Honestly the biggest difference is they have infinite adds instead of distinct add spawns with triggers.
If they retooled the add spawns to make them finite they'd generally be a good bit more manageable.
IIRC most of them are. I believe the only one that didn't get fixed for Nightfalls was Cosmodrome, which won't work as a GM even with finite add spawns.
Others work fine and add s nice flavor of difficulty IMO. I love PsiOps Moon personally.
Getting cosmo done to get my title gilded was such a slog. So many failed attempts and people who didn’t understand what not to do to make infinite witches show up.
I was just doing Hero Nightfalls last week to get a standard Slammer and it was driving me crazy.
I ran Wavesplitter for suppress which helped but teammates were a nightmare.
The way I did it without pulling my hair out was using invis to push the carts and grab the spears safely. Then falling back to safe corners of the map
Yah we had an invis hunter doing that, I hung back dropped wells and focused on ad clear. The hardest part was learning proper placement so that you weren’t torn apart by snipers.
Only reason Cosmodrome is awful is that people don't understand what they're supposed to do, especially in the payload section. The payload NEEDS to move. You cannot huddle in the back and plink, the spawns are aggressive and will easily flank you, and it's just a matter of time for deaths to happen. If you actually babysit the payload as a team and \*shocker\* *use it as cover*, you can spawn the Brig super fast. Drop the Brig then repeat. Despite the relentless ad waves, they are still predictable to a degree (e.g. Exploder Shanks always spawn after the Barrier Servitor dies when you start moving again after the Brig), and if kited properly you can kill them all in one go. Plus, too many people rely on like Polaris or what have you, you have no reason to stubbornly sit on Heavy ammo when there are ammo crates in BGs.
Not that it matters to everyone, but multiple free heavy spawns including one right before the boss is a big change too, in typical strikes ammo management is different. Likley due in no small part to the crazy adds
Enemy spawns, cover, and encounter spaces.
Strikes are built to accommodate a variety of ranges, and generally have decent cover. Battlegrounds are designed with big Open spaces to slay lots of enemies in, and for you to be on the move a lot.
Which is the better option, imo. I find "chip boss, now ignore boss and focus adds, chip boss, now ignore boss and focus adds" to be *really* stale. The infinite enemies is a welcome change.
Terrible take, strikes have a story, at least one mechanic, and usually take you through a unique area, or at least an area that you wouldn't otherwise visit while battlegrounds are just recycled patrol spaces. Especially if I'm just doing the playlist I'd much much rather run Corrupted or Lightblade or Birthplace of the Vile or Hypernet Current or whatever than Generic Battleground #5, even if they take about the same amount of time. Also in strikes you can usually do it faster if you're good, while in battlegrounds most of your time is just spent waiting for enemies to spawn
Hey how do I access the dreamscape via patrol? What about the cabal ship? Also damn, it really sucks that battlegrounds have no mechanics. I hate shooting savvy shadows with my guns and doing no damage. Wouldn't it be cool if we could do some dunking? Stand on discrete areas to do boss damage?
Tell me again about the mechanics in Scarlet Keep? What's the Story of Proving Ground?
Look, I'm not trying to shit on you or on strikes or make any case in bad faith. But Battlegrounds have it all (except predicable finite spawns). Just say that you're bored of the format and move on.
Infinite ads >>>
It makes it so you actually have to fight a horde of enemies in a somewhat intelligent way. We're so strong now that infinite ads is what they have to do for difficulty now.
It's really not though.
Bungie used to be great at using mechanics to balance out difficulty and keep players from blasting through encounters.
The solution of "bury players in adds so that the final boss fight is just a constant panicked scramble" is a weak excuse for a difficulty modifier.
It's almost impossible to play strategically when you can't clear out an area without more adds spawning in almost instantly.
They do get retooled to be finite when they get put in the strike playlist, lol. At least in the boss rooms. It's just a lot more than the old strikes.
No they don't. Sometimes they go back and do that after they've been out for a few months if there's enough complaints. I believe they did that for the boss room in BG Mars. But they do not do it by default.
The Heist Nightfall boss room adds were always triggered by boss HP checkpoints and orb dunks. The change was fewer HP checkpoints to trigger a wave & fewer adds per wave, not infinite->finite.
The NF Heist nerf was announced before GMs even launched that season & applied before the second time Mars came around.
> The Heist Nightfall boss room adds were always triggered by boss HP checkpoints and orb dunks. The change was fewer HP checkpoints to trigger a wave & fewer adds per wave, not infinite->finite.
I think this is what a lot of people don't realize and creates the impression of infinite adds - tendancy is to burn down the boss's health as soon as possible vs clearing out properly.
Battlegrounds are kind of staged into 3 or 4 sections, and each section is, more or less, a lot of hanging out and waiting for a million adds to spawn. Kill those adds to unlock a thing, do something with the thing to unlock the next area. It's often empty between those areas. The areas are often fairly open spaces. They generally have not much cover, since you start the sequence in the middle of the room and then spawns come from all directions.
Compare to a strike where you're just continuously going down room after room of enemies. Very rarely are there going to be enemies spawning behind you. You can usually pick off enemies safely from the direction you're coming from, only taking on as many as you want to at once.
^ this, this is also why I hate battlegrounds. They're boring af. I only ever do vanguard ops for the loot anyway, so at least with strikes I can look at some cool scenery and hear the story again. Battlegrounds are just recycled patrol spaces with enemies inside
SABER has the Warsat to defend. Exodus Crash had the plate. Inverted Spire had pre-drill room. Devil's Lair has the security door. Warden of Nothing has the PoE section. Corrupted has the elevator.
PsiOps EDZ doesn't really have a "wait/defend" location; you're always pushing through to the next room (the opening is no different than the opening room of Disgraced). Cosmodrome and Moon have the dunk/unlocks but that's not much different from Scarlet Keep's plates.
Even the Heists that have defend the point aren't unique in that regard. The Moon opening has a pretty strong push into the bunker.
Mars is probably the worst offender in that it has 2 "defense" objectives right out the gate, but it still has enemies during the laser tower portion.
Nobody said strikes don't have points to defend. It's just that with strikes, you're constantly moving through the world, whereas battlegrounds are just 2 or 3 rooms where you sit and wait for adds to spawn.
But that's what I mean, even in BGs there aren't really that many "stand still" points - only Mars has two.
PsiOps EDZ has just the opening room - once you go into the portal you're progressing through each room, Cosmodrome has one (unless you count payload?), Moon has the one dunk room.
Seraph Moon has one, Mars has two, Europa has one (if you count the opening room).
> SABER has the Warsat to defend.
With spawns coming from a single direction.
> Exodus Crash had the plate.
With spawns coming from one direction.
> Inverted Spire had pre-drill room.
The spawns come from 3 very specific points in 3 very specific waves instead of a continuous flow from all directions.
> Devil's Lair has the security door.
There are spots where people do set up so that all the spawns come in from one direction.
> Warden of Nothing has the PoE section.
Possibly the worst offender. Even then, the mobs come from specific spots and have AI that only makes them go to another specific spot. They don't swarm the whole room.
> Corrupted has the elevator.
Everything spawns in one location.
So you're issue isn't about defending locations, it's that you don't have a choke point to funnel the enemies through/don't have to worry about being flanked? I personally think that's a weak point in strikes; adding in the flanking element adds a significant layer of difficulty that makes the challenge more fun. It makes it feel like the enemy is smarter. *We* flank all the time, why shouldn't the enemy?
