Destiny 2
Destiny 2 players have been debating a controversial change to Trials of Osiris matchmaking that Bungie implemented this weekend. The new rules are that once you go flawless in a weekend, the game will then match you with other flawless players for that weekend going forward. You enter into an entirely separate pool.
This does two main things that Bungie sees as positives:
- It “cleans out” the normal pool so less good players can have a better and better time as the weekend goes on, progressing further in a card or getting flawless themselves.
- It retains more of a level of challenge for higher skill players, keeping Trials as an endgame skill-based activity, where at least after your first flawless, continuing to go flawless still “means something,” given the harder pool you’re in.
But this has split the playerbase in terms of opinion, with many higher skill players not enjoying the added burden and many lower skill players thinking it’s great. And yet as Bungie continues to experiment with this new matchmade era of Trials, I think ultimately, this idea is going to be killed for one main reason.
Destiny 2 has been all about opening itself up the past few years. For a while, that’s been cross save, allowing players to hop between platforms. Then it was the game going free-to-play, to bring in even more people. Then, this season, we have cross play, meaning you can play with friends on other platforms. The easier it is to play with other people, no matter who or where they are, is a core tenet of the game.
Destiny 2
The problem? The idea of the Flawless Pool is kind of shattering that in terms of trials.
The main issue I see here is that going flawless essentially “poisons” your card for the rest of the weekend. As such, I keep seeing people complain about running into situations where they have gone flawless, but now they don’t want to play with other friends who have not yet gone flawless, as they’re dragging them up into a higher skill pool, and their games are going to be much harder, if not often borderline impossible.
I haven’t gone flawless yet this weekend, but it’s easy to see how I could run into this situation. Last week, I played with some talented readers and went flawless, but after that, I would be doing active harm to my friends in my clan if I partied up with them and played Trials, dragging them into the flawless pool. It’s why you’re now seeing LFGs say things like “must not have gone flawless” yet.
Simply put, this is too divisive. Players are discouraged from grouping up with friends who have gone flawless because of the dramatic increase in difficulty it creates. This is partially about carries, sure, as I don’t know why Bungie wants to make carrying harder, as that’s something they’ve embraced before (it’s even part of the title requirement), but even if you’re just trying to play, I can see this split pool system getting in the way. You are creating a situation where it’s better for someone to solo queue in the normal pool than to play with friends in the flawless pool.
Certainly, last week wasn’t perfect. And for me personally, I have noticed an “easier” pool this time around in my lower skill bracket. But fundamentally I just think this breaks a core tenet of Trials by splitting the playerbase like this, and separating out teams due to their flawless/non-flawless status. As such, I don’t see this sticking around.
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