#I think not even my fireteam were playing D2 back them for the same reason

[hyakunana]

I think you might have missed last year's Dawning event, because we can now give Elsie cookies (Starwort Thins).

?????!?!!?!??!?!??!???

WHAT?????

I MEAN--

Yes, I missed last year's Dawning event, because it was the period they took Beyond Light out of gamepass, but I do remember checking the first week's event and recipes and I do clearly remember not having hers back then 😥 Unless it was only available for those who has access to BL by that time?? Either way I remember being really upset bc of the gamepass thing and I only returned to play after WQ, so yeah I could have easily missed it

[get-rammed]

I feel the same, pal. This was a dickmove from Bungie, it is so obvious that they did it just to sell the dlc (which was clearly gonna sell itself bc of really good things in it w/o Cayde’s death if you ask me) it is so disgusting it makes me wanna vomit, but, hey, it might sound naive and stupid, but Cayde is still alive in the fandom. We don’t have to accept his death bc it was just a cheap klickbait. I’m not gonna drop the fanfiction I started recently so hope you won’t give up d2 drawing too

My first thought when finding out about them flaunting his death was they were doing it to sell the dlc. Then they kept showing off his death, solidifying they’re killing him just to sell copies. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredibly good tactic, it’s just cheap. Plus like, none of the other characters have as much time as he does in the game. He’s one of the only fleshed out characters. So it’s gonna be awkward when they try to fill his comedic relief role. Because no matter who gets the role, they’re never going to be as good as he was and they’re going to feel forced in *cough* Failsafe *cough*

They can say it’s to make the story darker, but I seriously don’t buy it. If they wanted dark, they’d have killed off more characters at the start. Show off these powerful characters to new comers, and remind vets that the Vanguard has their position for a reason. Then show them being broken and beaten. Show that the universe isn’t safe for even the strongest. For me it’s too late in the game to make things “dark”. The universe is still going to feel safe because we all know we can’t die. An with the way the game is set up, they can’t really kill us off. Unless they pull off a Dying Light the Following. In which case, go nuts. Sorry to Cayde, but yeah. His death doesn’t make the series more dark and edgy like they wanted it to be. At least to me. Plus like, I never saw Uldren or the Barons as a threat? They’re just a little miffed, not anything like Ghaul or even Oryx were. Where they were actual threats, these guys really don’t seem to be. Yeah, they’re dangerous, but at the same time, they’re not out to destroy everything. So just get a hoard of Guardians and take them out. Not that hard. They’re just some overgrown undead bugs

It’s a good idea in the short run for profit, but the long run? I really don’t think so. They have to keep him dead now. There’s no going back. They bring him back and we all know that there’s no point to anything then. They’re fucked honestly. Can’t put a serious character in his place, we already have the other two Vanguard. Can’t really put a funny character there, because everyone will hate them and they will feel forced as all hell. They’d have to go for a happy medium that everyone is going to hate either way. Holdin’ out for my boy Shiro, but even he’s a little more on the serious side. I know a few people who got D2, and still play specifically because of Cayde. So what’s making them want to get D3 if the whole reason they still played the game is dead?

Honestly if you remove his death, it’s basically the same. Uldren is still being whiny, and the Baron’s would still be doing whatever they’re doing. I get Cayde was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but still. It really doesn’t add anything to the story. Realistically we’d still be sent after them anyhow. They’re a group of dangerous assholes, the Vanguard would request we put them down

I accept his death, but it’s not gonna stop me from drawing weird shit (or the shitty story I started writing out of boredom). He’s not dead if you don’t play the dlc on your other characters. I still like Destiny as a whole, just not a fan of the way they decided to go about this dlc. The dlc itself looks like a ton of fun, but the fact that we have to go after Uldren and his new friends for “revenge” is eh. It’s going to be awkward for people like me who honestly couldn’t care less at this point that he’s dead, and didn’t get all ‘I’m gonna stab Uldren!’ an all that when Cayde’s death was announced. Uldren is pretty cool, and rightfully hates us. Me personally, I don’t have a reason to hate him. Except for maybe that line about dark and Light. That was just cringy. It’s going to wear on me real quick if every minute I’m reminded of the fact that they killed Cayde. I feel really bad for my Fireteam if that’s the case lmao. Gonna get my ass muted

They took too many misteps and now have to kill off their poster boy to make sure the game doesn’t die. Like you said, the dlc looked fucking rad without the forcing of Cayde’s death. Too bad Bungie kept dropping the ball with this series

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

Destiny, matchmaking, SBMM, CBMM and the perspectives and attitudes of the different sides of the community

