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Destiny 2

Discuss all things Destiny 2.
Edited by Lost Sols: 11/19/2019 10:03:48 PM
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My experience as an average solo player playing my way into the top 1% in Season 8 Control

Greetings fellow Guardians, As we sit here a month and a half into Season 8 and 21 days until Season 9, I wanted to share my Crucible experience since Shadowkeep dropped. I've been a Crucible fan since launch and there have been times during the life of the game where I've basically lived in the Crucible, most notably House of Wolves which has always been the gold standard of Destiny PvP for me. I was very disappointed with the decision to move everything to 4v4 with D2 and, once we finally got 6v6 back, it ending up being added with the removal of all skill considerations. In the 5 years of Destiny, last year was by far the most frustrating for me as a player. In both PvE with the ultra-punishing grinds that never relented and in the Crucible as well where QP was nothing but an endless stream of pubstomps with 1-2 players obliterating everyone else game after game (with the other team getting crushed and their own teammates picking up a few scraps here and there). There has been a lot made about the state of the game and matchmaking over the past few years and a lot of that dialogue has been driven by the top .01% of the Destiny Community. We saw the depths of that influence throughout year 2 in systems like Enhancement Cores which were requested by players that make a living playing the game as well as the removal of skill based matchmaking which was a direct result of Destiny influencers bombarding Bungie with feedback to keep it off after it was accidentally disables with the patch that returned 6v6. A lot has also been said about the how bad year one of D2 was and anyone who was on these forums back then remembers the ever present replies of "D2 sucks" and "dead game" in every single thread. For all of that though, the population numbers dropped lower in year 2 and from 6 months on were among the all time lowest the Franchise has seen for PvP. Which Brings us to Season 8 and the changes Bungie made to try to rebuild the Crucible into not only an experience that the majority of the player base could enjoy, but also one that welcomed in new players and created an experience that let players grow into PvP and ultimately create a feeder system into higher skill game modes. Outside of Iron Banner I basically stopped playing Crucible in the second half of last year, now at this point in Season 8, I have played over 500 games and reset my Valor 11 times. It is easily the best Crucible I've played since HoW and win or lose, I always have incredibly fun games. In D1 I mained a Titan in PvP. In the fist 2 years of D2 I mained a top tree Nightstalker. So going into this year, I wanted to main my Warlock for really the first time in Destiny. What I never expected was to not only love the new Crucible even more than I had dared to dream possible going in and play as much as I have (I've only done 2 PvE missions and have leveled to 962 basically just playing Crucible, which is another incredible change from last year), but I looked at DTR the other day and, on what has been my weakest class historically, I was in the top .07% for Control on Xbox. This is where I want to talk about the experience getting there and how this season has been such a drastic improvement for myself as a player (who plays 99% solo) as well as the realities of what skill based matchmaking does and does not do. To begin, one of the absolute biggest improvements Bungie made with Y3 PvP was the addition of a straight Control playlist. D1 Control was what made me love the Crucible to begin with and I spent a couple months learning the ins and outs there; learning maps, learning to read radar and anticipate enemy behavior, learning my class and abilities and what weapons worked best for me to combine everything to the point where I was confident in any and all situations I encountered. That all came to a peak in HoW when I ran Scout + Fusion and played at over a 2.0 kd for the expansion in the hay day of the mighty Thorn. When D2 released without the set game modes to play and instead went with random mode playlists, it immediately made it much more difficult for me to get into any kind of rhythm and ever truly feel comfortable in any playlist because we always moved to something else and they all played differently. So when the new Control mode came back, suddenly I was able to really get into grooves and learn where on maps I could play to my advantage and make my opponents play to me, and something else the set mode (plus matchmaking that removed the every other game dumpster fire with one person clowning on everyone else) let me do was really dive into a loadout I wanted to play vs having to run what I knew I could get kills with last year vs all the Luna's(NF)/DRB/Wardcliff builds we saw every game from the top players just trying to "relax". In Y2 I ran bow+fusion