I’m generally not a fan of the seasons concept overall, but I feel that this one has been especially grindy and ill-considered. So may things where the requirement is like “go ahead so that thing 50 times or whatever.” And some of them not counting previous progress for a whole host of different reasons. Just why?
Some sanity checks need to be done on some of these requirements before they hit production.
this whole season feels it was designed for engagement metrics not for player enjoyment
Is there a way for me to... Rapidly blow up someone else's stasis crystals? Because if I run into another titan continually shitting them on every available surface, I am going to go more insane than the arc titan grenade spam has made me. Other people would like to fucking shoot a thing too, but no, Bob the fucking Builder here has to make a castle of ice cubes.
Maybe I'll just break out Ager's. Good luck making more cubes than that thing.
I’m generally not a fan of the seasons concept overall, but I feel that this one has been especially grindy and ill-considered. So may things where the requirement is like “go ahead so that thing 50 times or whatever.” And some of them not counting previous progress for a whole host of different reasons. Just why?
Some sanity checks need to be done on some of these requirements before they hit production.
this whole season feels it was designed for engagement metrics not for player enjoyment
Well, the joke's on them cos I've been far less engaged with this season than nearly all the others.
I’m generally not a fan of the seasons concept overall, but I feel that this one has been especially grindy and ill-considered. So may things where the requirement is like “go ahead so that thing 50 times or whatever.” And some of them not counting previous progress for a whole host of different reasons. Just why?
Some sanity checks need to be done on some of these requirements before they hit production.
this whole season feels it was designed for engagement metrics not for player enjoyment
Content-wise I think this season is barely different from the last few on any content front. It was slightly less generous at launch because it didn't have a "buy 1 deepsight weapon a week" upgrade, but that's about it and they patched that shit in pretty quickly after it became relevant anyway. I think it's mainly that the shine was worn off the new expansion, new classes, etc stuff and so the seasonal content has to stand on it's own. That and the story this time feels both forced and super thin so there's nothing to prop it up on that end either. Throw in a few poorly conceived requirements for triumphs, mainly Ruffians, and baby you've got a dull feeling season going.
There is though a bit of a feeling of experimentation with how generous they need to be with deepsight drops here. Each season is trying things a bit different. We won't see the result of feedback on what players like till next season at the earliest and likely after Lightfall though. The quick patch change they made says to me they got the message about what players want loud and clear though.
Not to be complainy guy who complains all the time, but we had to reset a few times last tonight in the non-flawless pool before we could go to the lighthouse and our successful run was very sweaty, felt like every game was a proper game 6-7.
One of the toughest Monday pools I’ve ever seen, I expected things to be easier because of the weekly trials challenge and we barely squeaked by. I lost count of the rounds we should’ve lost but barely managed to clutch.
+1
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
if they were serious about improving destiny 2 they would put back in all the bugs i liked but none of the bugs i disliked
its frankly a sign of negligent disregard that they havent personally asked me for my opinion
+3
Sirialisof the Halite Throne.Registered Userregular
I'm just disappointed that the new Telesto mask doesnt crash the game.
Not to be complainy guy who complains all the time, but we had to reset a few times last tonight in the non-flawless pool before we could go to the lighthouse and our successful run was very sweaty, felt like every game was a proper game 6-7.
One of the toughest Monday pools I’ve ever seen, I expected things to be easier because of the weekly trials challenge and we barely squeaked by. I lost count of the rounds we should’ve lost but barely managed to clutch.
I've stopped going for weekly flawless and just trying for my last carry for Gilded 6, and it just won't. Happen. For me. It's a bummer
My first Freelance experience this season (smooth sailing on Friday afternoon) compared to my second (Sunday kiddie pool populated by fucking sharks, including top .1% players farming KD in game one with LFR Nightstalker bullshit) was so night and day I completely reversed my position on Flawless pool and think it should be removed.
Most of our losses were to teams that should be in flawless pool. Three matches in a row to 2.0+ stacks with 10+ win sprees on game one. We even saw a 6.0 K/D player as some point.
Bungie needs to punish players exploiting the matchmaking, shadow banish these players to the flawless pool, or get rid of the flawless pool concept entirely. It's a load of garbage that Bungie lets Trials languish like this, content with flawless pool as a half-assed "fix" to the mode's major structural problems.
