Changing the Crucible
Bungie’s weekly update has been rebranded This Week at Bungie… and that’s not the only change coming from the Destiny developer this week.
There are two new Crucible playlists headed our way – Freelance 3v3, and Freelance 6v6. As the name suggests, these teams can only comprise of individual players — “no fireteams allowed.”
“Freelance 6v6 and Freelance 3v3 are mixed-mode playlists that are only accessible by solo players – no Fireteams allowed,” says designer Jeremiah Pieschl. “Freelance playlists will be available sporadically on the weekly rotators in your Director.”
“The design goal of Freelance playlists was to facilitate an even playing field. Both teams will be on equal ground, though an advantage can be gained by opening a voice channel to Team Chat. A secondary goal was to provide playlists with a wider variety of engagements. Featuring mixed-modes with all of their associated maps means players will have a much more diverse experience and see less repetition in the combinations selected by matchmaking.”
Freelance 6v6 will feature “a mix” of Clash, Control, and Rift, while 3v3 will feature Elimination, Salvage, and Skirmish.
Also scheduled to change? Special Ammo. You’ll now no longer start a match with special ammo, a feature introduced in order to prevent spawn ’n’ snipe playstyles and raising blood pressures the world over.
“The PvP team wanted to increase the use of primary weapons, especially at match-start,” said senior designer Derek Carroll. “Sniper rifles and shotguns, in particular, inspire great happiness or sadness depending on which end of the weapon you find yourself. We wanted to somewhat delay that gratification (and sadification).”
This change will be coming to all 3v3 playlists, but 6v6 will be immune from the changes as “the larger gametypes are generally less sensitive to initial conditions.”
During Iron Banner, Bungie introduced new steps to combat lag, and it has now been rolled out across Skirmish, Rumble, and Control battles too. From today, you should also see improvements during Trials of Osiris matches, and the team is still working on the upcoming Crimson Doubles and Clash.
And there’s more!
Damage Referee will be rolled out with the February update, a new feature designed to protect us from “bad connections.”
“Damage Referee is our code-name for upcoming changes to the way Destiny handles things that can go wrong when you’re playing games online,” explains networking engineer Paul Lewellen. “Our goal is to give you a better experience in the Crucible when there are Internet problems outside of your control.”
“In short, we’re trying to fix the Internet. Streaming movies, wireless connections, the speed of light, and a host of other things are all conspiring to harm your online experience. Normal network latency is bad enough, but even simple problems become extremely complex when the information your console is sending and receiving can be unexpectedly delayed, dropped, duplicated, folded, spindled, or mutilated. It’s impossible to solve completely, but Damage Referee is our latest attempt to improve things for the vast majority of you.”
When it comes to PvE, there’s very little to report. Runners in King’s Fall should no longer encounter that shitty issue when the camera inexplicably defaults, and while a lot of us thought the “totally OP” teleporting Ogres needed to be nerfed, turns out the issue was to do with bombs blocking the Ogres pathfinding. And that’s about it.
Oh, you have a better chance of getting Vienna Singer ship now if you finish the heroic Lost to Light mission. Yay.
Expect to see the update on your dash from 10am PST on February 9, 2016, which will also be delivering the Crimson Day celebrations. Be still my heart.
HAPPY FRIDAY! <3
