Hey, a Crucible thread

[qupie]

That is because you went in with a mindset to win the game Just run till you die. That gives you more info than actually trying to win the first match. Or watch 2-3 games on stream.

[malgato]

Sounds like I missed a good time.

[iw5000]

Another Iron Banner.

I played some solo (3-1), then went like 9-1 with Heb, doing fine until the last two games when we just got absolutely wrecked. The one game the other team was just flat out good. Setting up team shots, healing rifts everywhere, etc...The others? I can't explain it. So frustrating. I couldn't do anything to those players. They were good, but other weird/wonky shit going on. Grenades didn't seem to affect them, constantly outshot in 1v1, etc..

Lots of lots of groups playing though. Which makes for competitive games, but got to be real here....the constant running away from fights becomes draining. I do it too, everyone does it, but it just makes the gosh darn golly gee whiz game grinding at times.

......


For a while there, my interest in crucible was kept up by the whole DestinyTracker Elo thing. It makes things interesting. The past week though, I did a lot of solo playing and have been just getting wrecked in terms of winning and losing. Lots of other teams, games in progress losses, it adds up. I think I went like 5-25 in terms of winning the past week. All my elo scores just tanked. In a game where the entire game is about team-shooting, being a solo player with randoms just sucks. What's the point? I'm having a hard time finding one.

[hebbnh]

Counterpoint: playing against good teams is how you get better (whether you're running solo or as a team). Even if all you do is find a way to die a couple times less than you could have, take it as a small victory and a learning experience that maybe you'll be able to put to use later. Playing teamed up and stomping some randoms is definitely more fun, but at the same time, learning to play better against good players is going to increase the number of randoms you can stomp in the long run.

ELO is great and all, but it's all driven by wins and losses, and most wins and losses are not really under your control while running solo. It's a useless stat unless you run as a team a majority of the time, so it's probably better off ignored in your case.

[iw5000]

Nov 22, 2017 14:29:29 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

Counterpoint: playing against good teams is how you get better (whether you're running solo or as a team). Even if all you do is find a way to die a couple times less than you could have, take it as a small victory and a learning experience that maybe you'll be able to put to use later. Playing teamed up and stomping some randoms is definitely more fun, but at the same time, learning to play better against good players is going to increase the number of randoms you can stomp in the long run.

ELO is great and all, but it's all driven by wins and losses, and most wins and losses are not really under your control while running solo. It's a useless stat unless you run as a team a majority of the time, so it's probably better off ignored in your case.

Yeah, I have kind of given up on it.

No issues with better teams. It just felt like something F'd up was going on with that last game or two. Some weird stuff going on.

[wings]

Interesting to see one of the Crucible developers speaking to Crucible Radio (never listened to it before, might do later) but it has got discussion going on Reddit here. Thoughts?

[iw5000]

Nov 24, 2017 2:33:57 GMT -5 wings said:

Interesting to see one of the Crucible developers speaking to Crucible Radio (never listened to it before, might do later) but it has got discussion going on Reddit here. Thoughts?

It only pretty much confirms what I have said for years, people who design games/developers.....they have no understanding of the concept of competition.

I also get a kick out of reading posts from the supposed 'hard-core' Destiny gamers, who keep insisting people want to watch 'superior skill shine through'. Who are these people they talk about? Is there really a sizeable count of people out there who watch competitive destiny?

The other question I have from watching is this. I get the changes made to D2's PvP, but are the changes that big to warrant this much hate?

[wings]

Nov 28, 2017 9:08:09 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Nov 24, 2017 2:33:57 GMT -5 wings said:

Interesting to see one of the Crucible developers speaking to Crucible Radio (never listened to it before, might do later) but it has got discussion going on Reddit here. Thoughts?

It only pretty much confirms what I have said for years, people who design games/developers.....they have no understanding of the concept of competition.

I also get a kick out of reading posts from the supposed 'hard-core' Destiny gamers, who keep insisting people want to watch 'superior skill shine through'. Who are these people they talk about? Is there really a sizeable count of people out there who watch competitive destiny?

The other question I have from watching is this. I get the changes made to D2's PvP, but are the changes that big to warrant this much hate?