Removing the flawless pool would do nothing to fix the problem y'all are complaining about. All it would do is take the people you are already playing with and add people who could go flawless on top of them.
The problem is the eternal Trials problem of the population is going down as it eats itself alive.
I’m generally not a fan of the seasons concept overall, but I feel that this one has been especially grindy and ill-considered. So may things where the requirement is like “go ahead so that thing 50 times or whatever.” And some of them not counting previous progress for a whole host of different reasons. Just why?
Some sanity checks need to be done on some of these requirements before they hit production.
this whole season feels it was designed for engagement metrics not for player enjoyment
Content-wise I think this season is barely different from the last few on any content front. It was slightly less generous at launch because it didn't have a "buy 1 deepsight weapon a week" upgrade, but that's about it and they patched that shit in pretty quickly after it became relevant anyway. I think it's mainly that the shine was worn off the new expansion, new classes, etc stuff and so the seasonal content has to stand on it's own. That and the story this time feels both forced and super thin so there's nothing to prop it up on that end either. Throw in a few poorly conceived requirements for triumphs, mainly Ruffians, and baby you've got a dull feeling season going.
I certainly think that's part of it.
I also think the shine of "new" is starting to wear off. The new subclasses are neat, sure, but the novelty is wearing off and now all that is left is the balance problems in PvP and the limited choices for PvE. Core playlists haven't been updated in ages and the game asking you to once again do X strikes or Gambit matches starts to feel excessive after 2 prior seasons of the same.
Basically the game design equivalent of technical debt. Lots of core problems and underlying issues that just keep getting papered over and eventually you can't really ignore them any more.
Removing the flawless pool would do nothing to fix the problem y'all are complaining about. All it would do is take the people you are already playing with and add people who could go flawless on top of them.
The problem is the eternal Trials problem of the population is going down as it eats itself alive.
You are correct, but flawless pool introduces a separate problem of splitting the weekend in half.
So if I'm going to be matched against players with 20+ win streaks anyway, Bungie might as well remove the pool entirely so I can play with whoever all weekend instead of avoiding friends who have a different flawless status than me. Right now it feels like the worst of both worlds.
Removing the flawless pool would do nothing to fix the problem y'all are complaining about. All it would do is take the people you are already playing with and add people who could go flawless on top of them.
The problem is the eternal Trials problem of the population is going down as it eats itself alive.
Well, the issue isn't "could go", it's "could go and isn't 'cause they like crapping on people".
Still doesn't fix the issue, removing the pool. Need to step on people being jerks like that, but that requires a heavy redo of the mode IMO.
0
augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
I mean the flawless pool would have a chance of working if people had to eat a loss to reset their card. Although I’m sure some people would be willing to do that to continue to stomp on people. Without that Bungie has created smurfimg without having to make a new account.
I actually enjoy Destiny's PvP modes. I'm complete ass at it, but I still enjoy playing. My personal solution would be to collapse the entire PvP sub-game into two pools: Casual and Competitive.
Casual would be a free-for-all connection based matchmaking with a fast rotating gametype playlist. One game is control, next is rumble, next is elimination, etc. Toss in Team Scorched and Rift too. Whatever. It's "casual". If they lack the tech for a game-by-game rotation, make it a weekly rotator. I am pretty sure a game-by-game rotator should be fine - they have a psudeo-random map selection already. Iron Banner would fall into this playlist and would lock the gametype (but still rotating maps).
Competitive would be a skill-based matchmade mode with a weekly rotating gametype playlist. Trials would fall into this playlist and would lock the map for the entire weekend (with the gametype already being locked on a week-by-week basis). Too f***ing bad if it it becomes practically impossible to go flawless with a skill-based system. "Get Gud" as they say. Expand the entire Trails (adept) rewards to encompass the entire "Competitive" section and be done with it. Recluse was a competitve reward and that didn't break the game.
PvP is currently way too segregated for the size of the playerbase. Why we have six different PvP playlists (seven during Trials or Iron Banner weekends) is a mystery to me.
I mean, I'd never touch "casual" in that setup, and TBH the only modes I really enjoy are ~6v6 with objectives. Control-ish. Pure TDM doesn't really do it for me, but stuff like Mayhem etc is fine, and I've never set foot in the 3v3 survival types, and never plan to.