July 27, 2018

I'd like to take some time to talk about Destiny, matchmaking, SBMM, CBMM and the perspectives and attitudes of the different sides of the community. This has been an issue for a long time now and it's hitting another crescendo with not just the move back to 6v6 Quickplay, but this announcement from DMG and Derek Carroll today regarding matchmaking in QP. I've posted on this issue in the past and I think it's time to take another realistic look at matchmaking within the game and how it's working and who it's really benefiting. As I wrote in that post from way back when, there is a lot that goes into matching players in Destiny. Anyone who has continuously fast traveled on Mars to try to find an EP group understands that the first criteria the game tries to match players on is region. This is also the case in PvP as players like CammyCakes would use this pre-private matches to set up scrims and Trials players will change hosts to try to find more favorable opponents in different regions. So understanding that, it then branches out to many other factors in a complex algorithm to try to put players together. This will vary a bit from PvE where if there are no favorable matchups, the game can place players in their own instance and then matchmake others in from there. PvP obviously gets more complex, but the game is still trying to match players as quickly as possible because no one wants to sit in queues all day. Now here is where things get all wonky at least on the community end. Two of the bigger factors after region are SBMM and CBMM. These have both existed within Destiny matchmaking from day one despite claims that SBMM was only added in later on. While both did exist, they have been weighted differently throughout the course of the game sometimes favoring one more than the other. However, even with that knowledge it's not that cut and dry. Fireteams. As I stated in the post I linked, you can sing the praises of CBMM or SBMM until the cows come home, but neither can account for team compositions when players are going in grouped in a fireteam. Connection based matchmaking cannot account for players who are spread out all across the country or world who are in one fireteam together, just like it also can't account for the varying skill levels of all the players within a team. Could the game try to approximate and go from a median skill level? Maybe, but the other wildcard in all of this is that other players of similar skill or good connection quality have to be sitting in orbit in queue at the same 30-45 second window as you and not still be in a match or not in queue yet. All this has been. All this is, and all this will be again. That is a universal truth. Another universal truth is that someone is going to hate whatever system is in place while someone else loves it and that puts Bungie in the unenviable position of trying to make everyone happy when it's an impossible task. That is why ultimately I still believe the D1 approach of trying to find the right balance in weighting between the two was the best approach. Unfortunately the SBMM rebellion happened and ultimately it played a huge role in the direction Bungie went with D2. I don't want to rehash completely why I still believe the SBMM revolt was fundamentally wrong and the falsehoods of many of the claims, but I will speak on the initial complaint that lit the fuse and that was players feeling they were always in "sweaty" matches. This started with prominent content creators and was picked up and echoed by viewers. I know there is a tendency to lay the blame for everything players don't like about D2 at the feet of streamers and YouTubers and while this is not the case, they are also not without fault on some things. The general sentiment was that elite players couldn't ever relax and have fun because they were constantly "forced'' to play nothing but other elite players. The flip side to that coin of course is that their relaxing and having fun was achieved by smearing lower skilled players. This wasn't fun for those players and in year one of Destiny led to a very big problem of players just quitting out of matches as soon as the score even looked like it might get tilted (leading to the increased importance of SBMM in year 2). Unfortunately when the great SBMM revolt occurred, there was a lot of weight behind the message from very high profile people in the community and the other side just didn't have the same voice to speak with; which brings me to Destiny 2 and the past couple of days in particular. People like to say in loud voices the things players never asked for like crucible going to all 4v4, weapon changes, etc. And while technically that may be correct in the literal sense, the truth of the matter is that all the changes that happened with D2 were the developers trying to give players what they felt we wanted the game to be through all of our feedback. We didn't ask for 4v4, but what the community did ask for were games with better connections, and smoother play and going back to matchmaking, fireteams and all the variables of trying to group 12 players, lowering the player count to 8 allowed for a greater chance at better matchups. This was also the reason for the move to playlists rather than static game modes to queue for. On paper it is easy to see the upsides to all of it when weighed against player complaints from D1. Life is full of variables though and another is player population and as that dipped, it threw all of it out the window. There were no longer the extra players in queue from having 4 less in each match and only 2 playlists. The devs made a decision and they took a chance and it didn't work how they wanted. That happens and I give them all the credit in the world for owning that and resolving to make the game better. But going back to the split playlists, Quickplay and Competitive, this is something that bothered me before release and will lead into where we're at today. There was very vocal call for a ranked playlist in Destiny 2 and at launch many complaints from prominent players that Comp didn't go far enough and wasn't a true ranking system to show off skill. The reason this bothered me then is that we went through the SBMM revolt because elite players didn't like having to get sweaty all the time, but then in almost the same breath they're asking for ranked play. It made no sense at the time and we've seen this throughout D2 but really brought front and center since the last update that the ''elite'' players don't want to play ranked play. I was watching a stream yesterday discussing the topic and one of the things brought up was a top level PvP player who very publicly ''quit'' D2 earlier this year now ''loving'' Destiny again because they can go into QP and put up 60 kills. And to the credit of some viewers, it was pointed out that Quickplay maybe isn't all that fun for the lower skill players on the receiving end of those beatings, but the on stream reply was that casuals should play in Competitive if they want to play players their own skill level. And THAT is why I’m tilted on the subject enough to write about this again. Beyond the hubris of that statement, let’s really break it down. Elite players wanted a ranked playlist to show their skill, but found out they still hate actually having to play equal competition on a regular basis and it's more fun for them and entertaining for people who watch their streams and YouTube videos to see them throwing down monster games against lesser opponents. So if new or less skilled players want to play even competition and not have to not just sweat, but get their heads beat in every single match, their recourse is to play the ranked comp list that was meant for the high skilled players. FUBAR and ass-backward for sure, but it also fails to take into account that ''casual'' players can't play Control or Clash in the comp playlist. So where does that leave the game? From today's announcement that currently neither CBMM nor SBMM are functioning correctly and Bungie's response that for the time being they are going to let things lie and see how they play out, it seems that player populations over the final weeks before Forsaken are going to shape the eventual outcome. But at this point I think that it's clear that Quickplay and Competitive do not function as intended and it may be time to do a deep rethink on things there. I hate having to come to that opinion because I know how much Kevin Yanes and his team put into building ranked play, but if QP becomes the de-facto stomping grounds for the high skill crowd then where does it leave Comp? And this is where I would throw questions to the community. Does the community truly feel that the game comes down to survival of the fittest and there isn't a place for players who don't live and breathe crucible (or have time to no life grinding in PvE)? Or can we accept that the game can try to find a middle ground and have something for both types of player? The calls for the complete removal of SBMM were very clearly option one there in D1 and are fortifying that position these past few days. To state that casual players need to find someplace else to play is not something I accept or endorse and it is my hope that most of the people in this community wouldn't as well. The game can always be better. Matchmaking can always be better, but I would like to see solutions that don't leave behind one group or the other and to that end maybe it's time to rethink matchmaking completely. Thank you.

