With lots of discussion these days about the game reaching points of inaccessibility for casual players, and Rite of the nine introducing explore mode, the begging question is if explore mode could be applied to raids as well. I would argue that yes it could be, and if it is implemented well and people are willing to put in the effort to learn with an in game learning experience, it could save the crisis of casuals being excluded from some of the best content in the game WITHOUT watering down the experience for the hardcore players who seek a challenge. [b]1. The problem[/b] Each raid in destiny 2 has a huge barrier to entry. In destiny 1 you could get away with loading it up with friends and figuring it out, but destiny 2 has added new levels of mechanical difficulty with many mechanics being insanely esoteric and/or hugely demanding in terms of coordination. You may say just watch a guide. First of all people dont want to learn how to play the game outside of the game and this should probably not be relied upon, second of all if you go off of the most recent raid as an example SE is incredibly hard to execute even with guides. You may say you arent entitled to all content or loot in the game. Id argue that this is a bad faith take because being able to do a normal mode raid is not "all content in the game". I dont have numbers for D1 raid completion rates but they were very much an average player's activity back then, so the precedent is set. Contest and harder modes can still be reserved for the hardcore players as they are already. [b]2. Idea for Explore mode raids[/b] Ideas can be pulled from Rite of the Nine's explore mode and improved upon to make it work in raids. First of all, the number one thing to fix from ROTN's explore mode: Explanations need to appear as tooltips not floating text. Reading floating text in combat is distracting and jarring even if the risk of death is low. The other essential aspect of Raid explore mode is that a fine balance needs to be found between exposing players to the mechanics without making them too overwhelming to learn. To achieve this I propose mechanics being fully present, but heavily watered down to be quicker and more forgiving with less wipe mechanics. Some examples: - Vow still has all of its symbols as these are essential to learn, but the Acquisition obelisks dont fill up over time. Acquisition has only two rounds, or even one. Caretaker has enough health to be two floored comfortably without meta DPS. No relic lockout at Expedition, pervading darkness accumulates slower. All players can see symbols at Rhulk. - Salvations edge has no final shape timer. Window to step on plates is much more forgiving across the first 3 encounters. Only one or two cycles of Substratum and Verity. You dont die with too much resonance at witness, you just stay at x3 and absorb whatever you stood in most recently. I also believe that Explore mode should be much more liberal with on-hud waypoints to mechanics you need to interact with. I was super impressed by this being present in the swimming section of Ecthar in GOTD. Returning to the Vow example as another esoteric symbol based raid, I think waypoints on the symbols you need to shoot on the obelisks would be great. Waypoints on the obelisks in substratum and herald, and something in verity, I feel like verity mostly needs to be taught with tooltips. [b]3. Potential concerns[/b] An explore mode takes away from the gravitas of completing a raid, which has always been a high point of the destiny experience. Absolutely a concern but I would argue that it is more harmful for many raids to have a <60% completion rate than for them to lose their aura and weight. My hope is that making the explore mode a lot shorter in terms of number of phases than normal mode would make normal mode still feel like the true raid experience, and explore mode feel much more like a training ground simulation. Lore concerns. I feel like this is kind of a fake concern but if it is an issue the explore mode could be a simulation run by shaxx or osiris where the world's first team gathered the intel for other guardians to use for practice or something. Loot concerns. I think explore mode should just give spoils. This is still a super valuable reward since spoils are rare these days and this encourages you to follow up an explore clear with a normal clear once you have learned. Population dilution concerns. This is a serious one, and it's a gamble, because a third raid mode could badly split the base. My hope would be that an explore mode system would encourage more players to get into raiding, and would pay off long term with more players playing raids. But this is completely dependent on these players being willing to use Explore mode as a resource to learn, and not giving up. This is why I air on the side of explore mode being even easier than it is already because people have already expressed concerns about it still being too hard in ROTN. It literally should be as watered down as possible while still properly teaching the fundamentals. [b]4. Conclusion[/b] Let me know what you think about this idea, especially if you are a player who finds yourself unable to raid, how would you feel about this; would it get you into raiding and into the game more? My hope is ultimately just to have people playing the game again. I know people are fatigued right now but the game feels anemic with even featured raids being hard to find groups for. Destiny needs a big win that draws a volume of players back in and I think this would be good if done right.