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thefirstknife · 9 months

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rip gambit you will be missed 😔

Don't even know what to say tbh.

For those that don't know, the big State of the Game article came out detailing incoming changes and adjustments and all the big stuff. Gambit was mentioned! But at what cost. Basically, they are ceasing any kind of support for Gambit. What we have now is what it is. We will get the Dreaming City map back in TFS and they will add Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive as enemy factions in TFS. That's all.

Full text:

As many of you have noticed, we’ve been quiet on Gambit since last year’s overhaul that launched alongside The Witch Queen. In that revamp, the team made significant changes across five categories in Gambit: core activity fundamentals, Primeval tuning, invasions, ammo economy, and rewards. Unfortunately, these updates didn’t move the needle for player engagement. Although we know our Gambit fans mostly care about new or returning maps, this is an area of the game with lower engagement that would take resources away from more popular parts of the game to shore up. While we don’t have plans to dedicate more resources to significantly transform Gambit, we do have a few updates planned for the year of The Final Shape. These include porting the Cathedral of Scars map and its beautiful Dreaming City setting into the latest version of Destiny 2, as well as adding the Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive enemy types.

I don't know how to tell you this Bungie, but the reason "engagement is low" in Gambit is because Gambit sucks. Ever since half of it was removed with DCV, it just sucked. It has no variety, the gameplay is largely busted, it's not sufficiently updated, ammo changes suck, invasion cycle sucks (why is the enemy even getting a portal when their Primeval is at 5% health and the other team is still in mote collecting phase is beyond me), there are no cool armour sets to chase (just look at Iron Banner and Trials stuff, imagine dedicated cosmetics) and finally there are simply no weapons that are worth anything. Both Vanguard and Crucible have more weapons and also adept versions. There is zero reason to go into Gambit without major changes to Gambit. And now with the further changes to how playlists and challenges will work, there will be even less reason to go into Gambit. Observe:

Before then, we’re making Gambit entirely optional to maximize your rewards unless you’re looking for a piece of gear that’s specific to the mode. Gambit will continue to serve as a source of Exotic engrams via weekly challenges, though as we mentioned above, you’ll be able to complete all your weekly challenges in any ritual you’d like starting in Season 22. If you want to stick to Vanguard or Crucible challenges without touching Gambit, now you can. We’re also reducing the number of Gambit-specific Seasonal Challenges starting in Season 22, so players won’t need to bank motes to be able to earn that big purse of Bright Dust for completing nearly every challenge in the Season. Finally, we’re adding Fireteam Matchmaking to Gambit next Season, which will replace the Freelance node and should result in faster, better matchmaking by combining both Gambit playlists. We’ll keep an eye on reception and player engagement after these additions take place, and we hope you’ll visit ‘ol Drifter next Season to get your hands on his new Void Machine Gun.

Ngl, but I don't think anyone besides like a total of 6 people will play Gambit next season. The incentive to go in there is completely removed. You won't even have to go in there for pinnacles or for challenges. The Void Machine Gun will not be enough of an incentive because the chance of that gun being better than two recently available craftable Void Machine Guns (Commemoration and Retrofit Escapade) is very low. And besides, once you get it at the end of your first match, you can leave Gambit forever.

This is the feedback loop that just reinforces the idea that people don't like Gambit. And I mean. Who would at this point. I'm pretty sure that if Crucible had stayed the same as it was at the start of Beyond Light, engagement would be low there too. But you know. Crucible has received major updates pretty much every season since with multiple new modes, several Trials overhauls, Iron Banner overhaul, competitive overhaul, new armours and weapons added and YES, even new maps. God forbid even 5% of these resources went into Gambit.

Anyway, this is the whole section about Gambit in 6500 words. It's basically a "you guys aren't playing this so we're doing the bare minimum of keeping it in the game as is, no new work will be done on it ever." Thanks I guess.

And for the record, something I also added while having a rant in my discord, I want to make it clear that I don't want anyone to spiral into a Bungie hate train. Even for this. I understand perfectly well what's the community attitude towards Gambit and what it's been for years now. People just don't like it and they're not incentivised to like it and they're actively encouraged to hate it. Spending resources into a game mode on the hope that maybe you can change people's minds would be insanity. Like, the amount of change Gambit would need to MAYBE start appealing to gamers would be beyond any reasonable time and resources Bungie can put in. And if you could guarantee that people would love and play Gambit then, fine. But you can't. Most likely, even if major changes happened, people would still just do their weekly stuff and bail. It's simply not worth it. In order for people to like it, it needs to be completely and thoroughly overhauled in a way that would need more time and effort than the entire Light subclass overhaul and it's just not a reasonable expectation, nor is it guaranteed to work. So I get it.

