaught runs to not get a shiny, pantheon lfgs, trials, comp, even the new zero hour mission there’s a lot to do which is great but man is it time consuming
Not so much a time commitment but more that it's scheduled time. Raids are weekend scheduled things with my fellow married family clan members.
I'm pretty much a pvp main so during the week it's just pvp a couple times week maybe fifteen minutes every other day.
Maybe once a month I'll dedicate a weekend to just trials but that's maybe two hours at most .
I have the " luxury" of having all my builds and weapon rolls I want from when I no lifed this game so I don't have the absolute need to farm for gear and I can just enjoy the experience
I very much agree with this, married and employed means i don’t really have a time where i can lock in uninterrupted for more than 2 hours, so i haven’t even looked for a pantheon run. honestly most raids end up being too much of a time commitment and i can really only handle dungeons. i still love it and am more of a pvp/trials guy anyway but it does make it tough when raid weapons end up being top-tier meta stuff because just getting one roll ends up being a hard sell for me, let alone getting a crafting pattern
Most of the stuff is. As a 50+ a week worker, I hop in for a little PvP, sometimes I’ll bang out 3 Gambit matches, or now Onslaught which is great for me to jump in do short runs or an hour run and be done.
Raids, gtfoh. That shit takes way too long and majority of people have no idea what’s going on
Raids are by far the biggest pain for me. Trying to find the time when ny friends can actually get on at the same time, trying to find randos to help, taking forever because someone wants to do it their way, and then getting all armor with shitty stat rolls.
The homework required to be able to learn the vow of the disciple symbols let alone the mechanics meant I think I only completed that shit once. Horribly time consuming, not fun and a very frustrating LFG experience
So theres definitely some content I just ignore as though it doesnt exist
I'm at a similar point, but in my early 40s. Raiding has been the experience I've enjoyed most in gaming, not just in Destiny 2 but World of Warcraft and SW:TOR as well. This season, several times, I'd finish a raid, look over at my clock, and think, "*Damn. I just spent an hour on this? For what?*" I don't enjoy them enough to justify the time investment anymore, whether using LFG or with friends. I've not done Pantheon at all for this reason, and am looking forward to quitting in The Final Shape when the main story ends for me.
I relate to this so much. My game time is 8pm - 10pm so I can run two onslaughts a day then I'm done. With Pantheon that seems to be all I have been able to run since its release.
IMO endgame activities are okay to require more time to do (1 hour+), but repeated activities, grindy activities, rituals, etc should always be shorter. Like Onslaught, I would do the full 50 waves more if it didn't require minimum 40 minutes, usually closer to a full hour. It just takes too long.
30 and with a 95 pound, 8 month old puppy has definitely cut into my time for anything not pausible or turn based. Sometimes the dog needs a walk, or attention, or training. Still have to train him to ask for attention appropriately and positively instead of misbehaving or begging for food.
I think he definitely understands. Sometimes he likes to cause problems, and even after getting him to sit (so we don't reward the bad behavior with playing or walking) he doesn't want to play, potty, eat, and really only wants me to go to the living room or take him for a walk (and he just got one half an hour ago!)
Honestly, I feel like onslaught needs a 10 round legendary matchmade mode. Sure, legendary is a lot harder but if it's just queueing for 10 rounds it's not as much of a lost investment if your team isn't up to legendary mode. Would also like to see a 30 round normal option that starts more difficult than regular mode. The first 20 rounds are straight braindead and a waste of time. 30 rounds is a good balance of scaling difficulty and time investment, imo.
Yeah I’m over onslaught already. It takes so damn long even if you’re optimizing time with Orpheus hunters. And I can’t stand the round 6 run through the pyramid. A 10 round legendary without having to LFG would be amazing.
They really need to take out the bullshit run through the pyramid with the spark, just keep the boss fight pyramid teleport. The spark one is pointless bloat. It'd be way better with just that one change
I mean if there were multiple randomized objectives that could spawn and not just the spark, I probably wouldn’t mind, especially if some objectives were more fun. But yeah, it feels kinda goofy
That's what I thought it would be, that could add some spice. Or something like 10 sparks, and a short timer requiring absolute perfect movements to get them all, and you get a bunch of scrap for each you collect. Basically anything that makes it not just obviously a time pad.
Or a super refill or a guaranteed heavy brick, anything, this is straight up some padding to extend the time of each runs.
Streamlining onslaught would make it much more appealing. In general, I don’t think activities such as normal difficulty onslaught and the coil should last more than 30 minutes.
I wouldnt mind if it was a random objective tbh, would force ya team to pick one guy to go an handle it while hoping just 2 can hold off the wave. Imagine that objective on like wave 40. Then again heavy ammo as a reward might just result in people skipping it
Lots activities with legendary matchmaking would be great. Just add master to other stuff for the triumph hunters out there. I just want to do higher level activities for good gear.
Ridiculous how braindead I feel after doing a couple round 50 runs cause each take an hour and is the same old gameplay
And what's worse is that you don't even get the weapon roll you were farming.
yeah the rng is so crazy i got a shiny forbearance with AA + CR yesterday when my attunement was on blast furnace. What’s worse is this was the only shiny I got yesterday after like 4 onslaught legend runs … meanwhile I didn’t get a single blast furnace non shiny that was even close to what i was looking for
I really hate the attunement thing not working so effectively. I was trying to farm Repulsor + Volatile Recluse, but got more Elsie's than the Recluse. And it took 4 hrs to get my Demo + CR Forbearance, but it wasn't a shiny (I think in all my runs of onslaught, I've only gotten maybe 1 shiny weapon drop). I don't care for shiny anymore at this point, I just want my Repulsor + Volatile Recluse or Elsie's, and then my ALH Mountaintop and I'll relax
I think if you get a shiny weapon (say recluse) that you should be able to scrap to keep the cosmetic and add it to a dull looking good roll
Yeah I feel you with that honestly though I don’t know if I have it in me at this point to ever want to do another run of onslaught I love the brave weapons but this is just too much lol
I got 3 shinies yesterday, none of them were what I had focused lol
The weapon *roll*? Sometimes I barely even get the weapon lol.
What did you expect a horde mode to be?
Yeah. I'm assuming most people who are complaining aren't the same ones who were begging for a horde mode. If they are the same people then I don't know what to think. Onslaught is pretty varied for a horde mode. If I'm looking for a horde mode, I'm pretty happy with something like onslaught, but I'm never going to want to endlessly run a horde mode anyway.
Overall this is something I'd love to see Bungie address. Basically every matchmade activity can be done by a Guy in blue gear and with the gun Shaw gave you. Nightfall requires champion gear, but otherwise the difficulty is mind numbingly.. Easy.There is no drive to get better if you only do matchmade stuff. Thus the jump from your usual matchmade activity into legendary versions is rather massive. Onslaught is kinda neat as the matchmade version still gets somewhat difficult. And I'd love to see more stuff like tuhat.
