elitism is the wrong word. It’s more so the people who watch guides and the people who don’t watch guides. Most people don’t want to watch guide then do the raid. That became the expectation in d2 and raiding became shallow. Elitist challenges like contest are good for the game, but the raids use to be about fun and loot back in d1. The day everyone started saying watch a guide is the day the core of the game died.

The day Destiny 2 started dying was when Joe said "We are bringing the challenge back" and that's when normal people started leaving as they could not do the content they paid for - BUT - the elitists and streamers were happy.

That and irrelevant loot. I had to use the washroom. I told my raid party I’d be right back. So they decided to start the encounter while I was away for a moment to lighten the bladder. I communicated clearly I had to use the washroom and everyone confirmed that it was ok. Then they proceeded, I returned and we completed the raid. Then they had recorded the time I had to use the washroom, sent it to the clan leader and had me kicked from the clan. This was after I had spent weeks contributing to the clan by helping mates with clearing nightfall strikes. Lesson I learned; you don’t hate this community enough. Destiny died. Good riddance. I hate this community and how toxic it is, was, and will continue to be. Sadly because Bungie is a highly toxic workplace, that toxicity seeps into the community. Look at Direct Entertainment, they love their game, they love their community, and they’re doing fantastic. Look at Bungie, they hate their game, they hate their community, and their community is a toxic cesspool, and Bungie is failing as a studio. Gut the leftists, remove the political activists, apply pressure on the company and the devs, put a boot on Bungies neck, always aim for over delivering even if it’s through QoL updates. You cant make a game when the entire studio hates the people who buy and play their games. You cant make a game if you refuse to play it yourself. There should’ve been several clans filled with Bungie devs and upper management. Absolutely everyone at Bungie should’ve been mandated as part of their hiring contract to play 4 hours every single day of Destiny. And they should’ve been mandated to host community play days. Why tf have streamers? Devs need to be openly engaged with their base. As well as circulating between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. To keep things in perspective.

My quitting playing of raids had nothing to do with elitism, back then I was among the elite. Instead it had to do with the [b][i]HORRIBLE [/i][/b]attitude of other players, their yelling screaming swearing, raging against everyone and everything, blaming their mistakes on others and and and Oh and did I mention it was among people in my own clan. My last raid I jumped into was because two clan mates begged me to come help them because everyone else kept quitting at the final boss fight. Turns out the quitters were not the reason and less then 30mins later I became on of those quitters, left that clan and never ran a raid since. No this was not isolated to my clan, I ran other raids and saw the same behavior just not anywhere near that extreme. Sadly I loved raids but I play to have fun and reduce stress THAT was the antithesis of fun, enjoyable game play. Now I'm such a casual player I'm not sure how I'd fare in a modern raid even with the best of people, attitude wise, to play with so have never tried. and now that tomorrow marks the end not sure if I will ever put running raids to test again. Sad because I LIVED to run raids in D1 and help new, weak, struggling, or just single people wanting to play the most wonderful game out there and have fun in the process!!!

revive tokens also, they could have kept them in higher difficulties and not on everything

The raid I did the most in D1, if you don't count my solo runs of Crota's End, was Kings Fall. In D1, that was considered almost too mechanics-heavy for the average player; as in, it was pretty much as far as you really wanted to push mechanics that were still approachable by newbies but involved enough to reward optimized teams for faster clears. Raids only got more mechanics-heavy in D2 to where Kings Fall is now considered to have barely any mechanics at all. That's the main reason Raid participation started to plummet and RoN was too big of a swing in the other direction. Kings Fall was probably the sweetspot for how Destiny plays with regards to group content, communication, and approachability but we all saw certain people demand "harder raids" so they could stroke their epeens harder over the unwashed.

Raids never needed to be difficult they just needed to be epic. I mean they were never really even a thing, less than 5% of players even engaged with them?

I am (was, I guess) a raid sherpa with 6,800 raid clears and 4,000+ sherpas. I have taught every raid, to every kind of player. I have enjoyed them all, but some more than others. The last two raids (Salvation's Edge and Desert Perpetual) hit Bungie's goal of creating a big, exciting two-day festival of content creators racing for world's first. And when it was over, it was OVER. The last two raids were much harder to teach, much longer to get clears, much tougher to find teams to run, way more dependent on four or five experienced players to help the one rookie, and just less fun. I have streamed 18,000+ hours of Destiny on Twitch and helped thousands of players get their first raid clear, and in my opinion EVERY other raid was better for the community than those two. Every other raid kept people coming back for lots of reasons. Loot, fun, the experience, whatever. The last two raids remind me of a big festival or the superbowl or the olympics where it's all amazing for a tiny little amount of time and then it's just a sad empty beach or a field trampled and strewn with litter. I would have raided forever Bungie. I would have continued to look for rookies to teach mechanics and loadouts and stream that kid that dad that casual buddy friend trying a raid for the first time and coming away with new skills, knowledge, and loot, or the stacked team going for triumphs and titles, or the low-man challenges. Back when raiding was good, it was good for EVERYone, and then it wasn't. I am looking forward to this June update, I hope people come back and want to play all this exciting content. But this time, when the lights get dimmer, I will probably head out with the crowd and I don't think I will be coming back. I'm not mad, just accepting that the game is ending for reasons beyond my control. I will always be grateful for the experiences and friends that were part of my life because of Destiny, it was GREAT, it really was. It just seems silly that it's not anymore.