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

Iron Banner by the Numbers and a Deep Dive Into D2 Matchmaking, Balance, Framework and Why PvP Currently is Not Competitive

So now that I am level 600 and able to run PvP how I want (without any level disadvantages), I have been playing a lot of Iron Banner. I’ve played 40 games since Tuesday and I think the numbers and experience tell a very interesting story. So I am going to go through the numbers and then talk a bit about my thoughts on it all. Hope you find this all as fascinating as I do :)

Games Played (win-loss)  40 (21-19)

Solo 18 (10-8)

Duo 14 (9-5)

3 Stack 1 (0-1)

4 Stack 7 (2-7)

Average Victory Margin 45.4

Average Score 106-61

Closest Game 126-116

Biggest Loss 126-51

Mercies (win-loss) 16 (11-5)

Average Mercy Victory Margin 54.81

Average Mercy Score 79-24

Full Games (win-loss) 24 (10-14)

Average Full Game Victory Margin 39.12

Average Full Game Score 125-86

Games Within Point Margins

  0-10  One

11-20  Four

21-30  Four

31-40  Seven

41-50  Five

51-60  Ten

61-70  Eight

71-80  One

31 of 40 games decided by 31 or more points

24 if 40 games decided by 41 points or more

So my take away from this is exactly the same as it has been since 6v6 returned to D2 and that is D2 Control is not good outside of 4v4. I thought it should have returned to D1 rules and scoring when 6′s returned and it’s been even worse since Forsaken dropped the new sandbox.

Iron Banner is interesting because unlike QuickPlay, it uses SBMM. This is important because that should by definition lead to closer and better quality matches, but it hasn’t and that isn’t just my experience. A quick trip to the bungie.net forums will show a good amount of posts not happy with the lopsided play. Now a lot of them also erroneously attribute it to just matchmaking and blame it on SBMM, but that of course isn’t how it works. Here are some more interesting numbers from my last 40 games of QuickPlay Control since Forsaken has been out.

Games Played 40

Average Score 145-93

Average Victory Margin 52.4

Mercies 2

So the average margin of victory is 7 points higher in QP versus Iron Banner over my last 40 games of each and neither one of them is anything resembling competitive.

So what that immediately tells us is that there is more wrong with the competitive balance of the game than just the matchmaking algorithms. It also tells us that they are most likely multiple layers to what is currently wrong with play.

I also ran some more numbers yesterday. These do not cover as wide a range of games as it would just be stupid time consuming, but I took a random cross section of 6 games from both Iron Banner and QuickPlay and looked at the the team compositions in each playlist and those number tell an interesting story as well.

Starting with Iron Banner where SBMM is enabled these were the numbers.

Game #1 

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1237-1228 

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1492/972

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1467/1127

Game #2

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1156-1203

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1349-1081

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1297/1150

Game #3

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1216-1173

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1339/1112

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1334/1062

Game #4

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1161-1199

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1334/1062

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1392/1031

Game #5

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1245-1173

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1359/1171

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1363/1051

Game #6

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1198-1229

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1346/1142

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1305/1191

Average Overall Team Elo Difference 40 points

Largest Opposing Player Elo Difference 365 points

Now lets compare that vs 6 games in Quickplay

Game #1

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1525-1243

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 2309/1101

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1337/1102

Game #2

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1258-1221

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1388/1120

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1336/1170

Game #3

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1551-1187

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 2116/1116

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1301/1076

Game #4

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1298-1224

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1766/1056

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1332/1062

Game #5

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1482-1206

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1746/1326

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1332/1062

Game #6

Avg Elo Winning Team-Losing Team 1290-1146

Highest/Lowest Elo Winning Team 1371/1072

Highest/Lowest Elo Losing Team 1326/981

Average Overall Team Elo Difference 196 Points

Largest Opposing Player Elo Difference 1207 points

These are staggering differences in team vs team skill match-ups both in the overall differences in team averages (156 points higher in QP) as well as individual match-ups (842 points higher in QP).

None of this is new information and falls right in line with how SBMM actually works in Destiny versus all the misinformation spread on the topic. SBMM does not force players into only playing others their exact same skill level and as you can clearly see from the numbers, players still routinely face opponents both more and less skilled when SBMM is active. What SBMM does do is limit the extreme mismatches. There is no reason a level 1109 should ever have to face a level 2309 in any kind of fun-casual play environment and this is again where I think that QuickPlay is completely miscast as to what it is supposed to be.

There is also no reason why a team should be so mismatched that they can go into QP Control and not cap a single zone or use any weapons and still only lose 150-149 because they so outclass their opponents. It makes a great internet post, but it doesn’t make people who lose want to keep playing.

Comp (and Trials when it exists) are where players who are really into PvP go to play and be challenged. QuickPlay should be where everyone else can just go and have fun playing fair competition, but instead QuickPlay is where the Comp and Trials players can go to not have to play close matches and “relax”.

