Bungie said he is currently discussing the ‘3-peeking’ edition of Destiny 2, but no promises will be made.
3-peek, or third-person peek, is the act of forcing the camera from normally the first-person to third-person, giving PvP players an advantage because they can peek safely around the corners.
3-lure is a long problem in first person shooters with some third person elements, but it’s especially tricky in Destiny 2’s competitive multiplayer. Destiny 2 is a game full of legitimate mechanics that pulls back the camera in third person, including swords and emotions, and some players use it to gain the upper hand in Destiny’s Crucible, PvP arena.
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This week was a big appeal to change Destiny players at a high level, especially on social media, in response to the long-standing appearance of three-peek and exacerbated by its use in the ultra-hard PvP trial mode.
In response, Bungie’s general manager, Cozmo, started Twitter to say the development team discusses the issue of 3-peer, but can not promise that changes will be made.
“The team is aware of the feedback around 3-peer and is currently discussing possible options,” Cosmo said.
“No promises – as we are still investigating what changes are viable, as it is a complex issue affecting both emotions, swords and potential future weapons of third parties.”
As Cozmo suggests, this is a tricky affair. Bungie seems unlikely to want to take the use of swords out of the game – the weapon is well established and a powerful part of the overall meta of Destiny 2 PvP. And they can be fun!
And it seems even more unlikely that Bungie will pick up emotions from PvP. Players spend cash from the real world on emotions to show off in the field, and in PvP they are often used to taunt. Limit its use, and fewer people will buy it.
What should we do then? Redditor jdewittweb has suggested a solution that I’ve seen several times as part of this debate: include the player in an emote animation as soon as they start it (currently in Destiny you can animate an emote at will cancel). While this solution would mean three-tin remnants, there is a huge risk involved, especially if Bungie were to leave an open feeling for a minimum of five seconds. In the heat of battle, five seconds of captured time can mean certain deaths.
More difficult, however, is the issue of swords. In Destiny 2, swords are considered heavy weapons, and their use is therefore limited by the scarcity of heavy ammunition. One solution suggested is to make swords impossible unless they have ammunition, although there are problems here as well. Would it be difficult to pick up the ammunition if you disputed the heavy ammunition? Probably.
This is a daunting design challenge for Bungie, and all of these options will no doubt be discussed by the studio’s multiplayer designers at some point. Although there has been clear enough shouting this week to elicit a response from Cosmo to the question, how important is the proportion of players affected by 3-peer in the first place? It will be interesting to see if 3-peeking stays the way it is, or if the developer comes up with a way to keep the high-level PvP community happy with a change that also keeps the broader player base on board.