For a long time, Destiny 2 has been working on the Trials of Osiris. They want to create the best possible experience for PvP players and involve the community in it. However, instead of making the Trials more attractive and enjoyable, this PvP weekend became a catastrophic annoyance for players.
Bungie has been collecting statistical data and player feedback for the Trials of Osiris in Destiny 2 for quite some time. The goal is to improve the mode and make it more accessible to players. However, this has backfired significantly. The Trials in Destiny 2 experienced the largest drop in players last weekend in a long time. Players are angry and blame the new skill-based matchmaking for it.
A lot has been tested regarding the “Trials Lab” in the past weeks.
- A new focusable loot system was integrated in the 14th Saint.
- There were experiments with “Elimination.” In that mode, additional zones on the map have to be captured.
- “Freelance” allowed players to play solo more easily without encountering teams that would tear them apart.
- A timed Flawless pool was supposed to put sweat players and streamers together and separate them from regular PvP players (without 7 wins) on Sunday evening.
However, the Flawless pool had a disadvantage: What initially sounded good in theory has now become a problem. The Flawless pool created a sort of two-class system for players. If a friend went Flawless on Friday, a regular player couldn’t play with them on Sunday. This significantly increased the difficulty, leading to much harder matches.
We have already presented these initial changes to you in detail:
Additionally, the start time of the Flawless pool (for us 7:00 PM on Sunday) is quite impractical for most players who do not live in North, Central, or South America. Bungie had to admit this as well.
Trials of Osiris now have skill-based matchmaking
This is what Bungie has changed: Since the revised version with the Flawless pool has resulted in mixed feedback from the community, Bungie altered it again for last weekend. In the This-Week-at-Bungie-Blog from October 28, the studio announced that they will switch to a skill-based matchmaking system for the Trials of Osiris.
So their idea to make the matchmaking pool more skill-based now consists of completely removing the Flawless pool altogether.
How does the new matchmaking work? After the Flawless pool was removed, players primarily play against others with the same number of wins this weekend, regardless of how often they reset their card. This made the matches tend to be fairer. However, achieving 7 wins in a row was still hardly possible after the first run.
Here are the three adjustments to the current matchmaking in detail:
- Players are matched against others with the same number of wins, regardless of how often they reset their card.
- PvP pros who go Flawless 10 times a weekend will be paired with other players who (for example) have more than 70 wins on their cards, no matter how they achieved those.
- If no suitable players are found, the search will expand to less suitable players.
This is how fatal the adjustment is: Previously, players could still reset their Trials pass to zero. However, that’s no longer possible. Every win keeps increasing the difficulty of the next game. It keeps becoming harder and harder.
Bungie has clearly overshot the target. The community is now even more dissatisfied than before.
Players no longer wanted to participate: PvP sweat players and streamers who went Flawless multiple times over the weekend stopped playing because eventually, they were matched only against each other. Less experienced players noticed that it became increasingly difficult, even impossible, to achieve a continuous streak of victories. This has severely damaged the interest and confidence of players.
Luckyy10P, self-proclaimed anchorman of Destiny 2, tweeted after his wild Trials weekend: “Please revert this matchmaking!”
Aztecross, Destiny 2 PvP YouTuber, found it simply terrible. He played six hours of Trials of Osiris on Friday. His frustrations with the new matchmaking system were summarized in this video:
Trials record the largest drop in players in a long time
Bungie’s goal of attracting more players to the Trials does not promote this new matchmaking at all. In the first weekend of the Trials of Osiris in Season 15, 237,000 out of 750,000 players were still able to go Flawless.
According to the Destiny 2 Trials Report, however, only 358,000 players participated in the Trials of Osiris last weekend. Only 80,000 managed to go Flawless.
Bungie has already commented on this: Community manager dmg04 addressed the Trials in a tweet and reassured players. Bungie will continue to look at player numbers and statistics and will not let anything “rust.”
We will probably learn more on Thursday when Bungie releases its results for the last Trials weekend.
By the way: Bungie still has adjustments to make in endgame PvP. Currently, the experience for new players is also extremely poor. You can read why that is getting worse here:
Was your Trials weekend flawless? What do you think of the new matchmaking? Did Bungie want too much here and should the matchmaking be abolished again?
