Every time I come on these forums (which is irregular at best now since PVP has become a mess) I see people complaining about SBMM and quitting penalties and lag and every variety of what's giving them grievances in the game at the moment. I do understand as well, some people are enjoying the game at the moment and I'm glad because I wish I did as well. There also seems to be an insane amount of hatred and vitriol towards 'sweats' and only caring about the matchmaking changes and penalties because it is now affecting their precious KD's and that's apparently all they care about in life. This is something I'd also like to clear up. I'd just like to label a couple of reasons why these changes frustrate people who main PVP in a way that might help anyone that feels like sweats are just complaining for no reason to understand. 1. The changes Bungie have made are reactionary, lack any transparency for reasoning and ignorant of things the PVP community has asked for for years. A major issue with the current state of PVP is the lack of support from Bungie in recent years. I still remember the MLG event ages ago they hosted and being excited for everything coming to PVP only for it to end up in its current state. The quitter penalty is a bandaid solution for a much bigger issue. The reason people quit matches in destiny is much deeper than "my kd was suffering" and much closer to "I'm not having fun". We can all agree, playing against someone teleporting around the map, or against a stacked unbalanced team when you're a solo sucks. As someone who mostly queues solo/duo and is in a smaller region (AUS), I experienced this far more than normal already before the new SBMM changes came in. Sometimes this means that in these scenarios, I leave the game because I'm not enjoying either the lag, or the stacks or even just the current meta (fusion rifles are broken, and i'm sorry but the current suite of maps lends itself to a camping, slow and stale experience). Sometimes, life also comes in to play and you have something unexpected pop up that you have to attend to (kids, family, deliveries, emergencies, work etc...) These are all reasons I haven't had fun playing crucible, and instead of getting angry at the game the best option was to leave a game mode that has no penalties for losing, no extra rewards for winning and no real reason to play other than having fun. At the end of the day this game is supposed to be fun, and enforcing a quitter penalty in a game mode that is meant to be casual is not the solution. These issues all stem from a lack of transparency and communication from Bungie as to some of their decisions regarding PVP changes. Some questions I have include why are certain maps being vaulted, what data besides quit rate going up was considered before implementing a penalty system, what is on the roadmap for a ranked system and pinnacle rewards from PVP, why are certain weapons/armour left untouched in the meta when clearly broken and the list goes on. There is always talk about data but no transparency or reasoning ever given behind data. A simple fix for the quitting, making the competitive playlist worthwhile playing again with a better game mode (skirmish and salvage maybe??) and actual rewards worth grinding for (pinnacle weapons like they used to, or high stat roll/light armour, literally anything useful). This would allow for both experiences and quitting a game would be fairly punishable as leaving a game actually affects someones content/reward. 2. We didn't start out good. On my first account on PS4 I started out with a KD in PVP of about 0.7 - 0.9 for my first year of trials but I was hooked on this game despite being bad as the gunplay and feel is something unique. Throughout the taken king though I gradually improved, watched videos and content guides from creators every day (RIP the days of nKuch out) and evolved my gamesense/mechanics by playing sweat matches (3v3) against players that were much better than me. This all lead me to now where even after long stretches of no destiny and with much slower reflexes (getting old :/) I still maintained a 2kd+ across every game mode. My point with this is not to pump my stats up but to highlight that I had to grind to become good. You aren't meant to start good, or deserve to be good and win every game just because you play. If you want to be better at PVP, then you actually have to put in the time to do so and playing against people who are better than you is a big part of that. Some games I get absolutely stomped, but losing is where you can find a lot of improvement and it almost feels as if people don't know how to lose anymore (even in a video game). When people say 'git gud', I can understand it's frustrating but at the end of the day it's actually what they had to do themselves, and is what you need to do if you want to be better at PVP. If you just want easy kills, PVE exists for a reason. If you actually read to the end of this, then I applaud you because it was incredibly long winded but I felt like a general understanding that we are both on the same side and just want to enjoy PVP as well is needed. We want you guys to stick around PVP because it means we get more support and development and don't play the exact same people every lobby, but as people who main this side of the game we also want to ensure it remains fun to play for us as well.