Trials is flooded with top tier players(streamers, recovs, 24/7 grinders) and it feels like that’s the only player base . If you are 1.3kd or below you have almost 0 chance to go flawless. The casuals jump off the map now they don’t even try no more. Some are incentivized to pay real life money to pay recovs because the playlist is so hard. I think it’s real crazy that I can match a team with players who have been flawless 334 times on game 2. Casuals also have no incentive to play long term past endgame bounties. Tokens are too scarce for them, a lot of them can’t get past game 3 and the rewards at the bottom of the card are too little to warrant going in for a second try. Card based matchmaking is a joke. Pushes casuals out and leaves top tiers to all the loot.
-
As one content creator put it (perfectly): [i]Bungie has a tendency to focus on the kind of player that a playlist is designed for, but then forget about the players that the playlist NEEDS to survive. Trials is designed fir the top-tier player, but it needs the casual player for the game mode to work.[/i] All of the problems you mention are rooted in the fact that you have loot locked behind a skill wall that average players have no hope to get over, and no doors or Windows to get through. So honest players have little reason to show up and play other than to be fodder for someone’s montage…, …and others have n reason to say “No” to account recoveries and cheating. At least it seems Bungie is starting to wake up to this.