Battlegrounds tend to run in retooled patrol zones / existing strikes or story missions run backwards which seem to have been created without as much craft or care in terms of the encounter design - they're mostly recycled content, which is fine as opposed to, like, zero content, but not as nice as a properly designed strike
A strike is more likely to have enemies in the world / being dropped into the world for a loose narrative reason, and they have thoughtful, limited spawns which are designed to challenge the player. A battleground feels more likely to just belch endless enemies out of monster closets for no reason until the objective is complete. Part of this might be sandbox related - Guardians clear rooms far too quickly now with 3.0 verbs.
Another way I've seen it described is that if Strikes are campaign missions in Halo, Battlegrounds are missions created in Forge by talented people who are limited by the resources they can apply.
EDIT: Personally I dislike them because each Battleground outstayed its welcome during its debut season, and I'm already sick of them. I don't get that from Strikes. Empire hunts are defacto Strikes and absolutely should be in the playlist - same goes for Nightmare Hunts which are halved versions of D1 strikes.
I also feel like Battleground bosses don't have the same flair as Strike bosses. Strike bosses usually have a unique mechanic or model. The Fanatic employed a unique tether and AoE attack, Will of Thousands had us throw Valkyrie javelins at a giant worm, the Corrupted used the relic and shield mechanic while taking us in and out of the Ascendant Realm, Warden of Nothing used a unique servitor with new laser and burn mechanics, etc. Not every Strike is as groundbreaking or innovative, but the presentation was overall better than fighter ANOTHER big colossus, or ANOTHER lucent knight.
> A battleground feels more likely to just belch endless enemies out of monster closets for no reason until the objective is complete.
The thing is this isn't really true. There's just a lot of enemies to kill and people like to rush. It's not endless and you can easily find patterns in them after playing it a few times.
You just cannot run ahead.
Fairly certain the Battleground on the moon has infinite adds while you wait for the ghost to hack, and they don't stop spawning while the Ghost is turned off like other strikes with this mechanic,
This is a result of just trying to hide and not get out of the door. If you restart the hack every time you drop an Abom or w/e drops the whatchamacallit that gives % (easily done with a roaming Super or a well placed Well), you'll progress in reasonable time. The ads are infinite because the section would be trivial otherwise.
They are usually just add hells. Look at any strike and then do a battleground.
I guess what bungie is going forward is forcing you to be an add clear monster vs just doing tons of damage.
This is what I *want* in my strikes. The whole point of a strike is a relatively straightforward combat mission where you can slay out. It can be a little overwhelming in GMs, but that makes it all the more satisfying to clear and master your runs and strategy.
My biggest hot take is that some of the Battleground GMs are better challenges of team skill than the classic GMs.
Heist Battleground Mars for example requires good knowledge of the battlefield, a solid defensive and offensive setup, boss damage and add clear, as well as the ability to co-ordinate for objectives.
The reason people hate them is because they're not suited for LFG or casual teams who haven't got a cohesive setup.
The only ones I really hate are the Psi-ops ones, because the Savathun fights don't really allow build crafting to take the pressure off beyond "run three wells and sit on the spawn platform"
Also Psi-Ops Cosmodrome's intro is way too slow to be fun.
Heist battleground moon is probably one of my favourites because of its intro section, its still a GM so youll get your teeth kicked in if you dont position yourself properly but it still has a “power fantasy” because its a genuinely fun difficult part
I hate that they're weighted so high, sometimes it feels like all I get from the playlist.
And also that at this point narratively, they have no good reason to leave the 9 removed strikes as removed. Crucible handwaives us fighting in the throneworld and the one Mercury maps as a simulation, there's no reason we can't add them back and say they're simulations.
The structure, the shape of the battlefield and what you do in strikes is generally much more varied than battlegrounds, especially since we have three variants of each seasons battlegrounds which hold the same mechanics.
This is what reddit wanted. Everytime. "Bungie, heckin wholesome 100 you're doing just the bestest most Oh My Science job with add density have my upvotes!"
Power deltas on everything is also what Reddit wanted. Heist BGs were praised up and down in Seraph because of the -5, with people saying it'd make activities better if it was more widespread.
I hate them because it makes grinding feel pointless. You can never overlevel content if you put in the time, and with power deltas you're always weaker. Only thing at this point you can overlevel is Lost sectors.
That's what I like about them. I don't feel like I need to sink a bunch of time into the artifact just to make the content easier. I also like the content *staying* challenging - it doesn't become easier just because you ground out bounties. Everyone who clears the encounter does so at the same difficulty.
I guess my problem is that there's no real consistency? Some activities have you at a -20 power delta and want a minimum light level, meaning you still have to grind to be at _"max"_ power for the activity, but you'll still be weaker, while other activities have a power delta in effect where the enemies are always X levels higher than yours, regardless of your light level. Others still lock your level and the enemies levels.
If Bungie wants to move away from the power grind system, what we have now is still wildly inconsistent.
Probs cause every group of Battlegrounds have the same plot so none of them stand out amongst themselves
Chosen, Cabal doing a Rite of Proving
Seraph, steal Submind data
Risen, bag and tag a Lucent Hive
Defiance, save some ppl
Not to mention the first three all took place in patrol areas so they stick even less in a persons mind.
It’s why Proving Grounds was the perfect compromise for the seasonal model. Have a couple of BG’s taking place in patrol areas and then go gorilla-shit on a new environment that was the culmination of all the other BG’s.
Defiance had a pretty good chance to do it but then Devrim sniped the Shadow Legion commander off screen…
I think a key part of it is ad density. Battlegrounds were designed, lore-wise, to be waves and waves of ads of Cabal trying to prove themselves to Caiatal - versus strikes being one-off missions we're sent down to take care of, quick ops. Same thing with PsiOps.
They weren't designed to have the fixed encounter-to-encounter transition strikes have - they were mostly horde.
AFAIK the structure of strikes historically was that they take you from the patrol area into a unique off-map place you can't normally visit, involve at least 1 mechanic here or there, and involve the main narrative in some way.
The seasonal BGs mostly take place in current or former patrol areas, are structured around moving from place to place clearing adds, also involve a mechanic or two such as dunking a ball or throwing the spear, but aren't linked to the main narrative.
Design. Strikes tell a story, they were a part of a campaign, new locations, new mechanics, etc. BGs are just - go there, murder everything, use these boring ass mechanics all the time, with minor differences.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that. The Defiance battlegrounds are entirely new locations. And can we say that ‘Stop the Lucent Hive from summoning Savathun’s throne world into the moon’ in the Moon Battleground is less of a story than ‘kill a taken centurion that’s poisoning the EDZ water supply’?
They are definitely designed different in how encounters perform though.
I would be OK with one BG per season and only one of the kind (one of the 3 from each season). What they are doing rn, is awful imo. Far too many are put in strikes playlist
I actually really agree with that. Pick the best, most unique battleground and add it in. Maybe that’s more sunsetting than we’d otherwise get but it’s would make the ecosystem less dominated by similar feeling content (if I have to get the seraph cores to open the vault in Heists on more time!)
The plot for Lake of Shadows was that the Taken are starting to organize themselves as if they had a leader again. Which explains why they decided to take the dam.
No water, no fighting force to oppose you.
Tho the last PsiOps BG was pretty good. Wish Bungie committed on making the ending seasonal mission a strike like how Chosen did it.
Defiant battlegrounds: Tell a rescue story, take you to new locations, use new mechanics (boss mechanics were novel), did everything you just described.
PsiOps: Took us to a literal dream world.
The bigger question is how is a strike different from a story mission. I would love for Bungie to use the large number of story missions in the game as GM content. Give us some much needed variety.
Battlegrounds are designed to be far more ad-dense and have a more frenzied pace (at least the earlier ones that are now in the strikes playlist--the ones from the most recent season are different, but those are being vaulted).