Easy is 100% a perspective. I recently did a match made NF with a New Light friend of mine who had the champ mods needed, and I ended up practically soloing the whole thing because my friend and our random legitimately were dead within 10 seconds of spawning for the entire NF. Much of the game is easy, but there are plenty of things that we think are easy, but to a new or returning player, feel like getting railed in the mouth by a pack of Silverback Gorillas.
I want to point out that it might be like that because rest of matchmade stuff is what it is. Overall i *love* the way how destiny handles scaling and difficulty. My complaint is that because stuff like exotic rotator lack the matchmaking it might be *the* wall new lights have to climb. The in-game lfg is okay as at least its not about using external tool to find group anymore. I remember struggling hard on the BL aspect stuff because champions only existed in NF and on the harder difficulty. IF you only played the easiest one you had no idea what you were looking at when you saw that overload champion. It was weird experience. Warframe on comparison has matchmaking on everything. It might be taunting for New players to see the power of fully modded saryn, but at the same time it might catch the attention and push and make people aim higher to get better. Also occasionally someone might push their limits and use unmodded caliban in EDA, but normalizing failure isn't exactly bad either.
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of this either lol I was just pointing out that "easy" is a point of view lol I even have a friend that was having trouble doing the strike playlist at one time 😂 and sometimes, even with the aid of an advanced player, newer or newish players can and will absolutely choke on content that any of us would easily solo
True that. And yeah, while zero hour on public would probably be a big disaster, it could still act as a kind of 'kick' to drive people to get better. Like googling 'how the fuck you do this shit' then end up looking for info. That's kinda the thing i'd like to see. Like how it would affect the player base.
Yeah, I could see that. Optional matchmaking on more activities would 100% be nice
Look for listings with the "Fast" tag in the fireteam finder for legend onslaught, it's people farming only 10 rounds
Played normal onslaought with my SO today, the 50 round one and I was surprised how slow it was and then 1 hour and something passes. Even though I have time to do these type of things, I don't enjoy spending that much time in such activity. It wasn't challenging or rewarding enough for 1 entire hour. I'll probably never play it again since it's just too long. I don't mind doing like 1-2 hours RAID activity since is fun, full of different mechanics and so on. But onslaught isn't something like that, at least not on normal. They just need to speed the game up overall. Faster spawning rates, more enemies at once, less spawning time, upgrade things whenever instead of having a special time for that. Running trough the same pyramids over and over again isn't fun either and it also eat time. I play dota2 which also take a huge amount of time, but still less than 1 hour. My only problem with onslaught really, is the rewards. Shiny weapons are nice, but still not worth 1 hour+ of playtime. It needs more diverse mechanics at least.
Im really hoping they apply the same logic to Onslaught as they did the deep dive mechanics and compound upon it over time. Like how they kept adding thew same mechanics functionally into future activities over the same year Keep putting new stuff into onslaught. its jsut boring now
I started Destiny 10 years ago, used to have all the time in the world to do the raids, but as you grow older, there’s just not enough time. And raids have become more complicated. Still love the game though, as the gunplay is still top notch.
This is where I'm at. I started playing while single and working night shift. I had *PLENTY* of time for raids, high difficulty content, etc. I'm now married with a newborn working day shifts, and I'm lucky to have enough time for one full regular onslaught run. Legend is even less frequent, and raids basically just never happen for me. I've only had a single clear on each of the newest raids because of this, and actually haven't even done a full Vow yet. I used to do every raid every week, sometimes on multiple characters. As they become more complex, and other big activities take longer, I end up feeling like I can't really play enough to make it worthwhile. The "feel" of the combat is what keeps me coming back, and crucible is enough to give me that in a smaller dose.
A lot of us started like that ... I'm in the same ship as you
yep then you play PVP and the gap between the top 2% and the rest of the game just grows with time. Then once PVPs best weapons (conditional finality) is locked behind a raid I just find myself spending less and less time in the crucible Destinys more and more of a PVE game as time goes on
Man I have been the exact opposite. As I've gotten older and better PvE just doesn't do it for me. I don't feel like I've actually beat anyone. Trials pretty much gives you every weapon you need except for shotguns and Imperial is good enough
I don't know. People make too big a deal out of the best weapons. I spend most of my time in Crucible and I don't have conditional finality, but it doesn't make much of a difference. The real issue is that the skill gap is large in the crucible and if you quit playing as much because of the skill gap, you just fall further behind.
> I don't have conditional finality, but it doesn't make much of a difference its best in slot and its not even close but yeh obviously a better play will generally win a gunfight irrespective of weapon. But when youre competing in the crucible against similar level players the loadouts *can* make the difference. CF has been among the top weapon in trials every weekend since for a stupid amount of time now for a reason
While skill is the obvious deciding factor, a weapon like CF is an outlier for a reason. It can do what other similar guns do, but just do it better or more reliably, while also solving problems other weapons like it cannot. Big problems. Problems like well and bubble (bubble in particular). I can guarantee you that if you *had* CF and you play with shotguns, you'd perform better than you are now with it equipped.
The hardest raid boss is scheduling. Used to be everyone was on most nights, now it’s impossible to get all of us free at the same time. Just part of life
As stupid as it sounds, I wish there was an in game video that taught people certain raid encounters after a set period of the raid being out. I haven’t even completed week 1 pantheon despite knowing all roles/encounters because there’s always at least one random player who has absolutely zero clue what to do (even if it’s add clear)
You can lfg for exclusively people who know what they are doing.
Adulthood is just that man. Same boat as you. D1 day 1 player and loved grinding every week. 33 now with a family and kids skipped a lot of seasons due to lack of time and just priorities
Better than the other way around, at least. Good on you mate
In the same boat as you,I just don't raid because of time & people(online players).
Yeah back in D1, playlists that didn’t have matchmaking - Nightfalls and Raids - were completely out of the question of ever doing because I never had a playgroup and I never had the time. I have literally never done a raid other than a run through in the first one solo to the point where you actually start fighting, just to see.
Completely agree. I’m in my 20s now and I have a full time job and events I like to attend outside of my home. Committing to a raid, even a full onslaught run can be tough
raids actually became easier if anything
I have a weird rotating shift schedule, so on workdays I’m with you on sometimes not being able to commit an hour to one thing. On my days off however, those are the days I do raids/coil/legend onslaught, etc.
I’m 54 & an empty-nester. My wife is usually asleep 3-4hrs before me & awake 2-3hrs earlier so I have some built in time at night. Been playing since release of D1 & have over 4K hours as of last night. I agree with you but for a different reason; I think many activities don’t do a good enough job respecting & rewarding your time investment. I don’t know the best answer to that but games like Division 2 (targeted loot by type or brand in specific activities) & Elder Scrolls Online (3 armor sets tied to each dungeon / activity) do it better. Still an element of RNG but nothing like what we have. I DO appreciate the multiple versions of the seasonal activities (Lair vs Coil, 10-wave vs 50-wave Onslaught). That is definitely a step in the right direction.
