After an extended hiatus, Destiny 2’s pinnacle PvP activity Trials of Osiris returned last week and featured multiple changes that were designed to reinvigorate the multiplayer mode. According to Bungie, those changes were well-received and resulted in 750,000 players taking part. Of that number, 120,000 Guardians were first-time-ever players and another 470,000 hadn’t played recently.
237,000 players went flawless, with 105,000 players earning that achievement for the first time ever in their Destiny 2 careers. Bungie added that over 2.8 million hours of Trials had been played during that weekend, eclipsing the highest prior single week total by 600,000 hours.
Even more changes are on the way, as Bungie detailed how it plans to tweak the matchmaking of Trials, something which Phil Hornshaw touched on in his article that detailed how players were using a loophole to gain an edge in the mode.
“We aren’t satisfied with the matchmaking experience for players after seven wins,” Bungie explained. “That area of matchmaking has a significantly higher rate of 5-0 games than we would like, so we are enabling a ‘flawless matchmaking’ pool. However, we want to make sure that there are enough flawless players to maintain good matchmaking times, so we are waiting until Friday afternoon to turn this on, and we will be watching player reactions and matchmaking analytics all weekend to make sure it is behaving properly.”
Players who have to endure one-sided losing streaks in a round should also expect to have a fairer time when matchmaking picks up on this, but Bungie warned that this system won’t allow itself to be exploited. If a player expects to throw several matches, wait for the matchmaking to throw them at lower-skilled players after they’ve reset their Trials passage card for a new chance at going flawless, it won’t work as this measure is temporary and will reset once a few wins are logged.
Lastly, quitter penalties that are used on the Glory playlists will be implemented in Trials, leading to 30-minute timeouts if a player quits out of too many games, with harsher penalties possibly on the horizon. As for next week’s Trials, the matchmaking counter on the Trials of Osiris lobby will be disabled and an issue preventing players from being able to Masterwork weapons from Saint-14’s rank rewards will be fixed.
In other Destiny 2 news, we recently sat down with creative director Joe Blackburn to discuss how season 16 will be another big step in the evolution of Destiny 2’s live content when The Witch Queen expansion launches. In the more immediate future, the latest hotfix for Destiny 2 fixes a number of issues across the game which includes ending the scourge of dancing Hunters using a Radiant Dance Machines exploit to earn instant Supers.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
