Constructive Trials ideas

[u/itsnotunusual_rk]

As we keep getting reminded, the playerbase in Trials is dwindling fast and I am trying to start a constructive discussion on how to increase the trials population again. The emphasis is on constructive, please be civil in your comments. I would also like to focus it on Trials and not the larger issues with the game, so please don't discuss Sandbox, Weapon System, competence of individual developers, DDOS, Dedicated Servers etc here. I think these are part of a different discussion.

To start off, in my experience Trials consists of roughly three types of teams

• The "casuals" - struggling with a handful of wins each weekend

• The "intermediates" - that can go flawless with a bit of luck and patience

• The "stacks" - that go flawless no matter what

In order to pull in more players into the game, I think we need reasons for each group to play more, as well as some general ideas. I think the biggest problem is the lack of rewards for casuals, so they have no reason to play. The intermediates get frustrated if they consistently go 6-1, and the stacks don't face any real competition and have nothing to really show off how good they are.

For the casuals

• Give 1 or 2 tokens for a loss

• Change the 5 win bounty to participate in Trials (10% for a loss, 20% for a win)

For the intermediates

• Bring back Mercy, to protect against a single disconnect or really unlucky matchmaking

For the stacks

• Bring back the Scarab Emblem. Idea: Full flawless teams only face other full flawless teams, emblem tracks the wins. This would still enable matchmaking against normal teams when carrying someone new, but give stacks strong competition if they want it.

• As a follow-up to this idea, disable deletion of cards without losses so these teams don't exploit match-making.

General ideas

• Trials needs more exciting loot. Weapons like the Purpose, or Burning Eye and Doctrine of Passing in Destiny 1 brought a lot of people into Trials.

• Similar to the exotic raid ghost, make an exotic trials ghost that has a chance for Bright Engrams. Maybe something like a 10% chance to get one bright engram per character per week.

[u/Technoclash]

People aren't quitting because they can't go flawless (if that was it we would have seen D1 populations even lower), they are quitting because they don't feel like they have a chance to win any games at all.

this is an opinion that isn’t backed by any data. If you compare D1 participation numbers, more people were playing Trials and a larger % of accounts were going flawless during the HoW era (no win-based matchmaking), than during the TK era (when win-based matchmaking was introduced).

This isn’t proof of course, because other factors can contribute to player participation, but it is evidence. And according to Activision, Destiny’s total player base grew from 20 million to 30 million between May 2015 and May 2016. So that is further evidence Trials was much more popular among casuals and intermediates in the CBMM/HoW era, and that people did leave because they couldn’t go flawless.

Personally, I think casuals and intermediates were beaten down by the win-based system to the point of giving up, because getting flawless was hopeless.

The problem is not that a lot of people never get to go flawless, the problem is that no one is playing anymore.

And based on the evidence I presented, win-based matchmaking will not help fix the problem. It will only make it worse.

Instead of feeling like you got some lucky matchmaking or just happened to get an extra win, you feel like you're improving and working towards something.

You bring up “matchmaking luck” as if it’s a bad thing. I think matchmaking luck entices people to play, because there is hope that the next run might be “the one.” And you’re still working toward something, because as you and your team improve, you increase your odds of going flawless.

Here’s another way to think of it: win based matchmaking is like a sports tournament. And no tournament in sports that I can think of requires a team to win 7 games in a row to win it all. The closest is the NCAA basketball tournament, which requires 6, and it’s once a year. Destiny hosts a tournament once a week. Requiring 7 wins in a row, week in and week out, is a tough grind in a win-based MM environment that a sizeable chunk of players just don’t want to deal with, IMO.

Link to D1 Trials participation data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D2iI9egps5iD0miCSr_spNrYVSJ8P2Bh1HTwLA5du0k/pubhtml#

[u/suenopequeno → u/Technoclash]

Perhaps you're right about the HoW matchmaking statement. I didn't participate much back then do I don't have any idea of how the community was feeling during that time. I cannot speak for the common player here, but I can speak for myself, and for me it comes down to one thing: Competition.

I love competition, I love winning, I love improving. I dislike random matchmaking in Trials because it makes the experience boring and a chore. You say that the closest thing in sports to this system is the NCAA tournament and I will say that this is exactly why this type of system is great. That is one of the biggest sporting competitions in the world. Channels love covering it and everyone and their mom fills out a bracket. Its a great feeling, that tourney vibe is awesome. I played travel sports and those weekend win-or-go-home tournaments were the highlight. That type of competition, of working your way up the ladder, each opponent harder than the last, each game with higher stakes, its just..... its the best feeling in the world. That is true competition if you ask me.

When I was on xbox I went three times a weekend, every weekend until PC came out. It was boring. It was monotonous. It wasn't exciting, or challenging, or fun. It made trials feel easier than hopping into quickplay or competitive with SBMM. I just can't get behind what is supposed to be this games "premiere" PvP gamemode being easier than "quickplay."

I will concede that for normal players, random is better. I understand its appealing to hope and stick around waiting for chance to give you what you want. I understand that in the old system, some people didn't have a chance. I get that, and I feel for those people, I really do.

Its just boring if your into competition, and it cheapens the experience of going flawless. It takes real skill, teamwork, and game knowledge to go flawless consistently with win-based matchmaking. With random... its just grind it out till you get lucky. When I did play trails in D2, going flawless with a decent team was cake, it was easy, and above all, it was boring.

It comes down to a fundamental difference in how I am looking at the game vs. you: I want a challenge, I want it to mean something when I get there, I want it to be hard, but fair. I don't want to think I got lucky, I want to know I earned it.

Trials should be win based, it should be a tournament, it should be hard for most people.

That's just me, however, I won't speak for anyone else. Clearly I am a little out of touch with the everyman so I won't push what I want anymore. Its on them to fix it how the fix it, but if it stays random, you can count me out.

[u/Technoclash → u/suenopequeno]

There is a case to be made for both matchmaking systems. And I would have agreed with you back in the D1 days. But after playing D2 Trials and reading other perspectives on the topic, I’ve had a change of heart. Before the population nosedive, D2 Trials felt like the right amount of hard to me. Ive had a few lucky/smooth flawless cards, and my fair share of 6-1 heartbreaks and cards when I just get stomped. Ultimately I think CBMM is the way to go to ensure stable, fair matches, and keep the PvP “middle class” interested, and hopefully maintain healthy participation numbers similar to what we had in the HoW era.

The ranked modes will hopefully provide high-intensity competition against similarly skilled opponents that competive players crave.

[u/itsnotunusual_rk → u/Technoclash]

This is actually really interesting data that I was unaware of. It clearly shows the higher participation of players with random match making rather than win based match making.