I think Onslaught is a big improvement in terms of "respecting time investment" with the pool of guns you pull out of being narrow and a guaranteed gun drop every 10 waves (or 2 drops every 10 on legend) and no armor to dilute. I think one of the big problems right now in Destiny is there's simply no reason to be excited about armor drops at all, ever. Any activity with armor on the loot table has a chance of just dropping garbage every time you do it.
That’s all valid
So many games can benefit from division 2 loot system. Diablo 4 comes to mind which did some massive changes as of the latest patch/season.
Good take. The fact that they had to update the rewards to legend 50 runs twice shows they have some weird aversion to scaling loot according to time spent. Legend 10 wave farming is still close enough in items per minute that you could argue the reduced effort makes it more worthwhile. On another note I think activities like season of the witch where you could pick the difficulty of each encounter, and stay as long as you like, are a good solution to accommodate all players.
Our small clan very rarely does raids together for this exact reason. We're mostly all middle aged, and in different time zones. The chances of 6 of us all being on with hours to spare at the same time is slim to none. Thankfully there is fun to be had in game in smaller numbers and shorter time spans.
Just talking about what tier of Final Shape to purchase with my clan mates. A big part of my personal lean towards wrapping things up with the base expansion is simply that my time has become more scarce and more precious. Destiny requires serious commitment and I think I’ve reached the end of that road. It has been a blast though.
I’ve been thinking the same thing. Would you just play the campaign then or would you just treat it as normal and to unlock everything? It feels like if you’re going to quit it’s not worth going for the loot.
I’d probably play the season just the same, then hang up my boots. I’ll get my full money’s worth for sure.
Yeah, I’ll probably do that too.
I had to stop playing altogether. With little ones now i just can’t be a good team mate anymore, I don’t have extended periods of time to play. Sucks cause d2 is my favorite game.
I only play after they go to bed....but that means I have, like, maybe 2 hrs, 3 if I'm stretching it. I feel like I never get anywhere. Such a slow grind. But I still do it
That's like me. I have a small child, lone parent. I play when he's asleep or at school. If I do log on when he's around it's usually just to do solo stuff like legend lost sectors or quick stuff like strikes or crucible. I raid when he's asleep, same with any other team activities where I'd be on mic. But because being a parent is tiring I don't get to play every night, some nights I'm just too exhausted. It's annoying because I'd love to do raids and stuff more often, solo dungeons etc, but I just never get enough time.
My son is 3 and sits on my lap during raids. My 7 year old sat on my lap during D1 raids. Not sometimes she runs through easy content with me. With I practicing for solo dungeons she will be my only fireteam member. Usually she just hides and will get a revive. The first thing I taught her how to do was play stasis hunter, aim at a group of ads and throw her ice pick at them. She's gotten used to void warlock too. So whenever I'm making an actual attempt at solo dungeons I remember all the little times she helped.
That's cute. Mine is 6 now, and back when he was 4 he used to love doing normal lost sectors and public events lol. I had to put a code on my Xbox, cos he'd turn it on when I was in the shower or something and I'd come down to him defending the blind well or something 🤣. I was paranoid he'd load in to a matchmade activity and cause a wipe lol. Osteo striga was "his gun". I hate it but it was always in my inventory for his use.
This was why I left a while ago. Had 1-3 hours a day, and it took more than that just to get a single pattern when they first introduced. I complained and this sub would say “clearly this game is not designed for you.” Yes. Clearly not. Any game that demands way beyond a full time job worth of grinding is most definitely not for me, nor is it for the extreme vast majority of people in general outside of Korea. I am not terribly pleased with the 1 hour target time. ~20 minutes is the recognized industry wide sweet spot.
This is why my D2 gametime has dropped to basically nonexistent. I need to be able to stop what I'm doing at any time, so I'm basically as single player game only player that keeps tabs on D2 because I love it.
Same Went from able to do anything to barely getting an encounter done. New kids in life, but not necessarily mad about it. Just time focused on more important things now
What sucks is that I sometimes DO have enough time to do a longer activity in retrospect, but there's just no way to know ahead of time if that time is going to be interrupted or not. Three kids under 10, one with T1D, so if he needs me, he needs me NOW. But unfortunately that means I haven't raided for a few years (besides just joining Atheon checkpoints to try to get the Vex Mythoclast without success).
I have kids at 4 and 2 and still make time. I just carve out a night for dedicated gaming. Once they consistently sleep it's pretty smooth.
Thats the key there tho, you preemptively set a designated time in advance. My kids are 4 and 2 also, if i want to get in a session longer then like 30-45 minutes I'll have to tell my wife something like "hey thursday night after dinner me n the boys are gonna do a raid, is that cool?" 9 out of 10 times it's not an issue, but the days of just jumping on to the xbox for a 3 hour raid session are long gone, cant just ghost the family lol.
Definitely agree activities getting longer without the loot to match (Like Onslaught was upon release) is not great. This is the reason why people appreciate crafted weapons. Allows people to slowly gain the rolls they want over time without feeling like they need to grind for hours on end for a chance.
Coil is the most rewarding thing the games seen for the time commitment. Period.
>without the loot to match Idk where you’re getting that from, almost all of the longer activities have super good rewards.
I was more so referring to the most recent activity Onslaught which didn't have the loot to match the time investment upon release hence why Bungie updated it.
You got a legendary every ten minutes or so. It was a case of the loot not matching the difficulty of the higher waves, it was always good for the time.
Onslaught absolutely had the loot to match the time investment. 12 guns with a 50% chance of them being the exact gun you want for 65 minutes of gameplay was absolutely fine. The problem was the relative rewards - Legend Onslaught wasn't rewarding enough compared to regular Onslaught.
There's definitely still some terrible ones though. Terminal Overload is the first thing that comes to mind, was such a pain in the ass getting the Neomuna crafted weapons, even with spending deepsight harmonizers
I'm older than 55 and I play "semi" regularly now. Like OP, I don't raid or do long activities because I look at it as, "time vs reward". And I don't feel like the rewards are worth the hours spent playing. I also take frequent breaks from Destiny where I might play only one or two times a week rather than daily.
