So, I got my feet wet in the wonderful world of Destiny raiding with doing The Leviathan last night, and well... it was an experience alright. Now, I've raiding quite a lot in World of WarCraft, so I'm pretty used to doing it. Although, in this case, I wasn't expecting to go, and since I've never been there before, I was woefully unprepared. I've always been a bit of a numbers guy. I used to do a bit of number crunching back in the day for Enhancement Shaman in WoW, and frequently read Elitist Jerks, but one thing I have a hard time grasping is when people tell me things like "Oh, Curtain Call is a great rocket launcher!" What exactly makes it a great rocket launcher. Is it some weird effect that you don't know about until you try it out? (That's how it is in Borderlands when you get some crazy, new gun.) The only problem is the nature of trying new power weapons just to lose your ammo pushes you away from trying new things.
Oh, and speaking of ammo, I hate ammo in the raids. The whole idea of an "ammo run" just speaks of bad game design to me. It's partly due to the fact that Destiny mobs always drop ammo of a gun type that you're not using unless they're directed to drop a specific type. For example, public event mobs seem to drop power ammo a lot. Anyway, I tend to use a handcannon often, but once I start running low on ammo, I have to switch from my kinetic to my elemental weapon just so I start getting kinetic ammo drops. It's frustrating since you should only swap if necessary (removing shields, etc.) not to get ammo for your main weapon! I mentioned Borderlands earlier, and at least in that game, you can buy ammo from vendors or get ammo regeneration mods, which are arguably necessary for characters using rapid-fire weapons.
One of the other things that gave me trouble was just the direction that I was given. I'm a very literal player when it comes to direction... effectively the equivalent of what's expected from a soldier in the military. If you tell me to stand in spot A, I will stand there and never move, because I was never directed to do so. We were doing Gauntlet, and I was on one of the platforms. The only time that I was directed to leave was to kill the shielded mob that spawns, and I did that... however, I would leash back to my platform every time. (I might slightly curve on the path back to grab some power ammo.) What ends up happening is that... of course... I run out of kinetic ammo, and my energy weapons aren't good enough to kill things fast enough. (I'm only something like a 276 power level compared to teammates that are 305.) Well, turns out that the only time that I actually need to be on that platform is when someone is going to pass through my gate. THAT is what you need to tell me. Keep it simple. Keep it precise.
Honestly, all in all, it was rather frustrating and far too long of an affair.