So I've been doing some thinking about how PvP has changed for better and worse with 2.0 and felt like writing it up for you guys, so here we go.
Balancing:
2.0 did quite a bit to change weapon balance. This coupled with new subclasses has altered the landscape significantly. The new supers are not well balanced with each other or previous supers. The Sunbreaker super is completely broken in its current form. The issue with Sunbreaker is that you receive an enormous amount of damage resistance while also having a ranged one hit kill with multiple shots. Compare this to golden gun where you have no resistance and have 3 opportunities for a kill and have to be relatively accurate to be successful. Hammers can be tossed a couple more times and have perks allowing for homing as well as health recovery upon kills. This badly needs to be reduced to something like 125% health as opposed to 200% where it seems to be now. Stormcallers also receive significant damage resistance, but it is not so egregious as they have to be close like Bladedancers to be effective. I think reducing range slightly would put them in a good place. Nightstalker is a very fine and average class that fits well with the current balance. My only complaint would be tethers not activating or shutting down supers fast enough. As for weapon balance the best thing that happened was the removal of rerolling. In HoW this made PvP very homogenized with everyone sporting the same loadout of God tier rolled weapons. Unfortunately many players still cling to these weapons making bit frustrating to use current weapons which are much more reasonable. As for actual changes to weapons there is good and bad. Rockets are no longer the only option now that h&h is slightly nerfed, making heavy a pretty even playing field. Sidearms are now useful and quite fun. Fusion rifles seem to be a bit more useful but still not optimal. Shotguns are still ridiculous. Nerfing the OHK range extending perks did far too little to change the landscape. The top impact class of shotgun simply needs to be removed from the game. Snipers are fine. Some have noticed increased auto aim, but I haven't personally. They are still a skill weapon and don't really feel overpowered. Auto rifles are competitive again and feel pretty balanced in terms of range and ttk. Pulse rifles are too prevalent now. They were already the best option in HoW and now everything around them has been nerfed aside from ARs. PR's are too effective both at close band long range beating both HCs And SRs in most encounters. Pulse rifles also make you flinch to much when damaged by them. Hand cannons have been nerfed as a result of 3 excellent ones and now have poor range and are now beaten by pulse rifles at close range. To remedy this hand cannons need better accuracy, especially while moving or jumping, more stability, and more of a staggering effect upon targets. Scout rifles have never been in a great place, but they haven't been terrible either. Currently they just need to be a bit faster or a bit stronger.
Incentive to play/Enjoyability:
Currently there is little reason to play PvP aside from daily matches for legendary marks. Legendary weapons don't seem to drop as frequently as they did in HoW and you no longer make steady progress by earning marks to make up for this. The mark economy alongside the new quests tied to crucible has led to a different type of player spending time in the crucible. Teammates might not care to win since marks are guaranteed, others may leave because they only needed a few kills in the game mode, and some will run around with sword hilts trying to complete a quest. Overall it feels like people are playing PvP because they need to rather than because they want to, making it less fun for everyone. I enjoy the addition of new modes and permanent inclusion of others. Map selection is very poor though. For whatever reason, in the main playlists the Dlc maps are weighted way too heavily making it feel like there are less maps now than a month ago. This would be one thing if the new maps were all enjoyable, but I'm afraid that Sector 618 and Drifter are beyond redemption. Sector is bad for reasons I can't pinpoint, while Drifter is my personal least favorite due to having to wither be trapped in small tunnels are sit in the open while being exposed on all sides. I have little desire to play classic playlists though as I still enjoy Crossroads and Dungeons quite bad bit.
The Future:
I'm very interested to see what the future holds. I hope that they do quarterly balance patches like Luke mentioned. I also eagerly await the return of Iron Banner and Trials as they will bring a more competitive feel to the crucible and encourage players to use new weapons. I also hope Bungie continues to address networking issues such as lag, as well as addressing people playing with extremely poor connections whether maliciously or otherwise.
So I took some time away to recollect my thoughts and settle back down into the game stress free. I've mentioned before that it felt as though I was being left behind despite having played the game daily, so I wanted to move at my own pace to find my perspective. I caught the quoted post above the other day and wanted to offer my point of view. This isn't any review of the expansion (that comes
after Thunderlord post), but rather more targeted criticisms that have been on my mind for a while. Incoming wall of text.
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The first thing I want to address is the one that has hit me the hardest: The Crucible.
