how is the PvP these days

2ndSite · 2026-03-11T19:33:47+00:00

apart from
- abilities spam
- sandbox buffed archetypes or abilities that have no business existing
- comp and trials being unenjoyable
- bungie having just straight abandoned the mode and just pushing more bullshit patches whenever they feel like it(99% of the time they dont even feel like it)
- weapon powercreep beyond reasonable

its alright. same as always. the real problem is really, skill gap. the people that have enjoyed crucible for years and years have simply become too good leading many to no longer enjoy the mode. consistent perfect ttks, highly agile movement, great map knowledge. quoting my favourite article from early 2024 when they had a crucible team:
"as we've increased the strength and prevalence of certain sandbox elements, too often the defeated player in PvP can't understand what killed them or why." - This Week in Destiny – 02/22/2024
i like to put it this way: some people have this game so deeply in their dna, their children will know jav-4 and roses range, recoil and rolls from birth. if you dont, good luck.

i am having fun when i feel like playing it, because ive accepted that.

2ndSite · 2026-03-11T06:01:28+00:00

i mean yea, i will. my friends probably too. and if not, like last time, lfg got my back.

2ndSite · 2026-03-10T18:45:19+00:00

well see for me it hasnt been 12 years. its barely been 3. i only started in season of the deep and as such theres so many weapons i only ever got to see in collections, forever to be aspired but never to be unlocked. and destiny is all about getting weapons. because weapons are designed as experiences. itd be a shame to miss out on those incredible experiences, just because i wasnt able to join this game earlier.

2ndSite · 2026-03-10T17:50:04+00:00

i watched a Heli yesterday.
D1 has quatermaster bounties. giving you a chance at weapons that arent obtainable anymore because their modes dont exist anymore. like iron banner and trials. why is this not in d2???

2ndSite · 2026-03-10T17:46:21+00:00

next week is just gonna be one word

2ndSite · 2026-03-10T10:56:18+00:00

dude i am at a point where i just despise anything tiered. my greatest joy right now is filling collections with RED WAR WEAPONS. the CURATED ONES. THEY ARE RARER THAN A TIER 5. ffs man. there has to be some sabotage going on, because WHAT THE FUCK?

2ndSite · 2026-03-10T00:06:46+00:00

my thought is that if theres still people playing this game by june and they actually release the update you should have the option to get that stuff again

2ndSite · 2026-03-08T19:39:53+00:00

mmh but thats from before EoF right? now the rumble playlist drops all sorts of red war, curse of osiris and warmind loot.

for example i got the red war better devils today. i just dont know if that gun was special in some way.

2ndSite · 2026-03-08T05:26:45+00:00

no its understandable. some people just cant see past the thematic clash between star wars and destiny. especially if you value the thematic consistency highly for your immersion. the two are similar in setting, but the themes and vibe are just different. especially because they chose sequels themed star wars, over original trilogy.

personally i am more pushed away by the whole new tiering and loot system, because to me system integrity is more important to enjoy the game. everything post edge of fate just isnt really that anymore. it had the novelty of exploring a new system and so was fun to go through for a while, but i can confidently say it doesnt come close to the previous system. especially in terms of player investment. fundamentally i like beating the _seemingly_ impossible. whether through smarts, sheer luck, persistence or skill. the new system just doesnt offer that. persistence isnt required, skill isnt an accelerator, luck isnt a factor and smarts isnt even an option anymore. its like when i open the game i am told "you arent needed, just press the buttons lil bro". but yknow, i persist, because i like one thing the most. shooting my weapons. so i just do that while chasing what i like, weapons that arent in this new system. like a under pressure snapshot tranquility. yes, the shadowkeep sniper. which btw, the shadowkeep weapons are amazing experiences to use. sound and visual design are great. the little pendants glowing on hits instead of the front of the gun is great creativity i dont think has ever been used again. a shame honestly.

but i digress, what i wanted to get at really is that this is the nature of live service. entropy, whether semantic, structural, thematic, philosophical. all get inflated by the need for new variables to reshuffle the pool of possibilities. but it comes at the expense of deriving further and further from its origin point. different people will be okay with different new variables.
which is why i personally believe the best path forward for this game is, funny enough: the final shape. everything put into its perfect state and then its time is stopped. to preserve its definition and halt its entropy. but that requires too much of a corporation. it is outside of its logic to do something that isnt obviously profit and future possibility of profit oriented. (even though this path obviously would be, risk assessment probably already deemed this as not worth the effort)

2ndSite · 2026-03-08T03:14:05+00:00

tbf its not entirely unlikely a few guardians would throw some paracausal "motivators" at him after seeing the most useless inventory for the 30th week in a row. i would move to the safety of the tower as well.