in QP and some IB, but once I got Le Monarque, I mostly ran double bows in Iron Banner. When Y3 began, I played the first 4-5 games bow+fusion, but really lost all interest in running a fusion because of all the complaints about them, so I switched to scout+bow and have run that since. My loadout now for 99.9% of my games this season has been Telemachus-C/Le Monarque/Sins of the Past and I run a Chaos Warlock. Initially I ran Geomag Stabilizers as my armor piece, but switched to Getaway Artist once it dropped for me. I have also throughout the season made a disc/strength build hitting tier 8 on Discipline and tier 7 on Strength. Last year I fell in love with bows and over the course of the year I notched 1765 bow kills. To this point in Season 8, I have 3091 bow kills. I'm going to double what I did in all of year 2 in Season 8, and here's where that gets really significant; I'm using a bow for 99.9% of my engagements be they ranged, mid or CQC. Recluse. Revoker. Erentil. Luna's. NF. Byegones. Jade Rabbit. MIDA. TLW. Randy's. Trust. DRB. Chaperone. Vigilance Wing. OEM. Fist of Havoc. Dawnblade. Spectral Blades. Nova Warp. Arc Staff. And on, and on. My counter is my bow+my abilities and I have made a build that allows me to play the game in a way that suits me and plays to my strengths and allows me to feel confident in any scenario I find myself in vs any loadout and regardless of the number of opponents I'm facing. I have no issues playing aggressively and I've shut down more FoH than I've died to this season. Certainly I am at a disadvantage in straight weapon vs weapon kill-times in many scenarios, but the game doesn't revolve around (and has never) 1:1 weapon play. D2 Y1 was the closest it got, but Destiny PvP at its best is a chess game where we use everything at our disposal to counter and attack and my build with my bow + melee and either grenades or Arc Buddies allows me to do that. I also have a build that neutralizes OEM for me as even with an overshield, Titans are still the same 2 hit kill for me with my bow if I land my shots well. So over the course of the season, I have been able to learn and perfect a class perfectly suited to my play in an environment where I could build a groove in the mode and where I could be properly challenged by matchmaking in games while still having fun playing in losses and that is key because that wasn't the case last year when in so many games there was just no chance and I wanted to quit Destiny after 1-2 QP games, but I've also found out something else very interesting over the process as I've improved in skill over the season... Matchmaking is actually even less strict than I had originally thought and I already knew it wasn't the ultra-strict sbmm that the top players like to have everyone believe. As I've improved and my numbers have gotten better and better and I started topping leader boards with consistency, I have definitely seen more quality opponents on opposing teams and with that, more Luna's, NF, Mountaintop, etc. But the difference is that I have been able to play my way into facing them at an even skill level where I am equipped as a player in both skill and ability to face them and give as good as I get, but as was the case in the numbers I would post last year from Iron Banner's matchmaking, the lobbies are still diverse with some players even or higher skill and most are average players, and you can look up any top Destiny PvP player and look at their lobbies and they may be playing 1-2 players who are near them in games, but the majority of their opponents are still average players because the game has to match them like that. In my 500+ games I've had no issues with load times, uneven lobbies, lag, or any of the other complaints that are associated with skill based matchmaking. I have however seen a couple posts by huge PvP names slamming having to sit longer in queues and to that I would say, sure it sucks, but when you're in the top 300 players IN THE WORLD, I'm not sure why Bungie should have to blow up the Crucible for the other 1.1 million players. Which brings me to the daily attacks the top PvP players are waging against this crucible. They are actively petitioning Bungie to make drastic changes to a game that has pretty much even PvP population numbers to last year at this point and to the Monday DTR numbers exactly one year ago, are 300k higher this season. The PvP population struggled to maintain 200k across all platforms for months last year, but somehow 1.1 million players daily now is the Crucible dying... and that's the other shoe about to drop. We've seen the "dead game" attacks used to drive the game to suit them and with the growing daily attacks attempting to poison the community perception of PvP, I'm afraid we may be headed back there which is a shame. I 100% believe that everyone should have the ability to have a great Crucible experience including the top .01% of players in the world, but I don't see them wanting to find any middle ground as they wage war daily to try to get Bungie to remove skill from matchmaking again.

