Destiny 2 will return to the Flawless pool and the familiar matchmaking system for the upcoming Trials of Osiris after player protests last week. The unpopular changes will be reversed.
“Sometimes you learn more when things are not going well.” With this statement in the TWaB, Bungie refers to the many protests from players regarding the matchmaking changes made during the last Trials weekend.
Matchmaking has long been a major point of criticism: Balanced matchmaking is a science of its own. Destiny 2 is no exception. The player compositions often feel unbalanced and stressful. The Flawless pool seemed an adequate solution, which also left players somewhat satisfied.
When Bungie removed the pool, it ruined the last Trials weekend.
What changes did Bungie make to matchmaking?
- Before the change, Destiny 2 players with 7 victories on their pass gained access to the special Flawless pool. This created a kind of time-based two-class system based on win-based matchmaking. The Flawless pool activated Sunday evening at 7 PM and separated regular players from the Trials sweaters and Flawless gods.
- After the abolition of the Flawless pool, players were matched based on the same number of wins, regardless of how many times they reset their card. This meant that PvP professionals, who achieve “Flawless” 10 times per weekend, would be matched with other players who (for example) have more than 70 wins on their cards, no matter how they achieved those wins. Each victory increased the difficulty of the next match. It kept getting harder and harder.
Although it sounds like a good idea in theory, it did not quite work out as Bungie had hoped. The feedback followed promptly. Players found it simply terrible.
Statistics show how poor the decision was: Compared to three weeks ago, Trials games were down about 33% overall. That’s already a lot and unfortunately led to players with many victories having to wait more than five minutes to find a match. They subsequently played an average of two hours less Trials. There was also a significant increase in one-sided matches. Ironically, Bungie hoped to reduce this by replacing the Flawless pool.
There were just too many disadvantages: Although there was also positive news, most data turned out to be either negative or neutral. Combined with the feedback that Bungie was overwhelmed with on social media channels, it was shared in the This Week at Bungie blog that they plan to return to pass-based matchmaking with the familiar Flawless pool for the foreseeable future.
We can’t do without community feedback
However, this test was not a waste. Bungie states that they were able to gain valuable data from the experiment. As part of the Trials Labs, they will continue to collect this active player feedback.
This makes every Trials player a guinea pig, but should lead to success in the long run. Especially since the developer plans to continue optimizing Trials of Osiris until the mode feels good for all players.
What else is Bungie planning? The Trials of Osiris will return on November 12. Again with Trials Labs. Nothing is known yet about the final version of Trials of Osiris, which will be released on February 2, 2022 with “The Witch Queen“. Until then, players will have to remain patient while Bungie reports on the tests in the weekly TWaB.
There will be no Trials today, as we have a Iron Banner week. But next week the event will return and also brings back the Flawless pool along with pass-based matchmaking.
It seems that the system actually works well. Or do you not believe that it is a good solution to separate players in a time-based manner? After all, it means that players have to wait until Sunday evening if they want to play their games in peace. Is it worth it for you?