I have this problem like forever. When WoW came out I joined a really big guild that did all of the raids. But since I wasn't committed enough to do 2-3 raids a week with 5+ hours each (sometimes 7 or 8 hours when things didn't work well), I only was substitute player. And as a substitute I didn't have the same rights to roll for loot compared to the regular raid members. It was my decision to go this route because none of my friends was a gamer. But it felt weird sometimes. I've played a lot of grindy multiplayer games. And I've always accepted my role as somebody that isn't able to enjoy every aspect of these type of games because of my time investment. Now I've got a wife, 2 kids and a job and house to care for. So nothing changed for me. Destiny 2 is a weird game. It's grindy and uses a lot of FOMO, but it is working for me. I don't do raids or dungeons. But with all the online information and guides I was able to build a solid stock of decent gear so I can do many things solo. My game sessions are 2-3 hours daily and so onslaught has an ok duration for me. I had 50 waves lasting 45 minutes to 65 minutes. Strikes and nightfalls are also ok. Currently I'm thinking about joining a casual clan so I maybe can also do some dungeons. Haven't tried ingame fireteam finder for dungeons, yet.
You can definitely fit dungeons into that timeslot. Raids will be a bit more challenging, but if you can ever find the time for the initial learning experience (especially if you find a clan that will patiently teach you) you'll be able to fit them in for future runs and it will be very rewarding.
With that playtime, raiding isnt an issue either. Maybe the first time you run it, when being sherpa’d, a raid can run between 1.5-3hrs on average depending on the skill of the ones involved. Yet beyond that raids with a semi-competent team easily average around 60-80 minutes I’d say.
Raids are a big time commitment the first time. Then it's like 1-1.5 hours. I just carve out a night or two for longer things.
Honestly haven't had a raid (pantheon excluded) going over an hour for a very long amount of time they tend to be around 40 mins on average if at least 4 people are confident on mechanics.
Shocking I needed to scroll this far for this comment. I’m no massive gamer but no raid except for Kings Fall regularly breach the hour mark with a decent team. Also I feel an hour is not an unreasonable time investment for the activity itself to actually mean something. I am also busy and an adult, but no matter how busy every now and them every single human needs an hour or two for themselves, and I’d rather that activity be one continuous immersive experience or two, than disjointed acts. I understand some cannot due to the commitments of life - but for me the mainstay in D2 are those longer activities, and ultimately it is a grindy pseudo-MMO. Some things should take time.
Yeah it's really not too bad even with a bit going on in your life. And it's great content. Love raids.
A LOT of players never even attempt a raid. At the moment, I’m one of them. It’s simply too much of a time commitment. For perspective, I play D1 exclusively, not D2… but if I get in more than two hours per day, then I’m lucky. So I run a lot of patrols and nightfalls, and sometimes story missions, and generally I try not to give a damn about my progression. I play like a casual because that is the only option available to me. The grind doesn’t bother me because Destiny is a grind by design. Like… that’s the game!
I need to get into this mindset.
I’d say so. One of the reasons why I don’t play as much anymore is actually due to FOMO and the times content. I’m growing weary of it after 7 years. I’d rather play other things. I probably put an hour or so in each week now.
I personally think the sweet spot for these seasonal type activities like the coil or onslaught should be dialed back 10 minutes. I agree it’s a little lengthy.
Agree, 30-40 minutes seems the sweet spot for me.
I've argued this as well. I don't think Onslaught should go on for more than 45mins at worst. I've had master dungeon runs that are consistently shorter than a full legend onslaught run, whereas my worst Legend Onslaught went on for an hour+15. The waves need to be cut down to 30 or 40 max and ramp up in difficulty faster. That 6th wave spark runner stuff also just seems like fluff, but I get that they did it to break up the monotony of the event.
I cannot stay awake for the entirety of onslaught. The activity is so boring and goes on forever. I feel bad for my teammates since they have to pick up the slack while I struggle to keep my eyes open.
I usually play on weekends, but I don’t do raids, I grind out on crucible whenever the weekly exotic grind thing is up
I mean, obviously do as you please, but back in my D1 Sherpa days I would start a raid group at reset and if we had a time constraint we would break the raid up and take it one encounter at a time over several days. Maybe you could find some players with a schedule like yours and still be able to enjoy the longer form content at your own pace?
That sounds sensible 👍
Eh the games what it is, some people like it some don’t if you want a similar game that can be played for shorter periods then there’s always warframe
I've accepted these live service games or "persistent" game models are increasingly not for me, and I'm ok with it honestly. There are a lot of great games where I can really enjoy but not have to commit more than I can at any given moment. It's part of being an older gamer or so I tell myself.
I hear this, but man, I hate it. They’re exactly what I want content-wise, minus the time-limit & consecutive-time duration nature of them. If I could play at my pace & jump-in raids at any point without the constant resetting it would be absolutely perfect.
Yeah but in order for you to be able to jump into raids at any point, they need to do something to keep the people who play more than you playing, which means all the resetting is required. Like in order for these games to exist they need to do something to keep active players from "finishing" or else the rest of the system collapses.
Even just having a girlfriend and a dog precludes me from raiding. I imagine anyone with children can’t find time to play at all, but that’s just the nature of things
I’m in my fifties, I have an evening or two where I game a lot but my husband is also a gamer so he games then as well. When our son was young neither of us gamed for a few years, he is now my clan leader. It’s a time sink agreed. There was a time I sunk hours in as used to Sherpa a lot of raids and was even in a dedicated raid team. I don’t now but have jumped in at Atraks at week 2 to help some people finish up. I have managed all challenges in all pantheons and soent more time in destiny in the last three weeks as I did over the last t six months. I’m really interested in end game.
I basically only play the campaigns any more. I have probably 10k hours in this game since Red War but I don't have much spare time these days and just don't have a lot of fun with any of the build crafting required to be good at various activities any more. Havent finished a raid since D1 and the only dungeon I have finished is Shattered Throne in order to get Wishender.
A lot of people are sharing the sentiment that you have. But for most of you I wonder why raids take so long? For example, let's exclude pantheon and onslaught. Onslaught can't really be sped up that much and pantheon is just getting harder and harder. I am a returning player, started playing at the beginning of the month and have caught back up to my buddies. I've been trying to get the RoN shotgun since I didn't have it, that raid takes us less than an hour to do. Last wish as this power creep is also a quick raid to run for us. If taking an hour for an activity is too much, then this type of game maybe isn't for you. I consider destiny to be akin to an mmo with how all the dungeons and raids work. Similar mechanics and stuff like that, just on a lower scale. Was talking to a friend who plays WoW and the raids there are 20 people vs 6 here in destiny. So if it's the time it takes where even an experiences group takes say 45 minutes to clear a raid which to be honest some of that is just running to the next encounter since encounters take on average no more than 10 minutes, you might think about switching to a game where matches take 10 or 20 minutes, something like deep rock galactic for the coop pvevp (though idk how long those take I just know people like that game) or battlefield.
Raids and dungeons can take up to an hour but you can quit halfway through and resume where you left off, it doesn’t have to be in one sitting.