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  • Edited by dirtydeeds4u: 11/24/2019 6:34:42 AM
    Did you keep spamming the attention w.h.ore ability?

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  • I'm top 1% in control too! Everyone look at me!!!! Lol

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    • You play against ducks that's why you use a bow LMAO

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    • 1. The hate streamers and high tier players get simply due purely to jealousy is astounding. 2. Why do I never go to fortnite forums and see players (many of which are children) crying about matching × streamer or × good player but some adults in this community cant take the fact that there are better players who have as much right to play anyone in the community as they do? It's sad when children have more maturity then adults 3. This culture sounds like it's from the guys who loved getting participation trophies, need safe spaces and require a dev shielding them to not fall to pieces, I'll bet most pro-sbmm players need daily encouragement from thier moms. Also inb4 I'm called a sweaty elitist looking to pubstomp when the truth couldnt be further - I'm simply not going to blame better players for my ineptitude and I'm going to accept that its completely ok for them to match me and anyone else.

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      • Edited by SCRIIPTIICON: 11/19/2019 6:39:23 PM
        Everyone's opinion is respectable but I have two points: 1. If you find it balanced and enjoyable you are below average 2. You are so full for yourself that you believe that a 1kd player belongs to top 1%. Let me give you my account for some days to enjoy the current state and I don't belong to the top 1%

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        • This is a great post, and it makes sense. On a forum filled with memes and hyperbole this is a welcome change of pace. It’s also very positive, and touches on a lot of issues that get blown way out of proportion. Weapon balance feels so good right now, and yes there are some weapons that are stronger than the average weapon, but none of them actually feel overpowered because if lost souls can find success with a bow against them by using his brain and developing skills and tactics we all can. Check out that run on sentence! I’m not even going to fix it because most wont read it, and if they do it says everything that needs saying. The truth is most players don’t want to. They just want to spew the memes they hear from content creators, but when you watch the gameplay in their content it doesn’t even match what they are saying. Content creators have to be hyperbolic and polarizing when presenting their opinion. Then they ask us to comment when they could honestly care less what we have to say. [spoiler]Thats just to help their algorithm.[/spoiler] They are trying to attract and energize an audience, not improve the game for the average players. It’s sucks seeing content creators mobilizing their fans to repeat what they say (most don’t have original ideas which you see immediately when you press them and they link a video) to change the game to benefit themselves. They need lobbies where they can run out of medals against players who have no business being matched with them. Thanks for posting your feedback. It’s good stuff.

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          • This is the healthiest the Crucible has been since early in D1. The issue is you have streamers, stat farmers, and pub stompers who are mad because the game is no longer serving them up weaker players to be exploited. Those who want a connection based game can play Classic Mix. Those who want 6v6 matches that are actually competitive can play Control. The problem is that the vast majority have figured out that Control gives them a more enjoyable experience, so Classic Mix is a sweat box. Because all the pubstompers and stat-farmers are finding there are each other.

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            • PvP playerbase yesterday..... https://destinytracker.com/

