This Killed Raids.

4:22 I remember getting my friends on multiple nights a week for raids a while back, and it was the dream. They all were kind of new to D2, and I was the only veteran player. I had done my fair share of raiding with LFG teams over the years, but raiding felt like a lofty goal for a team where only one guy had experience. I sat in a call one night with a full fireteam of six. All of us happened to get on coincidentally, and then one of us went "We should do a raid lmao." and then we decided you know what, sure. I guided 5 new light guardians through their first raid experience. Better yet, they wanted to do GoS just for extra laughs. It was the raid I'd done the least, but I explained every encounter to them all. We wiped countless times, but after we got the slightest mechanical progress in the first encounter, they were all hooked. No one was angry if someone caused a wipe. We all understood the situation, and were determined to beat it as a team. The sanctified mind died that night right as the sun rose. No one ever thought to sleep. Determination overrode exhaustion for all of us. We would go on to do every raid we could, farming each one for the exotics and best rolls for weapons we wouldn't even use, just as an excuse to do them. That fire burned so bright and was so fun for us all, but it slowly died and no one got on anymore. Now I'm back to being a solo player, and it sucks a lot. LFGs being in a barren state now makes raiding basically impossible for me now. It's strange hearing such an eerily similar communal story

That was a fantastic video and well put together

2:13 "...and that was the end of everything... but it was also, a beginning." coulda used this D1 quote here PERFECTLY~

A massive part of raiding in D1 for me was the chase for exotics, not just for ghally but all exotics. You had your 3 chances in VOG and nightfalls per week and that was it, which kept us coming back.

Back in the day, you could power-level pretty well in old raids when a new DLC came out

Bungie ruined raiding by trying to make raids more complex and convoluted just for the sake of day 1 raid races. They stopped designing raids for re-playability and they become painful to try and teach new people. Bungie drew a line in the sand and decided that 1 off raid races were more important than sustainability. Those day 1’s were epic, but then the raids were pointless.

I got skill crept out of raids and dungeons. There's just a point where I don't wanna have to watch a million videos and join a million teams just to beat something once. And I am a platinum raider lol. It's for streamers now and that's that.

As someone who knows most of the raids in D1 and D2 (with a few exceptions in D2) I have no problem helping new players learn the raid I’m running. The problem is, if I put up a KWTD post there should not be 3 people on the fireteam that don’t know what to do or think they do bc they watched a raid guide 20 minutes before joining and refuse to say anything and try to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible to avoid getting called out. It sours the raiding experience for me bc now I either have to teach them and hope they can pick it up or kick them. (which I don’t like doing bc I know how hard it can be to find a group for a specific raid sometimes) if ppl were just upfront about not knowing a raid or encounter not nearly as many ppl would be upset about teaching someone but instead ppl try to stay under the radar just hoping to be carried for free loot

My favorite memory was when me and my friends sat down and committed to our first raid. Garden of Salvation. We also acquired the divinity quest. So we progressed the quest line jumped into the raid. We set our teams talked about the mechanics. Looted every secret chest and did all the quest steps for divinity. We then got to the final encounter and we wiped and wiped and wiped because we know the gist of it but not fully knew what we were doing and it wasn’t till 8 HOURS LATER we completed the raid. EVERYONE cheered hoot and hauler and we sat there with each other. Laughed cried and everything in between. That was the first time we completed a raid and that was the start of something for us. We then went through almost every raid after that. It’s still one of my favorite memories. We grinded through it for 8 hours together and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Got I missed destiny. #wewantD3 and my friends back

Personally i think the main reason people dont raid anymore is because of how hard it can be to learn a new raid, even if you are a seasoned player with meta gear. Sometimes it can be rough finding a group to teach you, and when you are seasoned in a raid you often dont want to deal with teaching someone new. In my opinion, raids would be so much more popular if making that initial hurdle to join a raid was more welcoming. We need much more incentives to teach people the raid. For example, for every person you take through their first raid run, you can get extra drops, more perks on your drops, more red borders, and/or a higher raid exotic drop chance. Make it so instead of people going "ugh, this person doesnt know to raid" to "yay, this person never did the raid! Time for some extra loot!"

