I've been playing a lot of PvP (6v6 Control) recently and I wanted to share my thoughts because it's rough right now. There's a lot of problems making it feel really frustrating and not enjoyable. Note: This post has nothing to do with gun/ability balance.
1. Matchmaking/Lobby Balance
I don't know the specifics of whatever version of Snake Draft the PvP Strike Team is using, but it's not it. A lot of the matches I go into end up feeling lopsided. I don't have any proposed solutions here, but anecdotally the lobby balancing doesn't feel good.
2. Spawns
This is probably the most frustrating thing for me. A lot of the time, the spawns just bug out and you end up spawning in the same place for the entire match. This ends up with one team spawn-trapping and spawn-camping the other. Hey PvP Strike Team, getting spawn trapped for an entire match isn't fun.
It's almost as bad as Crucible a few seasons ago when the spawns were really bad and you would spawn in front of enemies and instantly get spawn killed.
3. Mercy
This is where I think the PvP Strike team is missing the forest for the trees. They recently talked about how they've lowered the number of games going to a mercy by increasing the score limit for triggering mercy rules (in patch 8.1.0.4: "Control, Iron Banner Control, Iron Banner Eruption, Supremacy - 60 to 70.").
Here's the problem: With the new score limits, there's now a lot of games that end up with 50 or 60 point differentials that never go to a mercy. A lot of matches end up with final scores of 150-100 or 150-90, which just isn't enjoyable, ESPECIALLY with the scuffed matchmaking and bugged spawns. It all just contributes to one team snow-balling. In my mind, games like that probably should have gone to mercy earlier in the match.
If one team starts to spawn-trap and get a 90-30 lead early in the match, that's just not fun to play out.
Trying to mount a comeback against a -50 or -60 point differential MIGHT be reasonable IF the lobby balance was better and IF the spawn system wasn't messed up, but right now it's not reasonable.
4. Leaving
This is more of a symptom of the other issues, but it's worth mentioning. Improve the lobby balancing and improve the spawn system, and less people would leave.
Those are the biggest frustrations I've noticed recently. Have you guys felt this? I'm curious if others are finding 6v6 bad to play right now.
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One of the things that still get me, which ties mostly into spawns, A lot of these maps were designed as 4v4 at d2 launch. And it was terrible. But to appease the players they went back to 6v6 as d1 was....with no changes to the map sizes. I know you mentioned not wanting to go into abilties in pvp but its still a huge factor. We are faster and stronger than ever. Skating, hunter dodging, grapple, titan melees, icaris(?) Dash, super teleporting/flying. Not saying these are bad things but the maps just don't accommodate that much ability movement with 12 players. And the larger maps that do exist are either mostly trash or still sitting in the content vault.