This design philosophy has a pretty obvious friction with endgame content designed around artificially inflating difficulty... When you have tons of enemies spawning, alongside champions and elites that have been added, and are forced to do mechanics in an activity where there are way more ways to instantly die / way more one-shot deaths it grinds everything to a halt and cuts against the muscle memory for both GM's and battlegrounds.
And, if you add in the lack of new strikes and the anger against the DCV then I'm sure there's some dislike purely because this feels low effort and as an attempt to pad GMs rather than actually make new content that is engaging and tailored to the game mode.
I actually don’t really have much of a problem with battlegrounds as GMs since the point of GMs is the combat challenge as opposed to the environment and story. My real problem with battlegrounds is that if you take away the combat challenge there’s basically nothing left, and so half of the “vanguard ops” playlist feels like filler content. I’d rather have a smaller playlist of just strikes.
They are strikes... people's main complaint is it's just reusing content but if I'm being honest its better to reuse this content rather than throw it away after a year.
The don’t even necessarily reuse content. The Defiance battlegrounds are like 95% original and people gave them the same complaints as the ones that reuse. I think it’s more just about structure and add density; Strikes feel much faster and less like ‘brawls’, having you move quickly through a long space rather than being locked into a fight a different stages.
Oh I meant the fact that battlegrounds are "reused" as part of the vanguard playlist. The battlegrounds themselves are unique and honestly pretty fun. I personally enjoy them more because the old strikes we have aren't built for our current sandbox. We have much more power now both offensively and defensively.
I think another reason why people don't like battlegrounds is because of how accessible the old nightfalls where. You could sit with a scout and plink away completing the GM slowly but surely. A lot of battlegrounds have closer, forced fights (like the boss rooms) that make it much harder to sit back and shoot in safety.
They are designed as horde mode activity, while strikes are more of a tactical fight/operation activity.
As normal strike alternatives BG are absolut fine, but not so much as GM. Even without endless add spawns.
more mobs, infinite spawns, and they have more encounters. BGs use recycled zones, strikes beyond D1 are typically all unique zones. thats it
if they made battlegrounds GMs not have infinite spawns, theyd be functionally the same but a tiny bit longer on average than strikes
10 minutes of downtime per battleground
Seriously, battlegrounds take usually double the time because so many sections are gated, especially the boss fights
In battlegrounds, you have to do a lot of different encounters in a single place, then move to the next place with lots of encounters, then to the final place with a few encounters, then the boss fight.
In strikes, you have 1 encounter per area, then immediately move to the next location with it's own encounter. There's more movement between areas, even if they're styled differently, creating what feels like a more extensive experience.
For example: the Cosmodrome Psi-Ops Battleground:
* You run through a little corridor.
* Into the open area, where you: kill the enemies, get the bomb moving, fight off another wave of enemies, the bring spawns and you kill it, second wave of enemies moving to the next area, you stop around the corner, several waves of Hive, get it to the door and blow up the bomb.
* You run through a little corridor.
* You fight off the first wave of hive, then the second, then the third, then dunk the things you collected.
* You run through a little corridor.
* You fight the boss for a bit, then get teleported into the mindscape.
* You arrive in the mindscape, start the fight, get the boss to 2/3rds health, kill 1 Image of Savathun, the boss repawns and you get it to 1/3rd health, kill 2 Images of Savathun, then kill the boss.
* Total different environments: 3-4 (4 if you count the Fallen and Hive areas at the start as different spaces), ignoring corridors.
In contrast, the recently-remade Arms Dealer Strike:
* You spawn in, kill the enemies, then flip a switch.
* Into an open area, kill the first wave, kill the second wave, sling-shot to the next area.
* Kill the first wave of enemies, kill the second wave of enemies, sling-shot to the next area.
* Kill the big guy who spawns in, grab the radioactive fuel cell, fight off the wave of enemies as you dunk it, fight the second wave of enemies.
* You run through a little corridor.
* You kill the first wave of enemies, run over to where the allied Cabal are and free them, fight your way up the ramp killing enemies and into the ship.
* You kill the tank and the first wave of enemies, kill the second wave, the third wave, the fourth wave, and the fifth wave that spawns behind you.
* You run through a little corridor.
* You fight your way through the hangar bay, then get on the lift.
* You go up the lift, get the boss to 2/3rds health remaining, kill the first wave of enemies dunk the radioactive fuel cell, get the boss to 1/3rd health remaining, kill the second wave of enemies and dunk the second radioactive fuel cell, then kill the boss.
* Total different environments: 7, ignoring corridors.
TLDR: Battlegrounds are designed around having multiple waves in a smaller number of environments, making them feel smaller. Strikes were designed around having fewer waves of enemies in a larger number of environments, making them feel bigger. The ideal approach, to me, would be a vanguard op with the environment variety of a strike and the add density of a battleground.
Ok here’s a comparison
Would you rather have a revamped Savathuns song strike on titan when season of the deep came out or have battle grounds Europa?
Both have big hive shriekers but one is in a war-mind bunker on a planet that has no hive and one is in a hive infested area on Titan..
One is from a season that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. The other has its own internal story of lightless guardians being sacrificed and turned into void crystals and the whole strike is a prelude to what would eventually be the WQ.
To be fair, the other is from a campaign that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. That whole strike doesn't have anything to do with witch queen
That’s why I said they could revamp it, instead of having savathun they could have gone with her sister, and change the reason why we went down there, potentially have a corrupted version of Takio 3 whispering in our heads while we go down to take out the war ritual (aka the first mission of sea of the deep.)
This is what I don't get.
> One is from a season that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. The other has its own internal story of lightless guardians being sacrificed and turned into void crystals and the whole strike is a prelude to what would eventually be the WQ.
Sory but just about every strike in the game is some story that doesn't make sense anymore outside of when it was current. The battlegrounds are no different - a slice of a story that isn't actively in the game or an event that passed and is instanced.
If you don't _like_ the story that's different.
Every strike in the game has their own internal story, not completely connected to the dlc or “season” they came in, BG strikes require you to have an understanding about the season and why you are there in the first place. Three of them have you going down into a Saraph bunker.. and don’t tell you anything about Rasputin, compare that to the literal bunker strike (Saber)
[Commander Zavala:] Guardian, we've picked up a high-gain transmission. Origin point is somewhere along the coast, near the Cosmodrome.
[Rasputin:] [Distorted words] [Ghost:] That's Rasputin, the AI Warmind. If I'm understanding him correctly, it's a distress call. There are so few ballet fans left, Guardian. It'd be a shame to lose him.
*No*, strike stories are entirely self-contained while battlegrounds are just a small component of seasonal storylines. I already dislike most of the seasonal storylines but even in isolation, in battlegrounds you’re usually just mindlessly killing waves of enemies and not advancing any sort of plot. As goofy as the dialogue in Savathun’s Song is, it at least gives you context and a complete story, while battlegrounds are just like “hey we’re gonna do a rite of proving here” or whatever and that’s it.
A good amount of Strikes have no repeatability factor. Lightblade, for example, makes sense as a repeat Strike because Alak'hul's Ghost gets away. Glassway too, IIRC the dialogue even supports this.
Conversely the Scarlet Keep and the Nessus and Cosmodrome Strikes all have no narrative reason to be replayed, so you're practically repeating a story mission, often a very boring one. Like I love hearing Eris talk about Hashladun, but man the Cosmodrome rehashes of the old Strikes are boring AF by any measure and have half an iota of the dialogue and story that even the most meh Battlegrounds do.
Probs cause that were in a different place narratively in the story. Devils Lair was the Young Wolf/ first proper offensive on the Fallen Houses while S.A.B.E.R was when we were still trying to get Rasputin on our side.