I'm still disappointed and annoyed about it because I believe it wasn't given a fair chance at all. I also know how good it can be and how Gambit Prime could've been improved upon over the years if they tried. Instead, it got removed and that was honestly the death sentence for Gambit. It's unfortunate. It's my favourite game mode that could've been so much better was it given even a fraction of attention of Crucible.

I'll still be playing it. You will find me in the Gambit queue waiting for 2 hours to find 7 other lunatics to play with, don't worry about it. But I'm absolutely incredibly sad about them being basically forced to axe the potential of the whole game mode that is incredibly creative and fits with the type of game Destiny is perfectly.

There's other interesting stuff in the article and some upcoming really cool improvements and changes to the game. But if you're a fan of Gambit in any capacity, this is a death certificate for the mode. I suggest coming to terms with it quickly because Bungie changing their minds about this is highly unlikely.

#destiny 2 #gambit #ask #long post #says 'don't know what to say' at the start. writes an essay. FHKSJHFKJS #i won't go too much into it outside of this. we all know what this means no need to beat the dead horse #i'll still play it and the mode is still there but i expect a drop in quality and population significantly #the issues we have will never be addressed nothing will ever be fixed. we'll get a 5th map (returning) in 6 months and that's it #yay. I guess.#don't think there will be anyone in the playlist anymore by that point so I'm not sure why even bother with that alone #but still. if that does happen at least new people will be able to see that map now. it was very pretty #unfortunately not good gameplay wise. but at least it will help to not get deep six 17 times in a row #anyway. sad situation for gambit enjoyers. please don't turn into crucible bros to harass devs though

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randomnameless · 4 months

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Fates unironically did the "muhritocracy" schtick better than 3H lol; the vast majority of the playable Nohrian characters are commoners who got into high-ranking positions in the Nohrian army due to being exceptional soldiers and getting rewarded as such, whereas the only commoners on Adrestia's side that aren't turncoats (or fodder soldiers that are stated to exist only in throwaway dialogue from faceless NPCs) are Ladislava (non-character with no screentime, personality or even feats to support that she did anything to help the Adrestian army in any significant way), Fleche (slightly more of a character, still does nothing to help Adrestia), Randolph (does nothing to help and isn't even particularly well-recognized or rewarded for his skills, if him being jealous of his superiors is any indication), and Dorothea (only got to a high-ranking position due to prostituting herself in order to get into Garreg Mach, befriending the crown princess of the Empire, and being made into a general of the Adrestian army due to nepotism from that same crown princess).

What makes it even worse is that Nohr rewarding merit for anyone and everyone, regardless of social class or status, is an irrelevant bit of background worldbuilding, whereas Edelgard wanting to reward commoners' merits is one of her most consistently-repeated ideals, but the only non-nobleborn CF playable character only got so far in life due to (literal) peepee-sucking and nepotism, and even the NPCs are either featless non-characters (Fleche and Ladislava) or complain about not being recognized enough despite his skill/is recognized enough and Edelgard just decided a power-hungry, immoral dumbass was meritant enough to be made into a general in her army (Randolph); shouldn't the order have been reversed? Like, the game where one of the main characters' principle ideals is to recognize and reward anyone who's skilled should be the one to have most of her allies be commoners, whereas the one where the concept of merit is completely irrelevant to the story, themes and characters could have just had the characters be mostly nobles instead of consistently making them commoners just for subtle worldbuilding? It's weird.

Want to see an upstanding posterchild of Nohrian muhritocracy?

Chaos will always topple the ones who don't earn their status. It's folks like you and me who rise to the top. And the way we do that is by cutting down all our enemies.

I won't stop at captain. I will keep on climbing!

I'll be a king someday. I'll make it happen—you wait and see.

More seriously -

It's all about the what is actually rewarded.

I've already joked a bit about it, but basically Randolph and Nopes!Caspar want to demonstrate their muhrit by... invading countries, killing refugees or randoms who returned in their home after being ousted by the Imperial army.

Much muhrit, very uwu.

Take Whodislava, as you mentioned, bar being a named NPC who as less screentime than Kronya and is supposed to be a sad casualty for war, while being the posterchild of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy, we don't a thing about her. What has she done to be granted the rank of general? What are her achievements?

At times I'm pretty sure TS was partly written to laugh and mock FE16, but Avlora is basically in the same situation, save that Avlora has more plot relevance and exists bar being a sign the devs hold that's written "please feel bad about this character you've never interacted with and only has 5 lines of dialogue and is only here to garner sympathy when she dies I mean even Fates!Candace had more presence than her".

Avlora was an orphan, trained under Groma - a famous general - who continued to train even when Groma retired, became Adre- Aesfrost's top general and defeated Maxwell in a duel. We have her story - she came from nothing - her feats - she defeated the strongest warrior in Glenbrook - and the entire meritocracy angle sticks : Avlora was a nobody made general because she kicked asses.

The meritocratic Adrestia NPCs?