The problem there is self-evident as it leaves no place in the game for new, inexperienced, solo, small team, casual, or PvE players just trying to do PvP aspects of quests/grinds. QuickPlay is not fun or competitive right now in my opinion and yes it is great for streamers and content creators (and the image of the game they send forth), but I don’t think it’s any healthier for the overall population of the game than year one and I don’t see it making players who aren’t that into it or get sick of constantly getting smashed, want to stick around.

It also in my opinion is really undermining what is the absolute best sandbox that has ever existed in D1 or D2 once we hit level cap and can fully take advantage of everything (weapons, abilities, supers, perks, mods). People hated year one because it was so heavily favored towards teams and team-shooting. The switch to 6v6 and the new sandbox should have eliminated those things and made solo/lone wolf play viable again, but it hasn’t really done that in QP because the matchmaking is so lopsided and players so badly out-skilled.

Which brings me back to Iron Banner because it is in an extremely weird spot right now. The games are still just awful as far as being competitive, but the actual match-ups are extremely balanced game-to-game and so it doesn’t make sense from a matchmaking standpoint that the games aren’t much closer than QuickPlay... Until you look at how the modes actually work, and this has been completely validated for me over these 40 games that I have experienced.

I have not had very much fun playing QP in Forsaken and have basically done my daily and weekly bounties and then not had any desire to go back in; but despite the overall bad quality of match results, I am having the best time I’ve had in Destiny since House of Wolves in actual player engagements versus opponents in this Iron Banner. Yeah, the games are blowouts, but the match-ups feel really good and I don’t feel like I’m hopelessly mismatched or worlds better than my opponents.

Which brings me back to what is wrong with this Iron Banner from a competitive perspective and I think it is quite simply that D2 Iron Banner doesn’t work with 6v6 or the new sandbox. I think that D2 Control in general probably plays a factor in QP being so lopsided as Clash tends to feel somewhat less brutal, but the lock-down mechanic can just instantly tilt games beyond any chance of comeback and that is evident in the extreme number of mercies. 40% of my IB games have ended in a mercy versus 2% in QuickPlay where the teams are far more unfair.

I have felt for a long time now that the answer is to revert to D1 rules and scoring for both Control and Clash. There was nothing wrong with how they worked in D1 and those were the modes that made people fall in love with Destiny PvP to begin with. Bring them back. Iron Banner can still have its’ fire pits and maybe even the lock down mechanics would work with players having to neutralize zones before capping, but what we have right now isn’t working.

I’ve written a lot here again, but I think this is a topic that is very important to the health of the game overall and forward and to that end I would like to add two more quick thoughts to all of this. 

First to the the ever present solo vs fireteam debate that rages on the forums. It is a fact that SBMM makes the game much more accessible for solo players and those in small teams and that has 100% been my experience in this Iron Banner. What I can’t show with any statistics, but I am convinced would play out as well is the difference having to neutralize and then cap would have on the health of the sandbox by making ranged play more viable and curbing maybe not the presence, but certainly the overall necessity of CQC play.

D2 Control is and has always been musical chairs with zones. When it switched to 6v6 is just dialed that up to 11 and without having to neutralize, players are able to very quickly run zone to zone to zone capping, losing, capping with very limited risk vs what existed in D1. This is a big reason D2 launched with all roaming supers. Put the neutralize aspect back in and watch supers like Nova Bomb, the new Solar and Arc Titan supers and the new Void Hunter suddenly become really valuable and effective in a D1 Control format.

Also watch as scouts, snipers and primaries in general become far more effective as players are able to defend zones more since their harder to take.

Hope this has been useful, educational or interesting and I hope that we see changes to Destiny PvP’s framework to really fit the new sandbox and make the game even better. Thank you.

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

The Potential Benefits of Hosted Lobbies in Destiny 2 PvP and PvE

I’ve been thinking about Destiny and matchmaking for a long time now and I’ve written and spoken tens of thousands of words on the topic. I think what Bungie has achieved thus far with Destiny has been incredible and even through the ups and down, they as a company have managed to create a franchise unlike anything we’ve seen before.

One of the biggest challenges the studio faced early on was in how to build and match players in an online, persistent and seamlessly matchmade universe. There is a great video from GDC a few years back of Justin Truman breaking down how the developers achieved this. I’m not going to go into too many specifics here, but I encourage anyone interested to watch the video as it is really fascinating. The end result was a PvE experience of planets made of a collection of connecting zones of “public bubbles’’ each of which were for the most part built in a circle with sections between that allowed the game to match us and our fireteam members with new guardians as we moved zone to zone. There are also off-shoot “private bubbles” which are the branching off story missions, strikes, etc, accessible by just us and/or our fireteam.

PvP meanwhile remained mostly unchanged from Halo in the general setup and approach. We and our teammates still queue for matches and are then matched by different variables (region, connection, skill, etc) with other players. This was done in D1 on a peer-to-peer network and in D2 a hybrid system in which every activity is hosted on Bungie servers vs player consoles in D1. All told these systems for PvE and PvP have performed well enough to make Destiny one of the top game franchises in the world and as well crafted as the systems have been overall, there is always room for improvement with anything and I believe after 4 years of experiencing this game, the cracks in both systems have started to show through.

I believe of the two environments, PvE has been much more successful in achieving the goals the developers had for what they wanted Destiny to be. That said we have seen areas where the current architecture leaves more to be desired. In my opinion the most glaring examples would be:

The ability to match larger groups of friends for activities like Court of Oryx, Archon Forge, Escalation Protocol, and Blind Well.

