Since the rework it got in Revenant or Heresy, it has no doubt become more rewarding and to an extent, easier. The trials passage iirc was changed so just winning 7 matches would earn an adept weapon, and the Lighthouse passage to give better rewards at the 3-5-7 winstreaks, and staying on that card would basically guarantee adept weapons on every win. Sounds great on paper, but players of course lost the Mercy for a single loss, traded instead for Mercy on losses against stacks if you're playing solo. But now that the vendors have been reworked, we're able to get armor instead of what was otherwise almost if not exclusively weapons after matches. And MM has to my experience since the first or second time Exalted Truth was the featured weapon last season been beyond screwy, but we'll get to that in a minute. Let's get back to rewards. I'm 444 at the highest and after just a lot of bad matches, swapped to the Trials passage from the Lighthouse passage. After completing it, my reward was a T3 cloak. When I'm consistently getting T4 from everything else, that was a massive waste due to the fact it was armor, lower tier at that, and obviously not even fusion material. T3 are comparable to old adepts, yes, but still inferior due to not having access to adept/ enhanced mods. T5 is basically the new "adept", so it wasn't an unreasonable assumption that it would be the reward, but that wasn't the case. Going back to the lighthouse passage. The 5 winstreak did thankfully give T5s, but let's say RNG wasn't kind. As for how balancing has worked? Last I remember, the trials rework was changed to be a mix between win based and SBMM. But here has been all those matches so far as of the time of posting: Win 0-5, 6 matches 1-5, 6 matches 2-5, 4 matches 3-5, 4 matches 4-5, 3 matches Loss 0-5, 4 matches 1-5, 4 matches 2-5, 5 matches 3-5, 4 matches 4-5, 4 matches This data is not including matches I left as I don't think those are included in the Trials report. That is I think 3 or 4 matches during the 0-5 and 1-5 stomps. So while the completed matches are 50/50, it's lower than that because uneven matches are more likely to appear than what the intended 50% ratio Bungie wants on top of how the matchmaking is supposed to work. On average, I wouldn't need to reset my card more than 2-3 times before to go flawless before the rework. But at this point, it's more like banging your head against a wall when it reaches 20+ resets and the only thing to show for it is a single T5 from a prime drop. Something needs to change. Stomps like this have no excuse for being so frequent to the point Trials isn't worth playing until you're 450+, and if T5 still isn't dropping until a certain winstreak or flawless, it feels like a better option to just wait until Bungie makes new gear in other activities to replace what they've got now in Trials. Why struggle trying to get a god roll Aureous Neutralizer when you can just wait a season or two and they'll no doubt make another comparable spread shot hand cannon in the kinetic slot? It's not fun, it's not fair, it shouldn't even be possible. I KNOW how good I am at this game. If MM actually worked like it's supposed to, I would've gone flawless at least 5 times since very by now. Instead I've had to reset it almost THIRTY TIMES compared to the usual 2-3 before the rework NO ONE asked for. I'm done. I'm staying out of trials until I'm 450 or until Bungie introduced more loss forgiveness because this is inexcusable. It's damn near impossible to go flawless. There's no reason anyone has this much trouble. Because the closest to a reasonable explanation for this is: * Teammates who lack thumbs/ awareness * Top 0.1% tryhards for enemies * Cheaters, which may as well be allowed at this point considering how infested the game is with them * Or Trials is taking into account my comp and QP rank. I'm in the promotion series to Ascendent and will be if I win the next match, and due to being a complete menace in Scorched, I'm #249 last I saw. Meaning the game thinks I'm so good it HAS to put me with bad teammates or against people who are actually that good to "balance out" the matchmaking. Punishing me for being good with a scorch cannon by putting me against people who seemingly never miss with any weapon and have mastered movement to the point you don't even see them turn or sprint before sliding in a fight. Those are the only possible explanations. I can guarantee skill is not the issue. Either trials needs another rework, a lot more forgiveness, or it needs to just be removed and the loot moved elsewhere because it simply doesn't work in the current state. Alternatively, grant more wins based on performance and score differences. Edit: as stated in replies to other comments, I even went back in to try and prove a point to a friend who did go flawless in less than 10 resets that MM has to be rigged. My personal reset count has increased to around 35 or higher and out of the 14 or so matches I did. I'd need to check trials report, but: 7 losses in a row 3 wins after And 1 win and 1 loss after another several times Most if not all were 5-0 and 5-1 matches. I don't care how bad the matchmaking is, when this is supposed to be a competitive game mode, this should be statistically impossible, especially when we consider the fact bungie has many times in the past altered MM for the purpose of a ≈50% win rate. I'm not the best, but I must be doing something right if I've basically reached Ascendant solo, a 1.89 overall kd, and have consistently gone flawless in the past every week I tried before this season. I know how good I am and this shouldn't be possible. Something clearly isn't working right.