The Daily Backlog 96

So I tried a Destiny 2 raid... Apparently when they recommend a six player team… they mean it!

MMO Mondays

Happy Monday backloggers!! We’re back from another weekend of binge video game playing and groggily preparing mother’s day breakfasts! And let me tell ya, it was worth it, even if we did stay up way too late. Just ask my wife, she was there too! But I’ll get to that in just a few more characters. And a few spaces. Oh and a line break or two.

So, as mentioned a sentence or so ago, and I guess I alluded to it late last week. The wife and I have been going into video game overtime for the past few days, including an extra late night on Saturday. But why would we do that you may ask? Well, for one we’re obsessed and that’s just what we do and secondly, because we’ve been preparing for and playing our first raid in Destiny 2! More specifically the Leviathan raid. Actually, it’s the first raid of it’s type we’ve ever played in any game, so it was doubly exciting for us!

If you don’t know what a raid is, it’s usually a quest of some sort in MMO style games where you team up with your friends or clan mates to tackle harder than usual enemies, puzzles and ultimately a boss to acquire rare and powerful gear. To me, this always sounded exciting, but also very intimidating. Mostly because I’ve never played an MMO before. That and I usually wouldn’t be able to put in enough time to even be able to tackle such a feat! And Destiny 2 just so happened to hit the sweet spot with all of those requirements. Though not an MMO, it has many of the same qualities and I was at a point where I put in enough time that I was at least comparable to the required power level to even play it.

Five is not Equal to Six

So, after finally getting our team together, we dove right in. Which in retrospect was probably harder than actually playing the raid. And within the first few minutes, it was exactly what I was expecting. It was exciting and intimidating! I say that because, my wife and I had no idea what we were doing!! Our objectives seemed so unorthodox and complex, but apparently that’s the norm for raids in Destiny. Luckily, my brother and one of our other teammates had already played this particular raid so they stepped us through what we needed to do. Well, at least in the first room. Which just had us guarding a central point, trying to prevent enemies from stealing our staff. Or whatever it was called, like I said, I had no idea what we were doing. But, after orienting ourselves and gunning down hordes of tough enemies, we were able to get through it with relative ease.

And then, we hit the second room. The Gauntlet. The thorn in our side. You see, although it’s not required to have a full team of six to play the raids in Destiny 2, it is highly recommended. That’s because the puzzles you find in them are designed with six players in mind. We, on the other hand, had only five. Which isn’t much of a discrepancy, you would think, but we found out fast why they recommended six. I won’t try to explain the whole thing, since it’s confusing even when you’re playing it. But, in The Gauntlet, you need to split up into two teams - the runners and the gunners. In a six team setup it would be 2 runners and 4 gunners. The gunners are then split between the two runners.

Basically, the runners have to run around an obstacle course (hence gauntlet) carrying a ticking time bomb and have to call out targets to the group of gunners assigned to them. The two gunners within that group then need to shoot the targets within a half second of each other. If successful, the runner will be able to reset the timer on their bomb and can move onto the next set of obstacles. The hard part is, if the gunners take too long or if they fail, the runner will blow up and die! Oh, and you have to do this three times!

Our problem though, was not that we were having difficulty with the actual puzzle, it was that we didn't have enough people to get those runners through! Which meant about one time out of five we’d be able to get both runners out of the gauntlet and successfully “dunk” their orb (the time bomb)! Then we’d have to do it all over again (twice)! Unfortunately though, we were not able to get through the room. Which means we weren’t able to beat the raid. Lucky for us though, it does checkpoint so we’ll be able to revisit it at a later date if we’re ever able to scrounge up a raid team again (hopefully six this time!).

Rinse, Repeat and Repeat Again

What’s funny, is that although we spend three and a half of the four hours we were playing the raid in that dang room, I actually really enjoyed our time playing it! Not once did I ever really feel frustrated with what we were doing. It was satisfying and challenging! The entire time I was on the edge of my seat, hotly anticipating that boost of adrenaline we’d get when we finally beat it! It’s too bad that we didn’t, but I look forward to when we try it again!

I guess what I can take away from playing the raid is, the best parts of Destiny 2 are the parts where you play with your friends! It’s the cooperation, the joint struggles and successes that make it truly fun! And it’s all about yelling at each other to “shoot the top target dang it!”, or “kill that freakin’ psion before he blows me off the pedestal again!!”. Not to mention the amazing five player dance huddles during any lull in the action. I’m still determined to see the end boss though.

96 is an Untouchable Number

Well my friends, I think that’ll do it for today! Although I think we’re officially finished playing Destiny 2, there will still be a vacant spot open for the occasional raid. It honestly was my favorite part of the game and I can’t wait to try it again. But for now, it’s another notch on the backlog belt!!

Oh and speaking of beating games, there was another addition to the completion list over the weekend! And that was Panty Panty! Truthfully, it wasn’t the greatest game, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience its goofball antics and bloomer focused story line. It’ll definitely go down as one of the weirdest games I played in 2019! But next up is trying to knock that Our World is Ended of the list too.

Oh and before I forget, a new poll to determine what I’ll be playing next is live right now! So, go check it out here:

The Backlog Odyssey Twitter Poll

Which game are you the most excited to see me play next???

Until next time folks, have a great rest of your Monday!! And happy belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!!

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Currently Playing

Our World is Ended (Switch)

Total Backlogged Games: 725 …This is a raid level backlog!

Total Completed Games: 26 …This completed list seems under leveled...

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