To burn away your impurities, to strengthen you, to arm you with the skills to conquer the Darkness. This is the true purpose of the Crucible. Live fire contests against your fellow Guardians test you to your utmost limits.[divider]
Level Advantages
When level advantages are disabled…
What doesn’t carry over (normalized):
- Base defense
- Base weapon attack
What does carry over:
- Weapon progression (including damage bonuses)
- Armor progression (including defense bonuses)
- Abilities
- Stat upgrades, progression
This means that even though they are on relatively equal starting ground. A Level 20+ will have an advantage over a level 5, but not so much that the low level doesn’t stand a chance.
With the level advantages disabled, armor and weapons are standardized. You still get the bonuses from the skills you’ve earned though.
Regular Crucible modes have level advantages disabled, unlike the Trials of Osiris or Iron Banner, where everything really matters. When level advantages are enabled, the game will not equalize your gear’s ratings and people will be on a much different playing field – essentially making gameplay somewhat unbalanced.[divider]
Balance?
Are these tests of strength completely balanced though or will they ever be? what would be considered balanced? what’s that mean exactly?
Destiny’s PvP is an engaging and overall fun experience, but especially before you hit level 20, it may be frustrating to take on players that are a higher level than you. Though level advantages are disabled in most playlists, some people feel that because of the weapon/armor upgrades, especially some of the Exotic upgrades, it can be unfair to lower levels. Thankfully leveling in Destiny is quick and rather painless, so this isn’t too big of an issue for the majority.
As far as class balance, each class has its weak and strong areas, and each class is fairly equal in terms of the amount of damage that can be dealt. The great thing about Destiny is its focus on well placed head shots. If you get better at aiming for the head, and hitting it consistently, you’re going to come out on top.
Your gear and their stats make the biggest difference in terms of how much damage you can take. While most Titan’s may have a higher base Armor rating, that doesn’t mean a Warlock or Hunter couldn’t have the same. Recovery and Agility are arguably just as valuable as Defense too, so these armor stats are pretty well balanced.
Ultimately, people shouldn’t expect the game to be completely “balanced” so early on. It’d be nice if everything was perfect but that’s just unrealistic. Bungie has proven to us that they’re listening to the feedback, and little by little the game will improve over time.
Many shooters can be fairly simplistic, but Destiny has a wide array of abilities and guns for you to use. Unlike Bungie’s previous Halo games, which only had a handful of guns, it isn’t as easy for Bungie to make sure each of the dozens of possible skill and weapon combinations in Destiny are as balanced as they’d like them to be.
The super abilities are over-powered, and while some people don’t like this, it’s intended to be this way. They offer a moment in every game where each player will have at least one chance to unleash some serious damage on the opposition. The Super abilities could potentially turn the tide at a crucial moment in the game, but they’re also not impossible to counter either.
Balancing so many different powers and abilities must have been a nightmare.[divider]
Some ideas to improve the Crucible:
- Spawn with less Special ammo, less on the map (promote the use of primary weapons)
- Add a mode which doesn’t allow you to use your Super ability (hardcore/MLG?)
- Add visible skill ranks (similar to the ‘TrueSkill’ system that’s used at DestinyTracker)
- Custom games
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General Tips
Great players are always thinking one step ahead, have situational awareness, and play consistently well under pressure. You can learn these skills quickly if you focus on improving them while you play. If there’s any trap you can fall into that will stunt your growth, it’s blaming the other guy, because that will not make you a better player.
If you choose to blame your opponent’s weapon/Class/armor/connection, you’re shifting any fault from your own actions and refusing to consider any mistakes you might have made. Mistakes you can learn from!
You can’t control how your opponents play, but you absolutely control everything about how you play. Even if your aim is poor, if you excel at positioning and teamwork, you can learn to dictate the terms of an engagement, and you can be a tremendous asset to your team.
For much more Crucible tips and tricks, check out this article.[divider]
Video Response
Mesa Sean gives a response to some common Crucible criticisms in the video below.
Video: Top 5 PvP Problems Response
What do you all think? In addition to the weapon changes, what else needs to be changed so that the Crucible is even better?