Like Ive mentioned in the post, specials are a way to counteract the symptoms of long TTK and radar and have enabled more aggressive playstyles. I just think, it is a suboptimal one and the constant necessity of changing the ammo economy shows, that it is not working that well. I would argue radar has the exact opposite effect. People rather stay around the chokepoint because they know, the enemy would see them moving away. The radar punishes you for doing flanks and so on because it prevents you from getting the surprise moment. Moving away from your team and thereby risking to get outnumbered discourages you from moving around. Without it or another form of detection like a minimap based on noise, teamfights would not get forced as hard and people could move around more freely, try finding other angles without immediately getting punished for it, use the surprise of appearing unexpectedly to get the first damage or kill in. Of course skill gap plays a hand in it. In most shooters Ive played so far, playing aggressive was high risk, high reward, so it could be the most effective way to play, but camping was safer and thereby done by those, that arent handling themselves as good. Battlefield is a great example. Camping is a huge problem in the entire series and many people are lying on some mountaintop all match. These people can cause immense frustration and from their perspective, the few kills they get without any risk of dying might look good, but in the end, the scoreboard usually shows that the higher skilled offensive players have been much more successful. The constant radar in D2 makes offensive playstyles, even including specials and other OHK options, high risk, but the reward stays the same. Movement and gunplay obviously form huge potential, but I would not go as far as saying, that PvP survived by itself. If it wasnt constantly luring in PvE players for PvE weapons, it would have been dead long ago. Competitive shows best that people dont really seem to be interested in the gameplay alone and improving in it.

What are you suggesting as a reasonable TTK? The current ones are up there with the fastest we’ve had in Destiny. I’m not in complete disagreement on the radar thing — I just think there is a balance between it giving too much info and too little. It’s not just about camping for long periods of time, but also about situations where people can quickly hide for a few seconds knowing someone’s likely to pass through that area. People already do it, but the current radar discourages it from becoming too frequent. I agree that PvP has relied on PvE mains to keep it going. Sometimes chasing the PvE crowd causes problems, but it’s also helped to create a PvP that is unique to Destiny. I’d rather Bungie made Crucible the best possible version of Destiny PvP. If it’s something completely different (and PvP focussed), I’d rather it was a different game. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Marathon.

Something more into the direction of CoD, Battlefield,... generally other shooters with a similar (potential) pace. In other games revolver headshots kill immediately, one mag of an assault rifle is consistently enough for three kills. Destiny has high pace, but a TTK that does not fit it and unnecessarily slows down the gameplay - wasting the potential of good mechanics. Like Ive already said, this is pretty much unfixable. It would have needed to be a decision made before designing everything else around it. You have campers in every game. Yes, Destiny might push a very defensive playstyle, but it counteracts ratting in corners, which is much less profitable here than elsewhere. A weaker form of enemy detection and lower TTKs could make that more popular. I just think, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. I prefer having one or two people in every lobby being so bad they see no other way than searching the darkest possible corner, when more aggressive playstyles become possible, the fast and agile movement actually becomes useful, map knowledge valuable, the player's skill overall more important than the stuff they use. I also dont really expect this to become a big problem. If you run around with the slightest amount of caution and keep looking around yourself, you might spot and kill a rat before it even got over the surprise effect and peeker's advantage. This again would greatly increase the importance of map knowledge - knowing popular/logical spots where people might hide. I dont get why people keep coming up with this "Destiny-PvP" argument. Yes, Destiny PvP is unique, part of that is unfortunately, that it is uniquely bad. Some stuff became the standard for a reason. There is a reason why I cant think of a single other game that designs its most competitive mode around win streaks, where abilities/gadgets can feel more important than weapons in some situations, where you are constantly given the enemy position and so on. I would gladly trade uniqueness for a proper PvP. A good generic PvP provides a more fun, more competitive experience than a mediocre (at best) Destiny-PvP. Use Destiny mechanics to sustain a trace of the game's identity, but dont sacrifice enjoyment for the sole reason of trying to be different from other PvPs.