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            • Edited by RussellMania: 11/19/2019 12:43:18 PM
              Destiny... Where you can be top 1% in ELO with a 1.15 KD in a playlist. Doesn't that sound a little off to you? Thanks for proving the lack of logic behind sbmm. I'm glad you're having a better experience in PvP, but I'm disappointed you turned your post into yet another rant about "top 1%" players... I put that in quotes because anyone on here with common sense knows you all like to classify any above average player against sbmm as the top 1% as to discredit them as being a vocal minority. The actual top 1% are normally the least vocal about sbmm because they're normally running scrims or gatekeeping in comp. I've never met a PvP player that likes sbmm. I've met a few that are indifferent to it, but for every one of them there's 15 - 20 that despise it, and for good reason. It's interesting that you blame cbmm for your failures, yet you had around the same kd until Seasons 6 - 7. Ever thought using double bow was a bad idea? Now, you're still running a terrible PvP loadout, but are pushed to a positive kd because of sbmm. You also could have easily gone into literally ANY OTHER PLAYLIST besides QP in Seasons 6 - 7 when you were struggling, but for some reason decided to remain in the ONLY cbmm playlist, get your ass kicked, and then complain and ruin that playlist for better players. I chuckle at the fact you claim the parameters aren't strict because you didn't face an overwhelming amount of good players and lag every match. Again, your stats are still very average. Your ELO is high because you play a lot and it's a team game mode. I guarantee you that in my lobbies you would not maintain a positive kd... And I'm far from the top 1%, as most people are that push back against sbmm. Using the 1.1 M pvp playerbase to support sbmm is disingenous because you know the game is free to play now and the PvE playerbase has doubled as well. The ratio of PvP players to PvE players is higher though now. The people against sbmm haven't attacked anyone. I always read threads about it when I see them, and more often that not the people against cbmm are the first ones to start attacking people with insults, saying "you just wanna pub stomp", "you're scared of playing other good players", and all that nonsense. I've personally seen [i]you [/i]do it. You even accused me and several others of having bad connections because your anecdotal experience with sbmm didn't bring you any lag. So if you're going to make a holier than though post accusing a group of people of attacking people on your side of an argument, you should display that behavior yourself. Until then, you're just being a hypocrite.

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              • Well said.

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              • As an unbroken, I just want the social game modes such as classic mix and control to be CBMM, while the competitive game modes like survival stay SBMM.

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                • Edited by lCertifiedl: 11/20/2019 7:40:58 PM
                  Edited

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                • Y'know, I don't want there to be any hard feelings between us, Lost Sols. You know what I am? I'm a toxic player chasing toxic people. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! I just do things. The players has plans. Bungie's got plans. Y'know they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So when I say that you and this game was nothing personal, you know I'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and, uh, look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan, and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of nerfs and a couple of buffs, hmm? You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even when the plan is horrifying. If before I told the press that, like, OEM grants overshield, or the Recluse is the best SMG, nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one little nerf will come to one of them, well then everybody loses their minds! Introduce a little complaint. Upset the established sandbox and everything becomes meta. I'm an agent of meta. Oh, and you know the thing about meta? It’s fair.

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                  • 🍪

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                  • Edited by TJ_Dot: 11/19/2019 3:20:58 AM

                    Started a new topic: Fight for Matchmaking Preferences. END SBMM vs CBMM. Choose what YOU WANT.(18 Replies))

                  • Tldr Mad cos bad? Or happy cos crappy?

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                  • You expect someone to read all this crap add a TLDR fool

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                  • People still care about ELO?

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                    • Good post Sols. I totally agree about the status of the crucible, in terms of it being very good right now, especially when it comes to weapon diversity. There are a lot of good weapons in every slot and for every archetype(I wish autos were a bit better). However, I do take one issue with your premise, the assertion that all people that talk about having latency issues as a result of SBMM are lying. I have a router with geo filtering and I can illustrate very easily that SBMM Will grab out of region players far more frequently. Not to be a condescending jerk, but Ping really does matter man. The Internet is not magic, There are a lot of moving parts at play. For whatever reason, you are not experiencing this, I cannot assume that you are lying. You are saying that you’re having a better experience with SBMM, despite mine being abysmal... so I ask: What would be your issue with allowing players to choose how they connect like we could in Halo 3 and Reach?

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                      • Awesome video

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                        • Edited by blade329: 11/19/2019 9:40:18 PM
                          I too have seen a much improved Crucible experience since I've had access to SBMM. I'm an average player, but I do pretty well in Iron Banner. Believe it or not, I'm in the top 1.3% of players with an ELO of 1966 in that mode. Dumb luck. lol I also have a good time in Survival Freelance. This is the best PvP has worked for me since Forsaken launched. CBMM can drop dead for all I care. It sucks in Destiny. I still get lag and horrible matchups. It has no benefit for me.

