When Bungie first talked about Raids in Destiny, they would describe it as one of the most challenging things gamers would encounter. To their credit, the initial Vault of Glass runs took several hours to complete at first; but, as more and more players attempted the Raid, new strategies, exploits, and glitches were discovered which, in turn, watered down the difficulty.
Atheon, the final boss in the Vault of Glass, has become just like any other boss in the game — a bullet sponge — which is why Bungie changed the mechanics of the fight in yesterday's update. Now, instead of Atheon teleporting the three Guardians furthest from him into the alternate dimensions, he will select people at random. Not only does this mean that all previous strategies have been thrown out the window, but it also ensures that each member of your Fireteam is familiar with every aspect of the Atheon fight. For some, this is a welcomed challenge; for others, though, it's an annoyance.
Addressing player concerns with the new change, community manager David "Deej" Dague explained Bungie's reasoning.
"I talked a lot to the developers about your opinions on the matter. You don't want to be selected at random. You want to choose who gets to fetch the Relic under fire from those nasty Oracles. I spoke on your behalf. Your voice was heard. We discussed your concerns," he assured players.
"I even said 'Why not just change Hard Mode and leave Easy Mode alone?'"
"I was told 'The Raid is never supposed to be easy.'"
"At that point, I recalled all the times I stood and delivered the line '…the most challenging encounter we've ever created.' It was hard to disagree," Dague reasoned.
Dague went on to admit that when he first attempted the raid, he had been carried through "like luggage assigned to my clan." The design of Atheon allowed for this, and that's not how Bungie originally envisioned the Vault of Glass.
"This is an activity that was designed to be undertaken by a hardcore team that is ready and willing to adapt and improvise to changing battle conditions," Dague said.
You — the players — are the ones that showed Bungie the holes in Vault of Glass. And the designers — while simultaneously working on improving exotic weapons, implementing voice chat, and adding bounties — have simply "plugged the holes."
"If you got in on the ground floor of this thing, we thank you," Dague concluded. "If you understand the mechanics for how to beat Atheon, it's still a thing you can teach your friends. If you're all up to the challenge, the Raid is waiting for you."
At this point, the changes to Atheon may be a bit too late. By now, thousands of players have already glitched and exploited their way through Vault of Glass, even on hard. We can only hope that Bungie has learned from their mistakes and improve upon their initial designs with Destiny's first expansion, The Dark Below, which is due out December 9.
