The raid team leaders of Destiny 2 share their experiences with the ‘Nightfall’ for the First Kill in Destiny 2 and what they thought about the Wish Wall in the raid. They consider it a kind of ‘cheat code.’
This is how the Wish Wall works: In the raid “Last Wish” there is a room with a board. The board has 20 circles, fitting 16 symbols. Forming certain symbols on this board grants wishes.
This way, Easter eggs are activated, or players are simply teleported to the raid boss Riven.
What Bungie says about it: The Wish Wall in Destiny 2 is seen by Bungie as a kind of “cheat code,” similar to those in Mega Man X. Internally, they referred to the wall as “GameShark.”
Players should feel like they’ve discovered an old “cheat sheet” when they hear about the Wish Wall. They should feel: “Hey, I just learned something great. Let’s go into the raid and try it out.”
Additionally, players should feel,
- that they develop their own language for the individual symbols
- and that there could still be more – like the 6th treasure chest in the Glass Chamber
Bungie thought the raid would be completed much faster
This is what really happened: The raid “Last Wish” in Destiny 2 turned out to be incredibly tough. While raids used to be completed just a few hours after they unlocked, the new raid in Forsaken took almost 19 hours for the first team to complete in the middle of the night.
Within 24 hours, only two raid teams worldwide completed the raid and received the special reward that Bungie had previously announced.
Bungie thought they had created a “normal raid.”
This is how Bungie experienced it: The head of the raids, Joe Blackburn, said in an interview with gamesradar: “We always thought there was nothing we could throw at them that would last more than 24 hours.”
This time, they believed at the raid’s start that they were serving the guardians a standard raid again. Although the raiders had way too low of a power level for the raid, they plowed through the first encounters.
This is why the raid took so long this time: But everything changed during the encounter “Vault.” Blackburn explains: “About when the first teams were in the Vault and took so long to solve the encounter, there was already signs of fatigue. We confused them with the Vault and then would confront them with Riven and knock them out.
When they were stuck at the Vault for four hours, we knew: Okay, this could take a while.”
Bungie believes that two factors contributed to the raid lasting so long:
- The increased focus on power – this time the guardians were significantly below the required power level
- And the brain drain, the signs of fatigue. After many hours, the players were not as fresh and capable. Thus, encounters seemed more difficult than they actually are.
What Bungie says about the “Datto team”: The raid team led by YouTuber Datto arrived 2 minutes late to claim the 24-hour reward. According to Bungie, they never considered giving them the emblem anyway.
Blackburn states: “We had a set finish line this time. I think the story that they came 2 minutes too late will live on longer than if they had received the emblem.”
More about the raid from Bungie’s perspective:
