My first Flawless game was during its first weekend launch, March 18th, 2020. To say that it went smooth would be a lie, because I spent more than 10hrs competing for the Lighthouse infested with cheaters. It was by far the worst experience I’ve had in Destiny since Trials of the Nine. But I’m stubborn – and my PVP stats suffered for it because I needed that Flawless seal ASAP. Spending several weekends rummaging through the most difficult matches of cheaters teleporting behind me, instantly gaining their supers in the first round….and using a Sniper Rifle as an Auto Rifle…. It was amazing! (not).
Several seasons has passed with small iterations and tweaks to entice players, but it didn’t work. Cheaters and Recovs (pro players borrowing other’s accounts to gain flawless runs for money) ruined Trials population to the point that it was pretty much only filled with sweaty players. Ongoing issues like lack of incentives, no new PVP maps and no real effort to fix their anti-cheat system was bringing this game down – with months of silence from Bungie, content creators were concerned for sure. Players like MTashed leaving the game entirely, ZKMushroom and IFrostBolt playing Apex to fill the void were sending a loud message – Destiny needs fixing.
Of course I know Bungie cares, and I have a sense of how development works, but the Destiny community are irrational and impatient.
Finally, a TWAB hits with news regarding fixes – BattleEye was soft launching into Season 15 with a slew of changes coming to Trials of Osiris – so good that truth be told, this revamp is the best thing to happen to Destiny since Cayde-6’s ramen.
Trials of Osiris is Finally Fixed.
Previously in Trials, there were no way solo players could join the pinnacle PVP activity – so it was gated to Fireteams of whatever cap Power the season was in. Oh yeah, it’s Power enabled of course. Now this time around, Solo or even doubles can enter Trials with a chance to earn rewards.
Speaking of rewards….there’s a crap tonne to earn. Before, the loot pool cycled in a weekly rotation with it only being obtainable via winning columns of 3, 5 and 7. Each game would give you Trials Token for a chance of additional loot. However, it was so demanding of a method that no one really wanted to try hard enough for it, even if weapons like Igneous Hammer was in the mix.
Now, Saint-14’s vendor is revamped in a similar fashion Shaxx and Zavala were, with each rank up netting you rewards, a Trials Engram with a chance to get ANY of the loot in the pool and more – additionally, you no longer need wins on MATCHES to earn rewards, it’s all wins on rounds instead. If you want an Adept weapon – you no longer need Flawless, just 7 wins in a card whether you win or lose, a Trials Engram and boom! An Adept weapon of the week! It’s pricey, but absolutely worth it for players who aren’t PVP savvy.
Also, if you do go Flawless, you no longer need to with each class for the glow to happen on all Trials armor sets. That’s awesome.
Changes to matchmaking has been a real treat too; at first, it was card based on the first 3 matches then Skill-Based in the last 4. Now it seems to be Skill-Based on the first 2 matches and the rest card based. This change could be one method to discourage cheaters perhaps, I don’t know – all I can say is this feels absolutely like the right decision.
Oh, three-peaking and emoting? Gone. Like, gone gone. Take that, poggers.
Ever since the revamp, I have gone Flawless 10+ times with matches that felt sweaty, but fair. I know people who aren’t PVP players going Flawless which is a good sign that more players can be encouraged to try the mode out. This also means more players in the activity which means far less sweaty matches, more of an activity that can be enjoyed.
Oh, in addition to cheaters getting banned for cheating – you can also get your account banned if you pay someone to do recovs in it. That means, we will face players who owns said accounts and not eSports players posing as 0.9kd accounts stomping low skilled players for easy cash.
Imagine the hate in that pocket of the PVP community – I won’t enable them by talking about it here.
I can easily say that I had an amazing time running cards with all types of players. It felt right, it felt like what it should have a year ago. I want to come back for more and can’t wait to do so next weekend. Finally, the feeling of Golden Age Destiny is coming and with The Witch Queen, it’s looking like we will be peaking soon.
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