Let me back it up, this isn’t just a floodpost about a few bad matches in Control. I play crucible daily, have been playing since D1 beta, am a solo player and like to think I’m pretty decent at the game.
I firmly believe Clash creates a better experience for casual play than Control. This is operating under the assumption that Quickplay should be a less stressful playlist where you can relax and have fun.
1 - Movement
Movement in D2 is light speed compared to D1. This causes issues where holding onto/capping a point is extremely difficult because you are constantly in danger of an enemy arriving at your position from an opposite spawn in less than 10 seconds. This leads into…
2 - Sitting Ducks
D2 in casual play often give the aggressor the advantage. This is punctuated by having to stand in place to capture zones. Most neutral capture zones are in heavily contested, difficult to defend position. This paints are target on these zones as the de facto location to see the most action, but also puts you at the most danger of being killed.
Considering the movement speed and TTK lethality of D2, this leads to a frustrating experience where you end up throwing yourself at an objective to help win, but your success is almost entirely dependent on whether your teammates are organized/care enough to help. Naturally when things aren’t going well, this punishes people who are simply trying to play the objective. Allowing teams that are more organized to rack up kills which leads to…
3 - Snowballing
Kills means more map control, super energy, special ammo reserves and spawn trapping. Now, in a competitive environment, this could be argued as good! But, the day D2 moved from 4v4 double primary back to 6v6 special weapons, any desire from Bungie to make Control a competitive environment was left behind at fan request.
Control is now a relic from a different age of Destiny that has been left behind. On top of that, it’s in an environment with a vastly different game speed and player skill level.
Clash, however, avoids many of these pitfalls by…
1 - Having No Objective
This allows players to simply focus on killing. Instead of having an objective that you MUST move toward, you’re allowed to go wherever you want on the map and still contribute to winning the game. Which means…
2 - Movement is Less of a Factor
Because you’re no longer rushing to one of three positions, movement is less critical because players could be dispersed anywhere on the map. There is no guaranteed destination where the action is, thus while movement still allows you to find action faster, it doesn’t guarantee there will be several targets there to engage, as there is no necessity for team congregation. Thus…
3 - The Game is Less Predictable
If players have no objective to rush to, then the game becomes less about tactically positioning an entire team and more about individual players moving from kill to kill. Players will feel no inclination to have to defend a particular position and thus will roam to wherever their radar pulls them.
This is assuming you are not stacked. Naturally a highly organized team will always have an advantage. Even so, it’s arguably more difficult to organize around simply getting kills then it is to defend points. Players could be funneling from all directions, making it more difficult for teams to predict movement.
That freedom of movement allows players to engage at the ranges that their weapons are intended for, which means…
4 - More Weapon Diversity.
When engaging in attacking/defending a hotly contested, close quarters chokepoint, which gun are you bringing?
A shotgun.
The answer is a shotgun.
It’s almost always gonna be a shotgun.
What are most Control points like?
Hotly contested, close quarters choke points.
But I like running sniper rifles and scout rifles. If I play at intended range for my guns, then attempting to help contest a control points on most maps puts me at a massive disadvantage, by default. Because attacking/defending defined positions on a map is not a necessity to win in Clash, it allows players to find positions anywhere on the map that my weapons play effectively at. This gives them incentive to feel less like they HAVE to bring a shotgun and more like they CAN if they want to.
All of this comes together to create a less frustrating, less stressful, less competitive and less CONTROLled experience. Which, quite frankly, is what quick play should be.
Thoughts?
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Although I prefer Control to Clash this is a very well thought out post that's definitely right about the differences between the two and each modes strengths and weaknesses. I don't think Clash should necessarily replace Control outright and I also think some of the downsides to Control that you list are actually strengths of the mode for the people that like it. One of the problems the mode does present is that much of the balancing and stuff like that attempts to tamp down on what some people consider strengths but others consider weakness. I wouldn't consider the way movement works in Control (when its uniform among players) to be a downside although I would consider it a reason for Clash to be available at the same time or more often. You just have to plan ahead for the way it works. It definitely requires a different approach than the in your face boxer playstyle that you would find more often in Clash or Rumble. But neither approach is better or worse than the other. With the sitting ducks thing, its one of the reasons why uniform movement and shot registration is so important in that mode. Even if you're not trying to score 40 kills you really need to be able to kill exactly who you're trying to kill if you should be killing them because things can go off the rails pretty quick. Its going to sound toxic, but snowballing is part of control and when people are playing the mode to win creating the opportunity for that is going to be part of Control. Its the process that leads to that that's interesting and its never not going to be about that unless the game matchmakes in such a way that tries to remove that aspect which leads to other issues. Its not something that should be happening every match but the zones and controlling them should be expected to lead to that at times. That's something that can happen if you put 12 of the world's best players in the lobby. I definitely like Clash and wouldn't really mind if it replaced Control but that mode has its own issues as well. I'm not going to list them off but there's things that can happen in Clash that get somewhat mitigated in Control by having a focus on zones. The absolute biggest argument for Clash that you put imo is the weapon diversity. There's just going to be more weapon diversity for more players in Clash and you can switch things up and try things out without that almost guaranteeing a loss in a match that you may have won. Another reason Clash would be good is that in Control there is a pretty big strategic aspect that newer players may not be accustomed to and tbh the game really goes out its way to remove at times. So Clash would probably be easier to matchmake for in some ways. And it would definitely be easier for people to learn in that mode in a more straightforward way. Also, IB is still going to be Control (unless it isn't) so it wouldn't be that big of a deal if regular control took a backseat for a while. Clash would probably be better for new players, some of the things that help ensure victory in Control wind up getting balanced out, and pretty much every game has team deathmatch always available. This is getting too long so the tldr is I certainly wouldn't be against it even though I've always preferred control.