[b]TLDR;[/b] Take Crota's End and Kings Fall and stitch them together, creating the original idea for the raid that Bungie had in mind, a 11 encounter raid roughly. Upon completion you can then do Crota's End and King's Fall separately as individual raids and get a guaranteed drop of an exotic relic for the first time through for every player to start a quest to get one of three weapons; (repeatable to get others, just RNG to get the other two relics) Necrochasm, Touch of Malice, and Throne Breaker.
[b]FULL;[/b]
Originally Bungie wanted to create a hive raid before Vault of Glass, but created the Vault because Destiny 1's core story had the Vex as the main enemy, a vex raid made the most sense, not a hive one. This hive raid got broken down into two raids we now know as Crota's End and King's Fall, also the Phogoth Strike was also supposed to be a part of this raid but since we have a Nightmare hunt of it, it could be safely ignored for the purpose of this. With Bungie now reintroducing old content from Destiny 1 via the Content Vault, it would be really cool to see the original vision of this raid as it was originally intended by Bungie and it would be new for all players while keeping a strong sense of nostalgia for Destiny 1 veterans.
How would this single raid work and be unified? Obviously, I am no game designer or coder, or anything except a player, so I can't say how hard this would be to actually implement or maintain. So that question can only be answered, coding wise, by people who are developers or understand the world of developing a video game, on the gameplay side of things I feel I can offer some input on how the raids would flow together as I am a player of both Destiny 1 and 2.
Currently, King's Fall and Crota's End are separate by a lot of means, mainly by space in the world (Crota's takes place on the moon and Oryx on the dreadnought) and to discuss how you get from one place to another will be covered in an encounter to encounter breakdown of the raid below.
[i]Couple of things to keep in mind when reading this: One motto of this was "Leave specifics to Bungie" which meant that very little specifics were put into this apart from certain encounters we felt needed further explanation to get our point across. Furthermore, I, nor any of my friends are game developers and we do not know the struggles of game development or the hurdles faced and thus we do not know how feasible all of this is AKA we only know how this all works as PLAYERS.[/i]
[i]The Breakdown of the Raid; [/i]
[b]Raid Title: Osmium Court(?)[/b]
[i]Some encounters would need tweaking from Destiny 1 to avoid cheesing with Destiny 2 abilities.[/i]
[u][Opening] [/u]
On the comms, similar to the start of Last Wish with Petra speaking to you, Eris tells you its time to slay the Taken King and his Son.
[u][Starting the Raid][/u]
Land in the Hellmouth, at the start of the Crota's End Raid stand on the plate to start the opening "encounter." The plate needs to be fully charged to 100% and periodically whilst standing on the plate a wave of a few knights spawn clawing their way out of the Hellmouth to challenge you and your fireteam and while they live they stop progress needing your team to kill them to progress. Once done a bridge forms allowing your team to plunge into the Hellmouth.
[u][Encounter 1] The Abyss[/u]
Minimal changes, plays out how you expect. Your team runs through the dark gaining stacks of weighted darkness, which dissipate when standing near lamps, making your way to the end to create a bridge and run into the light entering Crota's Throne world.
[u][Encounter 2] The Bridge[/u]
Follows the Ages of Triumph Redux version of this encounter and with the Swordbearer knight being and unstoppable champion or a similar small change like that. Other than that, encounter plays how you would expect, kill the knight, pick up the sword, cross the bridge, kill the Gatekeeper, repeat.
[u][Encounter 3] Thrallway (Shrieker Hallway)[/u]
No changes, kill the shrieker, the clear wall comes down, repeat once more and grab the chest if you can then descend into the pit below.
[u][Encounter 4] The Deathsinger[/u]
Plays out how you expect apart from minor changes like the wizards being overload champions.
Kills ads, kill the wizards, kill the shriekers, kill Ir Yut before she finishes her song.
[u][Encounter 5] Crota, Son of Oryx[/u]
Plays out how you would expect, following the Ages of Triumph Redux version of the fight. Summon Crota, clear ads, take the chalice, claim the sword, make Crota kneel, destroy oversoul, kill him with the sword.
[i]~Side note~=
Upon killing Crota this unlocks a version of the raid that is [b]just Crota's End[/b] and can be played from start to Crota ending with his death, in the event a team does not want to do the full Osmium Court raid or does not have the time.
