Just some more random thoughts -



To me raids are more about learning - figuring out what works and what doesn't work. It's not about competing for a once in a lifetime championship in a life or death game. You won't be branded a permanent failure if you didn't succeed one particular night in a raid. If you failed but learned how things work or even made some slight progression that's still a step in the right direction.



The fear of failure is what takes the fun out of raiding. Automatically assuming that a group of random people will fail anyway so don't bother even giving them tools to even try is absolutely the wrong philosophy behind this.



Open it up to matchmaking - let people take their licks and learn from it. For every 5 or 10 people who gives up and quite there will be that one person who learns from failure and applies it to a future attempt in another raid.



I'd rather take my chances being grouped with random 4 bad eggs through matchmaking if it means I met that one good player that made a legitimate effort at tackling a raid despite failing. Given the amount of people who can't put together a reliable 6 man team through their friends list there will be quite a lot of skilled players out there that just couldn't get a squad together.



Another reason why this is short sighted - turnover rate in clans from burnout, real life issue, or people simply moving on to another game is generally pretty high in raiding environments. Assuming destiny raids are so hilariously hard that only a handful of people in the entire universe can successfully do them, losing a member or two could easily cause the entire group of friends to move on to something else instead of simply recruiting someone new to the group.



Since they've already established that raid and strike mechanics differ greatly, having an introductory raid built through matchmaking can allow people to learn the fundamentals of what needs to be done in a raid.



It will be necessary to ensure a healthy pool of talent for higher raid tiers. You don't have to have waypoint markers or anything - just something that can get people at least a foot through the door.



Having an actual proper progression curve to raids, giving players LFG/Matchmaking tools and offering a wider range of players an opportunity to learn how the raids work means you're more likely to find a good, knowledgeable player in the general player pool to replace that retired group member in your former raid group.



Also assuming this is "tier 1" of destiny's raiding ladder, you are going to want an easier way to break new people into tier 2 raiding if certain friends or clan mates were to retire at the end of tier 1.



And no, simply carrying them through so they can loot legendary gear over and over again doesn't guarantee that you'll wind up with a suitable replacement that can adequately perform on the next tier on the same level as the retired one - since carrying doesn't improve communication or in game skills.



But ultimately, I suspect the reason bungie is being ultra hard line about this is that they want to gate/lock this tier of raid content away until the next tier is ready in another expansion pack. Raids traditionally functioned as a tool to keep players in the game long term until the next expansion is ready. I wouldn't be surprised if this tier of raiding somehow magically becomes easier and gains a matchmaking function just before the next tier arrives - with no matchmaking.