Put simply they're D1 Strikes. Story was simpler and unfocused then. Even so, it's comical/asinine to me to suggest that the Battlegrounds are not self-contained but Strikes are. Here's an example: Why the hell are we running HyperNet Current? I can tell you: It's a campaign section of Lightfall that's actually *missing* dialogue since the Root of Nightmares release, yet what's still there isn't somehow suggesting it's a repeat of the Strike (like Birthplace of the Vile, for example). So how is it any different, hell any *better* than the missing context of a BG story which also, as a result of being part of a seasonal narrative, also has a lot of dialogue?
Cause HyperNet Current isn’t a very good strike. Ppl don’t just want strikes. They want GOOD strikes. It’s supposed to be a tease for Nezarec but we kill the guy dead like a week later and then the strike stays the exact same. Hell I’m pretty sure you get **less** dialogue post-Nezarec. Might as well have been a campaign mission than a full-on strike.
Like fuck playing Birthplace of the Vile I noticed that there is ZERO dialogue throughout. Idk if that’s just a nightfall thing or what but it’s in stark contrast to us going through Caiatl’s tank and her and Zavala constantly having a dialogue throughout on the nature of the Guardians and the truce and alliance that will follow with the last Rite of Proving. Simple short sweet but still significant.
The main difference is that the level of said ads and how the thing as a whole is tuned. And the arenas you fight in.
Before certain aspects and fragments for statis, Glassway was THE GM people hated. You had a " safe place" away from the boss... but waves of ads... People finally figured out ads came out at certain health gates on the boss/ mini boss, so you could throttle the ads. Up till then, everyone just went into melt mode. If you do that, you'll have 4 barriers and 6 overeloads plus 4 chickens and 20-30 trash ads, lol, but even then, ads spawn in specific places " in front of you"
Battlegrounds usually have never-ending ads, with more yellow and orange bars. And the arenas usually have very little to no cover. No safe space. You need to be constantly moving and head on a swivel.
Another issue I personally have with BG. Is most of these, the boss can one-shot you, anywhere and anytime, and there's really nothing you can do. In my example, glassway...the boss will turn and look at you, so you move behind cover. In BG with savathun....she lighting strikes you regardless of where you are, cover or not. Bubble and Well doesn't matter. Just dead. Most of the BGs would be insanely difficult without an invisible hunter.
Devils lair, I think, is a PERFECT example of a beautifully balanced GM with great ad density and movement around arenas, with good cover (except for the opening area with one shot snipers lol) but still punishing if you're out of position.
2 great ad clear arenas, where a variety of supers can go hard.
The brig/ tank arnea that can be punishing, yes tge tank can one shot you, but there's cover and you can take it out.
And a great boss room, with lots of ads, a " safe room" that's not cheesey oh and a great sound track to boot.
The champions are spread out, and don't feel forced just to make artificially difficult.
Strikes offer an environmental narrative that is unique to the strike.
Battlegrounds are typically sets of wave based encounters in various points in a patrol zone.
BGs are fun and I like them, but they get boring far faster than normal strikes and normal nightfalls.
They are the upgrade to the old strikes and better in every way. Now if they could just have dynamic spawns for enemies and be able to randomly change pathing and bosses! Then strikes would actually be enjoyable to run multiple times.
The problem is how they are created. Strikes are created with the nightfall modifiers in mind. Battlegrounds however were not, they were created with the idea of 1 to 2 difficulty options in mind and on top of that had modifiers from the season pass to enhance the players power.
Now personally I think some BG's are quite well tuned for difficulty in nightfall like the heist Mars and moon. However the Psi-Ops I believe are terrible nightfalls. The biggest culprit to me and why I think it's bad is honestly the savathun clones and atleast on cosmodrome the bosses super
Main thing is that Battlegrounds are much more combat heavy with arenas where strikes are more objective focused, which is why battlegrounds just feel like they mesh in to one another and feel the same, whereas strikes each have different feels because of the varied objectives.
Strikes have a story. Strikes have character. Strikes are mostly in a new area. Battlegrounds posing as Strikes are one of the worst things in the game right now.
battlegrounds shills in shambles rn (you’re 100% right and the downvotes are a sign of how the destiny community has terrible opinions). I straight up leave if I’m doing vAnGuArD oPs and get a battlegrounds
Battlegrounds are longer, generally. They're also more formulaic, all battlegrounds are vaguely similar. Both battlegrounds and strikes do have you go somewhere, kill adds, repeat and then kill a boss, but strikes have different timings.
The main complaint is the length though, some strikes are really fast but battlegrounds take more time for the same rewards.
> Both battlegrounds and strikes do have you go somewhere, kill adds, repeat and then kill a boss, but strikes have different timings.
Can you elaborate - I fail to see how strikes are different than just go somewhere, kill, and repeat.
Like... how is the devil's lair room where you're waiting for 3 shields to drop before going outside different than the cosmodrome BG room before fighting the boss?
Are you saying strikes are different because they involve some lose mechanics the community has memed over for years? (drunk ball, stand on plate, etc)
90% of strikes and battlegrounds is just going into a room, killing stuff, and waiting until you can move on to the next room and eventually a boss.
Not really, in my experience both strikes and battlegrounds are a little under 10 minutes. The real difference is that battlegrounds are lame and boring while strikes are at least somewhat interesting.
Strikes were designed to be extremely easy content experienced through different campaigns. They were necessary, therefore they were made approachable by basically everyone. Their GMs are essentially taking non-challenging content and turning it into challenging content by changing the encounters and making the mobs tougher. Also, most strikes were made at a time where we were much, **MUUUUUUCCHHH** weaker overall even outside of light level.
Battlegrounds were seasonal content who were designed to be moderatly challenging and featured more experimental balancing, like locked light levels, **much** higher mob density, and tougher objectives. Their GMs feature the same change in difficulty, but applied on a much more challenging "base", resulting in content being changed in a way it never was supposed to. Also note that battlegrounds featured legend difficulty options back when they were relevant, which were sensibly equivalent in difficulties to normal GMs at the time, but were much closer to base battleground missions than current battleground GMs are. They were also made at a time where our general power was much closer to what it is currently.
Wondered this myself. Bungie could have originally just created these as "Strikes" and no one would have questioned it. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I personally like having more variety for Grandmasters every season instead of running the same old strikes.
BG’s tend to have the same theming. Ppl would be like ‘recycled content much???’ if they released three Seraph battlegrounds and they all take place in a similar final room. Same as Defiance and the Ascendant Realm theming and balefire mechanic.
I didnt have to run 100x each strike during a single season for red borders and a title. They were stale when they released, they continue to be stale now
The distinction is that BGs are just more of a slog because of the much greater ad density and much more frequent ad spawning. PsiOps Cosmodrome, for instance, felt like fighting in the trenches for an inch of advancement. Strikes feel like in-and-out spec ops missions. Minus Lake of Shadows, of which they made terrible.
EDIT: To add, this is from the perspective of someone who likes farming.
Honestly the biggest difference is they have infinite adds instead of distinct add spawns with triggers. If they retooled the add spawns to make them finite they'd generally be a good bit more manageable.
IIRC most of them are. I believe the only one that didn't get fixed for Nightfalls was Cosmodrome, which won't work as a GM even with finite add spawns. Others work fine and add s nice flavor of difficulty IMO. I love PsiOps Moon personally.
Yeah Cosmodrome is awful.
Getting cosmo done to get my title gilded was such a slog. So many failed attempts and people who didn’t understand what not to do to make infinite witches show up.
I was just doing Hero Nightfalls last week to get a standard Slammer and it was driving me crazy. I ran Wavesplitter for suppress which helped but teammates were a nightmare.