I've also no interest in "ranked"; I just want to derp around in PVP against people about as bad as I am, and hey if I get better (I actually seem to be) then I get to play people who also did, etc etc. Ranks, rewards, ladders, don't care, don't want. Those things make me mad/stress me out. Current Control setup is just about right.
I mean the flawless pool would have a chance of working if people had to eat a loss to reset their card. Although I’m sure some people would be willing to do that to continue to stomp on people. Without that Bungie has created smurfimg without having to make a new account.
They would 100% just quit out of a game to eat the loss and then reset. Or jump off the map old-school if Bungie didn't count quitting the game for that.
All it would do is slow down the rate at which they carried people in the flawless pool.
Which isn't to say it's not worth doing. It's just saying it's only going to have a marginal effect.
I actually enjoy Destiny's PvP modes. I'm complete ass at it, but I still enjoy playing. My personal solution would be to collapse the entire PvP sub-game into two pools: Casual and Competitive.
Casual would be a free-for-all connection based matchmaking with a fast rotating gametype playlist. One game is control, next is rumble, next is elimination, etc. Toss in Team Scorched and Rift too. Whatever. It's "casual". If they lack the tech for a game-by-game rotation, make it a weekly rotator. I am pretty sure a game-by-game rotator should be fine - they have a psudeo-random map selection already. Iron Banner would fall into this playlist and would lock the gametype (but still rotating maps).
Competitive would be a skill-based matchmade mode with a weekly rotating gametype playlist. Trials would fall into this playlist and would lock the map for the entire weekend (with the gametype already being locked on a week-by-week basis). Too f***ing bad if it it becomes practically impossible to go flawless with a skill-based system. "Get Gud" as they say. Expand the entire Trails (adept) rewards to encompass the entire "Competitive" section and be done with it. Recluse was a competitve reward and that didn't break the game.
PvP is currently way too segregated for the size of the playerbase. Why we have six different PvP playlists (seven during Trials or Iron Banner weekends) is a mystery to me.
There used to be more playlists. They got consolidated awhile back. People complained. We're basically at the bare minimum we can get away with right now I'd say.
And a fully CBMM playlist is basically what they are trying to avoid because it just involves high-level PvP players kicking in the faces of random players and driving them away from PvP.
Someday they might understand what "I just want an easy, chill game where I can use whatever loadout" means for the other players involved who are not actually bots.
Someday they might understand what "I just want an easy, chill game where I can use whatever loadout" means for the other players involved who are not actually bots.
But that day is not today.
The thing is though, that game does exist and it's Destiny's PvE. I don't think you can narrow skill based matchmaking down far enough to enable everyone to use whatever and have a good time because PvP is inherently competitive and skill/guns/loadout will lead to winners and losers and some guns/loadouts will be stronger than others based on the current state of the game and as a result people will use those things when they want to perform well and win.
I'm at the higher end of the skill bracket, I'm not trying to brag but it's just true, and the people who get to that place are competitive and have been playing D2's PvP for a long time and they're the most inclined to use the best possible gear to ensure that they're going to win. I've done my share of complaining about how PvP is hard to experiment in but the thing of it is, when someone like me says that what we mean is "why aren't more people who are worse than me in these lobbies so that I can experiment with less risk" and honestly I don't think that's what the people getting dumped on would want to hear.
At some point you've just got to figure out what's good in PvP, and practice, and get better, and D2's been around for over five years so the PvP enthusiasts are vast and terrible compared to people new to the game and if that's you then you've got an uphill climb ahead. Could they cordon the Deep Old Ones off in their own space and keep the new folks safe? Sure and they should and right now don't do a good job of it but I just don't think you can make Destiny 2's PvP a chill fun playtime.
Yup. The problem is that at the end of the day, someone has to lose. If you are having an easy time and also winning, it means someone a good chunk less skilled then you got thrown into your lobby and is getting their face kicked in. There's nothing else it can mean.
Someday they might understand what "I just want an easy, chill game where I can use whatever loadout" means for the other players involved who are not actually bots.
But that day is not today.
The thing is though, that game does exist and it's Destiny's PvE. I don't think you can narrow skill based matchmaking down far enough to enable everyone to use whatever and have a good time because PvP is inherently competitive and skill/guns/loadout will lead to winners and losers and some guns/loadouts will be stronger than others based on the current state of the game and as a result people will use those things when they want to perform well and win.
