As a high level pvp player, I had high hopes for competitive this season, and my first impressions are far below expectations, although I have a limited sample size at time of writing. I was hoping comp would increase in popularity due to the focussing at Shaxx for rose and mercurial but on the first couple days i have only faced streamers so far, even if they are ascendant and I am in my placement series. If this is due to people being busy with seasonal activities or matchmaking or what im not sure but i feel that in a placement series, you should start at an average rank and be able to progress through the ranks against other people of this rank. Last season i was stuck in gold for a couple weeks as every game was against 10k ascendant players, streamers and cheaters while i watched some friends who are much worse than me get ascendant in the first couple days because their opponents looked like they were still working out their 'WASD' keys. I was hoping to see the changes effects but haven't yet. Hoping the changes made are more obvious in the future. Also I'd like to add that countdown is a terrible competitive gamemode. Its comparable to CSGO in the way that you plant and defuse bombs and there are 2 sites. Unlike CSGO, the maps are not designed with this gamemode in mind, and the game continues after the first bomb is detonated/defused. Not to mention that 3 players in not enough to defend 2 sites, the players are spread too thin. This gamemode could work in casual with a couple tweaks but it doesn't feel competitive. If anything it feels like this gamemode was added to give people who aren't as good a chance to win against better players. Also I've heard about a possible channel for streamers to directly report people they think are cheating to bungie staff. I don't know anything about how they are making decisions but I hope that bans/restrictions are given out only due to irrefutable evidence. I can't count the number of times I have matched streamers, then checked their VODs after I've finished playing just for them to call me out on cheating/ximming for the sole reason that I beat them. This also leads into streamer privilege, why do they get direct communication to bungie staff when any other players concerns are put on the massive backlog pile. Sorry for the long read but I just wanted to note my first thoughts on the changes made to comp. If you actually read all of this then congratulations, you're weird.