There's a lot of things that caused the death of raiding. Elitism is only a small part of it. Incentive to play them being the biggest. Once most people get all their loot they don't go back meaning the higher skilled burn through it faster as those behind and later coming in struggle and give up. This is the main issue with raiding.

RoN is popular because 4 people can clear it by doing nothing for the majority of the raid. That should not be the standard we hold raids to. The best raids require all 6 people to be involved and communicate.

I've done raids. I've enjoyed some of them. The biggest detractor for me was the time investment. I just don't have 4-6 hours of uninterrupted time to devote to it. Puzzles are fine, but way too complicated. Bungie should have put out an event with every raid that just involved a boss at each stage and adds so you could still collect the weapons and experience the locales. But the elitists would never have gone for that.

Participation in raids dwindled as game quality and game participation overall dwindled.*** and RoN was too easy for a day 1 raid. There were others like Last Wish which probably swung too far in the opposite direction. Elitists exist, and are annoying, but the biggest barriers to raiding are the made-up boogeyman of "difficulty" that non-raiders think exists, and social anxiety. The puzzles aren't hard, save a small few like Verity, and the non-contest DPS checks and ads are also very manageable. People are just scared of doing something they've never done, that relies on teamwork, and being the one that messes up the run and makes everyone start over. Nobody wants to feel like the ankle weight or the hard carry. Once people get over that and get over the fact that simply learning the encounters, and dying a few times while doing it, is going to happen, it's the best, most rewarding and fun content in the game. Just have to find 5 other people who aren't riding a unicorn by it's horn and it's a good time, even if you only figure out one encounter and have to come back.

Wrong. Morons, too lazy to at least read a guide to have some understanding of the mechanics, ruined raids. Its not elitism its i-dont-want-to-have-to-hold-a-grown-mans-hand-through-basic-mechanics-like-standing-on-a-plateism.

I stopped playing raids, when they got too difficult. And I don't like puzzles and remembering too many signs. At least Bungie should have named those signs, so people wouldn't use 5 different names for the same sign.

I preferred mechanics that didn't involve rote memorization. Garden and Vault are great Raids, because once you learn the mechanics, you could just go. Not a ton of memorization required. Vow was awful because you had to memorize what felt like 20 symbols and the callouts.

In D1 and prior to the first Sunset debacle, we raided nonstop…with our regular crew, which also changed as we followed the sun. It was magic…space magic…and we laughed a lot as we wiped and did it again! Crota…Atheon…Oryx…WotM…such fun! Then came the Sunset debacle…everything changed…players bounced…Friends Lists evaporated overnight…the vibe was now different…the space magic was gone. I bounced to WF (MR24😎)…and when I’d had my fill, I returned…only this time - my engagement with the game was going to be different… The vocal few demanded harder / faster / more difficult…BHQ leaned into it hard - what I call the Neomuna Overtuna (N.O.) vibe…there was no magic it was just an overdose of RNG madness and tedious to the nth degree. Yet, still they squealed for more, harder, more, more, more… The 70% Cheater Club on Desert Perpetual speaketh* volumes! 🤔 BHQ had lost their way…Lightfail is when they upped the ante… And Destiny withered on the vine… Meanwhile, back at BHQ, the Core Ownership Group were enacting their business strategy…of which, most people not in that group had no idea of what was happening…until it was too late…and then the EoS announcement was made, and within a few days, it became clear who actually killed the golden goose…it was them all along! Even BHQs worker bees were caught off guard…they never knew either…about the EoS plan. And here we be! 🐝 Right! Rivers cried…hopium puffed…come what may, eyes up, you magnificent Brigade of (reasonable) Guardians… As for the rest of you…dry those crocodile tears…just play the game…and stfu…🤫 That is all. Carry On…whilst we can! 🥳 Ease Springs! 🖖👻 MTFBWY [b][i]PS BE NICE TO MARATHON PLAYERS - IT’S JUST A GAME![/i][/b] *autobot error correction