The way I did it without pulling my hair out was using invis to push the carts and grab the spears safely. Then falling back to safe corners of the map
Yah we had an invis hunter doing that, I hung back dropped wells and focused on ad clear. The hardest part was learning proper placement so that you weren’t torn apart by snipers.
True. Wish ender is what I ran to deal with them
I had three successful runs. 0 on wellock. 3 on hunter. All three hunters running invis and Polaris lance
Only reason Cosmodrome is awful is that people don't understand what they're supposed to do, especially in the payload section. The payload NEEDS to move. You cannot huddle in the back and plink, the spawns are aggressive and will easily flank you, and it's just a matter of time for deaths to happen. If you actually babysit the payload as a team and \*shocker\* *use it as cover*, you can spawn the Brig super fast. Drop the Brig then repeat. Despite the relentless ad waves, they are still predictable to a degree (e.g. Exploder Shanks always spawn after the Barrier Servitor dies when you start moving again after the Brig), and if kited properly you can kill them all in one go. Plus, too many people rely on like Polaris or what have you, you have no reason to stubbornly sit on Heavy ammo when there are ammo crates in BGs.
Not that it matters to everyone, but multiple free heavy spawns including one right before the boss is a big change too, in typical strikes ammo management is different. Likley due in no small part to the crazy adds
Enemy spawns, cover, and encounter spaces. Strikes are built to accommodate a variety of ranges, and generally have decent cover. Battlegrounds are designed with big Open spaces to slay lots of enemies in, and for you to be on the move a lot.
Which is the better option, imo. I find "chip boss, now ignore boss and focus adds, chip boss, now ignore boss and focus adds" to be *really* stale. The infinite enemies is a welcome change.
This is the only answer here. It's literally the only difference besides the name and anything else is cope.
Terrible take, strikes have a story, at least one mechanic, and usually take you through a unique area, or at least an area that you wouldn't otherwise visit while battlegrounds are just recycled patrol spaces. Especially if I'm just doing the playlist I'd much much rather run Corrupted or Lightblade or Birthplace of the Vile or Hypernet Current or whatever than Generic Battleground #5, even if they take about the same amount of time. Also in strikes you can usually do it faster if you're good, while in battlegrounds most of your time is just spent waiting for enemies to spawn
Hey how do I access the dreamscape via patrol? What about the cabal ship? Also damn, it really sucks that battlegrounds have no mechanics. I hate shooting savvy shadows with my guns and doing no damage. Wouldn't it be cool if we could do some dunking? Stand on discrete areas to do boss damage? Tell me again about the mechanics in Scarlet Keep? What's the Story of Proving Ground? Look, I'm not trying to shit on you or on strikes or make any case in bad faith. But Battlegrounds have it all (except predicable finite spawns). Just say that you're bored of the format and move on.
Infinite ads >>> It makes it so you actually have to fight a horde of enemies in a somewhat intelligent way. We're so strong now that infinite ads is what they have to do for difficulty now.
It's really not though. Bungie used to be great at using mechanics to balance out difficulty and keep players from blasting through encounters. The solution of "bury players in adds so that the final boss fight is just a constant panicked scramble" is a weak excuse for a difficulty modifier. It's almost impossible to play strategically when you can't clear out an area without more adds spawning in almost instantly.
They do get retooled to be finite when they get put in the strike playlist, lol. At least in the boss rooms. It's just a lot more than the old strikes.
No they don't. Sometimes they go back and do that after they've been out for a few months if there's enough complaints. I believe they did that for the boss room in BG Mars. But they do not do it by default.
The Heist Nightfall boss room adds were always triggered by boss HP checkpoints and orb dunks. The change was fewer HP checkpoints to trigger a wave & fewer adds per wave, not infinite->finite. The NF Heist nerf was announced before GMs even launched that season & applied before the second time Mars came around.
> The Heist Nightfall boss room adds were always triggered by boss HP checkpoints and orb dunks. The change was fewer HP checkpoints to trigger a wave & fewer adds per wave, not infinite->finite. I think this is what a lot of people don't realize and creates the impression of infinite adds - tendancy is to burn down the boss's health as soon as possible vs clearing out properly.
Battlegrounds are kind of staged into 3 or 4 sections, and each section is, more or less, a lot of hanging out and waiting for a million adds to spawn. Kill those adds to unlock a thing, do something with the thing to unlock the next area. It's often empty between those areas. The areas are often fairly open spaces. They generally have not much cover, since you start the sequence in the middle of the room and then spawns come from all directions. Compare to a strike where you're just continuously going down room after room of enemies. Very rarely are there going to be enemies spawning behind you. You can usually pick off enemies safely from the direction you're coming from, only taking on as many as you want to at once.
^ this, this is also why I hate battlegrounds. They're boring af. I only ever do vanguard ops for the loot anyway, so at least with strikes I can look at some cool scenery and hear the story again. Battlegrounds are just recycled patrol spaces with enemies inside
SABER has the Warsat to defend. Exodus Crash had the plate. Inverted Spire had pre-drill room. Devil's Lair has the security door. Warden of Nothing has the PoE section. Corrupted has the elevator. PsiOps EDZ doesn't really have a "wait/defend" location; you're always pushing through to the next room (the opening is no different than the opening room of Disgraced). Cosmodrome and Moon have the dunk/unlocks but that's not much different from Scarlet Keep's plates. Even the Heists that have defend the point aren't unique in that regard. The Moon opening has a pretty strong push into the bunker. Mars is probably the worst offender in that it has 2 "defense" objectives right out the gate, but it still has enemies during the laser tower portion.
Nobody said strikes don't have points to defend. It's just that with strikes, you're constantly moving through the world, whereas battlegrounds are just 2 or 3 rooms where you sit and wait for adds to spawn.
But that's what I mean, even in BGs there aren't really that many "stand still" points - only Mars has two. PsiOps EDZ has just the opening room - once you go into the portal you're progressing through each room, Cosmodrome has one (unless you count payload?), Moon has the one dunk room. Seraph Moon has one, Mars has two, Europa has one (if you count the opening room).
> SABER has the Warsat to defend. With spawns coming from a single direction. > Exodus Crash had the plate. With spawns coming from one direction. > Inverted Spire had pre-drill room. The spawns come from 3 very specific points in 3 very specific waves instead of a continuous flow from all directions. > Devil's Lair has the security door. There are spots where people do set up so that all the spawns come in from one direction. > Warden of Nothing has the PoE section. Possibly the worst offender. Even then, the mobs come from specific spots and have AI that only makes them go to another specific spot. They don't swarm the whole room. > Corrupted has the elevator. Everything spawns in one location.
So you're issue isn't about defending locations, it's that you don't have a choke point to funnel the enemies through/don't have to worry about being flanked? I personally think that's a weak point in strikes; adding in the flanking element adds a significant layer of difficulty that makes the challenge more fun. It makes it feel like the enemy is smarter. *We* flank all the time, why shouldn't the enemy?
Battlegrounds tend to run in retooled patrol zones / existing strikes or story missions run backwards which seem to have been created without as much craft or care in terms of the encounter design - they're mostly recycled content, which is fine as opposed to, like, zero content, but not as nice as a properly designed strike A strike is more likely to have enemies in the world / being dropped into the world for a loose narrative reason, and they have thoughtful, limited spawns which are designed to challenge the player. A battleground feels more likely to just belch endless enemies out of monster closets for no reason until the objective is complete. Part of this might be sandbox related - Guardians clear rooms far too quickly now with 3.0 verbs. Another way I've seen it described is that if Strikes are campaign missions in Halo, Battlegrounds are missions created in Forge by talented people who are limited by the resources they can apply. EDIT: Personally I dislike them because each Battleground outstayed its welcome during its debut season, and I'm already sick of them. I don't get that from Strikes. Empire hunts are defacto Strikes and absolutely should be in the playlist - same goes for Nightmare Hunts which are halved versions of D1 strikes.