~Back to the Breakdown~[/i]
[u][Bridging the Gap Between the Raids][/u]
Now that Crota is dead and you and your fireteam's time on the moon is finished, it's time to get to the dreadnought, but how exactly? I envision an event happening that pans out as follows:
Once Crota is dead, loot is rewarded and the arch/pillars that form when Crota is spawning opens a Hive Rupture gate and from it comes out a Shade of Oryx that is immune to all damage. Oryx talks to you through the shade and challenges you and seeks revenge for the murder of his son and pulls you through the Rupture onto the dreadnought spitting you out into the Court of Oryx public event space facing the hallway of thrall statues where you originally start the King's Fall raid.
[u][Encounter 6] Re-Aligning the Rupture Gate (First Encounter of King's Fall)[/u]
Upon arriving in the Court of Oryx there will be two knights, one taken and one hive. These knights will be in kneeling position at the end of the hallway leading into the large open area where you originally spawn for King's Fall back in Destiny 1. To start the encounter shoot the knights. They will have immune shields and to drop them you need to bring them close together where they will be able to be damaged, basically like Mengoor and Cra'adug from Court of Oryx. They will have smallish health pools just enough to be a mini boss but not enough to warrant a strong strategic formation or plan. Once the Knight Brothers are dead, you go to obtain the taken relics as you would normally if you were to start King's Fall. Dunk 12 relics, 6 from each side into 6 thrall statues and head back into the Rupture to continue as you would King's Fall normally.
[u][Hive Ship Jumping Puzzle Time!][/u]
No Changes.
[u][Encounter 7] Totems/The Warpriest's Trial[/u]
Play how you would expect, no changes. 2 teams of 3 rotating the aura's and sending the people to the middle to lower the gate blocking the Warpriest.
[u][Encounter 8] The Warpriest[/u]
No changes, play the encounter as you would on HARD mode, when the Oculus destroys a totem the Warpriest gains a taken ability. When the knights spawn to start the Glyph sequence make them a champion or something maybe too. Other than that, Kill ads, kill the knights, do the glyph sequence, gain the Brand, do DPS, repeat.
[u][Golgoroth's Maze][/u]
No Changes, find your way through to the beast that is Golgoroth
[u][Encounter 9] Golgoroth[/u]
No changes, play the encounter as you would on HARD mode. Kill ads, have one person take his gaze, drop the goopy ceiling orb, 5 people stand in it's pool, DPS, watch for the Unstable Light mechanic.
[u][Piston Jumping Puzzle][/u]
No changes
[u][Encounter 10] Daughters of Oryx[/u]
No changes, plays as you would expect. One player from your fireteam gets torn between dimensions the other five need to form the sky plates to steal the brand and kill the two daughters of Oryx.
[u][Encounter 11] Oryx, the Taken King[/u]
Minor changes, plays out how you expect on HARD mode. The light eater ogres are now unstoppable champions and so are the light eater knights that spawn trying to take the blights. Give your team their rolls and get to work taking down the Taken King.
[i]~End of Breakdown~[/i]
[i]~Side note~
Now that the ENTIRE raid is complete, it would unlock a [b]King's Fall variant of the raid[/b] where it begins at Encounter 6 of this breakdown and would end with the death of Oryx.
~Back to Post~[/i]
[b]~Hopeful suggestions~[/b]
Upon the death of Oryx and the completion of all 11 Encounters for the first time on a character(/or account), in a single week, an exotic relic would drop that is guaranteed for that character (I.E. if your team has never completed the Osmium Court Raid, then ALL of you are guaranteed to get the relic). You would take that relic to Eris on the Moon where she would be the start of one of three quests for an exotic weapon depending on the player's choice. I'm not going to get into the major specifics for all these quests and weapons, just one. One exotic would be the [b]Necrochasm[/b], which at some point in the quest would require the player to kill Crota once again (in either in the full raid or the shortened version). The second exotic would be [b]Touch of Malice [/b], which at some point would require the player to kill Oryx once again. The final exotic, which might I add is a completely custom idea by me and my friends that we think would be cool to see, is called the [b]Throne Breaker[/b], a hive sword in the power slot, more on that below. This exotic would require the player to be the sword bearer that kills Crota and the brand holder during Oryx's Last Stand, does not need to be in the same raid instance. To get the other weapons the relic has random a chance to drop from Crota or Oryx from the full Osmium Court Raid.
[b]Throne Breaker Exotic Sword[/b]
Intrinsic Perk: Grants increased damage to hive and negates hive shields and barriers.
Exotic Perk: Blocking summons a Knight's wall of darkness blocking most damage, heavy attack is the slam attack from the hive relic sword.
-
I am so down for this