The Crucible is bad; to be frank, it's an utter mess. Destiny's PvP used to be something I could enjoy casually with a full party or competitively whenever the need arose, but that is no longer the case. I am incredibly disappointed with its current state, and as such I am struggling to find value in the game's replayability.
Firstly, the map rotation, or lack thereof, is inadequate. It seems like the bad maps always float to the top of the weighting while the good maps are nowhere to be found. Yesterday I queued into Skirmish and played on Anomaly three times in a row. A few days before during Zone Control I had rotated between Theives' Den and Sector 618 for six games.
Six games, when there are three times as many maps as that in the game. Whenever I queue into Rift, I'm put into a game of Sector 618 that is halfway over. I've seen Bigfoot more times than I've seen Bannerfall, and I've yet to see Crossroads. Map rotation is something Destiny has always struggled with, but this month especially seems to be in disarray.
Perhaps just as important is a map's location. I wont be elaborating on what I think of the maps right now, but I've previously said that there are maps that do not belong in certain gametypes, and still vehemently stand by that. Bungie has a history of using maps where they ought not to be to pad the playlists and this is a philosophy that I cannot support. Pantheon and Thieves' Den have small hallways and even smaller spawn zones, so they do not belong in a spawn and objective dependent gametype like Rift. When players are spawning into the enemy team's shotguns, something is wrong. The maps Drifter, Cauldron and Sector 618 are also geometrically too small to support any 6v6 gametype due to the spawn system. It is my wish that the designers at Bungie take a more proactive and aggressive approach to both rebalancing and relocating them where necessary. I also feel that data [alone] is inefficient when it comes to making these decisions. Somebody (certainly less emotional than me) needs the knowledge and the authority to say "this map isn't working, we have to take it out" and get it done. The current map pool is depressing, especially when the good ones are rare sightings.
Of course, bad maps can be tolerated if the core gameplay is good, but I feel that isn't firing on all cylinders either. I don't think anyone is going to argue that the meta of the last 10 months was balanced, fair or should still be around today. I will however retort that we have simply traded one villain for another, and in my opinion the sandbox still needs tremendous work. I'd go on to say I dislike it more than Game of Thorns. It's reassuring to know that Bungie is aware of the residual shotgun problem and has data showing the Sunbreaker standing above the other classes (quite far so; it's absolutely bullshit that I can only fire three arrows at them and a direct hit wont kill them, yet they can spam a dozen hammers for easy kills from the splash damage and still have enough super left to spawn kill me).
Bungie also hasn't commented about Pulse Rifles two-shotting ridiculously quick, snipers with aimbot levels of aim assist, and an entire niche of weapons being overshadowed because three of them were over-performing. The sandbox is certainly more diverse, but ultimately shallower and uninteresting to me. And yet, players still wont have much success unless they adhere to the meta once again.
The last thing I will mention about the Crucible are the weapon specific quests. Bungie had a challenge system in Halo Reach that asked players to use specific weapons to earn credits. For example, get 25 sticky grenade kills for 12,000 cR. What happened was that people voted for Elite Slayer, equipped the loadout with sticky grenades, and ran around sticking each other in the face like a blue lemon party. The Crucible quests and bounties aren't much different when they ask people to play so specifically. The Gunsmith stuff I do not mind, but the other Crucible quests were a nightmare. The ability to complete the bounty while the weapon is equipped defeats the purpose in the first place, and it also creates a problem (exacerbated by the above issues) where people may be inclined to goof off or quit matches, especially if they're depending on heavy ammo for their sword. I can only kill people with the hilt for so long before I start to question just what the hell I am even doing.
When it comes to other the problems with the quest system, I've gone on to mention how I did not like that the quest page omitted the recommended light level of the missions. This quickly became a minor inconvenience compared to what some of them ended up asking me to do. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to run loops around a patrol space toiling at the land for destination materials again. I didn't expect them to ignore destination materials entirely, nor was I expecting it to resurface almost exactly how it was. I will admit that farming Hadium Flakes isn't as boring as the materials were in the days of old (not on a Nighstalker at least). The Hull Breach is a lively space with many mini events happening regularly (and perhaps just as importantly, it's a spawn zone, unlike Rocketyard), so I personally don't have a problem running a loop around it a few times before I head to the Court of Oryx.
