Destiny's 6-player raids only playable with friends

[Dark Drakan]

For any of you who dont have many online friends the next article is going to be a little bit of bad news as Bungie has just revealed that the raid portion of Destiny will only be playable with 5 other friends and will not use its matchmaking system to pair you with random players to fill player slots.

Bungie writer Luke Smith
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Raids are a really big bet for us. It's a bit of a risk because the activity requires you to have a group of five other friends to play with. We don't adhere to any of the standard rules for the rest of the game. Like, raids don't have waypoints, they don't tell you where to go, they don't tell you what to do. Obviously we're going to have big cool bosses, I think that we've given people a taste in Strikes of what the bosses are and what they can do. The raid bosses are different: they're still big monsters, much like what you're going to see, they're still scary, but they have a bunch of abilities that are unlike anything you've really experienced in a shooter before.​

I don't say that to be a douchebag and I don't say it because it's a cool bullet point, I say it because when we were building this thing there was nothing that any of us could go home to play to try and learn from. I mean we were - as we were going - building and learning and failing along the way to find cool mechanics and occasionally we'd succeed.

SOURCE - CVG​

 

[Zarkes]

This really sucks, I don't have time to support or be an active part of a clan, and without matchmaking I'll never be able to group five people together every random hour I feel like playing. I really hope they change this.

 

[DarkONI]

Sigh. I cancelled my pre-order the other day.... It's more about the price rather than the design choice however.

 

[Dark Drakan]

I managed to get it for £38 on Xbox One which is cheapest I've managed to get any game on it yet. Quite a few friends will get it & can see me being able to try the raids but they aren't HUGE part of game. I'm sure most will be able to organise a group to play them at some point. Forum members can always help out.

 

[Gikoku]

That's an illogical design choice from every which way I try to look at it, and their excuse for it in the IGN article is rather silly. Implying that total strangers can't be just as co-operative and patient as close friends? I'd say have the option there for those that want it instead of leaving it out giving people only 1 choice when it comes to it, if someone doesn't want to pair with a stranger, then they don't have to. It's not rocket science.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Apparently the difficulty is ramped up & unless you work together properly you WILL die according to what I was reading. I only entered a few of the underground tunnels alone & died quite often so can only imagine how tough these scenarios could be. As you can't currently chat to anyone besides people on your friend list in party chat (no proximity chat in game) it would be tough to communicate properly & many might find this more frustrating than anything. They are working on a chat solution though apparently so might be something that can be fixed in future.

According to article I've just read the raids can take hours too, so if you were with randoms via match making & any dropped out you would be at disadvantage until someone else joined. They would also miss out on portions of each raid that way. Friends are less likely to come & go frequently.

 

[Gikoku]

Apparently the difficulty is ramped up & unless you work together properly you WILL die according to what I was reading. I only entered a few of the underground tunnels alone & died quite often so can only imagine how tough these scenarios could be. As you can't currently chat to anyone besides people on your friend list in party chat (no proximity chat in game) it would be tough to communicate properly & many might find this more frustrating than anything. They are working on a chat solution though apparently so might be something that can be fixed in future.

According to article I've just read the raids can take hours too, so if you were with randoms via match making & any dropped out you would be at disadvantage until someone else joined. They would also miss out on portions of each raid that way. Friends are less likely to come & go frequently.

Fair enough, but in the end it'll just have everyone resorting to using forums for planned raids or joining forum clans, so they'd still end up playing with strangers anyway if they wanted someone reliable. Just happens to be less convenient now. Are all 5 friends required for the raid or can it still be done with say 2 or 3 other mates? Because I honestly wouldn't be able to be bothered joining a forum and fishing for reliable strangers to play with, and I have no idea how many of my friends would even be interested in the game on PS4 either. :/

 

[Dark Drakan]

Fair enough, but in the end it'll just have everyone resorting to using forums for planned raids or joining forum clans, so they'd still end up playing with strangers anyway if they wanted someone reliable. Just happens to be less convenient now. Are all 5 friends required for the raid or can it still be done with say 2 or 3 other mates? Because I honestly wouldn't be able to be bothered joining a forum and fishing for reliable strangers to play with, and I have no idea how many of my friends would even be interested in the game on PS4 either. :/

I dont know what player cap is, Beta didnt show any raids as they are end game content. Though strike missions did say between 1-3 players and could play with any number in between. So maybe it will be between 2-6 as 6 players is 2 full strike teams. I know quite a few people getting it on XB1 but could still likely only get 4-5 to play at any one time so would have to get someone else to invite friends too on most occasions.

Bungie aren't stupid & most game can actually be played solo but as your sharing world with others you never feel alone. So others help you out randomly, Bungie listened to those saying 3 was not enough for a fireteam so created 6 player raids. I would imagine they will create something in between too so everyone is happy. Either way I'm looking forward to getting my hands on game & playing it properly with friends (something I didn't manage in Beta due to issues).