The ability for players to easily group up and find other random players within the game to do higher endgame PvE content such as Nightfalls and Raids.

Create an experience within an online, open world, multiplayer game in which players are able to meet, connect and easily communicate with the other players we come across within the game.

PvP has fared much worse and I think that, while applying the general principals and format of Halo PvP to Destiny has not been a failure by any stretch of the imagination, it has also led to many of the biggest problems that Destiny has faced over the last four years in both PvP and PvE. Those issues include:

It is incredibly anti-social as we are continuously matched with new groups of players who we never speak to and most of the time don’t see for more than one or two games (if they don’t leave the queue between games and the game doesn’t break up the teams)

SBMM vs CBMM the eternal debate

Solo player (and small fireteam) vs full fireteams

The struggle to maintain healthy player populations to be able to implement the best overall matchmaking experience for everyone

Playlists instead of playing the game modes we want to play

A PvP experience that the devs have tried to condense populations through aforementioned playlists, but has then been re-fragmented by separate Quickplay and Competitive modes, as well special PvP events like Iron Banner and Trials, plus the addition of Gambit, weekly game modes and Crucible Labs.

Difficulty maintaining healthy weapon, class, ability and super balance in both PvP and PvE as things are deemed to be “too good” and/or “overused” by the community in single game modes/playlists, but would suffer performance issues in other PvP modes and PvE if modified.

Having a more difficult time overall with the balance of PvP vs PvE

All of these things are known issues and nothing I’m writing here is anything I haven’t written before, but with teams inside Bungie’s studio now confirmed working on the next iteration of the game, I think it’s one of the biggest issues that need to be looked at in the continued growth and development of the game and franchise. I know there are constant discussions within the studio on these things and the goal is always to make the game the best that it can be and the matchmaking experience as a whole and particularly in PvP can be better and I think the solution is the same today as it could have been for raid matchmaking from the beginning.

I believe Destiny would be a much better game with a Perfect Dark Zero/ Gear of War approach to matchmaking for some of PvP and PvE endgame and the basic systems and functionality are already built into the game through private matches and Guided Games.

To start with PvE first, this is the same thing I’ve advocated for over the last 3 ½ years and while Guided Games is a limited approximation, it hasn’t really panned out as an easy way to meet up with and group with random players to run raids. I understand why the clan limitations are in place as well as limiting it to only one random joining, but I think there are ways to do a full lobby system and still allow for protections for players and teams. The other benefit to going with a full lobby system for endgame PvE matchmaking is that it could be used to allow for larger groups of friends as well as friends + matchmade teammates for endgame activities like EP, Blind Well, etc. Future activities of that nature could easily be set up to be in zones specifically designed for a group lobby.

What has changed in my opinion in how this could work over the last year in particular is in how PvP really should be integrated into this system to a degree as well. To that end I firmly believe that the base Destiny PvP experience should be a hosted lobby system and Quickplay should be removed completely. The framework already exists to do this with private matches. The only thing missing is the ability to fill out those hosted lobbies through matchmaking. I believe the benefits of doing this would be immediately felt across the entire game.

It would eliminate having to play random game modes and allow players to play exactly what they want and love

It would allow players to choose what maps they want to play as well as set scoring and rules. This system could also be set up to allow for curated weapon loadout rules (thus letting players decide to prohibit weapons deemed “op” or “unfair” for particular modes or maps rather than petitioning for them to be nerfed or altered.

It would make the game infinitely more social and allow more opportunities for players to communicate and develop bonds and friendships in healthy ways. One of the big issues with the way PvP is currently setup is that we are always opted-out of chat by default. The reasons for this are quite obvious given the history of toxicity and abuse in games that have open chats, however it’s much more difficult to constantly be toxic when joining lobbies that stay together game-to-game with a single host, as toxic behavior would just get players removed from the lobby.

The other big takeaway from that is that it would be a set lobby going game-to-game together and as such would offer a much better chance for social interaction. This took place in both PDZ and Gears when I played as even players who would join and not talk would almost always end up speaking after playing within the group enough games to get comfortable with the personalities within the lobby.

If we want gaming and gamers to be better to each other and to enjoy these things we love without all the negativity and hatred, it has to start with having tools in place to actually build positive relationships and this has been in the past I believe would be within Destiny a wonderful way to achieve that.

It eliminates the SBMM/CBMM debate as lobby hosts would have oversight over team composition and rules as well as the fact that a group all playing together in a hosted lobby would be much less likely to accuse each other of nefarious behavior. A healthy mix of Region/Connection/Skill could be built into the matchmaking for the lobbies and if players were lagging, either on the host/party end or those joining, players would have the ability to leave or hosts remove lagging players and allowing each to look for a better match to stick with.

It also eliminates the solo vs fireteam issues as in a hosted lobby system players tend to actually be communicating (including the randoms who join) and hosts have the option to require mics as well as to restructure team compositions match-to-match if it’s lopsided one way or the other.

It instantly eliminates issues for player populations outside of competitive play.

It allows a format where new game modes can be added to the lobby choices for both casual play and also testing for competitive modes without requiring a separate weekly mode like we currently have for doubles, Breakthrough, Survival and Rumble, as well as Crucible Labs. It could all be rolled into the hosted lobby system allowing play and testing without splitting populations.

It frees up the developers to refine the current PvP matchmaking system for ranked competitive and tournament play like Iron Banner, Gambit and Trials.