What I do take issue with (as do many others) is being asked to run around on the old destinations for hours on end picking up materials from the ground in search of a random item. The exotic sword quest is unequivocally the worst quest I have ever been asked to do in an MMO because it is based on monotonous grinding and RNG. Most of the quests are designed to be done casually, so grinding them all in a few hours only leads to moderate frustration. This quest on the other hand is a massive time sink, going well beyond the acceptable boundaries of an exotic being "difficult to obtain". The Touch of Malice quest was an exercise in creative thinking and teamwork and sent the player through different activities across the game to complete. Even though I think the gun is underwhelming, I felt like I earned it at the end of the quest. The sword quest on the other hand wants me to chase waypoints for hours and then wait another week before I can complete it. I'd go as far to say it was designed by Oryx himself because it nearly ripped my soul out of my body.
I mentioned Court of Oryx just now and I want to touch on it briefly. My fears of CoO before launch about it being "out of the way" have come true. When seven people show up to kill mini Crota (which was insanely clever of them to add), it's one of the most enjoyable experiences in the game. But when you pop a Tier 2 rune and all of them leave, or you go there looking for a quest and nobody is around, it quickly becomes one of the most frustrating activities instead. Court of Oryx needs some kind of matchmaking priority so that players aren't always waiting around for other people to show up. To help with this, I'd also like to see guaranteed blue engrams for participation. I've seen players wait outside the event unless it was a Tier 3 rune because they were less likely to get drops from the smaller bosses. They should be encouraged to play, not discouraged because they wont be guaranteed something.
The rest of the game is not without its faults either. The Strike playlist for instance is plagued with quitters chasing after boss-specific loot drops (re: farming Dust Palace for Psion cloaks) or just avoiding bad Strikes. I can't say I fault them either when I queue into Undying Mind for the third time. I am strongly against quitting penalties for this reason, but something has to be done about the state of Strikes to make it a more consistent experience. To that end, it's puzzling to me that Heroic strikes are only worth playing three times a week. The difficulty drop from them to the normal playlist is disappointing, but the latter supposedly has just as many chances for loot drops, if not more, so there is no reason to attempt the challenging one thereafter.
In fact, Destiny in Year 2 isn't much of a challenge. There have indeed been some difficult missions and I have gotten my ass whipped by the Taken more than I'll admit. But once you hit 300 with decent weapons, the content reveals its holes and becomes trivial. The old stuff was difficult unless we were using Gjallarhorn or Black Hammer to cheese it. We can't ignore the mechanics with OP weapons anymore, but we can still breeze right on by it. The game has gained so much by way of special builds and subclass abilities, but I feel like the resounding strategy currently is still to run around and dump bullets at everything. Why does it matter if I can take a few more rounds from solar damage? Even the Nightfall is business as usual now, and without the buff or meaningful rewards it's throwaway content at this point. I can't say that this will apply to everybody, but for me personally I feel like the only challenge for me now is signalling randoms to follow the same Helium farming loop I'm doing.
I'm indifferent about the Light system and Legendary marks now that I am at 300. The climb was certainly more manageable to me once I understood it, but to that end I do not feel as accomplished as I did lucking into RNGboots from Atheon. Even if I had no control over it, it was something I logged on every week to do, and the game was still worth playing for other coveted loot back then. In Year 2 however, most of what I am earning will bring me down a level or end up being a one trick pony like the Touch of Malice (i took this into Crucible thinking it'd be awesome like the Vex... and it was not). At the same time, there's no reason for me to be a high level because, as Luke said, there's no progression tied to being 300 light. What am I supposed to do in the mean time then?
Before The Taken King launched, Bungie made steps to lessen the grind of the game and the inclination players had to play three characters three times a week. Ironically, it looks like the only replay value I'm going to get out of The Taken King currently is for me to hop on the other classes and bring them up to 300. Back in Year One, I had no problem creating alternate characters and power leveling them up to level 20. Now however I'm not exactly excited to head back over to the Dreadnaught and farm 100 more cornflakes and wormsperm to complete the same exact quests all over again.
This post in no way summarizes my feelings on the expansion, be they positive or negative. Rather, to reiterate what I said in the beginning, I wish to stimulate discussion around the issues that have made the game less enjoyable to me than it has been in the past. For many new players and even veterans, I am sure they are ecstatic about hopping onto Destiny each day, especially if they still have pages full of quests. As for me, much to my dismay, I currently see no reason to play for more than 4 hours a week. Perhaps it is Bungie's intention to stretch playtime out this way and introduce new quests weekly. Unfortunately for me, I'd prefer to play when I wanted, and yet all of the activities I want to do just aren't worth the frustration or time investment. It's a shame because there was a time when I had no problem putting that many hours into the game daily.