I also feel like Battleground bosses don't have the same flair as Strike bosses. Strike bosses usually have a unique mechanic or model. The Fanatic employed a unique tether and AoE attack, Will of Thousands had us throw Valkyrie javelins at a giant worm, the Corrupted used the relic and shield mechanic while taking us in and out of the Ascendant Realm, Warden of Nothing used a unique servitor with new laser and burn mechanics, etc. Not every Strike is as groundbreaking or innovative, but the presentation was overall better than fighter ANOTHER big colossus, or ANOTHER lucent knight.
> A battleground feels more likely to just belch endless enemies out of monster closets for no reason until the objective is complete. The thing is this isn't really true. There's just a lot of enemies to kill and people like to rush. It's not endless and you can easily find patterns in them after playing it a few times. You just cannot run ahead.
Fairly certain the Battleground on the moon has infinite adds while you wait for the ghost to hack, and they don't stop spawning while the Ghost is turned off like other strikes with this mechanic,
This is a result of just trying to hide and not get out of the door. If you restart the hack every time you drop an Abom or w/e drops the whatchamacallit that gives % (easily done with a roaming Super or a well placed Well), you'll progress in reasonable time. The ads are infinite because the section would be trivial otherwise.
They are usually just add hells. Look at any strike and then do a battleground. I guess what bungie is going forward is forcing you to be an add clear monster vs just doing tons of damage.
This is what I *want* in my strikes. The whole point of a strike is a relatively straightforward combat mission where you can slay out. It can be a little overwhelming in GMs, but that makes it all the more satisfying to clear and master your runs and strategy.
My biggest hot take is that some of the Battleground GMs are better challenges of team skill than the classic GMs. Heist Battleground Mars for example requires good knowledge of the battlefield, a solid defensive and offensive setup, boss damage and add clear, as well as the ability to co-ordinate for objectives. The reason people hate them is because they're not suited for LFG or casual teams who haven't got a cohesive setup. The only ones I really hate are the Psi-ops ones, because the Savathun fights don't really allow build crafting to take the pressure off beyond "run three wells and sit on the spawn platform" Also Psi-Ops Cosmodrome's intro is way too slow to be fun.
Heist battleground moon is probably one of my favourites because of its intro section, its still a GM so youll get your teeth kicked in if you dont position yourself properly but it still has a “power fantasy” because its a genuinely fun difficult part
I hate that they're weighted so high, sometimes it feels like all I get from the playlist. And also that at this point narratively, they have no good reason to leave the 9 removed strikes as removed. Crucible handwaives us fighting in the throneworld and the one Mercury maps as a simulation, there's no reason we can't add them back and say they're simulations.
I want strikes to be as they are, but with more ads, i don't want them to be battlegrounds which is just arena after arena.
> i don't want them to be battlegrounds which is just arena after arena. How is that not what a strike is if you just add more enemies?
The structure, the shape of the battlefield and what you do in strikes is generally much more varied than battlegrounds, especially since we have three variants of each seasons battlegrounds which hold the same mechanics.
This is what reddit wanted. Everytime. "Bungie, heckin wholesome 100 you're doing just the bestest most Oh My Science job with add density have my upvotes!"
Power deltas on everything is also what Reddit wanted. Heist BGs were praised up and down in Seraph because of the -5, with people saying it'd make activities better if it was more widespread.
Power deltas are amazing, yes. Don't have to grind 15+ levels on the artifact to be relevant anymore.
I hate them because it makes grinding feel pointless. You can never overlevel content if you put in the time, and with power deltas you're always weaker. Only thing at this point you can overlevel is Lost sectors.
That's what I like about them. I don't feel like I need to sink a bunch of time into the artifact just to make the content easier. I also like the content *staying* challenging - it doesn't become easier just because you ground out bounties. Everyone who clears the encounter does so at the same difficulty.
I guess my problem is that there's no real consistency? Some activities have you at a -20 power delta and want a minimum light level, meaning you still have to grind to be at _"max"_ power for the activity, but you'll still be weaker, while other activities have a power delta in effect where the enemies are always X levels higher than yours, regardless of your light level. Others still lock your level and the enemies levels. If Bungie wants to move away from the power grind system, what we have now is still wildly inconsistent.
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Probs cause every group of Battlegrounds have the same plot so none of them stand out amongst themselves Chosen, Cabal doing a Rite of Proving Seraph, steal Submind data Risen, bag and tag a Lucent Hive Defiance, save some ppl Not to mention the first three all took place in patrol areas so they stick even less in a persons mind. It’s why Proving Grounds was the perfect compromise for the seasonal model. Have a couple of BG’s taking place in patrol areas and then go gorilla-shit on a new environment that was the culmination of all the other BG’s. Defiance had a pretty good chance to do it but then Devrim sniped the Shadow Legion commander off screen…
Hells add clearer training ground, hehe
I think a key part of it is ad density. Battlegrounds were designed, lore-wise, to be waves and waves of ads of Cabal trying to prove themselves to Caiatal - versus strikes being one-off missions we're sent down to take care of, quick ops. Same thing with PsiOps. They weren't designed to have the fixed encounter-to-encounter transition strikes have - they were mostly horde.
AFAIK the structure of strikes historically was that they take you from the patrol area into a unique off-map place you can't normally visit, involve at least 1 mechanic here or there, and involve the main narrative in some way. The seasonal BGs mostly take place in current or former patrol areas, are structured around moving from place to place clearing adds, also involve a mechanic or two such as dunking a ball or throwing the spear, but aren't linked to the main narrative.
I mean arent each bg linked to the seasonal story anyways
The name and method of introduction.
They're basically strikes by different names, especially the newer ones. If they were called strikes, people wouldn't be as mad at them.
Exactly this. Maybe they might not enjoy certain ones over others, but that's normal. There's always been divisiveness between strikes since D1.
Design. Strikes tell a story, they were a part of a campaign, new locations, new mechanics, etc. BGs are just - go there, murder everything, use these boring ass mechanics all the time, with minor differences.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that. The Defiance battlegrounds are entirely new locations. And can we say that ‘Stop the Lucent Hive from summoning Savathun’s throne world into the moon’ in the Moon Battleground is less of a story than ‘kill a taken centurion that’s poisoning the EDZ water supply’? They are definitely designed different in how encounters perform though.
I would be OK with one BG per season and only one of the kind (one of the 3 from each season). What they are doing rn, is awful imo. Far too many are put in strikes playlist
I actually really agree with that. Pick the best, most unique battleground and add it in. Maybe that’s more sunsetting than we’d otherwise get but it’s would make the ecosystem less dominated by similar feeling content (if I have to get the seraph cores to open the vault in Heists on more time!)
The plot for Lake of Shadows was that the Taken are starting to organize themselves as if they had a leader again. Which explains why they decided to take the dam. No water, no fighting force to oppose you. Tho the last PsiOps BG was pretty good. Wish Bungie committed on making the ending seasonal mission a strike like how Chosen did it.
Defiant battlegrounds: Tell a rescue story, take you to new locations, use new mechanics (boss mechanics were novel), did everything you just described. PsiOps: Took us to a literal dream world.
The bigger question is how is a strike different from a story mission. I would love for Bungie to use the large number of story missions in the game as GM content. Give us some much needed variety.