I'm at the higher end of the skill bracket, I'm not trying to brag but it's just true, and the people who get to that place are competitive and have been playing D2's PvP for a long time and they're the most inclined to use the best possible gear to ensure that they're going to win. I've done my share of complaining about how PvP is hard to experiment in but the thing of it is, when someone like me says that what we mean is "why aren't more people who are worse than me in these lobbies so that I can experiment with less risk" and honestly I don't think that's what the people getting dumped on would want to hear.
At some point you've just got to figure out what's good in PvP, and practice, and get better, and D2's been around for over five years so the PvP enthusiasts are vast and terrible compared to people new to the game and if that's you then you've got an uphill climb ahead. Could they cordon the Deep Old Ones off in their own space and keep the new folks safe? Sure and they should and right now don't do a good job of it but I just don't think you can make Destiny 2's PvP a chill fun playtime.
edit for receipts
I mean, I do. I use whatever feels good/effective to me, and I do as well as I do. Do I win all the time? Fuck no. But the tension comes in when you want to combine "use whatever, chill out, have fun" with "and win as much as you do with optimised loadout X".
So yeah, you wanna use some unfamiliar stuff? That's gonna hit your W/L ratio for a bit, as you'd expect. If I swap off my comfy pulse rifle to like a bow, I will do like shit for a while. Shitter. I don't see the problem here. Frankly, this season has been great. I mean, I still get pissed at it, but that's a me thing; my games are close, I perform pretty decent, and like, that was an actual match. Objectively that's okay. This is probably the first time ever I've been able to say "maybe I'd be more effective if I switched my loadout to..." because I used to just use death as a free reload. If I got through a magazine, that is. Or fired a shot.
Realistically most of the complaints on the wider internet are "I want to win, but I don't want to always have to try to win", and that can get fucked. I got all the sympathy in the world for connection troubles or waiting ages for a match, that sucks, but the answer isn't the crap they had before. I'm not someone's bot match.
Edit: Unrelatedly, have you any idea how much dakka you get when an AR rolls with both Triple Tap AND FTTC? Fuckin' hilarious.
This season is pretty bad, from both a story and implementation standpoint. I'm really looking forward to closing this one out. I'm sitting at 71/75 for the seasonal challenges and 3 of the leftovers are basically "grind Gambit until your eyes fall out" which I'm not looking forward to in any way. The final one is going to be "grind Ketchcrash for a few hours" which seems similarly unappealing. At least it will be mindless.
I'd just like them to change up the Flawless Gilding requirements, as time marches on there's less interest in trials + solo queue which is easier to go flawless in for most folks, so getting seasonal carries done is difficult and tiresome. We need a title refresh in general.
Strategy: Reduce player incentives to equip a suboptimal Deepsight or crafted weapon.
Giving into whiners again. You already don't need to level it for the pattern and about 80% of the season you're deepsight currencies already stay maxed because it's rare to craft multiple copies of the same gun. It is so fucking weird that people are like "But if I take a shitty red border into a GM it's no fun!" and that Bungie cares about that.
yea but counterpoint the pressures on loadouts when trying to level guns (lmao level 20 required for seasonal challenge) and getting deepsight credit is super not fun and makes destiny feel even more like a chore than it usually does
At least it’s only one lvl 10 and 20 now. Not terrible if you’ve got the sidearm crafted, or if you just have the LFR on all the time while you do easy stuff (which is what I’m doing, already have it to 14 with under 100 kills on it)
yea but counterpoint the pressures on loadouts when trying to level guns (lmao level 20 required for seasonal challenge) and getting deepsight credit is super not fun and makes destiny feel even more like a chore than it usually does
Leveling is different than the pattern/material thing, at least to me. I think activities, including shit like patrols, should offer strong bonuses to progression. Some folks will still grind Shuro-Chi but it shouldn't be the best reward for time.
At least it’s only one lvl 10 and 20 now. Not terrible if you’ve got the sidearm crafted, or if you just have the LFR on all the time while you do easy stuff (which is what I’m doing, already have it to 14 with under 100 kills on it)
Those quests were ridiculous and still might be the highest time to complete for any in the pass. That's a while different thing that dovetails into how shitty this season has been on loot.
yea but counterpoint the pressures on loadouts when trying to level guns (lmao level 20 required for seasonal challenge) and getting deepsight credit is super not fun and makes destiny feel even more like a chore than it usually does
Leveling is different than the pattern/material thing, at least to me. I think activities, including shit like patrols, should offer strong bonuses to progression. Some folks will still grind Shuro-Chi but it shouldn't be the best reward for time.