One more thing with raids, some people would like to join raids just to get armor or weapons. Nothing more, didn't try to learn the encounters, didn't try to help in clears just stand in corner and revive the guy who did all alone. This quickly became normal and even encouraged clearing trio, duo or solo for encounters which takes 6 guardians. People got so use to it that they wanted easy drops and it removed any sense of reward from raids.

Bro we need a Destiny nostalgia video. I need every Destiny youtuber to make an In Memoriam Destiny vid!!!

If exotics were still hard to get people would play raids and end game way more. D1 was brutal at times but exotics not being in tap made them feel so rewarding to get

2:13 THE DRIP DUDE

Destiny 2 Raids Killed the Casual Player Base Bungie spent years designing raids for streamers, speedrunners, and the top 1% while ignoring the average player who just wanted to have fun with friends. The problem wasn’t difficulty. The problem was replacing action with bureaucracy. Wrath of the Machine was the perfect raid. If someone died, skilled players could clutch the encounter. New players could learn without instantly wiping the team. The focus was on fighting enemies, movement, and teamwork, not memorizing twenty symbols and passing information around like an office meeting. Destiny 2 went in the opposite direction. Every raid became a high-stress group project where one mistake from one player wipes all six people. Miss a symbol? Wipe. Miss a callout? Wipe. Stand in the wrong place? Wipe. That design didn’t create teamwork. It created blame. LFG transformed from a place where players taught each other into a place filled with gatekeeping, KWTD posts, raid reports, and instant kicks. Bungie turned teammates into liabilities. The hardcore crowd loved it because the raids were built specifically for them. Meanwhile, millions of casual players looked at the pressure, toxicity, and time commitment and simply stopped raiding altogether. Bungie spent years investing enormous resources into content that only a tiny percentage of players regularly engaged with, while the average player was left with fewer strikes, fewer social activities, and less content they could actually enjoy. The result? A shrinking player base, declining engagement, and a game now entering maintenance mode. Wrath of the Machine proved raids could be challenging, exciting, and accessible at the same time. Destiny 2 forgot that games are supposed to be fun.

The wipes we endured over and over and over but yet persevered, and ultimately, became triumphant…built character. And formed the foundation of the core memories we carry with us and look back upon so fondly today.

I remember wanting to do vault of glass for rewind rounds when that was first introduced. Then later on that perk started popping up on guns outside of vog and I realized I didn’t have to vog ever again. Really killed the cool factor of that loot pool for me.

Another big difference is in destiny 1 you had to get the gun THEN level it up and grind raid specific materials to unlock it's upgrades. Meaning you spent many more weeks raiding on all 3 characters to get your weapons and gear maxed out. In D2 once you get the drop you're done, sure you can argue rolls but lets be honest 9/10 times in D2 the one you get first time works just as good as the perfect roll lol.

I can agree that Raid Gear always should of been the strongest loot, and I am sure the Devs know that but their hands were forced.

I’ve been saying for years that the jump in difficulty from dungeons to raids is too steep and it chases a lot of players away. I’m all for a good challenge. I don’t mind some platforming here and there, although I actually kind of hate it. Puzzles are fine all that stuff, but it’s the type of shit like Castlevania two when you had to equip a certain item and go crouch by a cliff for like 60 seconds facing in a certain direction there’s no way anybody ever would’ve figured that out without consulting a Nintendo power magazine. And that’s how I feel about a lot of the raid mechanics. I’m honestly amazed that anybody can figure some of this shit out. I don’t mind extra challenge but playing the game especially activities. They expect you to grind over and over again should never feel like a chore and if you don’t have a good raid team, if you’re a solo player like me, you only have named two or three other friends that play the game with you and you relying constantly on LFG raids are a fucking Chore at the very least they should drop exotics for completing it not just randomly dropped them, and I also feel like they should be more rewarding. There should be more chests and chest should have a better chance of giving you good loot half the time you slag your way through these dungeons and at the end, you don’t even get anything and I remember seeing a lot of players posting videos being very irate about how many times they’ve completed a dungeon without the exotic dropping. I feel like bungee is borderline sadistic sometimes.