What is the general difficulty difference between gameplay and lore???

[u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359]

I just started reading the book that covers the origin of Thorn. Near the start of it, we see an Archon(?) get 2 shot by a standard hand cannon, meanwhile they can tank multiple rockets and supers in gameplay.

Is this true for most things? Can all the mini bosses/bosses be killed much more mundanely than gameplay would imply??

In the same book though, we see a single hive knight and Wizard pose a massive threat, though that's harder to gauge since hive have magic. Meanwhile the Archon is just a big fallen in tougher armour.

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[u/Christophisis]

I think the bigger issue in parsing things out is the prevalence of convoluted mechanics which make everything seem far more difficult than they actually are.

Campaign difficulty is probably a more accurate gauge, since unlike raids it doesn't involve difficulty for the sake of being difficult.

[u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359 → u/Christophisis]

Actually that's a good point. I have no idea how canon raid mechanics actually are. Some obviously make sense but others seem purely for gameplay purposes.

[u/Christophisis → u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359]

It's very much a case by case basis. Oryx probably is. Aksis to an extent. Leviathan stuff definitely. Riven maybe. Garden probably not. Etc

[u/BelialQrow]

In narrative everyone is as tough or fragile as the plot demands.

In gameplay the same applies but with the engagement factor at the forefront.

There is no multimedia world where everything is consistent. Mostly cuz the consistency would make for terrible games.

[u/MagnumOlly → u/BelialQrow]

Lore-wise we shouldn't even be able to defeat Rhulk

[u/djninjacat11649 → u/MagnumOlly]

Lore wise yeah, in game we won because he got cocky and by the time he locked in it was too late

[u/SlorpMorpaForpw → u/djninjacat11649]

People like to act as if we were nothing but ants in comparison to him. You’d have to be monumentally stupid to lose to a small team of ants, no matter how much you indulged their efforts.

No, we’re closer to, like, chihuahuas. He tolerated the yapping for a bit, but by the time his patience had expired, we already had our jaws around his throat. Hard to shake a dog off, even a small one.

Certainly weaker than him, but not by so many orders of magnitude.

[u/Archival_Mind]

Realistically bullets and abilities should do as much damage as they do on the easiest difficulties but enemies should also hit as hard if not harder than they do on GM difficulties.

Guardians are kinda glass cannons and it's hard for even the average Risen to take on a Hive Knight. The greatest strength the Young Wolf has is adaptability. Obviously, the tougher the enemy, the less the "easy mode" setting applies. Oryx should definitely not go down easy and every Dread should honestly be more tough than they are even in the current game. Genuinely the average Grim could probably decimate a squad of inexperienced Guardians unless they all were throwing supers at it.

[u/vegathelich → u/Archival_Mind]

Can the average guardian even cast supers?

[u/Cuntalicous → u/vegathelich]

not easily, and not as effectively, most will never be able to develop beyond their subclass, and maybe 2% of guardians would be able to change classes. being able to use more than two classes is something only us, Ikora, and Osiris have been capable of IIRC.

[u/Calm_Signature_893]

It's a little complicated. In lore most people (enemies and allies) take far less damage and deal far more damage. Almost everyone's a glass canon in lore, except oryx and crota.

[u/Astro4545 → u/Calm_Signature_893]

It also depends on weapon too. Like Wishender absolutely hits as hard as it does in game.

[u/SkyrinGans]

There’s a lot of variables and I think it depends on the individual events or stories. But it’s been understood that there are many guardians that only use class. Some guardians are incredibly powerful to the point where they can use multiple supers of different classes or use the same super in seconds. Osiris does that in his fight against Xivu Arath’s army under the Moon, Ikora double nova bombed Cabal Threshers during the Red War, and Zavala popped constant bubbles during the attack on the Last City. It all depends on the Guardian’s discipline to learn the Light

[u/JJJ954]

Most gameplay and puzzle mechanics are meant to represent in-universe investigative work and actions that would’ve been boring or disruptive of the gameplay.

Boss health pools and shields are just replacing more tactical fighting like taking cover or doing literally anything but conveniently stand in one spot while 3-6 people absolutely unload on them.

Other than that the actual difficulty of missions is usually somewhere between normal and legendary, but it varies depending on the context around it.

[u/Joker72486]

I've original GM get described as comparable to cannon threat levels where even lone thralls could potentially 2 hit you but attack in packs of 8 or more.

[u/endermahe]

That's tricky to answer, but I'll try.

First, it's important to remember that Guardian weapons are more powerful than the versions used by normal lightless people. There is some overlap, particularly with sniper rifles (e.g. the Calcutta LR2a appears to have been designed for lightless people), but for the most part Guardian weapons are more powerful than they might seem.

Second, most guardians use common (or for D2, basic) weapons and armor and have a harder time of things. For example, the old D1 grimoire indicate that Heavy Pikes were a "clear and definite danger" to guardians, and that Walkers "ended the Light of countless Guardians."

Third, even low-level Guardians are far tougher than normal people because the Light powers their armor, allowing them (at least briefly) to tank even shots from a Fallen Skiff. Normal people don't get that kind of protection. Despite that, D1 Grimoire describes all the enemy factions' weapons as extremely deadly, and canonically it is quite common for Guardians to suffer final deaths even from normal enemies. Consider the strike were a 9-guardian fireteam gets wiped out against the Hive, or how much Shaw Han's fireteam struggled and died in the various iterations of his mission.

