Destiny 2 Raid Ideation - Part 3

My plan for this encounter was originally a Roman coliseum. Players would traverse a short stretch of rough cavern populated by vex snipers and approach a large, imposing structure. Entering at the ground level, players would enter the arena and be pitted against a giant Cabal gladiator with a unique design, fighting with a ball-and-chain in one hand and a gladius in the other.

While I like this boss design, I felt the combat area lacked flavor (even if it was thematically appropriate) and didn't really add to the feel or mysterious air of the raid space. The raid is built around two core aesthetic themes:

1. Descent

2. Mystery

In keeping with this structure, I wanted the second encounter to facilitate further descent into the cave and the Vex stronghold, as well as elaborate on and twist the raid's narrative. Since the raid is set in a cavern deep underground, and is about the vestiges of an ancient culture, I thought a good setting for the second encounter would be a tomb of sorts.

Reference 1: Castel Sant'Angelo

While I was looking for Roman structures to use as inspiration, I was struck by this specific one. Its other name is The Mausoleum of Hadrian, a mausoleum built for the emperor and his family that was later used as a military fortress. In the diagram above, the building's entrance is at ground level (A), while sepulchral urns were kept at the building's center (G). A spiral ramp let visitors ascend, starting at the entrance (C) and following the dotted line (D).

To convert this building into an encounter space, players would enter at the same location as in the diagram. The interior of the mausoleum would be an open chamber, a cylinder with a diameter equal to the diameter of the ramp surrounding the sepulchral urns. Where the urns are in the real mausoleum, there would be empty space with a floor at ground level and an open-air ceiling, letting in ambient light from the cave (think Destiny 2's Vault of Glass). The ramp running along the outer edge of the center would lead to a second floor, a ringed platform raised roughly one-and-a-half catapult lifts (I main Titan) from the ground. This floor would also be open to the center of the room, and walled in from the outside — perhaps it would have small windows looking out into the cave.

Reference 2: Adjudicator

For the boss design, my two-story encounter space reminded me of a boss from a recently remastered game: Demon's Souls. The Adjudicator boss is more of an interesting puzzle with threatening attacks than a traditional boss, which I think suits the Destiny raid boss formula. With a few exceptions, most Destiny raid bosses are stationary and perform few attacks (mostly shooting one gun). The Adjudicator has two methods of attacking: his cleavers for close-range attacks against enemies on the ground level, and his tongue for long-range attacks against enemies on the upper level. Two important notes here are that no additional enemies spawn during this fight, and that the Adjudicator's attacks can destroy parts of the upper-level.

Since I want this raid to focus on combat first and mechanics second, mirroring a more traditional ARPG's boss design while incorporating some puzzle elements that tie back to the raid's theming seems like a good course of action.

Encounter 2 - Warden of the Decadent Legion

For this encounter breakdown, I'll keep it brief and to-the-point.

• The boss is a giant cabal gladiator, similar in appearance to Ghalran in Crown of Sorrow.

• The Warden has tusks, no crown, and a healthier skin-tone — she also wields a giant gladius and a ball-and-chain.

• The only boss attacks in this encounter are telegraphed. Players will know and be able to call out attacks on the fly during the encounter.

• The arena has two floors, and a large gradual ramp connecting them that runs along the outside of the room.

• Tinctures can be found on the upper and lower floors of the encounter space, and provide the same benefits as they did in the prior encounter (healing the fireteam).

• Statues that provide renewable buffs (Endurance, Agility, and Wisdom) are located on the bottom floor, near the encounter entrance. These also provide cover and a "safe zone" from the boss and additional enemies. This is so players who die and are revived in the encounter have a way to regain their role.

  • The number of each role allowed is still limited to two at maximum, however. For example, if two living players have the Wisdom buff, statues that would provide the Wisdom buff normally are now deactivated.

• Players split into two teams of three, each team made up of the three roles. This isn't required, but provides maximum add clear and Tincture accessibility.

• Adds that spawn will be comprised of: 1 Shielded Ultra (Vex, Minotaur), 1 Unshielded Major (Cabal, Psion Sniper), and 6 Unshielded Minors (Cabal, War Beast). The shielded minotaur must be made Vulnerable before it can be damaged. There are two spawn doors on each floor.

• After killing adds, all players with buffs will be marked by a hovering purple orb and afflicted with the "Curse of Enervation" debuff. This debuff has a timer of fifteen seconds and causes a wipe if not cleansed. Players can cleanse this debuff by standing near a Tincture when it is shot by a Wisdom player (similar to Pleasure Garden flowers & Presage egregore).

• The above can be repeated as adds spawn, which continues throughout the fight at regular intervals.

• Endurance players gain the "Might of Champions" buff after being cleansed. This causes the Warden to target these players. The buff does not have an expiration timer, and can stack up to three times. Each stack provides a 15% damage resistance increase (15%/30%/45%). This combines with Endurance's base 25% damage resistance, for a total of 40%/55%/70% at each level.

• To begin the DPS phase, one (or both) Endurance players must stand on a golden plate at the front of the room on the lower floor, located between the encounter's entrance and the Warden. This makes the boss Vulnerable.

  • A timer appears next to both Endurance players' "Might of Champions" buffs, causing them to expire twenty seconds after the damage phase is initiated. This happens even if only one player stood on the plate to begin the phase. However, fireteam damage is increased according to the number of "Might of Champions" stacks detected on the plate, around 5% per stack (30% total).

  • While the boss is Vulnerable, a total of six weak points appear on the backside of the boss: one on each ankle, one on each shoulder, one on the head, and one on the mid-back.

  • Each weak spot has health equivalent to 12.5% of the boss's health pool (75% total).

  • While the boss can be damaged anywhere, weak spots take 70% player damage while other areas of the boss take 20% player damage (if you add "Might of Champions", this goes to 100% and 50% respectively).

• When the damage phase ends,

  • When all weak spots have been broken (breakage occurs when the specific weak spot reaches 0% health),

• The fight repeats the above until the boss has all of its weak spots broken and encounter enters its final phase, an execute/last stand.

  • The boss becomes completely Vulnerable and all areas of the boss take 75% player damage.

  • "Enrage is near" appears on players' screens, and they have a limited-time window to finish off the boss before she swings her ball-and-chain around both levels of the encounter space, wiping the fireteam (or everyone dies to "Curse of Enervation", or some other nebulous force of instadeath).

  • Agility players deal an additional 50% damage to the boss (dealing 125% normal damage, without buffs or debuffs). This exceeds the weak spot damage, and really emphasizes good boss-damage loadouts for Agility players.

So obviously, I said it would be brief, and it ended up being a pretty long wall of bullet points that probably fails to convey the encounter properly in one way or another. How do the sightlines work? Is the boss actually threatening? Will that be enough adds to keep the encounter hard and engaging?

Ultimately, I don't know. This would need peer review, playtesting, plenty of revisions... maybe even a complete redesign. Originally my idea was for the Warden's weak spots to be always available and they become vulnerable when a debuffed player has their "Curse of Enervation" cleansed — breaking all six would let players damage the boss, ala Insurrection Prime.

The reason I finally published this blogpost was that I reached a point where I was happy with the encounter. I've had this sitting in my drafts for a little over a month now, but I'm happy with where it's at and hope it sounds like an interesting encounter!

As always, thanks for reading the stuff I write. I'll start working on the final encounter, and to spare my sanity (and publish it in a more timely manner) I'll try to make its description as brief and high-level as possible.