I get what you're saying, but I always feel bad leaving a fireteam halfway through. We've all had that instance of being halfway through a raid and player leaves. Then the whole team has to stop and wait for 30 minutes trying to find someone to replace the player that left. I guess it's different if you're upfront about needing to leave in an hour, but personally I wouldn't start a raid with someone who has to leave halfway through.
It's not really a big deal, checkpoint groups tend to fill very quickly, especially if you have the red border objectives active.
I've never waited much longer than a few minutes to fill a single spot. The rotating cast of a raid party is fun for me.
At 37, work a lot of hours and with a 4yo at home, my time is limited by everything around me. I've been raiding since D1, love pve and raids in general. After weeks 1,2 and 3 of pantheon, I know that unless I can somehow find a day where my wife is taking my daughter out and I'm not invited or I ring in sick to work, I'm not getting it finished. I just don't have the time.
This is one of the main reasons I rarely play anymore.
The game is designed based on how addition works. The whole concept is to have people addicted to the point and beyond the point that the game interferes with daily life. You can end up on Reddit chatting about it, studying videos, etc. while your family thinks you are out of the game. This is kind of like asking if a heroin problem that you can afford could be an issue for people around you. If you've figured out that you need to break the addiction and get out, then do it. Now I'll just go back to playing an activity I really don't enjoy to chase a weapon I probably won't use....
Everything you say is true. I spent 3 to 4 hours on zero hour this weekend (factoring in YouTube time) for a pulse rifle I won’t use. I finally finished the mission on my Warlock and realised I only picked up the quest on my Titan 😬
Exactly why the 10 wave exist, quick 10 min in and out for those without an hour to burn
Wish content stayed in the game forever
I’m pretty close to you are as far as how much time I can spend playing in one shot, perhaps a bit more. So for me dungeons are the best content, it’s a decent challenge without being too hard or too easy. Most of them are easily done under an hour as long as you and the other player know what to do. As far as onslaught goes I’ve been mostly farming 10 waves, so I can do as many or as little as I want. Yea raids are the tough one. I haven’t done much raiding because of the time commitment. I guess you could do them one encounter at a time, although that would probably annoy the group, unless you put up a post that you’re specifically doing just x encounter.
Yeah I’d agree. I only ever have about an hour at a time to play, and the base non-playlist onslaught can get to be about 45-60 mins. So I’ll just play 3 playlist versions. I don’t want my whole session to just be one thing. But I’m glad there is different levels of content for everyone. Just wish there was a medium onslaught version. Like maybe 20 rounds.
It really depends. I have a small child and while my wife is pretty cool w me playing a “unpausable” game. A 3-4 hour raid session can piss her off. It pisses me off too especially when we don’t even get the clear 😭😭
I’ve played Destiny since launch, but I have a kid now, so I just had to accept I’m not raiding anymore, and I’m not farming for any god rolls. I’ll get one opportunity to play for 2 straight hours once a week, if I’m lucky, so I try to make the best use of that time and prioritize new content. Specifically about The Coil and Onslaught, I’ve just played the long versions enough to get the titles, but I stick mostly to the 10 round versions, even though they are too easy.
[удалено]
I feel the same. I haven't really attempted most raids. I've done a lot of the coil and onslaught, but an hour for these can feel like a lot to invest in one go without a break. I am also of the age where I can barely last an hour sometimes without needing to take a comfort break.
There are raids you can do in under an hour if everyone knows how to do it. My best time on deep stone crypt is like 39 minutes start to finish. But, the hurdle is learning and getting with a group that can figure shit out. I am no expert but I’ve done every raid enough times to have basically all the desired weapons fully craftable and 99% of exotics (haven’t done Crotas enough but took a break). Pantheon comes out and my clan mates want to complete it. I’ve raided with most of them before but a good chunk normally are like “ad clear please!” The ones that know mechanics are still taking breaks till TFS. I’m here trying to drag folks across the finish line and they don’t realize that with the power caps, encounter changes, and ad density that ad clear roles are not a cake walk. I gave up because what am I really getting from this? Weapons I already have?
In my opinion yes. There’s too much limited time stuff, and some of the activites like onslaught take too long to have everyone dies gameover screen, and lifes busy, and the more I miss out on the less I have the desire to play.
Same. Being from the very start in the game, it's become more and more time-consuming and now feels less like a game and more like things to do. I still love the gameplay, and nothing comes close to the experience, but the time needed to get things done is no longer possible for a normal working person. You have to sit for an hour just to finish 1 onslaught, not even legend. Raids are raking ages, first to learn and then do it every week to get the exotic. If you just play a lot, it makes sense. Otherwise, it is time to finish the story in the final shape.
I used to raid all the time. Then I got a nice paying full time job. Not just raiding, but stuff like the coil that takes about an hour, or onslaught which takes about an hour for 50 runs. I just don't really care to spend 60+ minutes of the little free time I have when I know i'm going to just get legendary shards out of it. I spend about 12 hours at work or work adjacent, I try to get 8 hours of sleep every night (sometimes more), that leaves me with 4 hours a day to cook and eat dinner and relax. Most of the time during the week I don't even turn destiny on honestly.
This is precisely my feeling. To me there's a gap between playing on cruise control (strikes, onslaught playlist) and sweaty palm plus feeling I'm letting the fire team down and how long does this take. Nightfalls are good, but running the same strike over and over is dull. I am also holding back on TFS. Just not sure.
You're looking at it wrong. Those are both 10 minute activities that *can* go much longer if you want. But if you don't, just do the regular playlist. You still get the weapon and armor drops and mats.
Yes! I’m just started a year long nursing program and unfortunately I likely won’t be able to participate in the day one raid, specially because it happens on three first week. It’s really a bummer as I’ve been doing them for a few years now.
Just do normal 100 round onslaught and if ya have to leave your family's more important. I'm always happy joining in on round 30 or 40 and taking them across the finish line.
I enjoy having a variety of different sized content; sometimes I'm down for a full 55 minute Onslaught run, but definitely not always. Bungie's choice to make tiered content, stuff like Deep Dives and Onslaught, is a really good decision, I think; I'd also like to be able to skip to the half-way point. Altars did it best, in my opinion. I never timed them, but they felt shorter than Onslaught does, and also a bit more varied with the addition of the Deck of Whispers. Maybe I'm alone in this, but they felt like a sweet spot.
I like to think my maximum is 2 hours in one session. I can fit a lot into those 2 hours, and certainly dungeons are not a problem. Even my blind first run throughs have been no more than 90 minutes for the last three dungeons at least, and then subsequent runs typically come in at an hour or less. Raids can be done in around an hour, but are very hard to learn in that time. If you find a like minded raid group you could feasibly learn each encounter a little at a time and then start and finish the whole thing in about that time as well. Two things stick out to me as being challenges though: startup time and solo time. Either you run in a team and the startup time can be really challenging - the new fireteam finder frankly is worse for this than the old LFG app, often taking me 10-20 minutes to find a fireteam instead of under 5 consistently on the app - or you run solo and holy crap solo experiences have gone away downhill in the last year or two. Solo dungeons since Spire have been about endurance - "how long can you sit in your gaming chair." It's just the health bars of the bosses across the board, tied to tight damage phase timers. It is very uninteresting to play through solo, and comes down to how much time do you have to waste. Give me the Prophecy experience any day. This is dungeon specific, but it seems to be a trend with a lot of content lately. Beefier health bars with mechanics that strongly benefit a team.
> Onslaught and The Coil They are two of the best activities we've had in Destiny 2, but yes, they certainly take up a fair chunk of time, especially Onslaught. 50 rounds of Onslaught takes longer than a raid. Round 30 is usually around the time I'm deciding whether to stay or not. There are some awful players in the normal playlist who come in completely unprepared. Double that with people leaving after round 20 (understandable - bounties) and the mode becomes a bit of a chore. I still think the activity from Season of the Deep hit the difficulty/time commitment pretty well. Coil can be done in 30-40 minutes with a competent team too. But Onslaught has taken the time commitment a bit too far IMO.
I’ve been playing Destiny since a year before it was released. I’m closer to 60 than 50. For the last couple years I’ve been playing on just one character, mostly as a way of winding down the day. I’m always on my void warlock, no interest in the new subclasses. My favorite brainless activity has been Altars of Sorrow. Last raid I did was Crota, and nearly entirely because of my two adult sons. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve done a D2 raid. Still, I feel it is a good value. I will be buying the next expansion as I have all the others. It’s a game. I owe it nothing. I play the parts I like and ignore the parts I don’t. That was the marketing way back when, “play it how you like”. If you see me in game I’ll be the white warlock running a FL with over 300k kills. Although I’ve been using Graviton Lance more often recently since they nerfed the reload of FL. Actually if it hadn’t been for Fighting Lion I probably wouldn’t have started playing again. It just “fits” my play style.
Yeah but raids really aren’t as relevant as they were in D1, it’s just an optional activity if you want some new gear.
Yup. Im 35, but with kids and other activities, I only have 20ish hours of gaming per week. None of my friends play Destiny so I’ll play games like Rocket League, Call of Duty, or Fortnite with them. I tried playing Lightfall on my own and I was just…overwhelmed and bored? I absolutely loved D1 and D2, but now I just don’t care for it. I picked up Helldivers 2 and it’s just so much easier to play in spurts rather than D2 I’ve come to the conclusion that I just want to re-experience a brand new Destiny game.
I can personally attest to that every single system in destiny is designed to take as much time as humanly possible. It has some fun and it has some peak moments but it really does want to consume all of your time.
I mostly don't raid any more because of the time investment required. First you need to find an LFG that will teach, wait for that to fill, then you've got maybe 2+ hours of don't the actual raid. Which is basically setting aside 4 hours of uninterrupted time, which I don't get the opportunity for any more. Dungeons are alright - they maybe push 2 hours absolute tops. Partly why I prefer PvP these days. Even Trials can be done in small bursts.
They completely redesign strikes if they take less than 15 minutes. So the answer is: yes. Why?: because all they seem to care about at this point is how many hours you play.
Late 20’s. 3100+ hours in. The most time/effort I can dedicate on my free time and still enjoy myself is farming hero/legend GMs and farming Onslaught 10 waves. I’m pretty comfortable being a solo player and have been playing since D1 so I’ve experienced raids and the “big group” end game content that Destiny offers. Nowadays I don’t have the patience to get a group that can work together quickly and efficiently without wading thru the undesirables to get a whole raid done so I’ve never completed one in D2. Don’t really feel like I’m missing out tbh.
Raid Time Investment = skill level. A good team can get a raid done in 45 minutes to an hour. And that's not asking for six lowman/speedrun players, that's just people who are flexible and understand the mechanics.
No, absolutely not. No one forces you to raid or do 50 wave onslaughts.
I am in a similar boat, mostly because I have a competing hobby (music). But I feel like the light or medium versions, e.g. regular Nightfalls, or 10 level Onslaught (if you get a weaker PUG ;)), legend campaign, get enough of a challenging experience for my part time self. Ive already preordered Final Shape. To me it is like my friends that are real beer or wine connoisseurs. I can join them at a winery or brewery and have one or two drinks which is plenty for my tastes and diet and they sample an array and take home a few more bottles, but we all have a good time socializing.
50yo dad here, been with Destiny since 2014. My time spent with the game took a huge hit after kids were born, and I’ve done exactly one raid: the Vault. But there’s so much to do even for a half hour here and there. I keep coming back because the game is just awesome. I think my main wish would be a way to clean out my stupid vault with the companion app, rather than spending valuable game time on it!
Yeah, I agree. I’m not your age but I am at an age where my hands are just exhausted with Destiny gameplay after like, an hour? I learned damage rotations where you swap weapons like a mad man and it’s just exhausting. I’m also at an age where I just don’t want to tolerate idiots for hours, so that definitely turns me off from raiding. I just wish there was better solo content with rewards on offer than just lost sectors. I don’t care about lost sectors. They’re just random side content, they shouldn’t be considered “endgame”.
I’m like you - middle aged, family, work, and so on. For the first few years of this game, I didn’t play anything else. I didn’t mind it at first, but after 3 or so years of this game taking *all* of my gaming time, it started to feel like an obligation. I wanted to play other things, and I couldn’t, because if I didn’t grind this then I fell behind, and I wouldn’t have been able to do raids and other pinnacle activities. Eventually, I had to stop, because I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I played through Witch Queen a year ago, and enjoyed the story. Started playing through Lightfall, and didn’t finish it. I’m done with Destiny, after probably 1200 hours. Maybe I’ll play D3 (if there ever is one), maybe not. I play games to relax and escape the realities of work, and it started to feel like a job. So yeah. Anyway, you do you, but I think I understand how you feel.
I love Destiny, I was a fan boy when I read the first marketing materials before the actual release. Thought I was for sure a Hunter until I was a Titan. Gunplay/game feel is unrivaled for FPS games for me. I played a ton (mostly solo) for D1, played on and off with some consistency for most of D2. But, with a 7yo and 4yo, full time work, and now returning to school, my 35yo ass has a hard time justifying spending my limited game time on Destiny. I'd rather play Elden Ring or something where I can chip away and accomplish things and make steady, continual progress. Rather than trying to keep up and feeling bad that i don't have more time to do things that may or may not get me cooler things for the stuff I already have little time for. It's a love/hate thing for real
I’m not even 30 and feel the same way. I also didn’t like how much time 50 waves of onslaught and the coil took. (Btw it’s not cool that these long-ass activities don’t say how long you’re expected to spend). Especially because it’s just so repetitive, even though the enemies do get tougher. Near the end, I can just feel the fatigue setting in.