This talk is more for having Destiny have a wider skill gap. I used to watch a few streamers play Destiny 1, sometimes I've played with them, to see some amazing plays. But I don't really care for the prize winning tournaments like those hosted by Farcog. Its popularity was artificially inflated because viewers are watching streamers who do Trials carries. If Trials was never a thing, the numbers watching the Farcog tournaments etc would be a lot lower. Destiny players are well in their rights to dislike the weapon loadout change. It looks like it is a purely Crucible change that has put a strain on PvE. The ammo economy is a concern with the prestige raid and I suspect many of the advocates of the current weapon loadout don't or can't play the raid. I don't watch the Bungie streams any more but if I knew Bungie are playing the prestige raid and Jon Weisnewski is part of the fireteam I would watch it. I'm not sure I'm a suitable person to ask about competitive stuff in games because I've always found it a bit odd to co-exist in games like Destiny and Call of Duty with all of the nonsense mechanics those games can have, when there are games that appear to be more suitable for serious play like Counter Strike and Rainbow Six. But that's just me.

[iw5000]

I guess my point or question is this. If Destiny has always been about the PvE....why is the tail (PvP) wagging the dog (PvE) so much right now?

[markopolo]

Nov 29, 2017 14:24:41 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

I guess my point or question is this. If Destiny has always been about the PvE....why is the tail (PvP) wagging the dog (PvE) so much right now?

It's not.

It just appears to be that way because 1) there's an extreme lack of PVE endgame content, and 2) Trials/IB/Crucible is the easiest thing the streamers have to stream.

Unless I misunderstand the question

[wings]

Nov 29, 2017 14:24:41 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

I guess my point or question is this. If Destiny has always been about the PvE....why is the tail (PvP) wagging the dog (PvE) so much right now?

Because Bungie feels it can make PvE and PvP balanced in the same 'sandbox' despite other developers like Blizzard who have tried this for years and then gave up on that idea. That and it looks like those who currently like the current Crucible compared to what D1 had at various stages appear to be in the minority. It appears a lot of the players who dislike the current Crucible don't take PvP too seriously in this game. I guess I am one of those because I feel there are several other shooters out there that are more suitable if I wanted it to be more serious. It reminds me of The Division when Massive nerfed my OHK build I had made for soloing the Dark Zone so I could defend myself from bad gank squads. My build was nerfed way before theirs was. Like how is balance a thing in something like the Dark Zone?

[iw5000]

There are a lot of things that aren't real good about the Crucible. It has 1/10th the features that CoD has (game choices, options, stats, leaderboards, etc..), and the team shooting is a little bit annoying (at times), but all in all, ...it's not that bad considering it's part of a larger picture of the PvE. It is what it is. Get me a group of people to play with, I can have almost as fun as a group if i was playing CoD. So I have my complaints, but no where close to the venom that some people are displaying on those Reddit boards. That's some A game level of hating going on.

[wings]

Well, what else is there to talk about? A lot of the posters on Reddit have pretty much done everything ages ago, or if they haven't, it's because there is no incentive to do it, e.g. prestige raid.

[markopolo]

WelL... reddit is pretty effin toxic right now, so I would hesitate to use them as a measuring stick

[wings]

It's because they want to be as engaged as they were in D1. Not sure if criticisms should always be deemed toxic when it is partly down to game design issues. I mean, it's better for Bungie that they are being like this than just dropping the game completely.

[mannon]

It's frustrating considering how good Halo PvP was without sacrificing the PvE. It was a franchise that not only did both but lead the industry in both as well, (at least on console). Destiny seems to have mucked that up and for all that I like being able to do some PvP with my guardian it's pretty tacked on PvP and it shows. The PvE model that Destiny is built on also doesn't translate as well to PvP as Halo did. And it's complexity certainly makes it difficult to balance. I don't know if they'll ever get this "right". *shrug* But I guess they have no choice but to try even if they kinda half-ass it. If they gave up on PvP entirely or even just openly admitted that it was sort of second rate they could probably expect a big chunk of the player base to dry up.

[iw5000]

Nov 29, 2017 21:26:50 GMT -5 mannon said:

It's frustrating considering how good Halo PvP was without sacrificing the PvE. It was a franchise that not only did both but lead the industry in both as well, (at least on console). Destiny seems to have mucked that up and for all that I like being able to do some PvP with my guardian it's pretty tacked on PvP and it shows. The PvE model that Destiny is built on also doesn't translate as well to PvP as Halo did. And it's complexity certainly makes it difficult to balance. I don't know if they'll ever get this "right". *shrug* But I guess they have no choice but to try even if they kinda half-ass it. If they gave up on PvP entirely or even just openly admitted that it was sort of second rate they could probably expect a big chunk of the player base to dry up.

I guess I don't understand why this issue has to be complex.

You have a PvE world that does all that it is supposed to be doing. Leveling up, exotic weapons, crazy weapons, RAIDS, clans, armor, ...make this PvE as crazy and as unbalanced as one can get.