Randolph... tries to get muhrit, but fails as we protect people and only laments about his status in his House (as he is fucking killing people to gain more status, like dude, priorities?) - so in way, both Randy and Flèche are imo, counterexemples of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy : Randolph kills peons and invades an orphanage to demonstrate his "muhrit" because, otherwise, without any muhrit, iirc it's implied he and his sister will be demoted to randoms in House Bergliez (even if Flèche is supposed to be younger than Cyril iirc? Like how the frick do you want a kid of 12 to demonstrate her muhrit, else she'll be kicked out of her house?).

Whodislava... dies heroically, at least that's what we're supposed to get from her very "please cry" cutscene when she dies in front of Supreme Leader in Tru Piss - as Rhea and her family + knights tried to retake their ancestral home and she prevented them from doing so - or it's the same nonsense as "we killed Ferdie professor :(", we are supposed to feel bad about people who were fighting alongside a demonic beast when, in FE16, we fucking know what they are.

Since the FE5 banner released earlier this week, FE5 paints "honorable" Reinhardt as a pitiful man, because no matter how honorable or kickass or kind Reinhardt was, when it came to defect to protect children from being kidnapped or stop the general nonsense the Empire was pulling in Thracia... Reinhardt refused to do so, pretexting remaining by Ishtar's side, and when that became impossible, he choose death over rescuing toddlers. His situation is supposed to be compared to his sister's Olwen, who, when she discovers the truth of what is happening in Thracia, ditches the Empire to help Leif rescue the children - and, imo, Amalda (who's not in FEH yet!) who is also, basically, a commander who plays a larger Camus role as in, she tries to appeal to her Lord to stop the child hunts, her Lord tells her to eat shit, and when asked why she still fights and why she doesn't defect, Amalda says if she does so, her knights will be killed + Amalda appears as a NPC allied unit in a map to hunt bandits to save a village.

So, compared to those ladies who defect or try to protect whoever they can protect - their soldiers AND civilians who are being trampled by their own army - Reinhardt who doesn't do a thing and picks "death" is, as Olwen's ending puts it "pitiful".

Back to your ask anon, even if I disgress from the meritocracy angle - Flèche, Whodislava and Randy are such non-entities compared to characters with 6 lines from FE5 that even if they try to pull the "I have to do this for my family" or the "I came from nothing and still help my emperor because I am thankful to her for having raised me from being a commoner to a general", our Adrestians NPC feel very, very flat.

Are we supposed to cry for Hans's failed dreams of becoming a king when we kill him? No, but Randy and Whodislava's deaths are overplayed with so much pathos that the game is basically telling you "and here you should feel bad because they died" but... what is more important, the fact they tried to unlock a lot of achievments to demonstrate their "muhrit", or what the hell they were ready to do to unlock said achievments?

As for Doro needing to befriend people to enter Garreg Mach, remember that Doro, being touted as another example of the muhritocracy Supreme Leader's Adrestia aims to be, had to engage in sex work from a young age, to reach the diva status - which has very disturbing implications, that are glossed over because that's FE16 for you. Are we supposed to believe Doro "worked hard" to be able to catch the eye of some deranged fucks when she was a pre-teen to become a diva - or, as Manu puts it in a support that cannot be achieved in Tru Piss, muhrit alone doesn't work to become a diva, and it's actually a pretty font to hide the "dark" deeds young singers in Mittelfrank have to do to reach the "diva" status?

Minor tidbit though, Doro is famous enough for being Supreme Leader's dearest friend but she isn't promoted to "general" in Tru Piss, she's only BESF who's not, at least in her bio, a general Post TS.

Imo the question you raise is actually relevant to how empty Supreme Leader's muhritocracy's ideal is - in both game Ferdie has to remind her that to build "muhrit" or for commoners to be able to gather "muhrit" as nobles do, they have to start at the same lever, and receive education as nobles do.

IIRC, in Supreme Bullshit, despite their feats, Hubert tells Barney they're only a commoner - not even a worthy commoner like Doro - but a fucking random - when muhrit wise, Barney should at least be named general!

In both games, Linhardt is a general... but we don't see anything from him, bar his tropey "i want to study crests and nap and i dgaf about anything else" traits - if that's all there is to him, how and why the crap was he made general??

Why, it's almost as if "muhrit" is a smokescreen to hide the fact that the one who chooses/picks who gets to be important from who isn't does it on their own terms just like irl

What is merit, really? Who gets to decide what is merit from what isn't? Or who is the "best" at doing things, from another?

It's another instance of, imo, Fodlan's artificial feel, the game raises a question/issue, and starts some smoke about it, but without tackling said issues seriously we're left with "I agree and think starvation shouldn't exist anymore" milquetoast and cliché opinions that give the illusion this game is "very deep" when it's just, a puff of smoke.