The possibilities here in particular are really interesting in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is in limiting the current PvP matchmaking format to those modes, I’m curious if it could potentially be within a more reasonable cost range to allow for dedicated servers or at least a more secure ecosystem for Comp, Trials, Gambit and IB, while running the current hybrid p2p system for the hosted lobbies that would replace QP.

It would also allow the devs to incentivize those modes more and make them the place players need to go to play for XP and rewards (thus giving everyone reason to actually want to participate there still), while also having the hosted lobby system where players could learn modes, maps and weapons as well as find friends and teammates in a more laid back environment (which D2’s ultra sweatfest QP currently is not) to then go into Competitive play with.

It would not only allow Trials to be the premier endgame PvP activity it was intended to be, Iron Banner could also be the true endgame tournament it was envisioned as.

It would also allow the developers greater freedom to curate those experiences as well by possibly enacting loadout restrictions and even making adjustments to balance specifically within comp/tournament play.

It could potentially take a huge load off of the PvE vs PvP balancing dilemmas through the aforementioned benefits, but it also could be a place where players who meet and group to play PvP could also then go to raids and EP type PvE events and vice versa.

It’s funny that as I have been contemplating writing this all up the last few days, I was actually recording a feedback video yesterday on my day-to-day Destiny experience lately and I met a player who had just bought Destiny for the first time the day before and it was interesting hearing his experience as someone who’d never played before.

The fact that we actually met and started talking in-game was pretty remarkable in and of itself. I barely ever stream, but I was streaming my play and recording my commentary on the game and as I did so, I got a viewer and they stuck around. I’d never had that, so after I finished my thoughts for the video, I decided to play some PvP and shoot people with Telesto. Then as I’m playing and talking I started hearing an echo. It took me probably 2 minutes to realize what was going on and that someone else was in the game chat. I’m always opted-in and it’s only the second time in D2 I’ve come across another player with a mic (happened about 5 times in 3 years of D1).

So I said hello and we started talking and partied up and he’d just got D2 the day before and had never played D1. I told him how shocked I was to hear another player and how rare it is and asked him what his experience had been with chat. Turns out I was the first person he���d spoken to in the game and he’d had the same experience I did 4 years ago when I logged in on launch day and went around saying hello to everyone in the Tower, on patrol and in the Crucible and wondering why no one had mics.

The last Bungie game he’d played was Halo 3 and he’d been surprised there was no chat in the Farm and on patrol, but had expected to have the lobby full of colorful chat in Crucible that was Halo 3 PvP and he said that the lack of communication is off-putting as a new player, particularly when he’d been trying to do PvE content that seemed to him to be more team-oriented like public events, etc.

The point of that is Destiny is a social game that isn’t the best at allowing us to be social. It’s a game that thrives on and works best when we are playing with other player and in fireteams and yet it doesn’t give any tools to encourage or enable forming the connections to build them. So whether a system like I’ve described or something completely different, I think that the game needs to evolve and grow in these areas and that it will ultimately lead to a better experience for players of all levels and investment as well as for the developers themselves, Bungie and the Destiny franchise.

Thank you.

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

Destiny 2 is dead! Long live Destiny 2! A 6 months look at where the game has been, is and still needs to go (PvP)

