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Edited by Stari:
4/19/2026 4:35:32 PM
18
Constant Desync / “Instant Death” Feeling in PvP – Anyone Else?
Hi all,
I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with PvP in Destiny 2, because lately a large number of my matches feel extremely off from a networking perspective.
What I’m experiencing:
Enemies appear on my screen and I’m dead almost instantly
It feels like they’ve already shot me multiple times before I even see them
I often don’t hear individual shots—just a burst of damage all at once
In gunfights, I feel consistently “behind,” like the opponent is ahead in time
The best way to describe it:
It feels like I’m seeing the fight too late, not reacting too slow.
Important context (my setup):
Wired connection (Ethernet)
Fiber internet (~1 Gbps+)
No other devices using bandwidth
Low-latency gaming monitor
Playing on console (PS5)
So this doesn’t seem like a basic connection or hardware issue on my side.
Possible causes I’m considering:
- Peer-to-peer networking effects
Since Destiny 2 doesn’t rely purely on dedicated servers, connection quality may depend heavily on other players in the lobby. If even one player has high latency or instability, it might affect the experience for everyone.
- Latency & lag compensation
It seems like the game prioritizes the shooter’s perspective. So if an opponent sees me earlier (due to latency differences), their shots register even if I haven’t fully seen them yet.
- Jitter / inconsistent connections in lobbies
Some matches feel perfectly fine, while others feel completely desynced. That suggests inconsistency rather than a constant issue.
- Team vs solo interactions
Against fireteams, this effect feels worse—possibly due to coordinated damage (team-shooting) and multiple players peeking at once.
What makes it frustrating:
It doesn’t feel like I’m losing due to aim or positioning
It feels like I’m missing part of the fight entirely
The feedback (visual + audio) doesn’t match what’s actually happening
Questions for others:
Are you experiencing similar “instant death” or desync issues?
Does it happen more in certain playlists or times of day?
Have you found anything that improves consistency?
I’m not trying to complain without reason—I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this is:
- a networking limitation of the game
- matchmaking-related
or something I can actually improve on my end
Any insights would be appreciated.
Thanks!
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1 ReplyOP: Bump++ 👈 1. PvP only: enemies materialise - zap me…then, just as quickly, they instantly dematerialise. 2. I can’t see them for 90% of the time. 3. They shoot me from unknown places. 4. Their jinking / super-sliding air-dodge ohk sniper shots are simply unbelievable?! 5. They’re never alone…usually a pair or trio…nut-hugging hard all the time. 6. Campers extraordinaire! 7. Weapons with hyper-exaggerated fire rates. 8. They take next to no damage. 9. Insta-heavy or -Supers from get-go. 10. My guns fire popcorn and party streamers. 11. Use of aimbots and wall hacks seem par for the course when up against these enemies. SMH 🙄 Usually, I put SUS players down to P2P / lag / latency - most, not all. I’m going to add ‘de-sync’ to that list. 🧐 I’d also generally include some online products which seem tremendously popular with certain a type of gamer…I’d name the products but that would probably get me another forum ban warning - simply for mentioning them by name, not their capabilities…as happened recently. 🤨 Crinjas in deed… 🤡🤥🤡 That is all. Ease Springs! 🖖👻 MTFBWY
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Yes same issue, it’s lag, and it’s why I stopped playing PvP for a while now
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Yes, I'm experiencing similar, I'm wondering whether more server resources are being dedicated to marathon and D2 is getting the scraps, it feels really rough, lots of lag and jitter, shots not registering, etc.
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Network coding i reckon and has been for a while with not just this game but others. I might be wrong but somethings definitely off esp in pvp.
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I couldn't have said it any better myself. I feel like I'm constantly being damage glitched by the opening shot of the engagement by certain players in one game, then the next I'm not and can duel with them. I'm just a tenth or two behind the fight one match, or a tenth or two ahead in the next... The game has never felt this far out of sync, and I'm sure a lot of people are thinking it's cheats when it happens to them but it's just bad netcode with players with very far latency from the "host". It seems to happen most when it's cross platform players as well.
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1 ReplyI feel you there, still play PvP like there isn’t much to do honestly, but if I compare guardian games which was purely connection and Iron banner for example which is a weird sbmm hybrid, the quality of games is night and day. And I played Titan on GG and warlocks the most to try and match hunters that I knew are the most popular class to find matches quicker, I lost/win some games but overall connection felt better, I can tell the difference of matchmaking for sure. There is something going on with lobby balancing, can’t really point it out but it doesn’t fell right. We can blame population, but at least if my team is going to be bad give some decent connections, on 6s is just about trying stuff and have fun, but dying instantly or by rubber banding shenanigans and bad connections ain’t it for sure. Game is still fun to me, but do not think any of this problems will ever be addressed, as they seem to be core issues of the game and prob just a new start can potentially fix it.