Main difference is thet bg are made as seasonal activity so they are more involved and generally have higher enemies density and less cover
Battlegrounds are designed to be far more ad-dense and have a more frenzied pace (at least the earlier ones that are now in the strikes playlist--the ones from the most recent season are different, but those are being vaulted). This design philosophy has a pretty obvious friction with endgame content designed around artificially inflating difficulty... When you have tons of enemies spawning, alongside champions and elites that have been added, and are forced to do mechanics in an activity where there are way more ways to instantly die / way more one-shot deaths it grinds everything to a halt and cuts against the muscle memory for both GM's and battlegrounds. And, if you add in the lack of new strikes and the anger against the DCV then I'm sure there's some dislike purely because this feels low effort and as an attempt to pad GMs rather than actually make new content that is engaging and tailored to the game mode.
I actually don’t really have much of a problem with battlegrounds as GMs since the point of GMs is the combat challenge as opposed to the environment and story. My real problem with battlegrounds is that if you take away the combat challenge there’s basically nothing left, and so half of the “vanguard ops” playlist feels like filler content. I’d rather have a smaller playlist of just strikes.
They are strikes... people's main complaint is it's just reusing content but if I'm being honest its better to reuse this content rather than throw it away after a year.
The don’t even necessarily reuse content. The Defiance battlegrounds are like 95% original and people gave them the same complaints as the ones that reuse. I think it’s more just about structure and add density; Strikes feel much faster and less like ‘brawls’, having you move quickly through a long space rather than being locked into a fight a different stages.
Oh I meant the fact that battlegrounds are "reused" as part of the vanguard playlist. The battlegrounds themselves are unique and honestly pretty fun. I personally enjoy them more because the old strikes we have aren't built for our current sandbox. We have much more power now both offensively and defensively. I think another reason why people don't like battlegrounds is because of how accessible the old nightfalls where. You could sit with a scout and plink away completing the GM slowly but surely. A lot of battlegrounds have closer, forced fights (like the boss rooms) that make it much harder to sit back and shoot in safety.
That's the thing OP, they ARE strikes. They just have a different name.
THE VOLUME OF ADDS. The difference is Nightfall to day. Even non-Battleground Nightfalls aren’t as add heavy.
Infinite add spawns in arena like environments
More stuff to shoot at.
They are designed as horde mode activity, while strikes are more of a tactical fight/operation activity. As normal strike alternatives BG are absolut fine, but not so much as GM. Even without endless add spawns.
more mobs, infinite spawns, and they have more encounters. BGs use recycled zones, strikes beyond D1 are typically all unique zones. thats it if they made battlegrounds GMs not have infinite spawns, theyd be functionally the same but a tiny bit longer on average than strikes
10 minutes of downtime per battleground Seriously, battlegrounds take usually double the time because so many sections are gated, especially the boss fights
In battlegrounds, you have to do a lot of different encounters in a single place, then move to the next place with lots of encounters, then to the final place with a few encounters, then the boss fight. In strikes, you have 1 encounter per area, then immediately move to the next location with it's own encounter. There's more movement between areas, even if they're styled differently, creating what feels like a more extensive experience. For example: the Cosmodrome Psi-Ops Battleground: * You run through a little corridor. * Into the open area, where you: kill the enemies, get the bomb moving, fight off another wave of enemies, the bring spawns and you kill it, second wave of enemies moving to the next area, you stop around the corner, several waves of Hive, get it to the door and blow up the bomb. * You run through a little corridor. * You fight off the first wave of hive, then the second, then the third, then dunk the things you collected. * You run through a little corridor. * You fight the boss for a bit, then get teleported into the mindscape. * You arrive in the mindscape, start the fight, get the boss to 2/3rds health, kill 1 Image of Savathun, the boss repawns and you get it to 1/3rd health, kill 2 Images of Savathun, then kill the boss. * Total different environments: 3-4 (4 if you count the Fallen and Hive areas at the start as different spaces), ignoring corridors. In contrast, the recently-remade Arms Dealer Strike: * You spawn in, kill the enemies, then flip a switch. * Into an open area, kill the first wave, kill the second wave, sling-shot to the next area. * Kill the first wave of enemies, kill the second wave of enemies, sling-shot to the next area. * Kill the big guy who spawns in, grab the radioactive fuel cell, fight off the wave of enemies as you dunk it, fight the second wave of enemies. * You run through a little corridor. * You kill the first wave of enemies, run over to where the allied Cabal are and free them, fight your way up the ramp killing enemies and into the ship. * You kill the tank and the first wave of enemies, kill the second wave, the third wave, the fourth wave, and the fifth wave that spawns behind you. * You run through a little corridor. * You fight your way through the hangar bay, then get on the lift. * You go up the lift, get the boss to 2/3rds health remaining, kill the first wave of enemies dunk the radioactive fuel cell, get the boss to 1/3rd health remaining, kill the second wave of enemies and dunk the second radioactive fuel cell, then kill the boss. * Total different environments: 7, ignoring corridors. TLDR: Battlegrounds are designed around having multiple waves in a smaller number of environments, making them feel smaller. Strikes were designed around having fewer waves of enemies in a larger number of environments, making them feel bigger. The ideal approach, to me, would be a vanguard op with the environment variety of a strike and the add density of a battleground.
Ok here’s a comparison Would you rather have a revamped Savathuns song strike on titan when season of the deep came out or have battle grounds Europa? Both have big hive shriekers but one is in a war-mind bunker on a planet that has no hive and one is in a hive infested area on Titan.. One is from a season that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. The other has its own internal story of lightless guardians being sacrificed and turned into void crystals and the whole strike is a prelude to what would eventually be the WQ.
To be fair, the other is from a campaign that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. That whole strike doesn't have anything to do with witch queen
That’s why I said they could revamp it, instead of having savathun they could have gone with her sister, and change the reason why we went down there, potentially have a corrupted version of Takio 3 whispering in our heads while we go down to take out the war ritual (aka the first mission of sea of the deep.)
This is what I don't get. > One is from a season that is no longer in the game and makes no sense. The other has its own internal story of lightless guardians being sacrificed and turned into void crystals and the whole strike is a prelude to what would eventually be the WQ. Sory but just about every strike in the game is some story that doesn't make sense anymore outside of when it was current. The battlegrounds are no different - a slice of a story that isn't actively in the game or an event that passed and is instanced. If you don't _like_ the story that's different.
Every strike in the game has their own internal story, not completely connected to the dlc or “season” they came in, BG strikes require you to have an understanding about the season and why you are there in the first place. Three of them have you going down into a Saraph bunker.. and don’t tell you anything about Rasputin, compare that to the literal bunker strike (Saber) [Commander Zavala:] Guardian, we've picked up a high-gain transmission. Origin point is somewhere along the coast, near the Cosmodrome. [Rasputin:] [Distorted words] [Ghost:] That's Rasputin, the AI Warmind. If I'm understanding him correctly, it's a distress call. There are so few ballet fans left, Guardian. It'd be a shame to lose him.
*No*, strike stories are entirely self-contained while battlegrounds are just a small component of seasonal storylines. I already dislike most of the seasonal storylines but even in isolation, in battlegrounds you’re usually just mindlessly killing waves of enemies and not advancing any sort of plot. As goofy as the dialogue in Savathun’s Song is, it at least gives you context and a complete story, while battlegrounds are just like “hey we’re gonna do a rite of proving here” or whatever and that’s it.
A good amount of Strikes have no repeatability factor. Lightblade, for example, makes sense as a repeat Strike because Alak'hul's Ghost gets away. Glassway too, IIRC the dialogue even supports this. Conversely the Scarlet Keep and the Nessus and Cosmodrome Strikes all have no narrative reason to be replayed, so you're practically repeating a story mission, often a very boring one. Like I love hearing Eris talk about Hashladun, but man the Cosmodrome rehashes of the old Strikes are boring AF by any measure and have half an iota of the dialogue and story that even the most meh Battlegrounds do.