March 7, 2018

With Destiny 2 now having been out for 6 months, I thought it would be a good time to give a view on the game at this point from a PvE and PvP perspective from my 500+ hours of play so far. Destiny 2 has had a lot of road bumps and obstacles to overcome since launch, but those issues have been very different between PvP and PvE and where overall I feel D2 released with a much stronger PvE component from what we saw in D1, PvP seemed to become almost an afterthought. That is really weird to say considering the effect that a single game mode like Trials dictated not only on D1 over 2 1/2 years, but the impact D1 PvP had on shaping D2 as a whole. From the moment it was announced, we knew that the decision to go to all 4v4 was a mistake. I'm not going to go into all of that because Bungie did end coming to realize this as well and 6v6 and Rumble are returning later this month. However there was a second change that D2 brought which for a long time I didn't think quite as harmful, but now think was probably the biggest mistake overall in D2's PvP philosophy and that was the decision to go with playlists. I have no facts or figures to back it up, but I'd still be willing to bet that maybe the biggest reason people stopped wanting to play Crucible is being forced to play random game modes they don't want to play. I can say for a fact it has made me say the hell with it and stop many times and as recently as 2 days ago. When I played D1 at launch, I played Control exclusively. It allowed me to learn the nuances of play and get better at the game in a static familiar environment and I spent hours and hours logged in playing solo, not for any drops or rewards, but because it's why I bought the game, to play an awesome Bungie shooter. Eventually I started playing a lot of Clash as well (particularly when it got added to Iron Banner) and in year 2 when I met my friends and started playing in Fireteams, we would play almost everything, but even then we played what the group wanted and once we started it was a set game mode to go game to game in. The closest we had was the classic playlists that were a random chance between 2 modes and that for me was a huge reason to not log in and play them even when wanting to play classic maps. The classic playlists were created to gate content and to give those players who didn't own the latest expansions content to still play, but incentive to upgrade as well. The irony is that many of the issues that D2 sought to correct in adopting the playlist format were actually the result of the thinking that gave us playlists to begin with. D1 released with what? Clash, Control, Rumble and Salvage I believe and once a month Iron Banner would roll around and draw people to its playlist. Players had that very limited choice of were to queue, but they did en masse and the game was a huge success and particularly for streamers and YouTubers who put out Crucible content. D1 always had battles with lag, but the biggest issues with play in year 1 was unbalanced matches. By the last IBs of HoW there were better odds of dropping into a match in-progress and losing than getting a fresh match and when you did get a fresh match, odds were 4-5 people would quit out before it ended. Matches would start, one team would get a 1 or 2 thousand point lead and that was it, exodus. The solution to this was to increase the influence of SBMM in year 2 to make matches more even and stop the unmitigated pub-stomps. It worked. Destiny 1 over the course of year 2 saw the most competitive matches I saw over its 3 years, but it also saw other factors which were shaping play and playability as well. The first was the introduction of Trials in HoW and the crazy degree to which it was given carte blanche to dictate balance for not only PvP as a whole, but the entire game was bent to the whims of Trials players. The effects of this were not subtle as we saw meta after meta and the developers nerfing not just weapons, but abilities, ammo and ammo consumption and even artifacts across the board to cater to the whims of those who felt everything should be even and "skill'' should dictate every encounter and not the weapons or abilities. What that failed to take into account is that it's impossible for skill to not factor into every encounter and all it ended up doing was taking away the ability for players to master different sets of skills and made everyone play with the same tools. Not surprisingly it was hated when adopted into D2 by the same player base who thought for sure it would let their ''skill'' shine only to find that others were better at D2's play and so suddenly everything being equal somehow didn't allow for skill to matter. Classic doublespeak and once more showed the lack of self accountability that led to them wanting neutered play to begin with. There was something else happening over the course of D1 that also had a huge negative effect on play though and that goes back to the creation of the classic playlists. While D1 started out with relatively spartan choices for play, that did not last as we saw not only Trials and elimination added to the game, but also Supremacy, Rift, Zone Control, Mayhem and private matches. While it can't be argued that those were positive additions as far as more fun things to do and play, they came with a cost and that was how much they fractured and lowered the player pools for any particular activity amongst them. Instead of everyone playing in 4 (5 if IB was active) possible playlists, suddenly everyone were spread out and the immediate effect was seen with the almost crippling effect lag started having on matches in all modes as the matchmaking system struggled to put together clean matches with the drastically lowered player pools. This had a secondary effect as well as we saw in year 3 the completely bogus and unfounded attack on SBMM as the root of all Destiny's PvP woes and ultimately its demise and the way that shaped D2 as well. SBMM was always a factor in matchmaking going back to launch in Sept 2014, but it was one of many in a complex algorithm that dictated how we were grouped that included not only connections, but regions as well. The attack on SBMM was once again driven by the sweat community who didn't want to always play close matches against evenly skilled opponents, but wanted to pub-stomp for views and subs. So the rallying cry of "why should we always have to play sweaty matches?'' was set forth and adopted by viewers and listeners and then transformed into SBMM is the reason for all the lag and every other ailment. Bungie capitulated and it didn't cure lag, it only brought back the uneven quit'fest that existed in year one. So now we have D2 and as a direct result of the how the game progressed over the course of D1 (and the problems inherent from those changes themselves) we not only ended up with 4v4, but playlists as well. The effect was immediate as we saw a huge backlash against Supremacy always popping up as the game mode when obviously players were hoping for something else. This sadly led to Supremacy being changed because Bungie saw the issue as Supremacy not being fun enough and so ''let's make it more like Clash'' instead of ''hmmm, maybe we should let players just play Clash if they want'' From the start our group was affected by the 4v4 switch as our group of 6 that would go raid and then PvP together suddenly had to split up after raids and it affected not only the raid groups, but friendships as well. But on a solo level, suddenly where if others were grouped and running together, it took away any desire to log in as a solo player when there was no option to play what I wanted and to get stuck playing things I hate to maybe get a game of something I liked at some point. I'm not a streamer but I would guess that this had a huge impact on players who streamed Crucible as well as they were no longer able to just stream modes they preferred and excelled at and were forced into the random hopper. A huge part of any type of competition is getting into a groove and a flow. When you play clash or control or doubles or anything consistently, you can't help but improve and learn and find where you play best within the confines of each games rules and flow of play. That all goes out the window when those rules and games change match to match. There was another aspect of the changes that came home to roost in the playlists as well with the creation of ''competitive and quickplay'' which could now be labeled ''no one plays and let's pub stomp'' I get where Bungie was going with it and what they were trying to do with the SBMM and CBMM splits, but once again, the skilled players don't really have any desire to test those skills in competitive playlists. They want to go in and smear people and what have we seen in D2? Quitting out on a scale not seen since D1 year 1. This has resulted in a future update to give penalties for dropping out, which okay, but honestly I see that as one more deterrent to people playing and not a solution that examines why players are quitting to begin with and trying to change that.