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2 RepliesI have been saying this for years. The response from the community is issue skill or get good when this game clearly has very bad and I mean bad match making, sbmm which needs to go, huge server problems with latency. I am playing right now; iron banner and the open skill Playlist is way better than outlier protection with is another name for cheater/xim pvp. Literally instantaneous kill before I can even response.
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3 RepliesEdited by Noevah: 4/19/2026 10:43:54 PM[quote]- Latency & lag compensation It seems like the game prioritizes the shooter’s perspective. So if an opponent sees me earlier (due to latency differences), their shots register even if I haven’t fully seen them yet.[/quote] This is called peeker's advantage and it exists in every fps. Latency can impact how long an opponent can see you before you see them in these situations. In general this is not that significant and at most usually just means the peeker will shoot first. Outside of that, unstable connections can cause the instant death effect. Nothing else I can really think of that would do that. Play open skill gamemodes with cbmm to try to minimize the problem.
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3 RepliesYeah, there are times when I'll die, but there were no shot sounds or a lot less of them than what is actually needed for a kill. Or times where someone will kill me while there in the middle of a reload animation. Other times, I'll get shot through a wall with my ghost being nowhere in the line of sight of the person who killed me. And then there are times I'll die, and it says that the person who killed me was assisted by someone else, but there was no one around that hit me other than the person who got the kill.
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Edited by MNN8TV: 4/19/2026 8:15:49 PMAnother thing worth considering is that the typical TTK has sped up over time since the launch of the game. Ignoring special and heavy weapons since they are instant or near instant kills, a typical primary weapon TTK is below 1 second, with many being 0.67 seconds that has the potential to drop below 0.5 seconds with any damage perks. The average person takes around a half second for their brain to even catch up to a new situation. So a 0.67 TTK allows you 0.17 seconds to react before you are dead. A sub 0.5 second TTK is essentially impossible to react to. So yea, it often times feels like you can’t do anything because there wasn’t really much you could have done anyway.
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4 RepliesCrossplay desync has been a thing for like 4 years & bungie have totally ignored the issue. Microsoft upgraded their network & this made all games coded before the upgrade show desync between xb & PSN. It affects both players BUT destiny is primarily 80% PSN outside the states so every lobby will have 9-10 PSN players so it's a much bigger issue for xb players. Games coded after the upgrade don't have this, but destiny's code goes back to like 2010 & would likely require a total rebuild so I understand them ignoring it, still sucks & I've often gone 6-9 month periods of not touching PvP. Of course games dead right now so I'm playing banner & other PvP event stuff like supremacy & it's absolutely -blam!-. However, why is no one talking about game performance, imo it's a much bigger issue. Matchmaking takes 3-4 mins, especially eruption, then you get these weird slow loading screens - sitting there floating in orbit waiting for the game to get everyone together, then all these long black screens for another 5 mins, then you eventually start. If you're stupid enough to stay in the lobby at the end, you then end up sat in orbit again floating with nothing on screen but your ship, this takes another 5 mins whilst it gets the players from that lobby back together again & the only way to leave is to change character or logoff. I used to be able to play 7-8 games per hour, now I'm lucky if I can play 3-4 & it's networking not population There's also the elephant in the room, marathon. During the alpha & beta of marathon, destiny connections hit the floor, the games are absolutely linked on the servers even if it's only data servers & it's no coincidence that destiny barely functions since marathon released. Bungie have lost control & are drowning in the deep
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2 Replies
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Its hopeless man let it go. They haven't cared in a long time and never will
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I stopped playing two years ago for this exact reason you described. I just attributed it to a shrinking playerbase. Also que times were several minutes long and would time out frequently. Plus the lack of pvp care from the dev side is a joke.
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Honestly I didn't experience anything like this until 2 games last night (Sunday). The lag was nuts, so I checked the players to see if any looked weird, they didn't. What I did notice was all the clans (of the people lagging) were in foreign languages. So I think I was just a victim of low population spreading the search so far out that the game became a mess. But the lag was honestly wild, never had a game like those 2 before.
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Likely a symptom of the diminishing player base. You can still get a match, but the connections are generally worse. And I've definitely felt the same way. I feel like I've had a lot more variance than usual in my games.
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I keep getting game crashes and booted to the home screen more and more as IB goes on. Sorry team, not a me thing. I'm 1000 MBPS wired Open NAT 0% Packet loss. And I have been getting game freeze EVERY second game and booted ENTIRELY from the game. Other than that, same crap. Different day.
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1 ReplyDelivered as ordered. Many want balance or skill-based gameplay (which of course doesn't work either). Desync or similar issues are the price to pay. There is a solution to at least minimize the problems, but many don't want that either.