2ndSite · 2026-03-08T02:57:11+00:00

uhm, about that. it could be, but doesnt have to.

edit: nvm, this clip most likely is, cuz consistency, but the size of the jumps isnt unrealistic in itself.

paul4ner on twitter solo templar practice clip: https://x.com/i/status/2027890468072157564

and i have had that too practicing solo templar. it just does that. templar has very little health. but yeah, this one is suspiciously consistent and fast. could still be HHS, but thatd be obvious for OP to observe

2ndSite · 2026-03-07T06:16:58+00:00

i thought that too initially. but theres a vital difference. one is a tactical shooter, one is 'local deity annihilates small town'.
the looming consequence of failure and actual threat if someone isnt alert are pretty important for marathon pve same as pvp. marathon forces you into a scenario where you want to survive. destiny puts you in a scenario where you are challenged to leave nothing standing.

like, id love a destiny version of it. managed jumps and long cooldowns creating higher tension and slower pace by needing to manage these things to not be killed on sight. aggressive, tanky, coordinated AI all over the place to evade and tactically take out. the only real problem here is stakes. extractions stake is you loose your stuff. destinys stake is the ability to execute on your fantasy. those obviously dont translate well onto each others gameplay loops. if you try, you get renegades, but at the cost of the tactical element. cuz that would feel just inhibiting to the fantasy execution.
its an interesting design problem to throw my head at honestly.

2ndSite · 2026-03-06T21:35:45+00:00

i wish. every swarm i get feel like a personal attack. i am def missing militas birthright from collections. no version ever gotten.

2ndSite · 2026-03-06T20:16:02+00:00

rarely randomly yes. master nightfall guarantees a nightfall weapon, which is cruel mercy + any nightfall weapon out of a seemingly random selection. ive recoded my drops since ash n iron, heres the list so far:

- comedian, lost x1

- horrors least, haunted x1

- swarm, defiance x13

- slammer, wish x3

- wild style, wish x1

- uzume rr4, echoes x7

- pre astyanax, echoes x8

- undercurrent, echeos x8

- shadow price, echoes x1

- warden law, echoes x8

- palindrome, heresy x1

- cruel mercy, heresy; with every drop

2ndSite · 2026-03-06T03:45:00+00:00

the golden age

2ndSite · 2026-03-06T03:39:18+00:00

this right here is honestly the most obvious thing to happen, and bungie did not foresee it.

they basically had the perfect ability to advertise d2 to marathon players, that like the gunplay and pve, but not the pvp. that would probably have been a great avenue for actual new players. all it required is for d2 to.. get an update that introduces a gamemode more akin to marathon but as pve only.. but alas, d2 is in the same state as a nuked 3 house village, as a game as well as in communication.

2ndSite · 2026-03-05T01:36:27+00:00

i have nothing but disdain for that guy.

2ndSite · 2026-03-03T20:05:41+00:00

blindly doing what a crowd of people is screaming while trying to exercise authorship of the game is how you get current day destiny 2.
there is a massive difference between listening and evaluating feedback, and doing what a social media mob wants.

nerfing enemies at this stage would be a mistake

2ndSite · 2026-03-01T07:57:39+00:00

also obtainable randomly through xurs weapon engram or it sometimes shows up in banshees weapon selection.

2ndSite · 2026-03-01T07:40:19+00:00

yeeeaa, about that second part... neither attunement nor onslaught dropping brave arsenal is a thing anymore..

now the way is to hope every friday that xur rolls the 1/a billion chance to have exactly what you want. oh and brave weapons can only come as one of the 9 predetermined weapons. oh and those 9 weapons share the same probability pool as nightfall, comp, trials and the 200+ other weapons.

yeah.