So I've written a lot about where we came from and the issues with the infrastructure the Crucible is played on and haven't yet spoken of the gameplay itself. I know there are a lot of opinions on play and I know a lot of those revolve around kill times and the kinetic/energy setup. I find it odd that there is so little acknowledgement willing to be given for how we got to D2's neutered play and honestly I've found it sickening to read and hear all the attacks on the gameplay and the developers from players who were extremely vocal in getting us here over the life of D1, but for all D2 has gotten wrong with the play itself, I think that it can also very easily become the best Destiny PvP experience we’ve ever seen. The weapon kill times are an issue for a lot of people and the big byproduct being the forced focus on team-shooting and heavy advantages for fireteams. I don’t think kill times are the issue that most do and I’ll explain why. In D2 1 v 1 encounters, there is actually a chance to have real battles on that micro level now and give/take of damage and maneuvering that lead to some epic personal encounters. It’s not the “I saw you first, pop pop pop I win’’ of D1, but it all goes out the window when one player is joined by a teammate. On the surface maybe lower kill times would help, but I honestly don’t think it would change very much because the real issue to me is that we don’t have the full arsenals of weapons and abilities to take into encounters because of the drastically slower cooldowns (for drastically nerfed abilities). We just had Crimson Doubles and to me it highlighted everything that is wrong with D2 on a gameplay level and what it needs to put it not only on par with what D1 could be, but to surpass it. In Doubles we has drastically increased ability cooldowns for our grenades, melee and support abilities. This instantly made 1 v 2 engagements not only survivable, but gave us the real ability to consistently come out on top because it opened up the ability to really use strategy, movement and terrain in ways that primary vs primary can’t come close to achieving. I know that in D1 a huge complaint by the end was that PvP had devolved to just ability spam and that is a big reason for D2’s horrid cooldowns, but even with the ability to spam grenades and support abilities (melee was still trash and needs to be a 2 hit kill), it didn’t dictate play like it did in D1. We actually played some D1 PvP last week and it was all Camping snipers, chucking grenades and players running around OHK Shoulder-Charging. Primaries seemed the afterthought they were by the end of D1. In Crimson Doubles, I had my grenades and abilities to use bring into engagements like I did in D1, but with the still reduced effectiveness of them on their own, weapons still very much played a factor and for me at least; it was the absolute best Destiny PvP I’ve played since HoW. Having the ability to dictate where multiple enemies are able to setup and attack through the use of a full suite of class abilities was game changing and I don’t think that abilities need to be that drastic, but if that play could be translated to the rest of the game, I think it’s a completely different game and to the devs I ask, why not? Why not allow us to have those full arsenals? Why not let us have other options beyond the kinetic/energy combo to take into each engagement? It’s fun, it’s dynamic and most importantly IT’S DESTINY. I know there are plans in the works to increase player movement speeds and to increase the chances of us getting hold of power ammo and while I don’t think these are bad decisions in and of themselves, I don’t think they address the core issue with what ails D2 and makes the play so team-shot oriented and bland overall. I love the weapon system. I love running Time Worn Spire as my primary and being able to run an AR, Scout or Hand Cannon as my secondary. I loved D1 Y1 and my fusion rifles back when they were D2 good in D1, but I can also see through the experience of all the different iterations of play that we’ve seen that Destiny 2 is really only a few changes away from being as good or better than D1 was at its best in HoW. In my opinion what Destiny 2 needs going forward for PvP is this: 1) We need to be able to play the modes we want when we want. To this end, Clash and Control should be set playlists every week and when it’s Iron Banner that can replace the regular playlist that week to not create multiple player pools for it. I believe Rumble should become a regular playlist as well if the player population dictates it. Supremacy, countdown and survival should be rotated as weekly competitive game modes with countdown and survival not appearing the same week they are the Trials game mode. Mayhem and Doubles should be special weekly playlists just like Iron Banner that are available maybe once a month. I would almost put them on rotations with IB with one happening every other week. If you include faction rallies in there, it could really be a solid line-up of activities to log in and play and if SRL ever returns… Destiny’s seasons could really be full and dynamic with weekly activities to log in and play. 2) Destiny needs to back to 6v6 play for all Clash, Control and Mayhem. I would keep 4v4 for the competitive modes to keep consistency with Trials and to that end Supremacy needs to be reverted to its release format. The changes destroyed the game type and just made it Clash 2.0. Want to see players quit a D2 game fast? Watch a full fireteam team-wipe their opponents to start a supremacy match once or twice in the new format and see how fast players drop when the score is 8-0 or 16-0 instead of 4-0 and 8-0. Kill confirm isn’t kill confirm if kills count. 3) Weapons do not need drastic adjustments to kill times but higher risk/reward weapons need to kill faster but again, be harder to use. With many High Impact weapons subclasses in D2 (particularly scouts) missing a shot is fatal. The reason ARs are so much more used than anything else is that when you give everything basically the same kill times, the advantage is going to go to ease of use and that’s that we’ve seen. There is no margin for error with the more skilled weapons and I know we have weapon tunings coming and while I’m excited for the exotic changes (they changed D1 hugely for the better when they happened there), I’m also apprehensive when I hear that Pulse Rifles are getting buffed because to me that is a reaction to usage and not to actual gameplay. Pulse Rifles don’t need to be buffed just like they didn’t need the 9% buff in 1.1.1 of D1. 540 RPM Pulse Rifles are arguably the best weapon subclass in the game at the moment and if they get buffed, I see us potentially going right back to D1 and its metas. 4) Grenades do not need to be buffed but they need drastically reduced cooldowns along with melee and support abilities. Again, I don’t think they need to be as fast as Doubles, but honestly if it were my call I would move them to that system right now and adjust it back from there rather than move them incrementally forward. This game needs fun right now and it needs to let us feel powerful right now and I’d err to the side of being too OP than the too conservative that we have now. Supers I think are actually okay although I think we need to spawn in with some super energy when joining in-progress matches. It’s not fair to not get one at all or to have no counter as you spawn in to everyone hitting you with theirs. 5) Get out of the habit entirely of trying to build a perfectly balanced game. Make weapons, abilities and supers all matter again. Let subclasses stand out again for their own strengths and weaknesses. If something isn’t what was intended, but it’s fun that’s a good thing. Players loving a weapon or play style is a good thing and not something to remove in the name of balance. Let Destiny be Destiny because at the end of the day, it’s still a hell of a good game, but we’ve seen what it can be and we know what it can become and it’s all right there. Thank you.