Changes coming to Destiny’s Crucible: special ammo and solo matchmaking, but is it too little and too late?

Tired of joining games where the entire enemy team is in a party? Don’t like getting shot in the face immediately because everyone can spawn with a sniper rifle? On February 9th, update 2.1.1 is coming to Destiny, along with the Crimson Days event where you basically get to play a special 2v2 game mode. 

The update will change certain game modes so that no one can spawn with special ammo. That means that (like Halo) you have to rely on your primary weapon (because it’s a primary weapon) until you find special ammo boxes for your shotgun or sniper rifle — let’s face it, almost no one uses fusion rifles or sidearms. Unfortunately, this change will only be applied to the 3v3 playlists like Trials of Osiris, Salvage, Skirmish, and Elimination. 

The 2.1.1 update will also add Freelance playlists where no Fireteams are allowed. You can choose between 6v6 and 3v3 playlists, which means that you can still end up playing Rift, but at least there won’t be a pre-made team sitting on the other side of the loading screen waiting to shoot you over and over again.

Behind the scenes updates to reduce lag will also be applied, but in a limited capacity at first, with the intention to roll said changes out to all the game types in Destiny (eventually). Naturally, you should take this announcement with a grain of salt, since it doesn’t guarantee lag-free games. Bug fixes (i.e. teleporting Ogres in the King’s Fall Raid) will also be coming with the update, though this is to be expected.

Didn’t people ask for these changes forever ago?

If you’ve been keeping an eye on some of the more avid Destiny communities, you may have noticed by now that some of these changes were heavily requested for months. The fix to the teleporting ogres itself was requested almost on the same day that the Oryx challenge mode became available, almost two months ago.

To no one’s surprise, people just don’t like being matched up against a full team that can not only talk to each other, but are used to playing with each other, especially in Destiny where a good team can effectively have a seemingly endless supply of Supers and heavy ammo. 

In the same vein, people don’t like spawning in and getting killed from across the map at the start of a match by a sniper, especially when the whole enemy team can have sniper rifles. 

The fact that it took so long for such changes to be implemented (and in the case of special ammo spawns, not even implemented across all the game types) means that these changes may prove too late to woo back those who left Destiny for other multiplayer games. But on the bright side, this is a small victory of sorts, since it does show that Bungie is listening and shaping Destiny based on your feedback (to some small degree at least).