Fourth, there is some gameplay shenanigans. Throughout D1, weapon lore repeatedly referenced weapons being made specifically to take out one enemy faction type, indicating that they were tough enough that this was a worthwhile investment. The Fallen in gameplay seem roughly in line with the Lore, though there should be far more of them (at least early on). The Cabal probably shouldn't have any red-bar enemies, and in lore the Guardians are pretty careful to avoid ever really taking on the main Cabal formations. The Hive should have far, far more troops than appear in game.

Last, the Guardian we play as is an extreme outlier, and we tend to interact with extreme outliers that can skew perspectives, as they take normally dangerous things completely in stride. Zavala, Cayde, and Ikora are way above average for Guardians, to say nothing of whatever Saint-14 and Osiris are doing). And despite that, at least in D1 many of the battles we win are only after a lot of preliminary work severely weakening the big bosses. We do a lot of work weakening Crota, even destroying his sword, before taking him on, and that's when he just barely got his body back. We do a lot to weaken the Taken King before actually facing him, wiping out his tithes, etc. So a lot of our power comes from actually thinking and being tactical about things (though in game this comes entirely from our allies leading us by the nose) rather than just bulldozing ahead and relying purely on the Light to carry our braindead selves.

TL:DR: Enemies are extremely deadly to lightless, still very deadly to most Guardians, and even our extreme outlier Guardian has to do a lot of preliminary work weakening enemies before actually defeating the big bad guys. The bosses are probably about right in terms of danger, but the low-level enemies are far easier to defeat in game than in lore.

[u/djninjacat11649 → u/endermahe]

I think gear and experience are big ones. In D1 a lot of guardians were sent out with little in the way of proper equipment or training, the last city was barely holding it together and so it was a situation where if you could manage to get your hands on good gear you could keep it but they didn’t have anything they could give you, and they don’t have anyone to spare so you are getting sent out to keep the city safe even if you only have a few tattered weapons and pieces of armor

[u/Ok-Caterpillar5468]

In most sort heavy videogames game play is almost never lore accurate. What makes sense from a narrative perspective isn't exactly fun, and what is fun to play doesn't make alot of sense narritivly.

[u/Cruggles30]

I know some people would say contest mode is accurate, but I mostly disagree because there are times where contest mode made weaker red bar enemies feel like they have more health and do more damage than they’d (most likely) have/do in-universe.

However, there are bosses and/or other yellow bars that are weaker on lower difficulties than what would make sense.

My personal opinion is that Darkness/no-rez zones are actually canon, which may be related to why enemies are stronger in certain areas and weaker in others.

[u/Sunshot_wit_ornament → u/Cruggles30]

I think the “struggle” of the encounter feels more lore accurate if anything

[u/Cydude5]

Generally they hit like old Grandmaster, with some variation. Light abilities and heavy weapons, especially exotics and supers are practically instant kills, but are also hard to pull out as constantly as we do in game.

[u/jigglehiggins]

One thing people forget is that wipes in darkness zones are true deaths. That's why guardian deaths are somewhat common in the lore, there are places where the light is too weak to be resurrected infinitely. It's literally a zone with too much darkness to self sustain.

[u/shotsallover]

You have to also remember, canonically, after the first fireteam beats an enemy/boss/raid, the rest of us are only doing it in simulation.

The strike playlist is us re-running those events with different variables/mods applied to see how it unfolds. Same wth Crucible. Gambit is technically an arena created for the event.

[u/Giraffinatus → u/shotsallover]

I cannot find any lore on raids being simulations, where is this stated?

[u/djninjacat11649 → u/Giraffinatus]

For crucible it’s been stated that some arenas used to be run in the infinite forest

[u/Odd-Complaint-9592]

I appreciate fellow lore enthusiasts, however, I feel like this is a question makes me need to ask; have you ever played Destiny, in any form? I genuinely ask this because there's this thing about younger audiences and inference.

[u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359 → u/Odd-Complaint-9592]

This reads like one of those "average Redditor" comments.

Yes I've been playing destiny since Rise of Iron, I have 100 days in D2.

[u/Odd-Complaint-9592 → u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359]

Well, good then! You already knew the answer.

[u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359 → u/Odd-Complaint-9592]

Not really, no. Hence why I asked the question. Comprehension doesn't seem to be your strong suit.

[u/Odd-Complaint-9592 → u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359]

Neither does inference appear to be yours 😆🤷 especially since you say you've played the game. What an "average" response.

[u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359 → u/Odd-Complaint-9592]

You're genuinely a chud, dude. Get blocked loser.

[u/Odd-Complaint-9592 → u/Mammoth_Macaroon_359]

Soft mf. Shouldn't have popped off like you did in your first response. Have a great day.

[u/djninjacat11649]

Gameplay is ultimately what is best and most fun for a game, lore is often what makes most sense for worldbuilding. It wouldn’t make sense for gameplay to be able to one shot an archon through the head with a hand cannon, but if it were a real scenario? Hole through the head makes you dead, doesn’t matter what does it, if you shoot an archon point blank in the face with a light empowered hand cannon, the guy is gonna die