Once the above is done, it doesn't have to connect to the PvP. You simply make the PvP 'world' a subset of the Guardian base. Make a like a 'fight simulator' where Guardians go to test their skills against each in a NUETRAL (key part there) setting. This would be so easy to make.

[mannon]

The complication really just stems from the staggering possible combinations in any matchup between the class abilities, weapons, armor, as well as mod choices and any stat variations. A lot of that boils down to a single number across all your gear, but not all of it. To simplify things they would have to limit that, which would mean to greater or lesser degree removing everything unique about your guardian and forcing you to play with more standard loadouts.

Then again I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. In fact for any truly competitive mode the only things that should carry over from your actual guardian are aesthetics only. (Well I suppose things like your subclass abilities could IF you were only allowed to play the mode with a completely unlocked subclass so that it's an even playing field, but I don't know how long that takes and you'd be limiting your potential players by putting that kind of onus. You would also be skewing subclass choices since more people would have the first subclasses fully unlocked and fewer the latter ones.)

The other way I see it possibly working would be to strait up ignore armor, and to normalize weapons for PvP as much as possible. You couldn't guarantee weapon normalization and even if you did that wouldn't provide for variety, necessarily. So I think it would be good to also rent or sell, (cheaply) PvP focused versions of weapons. These wouldn't be terribly effective in PvE, but would have appropriate stats and mods to make them competitive in PvP. They wouldn't be good in a D1 style Iron Banner, but should be good for crucible. But then I'm just spitballin'... *shrug* And Bungie won't do that even for just one game mode... Let's face it Bungie's vision for Destiny is more or less anti-competitive. Everything must feed the grind/reward feedback loop.

[TheHawkNY]

The problems with PvP are pretty severe.

- The most engaging playlist is Trials of the Nine, which the majority of players have no incentive to play because they won't win, and winning is everything in that mode. It's also unavailable half the time.
- The most heavily engaged with playlist is probably Iron Banner, which is available less than a quarter of the time, and has skill-based matchmaking.
- There aren't random rolls, so once you get a weapon or piece of armor, that's it, no grinding needed.
- Increased TTK, moving all one-shot weapons to power slot, increased cooldown times, and smaller team sizes have drastically decreased the number of reinforcing "hero" moments.
- It's pretty much the same small pool of weapons and abilities we've been using for the past 3.5 years, and it's gotten stale.

They made the PvP give you those dopamine kicks less, gave most people absolutely no reason to improve, and not made huge improvements in the past 3.5 years. They removed all of the reasons to grind PvP except for one week a month. It's not hard to see why people are upset.

They need to experiment and find the fun, because a lot of us simply don't enjoy sitting down and solo-queuing. Experiment with game-modes, team sizes, cooldown rates, vehicles, special weapons, etc. I'd rather them put up a few and swap them periodically, even if most of them are complete duds, than have them do nothing at all.

[Pegasus Actual]

I'm pretty happy with the state of PVP compared to D1. I mean bird lady gave me a Better Devils for not playing. And I always wanted a Better Devils. It could be better if the wikis weren't telling me you have to play Crucible to get the Rat King thing.

[bradman]

Dec 4, 2017 17:00:33 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

The problems with PvP are pretty severe.

- The most engaging playlist is Trials of the Nine, which the majority of players have no incentive to play because they won't win, and winning is everything in that mode. It's also unavailable half the time.
- The most heavily engaged with playlist is probably Iron Banner, which is available less than a quarter of the time, and has skill-based matchmaking.
- There aren't random rolls, so once you get a weapon or piece of armor, that's it, no grinding needed.
- Increased TTK, moving all one-shot weapons to power slot, increased cooldown times, and smaller team sizes have drastically decreased the number of reinforcing "hero" moments.
- It's pretty much the same small pool of weapons and abilities we've been using for the past 3.5 years, and it's gotten stale.

They made the PvP give you those dopamine kicks less, gave most people absolutely no reason to improve, and not made huge improvements in the past 3.5 years. They removed all of the reasons to grind PvP except for one week a month. It's not hard to see why people are upset.

They need to experiment and find the fun, because a lot of us simply don't enjoy sitting down and solo-queuing. Experiment with game-modes, team sizes, cooldown rates, vehicles, special weapons, etc. I'd rather them put up a few and swap them periodically, even if most of them are complete duds, than have them do nothing at all.

Other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

[iw5000]

Dec 4, 2017 17:00:33 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

The problems with PvP are pretty severe.