Shuro-Chi isn't the best reward for time now. People do it because they get tunnel-vision.
The best way to level a gun is to have it in your inventory and slap it on right before an activity finishes. That way you can get other shit you were gonna be doing anyway done while mostly passively leveling the gun.
At least it’s only one lvl 10 and 20 now. Not terrible if you’ve got the sidearm crafted, or if you just have the LFR on all the time while you do easy stuff (which is what I’m doing, already have it to 14 with under 100 kills on it)
The scout rifle is kinda pretty good with Voltshot and Rapid Hit. I do not regret crafting mine that way. (It's a pretty decent scout anyway I think. Sounds great too.)
yea but counterpoint the pressures on loadouts when trying to level guns (lmao level 20 required for seasonal challenge) and getting deepsight credit is super not fun and makes destiny feel even more like a chore than it usually does
Leveling is different than the pattern/material thing, at least to me. I think activities, including shit like patrols, should offer strong bonuses to progression. Some folks will still grind Shuro-Chi but it shouldn't be the best reward for time.
Shuro-Chi isn't the best reward for time now. People do it because they get tunnel-vision.
The best way to level a gun is to have it in your inventory and slap it on right before an activity finishes. That way you can get other shit you were gonna be doing anyway done while mostly passively leveling the gun.
And you get progress for 3 weapons that way, instead of just 1.
I'm sure the guy with 40+ kills in all my Control lobbies is having fun. I'm sure not anymore. Great matchmaking adjustments.
As a fellow low-skill player, I've given up on Control after these latest changes. I get my 3 games for the week and get out. I felt it was reasonable with the prior system, but (as expected) the looser they make the skill window, the worse it gets (for me).
I'm taking the advice of upper echelon players and just playing Competitive with its much smaller skill window. If they want to limit SBMM to a single mode, then I'm only going to play that mode. I may only be one data point, but I'm using it. 3v3 isn't my favorite, but it beats getting curbstomped in a (supposedly) "casual" 6v6 game. Having limited respawns is a bit annoying because it forces you to be a lot more protective of your (limited) lives. But as a side-effect I do actually feel like I'm getting better!! (DestinyTracker claims that I have improved to be in the "bottom 23%" of all players - I used to be in the bottom 9%.) A few months of this and I might be "only slightly worse than mediocre"!!
I'm sure the guy with 40+ kills in all my Control lobbies is having fun. I'm sure not anymore. Great matchmaking adjustments.
As a fellow low-skill player, I've given up on Control after these latest changes. I get my 3 games for the week and get out. I felt it was reasonable with the prior system, but (as expected) the looser they make the skill window, the worse it gets (for me).
I'm taking the advice of upper echelon players and just playing Competitive with its much smaller skill window. If they want to limit SBMM to a single mode, then I'm only going to play that mode. I may only be one data point, but I'm using it. 3v3 isn't my favorite, but it beats getting curbstomped in a (supposedly) "casual" 6v6 game. Having limited respawns is a bit annoying because it forces you to be a lot more protective of your (limited) lives. But as a side-effect I do actually feel like I'm getting better!! (DestinyTracker claims that I have improved to be in the "bottom 23%" of all players - I used to be in the bottom 9%.) A few months of this and I might be "only slightly worse than mediocre"!!
I wasn't getting the pinnacle before, and I'm perfectly happy not doing so again. They want to turn Crucible into a mode where only they benefit, nothing says I have to play it. Burn the damn thing down, IMO.
Edit: Yep. Just played against a top-10% and his fireteam, and I'm sure they had a lovely "chill" game where they didn't have to "try too hard". (For reference, I am currently bottom 38%. And falling.)
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this whole season feels it was designed for engagement metrics not for player enjoyment
Just not entertaining.
Maybe I'll just break out Ager's. Good luck making more cubes than that thing.
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Well, the joke's on them cos I've been far less engaged with this season than nearly all the others.