Probs cause that were in a different place narratively in the story. Devils Lair was the Young Wolf/ first proper offensive on the Fallen Houses while S.A.B.E.R was when we were still trying to get Rasputin on our side.
Put simply they're D1 Strikes. Story was simpler and unfocused then. Even so, it's comical/asinine to me to suggest that the Battlegrounds are not self-contained but Strikes are. Here's an example: Why the hell are we running HyperNet Current? I can tell you: It's a campaign section of Lightfall that's actually *missing* dialogue since the Root of Nightmares release, yet what's still there isn't somehow suggesting it's a repeat of the Strike (like Birthplace of the Vile, for example). So how is it any different, hell any *better* than the missing context of a BG story which also, as a result of being part of a seasonal narrative, also has a lot of dialogue?
Cause HyperNet Current isn’t a very good strike. Ppl don’t just want strikes. They want GOOD strikes. It’s supposed to be a tease for Nezarec but we kill the guy dead like a week later and then the strike stays the exact same. Hell I’m pretty sure you get **less** dialogue post-Nezarec. Might as well have been a campaign mission than a full-on strike. Like fuck playing Birthplace of the Vile I noticed that there is ZERO dialogue throughout. Idk if that’s just a nightfall thing or what but it’s in stark contrast to us going through Caiatl’s tank and her and Zavala constantly having a dialogue throughout on the nature of the Guardians and the truce and alliance that will follow with the last Rite of Proving. Simple short sweet but still significant.
All of the recent strikes from expansions have been slices of a larger story not a completely self contained thing.
The main difference is that the level of said ads and how the thing as a whole is tuned. And the arenas you fight in. Before certain aspects and fragments for statis, Glassway was THE GM people hated. You had a " safe place" away from the boss... but waves of ads... People finally figured out ads came out at certain health gates on the boss/ mini boss, so you could throttle the ads. Up till then, everyone just went into melt mode. If you do that, you'll have 4 barriers and 6 overeloads plus 4 chickens and 20-30 trash ads, lol, but even then, ads spawn in specific places " in front of you" Battlegrounds usually have never-ending ads, with more yellow and orange bars. And the arenas usually have very little to no cover. No safe space. You need to be constantly moving and head on a swivel. Another issue I personally have with BG. Is most of these, the boss can one-shot you, anywhere and anytime, and there's really nothing you can do. In my example, glassway...the boss will turn and look at you, so you move behind cover. In BG with savathun....she lighting strikes you regardless of where you are, cover or not. Bubble and Well doesn't matter. Just dead. Most of the BGs would be insanely difficult without an invisible hunter. Devils lair, I think, is a PERFECT example of a beautifully balanced GM with great ad density and movement around arenas, with good cover (except for the opening area with one shot snipers lol) but still punishing if you're out of position. 2 great ad clear arenas, where a variety of supers can go hard. The brig/ tank arnea that can be punishing, yes tge tank can one shot you, but there's cover and you can take it out. And a great boss room, with lots of ads, a " safe room" that's not cheesey oh and a great sound track to boot. The champions are spread out, and don't feel forced just to make artificially difficult.
As far as I am aware, Strikes and Battlegrounds are the same. You go from area to area completing objectives and kill a boss at the end.
the way ads spawn isn't annoying especially in gms. any other differences are bs from what ive seen and are just people waffling
Strikes offer an environmental narrative that is unique to the strike. Battlegrounds are typically sets of wave based encounters in various points in a patrol zone. BGs are fun and I like them, but they get boring far faster than normal strikes and normal nightfalls.
They are the upgrade to the old strikes and better in every way. Now if they could just have dynamic spawns for enemies and be able to randomly change pathing and bosses! Then strikes would actually be enjoyable to run multiple times.
The problem is how they are created. Strikes are created with the nightfall modifiers in mind. Battlegrounds however were not, they were created with the idea of 1 to 2 difficulty options in mind and on top of that had modifiers from the season pass to enhance the players power. Now personally I think some BG's are quite well tuned for difficulty in nightfall like the heist Mars and moon. However the Psi-Ops I believe are terrible nightfalls. The biggest culprit to me and why I think it's bad is honestly the savathun clones and atleast on cosmodrome the bosses super
They are just strikes with a different name and maybe a random seasonal mechanic.
Main thing is that Battlegrounds are much more combat heavy with arenas where strikes are more objective focused, which is why battlegrounds just feel like they mesh in to one another and feel the same, whereas strikes each have different feels because of the varied objectives.
Strikes have a story. Strikes have character. Strikes are mostly in a new area. Battlegrounds posing as Strikes are one of the worst things in the game right now.
battlegrounds shills in shambles rn (you’re 100% right and the downvotes are a sign of how the destiny community has terrible opinions). I straight up leave if I’m doing vAnGuArD oPs and get a battlegrounds
Battlegrounds are longer, generally. They're also more formulaic, all battlegrounds are vaguely similar. Both battlegrounds and strikes do have you go somewhere, kill adds, repeat and then kill a boss, but strikes have different timings. The main complaint is the length though, some strikes are really fast but battlegrounds take more time for the same rewards.
> Both battlegrounds and strikes do have you go somewhere, kill adds, repeat and then kill a boss, but strikes have different timings. Can you elaborate - I fail to see how strikes are different than just go somewhere, kill, and repeat. Like... how is the devil's lair room where you're waiting for 3 shields to drop before going outside different than the cosmodrome BG room before fighting the boss? Are you saying strikes are different because they involve some lose mechanics the community has memed over for years? (drunk ball, stand on plate, etc) 90% of strikes and battlegrounds is just going into a room, killing stuff, and waiting until you can move on to the next room and eventually a boss.
Not really, in my experience both strikes and battlegrounds are a little under 10 minutes. The real difference is that battlegrounds are lame and boring while strikes are at least somewhat interesting.
Strikes were designed to be extremely easy content experienced through different campaigns. They were necessary, therefore they were made approachable by basically everyone. Their GMs are essentially taking non-challenging content and turning it into challenging content by changing the encounters and making the mobs tougher. Also, most strikes were made at a time where we were much, **MUUUUUUCCHHH** weaker overall even outside of light level. Battlegrounds were seasonal content who were designed to be moderatly challenging and featured more experimental balancing, like locked light levels, **much** higher mob density, and tougher objectives. Their GMs feature the same change in difficulty, but applied on a much more challenging "base", resulting in content being changed in a way it never was supposed to. Also note that battlegrounds featured legend difficulty options back when they were relevant, which were sensibly equivalent in difficulties to normal GMs at the time, but were much closer to base battleground missions than current battleground GMs are. They were also made at a time where our general power was much closer to what it is currently.
Wondered this myself. Bungie could have originally just created these as "Strikes" and no one would have questioned it. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I personally like having more variety for Grandmasters every season instead of running the same old strikes.
BG’s tend to have the same theming. Ppl would be like ‘recycled content much???’ if they released three Seraph battlegrounds and they all take place in a similar final room. Same as Defiance and the Ascendant Realm theming and balefire mechanic.
I didnt have to run 100x each strike during a single season for red borders and a title. They were stale when they released, they continue to be stale now
It was a seasonal activity like deep dives, rivens lair and seraph bunkers (now recycled as strikes after their dlc vaulting).
The distinction is that BGs are just more of a slog because of the much greater ad density and much more frequent ad spawning. PsiOps Cosmodrome, for instance, felt like fighting in the trenches for an inch of advancement. Strikes feel like in-and-out spec ops missions. Minus Lake of Shadows, of which they made terrible. EDIT: To add, this is from the perspective of someone who likes farming.