- The most engaging playlist is Trials of the Nine, which the majority of players have no incentive to play because they won't win, and winning is everything in that mode. It's also unavailable half the time.
- The most heavily engaged with playlist is probably Iron Banner, which is available less than a quarter of the time, and has skill-based matchmaking.
- There aren't random rolls, so once you get a weapon or piece of armor, that's it, no grinding needed.
- Increased TTK, moving all one-shot weapons to power slot, increased cooldown times, and smaller team sizes have drastically decreased the number of reinforcing "hero" moments.
- It's pretty much the same small pool of weapons and abilities we've been using for the past 3.5 years, and it's gotten stale.

They made the PvP give you those dopamine kicks less, gave most people absolutely no reason to improve, and not made huge improvements in the past 3.5 years. They removed all of the reasons to grind PvP except for one week a month. It's not hard to see why people are upset.

They need to experiment and find the fun, because a lot of us simply don't enjoy sitting down and solo-queuing. Experiment with game-modes, team sizes, cooldown rates, vehicles, special weapons, etc. I'd rather them put up a few and swap them periodically, even if most of them are complete duds, than have them do nothing at all.

You forgot one important part.

When you play solo, with other randoms, it can be a frustrating experience. In D2's PvP, you HAVE to stay with your teammates because the game is entirely about teamshooting. Team shooting. But there are very few things as frustrating as playing with randoms who don't give a sh1t about that. Randoms that don't follow you to protect the first power drop. Randoms that try to steal power ammo. Randoms that don't group up. In a game that REQURES the utmost in grouping up and working as a team, there is no real way to ensure that will happen with randoms.

The above is a bit of a problem. I don't think it's a game breaker in and by itself, but coupled with other issues, it can be.

[markopolo]

Y'all need to chill...

Git yerself some Mida, Mureal, and that Raid Launcher.... maybe throw on a crucible ghost.... Pour yourself a drink/crack a cold one... Go into dat quickplay...

And just rock out with your MIDA's Out For Harambe...

Am I right or am I right? I'm right

[qupie]

Dec 5, 2017 9:57:00 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Dec 4, 2017 17:00:33 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

The problems with PvP are pretty severe.

- The most engaging playlist is Trials of the Nine, which the majority of players have no incentive to play because they won't win, and winning is everything in that mode. It's also unavailable half the time.
- The most heavily engaged with playlist is probably Iron Banner, which is available less than a quarter of the time, and has skill-based matchmaking.
- There aren't random rolls, so once you get a weapon or piece of armor, that's it, no grinding needed.
- Increased TTK, moving all one-shot weapons to power slot, increased cooldown times, and smaller team sizes have drastically decreased the number of reinforcing "hero" moments.
- It's pretty much the same small pool of weapons and abilities we've been using for the past 3.5 years, and it's gotten stale.

They made the PvP give you those dopamine kicks less, gave most people absolutely no reason to improve, and not made huge improvements in the past 3.5 years. They removed all of the reasons to grind PvP except for one week a month. It's not hard to see why people are upset.

They need to experiment and find the fun, because a lot of us simply don't enjoy sitting down and solo-queuing. Experiment with game-modes, team sizes, cooldown rates, vehicles, special weapons, etc. I'd rather them put up a few and swap them periodically, even if most of them are complete duds, than have them do nothing at all.

You forgot one important part.

When you play solo, with other randoms, it can be a frustrating experience. In D2's PvP, you HAVE to stay with your teammates because the game is entirely about teamshooting. Team shooting. But there are very few things as frustrating as playing with randoms who don't give a sh1t about that. Randoms that don't follow you to protect the first power drop. Randoms that try to steal power ammo. Randoms that don't group up. In a game that REQURES the utmost in grouping up and working as a team, there is no real way to ensure that will happen with randoms.

The above is a bit of a problem. I don't think it's a game breaker in and by itself, but coupled with other issues, it can be.

While I agree with you, another point could be made in the opposite direction though. There are plenty of team based shooters nowadays in which team communication/tactics have almost no influence at all. I mean, I think that is a bigger problem personally. It is a team game after all. I am glad this is a team based game in which you actually have to act as a team.

[wings]

Dec 5, 2017 10:42:28 GMT -5 qupie said:

While I agree with you, another point could be made in the opposite direction though. There are plenty of team based shooters nowadays in which team communication/tactics have almost no influence at all.

Such as?

[wings]

Dec 4, 2017 17:00:33 GMT -5 TheHawkNY said:

The problems with PvP are pretty severe.

- The most engaging playlist is Trials of the Nine, which the majority of players have no incentive to play because they won't win, and winning is everything in that mode. It's also unavailable half the time.
- The most heavily engaged with playlist is probably Iron Banner, which is available less than a quarter of the time, and has skill-based matchmaking.
- There aren't random rolls, so once you get a weapon or piece of armor, that's it, no grinding needed.
- Increased TTK, moving all one-shot weapons to power slot, increased cooldown times, and smaller team sizes have drastically decreased the number of reinforcing "hero" moments.
- It's pretty much the same small pool of weapons and abilities we've been using for the past 3.5 years, and it's gotten stale.