Content-wise I think this season is barely different from the last few on any content front. It was slightly less generous at launch because it didn't have a "buy 1 deepsight weapon a week" upgrade, but that's about it and they patched that shit in pretty quickly after it became relevant anyway. I think it's mainly that the shine was worn off the new expansion, new classes, etc stuff and so the seasonal content has to stand on it's own. That and the story this time feels both forced and super thin so there's nothing to prop it up on that end either. Throw in a few poorly conceived requirements for triumphs, mainly Ruffians, and baby you've got a dull feeling season going.
One of the toughest Monday pools I’ve ever seen, I expected things to be easier because of the weekly trials challenge and we barely squeaked by. I lost count of the rounds we should’ve lost but barely managed to clutch.
its frankly a sign of negligent disregard that they havent personally asked me for my opinion
I've stopped going for weekly flawless and just trying for my last carry for Gilded 6, and it just won't. Happen. For me. It's a bummer
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Bungie needs to punish players exploiting the matchmaking, shadow banish these players to the flawless pool, or get rid of the flawless pool concept entirely. It's a load of garbage that Bungie lets Trials languish like this, content with flawless pool as a half-assed "fix" to the mode's major structural problems.
The problem is the eternal Trials problem of the population is going down as it eats itself alive.
I certainly think that's part of it.
I also think the shine of "new" is starting to wear off. The new subclasses are neat, sure, but the novelty is wearing off and now all that is left is the balance problems in PvP and the limited choices for PvE. Core playlists haven't been updated in ages and the game asking you to once again do X strikes or Gambit matches starts to feel excessive after 2 prior seasons of the same.
Basically the game design equivalent of technical debt. Lots of core problems and underlying issues that just keep getting papered over and eventually you can't really ignore them any more.
So if I'm going to be matched against players with 20+ win streaks anyway, Bungie might as well remove the pool entirely so I can play with whoever all weekend instead of avoiding friends who have a different flawless status than me. Right now it feels like the worst of both worlds.
Well, the issue isn't "could go", it's "could go and isn't 'cause they like crapping on people".
Still doesn't fix the issue, removing the pool. Need to step on people being jerks like that, but that requires a heavy redo of the mode IMO.
Casual would be a free-for-all connection based matchmaking with a fast rotating gametype playlist. One game is control, next is rumble, next is elimination, etc. Toss in Team Scorched and Rift too. Whatever. It's "casual". If they lack the tech for a game-by-game rotation, make it a weekly rotator. I am pretty sure a game-by-game rotator should be fine - they have a psudeo-random map selection already. Iron Banner would fall into this playlist and would lock the gametype (but still rotating maps).
Competitive would be a skill-based matchmade mode with a weekly rotating gametype playlist. Trials would fall into this playlist and would lock the map for the entire weekend (with the gametype already being locked on a week-by-week basis). Too f***ing bad if it it becomes practically impossible to go flawless with a skill-based system. "Get Gud" as they say. Expand the entire Trails (adept) rewards to encompass the entire "Competitive" section and be done with it. Recluse was a competitve reward and that didn't break the game.
PvP is currently way too segregated for the size of the playerbase. Why we have six different PvP playlists (seven during Trials or Iron Banner weekends) is a mystery to me.
I've also no interest in "ranked"; I just want to derp around in PVP against people about as bad as I am, and hey if I get better (I actually seem to be) then I get to play people who also did, etc etc. Ranks, rewards, ladders, don't care, don't want. Those things make me mad/stress me out. Current Control setup is just about right.
They would 100% just quit out of a game to eat the loss and then reset. Or jump off the map old-school if Bungie didn't count quitting the game for that.
All it would do is slow down the rate at which they carried people in the flawless pool.
Which isn't to say it's not worth doing. It's just saying it's only going to have a marginal effect.
There used to be more playlists. They got consolidated awhile back. People complained. We're basically at the bare minimum we can get away with right now I'd say.
And a fully CBMM playlist is basically what they are trying to avoid because it just involves high-level PvP players kicking in the faces of random players and driving them away from PvP.
But that day is not today.
The thing is though, that game does exist and it's Destiny's PvE. I don't think you can narrow skill based matchmaking down far enough to enable everyone to use whatever and have a good time because PvP is inherently competitive and skill/guns/loadout will lead to winners and losers and some guns/loadouts will be stronger than others based on the current state of the game and as a result people will use those things when they want to perform well and win.
