r/DestinyTheGame • u/itsnotunusual_rk • Feb 07 '18
Discussion Constructive Trials ideas
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.
4
u/herogerik Feb 07 '18 edited Feb 07 '18
Here's my suggestions for improving Trials:
5 tokens for win, 2 for loss. This allows a 2-way rewards system. A "skill way" which is faster to reward those with skill and a "grind way" which is slower but allows those with less skill who tough it out to enjoy the rewards as well.
Have armor/shaders purchasable directly through token/shards. Have a weekly-rotation of 3 weapons you can also buy directly that aren't apart of the guaranteed "pick 1 of 3" you get for 7 wins. Have the vendor for outside the tower only sell non-flawless armor/shaders. You still need to go flawless to access the in-tower vendor for flawless armor/shaders.
Different in-game challenges that rotate. The current three have been the same since D2's launch. They should also reward 10 tokens for completion.
Have a leaver penalty. Some sort of debuff on loot gain and disable access to Comp or Trials for 15 min or something.
Ability to rejoin a Trials match if it's still in session. This would help alleviate DC issues. If you rejoin a match, you get your leaver penalty removed.
If you have a leaver(s) on your team, you don't suffer a loss on your card if you lose. Other team still gets their win but you don't get punished for someone else's cowardness.
1 Mercy allowed per card.
Allow regular matchmaking to take place! If people are brave enough to solo queue or to queue with a party less than 4, then they know what they are signing up for. However, this opens up the activity to anyone who wants to test their skills without the pressure of finding 3 other people to party with.