They made the PvP give you those dopamine kicks less, gave most people absolutely no reason to improve, and not made huge improvements in the past 3.5 years. They removed all of the reasons to grind PvP except for one week a month. It's not hard to see why people are upset.

They need to experiment and find the fun, because a lot of us simply don't enjoy sitting down and solo-queuing. Experiment with game-modes, team sizes, cooldown rates, vehicles, special weapons, etc. I'd rather them put up a few and swap them periodically, even if most of them are complete duds, than have them do nothing at all.

Pretty much. You don't even need the Iron Banner armour because a lot of players will be after recovery, which reduce the amount of sets to grind for a lot. I essentially use only two sets - Philomath for my Warlock and Gensym Knight for my Hunter and Titan. And I have the full prestige raid armour sets for all three of my characters and the only one I could use without handicapping myself might be the Warlock set. Plus, the Titan armour looks a bit silly on my female Titan but I guess there will always be issues of sets looking better for male characters. I think the same with the Optimacy armour for the Hunter.

I don't mind Crucible having 4v4 but when it's only 4v4 it feels regressive when plenty of games offer such a large variety in lobby counts including Bungie's previous creations in Halo. It feels like they didn't bother with varying sized lobbies so statistics didn't have to take into account context as much. At least from D1 the nerfs to Tripmine grenades and Achlyophage Symbiote felt that way.

[qupie]

Dec 5, 2017 12:10:11 GMT -5 wings said:

Dec 5, 2017 10:42:28 GMT -5 qupie said:

While I agree with you, another point could be made in the opposite direction though. There are plenty of team based shooters nowadays in which team communication/tactics have almost no influence at all.

Such as?

Almost all of which I have played. Only one that comes to mind other than D2 in which communication is the key to winning is Overwatch. So I guess the past 8ish COD titles? (skipped advanced in infinite warfare personally) Additionally both titanfalls, although TF2 titan play is kind of team based. Fortnite seems quite team based so far, but I have barely played it. But yeah, there are plenty of "team games" which are actually not really team based games.

In any team based game(type) you should be at an disadvantage if you are not in a team imho. It is the task of the designer to incorporate another game type to fill the needs of the solo players, such as FFA or lone wolf TDM. The team players should not suffer because others are too lazy or whatever to form a team. That is my opinion as a very social gamer though, I can understand others see that in another way.

[wings]

Dec 6, 2017 7:08:19 GMT -5 qupie said:

Dec 5, 2017 12:10:11 GMT -5 wings said:

Such as?

Almost all of which I have played. Only one that comes to mind other than D2 in which communication is the key to winning is Overwatch. So I guess the past 8ish COD titles? (skipped advanced in infinite warfare personally) Additionally both titanfalls, although TF2 titan play is kind of team based. Fortnite seems quite team based so far, but I have barely played it. But yeah, there are plenty of "team games" which are actually not really team based games.

In any team based game(type) you should be at an disadvantage if you are not in a team imho. It is the task of the designer to incorporate another game type to fill the needs of the solo players, such as FFA or lone wolf TDM. The team players should not suffer because others are too lazy or whatever to form a team. That is my opinion as a very social gamer though, I can understand others see that in another way.

That sounds like Destiny 2 is more 'team orientated' mostly because of the high time to kill and nothing else though. There are quite a few shooters with faster time to kills that make teamwork beneficial.

[Pegasus Actual]

I don't know, calling D2 a great 'teamwork' game and lumping it in with Overwatch seems like a pretty massive stretch. Destiny's higher-than-COD TTK and resultant teamshooting is kind of the lowest form of teamwork. And I don't really buy that communication is any more key to winning a game of Destiny than it is COD.

And what game aren't you at a big advantage being in a full party vs a squad of randoms? Even in COD just communicating enough to make sure every lane is covered, making sure to not flip a spawn, or coordinating a push on an objective puts you at a huge advantage over a disorganized rabble.

[qupie]

Agreed, I was not intenting to group it with overwatch, overwatch is far superior in team plays.

I don't agree the team shots is all that destiny does towards the teamshots though. Power ammo, supers, class abilities, revives and TTK all play a role. I do think D2 has a bigger team work factor than COD has.

You are at an advantage in almost any game, but that is more because you know you can count on your friends over randoms, not because COD games are actually very communicative, at least in my experience. Shit happens to fast for most teams to have meaningful communication apart from a few callouts per game about a camper or something.