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                          • Edited by TJ_Dot: 11/19/2019 5:00:07 AM
                            I offer you the middle ground rooted in Bungie's past that so many of you are so inclined to forget about, presented by one of those guys you love soooooo much. ([i]actually watch it[/i]) [i][b]Preferences[/b][/i] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/254413374?sort=0&page=0 Now if only people fought for the ability to choose instead of [b]caring about themselves[/b] and acting like higher tier people deserve to have a bad/unenjoyable/laggy experience. God I could use my lack of over intense involvement with Cruiclbe and conclude that regardless of whatever it is, it's the same damn experience either way, however I'm mindful of both ends and while I favor one over the other for this kind of PvP, if you asked for a compromise, Preferences would be it. I wouldn't use my avoidance of the meta as some sort of soapbox either. I actually think it's laughable you say [quote][b]I 100% believe that everyone should have the ability to have a great Crucible experience including the top .01% of players in the world,[/b] but I don't see them wanting to find any middle ground as they wage war daily to try to get Bungie to remove skill from matchmaking again.[/quote] Meanwhile [b]you offer no middle ground[/b] either. It's not about compromise to you, none of you ever even try to do it when arguing for SBMM. It's about only you, I'm convinced of it. People who want SBMM don't want a compromise. If they did, then they would have spent the last year trying for that instead of [b]only fighting for what they want.[/b] It was done to no consideration of those who didn't want it because [b]they didn't care[/b]. That is what's selfish about this whole thing. Not the people who "want to stomp noobs". Not the people who "want to pad their stats". Not the people who think it's a better environment to improve in. Not the people who just want to relax. [b]THIS.[/b] Sick and tired of this garbage "taking of the moral high ground". Consider [b]EVERYONE[/b] when you want to change the game.

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                            • I need some clarification on the differences between CBMM and SBMM. The way I understand it... CBMM tries to match you with others who have a quality connection, but skill may vary. This seems to me like perfect lobbies for good players. meaning you may be the best one in the lobby. Creating a pub stomp environment, with little opportunity to improve. On the other hand, bad lobbies for lower tier players that will probably get the sauce and learn very little in the process. SBMM seems to put more emphasis on skill, creating fairer lobby’s on the average. However, lag can cause problems if the wrong person ends up in your lobby. The lobbies, currently seem fair to me. Not easy, but fair. I feel like I learn more now. I hypothesize this is from encountering players that are of equal skill and play smarter than me, or from at least a slightly more skilled player. SBMM just feels like the best crucible learning environment to me. What am I missing? If CBMM is the better of the two options, then I genuinely want to know why.

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                              • That was a long but good read. [quote]Last year I fell in love with bows and over the course of the year I notched 1765 bow kills. To this point in Season 8, I have 3091 bow kills. I'm going to double what I did in all of year 2 in Season 8, and here's where that gets really significant; I'm using a bow for 99.9% of my engagements be they ranged, mid or CQC.[/quote] My weapon of choice is still Redrix with over 2.7k crucible kills, and I used to to climb to Legend for my NF. My biggest complaint with the current Crucible: There are PLENTY of desertions and disconnects -- much higher than past seasons. I think a short 10 minute crucible suspension would do wonders for those who disconnect and do not rejoin the match within 3 minutes. ;)

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                              • If you haven’t had no issues with lag or load times then you aren’t playing crucible. Every match it seems to take forever for match to load once you get a team. This is comp and solo playlist. Then you get in a match people be glitching not taking damage and I shot with primary. Since shadow keep the lag is worse the. It ever was in D1. Personally I think Bungie drop servers when they Spilt with Activison seeing how when I am matched with players from other countries it is worse and will not get into the packet loss since I. These matches it appears only half my shots are registering as hits. But as long as you have had a good experience, guess thats all that matters. We will forget all about the post complaints of lag and load times. It has been my experience that people like you saying there is no lag I. Game that it is you that is lagging

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                              • [quote]I 100% believe that everyone should have the ability to have a great Crucible experience including the top .01% of players in the world, but I don't see them wanting to find any middle ground as they wage war daily to try to get Bungie to remove skill from matchmaking again.[/quote] It's not just the top ".01%". The bigger problem is catering to the streamer crowd - designing a game for the streamer crowd. PvP videos are not near as impressive when streamers end the game mid pack. They want the 75+ kill games where they have 50+ kills more than any other player. That's unethical matchmaking.

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