[quote]10 THOUGHTS ON THE LAST SIX MONTHS- We set up a calendar of content, showed you the plan early, and delivered it. [/quote] The calendar was a good addition. What wasn't? Was the season of the drifter requiring a single activity (reckoning) to get specific armor abilities for prime. There is no doubt that prime was a better mode too. A lot better, faster, and more task-focused which allowed teams to win... and lose... because they paid attention to those details. [quote]I feel like we needed to do a better job of shifting Powerful sources.[/quote] Disagree. As a matter of fact? I think a single adventure type on each planet to kick back and relax into for a lower powerful reward will tie all the expansions closer together. Having one flashpoint is nice, but also having one activity per planet which ties curse of osiris to the D2 vanilla campaigns? That is something you haven't really done both with your adventures and flashpoints. I think having something to do with each and every planet is a good change of pace to give gamers incentives to tie the past to the present and see what they missed on the first, second, etc. go around. You can also adjust powerful rewards. Perhaps there will be... 7... powerful rewards in the future which give 1-6 light increase for a single area piece while the above idea gives 1-2 for dedicated people on each planet. [quote]SEASON OF THE DRIFTER THOUGHTS, PART I[/quote] Prime is my vote. There is no contest that I enjoyed prime A LOT more than classic. [quote]PART II AKA LET'S TALK ABOUT RECKONING- With Reckoning in Season of the Drifter, we got a taste of what kind of content we'd need to build to challenge Protocol-wearing Warlocks.[/quote] Lol. Well then! Hey you all dress wearers! PAY ATTENTION HERE... because you're in for it now. Sorry, but I disagree. To your question too: "How are we ever going to make content that fairly challenges players again? " Simple enough answer: Building on gambit prime ideas? Make a role which needs to be fulfilled. No gathering up to dish out damage. Make it interesting too. For example, robot calus? Each plate has a single damage icon. The first person, to get it? Can deal overly critical damage, but lose their abilities including super. You must pick this buff up by holding X or square. This damage is offset by all corresponding plates which underwhelm the user specifically and overly charges another. Next plate, both of you are underwhelmed. If no one picks it up the first time? Then all corresponding debuffs don't activate and your calus damage timer decreases with each plate. The concept is pretty basic: You must make a choice on what is more important, time or damage? Lower rated light guardians, for example, would probably be told to pick it up until they are higher light to extend the timer while a fully functioning group wouldn't bother with it. Then you simply make the next round even more tough on health bars knowing the mechanic was passed on. This would be the equivalent of turning a public event heroic for example. There is a ton of ideas you can utilize to keep the game interesting, but guardians must be given equal tasks and choices with pros vs cons. That is a raid and that is competitive for example. Taking one super means losing your other options for example. Then? When the time comes to be about a month to two months or so? You simply make a few changes here and there. Keep it fresh, keep it updated. [quote]Velveeta (they were formed in the wake of the Crota's End modem-unplugging debacle to help find the cheesiest things to do/use in the challenging PVE portions of the game) – these players are some of our craftiest. [/quote] I had a good hearty laugh with this one. Well done Mr Legend Himself and Crota glitch members. We officially... did it! [quote]Let's talk about encounter design.[/quote] Some good ole D&D Game Master advice: "Whatever you think is too easy. Isn't hard enough. Whatever you think the players won't discover? They will. Whatever encounter design you have it? Make their stats 12's and 14's instead of 10's out of 20 just for good measure." [quote]We don't want to spawn enemies behind the player. [/quote] Weak adds are fine. Acolytes with barriers would be a bit much, but doable. [quote]We want players to play a game of taking space from enemies. [/quote]\ You should also make a good on environments which feature taking, reinforcing, and then overrunning players. We should absolutely have an overflow of enemies from a single angle for example. They do not call it focus fire on same targets for example. [quote]We want players to have cover where their shields and health can recharge, or where they get to be smart using geometry, movement, ability and gunplay to dig enemies out of cover, and make interesting decisions about target prioritization. [/quote] You want actual structure(s). Make structures which force bridges up for example or having to utilize barriers to prevent targets overflow. [quote]We want players to be able to understand where in the space enemies will come from, and if we're going to reverse the combat front on players (AKA spawn enemies behind them, we want to telegraph that. [/quote] Telegraphing is a good thing, but too much is too much. I can count the psions which want to become flayers for example. You should, ideally, make the encounter random as to which adds will be additional reinforcements and where they spawn. This way it forces players to use their traits in meaningful ways. [quote]We use dropships, spawn clouds, audio cues, all kinds of tricks to try and prepare players for reinforcements.[/quote] And with that all the stealth, mystery enemy stealing intel, is lost. Recover that bungie. Giving players something to... hunt... is fun and not just for hunters. [quote]As character power was dramatically increasing (more on reasons for this increase later on), the encounter rules got thrown out the window. [/quote] Forget power and players for a moment. Make an encounter about reaching past the initial point and make secondary objectives for rewards. Like telling a player, on the bridge of folly, that snipers will wreck their team and eliminate them for an additional reward. Say the next challenge, for another player, is to eliminate the knight at the bottom of the bridge breaking it down with it's axe (one on one) . If objective one was done? No snipers. If objective 1 was not? Proceed as normal with no objective two. Complete six additional objectives on bridge of folly and get rewarded. [quote]PART III AKA NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT DIFFICULTY AND TOUCH ON SANDBOX NERFS[/quote] Sorry, but there are more practical solutions than simply not letting people enjoy their super use. Practical in the sense you simply allow everything to progress along the lines of ease of access and the tough fights? Well those are the ones you want to avoid. Every other MMO out there has them. Destiny does not. Yet. You absolutely cannot make players feel like they are reliant on anyone else to end an activity they want to participate in.