I'm at the higher end of the skill bracket, I'm not trying to brag but it's just true, and the people who get to that place are competitive and have been playing D2's PvP for a long time and they're the most inclined to use the best possible gear to ensure that they're going to win. I've done my share of complaining about how PvP is hard to experiment in but the thing of it is, when someone like me says that what we mean is "why aren't more people who are worse than me in these lobbies so that I can experiment with less risk" and honestly I don't think that's what the people getting dumped on would want to hear.
At some point you've just got to figure out what's good in PvP, and practice, and get better, and D2's been around for over five years so the PvP enthusiasts are vast and terrible compared to people new to the game and if that's you then you've got an uphill climb ahead. Could they cordon the Deep Old Ones off in their own space and keep the new folks safe? Sure and they should and right now don't do a good job of it but I just don't think you can make Destiny 2's PvP a chill fun playtime.
edit for receipts
I mean, I do. I use whatever feels good/effective to me, and I do as well as I do. Do I win all the time? Fuck no. But the tension comes in when you want to combine "use whatever, chill out, have fun" with "and win as much as you do with optimised loadout X".
So yeah, you wanna use some unfamiliar stuff? That's gonna hit your W/L ratio for a bit, as you'd expect. If I swap off my comfy pulse rifle to like a bow, I will do like shit for a while. Shitter. I don't see the problem here. Frankly, this season has been great. I mean, I still get pissed at it, but that's a me thing; my games are close, I perform pretty decent, and like, that was an actual match. Objectively that's okay. This is probably the first time ever I've been able to say "maybe I'd be more effective if I switched my loadout to..." because I used to just use death as a free reload. If I got through a magazine, that is. Or fired a shot.
Realistically most of the complaints on the wider internet are "I want to win, but I don't want to always have to try to win", and that can get fucked. I got all the sympathy in the world for connection troubles or waiting ages for a match, that sucks, but the answer isn't the crap they had before. I'm not someone's bot match.
Edit: Unrelatedly, have you any idea how much dakka you get when an AR rolls with both Triple Tap AND FTTC? Fuckin' hilarious.
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Giving into whiners again. You already don't need to level it for the pattern and about 80% of the season you're deepsight currencies already stay maxed because it's rare to craft multiple copies of the same gun. It is so fucking weird that people are like "But if I take a shitty red border into a GM it's no fun!" and that Bungie cares about that.
Leveling is different than the pattern/material thing, at least to me. I think activities, including shit like patrols, should offer strong bonuses to progression. Some folks will still grind Shuro-Chi but it shouldn't be the best reward for time.
Those quests were ridiculous and still might be the highest time to complete for any in the pass. That's a while different thing that dovetails into how shitty this season has been on loot.
Shuro-Chi isn't the best reward for time now. People do it because they get tunnel-vision.
The best way to level a gun is to have it in your inventory and slap it on right before an activity finishes. That way you can get other shit you were gonna be doing anyway done while mostly passively leveling the gun.
The scout rifle is kinda pretty good with Voltshot and Rapid Hit. I do not regret crafting mine that way. (It's a pretty decent scout anyway I think. Sounds great too.)
And you get progress for 3 weapons that way, instead of just 1.
I'm taking the advice of upper echelon players and just playing Competitive with its much smaller skill window. If they want to limit SBMM to a single mode, then I'm only going to play that mode. I may only be one data point, but I'm using it. 3v3 isn't my favorite, but it beats getting curbstomped in a (supposedly) "casual" 6v6 game. Having limited respawns is a bit annoying because it forces you to be a lot more protective of your (limited) lives. But as a side-effect I do actually feel like I'm getting better!! (DestinyTracker claims that I have improved to be in the "bottom 23%" of all players - I used to be in the bottom 9%.) A few months of this and I might be "only slightly worse than mediocre"!!
I wasn't getting the pinnacle before, and I'm perfectly happy not doing so again. They want to turn Crucible into a mode where only they benefit, nothing says I have to play it. Burn the damn thing down, IMO.
Edit: Yep. Just played against a top-10% and his fireteam, and I'm sure they had a lovely "chill" game where they didn't have to "try too hard". (For reference, I am currently bottom 38%. And falling.)
Hope they choke on it. Ideally, literally.