Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate raid, The Desert Perpetual, was released on the same week as the campaign, and this has been the norm for a while now. Bungie usually doesn’t wait too long to release its raid, since the success or failure of an expansion often depends on the quality of this particular piece of content.
However, players are mixed about it as a lot of them feel the raids should be delayed by at least a week or two, if not even a month. While that might give teams more time to prepare, that also defeats the whole purpose of the raid race.
Bungie Should Never Delay The Raid Release
The Day 1 raid race is more than just a fight to victory, as it’s a spectacle where the best players across the world compete and give viewers an exciting and thrilling experience. The whole point of participating in a Contest Mode raid is to challenge yourself against all odds, and being underpowered and underprepared is part of its charm.
Reason #1: Contest raids are meant to be hard
They are designed to ensure that no team is able to bulldoze through them. As such, when your builds, armor, and weapons aren’t optimal and you, as a team, have to coordinate, plan, discover, and solve the problems while facing impossible odds, that is when clutch moments happen.
Reason #2: You will lose Player Interest as time passes
If you delay raids, then several problems will start popping up which are bound to damage the overall experience. The first among them is player interest, as the first week of an expansion’s launch is when everyone is feeling the excitement. Releasing the raid on the same week makes sure the same players, even if they aren’t competing, stick around.
Reason #3: Raids are often tied to the story, & open up end-game content
Most players leave the game after finishing the raid, at least the normal mode, and if Bungie delays it too much, there is a chance a bunch of players won’t even consider participating. Salvation’s Edge, for example, was directly linked to the campaign of The Final Shape.
Reason #5: Bugs Don’t Matter as much
Finally, it’s time to address the elephant in the room, which is bugs. You may wonder that delaying the raid will fix those issues, but that is often not the case. Vow of the Disciple is considered one of the best raids for Destiny 2 and was released about 10 days after The Witch Queen DLC launched.
However, that raid was ridden with server errors, to the point where Bungie had to extend the Contest Mode to 48 hours. If you’re out of the loop, Contest Mode used to be 24 hours, and the reason why it’s 48 hours now is because of the terrible and buggy experience of Vow of the Disciple.
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In fact, Deep Stone Crypt was released 2 weeks after Beyond Light launched, and that raid also had bugs with encounter 1 getting glitched, and doors not opening properly. This is just an example that delaying raids doesn’t always lead to a bug-free experience.
Reason #6: The threat of Raid Mechanics being Leaked
It’s also important to mention that the longer Bungie waits, the higher the chances are for raid mechanics getting leaked. Most player competing on Day 1 will look into those leaks, as it gives them an advantage over their competitors, but it also damages the integrity of the race itself.
Why are players demanding future raid races to be delayed in Destiny 2?
There are two primary reasons why players want future raids to be delayed a bit. A thread on Reddit summarizes most of the points, but it boils down to lack of preparation time and bugs.
Players are claiming that when the game makes so many changes, including how armor, weapons, and even damage numbers work, it can lead to below-par preparation as players need to understand them. Additionally, The Desert Perpetual raid had quite a few bugs, including rally banners not working, mechanics not triggering, and error codes.
However, as was discussed in the previous section, delaying doesn’t mean a seamless experience with Vow of the Disciple being a prime example, despite the raid being phenomenal. While it was poor from Bungie’s end to not spend more time on Quality Assessment, considering the importance of a Day 1 raid experience, delaying it wouldn’t have solved many issues either.
As for the lack of damage to bosses, it was clearly a preparation issue, but that is something that also made the raid interesting. The Desert Perpetual was one of the most competitive raid races in history, with about five teams being very close, and that was only possible because the raid released so early.