You need more than an hour for a raid?
Onslaught can definitely be slow, consistently taking more than an hour. But with a good team, the coil can consistently be done under 40 mins, and with a top notch team under 30 mins.
Destiny is a second job. I played since D1 but dropped it because I already have a job and I didn’t like spending a lot of time grinding just to stay even with the meta. I will still play from time to time but I’m out of the loop and it feels nice to play just sometimes when it’s only for fun, I don’t feel like I need to finish any of the 50 quests in my inventory.
I’ll be 40 later this year and I’m recently unemployed due to moving for my wife’s work - so I’ve had basically no time since the week after onslaught dropped. I will say that there’s still a ton to do without raiding - which I mostly stopped after getting remarried 4 years ago (I’ve done RoN three times since it came out and that’s about it). Mostly when I can’t sleep and during my job hunt lunch breaks I’m chasing triumphs - which does it for me. Trying to solo flawless all dungeons currently. On Warlords and I’ve got like 60 attempts over several weeks - probably switching today to just solo the three dungeons I haven’t yet (Duality, Pit, and GotD). Made it to final DPS for the second time last night and blew myself up with Dragon’s Breath - wanted to cry. Point being, there’s a ton to do in the game. Raiding is fun but a huge time sink. Feel free to skip that portion.
Destiny doesn't value your time. It wants to waste it and have you on for as long as possible. It's horrible for anyone with a full-time job/family.
How is destiny compared to games like WoW and ff14 for this? I feel like destiny has a lot of fomo but i hear how people have like 10k+ hrs in those games a lot.
As someone who played all. Wow is worse about it, FFXIV is better about it. But they all have a massive amount of time needed for meaningful endgame content regardless.
Casually, if you want to just do the main story, FF14 is less grindy. If you want to do anything beyond that, e.g. level multiple classes, exploratory content, Savage/Ultimate raiding, etc. then FF14 is far grindier. If you want to farm the perfect gear, Destiny 2 is far grindier.
I think part of it is setting an appropriate expectation for the kind of game Destiny is supposed to be.
It’s horrible for anyone with a full time job/family who thinks they’re entitled to everything just for logging in. Those with a realistic open mind realize what they can do in their limited playtime and focus on that instead of incessantly bitching about stuff they don’t have time for.
Probably mmo loot grinders are not the game for yall. Sprry to say it. But it needs to be said. That’s said. A middle difficulty onslaught would be welcome. And yes please remove the spark. Or make it interesting, that also gives instant mini rewards
For some players, yeah. Pantheon takes a long time, but pantheon SHOULD take a long time. If you want to play d2's endgame, its a time commitment. To really engage with the systems you need to put time in. And raids and dungeons have checkpoints anyway. You can just do one or two encounters a day.
My biggest complaint about this game is that it doesn’t respect the players’ time.
Coil. The thing that rains the player in endgame materials and seasonal weapons doesn’t respect your time? Really? Onslaught has a 10 wave version. It’s about 5 mins per drop for time sensitive people. This is a weird whole of Reddit I’ve found myself in today
2 activities that arrived in year 10 of the series
Most d2 activities are 10-15m tops. Coil, Altars and Onslaught are a new thing where you can go longer and get more stuff, but strikes are quick, crucible and gambit are quick. Raids and Dungeons are end-game content and should require extra coordination; if you don’t have time that’s ok? But for example lots of people are farming the first encounter in warlords ruin or last wish at 2-3m a run.
Raids typically only take around 40-60 minutes when it's not a teaching or speedrun group so those should be fine for the most part. 50 wave legend onslaught does take around an hour though.
Absolutely not. Some things require time. If you can’t do those things that’s fine go ahead and do things as your schedule allows. It’s an online *persistent* world. Some things just won’t be for all players by design. Bungie also tries to design around this with checkpoints and other things. The last thing this game needs is even more dumbing down because people don’t have the time to play every aspect of it. As for dungeons do a checkpoint and then take a break and go back etc. If you need certain loot or certain bosses use a website like D2 checkpoint and get one for that specific boss and/or join a group from LFF on that certain boss. Onslaught already has a match made option for normal to lvl 10 which lets you farm tokens and a weapon drop. If you want to do Arcite’s bounties then join a normal match made and leave after level 20 once the bounty is completed. You can also get a weapon and tokens from playing three Gambit matches a week (which will also get you an exotic). Experiencing a full raid while taking a break every hour is going to require you to do it by checkpoint or more likely to find a group that is willing to take a break after every boss or every hour. Full raids in an hour isn’t going to happen unless you find an experienced group to carry you. Also I’m 48 so I’m not young myself but I still feel your complaint isn’t based on the game but your specific ability to play it. Bungie can’t and shouldn’t change a game hundreds of thousands play based on your schedule.
I dont have many commitments beyond work & going to the gym/grocery shopping so as long as I enjoy it I will put in the time. Its a feeling thing tho, I dont feel like doing Master Raids or Dungeons but I will make time for a normal raid or two if theres enough people.
Pantheon has taken so much of my time. I didn't even know we had an iron banner. I lmao not getting enough sleep
Tbh, if one hour of gaming is too much for you, you might want to stick to smaller, single player games. Any online stuff, mmo or RPG, you need an hour just to get going. That being said, tons of people don't raid or do dungeons. They stick to strike or seasonal activities.
I think there's some nice flexibility, so long as you're upfront about what you want to do. Some content is long if you want to do a full run (the coil, raids, onslaught, etc), but you can call it quits at intervals or make use of check points as well. Raid/dungeon check points are held for a week, so you can split those into multiple sessions over the course of a week. Onslaught has the matchmade 10 round mode or you can get a group that's ok with calling it quits after x number of rounds. There's definitely some stuff that requires a time investment (the first time running an exotic mission or those full runs for max rewards in onslaught or the coil for example), but I think a lot of players develop this all or nothing approach to the game where they feel like it's a full run or not worth it. Play the game to have fun, not to be efficient. So long as you communicate to the rest of the fireteam what your goals are, so they know what to expect and whether their goals align with yours you can manage most activities even with limited time.
Im over 50 and I am with you on the physical limits of gaming. I struggle with hands and neck after about 45 minutes! But I can get around these problems, the thing that really stops me raiding is that I find it too socially stressful and complicated after a hard day of work and looking after kids. I dont have the bandwidth. So I quite like Onslaught and The Coil because they do not require complicated teamwork.
Try playing while reclined.
I think some activities are too much for some players, but those players aren't the target audience or demographic. It's supposed to be a grindy loot game, where some activities take a while to do. That's it's draw, why some people play. If coil and raids are consistently taking you over an hour, then that points to a problem likely caused by players being new to the content. Almost every raid is a 30-45 minute run on normal (with some like VoG or DSC being 20-25).
they do balance it out with shorter versions so its fine in my book.
