Long thought to be one of the biggest problems in Destiny 2, Bungie is finally addressing team-shotting and time-to-kill in the Crucible. In the latest Bungie blog post, they addressed the community feedback and detailed how they are planning to make the Crucible more exciting in the next update.
At the outset, they talk about refining the core experience, rather than making superficial changes. Their sights are set on re-working systems, mechanics, and values that will fix the Crucible experience to make it more rewarding for individual players. What Bungie ultimately found in their research is that dissatisfaction with time-to-kill was one of those superficial things that stems from a deeper problem.
This came in the form of feedback that stated the game was too slow, or the core loop was too stale. We agree, and have worked with Sandbox to increase the pace of the Crucible as a whole[…]So alongside all of the great changes the Sandbox team has made, we’re setting our sights on making the Crucible a faster, more dynamic, and more action-packed experience on the activity side.
The sandbox changes they talk about are weapon buffs all around that will ultimately do more damage, resulting in faster kills. It will also mean more ability up-time, so overall, time-to-kill will be faster. That’s not all that’s changing in the Crucible though. Sandbox updates weren’t enough. The team wanted to make some Crucible specific changes that they feel will improve the core experience further, leading to more exciting moments and spikes of intensity.
Respawn and Revive were tuned in all game modes
- Player respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced to 2s.
- Player respawn timers for Survival have been reduced to 7s
- Revive lockout time in Countdown has been reduced to 7s
- Players no longer lose Revive Tokens on death
Power Ammo respawn timers were adjusted across the board
- Power Ammo respawn timers in Iron Banner have been reduced ~50%
- Power Ammo respawn timers for all Quickplay modes have been reduced ~30%.
- Power Ammo respawn timers in Survival have been reduced ~40%.
- Power Ammo respawn timers in Countdown have been reduced ~25%
Ammo counts have been adjusted in relation to these timers, and in relation to weapon type.
- In almost all cases weapons either retained the same ammo count or received a buff. Swords and rockets were brought down to stay in line with the rest of the weapon offering.
Enemy players now drop their Power Ammo on death.
- This brick is now networked to all players regardless of faction. Secure the power ammo to keep it from your foes or steal off your enemy’s ghost, but be quick because these bricks don’t stay in the world forever.
All these changes coalesce to create an experience that relies less on clumping with your team and focuses more on rewarding quick reflexes, thinking, and movement.
The competitive playlist is also receiving some changes to result in more clutch plays. The goals for competitive were largely the same, to reduce team clumping, reward individual plays, and incentivize flanks, however they went about solving this problem a little differently. Bungie will be removing the tracker from all competitive game modes to focus the game on better team communication and reward clutch underdog plays that can allow sudden shifts in who is winning.
With those goals in mind we looked to take a big step in shifting the gameplay in Competitive and Trials: starting in 1.1.4 we’ve opted to remove the Tracker from all Competitive and Trials game modes.
This means more communication is required to secure victories in Competitive and Trials matches. It also means that a crispy flank with Power Ammo is all the more powerful. Subverting expectations and reading opponents is more potent in matches with no Tracker. In playtests we’ve already seen some clutch underdog comebacks and we can’t wait to see what you all do in Competitive and Trials starting with 1.1.4. That said, we’re always listening and reacting to feedback so please tell us what you think about this change and all of our 1.1.4 changes once they go live.
Destiny 2 update 1.1.4 is a major sandbox shift for the game as Bungie hopes to win back players before the release of Expansion 2 in May, and the major expansion later this year. We’re nearing the end of the Destiny 2 roadmap of content, so it’s likely we’ll hear more from them soon about plans for May and beyond.
[Source: Bungie]