It seems like you want a different game entirely. Destiny is not a PvP game. It’s a PvE game with some PvP on the side. The two are supposed to overlap. The reason people talk about the importance of Destiny’s unique PvP is because they’ve enjoyed playing it! It’s been very popular at various points in Destiny’s history. People like me just want to see the best possible version of it. Personally, I don’t want Crucible to be CoD/Battlefield with a Destiny skin on top, or just the “Destiny mechanics to sustain a trace of the game's identity”. Again, if Bungie wants to do that, they may as well make a different game.

Again, sacrificing quality for uniqueness is wrong. There is a reason stuff becomes the standard. D2-PvP is not known for being unique and different, its known for being bad.

I’m not saying they should sacrifice quality for uniqueness. I’m saying that quality in Destiny’s PvP is going to look different to quality in PvP focussed games, because it is linked to the more dominant PvE side of the game. For me, the lack of investment is a much bigger issue.

The reward structure might be linked to PvE a lot, but basic PvP design can happen independently. Of course the lack of investment plays a role with that. We would have two separate sandboxes if Bungie cared and developing different mechanics for PvP than PvE needs time as well. It just sounds like you would rather have copied PvE mechanics in PvP just to stay as close to the D2 PvE feel as possible instead of getting different PvP mechanics that simply work better, even when they go more into the direction of a generic FPS PvP instead of the unique D2 approach, that just wouldnt be working without PvE pulling players in.

Yes, I’d rather Destiny PvP stay close to PvE. That’s how it’s always been, through good times and bad. It’s Bungie’s philosophy to do it that way. Crucible is deliberately built as a more chaotic and less skill demanding variety of PvP. That’s in its DNA as far as I’m concerned. I prefer the idea of adding more generic PvP experiences through certain game modes and modifiers (which is something they seem more willing to try recently), but I think the core PvP experience should align with PvE. Completely separating PvE and PvP is possible, but I think it steers away from Destiny’s identity. If they drastically shorten the TTKs, reduce abilities, reduce the variety of weapons and builds, etc… IOW flatten everything out, is it still Destiny? For me, no, because part of the fun of Destiny is the chaos. Competing with the best PvP games requires more focus, a bigger budget and less strings attached. That’s why I think a brand new project is a better move for Bungie to attempt the sort of thing you’re describing.

What good times? lol Ive played since release and there was never a time, where Crucible was generally considered good. The lack of competitiveness and skill gap plays a huge part in that. This is a basic requirement of any PvP to work and it is mostly missing here. Chaos might be fun initially, but once you start taking PvP any serious, it is a hindrance for any fun and enjoyment. "Bungie's philosophy" is going against anything that makes PvP work.

I think this can be boiled down to “different people like different things”. Some people don’t want a generic PvP experience in Destiny (and some don’t want a generic PvP experience in any game). Bungie isn’t trying to make a generic PvP experience. Players who want that are not the target audience. I’ve enjoyed reading your perspective on this, but players who’ve never enjoyed Destiny’s PvP are not the ultimate judgement on how good it is. Crucible has been one of Destiny’s most popular activities since D1Y1 and it’s not down to everyone miserably forcing themselves to endure it. Enough people have enjoyed it for it to be successful.

But who actually ever did enjoy PvP? Which is the target group Bungie sustains their vision (or rather lack thereof) of the Crucible for? The goal of a unique D2-PvP? There has never been anything but criticism towards it. The only praise it has ever gotten was directed towards changes to it, that barely improved anything, but the core design was never considered good by the general audience. Every person I play with, mostly thousands of hours into the game with much of it spend in PvP as well, considers the PvP garbage. A few exceptions aside, Ive only ever seen people voice their approval of the PvP design, that clearly profit from the lack of competitiveness and skill gap and/or build their career as a content creator on its popularity (while often painting a wrong picture through manipulated matchmaking and abuse of bad balance). Not to say there is not any enjoyment to get out of it, but not nearly enough to keep stubbornly insisting on sustaining the uniqueness for the sake of... what exactly? Trying to be different is certainly an argument to attract people. xDefiant is trying to lure CoD-players in with different design choices in the same core genre. If a unique approach to a genre fails though, like the Crucible definitely did and continues to do, why keep enforcing it, when more generic mechanics would provide more fun, more competitiveness and ultimately more players to keep it alive without forcing PvE-players to play? Ive had my times, where I had fun in PvP, everyone will have those, but I and likely the large majority of players (of course there is no data on this, anecdotal evidence is as good as it gets) would agree, that from an objective perspective, the PvP simply is not good, again, for disregarding crucial PvP principals (like competitiveness, skill gap, progression, …). Of course its not 99% of the player base that exclusively play PvP for PvE reasons and the movement and gunplay undeniably form a proper base for PvP, that can be engaging even when everything around it fails, but if you look at PvP alone - pretend, it was its own game that played itself the exact same, just without the Destiny brand and the PvE raising this brand's popularity - do you actually believe it would ever be able to build a sufficient playerbase? Games with a much better core and more care put into them fail due to a lack of content/innovation/improvement (all present in the Crucible), that simply causes a decline in interest, which Bungie continuously delays by increasing the power creep and add a new, exciting, slightly better roll of a weapon for people to farm.