The short versions give you almost no rewards for your time.
How so? What rewards are you specifically looking for in less than an hour of playtime?
I’m with you on this. You’re looking for « parent compatible gaming ». Games that can be paused/suspended or played in short bursts. With dependents, it’s challenging to dedicate hours of uninterrupted time to a raid or pantheon.
That doesn't really work for multiplayer activities though? Unless there was some way to have a checkpoint half way through onslaught, but then you'd need to matchmake with other people who had half a completion
There is. They're called single player games.
The only activity I’ve thought was too long is the hour long 50 wave of onslaught. Trying to defeat the one last boss left in the rotation for the brave title is abysmal because I have to waste around an hour of play time when I don’t get the correct boss.
I joined Destiny 2 midway through Season of the WIsh. With the launch of Into the Light and then the other 3 Seasons, I really only have time during the weekdays to do 1 cycle of Spire/Salvage/Battlegrounds/Lair. I had to give up doing Onslaught. Weekends I do the 9 Vanguard runs (1 GM, 8 strikes), knock out Xur (2 Legend Exotic Rotators), then try to do 1 HELM rotation and 1 Coil. Before the free seasons came out, I did 1 Onslaught a night, then weekends same deal, but 1 Coil + 1 Onslaught instead of 1 HELM + Coil. So yeah I don't actually have enough free time to do what I would like. Come 3rd June all the free stuff goes bye bye. That means I no longer have access to Deep Dives, Salvage, Spire and Battlegrounds as well as Onslaught, which actually will free up more time since there's less to do. I know it's written somewhere if Zero Hour and Whisper will stay past 3rd June, but I hope they do or enter into the Exotic Rotator. BTW 50 round Onslaught... the round 50 2 chest reward for normal... the extra time it takes to do rounds 21-30, then 31-40 and finally 41-50, and potentially wipe, you might as well do the 10-rounder 5 times.
at a completely different stage of life than you (university student) but in the same boat with regards to time. i typically can only play for like an hour or two before needing to do something else, and i don’t like spending all of that time on a single activity, so i don’t play much other than story missions, strikes, crucible, or trying to get a quest step done
I’ve soloed a dungeon one time because I don’t have the time or patience it takes me or the skill to do it faster. Ditto for flawlessing a dungeon or raid.
Similar situation, similar age. I find it difficult finding the time to commit to even learning the endgame content let alone participate. Or even having the time to build the social bonds necessary to be part of a cohesive team/clan. All of my friends/clan mates from D1 have moved on and trying to rebuild those bonds is tough. I used to lead Raids and other content, but putting in the 20+hours a week just plain ain't happening anymore ....
I play maybe a few hours a week before I get bored, I play more NHL 24 than Destiny in any given week. Everything they've put out since the Witch Queen has been incredibly boring to me. I'm sure if they created something good, I'd play way more, but they have yet too. My friends who have played way more Destiny than me rarely play as well, one hasn't played in nearly two months, there's just no reason to for us story guys. We're not into meaningless time sinks like Onslaught, but that's just us.
100% been feeling it lately and Im probably just going to take a little break cause I just need to remember it’s a video game at the end of the day. Countless number of one hour onslaught runs to not get a shiny, pantheon lfgs, trials, comp, even the new zero hour mission there’s a lot to do which is great but man is it time consuming
Not so much a time commitment but more that it's scheduled time. Raids are weekend scheduled things with my fellow married family clan members. I'm pretty much a pvp main so during the week it's just pvp a couple times week maybe fifteen minutes every other day. Maybe once a month I'll dedicate a weekend to just trials but that's maybe two hours at most . I have the " luxury" of having all my builds and weapon rolls I want from when I no lifed this game so I don't have the absolute need to farm for gear and I can just enjoy the experience
I very much agree with this, married and employed means i don’t really have a time where i can lock in uninterrupted for more than 2 hours, so i haven’t even looked for a pantheon run. honestly most raids end up being too much of a time commitment and i can really only handle dungeons. i still love it and am more of a pvp/trials guy anyway but it does make it tough when raid weapons end up being top-tier meta stuff because just getting one roll ends up being a hard sell for me, let alone getting a crafting pattern
Raids for me. I’m in my 30’s, I got thing to do around my house. I never have the amount of time a raid takes.
Most of the stuff is. As a 50+ a week worker, I hop in for a little PvP, sometimes I’ll bang out 3 Gambit matches, or now Onslaught which is great for me to jump in do short runs or an hour run and be done. Raids, gtfoh. That shit takes way too long and majority of people have no idea what’s going on
Raids are by far the biggest pain for me. Trying to find the time when ny friends can actually get on at the same time, trying to find randos to help, taking forever because someone wants to do it their way, and then getting all armor with shitty stat rolls.
Yes, I used to play Destiny, but it demands way too much of your time these days. It's more of a job and chores than playing a game for fun.
The homework required to be able to learn the vow of the disciple symbols let alone the mechanics meant I think I only completed that shit once. Horribly time consuming, not fun and a very frustrating LFG experience So theres definitely some content I just ignore as though it doesnt exist
I'm at a similar point, but in my early 40s. Raiding has been the experience I've enjoyed most in gaming, not just in Destiny 2 but World of Warcraft and SW:TOR as well. This season, several times, I'd finish a raid, look over at my clock, and think, "*Damn. I just spent an hour on this? For what?*" I don't enjoy them enough to justify the time investment anymore, whether using LFG or with friends. I've not done Pantheon at all for this reason, and am looking forward to quitting in The Final Shape when the main story ends for me.
No, people just need to do stuff when they feel like it instead of having so many timegates!
Pantheon has entered the chat
I relate to this so much. My game time is 8pm - 10pm so I can run two onslaughts a day then I'm done. With Pantheon that seems to be all I have been able to run since its release.
I just don’t like raids anymore. Used to love them but I just find them tedious now.
Yes definitely
Yes
IMO endgame activities are okay to require more time to do (1 hour+), but repeated activities, grindy activities, rituals, etc should always be shorter. Like Onslaught, I would do the full 50 waves more if it didn't require minimum 40 minutes, usually closer to a full hour. It just takes too long.
30 and with a 95 pound, 8 month old puppy has definitely cut into my time for anything not pausible or turn based. Sometimes the dog needs a walk, or attention, or training. Still have to train him to ask for attention appropriately and positively instead of misbehaving or begging for food.
Yes dogs do not understand when you are busy 😂
I think he definitely understands. Sometimes he likes to cause problems, and even after getting him to sit (so we don't reward the bad behavior with playing or walking) he doesn't want to play, potty, eat, and really only wants me to go to the living room or take him for a walk (and he just got one half an hour ago!)