TRIGGER WARNING: This is my opinion and could be considered controversial. I just want to have a productive discussion around measuring player skill and balancing pvp in a fair and measured way. Please don't flame me, I'm not here to fight anyone or flame anyone. I like PVP in destiny 2. Its fluid, dynamic and at the end of the day, sometimes really really funny. The gunplay is so so crispy and good that I fall in love with my hand cannons over and over. Its the only reason I play destiny 2 at all. I mean, its beautiful! I play pvp often despite considering myself a casual player. Generally, I enjoy trials too. I am by no means good or amazing, but i fight alot of sweats so I can be kinda sweaty when I wanna be. Im a .4 which says to your average pvp sweat that I'm a total push over, but when you do nothing but fight sweats, you are gonna have a low k/d ratio and still be a little sweaty. In a 1v1, with no ability spam or supers, I can usually maul your average 1.4 k/d player with relative ease. I'm not saying I'm great. I'm saying I'm dripping with salt, sweat, sometimes blood, and lots of deoderant; even if I have a terrible kill ratio. People who fight sweats get soaked. Its is true that after a while you "git gud" to a degree, but that doesn't change the fact that you can't hold w candle to the gilded flawless guys with 8.0 k/ds and hacker like ADS skills. I believe K/D is nothing more than a toxic pissing contest for kids who have never ever heard of the words "rent due" or "ooh hey. Your gonna be a dad" or even comprehend the concept of grass. K/D scores are a beyond terrible measure of a player's skill despite it being propped up by community members like its the be all, end all. Its literally a cancer everyone in the trials community has contracted and makes trying to find/put together an LFG team a real pain. I believe it should be done away with all together as a measuring format. How can I ever raise my awful K/D if I'm always matched with people who are way above my skill level or get straddled with people who are far below mine? How does one "git gud" while still living a life as a normal human being without bionic thumbs? I dont mind matching against gods in 6v6, cause sometimes its fun to shoot them in the face with a rocket, but when we start talking trials, everyone is all venom, fire and brimestone over k/d cause no body likes losing and everyone wants that adept loot. Its created this toxic elitism where one cannot improve one's self while trying to balance life on the hand without making life changing alterations to one's routine in order to get a piece of a digital content item in a game where there is no real profession esport or monitary incentive to be good at shooting people in the face, in a digital form. Just to be an arm chair general. It just isnt worth losing sleep, real jobs that pay real money, sanity, mental health, life, limb (I once broke a thumb in a six hour galran raid boss fight, but that's my fault for being stupid - never healed right) or romantic partners over. If there was ever a hill to die on. This would be it for me. Im sick of the elitism from players who believe they are THAT much better because have excellent invis/stompee fletwinters/sniper/jottuun game. Thank the gods at bungo for recognizing the issue and nerfing stompees and shotguns. I know we can do better. So how do we do better as a pvp community? When did being a salty toxic sweat become mandatory for getting a piece of digital hardware that you don't even really own? Its a game man. It doesn't need to be that serious. If a small subset of the community INSISTS on being toxic, extremely salty or mega sweaty - why can we just give those dudes a game mode for them and never talk about it again? You guys can have your pvp pissing contest all you want, just don't do it at my expense or get the idea that trials was made for you and you alone. Thoughts from your end bungie? I'd really like to know how you all see the issue. And thanks for reading my tiny rant.