[quote]There has never been anything but criticism towards it.[/quote] That’s simply not true. [quote]Every person I play with, mostly thousands of hours into the game with much of it spend in PvP as well, considers the PvP garbage.[/quote] So they spent much of their thousands of hours playing something they think is garbage? I wouldn’t put it past some people, but I don’t believe it’s the majority of Crucible regulars. [quote]if you look at PvP alone - pretend, it was its own game that played itself the exact same, just without the Destiny brand and the PvE raising this brand's popularity - do you actually believe it would ever be able to build a sufficient playerbase?[/quote] If Crucible was a completely different game? We’re going in circles here. Crucible is built the way it is to be a part of Destiny. If it’s not a part of Destiny, it is a different game and would have to be built differently. It would be more like what you’re describing and it’d need a much bigger budget. I don’t expect Marathon to be a Crucible clone. I expect it to be very different — better servers, more balanced, more skill demanding, etc.

[quote]That’s simply not true.[/quote] How so? You can search for "Destiny 2 crucible is great" on Google and still get nothing but criticism and hate. Even MW3, which is considered one of the worst AAA-releases of 2023, managed to get praise for its multiplayer. D2 just gets a fill of rage posts, videos discussing the state of Crucible (which obviously must have some occasion) and articles describing yet another low of player satisfaction. I think, the claim, that even those players that enjoy the Crucible would agree that it is garbage from an objective point of view, is not that far off. [quote] So they spent much of their thousands of hours playing something they think is garbage? I wouldn’t put it past some people, but I don’t believe it’s the majority of Crucible regulars.[/quote] Like I said, PvP is not complete torture all the time, there are moments of enjoyment, but there are just not nearly enough to justify sticking to unusual and unsuccessful design decision just for the sake of doing stuff differently. What do you even consider "crucible regulars"? I have encountered many people, that would play Crucible regularly, but most of those play for rotating weapon drops or simply a break from the very repetitive PvE gameplay. Crucible regular doesnt equal Crucible enjoyer. I think, the Survival population before the idiotic comp rework made pretty clear, how many people were actually interested in a in raw PvP, how many would play without any relevant PvE rewards in return: close to none. [quote]If Crucible was a completely different game? We’re going in circles here. Crucible is built the way it is to be a part of Destiny. If it’s not a part of Destiny, it is a different game and would have to be built differently. It would be more like what you’re describing and it’d need a much bigger budget. I don’t expect Marathon to be a Crucible clone. I expect it to be very different — better servers, more balanced, more skill demanding, etc.[/quote] Why do you keep defending D2 PvP when you realized yourself, that the Crucible with its gameplay is completely reliant on the existence of its PvE counterpart and the brand? If it is just a testing ground for you, a way to screw around with stuff against any players, that automatically implies that PvP is nothing but a bad byproduct. If it really was just an optional way to have fun, like private matches or bot lobbies in CoD, I would not complain about it and simply ignore it just like those bot lobbies. But Bungie designs the entire reward structure around it. There are weapons to gather in PvP, that are essential to PvE and vise versa. If Bungie deliberately designs Crucible as a big PvE counterpart with a synergizing reward structure, the PvP should reflect that and actually follow basic principles of PvP. But it doesnt for the sake of being this unique D2 playground most people try to avoid.