Trials of Osiris has been problematic ever since it returned to Destiny 2. The problem always centered on making the game mode appeal to the try-hardiest of try-hards while also making it accessible to less-skilled players. Putting these two types of players into the same competitive game mode meant that the less-skilled players either jumped off cliffs just to receive their free Trials Engram, set up win-trading rings to farm Trials loot, or simply avoided the game mode altogether.
Or they cheated, which drove away the skilled players who couldn’t compete against an unkillable opponent with a dozen Rocket Launchers.
None of that really sat well with Bungie, so for Season of the Lost, Trials of Osiris is getting another revamp.
The first change to Trials has to do with access. Trials of Osiris will have a paywall when it returns later in September. Guardians will have to own the current expansion (Beyond Light) in order to play Trials, and it'll be the same story when Witch Queen arrives. This paywall combined with the new BattlEye anti-cheat program will hopefully keep cheaters from simply creating burner accounts to play Trials.
The second change has to do with matchmaking. Trials will no longer require a full fireteam of three people and will now matchmake for singles and duos to create a full team of three. Obviously, the team of three solo players will have more trouble against a coordinated three-player fireteam, but hopefully that will change once Destiny 2 gets integrated voice chat in the future (no timeframe on that).
Freelance Trials is also coming, but it will only be for a limited time as Bungie determines whether or not Trials can support two matchmaking pools.
Matchmaking will also change slightly. It's still based on the number of wins on your Passage, but Trials Passages no longer count losses. Instead, matchmaking will be based on both number of wins and player performance in Trials during that weekend. This should mean that players will have a greater likelihood of being matched against players with more losses if they've been grinding away at their card in order to farm Trials Engrams.
Related: Destiny 2 Updates PvP Rules To Ban Win Trading, Account Recoveries
Which brings us to rewards. One of the biggest complaints with Trials was how stingy it was compared to other game modes, but that changes this season. Trials will now have a new rewards track similar to other Playlist activities. Rather than handing in Trials Tokens, you'll be accruing Trials reputation. The more rep you get, the more rewards you'll receive from Saint-14.
Gaining reputation will be based on the number of rounds won, not matches. Your Trials Passage will still track wins and whether or not you’re flawless for the purposes of going to the Lighthouse (and getting that sweet Adept weapon), but your card will now also track rounds won up to a maximum of 20. Reputation is gained at the end of the match, and so long as you’ve got 20 rounds won under your belt, it doesn’t matter how many matches you’ve won or lost, you’re still getting maximum reputation gain.
Just like the other playlists, ranking up with Saint-14 will give you Trials Engrams, which will now contain an assortment of the current weapons and armor available for the season. The 3/5/7 rewards are now gone, but in their place, you can now focus Trials Engrams to be any item you’ve previously received (although Bungie warns focusing costs will be “expensive”).
Trials will no longer be available on Iron Banner weekends, and it’ll also stay away on World’s First Raid weekends.
Finally, we get to some of the gameplay pain points. Rounds are now 90 seconds instead of two minutes to help with teams stalling for their supers. Emotes are now limited to first-person view to prevent players from looking around corners, and similarly, swords now require ammo before the camera will swap to third-person.
There’s more, but you can read all about it on Bungie’s site here. Trials of Osiris returns on September 10.
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