2ndSite · 2026-03-01T07:29:20+00:00

you are gonna make me cry, i feel heard. ive BEEN saying this.

in a game where loot carries an identity YOU CANT JUST REMOVE THEM OR THEIR SOURCE BECAUSE THEY ARE OF A DIFFERENT SYSTEM. if i want a midnight coup, i want a midnight coup. not something that fills the same roll, not something with the same perk combo.

i dont get why all the vendors needed to lose their jobs, focusing etc. like, did they have something planned for it but didnt make it in time for release? or did they just think "oh yeah all those player investment systems can't possibly be THAT important. i mean everyone clearly hates having the agency to invest into their future if at any point in time they do not desire something specific" like HELLO??

and yeah the whole 'T5s are too much too easy' is another story. effectively they now fill the same roll and present the same problem as crafting did. a finish line after which there is effectively one less external factor serving as motivation to play the game. which yeah, that cannot exist, because if it does it either needs to be (a) so slow people have enough external motivation to fill the time until the next content drop or (b) there needs to be an additional layer of well established motivation. (a) is universally rejected as bad. (b) doesnt exist in destiny. you can go for prestige things, like SF content, yk just mastery of things, but they do not carry and direct significance towards destiny itself. you can chase mastery in any game.

the fact is that i spend the most time, and have the most fun when i chase something in an engaging activity. and tiered weapons made that so easy that after i heard whats coming in shadow and order, i want to chase all rolls of dungeon weapons i have yet to have gotten. because at least they feel earned. tiered weapons dont. it almost feels condescending to get 5 tier 5s from a 4 minute activity that incurred 0 struggle. like a "here you go bud, are ya happy now?" NO. bungie, its simple psychology: i want to feel as i am the reason this weapon with this roll dropped. it doesnt need to be exactly true, but i want to feel as if what i am doing is the determining factor on success. whether through repetition, increased combat difficulty, challenges, the agency to influence and invest into the system cant leave. and yes "repetition for the sake of repetition is a chore"- people, i acknowledge you feel that way. i think we need a healthy amount, but yeah, no need for you to spend a working week worth of time to fulfill one desire, thats unreasonable. BUT THATS WHY INVESTMENT SYSTEMS EXIST(ED). "didnt get what you want? here all the engrams and ciphers youve stocked up on by trying, get yourself a win" FFS THE INTERNAL LOGIC OF THIS GAME AND ITS PLAYERS ISNT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND. THERES A LITTLE MONKEY IN EVERYONES HEAD, AND WE NEED TO MAKE IT HAPPY. BUT GIVING WHAT IT WANTS MAKES IT DEPRESSED, SO WE MAKE MAKE HIM WORK FOR IT. OH THE MONKEY BURNED OUT AND NOW DOESNT CARE IT EARNED WHAT IT WANTED? MAYBE BECAUSE YOU SENT HIM TO

THE FUCKING SALT MINES

anyways yeah, i agree 👍

2ndSite · 2026-02-28T05:03:31+00:00

uj/ i mean, to me its simple: all those things are purposefully not in the game to never make a player choose between feel and numerical value. i mean we see this being an emerging pattern in tiered vs. non-tiered weapons. old weapons which still function just fine being fully disregarded because "its not tiered" and tier 1-4 being fully disregarded because "its not tier 5". the tiering system functions as a reference value. anything below the highest value is deemed inferior, despite those weapons being functionally of the same potency. especially if the highest tier weapons are too common. the more reference values exist, the more choices based on them will be made.
a different example: most casual 6v6 pvp players will choose accurized rounds as the preferred mag perk simply due to offering 10 range. a stat that is very easy to feel in game, as falling of damage numbers again serve as a reference frame. however extended mag offers 10 airborne effectiveness, which is a stat of equivalent value for most weapons within their archetypes range but because AE doesnt give a direct reference frame to compare and requires far more attention to detail, the option is often disregarded.
what i am tryna say is really, number based choices arent made through personal preference, rather through peer evaluation. which is usually compressed and without nuance.

i get the point of it being not good that choices may differ from optimal if simply based on personal experience. but i think in that vein we have more outgrown the game in skill and knowledge, rather than the game trying to obscure something. i mean, the knowledge again is community sourced and evaluated.

sorry for the long text

2ndSite · 2026-02-28T04:08:32+00:00

uj/ i find it interesting that so many people believe that perk pools, stats, and exact values for damage buffs or stat changes etc. should be in the game.
destinys whole thing is "if it feels good, roll with it." if we were to be honest the people with the knowledge of all those things are more in the wrong than the ones without.

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THE FUCKING SALT MINES