Bungie plans fixes for Destiny 2 PvP’s three-peeking, Trials matchmaking

Bungie will start to improve Destiny 2a player-to-player experience later this year, assistant director Joe Blackburn writes in a new blog. The team plans to eliminate unpleasant practices such as’ three-peek ‘, and will balance the subclasses, increase safety and review the reward structure of Osiris’ trials.

First is the removal of three-pronged. Three-peek is a unique cheese tactic in Destiny 2 who use swords and emotions. When Destiny players draw a sword – even if they have no ammunition – or use an emote in the game, the game switches to a third-person camera. This is not a problem with most activities, but in competitive multiplayer games it makes players look around the corner. While Destiny is a first-person game, three-peeking players provide a lot of extra information about where their enemies are. Everyone can watch three times, but it is considered a cheap or ‘try-hard’ tactic in the community – and Bungie never meant that this tactic would exist.

To solve this problem, Blackburn said, players will no longer be able to pull out ‘third-person weapons’ (interesting wording, since swords are currently the only third-person weapon) if they do not have ammunition. Bungie will also eliminate emotions in the competitive playlist and in Trials of Osiris. Players can still use swords in these modes, but only if they have ammunition, which is very rare. Blackburn said this change for Destiny 2 season 15, which is likely to be in effect this fall.

Bungie also plans to balance the Stasis and Light subclasses. Since its launch in Out of the light, Stasis dominated the crucible. It’s too strong for Bungie’s taste – and the Destiny community – so the studio will help it increase the strength of the Arc, Solar and Void subclasses.

Image: Bungie

Blackburn discussed the major changes to each Stasis subclass in detail, noting that these changes will also target players frozen by the hostile Stasis forces, making them more likely to survive the experience. Blackburn noted that after these changes, Stasis must still feel powerful in PvE – that is at least Bungie’s goal.

Fraud is another major issue in Destiny PvP, and although Blackburn has not released any incoming anti-cheat software, it has announced plans to combat the issue. He said Bungie plans to double the size of its security team over the next 12 months, as well as research players to better understand what’s going on in the game. It is especially important that the studio has started taking legal action against some fraudulent websites and software.

While not usually worth speculating on, anti-cheat strategies are something that Bungie has reason to talk about broadly, rather than giving details. In the past, Bungie developers have told Polygon that they will not share specific details, in an effort to keep the fraudsters one step ahead.

Fraud mainly affects the Trials of Osiris playlist, but this is not the only problem of the mode. Blackburn closed out its segment on PvP by announcing a number of changes he calls the ‘Trials of Osiris Reward Structure’.

The first one is pretty ambiguous: to ‘improve the overall health of the Trials match pool, both by encouraging a larger audience to get involved, and to better define the separation of skill levels.’ This apparently indicates that players can expect matchmaking that feels more like their skill level, rather than the bad / streamer / cheater roulette that Trials is now.

Blackburn said Bungie also plans to reorganize rewards, giving players incentive not to recover their Triir or Osiris card if they lose. Normally, players are reinstated if they lose, because that means they can not go flawless and get the best reward. And since Trials of Osiris’s matchmaking system tries to match players with a similar number of wins, the first or second match of each card has a large number of inhabitants, making it more random. Blackburn said players in his ideal world should have a reason to keep moving forward after a loss, which will also prevent them from flooding the short players of no or low profit.

Interestingly, Blackburn also mentioned a desire to have solo players adventure through Trials of Osiris. The mode currently requires three players to participate in a pre-made Fireteam.

With Trials as it is at present, it is very difficult for an average or even good Destiny player to get a flawless ticket every week, even with hours of play. These changes are not too specific, but resolving complaints about matchmakers should help a lot in solving some of the major issues of the mode.

All of these crucible changes should be encouraging for players, as many complaints regarding PvP have been seen over the past few months. Although Bungie has to keep many promises next year or so, it certainly shows that players’ concerns do not fall on deaf ears.

In its developer blog post, Bungie also revealed plans to remove its weapons destruction system and announced a delay The Witch Queen expansion.